N/A
Ill never tell.
Seen 10 Hours Ago
Posted March 11th, 2023
949 posts
11.3 Years
I'm only posting this because it's provoked my mind since Rare Ware's release in August where they give the 30 games they accomplished in 30 years(Rare Replay). and I play Nuts and bolts thoroughly. I didn't finish it, but I got decently far into it and wondered why the game was criticized so harshly. It's not perfect, but it was still fun as hell to play still.

This also gave me a call-back to other games that were either bashed or forgotten in time either due to reviews or lack of marketing. This is just a very short list of games I've come across and played through and still had some fun out it.


Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

Even though some people have either already played this or not and expected something from the old days; this is just my two cents to it and your free to burn me all you like, but I actually like this game and I've been so much of a fan to these two characters that I've played both Banjo Kazooie games on the N64 until I finished the cartridges with 100% completion! I did it again in Rare Replay too! When I got to Nuts and Bolts, I recalled memories of reviewers either harshly hating the game or saying that it's ok. When I played the game for the first time, I kind of got the feeling for both sides of where the hate comes from and the 'meh' factor was, though after gathering some parts and finding out how you can cheat the game through the levitation glitch to reach some of the later-game parts; I actually had fun!

JET-POWERED DOG FIGHTER PLANES FIRING GRENADE EGGS!!!! A DEATH CAR MEANT TO SMASH AND CRUSH EVERYTHING!!!!! A PENGUIN TAXI SERVING UP ICED ENEMIES AND TO TOP IT OFF, A GIANT-ish BANJO ROBOT!!!!!!

The game is centered around improving the character to better cope with your skills when tackling challenges. Such as if you don't like the speed, handling or the look of the pre-built car given to you, you can build a faster one you can control easier or come back later with better parts and demolish the challenge with a monster truck. The garage is easy to adapt and build things in pretty quickly and while you can't take your custom creations around the hub world, you can still ride them around the other 'game' worlds outside of missions if you feel like knocking things over or blowing stuff up.

My last guilty pleasure to the game itself is Showdown Town. Every time I start up the game, I drive around town for a bit to take in the sights what the developers created. The different businesses, buildings and the ability to run characters over because something in one of the worlds pissed you off. There are part crates in hiding, Jinjos to rescue and an arcade run by our favorite henchmen for those who played the old N64 classics, KLUNGO! The hub world itself is so full of life that it feels like a living town with a weird mixed feeling of Wreck-it-ralph, the Legend of Zelda and Rayman. Using the musical notes as currency, I also thought was a interesting idea that added more to the whole town's identity in a small sense I guess.

Though as much as I praise this game, It does have it's flaws.
~The 'game' worlds tend feel empty, since your leaving a lively hub world into a deserted game world.
~You only earn the jiggies through challenges
~Building SOMETIMES feels like a chore when it's for a specific mission
~As much as I love the look and feel of Showdown town, the music gets annoying after a while
~You can't use custom vehicles in MOST of the challenges to get around problems you encounter with the pre-built vehicle for that challenge, even though they can be hard as ****. Like the Logbox 720 world with the microchip race challenge.... THAT RACE IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE!!!!

Why do I think this game received such a harsh tone? I have one or two theories that are pretty obvious.
#1: People we're expecting-nay-DEMANDING a platformer. People who played the old collect-a-thons we're expecting a repeat with NEW moves, NEW gameplay Elements, NEW story, NEW characters. When they we're offered this and it didn't have what they wanted; they gave it every degree of burn there was and turned it down to the point where we may never see another Banjo Kazooie game. Jon Tron is the SHINING definition from that group of people, he goes over the games flaws a little and over the game itself, a small brief history, but he spends about 65-75% of his review video of that game complaining about how this title should be like it's old predecessors. Though it's not my place or business to say, but if you want to review a game, approach it like a title you never heard before and treat it like an experience you haven't touched on. Then link any references from the past and your own experience with the title.

Note, my comment on never seeing another Banjo Kazooie Game: I'm aware of Ukay-Laylee and I am waiting patiently for it's development to finish so I can play it for fun. I'm referencing the fact we'll probably never see the characters Banjo Kazooie again.

2#: A lot of people didn't want to waste or have time to build their machines. It takes 5-15 minutes to build a car with wheels, seat, guns and anything else you want on it. Most of the gamers who picked it up didn't want to spend the entire game building vehicles and the pre-made vehicles are a joke sometimes that you have to build something new. We as video gamers are lazy and I can understand that for some of us. Though to be lazy and not try to make something for the hell of it to have fun?

The game is still fun and if you have a creative side, I suggest picking up the game or playing it through Rare Replay. The levitation glitch was never removed, so it should still be easy to get those hard to reach parts, just have to have a little patience.

Sonic the Hedgehog(2006)

WE, THE GAMERS, CAUSED THE GLITCHES TO THIS GAME!!!!!! Alright, aside from a sucky story, I rented Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 and I have my own issues to where there's a LOADING SCREEN EVERY 5 SECONDS!!!!! THERE'S A LOADING SCREEN TO GO INTO A CHALLENGE, A LOADING SCREEN TO LEAVE A CHALLENGE AND A LOADING SCREEN FOR A LOADING SCREEN!!!!! I have had my trouble with the glitches as well, but we kind of caused those glitches to begin with.

To elaborate, Sega was working on Sonic the Hedgehog. We as fans, especially die-hard ones we're desperately waiting for this game to release like children wanting our candy on Halloween. We kept pressuring Sega though about the games release date among other factors, such as when the game's release date was pushed back because of complications with the games engine. We didn't care, we wanted the game sooner than never so Sega released the game early into the world with all the bugs they never got to debug or fix thus earning it's hate in the library. Does it deserve that much hate though?

Technically, yes. Morally, no. We got what we deserved when the demands for the game kept building and they had no choice but to release the title. The only positive side to the game is that Sonic's levels are the least buggy. I mean that quite literally, I've had to reset the game less playing as him than any of the other characters. Silver is an interesting character and becomes more interesting in the Archie comics and you can play as Shadow though I would avoid it.

If you still own the game, somewhere, I would suggest keeping it for two reasons. One, you'll probably only get a $1 value in any store you take to for the trade-in value. Two, you keep it as a reminder of how a fan-boys demand among other factors lead to the downfall of what could have been a great title.




I have more, but by the time I have made this post, I'll be dead tired, so I'll update this post when I can.
These are the only titles I can re-collect so far and have done my digging to find them. Anyone have a title from their library they have a love for that was sevrely crushed by the internet or 'GAMING' journalists?

You know, looking back on it and being as calm and objective as possible, Final Fantasy XIII might not have deserved the ridiculously over-the-top reaction it received from a good 75% of the fandom...at least, not for the reasons that people zoomed in on.

I only say this because, since then, "story-driven" gaming has become steadily more prominent, and FFXIII was a prototype of this of sorts - it funnelled you down linear corridors for the sake of getting you to the next long-winded cutscene. It was just unfortunate that it was the next mothership title in a series that is very well-known for its wide-open areas and exploration alongside its story. If it hadn't of been a Final Fantasy title, it might not have caused quite as much backlash.

It was the direction it took more than the gameplay aspect which seemed to upset people, and now we're getting these linear, hand-holding story games by the bucketload - in episodic format, too - and nobody is batting an eyelid...hell, people are praising them for their storylines, the same people who screamed at FFXIII for not letting them explore in the same way past FF titles had. FFXIII, if it came out now, wouldn't cause anywhere near the same stir it did when it was released I think, even if it was given the brand name.

...although speaking solely for myself, I thought the story was a load of bollocks that lacked any real direction, the cast were atrocious even by bottom-of-the-barrel JRPG standards, and the battle system was a huge, HUGE step backwards from FFXII. The linearity was the LEAST of this game's problems. But that's just me. If you look at it objectively...yeah. The reason that most people bashed FFXIII wasn't really that big of a deal; if anything, it was a sign of things to come.

Most of the games I like get mediocre review scores from mainstream media, though - I play mostly JRPGs, which Western reviewers despise unless they've got "Final Fantasy" in the title.

...now if you'll excuse me, I suddenly feel very dirty...

SaniOKh

Too old for this stuff

Age 35
Male
Ukraine
Seen 3 Weeks Ago
Posted October 22nd, 2021
591 posts
16.9 Years
I'll chime in on the topic of Sonic 2006.

I'll be a bit less nice towards Sonic Team and Sega. I think that ClementJ642 explains it all in his excellent (albeit a bit long) and very, very detailed review. Fans had nothing to do with the state the game was released in. Sega had a deadline in mind, this game was supposed to celebrate the 15th birthday of the franchise. Sonic Team, on the other hand, went all in developing stuff that had no business being in the game at all instead of delivering a short and neat package and polishing it. Multiplayer mode? Harder difficulty level designs? Levels that don't make the story progress in any way? A second run in Wave Ocean for Tails? And while I'm at it, all those different player characters with completely different gameplay styles while the game was advertised with only Sonic, Shadow and Silver as playable characters? Havok physics engine that hinders more than it helps (Silver's Dusty Desert ball puzzle says hi) ? A lot of effort was simply wasted on Sonic Team's part, there was no focus at all, and Sega's pressuring to release the game on the series' anniversary didn't help.

With that in mind, I do still own the game and recently I've been willing to replay it. I was taking a break from most videogames when it was released (being busy with studies and somewhat broke) , so I haven't experienced the hype that preceded the game's release and the ****storm that followed it. I bought the game used a year ago, knowing full well how it was, and you know what? I find it to be so bad it's good. Everything in that game that could be messed up was messed up, and the end result, to me, is so egregiously half-assed, it's hilarious. That's why I still own this game and have no intention to sell it.

I recently listened to a Retsupurae podcast, where slowbeef said that the game was basically a roguelike: every playthrough of the game produces different glitches. I think I can even vouch for that, I haven't had any problems with the Dusty Desert ball puzzle on my first playthrough, I got through it in mere minutes, but wasn't nowhere as lucky when I replayed it.

I think I'll play it again, just to see how badly I can make it glitch.

That's also the reason why I bought and (ironically) enjoyed Sonic Genesis. It's so bad it's good, it's a perfect rage game.

Before I move on to the next subject: if anyone starts watching ClementJ642's review of Sonic 2006 and finishes watching part 5: I fully support his theory on how this game should have been called, there's no argument there. Also, how good is "His World"?


On the other hand, another bad Sonic game I'm willing to replay, and that I have enjoyed in earnest, is Shadow the Hedgehog. Yes, the premise is ridiculous. But, frankly, I do like non-linear progression in old-school themed games, no matter how little sense it makes (which was the major reason I loved Wario Land II's post-game and the Darius games) . A lot of people also didn't like the fact that it had a Last Story segment which invalidated most of the possible endings, I for one liked having one, mostly because I saw it as a reward for finding out every possible ending, not as a mandatory element of the game.

A lot of good decisions were also made when it came to controls. Some actions that used to be mapped on one button became mapped on several buttons, like jumping and switching rails while grinding became two separate buttons, and it saved me a lot of lives.

I think there was a lot of potential there. Remove the excessive edginess (or make it hilarious and over-the-top), improve the writing, replace the more tedious missions with a simple "find the not-so-obvious ending" and fix the slippery controls, and it can be a great game.

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N/A
Ill never tell.
Seen 10 Hours Ago
Posted March 11th, 2023
949 posts
11.3 Years
SaniOKh has made a better argument than me, so consider my views on Sonic 2006 stroked out.

I would probably post something on Shadow the hedgehog, but this thing has already been talked to death and has been abandoned.

.... What about Fracture?

Fracture
Ok, my memory is a little fuzzy if I claim that this game was a PS3 launch title. I have played through a good chunk of it and wondered why it didn't take off as well. You got a lot of standard weapons and there shouldn't be any problems to change the terrain. I have had fun shooting through most of the game and sucking enemies into the ground with the sink-hole grenades. The story isn't great, but it still passes enough to get through as a basic shooter from 2008... I can't see why it's hated or rejected; it's an OK game, not the best, but there are shooters FAR worse off than Fracture. After some digging, I have only found reviews from game 'journalists' that have scrapped the game while other people have different opinions of it.

... I'm out of listed MOST hated games in my library from PS3 and 360 to touch on... Anyone have any other ideas what I could list or for me to look into and try for myself to see if a certain game deserved so much hate? I could probably start a youtube channel on all of this!