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Popcorn Arcade Roundup Review
Wii Review by James Lyon
When Nintendo unveiled its revolutionary control scheme, even the most cold-hearted of gamers turned their heads. We had high hopes that the Wii would be our saviour. This would be a bold frontier in gaming; the first step towards a utopian goal of brilliant games that were intuitive and accessible enough for everyone to enjoy.
That was the hyperbole. The reality is sludge like Popcorn Arcade, or, more generally, the wealth of awful, lazy ports and easy money titles leeching on the Wii's success. Ugly, disfigured parasites growing bloated on Nintendo's proven promise of simple, family-friendly entertainment.
The Wii's motion sensing controls are essentially sound, but it takes skill to implement them, and to implement them in a way that uses the console's unique abilities well. Most of these PS2 ports - which all these Popcorn Arcade titles are - resort to half-heartedly mapping normal joypad controls on there and hoping for the best. Shaking the nunchuk to jump, or waggling the Wiimote to slash becomes an irritating necessity where once a button would have done perfectly.
That's just one side of the story. These games were rotten even before they had a chance to infect the Wii. Of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with releasing low budget, mid-range software such as this. They provide a convenient outlet for teams with a little imagination but not the million pound budget to pull it off. If we didn't have them, we wouldn't have the 360's excellent Earth Defence Force 2017 for one.
However, there's a distinct demarcation between cheap and cheerful, and exploitative and awful, and the Popcorn Arcade titles are sitting so far, far over on the wrong side of that line that we can't even see them without a telescope. This review highlights four games that achieve the latter so expertly, I had to scrub my skin with a Halo 3 box immediately after writing this in order to get rid of the stink.
Curiously, it's almost impossible to find a review of any of these games in their original incarnation. It's as if their dreadfulness caused a black hole of negativity, sucking all criticism into the void. I review these for posterity. Pray that the whole of Eurogamer doesn't vanish in the undertow once this gets posted.Three of those releases, I've purposely lumped together as one review. That's because, for all intents and purposes, each one is essentially the exact same game in different skins. So, off we go with the review.
Anubis II, Rock 'n Roll Adventures, Ninjabread Man
- Developer: Data Design
- Publisher: Data Design
- Format: Wii
Like most sweet things, it's bad for you.
Anubis II, Ninjabread Man, and Rock 'n Roll Adventures (and most likely others in the same line): same interface, same controls, even the exact same tutorial level painted over each game's theme. One has an Egyptian theme, one is sweet-based, the other about music. I'll leave you to guess which is which. Each one asks you to collect eight objects to open the warp gate at the end of the level.
You do this by hopping over platforms while enemies wander aimlessly at random locations. The most sophisticated it gets is probably having to push one or two boxes in order to get somewhere, and the camera never seems to give you a decent view.
Close combat involves swinging your remote to slash at enemies. It never seems to work effectively, and when it does, it often feels like the enemy isn't reacting at all. Instead, you switch to firing at them from a distance, locking on with a jerky cursor, and thus removing any threat.
The worst is yet to come.
Dog head, and also dog egg.
Resigning myself to the fact that I'd have to play through each of them for evaluation, I prepared to settle down for a miserable night and get stuck in. Fortune mercifully favours me and anyone else stupid enough to buy these games. Ninjabread Man lasted half an hour. HALF AN HOUR. Three levels down and I was booted straight back to the main menu without fanfare. I thought I'd pressed the Quit button by mistake, but no, I played Rock ‘n Roll Adventures and it was exactly the same. Half an hour and one hundred percent done. Anubis II, which seemed slightly more developed than the other two (i.e. it had five levels, and a tricky moving platform section) fared slightly better at just over an hour. But really, they're having a laugh.
How do they justify it? By letting you go back and do it against the clock, or try to get a high score, or find the hidden objects. Anything to avoid the fact that you've wasted money on a game that I gather even the makers hated enough not to want to spend anymore time on.
Pray that these games don't end up symbolising the Wii's future. These are dross of the highest order. Rip offs at budget price. We deserve more than this. I've heard people perking up at Ninjabread Man because of its punny name. Don't be fooled. They're all bad and all deserve the same low, low score.
1/10
Billy the Wizard: Rocket Broomstick Racing
- Developer: Data Design
- Publisher: Data Design
- Format: Wii
Which brings us onto Billy the Wizard. Back in its days as a criminally poor PlayStation 2 game it once went under the moniker of Barry Hatter. Barry Hatter? Genius. Pity my poor girlfriend who just sighed and rolled her eyes every time I cracked up at that name. It used to make me giggle just thinking about it.
And then I played the game, and I'm not laughing anymore.
The game is, of course, based on the popular book Billy the Wizard and the Ham Bear of Tea Chests.
You need to fly Barry or one of his nameless chums through a course of rings to win. In Barry Hatter's first race in the game's ONE location (a floating Hogwarts-style castle, probably called Cogbart's), I tried to accomplish just that. The race started. I accelerated, steering speedily towards the first corner. Too late, I'd veered wildly off course. Trying to get back around to go through the ring I needed meant I lost the race.
Blame the rubbish nunchuk steering. It's over-sensitive, especially when coupled with going at speed. Another few failed attempts and I ended up spending the race going at a slow and steady pace, making the game about as exciting as parallel parking.
I gave up after trying three of the six short races and the simple shooting and collecting mini-games. Life's too short. I'm never going back, and God forbid gathering people together for the multi-player mode. If the controls don't kill me, the irritating farting ditty in the background just might. That's the last time I play this dreadful excuse for a racing game.
Date Design: You're having a laugh.
2/10
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Comments: 1-50 of 50 in total
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quantumsheep
16/10/07 @ 10:45
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I thought they looked pap when I saw the ads in MCV.
Leaves a bad taste in my Wii mouth. :O |
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Waffleaber
16/10/07 @ 10:54
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Saw these in Blockbusters for £15, figured i'd wait for a review before dismissing them entirely. Consider them dismissed.
Is a game ever worth 0/10? 1 seems generous for the gaming equivilent of an episode footballers wives (brainless and under an hour long) |
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BiscuitBase
16/10/07 @ 10:57
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Seriously though, why are all budget games these days completely wank? I remember the days when you could pick up quality games like Dizzy for 1.99.
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"This would be a bold frontier in gaming; the first step towards a utopian goal of brilliant games that were intuitive and accessible enough for everyone to enjoy.
Advertisement That was the hyperbole. The reality is sludge like Popcorn Arcade, or, more generally, the wealth of awful, lazy ports and easy money titles leeching on the Wii's success." Actually both are true. A special mention for Septimus - worst sarcasm ever. |
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Seriously though, why are all budget games these days completely wank? I remember the days when you could pick up quality games like Dizzy for 1.99.
You still get the occasional good one, usually on PS2 - they never get reviewed though (well, Global Defence Force aside), and as a consequence they get buried under the mountains of shite the likes of Data Design and Phoenix Games are shoving out, and no one buys them, unless they see them in asda for a fiver and are curious. |
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Completely agree with the review, except I wouldnt have bothered giving any of the above games a score, they dont even deserve that.
I've played Ninjabread man, and completed it in an hour, only because I made sure I got rid of all the enemies on each level. I then got hold of Elviz: Rock and Roll Adventures, and took it back after playing the training mission. Same game, practically down to level design. In regards to Billy Wizard, holy crap what a piece of shit. This was played for all of 5 minutes and then was promptly taken back. Not even a five year old would enjoy this. It has no imagination and makes me dispair about the current climate of games. I have three main gripes. Firstly and foremost the blame is on Nintendo's lap. Now I am a massive fan of the Big N, and have always had a Nintendo console up until the N64 (I even had a Japanese Famicom and Disk Drive growing up in Hong Kong). I now have 16 consoles and over 400 games accumulated over the year, so I am what I would call a multi-platform hardcore gamer, so dont think of me as just some jumped up fanboy, but Nintendo actually licenced this shit, and they did so *to make a profit* which is the ultimate aim of any company. A big part of releasing titles and slapping your name on it would be a QA (quality assurance) and testing phase, at which point Nintendo should have laughed at Data Design, and told them where to put their appalling creations. At the very most they should have been WiiWare titles only, for download at £2-£3. Then maybe, MAYBE there would be some value for money, if you were really desperate. Secondly, I have a major problem with Data Design. In todays marketplace, with todays big boy companies calling the shots, smaller developers are in the minority, and hats off the DD for trying to create something, but instead they have created three identical games, with a change in level textures, character models and attack items as the only difference between the three. Maybe if they had put the whole team on creating one title and come up with something half decent I might hold them in higher regard. All three games look like they could have been pulled off on a PS1, at the very most a N64, and I imagine development time was around 3 months per title. This time has been wasted and they should never have released them. If you know you've made a shockingly poor title, why release it? In the hopes of making a small profit? Fair enough, but in doing this, you have sealed your fate as a developer. I for one will never be playing a DD game again, in my mind they are a shoddy developer, content on flooding the marketplace with crap and shoddy titles for human consumption for no possible gain other then money, and they have done so at the expense of the very industry and people they are trying to impress. Us. My final gripe is with myself, for two reasons. Firstly, for purchasing and trying out these games, especially after I'd played Ninjabread, I still went back for more in the hopes that things would be better, and secondly, as a graduate of 3D animation and Visual Effects, sppecialising in VFX, modelling and game production, I sent off a copy of my CV to DD in the hopes of securing a job with them before I'd played Ninjabread man. I have to say, it would have been possible to create a much better game with a team of 5-6 people in 3-4 months. DD look like it hires second year students who havn't quite grasped the fundamentals of game design, or indeed the concept of fun, maybe thats because they have a heavy programming background and lack certain social skills, but whatever, there is no justification for releasing shoddy crap like this on a "next-gen" system. I'm one VERY disappointed consumer, let down by the company I stood by when I was growing up, and now the idustry that I would kill to work for. Its a very distressing and shameful position for both me and the rest of the gaming community to be in. That is all. |
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Data Design are preparing Box-Stickers:
"Billy the Wizard: DOUBLE as good as Anubis II, Rock 'n Roll Adventures AND Ninjabread Man TOGETHER" - http://www.eurogamer.net |
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I almost, almost bought a Wii from Gamestation with Ninjabread Man as part of the bundle. Like most people, I thought "how bad can it be with THAT title?" - fortunately I gave in to my scepticism in time.
Watch out though, because Gamestation were still shoving turds from this range into at least half of their bundles last time I looked - which is taking Wii supply and demand a bit far if you ask me. |
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@Katanax: Back in the 16 bit era Nintendo used to have something called the "mario club" no game was allowed on to their system unless nintendo thought it was good enough for their console.
Which of course pissed a lot of people off.. you spend a year making a game, only to be told you cant sell it. Then along came sony - who let anyone publish anything on their console (As long as it was bug free).. And every developer jumped ship from nintendo to sony.. and subsequently so did the players.. Years later, nintendo is making a come back by learning from its mistakes. Why SHOULD nintendo not allow people to release crap games? After all, how good a game is - is relative to the person playing it. Some people might enjoy these games. What sort of elitest attitude do you have which says that "crap" games shouldn't get released? THINK ABOUT it.. If all the games which are worth (say) 1 to 7 were banned from hitting stores and being reviewed. So that makes all games worth 7 to 10 yes? So therefor wouldnt the scales have to then start at 1 being a 7 and 10 being a 10? So even then - you'd have games worth 1/10? So even then you'd get crap games. See? >More Wii classics. When will it end, I can't afford all these great titles. Hmmm.. According to metacritic, the wii has more exclusive 9/10 + games than the 360 has... When WILL it end? |
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A friend of mine very briefly worked for Data Design straight out of Uni just over a year ago if I remember rightly, and from what he told me at the time about his experiences it's absolutely no shock that these 4 games are utter dross.
He was to work from home and create some art assets, which, as the review states, consisted of directly replacing assets like for like in different games. After a month he sent his invoice but they refused to pay him, saying they had since contracted some people in India to create the assets instead for peanuts (which is quite obviously a disgraceful way to treat someone, and speaks volumes that DD simply wanted to run on the absolute minimal possible budget regardless of quality.) Needless to say he moved on from their cowboy outfit and got a job at a proper game dev. I remember at the time playing two of the games he was working on; a truck racing game and a micro-machines rip-off, and both were absolutely appalling. I couldn't believe they were intended to be retail games. They smacked to me of a bunch of amateur modders who had got their hands on a game-construction-kit of some description and were messing around changing assets within the original framework. Just utterly dreadful. |
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James_Lyon
16/10/07 @ 20:41
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"Oh, and Ninjabread Man is the best name in the history of gaming."
Still that comes up. Saying that it has a great name is a bit like saying syphilis sounds like a bit of a laugh. |
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richardiox
16/10/07 @ 22:17
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Normally, as a bit of a Nintendo fanboy myself, I don't bite to Smellys trolling comments but;
"Hmmm.. According to metacritic, the wii has more exclusive 9/10 + games than the 360 has... When WILL it end? " sounded a little tall. Just had to check and the reality is a 360 owner has a choice of 9 titles rating 9+ compared to just 3 on the Wii so far. The use of the word 'exclusive' is irrelevelant as none of the 9 360 games are out on the Wii and regardless, the 360 has more exclusive 9+ games anyway. It's a though Smelly is some kind of unpaid fanatical Nintendo spin-doctor or just invents "facts" in his head to somehow defend Nintendo. like they're struggling at the moment anyway! |
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@smelly,
"Back in the 16 bit era Nintendo used to have something called the "mario club"" ... "Then along came sony - who let anyone publish anything on their console (As long as it was bug free).. And every developer jumped ship from nintendo to sony.. and subsequently so did the players.." Letting anyone publish anything isn't always a good thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_... |
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*sigh*
As far as I am concerned, I am working my ass off to get into this industry for one reason. To make great games/art/assets/whatever that people enjoy playing. That in my most humble of opinions is what I believe all production staff and management of companies big and small want. In producing crap games you are destroying the reputation of not only your company, but also of the employees who work there; people who work very hard for very long hours to tight deadlines and targets and dont deserve to be let down by shoddy management decisions-which is where I believe DD went wrong. Someone higher up the chain wanted to make some money and cash in on the latest craze (almost 12M Wii consoles sold so far) exploiting the industry and the consumers. In regards to Licencing, (this is very dangerous water i'm treading) a company such as Nintendo has been renound for producing outstanding 1st party titles, many of which are eagerly awaited for the Wii, and many of which have set the standard for future gaming and innovation. The integrity of this company is shown by the product it creates and licences, with each title it releases being a reflection on the company. I think thats a fair assumption to make. Back in the days of Atari, they released countless titles and churned them out to people eager to get their next gaming fix, but the problem was that 85% of these were pieces of crap. Atari began having major financial problems and experienced a huge drop in sales, due to customers losing faith in the company for licencing rubbish for the systems that they obviously loved so much. My point is this. Sony may well have let any game get published for the PS1, but I remember how much dire ballsweat was released for that system, for ever 100 games, maybe 10 were worth getting hold of, but it didnt matter as Sony was a much bigger company in other sectors and could afford to throw money at the gaming market and flood it in order to achieve huge sales and success, which it did only with the great games and future franchises that we have today (for example Resident Evil), and this was done at a time when the competition was low, as the Saturn wasn't selling due to poor marketing and greed on SEGA's part, and the N64 was in the late stages of development. Sony has lost a lot of respect from a lot of people in the industry, and thats fact, both in terms of hardware, software, development time etc, whereas Nintendo's reputation since the launch of the Wii has gone from strength to strength as more and more publishers see the potential, (and yes the profits) that the wii can afford them. This makes it even more crucial that Nintendo release quality titles to maintain the integrity and respect of the brand and the franchises released. It is my personal opinion that these games should never have made it onto store shelves as they represent the exact opposite of what I believe Nintendo to stand for, also note that I didn't dismiss the games outright in my first post. Sure, maybe there is some 5 year old out there who would get a kick out of playing a 30min long game, but the titles shouldn't have been boxed up and shipped out, they should be on the VC as WiiWare, to be lost and forgotten after two weeks. In a specific response to Smelly, who asked "What sort of elitest attitude do you have which says that "crap" games shouldn't get released?" I offer the following: My "elitist attitude" has come about from years of playing quality titles on all sorts of systems, and i'm not just talking about high budgets here. That is the entire point of making games, for people to enjoy and have fun with. Why release games that arent going to make people laugh, smile, be scared out of their pants at, or grimmace at the content. These are all emotions that as a developer you want from your audience, and if they are not achieved the content within the title should be refined and re-created until the desired effect is achieved. Its the same across all forms of media, Books are revised before publication many times, Films go through a rediculously long editing process that can last longer than the shooting schedule as do your favourite TV shows. Why, when everyone in this industry is crying out for freedom of expression and begging for the same rights as these other forms of media (manhunt 2 for example) do publishers and developers produce the kind of rubbish as created by DD? If you want the same levels of respect as other forms of media (or even if you dont), you have to act in a professional manner, and provide the consumer base with quality products to be recognised as a sucess and worth investing in. Anything less that that is damaging to not only the company you work for or indeed the licencee, but seriosly hurts the industry as a whole. |
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homerramone
17/10/07 @ 12:56
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Seriously though, why are all budget games these days completely wank?
For the same reason POP music is shite - Lets just churn out the same stuff we did last time and give it another name. Backing the even winner rather than the 100-1 longshot |
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@Katanax: My main points still stand!
1. Some people like these games 2. if all games were 7-10 then you'd have to move the 7 to be a 1.. and then you end up with the same problem 3. Actually i dont know why i bother you didnt read my post did you? "As far as I am concerned, I am working my ass off to get into this industry for one reason. To make great games/art/assets/whatever that people enjoy playing. That in my most humble of opinions is what I believe all production staff and management of companies big and small want. " Erm.. I um.. wish you the best of luck with that. I'm sure that people in the games industry are all crying out for you to tell them why they're making bad games.. |
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@Smelly. Of course I read it, for fuck sake, I countered the majority of your argument and gave reasons and examples, there is no reason to insult my intelligence. If I hadnt read it, I wouldn't have replied, and certianly not in as much detail!
Now for your points... 1. As I already said, there may be some 5 year old who likes them, so put them on the frikkin VC (Thats the 3rd time!) 2. If some people are going to like them, what the hell is the point of a rating, and why are you pushing this argument? If it gets a 1, and people still play and enjoy it (referring to point 1), then for them its worth more than 1, making the argument obsolete. In terms of the industry and the score being a "guide" offered by kind reviewers, the scale will always be the same. If a game is fun to play, but isnt as good as another (Crash of the Titans vs Mario Galaxy for example) it should still get a good rating. If there are no games scoring less than 4, surely thats a great thing? The scale isnt going to change just because publishers and developers start producing great titles (especially with thee main companies having differnt views on licencing). I doubt that would even happen if all formats took a "mario club" stance within the industry. 3. Its comments like this that *really* piss me off and make me want to just say fuck you. In the context you've placed it, it appears highly antagonistical and has no bearing on my last post, in which I made a considerable effort to counter your argument. Oh, and where did I say i was or am trying to telling people how to make good games? I said that I'm trying to get into making games and the aim of the industry is to make a profit, which will be achieved by creating great games, which is what developers, publishers and employees want. I sure as hell wouldnt want to be working for DDI and have my name put on the Popcorn Arcade selection of tripe. As far as i'm concerned, your last statement was a blanket insult, and the matter is closed. I've made my points and I feel i've made them well. I will not be drawn into or continue a debate that no longer contains any relevance to the original topic and has no further value being discussed. To those who have emailed me directly, thank-you for your comments :) |
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I'm sorry if i insulted you - i didnt mean to. I guess i spend so much time replying to trolls on here that i kinda get arsey without reason sometimes.
The point i'm *trying* (badly) to make is that i dont understand why gamers are "offended" by bad games.. All mediums have good and bad. You cant remove the bad. As for making a profit.. sometimes tripe sells (carnival games is in the top 10 all formats for instance), so sometimes it makes sense to not put so much development budget into a game and still have it sell. To make a "AAA" game costs a LOT of money.. and it may STILL not be well receieved - You can spend 100s of millions on a game, take 3 years to make.. And it still doesnt sell enough to cover costs. Causing you to go out of business. OR you can spend a month making a game for (say) $10k. And then make a tidy profit - because it doesn't need to sell as many to turn a profit. Sometimes publishers make games PURPOSEFULLY on the cheap and nasty to fund their bigger games. If you got rid of all bad games, the bar gets moved higher.. if ALL games were scored between 7 and 10 - then only the higher ones would sell (if review scores were all that mattered - and they're not), meaning that every game would take years to make and cost 100's of millions to make to keep up with the standard of every other game.. but unless it's in the top 5% it still wont sell. Like it or not - The industry small crappy games like this and carnival games, etc etc - which me may not like or enjoy playing.. but they still sell and turn a profit I dont understand why gamers on forums get upset by bad games.. We read reviews - we know not to buy them. |
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I'll add a link as well:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/46... "93% of New IPs fail" - REGARDLESS of the review scores! |
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>Is a game ever worth 0/10?
This game was generally regarded as being the worst game ever at the time.. some magazines (such as pcformat if i remember correctly) even gave it a 0 score http://www.mobygames.com/game/wacky-funs... |
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Was it a fair or even an accurate review…
You can easily say “the camera never seems to give you a decent view.”, you can instead say that it never gets stuck, it zooms in on tight spots, moves down with overhead objects and lifts up when walls are in the way then always smoothly returns as the landscape frees up. You could add that for a budget game it is surprisingly flexible, offering 3 different camera modes, an instant look forward, and if that wasn’t flexible enough for the fussiest user, the camera position can be repositioned at any time with the D pad to any position you might like. On Broom stick racing “I'd veered wildly off course. Trying to get back around to go through the ring I needed meant I lost the race. Blame the rubbish nunchuk steering. It's over-sensitive, especially when coupled with going at speed.” You could do that but then a bad workman always blames his tools! - Or to be fair to your readers you could read the instructions. There are three types of broom stick, The hardest is for experts and hard to control until you have mastered the skills needed to fly it. We found during play test that the nunchuck is very sensitive and it was quite easy to over-shoot the target with a nunchuck in your hand it can be waggled, so the player has a tendancy to turn too quickly. The quick easy fix would be to just slow the rate of turn down, but that would spoil the fast rapid racing effect we wanted and thought a flying broom would have. So we decided to use our “skill to implement the controller in a way that uses the console's unique abilities well.“ We detect a quick change in direction, which is probably an over-steer, and automatically apply a brake to the speed, so the player can now align with the direction they wanted to face, when the rapid turning has stopped, we automatically put the player back to the same speed they were previously racing at. So depending on the skill of the player, you can have the most basic of brooms which actually stops dead! Until you face the way you want to go, so now there is NO possibility of ever overshooting a target. Or choose a medium skill broom which slows down but doesn’t fully stop (which will obviously be detrimental in a race!) right upto the expert brooms which stop for nothing, max speed - max skill. Of course you might miss all these touches if you have you have already decided before you start playing that this is a cheap game and don’t give your readers the respect they deserve by properly evaluating a game, you admit to not fully trying the game, but giving up playing it after 3 tries. Perhaps you are someone whose fat fingers are more suited to stabbing buttons on his Xbox, they don’t realize that the nunchuck has analogue control, with a small dead area in the middle, to prevent minor inaccuracies from a slight twitch, the turn is then not proportional, but calculated as the more powerful towards the edge, which allows for a wider range of sensitive control , but still allow the ability to whack the controller to the edge for a quick fast sharp turn. Speed is also controlled on the nunchuck controller, so ‘C’ and ‘Z’ operate acceleration and the brake. You need to tap these to moves the speed up or down a single step, this allows accurate smaller increases in speed, needed with a fast broom prone to over steer. To overcome this hold the button down and rather than go down a step at a time you get brake assist and stop quicker, likewise after an abrupt stop, suck as colliding with the wall, you can gradually step up speed again, but holding the accelerate will quickly jump you back to the same speed you were at prior to the crash, (speed assist?) This then leaves the Wii remote free to act as the wand, which you can flick to fire missile from your wand, or for variety in the many gameplay options you also get to use it to aim at targets on the screen, for rapid fire missile at the flying dragons. Of course if you weren’t bothered in a fair review and gave up you could just say “we half-heartedly mapped normal joypad controls on there and hoped for the best “ but that wouldn’t be true would it. |
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When as a small independent developer, we wanted to become a publisher, I was told you don’t stand a chance, if you are not doing AAA titles the press will kill you, why I naively asked? Well you are just an ordinary bloke and can afford ‘nothing’ for PR, while the big companies can afford free review copies, invites to impressive launches, with free drinks, two publishers recently took all the press away for an all expenses paid booze up in the Med – sorry that was technically a ‘conference’ (on the beach in the med!:-) yeh!) Good for them I thought – what’s that to do with me and my humble plans for budget games! I love a AAA hard core title as much as any gamer, but we are planning on something completely different, quarter the content, quarter of the price, fun affordable titles aimed at a quick casual player, family fun – we even say so in the sales blurb. “Oh dear” my friend said. A reviewer can’t keep giving good reviews all the time, he has to slag things off now and again and your product is an ideal target for a lazy reviewer, who takes the easy option of slagging everything off, just remember that it is just one persons opinion and it is easier to pick fault in a budget game, and long term it is safer for the reviewers career, to knock a small independent publisher after all if you wants to still get those previews copies of Halo 4, which one will you get the daggers out for.
So how did the review go, was it a fair assessment, did you get a balanced review of the good and bad points or do you think the reviewer had already made his mind up to start with and piled every negative phrase he could think of, he even managed to throw in a negative from his girl friend who wasn’t even playing – that’s fair unbiased journalism for you. Well I guessed we were in for a slating when the reviewer starts expecting “a bold frontier in gaming; the first step towards a utopian goal of brilliant games that were intuitive and accessible” and chooses NOT a £60 title claiming to be the best next-gen game, but instead picks one of our titles which claim only to be a quick casual play game, family orientated, with the lowest price on the Wii market…. James was always going to be disappointed wasn’t he! If you pick and pay for a McDonalds, its not fair to complain you didn’t get a five course meal. Popcorn is snack food, fast, family friendly fun at an affordable price. You can't please everyone, and we aren't aiming at hard core Halo fans. As for EASY MONEY - leave it out thats what you get for writing a cheap, not really trying hack and slash review. We take a real risk putting our homes on the line investing in original titles. No one knows what will work or not, we had retailers hating Ninjabreadman, but these small games let us find out what you the public like, then we can spend more time doing a sequel with characters and content that we hope everyone will like better. This isn't a fast buck this is a way to start and build up from - just like codemasters started with 1.99 games of Dizzy and ended up with quality titles, if cheap shot reviewers had been listened to they would have slagged off Dizzy as just another platform game. These are not AAA -but they are good for the money, they offer a choice on Wii, that will keep the Wii alive - choice is what made the PS1 and 2 great. Some of you will hate the games others will love them - make you own mind up. |
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RE: why do gamers moan about budget games and reviewers slag them off. This isn't just a gamer thing. Have you ever watched one of those posh book review programs and seen what they say about HARRY POTTER? or some arts critic talking about what he thinks of the quality of Big Brother on TV. The people working closest in any industry get too precious about it and miss that the general public don't want the same as they do from a game, they don't know what FPS is, they don't care what technology is used, they are there for the entertainment, they decide. What the 'industry experts' think isn't important - we write for the great public. And the public gets what the public wants! thats who everyone in the industry should listen the general public.
P.S. Popcorn Arcade sold out in the first week, reorders are running at over double the forecast sales. Retail are coming back wanting higher quantites and asking for more of the same. What more can I say ! |
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Well said MMUK. The shit trail this guy leaves behind him is well-known throughout the industry now.
DDI_GAMES: (allegedly) Ripping off freelance artists and (allegedly) stitching up your workforce is not gonna win you any favours. Lest we forget, at the time the Dizzy games were good. These are just terrible pieces of shit. Give up now, you're giving everyone a bad name - the UK, the games industry, game developers and yourself.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 23/10/07 @ 10:27
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