Dont forget Sega did VF4 also last summer and that turned out to be the best fighter on the PS2 by many but like darkside said it was exclusive so I think Sega is doing ok but they need to focus on games for 1 console only and mix it up like they where going to do and you cant forget there sports line-up rocks with the 2k2 sports series.

Uh, which is it you're complaining about Josh Hinkle? Quality or marketability? You seem to flip flop between the two and you should already know they're not the same thing.

Releasing culty and slightly unusual games has been part of the Sega tradition since Saturn or earlier. So I don't see how that means they've "lost it" then. Of course, being seen as culty and unusual is really only a function of popularity, but that's a whole other topic...

Josh, so you must think Panzer Dragoon Saga sucked too, it is hardly a commerical success (not that it had a chance with sega only made 5000 of them).

Too bad, just b/c you don't like them doesn't mean it suck. F355 is the best driving simulation period, it blows away GT3, but you wouldn't know that since it only sold a few thousand copies.

I never played panzer dragoon saga.

I think jet grind radio, shenume etc. sucked and weren't big successes.

At any rate, there's very few games that weren't hits that I have liked. If a game is a AAA title, it's usually going to sell well. And in the very finite amount of time I have to play games, I'm not going to that's not an AAA title.

Jet Grind Radio etc. didn't sell that well because they aren't AAA games. They're just ok games that some people love, not AAA games. An AAA game is loved by most that play it, not just a select few.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is a poor example because the main reasons it didn't sell well are 1. It was on the saturn, which relatively few people owned, and 2. it was a limited release.

So if a title is not AAA game, then it sucks.

Great definition, how many AAA games are there in a year anyway?

The point you make is that if the public doesn't like it (sold poorly), then the game sucks.

It is sad that you let other people tell you what game is good or not. I prefer to play them, and I find that most Sega games are above average to virtually every software company out there (with the exception of perhaps Treasure and Konami).

Dude, I do play them. At least the ones I have time for. I have to use reviews and what not to decide which games to rent and buy because I have a life and only have a very limited amount of time to spend on gaming. So I use reviews to help me decide which games to try out. I don't use them to form my opinion.

And yes, a game can definitely not be AAA and not suck. There are plenty of mediocre games as well, which is how I'd classify most of Sega's recent offerings, sports games aside (and VF4 as I've yet to play it).

As for how many AAA games there are in a year, I'd guess around 10, which is more than enough games to keep me busy.

Sorry Josh, but I don't agree that JGR and Shenmue sucked (and I don't recall seeing any reviews that agreed with you either). Maybe their sales sucked but that's not what you were saying I don't think.

My opinion is that Shenmue is an excellent implementation of the old style adventure games that you used to see on PC using a modern (and quite powerful) 3d engine and adding some nice action sequences as well.

I thought the story was interesting and I enjoyed the opportunity to lay into someone every now and then. Also you can't go past being able to play Space Harrier etc..

Chris

It's my opinion that they sucked. As for sales, I was just saying that the poor sales reflect that they're not AAA titles. They weren't in limited release or anything, so if they had been truly great games, they would have sold better. But they're just niche market, cult games that a few people love.

From a review standpoint, they were mediocre to good. From the reviews I saw, the scores averaged around a 7.5 out of 10 or so. Good scores, but not great.

Josh, I believe that you are confusing sales with quality. Sometimes great doesn't equal dollars. Things slip through and most aren't fortunate enough to resonate and connect due to a number of reasons (i.e. poor marketing, not being able to reach a good number of people). If sales were a true barometer of quality then that would make every mediocre movie to game adaptation that sells through the roof an instant classic.

Think of if this approach if were applied to other areas of entertainment and art. We would all be praising the 'virtues' and 'vision' of Michael Bay, someone whose product sells, is regarded as being AAA by a certain community, and everyone seems to love.

But games aren't art, they're purely entertainment. If a games fun, it's generally going to sell pretty well.

Like I said earlier, I can only thing of a handful of games that didn't sell very well that I liked (Blast Corps, for instance). So at least for me, in most cases if a game sells poorly, I don't tend to like it.

Lack of sales is usually a good indicator of lack of quality, with some exceptions.

This also really only applies to the major genre's like platformers, fighters, rpgs etc. Any of these games that is an AAA title, and not in limited release, is going to sell well.

Sales doesn't always equal quality, because as you said, their are plenty of games that sell well and suck, or are mediocre.

If it's heavily advertised. Same with the music & movie business.

To an extent, but I think reviews and word of mouth are more important in game sells. I pay no attention to movie or music reviews, but rely heavily on game reviews to decide what games to try out or buy.

GTA3 is a good example of this. That game kind of slipped in under the radar, and as the reviews and positive word of mouth spread, it starting selling like hot cakes.

If a game is good, it's going to get good revies, and good word of mouth, and generally sell prety well.

And by sell well, I don't necessarily mean sell 7 million copies like GTA3. Really 500,000 or above is a hit game.

So the standards for being a commercial success are lower with games than movies. 1,000,000 games sold is a hit, a million movie tickets sold is a flop. Advertising is thusly more important with movies, as they need to get a great deal more people to see the movie, than buy the game, for it to be a success.

People have crappy radars, I was waiting for GTA3 for a year.

Some people knew of it, but the average gamer hadn't even heard of it because there wasn't much hype around it. Especially for a game that's gone on to sell 7 million copies (or whatever the total is up to).

The first 2 games were fairly popular (especially on the PC) but they weren't huge hits and a lot of console gamers didn't know much about them.

"But games aren't art, they're purely entertainment."


I have to disgree with you on that. While the majority of games are purely entertainment, I believe that there is an artistic quality to some. At least most share some artistic element: a well written story, beautiful art, and acting. I understand that most people laugh or perceive this aargument as being silly and rather pretentious bit I believe that the technology that exists now makes this argument more relevant.

There is a great deal of creativity that goes in to designing games. The production of a video game also is akin to the production of a film. In both mediums there are technical people involved as well as artists (and I'm almost positive that a technical person such as a gaffer or a progammer who designs where the light falls in a game would argue that what they're doing is art). There are those who write storylines that enage you deeply and provoke you into caring for the characters of a video game. I think that art at its most fuctional level does that: it involves you emotionally.

Now don't think that I'm comapring a game to say a Martin Amis novel or a Bresson film. I don't belive that the medium has devolved that far yet. But I do believe that that video game developers are beginning to arrive at that point where they posses the tools (and capbilties) to involve the player on that level. Graphically, this has almost always been the case but having only good graphics is like watching a well shot film with little substance.


"If a games fun, it's generally going to sell pretty well."


I wish that this were true. There are a lot of stinkers out there that sold well but are flat out bad games. Remember Bubsy? It sold well enough that they made two sequels.


"Like I said earlier, I can only thing of a handful of games that didn't sell very well that I liked (Blast Corps, for instance). So at least for me, in most cases if a game sells poorly, I don't tend to like it."


Then you are missing out on a lot of great games/films/novels/music if this is how you approach things. Like I stated earlier, the majority of people do not seek out or miss the point of some great games/film/etc. I'm not stating that you are one of these people, a member of the lazy mass of mis or uneduacted consumers- I don't know you that well. I'm just asking for you to give things a chance because there is a lot of amazing stuff out there that flies under the radar.

This also really only applies to the major genre's like platformers, fighters, rpgs etc. Any of these games that is an AAA title, and not in limited release, is going to sell well.

Unfortunately so. The blessing of a good license. Stick a popular face/icon on anything and people will instantly think 'so-so=quality'. A cynical viewpoint but a rather honest one as well.

Anyways, I apologize for hijacking this thread and truning the issue of Shinobi into an art in video games debate.

GTA 3 was my most anticipated game last year over Metal Gear Solid 2, over FFX, over Devil May Cry. GTA 3 sold well because of the reviews and word of mouth but also because of marketing. The ads for it on TV were awesome.

Umm, GTA 3 was hard of find upon its first days of release. It was selling like hot cakes from the beginning.

I agree a game can have artistic qualities, what I was really getting at is that it doesn't really matter. People play games to have fun, any artistic quality is just an added bonus. A game that has artistic quality but isn't fun to play is worthless. A movie that has artistic qualities but isn't "fun" to watch, can still be enjoyed as a piece of art, if that makes any sense.



You misunderstood me. I never said every game that sells well is fun. There are plenty of games that suck but sell well (though I actually liked the first Bubsy ). My point was that if a game is fun, it will get good reviews, and word of mouth, and generally sell well. Basically, there aren't many games I've played and enjoyed, that were clunkers that sold poorly.


I do give stuff a chance. I was just stating that there's not many games that sold poorly that I tried that I actually ended up loving. Mostly they are mediocre or crappy in my experience.

Again, a misunderstanding. My point was if someone makes a high quality game in one of these major genre's, 9 times out of 10 it's going to sell well. My point was that if a platformer is released and only sells 50,000 copies, it probably stinks, because if it was a really good game, it would have gotten hyped up in reviews and word of mouth and sold much better.

Again, lack of sales generally equates to a lack of quality, with the emphasis on generally. And again, this does not mean that the inverse is true. Good sales in no way equate to quality. Just because most great games will sell well, does not mean that most games that sell well are great games.

That's a logical fallacy. It's like saying most terrorists are middle eastern, therefore most middle easterners are terrorists. Things don't work both ways like that in most cases, and games and sales are the same way.

GTA 3 was not an instant hit. It was the word of mouth of other gamers and reviewers that caused this game to start selling like crazy. The advertising came much later when Sony realised what a hit it had on its hands.

Exactly. It was a couple months after it was released that it was tough to find. There were copies everywhere around where I lived at the time (Morgantown, WV). And you didn't hear all that much about it in game stores, or even on the net (especially compared to all the posts and hype for Vice City this year).

I'd be curious to know why you thought Shenmue SUCKED. I can kind of understand JGR because it had such a steep learning curve and was a bit hard to get into.

Well they were DC titles.. even Soul Calibur, still the best 3d fighter around, sold less than Tekken, DOA etc.. just by virtue of being on a less popular platform. If you judge title quality on sales then I think that's pretty sad.

According to GameRankings ( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/1114.asp ) it averaged 90%.. I'd love to release a sucky game that averaged 90% across all reviews.

Anyone else think Shenmue sucked?

Chris

Yup, JGR and Shenmue were both critically acclaimed. Sucked or didn't suck, the game critics loved 'em.

Shenmue sucked because of having to spend hours wandering around, just hoping to talk to the the right person. Or having to kill like half and hour until the game time advanced to the time you were supposed to meet some one. Or having to work to get money. Plus the actions scenes where you just had to press the buttons as they appeared on the screen where hella lame.

The only thing the game had going for it were the graphics and a decent story, IMO.


Anyway, to get back on topic, EGM game Shinobi a 7.5, 7.5, 7.0.

Best Feature: Razor-Sharp control
Worst Feature: Tiresome Level design

Basically all the reviews say the game is "hallaciously hard" and reccomend it only to very dedicated, hardcore gamers because it is so frustrating.

I'll definitely pass on it now, as I can't stand overly difficult games. I play games to have fun, not get pissed off and put in a bad mood.

I'm thinking they score in the 7-8 range in EGM, and those are the only reviews I put any stock in. I don't even read any other publication's (online or off) reviews. I've been reading EGM for years, and I agree with their reviews 95% of the time.