Comments 848

Re: Beat 'Em Up Classic Double Dragon Gets A Modern Revival On Switch This October

russell-marlow

@BanjoPickles Not sure what some people were expecting with a sequel to SOR2 but seems to me like some folks are just parroting opinions of others and it's usually the same talking-points when it comes to the discussion of SOR3, nothing else beyond that.

If you ask me at least, I'd rather the developers behind Streets of Rage 4 kept the mechanics of SOR3 and decided to innovate based on those systems rather than throwing them out completely and deciding to take half-measures with introducing their own new ideas that heavily conflict with the regressive gameplay style of SOR2 where you're only limited to walking in eight directions and that's it. No running or evasive roll to keep your from wasting meter just pray you don't get hit and walk away.

This is coming from someone who has heavily invested hundreds of hours into SOR4 learning it's many quirks and esoteric combos and also having played on Mania+, it just leaves me frustrated because of all the restrictions and I genuinely get annoyed whenever people praise this game for so many superficial reasons that they don't even understand how bad of a game it really is.

If I came across as hostile, then I apologize since I'm speaking passionately about this sort of subject because I feel betrayed for investing time and attention into this sort of game that doesn't leave me fulfilled with how broken and unbalanced it is.

Re: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Has Sold 10 Million Copies Since Launch

russell-marlow

@carlos82 I mean, okay, sure. Not sure how the merits of Sega and Sonic racing and Transformed are compared to Team racing, but I'll take your word for it and try them out on Steam.

The last racing game series I played that featured Sonic characters was Sonic Riders on the Gamecube and Zero Gravity on the PS2; both games I found to be sort of fun but relied too much on stage gimmicks for getting ahead of opponents instead of racing fairly and quick time button pressing. Those games, aside from their art style, never left much of an impression on me.

Re: Beat 'Em Up Classic Double Dragon Gets A Modern Revival On Switch This October

russell-marlow

@BanjoPickles Ah yes, the game where you're restricted from running, rolling, and even jumping in certain instances; where the developers handicapped most of your movement in favor endless offense and you get heavily punished for even getting hit once making you frustrated in the process by playing by their heavily restricted rules.

They can't even remain consistent with how they want you to play because even all of the enemies/bosses can hit you out of the air because they thought it would be really funny if they increased the size of the hitboxes on enemy attacks for no reason other than to frustrate the player. Not to mention, so many enemies 1-frame attacks and most the later enemies have super armor for some reason.

Tell me, does that sound like good game design to your?

Not allowing the player freedom and instead locking them into a linear style of play because the developers of that game were too stubborn and wanted to mimic the old style of Streets of Rage 2 even if it meant shackling down the player from being able to do anything and not allowing much player expression.

Wow, what a fun game. More like an under-cooked mess.

Reading so many of these types of comments makes me legit roll my eyes that so many folks like you share the same dull layman opinion.

Re: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Has Sold 10 Million Copies Since Launch

russell-marlow

@carlos82 Late response, I can understand where you're coming from, but I tend to look at every game within a similar genre with scrutiny and I think to myself "What does each of these game do better than the other and if I had to chose one above the other, which would I chose?" -and that's how I basically pick a game, I look at the objective merits of each game, as I imagine other people do as well, and rank them on my overall long term enjoyment of each game.

And after giving Team Sonic Racing a fair few shots, I come to the conclusion that the game is not very fun compared to the other kart racers like Mario Kart and CTR that don't fall into the same shovelware quality that most generic mascot kart racing games fall under.

Re: Beat 'Em Up Classic Double Dragon Gets A Modern Revival On Switch This October

russell-marlow

To any of the people who are going to be complaining about this game looking nothing like the original 16-bit arcade games, let me tell you somethin':

We've had two retro revivals with the likes of Double Dragon Gaiden and River City Girls - both retro style beat 'em ups paying homage to the era that made them popular with their particular sprite-based art style and gameplay mechanics.

The last time we've seen another similar mainline entry from the Double Dragon series was with Double Dragon Neon released all the way back in 2012, which also was in 2.5D art style much like with Revive. So it wouldn't hurt for the developers of this game to try to be a bit more experimental and try something new for a change - it might even surprise some of us who aren't so stubborn.

So I don't understand the hate that this game is getting. I imagine it's mostly from the old head fans who grew up with the originals and can't see anything past the graphics that this game is going for and judge it solely on shallow reasons such as that instead of what gameplay mechanics it has to offer.

If your going to be judging a game for something so superficial, such as how the game looks, then that immediately tells me that you are an extremely shallow gamer who doesn't care about anything else.

I'm honestly looking forward to this game as the last beat 'em up I played that too heavily relied on nostalgia instead of meaningfully innovating on it's gameplay mechanics was Streets of Rage 4.

And I know someone's going to be questioning why that is - well, it has too do with that game pulling too many of it's ideas from Streets of Rage 2 and not committing towards any of it's new combo-based mechanics that are new and it turns into this frustrating unbalanced mess of a game where getting hit feels like it's mandatory and you have no evasive options like Streets of Rage 3. Very regressive in design. Oh, but people will praise that game to the high heavens because it's 2D and has fancy shmancy hand-drawn graphics which mean very little if the game is annoying to play - trust me as someone who played this game dozens of times on Survival and Mania+ modes, I have more than enough credibility.

So yeah, gameplay matters more than graphics.

Re: Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled Has Sold 10 Million Copies Since Launch

russell-marlow

@carlos82 I don't understand how anyone can like the Sonic Racing series.

I can understand more unique games like the Riders series because it had some style and flare but the newer kart racing series starring Sonic feels so clunky and boring.

Everything feels so automated with how you're required to drift and turn, which also takes a long time, and you have to constantly follow the slipstream of another racer just catch up to them instead of doing it yourself. It's like a unearned comeback mechanic.

Those games are the very definition of unremarkable and fit into the same category of shovelware racing games alongside games like Garfield Kart and those Disney and Nickelodean racers.

It's funny how looking at the sales success of Crash Team Racing that i managed to find how it pretty much outsold every recent Sonic Kart racing game by a wide margin, I guess that should tell you how good of a game Nitro-Fueled was that most players appreciated most of it's finer aspects like the in-depth racing mechanics and post-launch support (except the micro transactions). CTRNF now has the same lifetime sales now as Mario Kart 64.

After watching some videos and reading some comments about some of the Sonic Racing games, I'm honestly convinced that Sonic fans like those games solely out of obligation for their favorite gaming series instead finding anything good about them compared to Mario Kart or... I dunno, anything else? Thinking about it — I just realized there aren't very many well-recognizable kart racing games that have depth to them besides just Mario Kart or CTR.

That is a shame.

Re: Random: Takaya Imamura Wants To See Star Fox: Assault On Switch 2

russell-marlow

If I see any of the same old slander for this game that I keep seeing when it gets brought up, I'm legit going to take issue with that. But I'm glad one of the original devs at Nintendo is giving this game more credit after so many people find ways to defame it. It definitely was underappreciated when it originally released, it also doesn't help that the default controls were bad and instead the dual stick setup is the best way to play the game.

Re: Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Adds Characters From "SEGA Universes"

russell-marlow

Somehow we managed to get another Sonic Racing game before a new Crash Team Racing game...

Somehow I'm not surprised but I figured after the mixed reception plus not amazing sales of the last game, that there wouldn't be a sequel. Not sure why they keep making these same style of racing games for Sonic since they're really nothing special compared to Mario Kart or Crash racing. They are the epitome of incredibly average, safe, and dull games that usually end up in the bargain bin within a couple of months.

Re: Sonic The Hedgehog 3 Movie Trailer Finally Reveals Keanu Reeves' Shadow

russell-marlow

After the tone of the previous movies, I was expecting the tone of this film to be a bit more serious and darker, but the millennial writers couldn't help but shove in more annoying MCU-style quips in this film. So much for doing things differently a bit for a change.

I'm half-expecting a laugh track to start playing just cue the audience to know when to laugh.

Re: Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Studio Is Reportedly Facing Layoffs

russell-marlow

@NatiaAdamo SBI bad because they coerce companies to give them money. One of the lead people in SBI has publicly said in a GDC conference video if you don't believe me.

But sure, listen to what gaming news articles have to say because if it wasn't clear already that they have a bias and are trying to save face when pressed about serious questions regarding what they do and try to gaslight everyone into thinking they need to be mandatory for every game and don't stir trouble when others disagree with them. I have seen evidence that proves this in tweets and replies with some of the staff.

I honestly trust Youtubers who honestly talk about this rather than a bunch of paid off gaming journalists who will sugar coat anything they write about. Most people have gotten tired of pointless gaming news sites that don't maintain any journalistic integrity, which is why websites like Kotaku are slowly shutting down.

So without trying to sound mean in response to your ignorant comment, please tell me you don't do legit research without actually telling me you don't because it's blatantly obvious where you get your facts from. I at the very least try to look up evidence from different sources that aren't from paid off websites.

Re: Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Studio Is Reportedly Facing Layoffs

russell-marlow

@Fangleman32 You have to think about the many indie games that release and how many of them don't find instant success like other popular titles, many of them end up failing due to a number of reasons. I suggest you look up "Why most indie games fail" on Youtube to get a good idea of how the market works.

Regardless of whatever score it got, not many people are interested in a game like this. Especially, when there are dozens of other indie games that have managed to compete and capture people's attention.

It doesn't matter how much they follow social trends, what specific type of race or gender that have their character be and try to market with that, or how high of a score they've gotten on their DEI index in order to get funding. At the end of the day, the basic consumer is more interest on the merit and uniqueness of a game, and if they see a game that looks like a generic mobile title, they simply ignore it and search for something more interesting.

That's not just me, that's the cold cynical truth of it all.

Re: Review: Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition (Switch) - Beyond Good, Still

russell-marlow

A few questions for the Switch version:

-Do you need to have a Ubisoft account in order to play it?

-Will there be a physical version of this game and will everything be on the cartridge?

I've been thinking of buying this and Prince of Persia Lost Crown on Steam but hearing how Ubisoft mentioned that: "You should get used to not owning anything you buy from us." Makes me wonder if the Switch versions of these games are a better choice if Ubisoft is going to permanently delete these games once a certain period of time has gone by much like how The Crew 1 was removed from everyone's accounts?

Re: Reaction: A Direct That Delivered, And Shows That Switch Still Has Plenty Of Pep

russell-marlow

What to expect from every Direct at this point:

-Some Mario-related game
-Farming simulators
-Square-Enix RPG(s)
-Mobile/3DS port
-at least one indie game
-One unexpected that will appear on other platforms
-Some retro collection
-Boring cozy games
-Mostly RPGs
-Some Nintendo first-party games
-Ubisoft dance game

If it wasn't for the Mario&Luigi game as well as the Marvel vs. Capcom collection, and Prime 4, then I would rank this Direct as terrible.

But it's average for me.