Correction #1: The Game Informer cover is this month, for the first time ever, is different from the US one. The US one has Army of Two and a cover story on the best co-op games of all time.  The Aussie one has an exclusive interview with Spector, Molyneux and Schaeffer.

Correct #2: Sleeping Dogs was developed by United Front Games, the makers of LittleBigPlanet Karting and Mod Nation Racers (this one is for Vader, I actually edited out my error).

When you said momentous, I didn't know you meant of biblical proportions!

Downloading speed was terribly slow. (as low as 10kbps, probably averaging around 30). Also Podcast length estimation on podcast page off by half an hour.

Sound quality was slightly worse as well; not a problem with mixing, though. I think you were just unlucky enough to get a bad recording from Pamela/Skype.

Aspro, I think you mean “mix with the little people”.

So GameInformer finally hired the reviewer? Noooo.

Only 1 PC mag? In America? Certainly not in Australia! There’s Atomicpc, PC powerplay, and probably others too. Plus there’s the multiplat mags...or is that just Hyper now? Anyway, they cover PC games.

It’s not just that you don’t get the context, there’s actually a lot of Aspro revisionism going on with online reviews. Plus if you've got a writer who excels in a succinct format then quality is often higher than online reviews due to there not being competition to post reviews quickly. Of course there are a lot of reviewers who can't write a good review with one or two pages, so overall it probably evens out.

Uh, the worst was the lowest possible score? (70). That’s bad, Aspro, not good!

Definitely don’t believe the review saying it’s crap like the Wii.

The Germaican accent. I was just waiting for it to turn into Mrs. Doubtfire at the end.

De Blob was also a school project.

The problem with the whole art game discussion is it’s simply not true that all non-art games are actually rated on the gameplay.

The technical flaws of blockbuster games are also completely glossed over. Where were the reviews complaining about Skyrim PS3? (Apart from, was it, IGN?) Did the fact that the game became completely unplayable hurt the scores? No? Oh hey, it wasn’t even disclosed! Therefore by this pretty poor logic of picking and choosing random examples, we can say that Papo & Yo was treated more harshly than Skyrim because all the technical issues were actually highlighted in the reviews, where as that was not the case with Skyrim.

P.S. Arkham Asylum’s gameplay is barely better than Papo & Yo’s.

Vader’s issue really isn’t with reviews, as he says at the end, it’s him wanting art games to be something different and that’s resulting in him being pissed off about the reviews. His defence of the sanctity of scores is just an excuse to cover up him complaining about reviews due to his taste.

The point being: there isn’t some universal rule that gameplay is king when non-art games are reviewed. They also get away with lots of technical, and gameplay flaws. What’s the difference? Art games as a genre are something new, so people who don’t like them are going to be given a lot more leeway to complain because there’s not a massive instutition behind the genre, even though they’re actually not being treated any different by reviewers.

By the way, there’s a far better argument for them being treated better because it’s they're new, and that’s probably the case. But it’s not that they’re brushing over the gameplay and the technical flaws, it’s that they’re overrating the quality of the art side of the game because it’s more original and fresh (even if, outside of gaming, it's a boring, trite idea). Same thing happens with new shit in other genres too; or other whole genres as they pop up, so it’s not something related specifically to art games.

Darksiders 2 is the dumbed down version of Katamari Damacy.

Dumbed down SOTC.

“It’s kinda like criticising the shooting in GTA compared to Call of Duty”

Well that would indeed be pretty stupid given the different perspectives...and considering that the shooting in Call of Duty isn’t that great.

Ethernet cable that came with the PS3?! One didn’t come with mine.

You can watch YouTube on PS3! WTF are you talking about Aspro? The quality is poor, though. An app would be appreciated.

Media Molecule is artsy?! Media Molecule has the gameplay to back it up?

“The exact thing I like, everything that other artsy games should strive to be”? My theory is definitely confirmed. In fact LBP and LBP2 both got huge passes on the actual game because of their other features, and even then, they really don’t deserve the massive scores that they got. FUCKING ART GAME BIAS! FUCK LBP!!!

I think you guys are underestimating just how popular, and well received, the Naughty Dog Crash Bandicoots, and Jak were. 2 and 3 were getting lower 9s which is easy equal to what the Uncharted series is receiving today. They were on magazine covers, had huge hype, massive previews, lots of videos, etc. etc.. They were huge, and of a very high quality.

I think “influential” far better sums up the difference between their previous work, and their new, not quality.

“The new Laura Croft”

Uncarted’s influence is ruining 3D platforming? What a legacy!

On the VA: and that’s because English voice acting is of such a low standard. You really shouldn’t have to do that to have a good performance, unless you’re an actor, not a voice actor. And let’s be honest, that’s what most English (in the sense of the language, here, not the country) voice actors are. They’ll be doing VA to support their Shakespeare productions. Let’s  not beat around the bush: voice acting in most English speaking countries died with the radio. It’s survived elsewhere, though.

“My cock is rising” got as high as 37 on metacritic?

The Last Guardian sucks, Aspro?

“I was against war simulation games”

Yeah, they’re war sims like Ace Combat is a flight sim.

As for World War II it’s been long enough. I’d be excited to play a massive current-gen WWII game with all the bells and whistles.

“You’re Hitler”

“Hiroshima all over again”

Make up your damn mind, man!

Daddy issues? Mass Effect is Papo & Yo in space?

That post-ending section was very entertaining; seemed way less inhibited than your normal impressions, Aspro. Except when you go crasy on a game like you did with Binary Domain. The amount of swearing also increased. The more swearing the better, I say.

Jamaican space alien? Sounds like Jar Jar Binks to me.

P.S. Stay hustling, Vader.

P.P.S. Another graet 'cast. Wish I could have been on for the review discussion! You need to do a devil's advocate thing when you've got two people disagreeing. Feel free to do it as I did, though.

P.P.P.S. Thanks for the review plug, and the kind words, Aspro!

Dvader said:

Some of these "artsy" games have practically no game and they are judged as almost something else. Aren't we playing games. How does a game that is like 2 hours long with crappy puzzles get a high score, make it artsy. Bullshit. The game can remain as artsy as it is with actual good gameplay, it does not have to be one without the other, I just want people to acknowledge this. As for Skyrim PS3, I played it just fine, I mean it gets annoying but its playable.

Those games are playable; the crappy puzzles are just annoying.

Dvader said:

Almost every game is playable, what does that have to do with anything

I was making fun of your defence of Skyrim because there's more than enough people who ended up with an unplayable game because of poor porting; besides it's not as if that was the only technical issue with the game. It was made by Bethesda FFS.

Anyway, if it's not just a case of art games having normal gameplay, but done badly, then logically there might actually be a reason as to why the gameplay functions differently and, if there is, then obviously they should not be judged in the same way another game is judged. Other genres are judged differently to one another. Why are you picking up on art games for any reason other than you don't like them?

I don't see how people aren't acknowledging that art games can have traditional gameplay in them. Uh, isn't SOTC pretty well received for exactly that reason? Don't the vast majority of Journey's reviews point out that the game is incredibly simple, and is not to be enjoyed as a traditional game? I really don't see what you're complaining about, except that you don't like them.

Nothing wrong with that of course, but it's not as if reviewers are in some brainwashed OH MY GOD ARTSY!!!! state beyond their normal level of hyperbole and mindlessly jizzing over something new, cool, contemporary, and politically correct. So once again, beyond your dislike of the genre, I don't really see any reason for your complaints. What am I missing here?

If you literally just want them to get a lower score because of the non-existant gameplay, then why is it okay for something like the Arkham games to get such ridiculously high scores when, unless you play it in some completely unnatural way (), it has absolutely awful combat, and terrible level design, whether you play it in a certain way or not. Conversely, why is it okay for Bulletstorm to get bad scores because it's no longer cool to make dick jokes in games? The answer to both those questions is who the fuck cares, but the point of both these examples is that inflating scores for games with mediocre to down right bad gameplay because it does something awesome (like making you feel like the motherfucking batman!) happens in every genre, and not just to art games. And I know you love Batmans, so just take a look at Alan Wake. Reviewers love the story and concept, so a game with mediocre to down right bad gameplay gets great reviews! Alan Wake certainly isn't an art game.

Definitely not a free pass, but they do tend to go on about technical issues in reviews to a lesser degree than if the game is an indie or smaller title. However it's probably about even because in indie games their complaints regarding technical issues are usually more sympathetic due to limited budgets. So yeah, put that statement in the extreme hyperbole section. That's an area where they should really be harsher whether the title is big or not, though. A lot of close to broken games don't get much criticism in reviews at all.

Well you did say it after saying how much (can't remember what the game was) must have sucked because Sony canceled it, yet they still have The Last Guardian on their books, so I hope you can understand my confusion!

The sound was a bit worse on your end too, though. I think it just had the recording level ever so slightly too high (or you had the mic closer to your mouth than normal) but there's not really anything you can do about that as the gain control in Skype/Pamela seems pretty random, and I don't think it's something you can control manually.

Just to reiterate, really enjoyed the podcast!

Thanks for the reply; I think I get what you're saying now.

A couple of things I don't personally agree with, though...

"Foolz first off art game is NOT A GENRE. It can be any genre its just a kind of game where usually they focus on the "artsy" aspect rather than gameplay."

And that's exactly what makes it a genre. Art house cinema is incredibly broad as compared to other genres of cinema such as action. Within reviews and the critical approach it's really a catch all for films that don't fit within a crtain genre, and that's exactly why it applies to the art games you take a particular disliking to as well. Because the games that piss you off have no gameplay as you put it, then that must be a consistent, even if one game is completely different to another in every other way, and is enough to define a genre, and more effective than trying to say Journey is an adventure game.

There's no doubt that reviewers approach the games as if they are a different genre (but not completely different entities where they give the game a free pass), so I don't see why it cannot be considered a genre if there's something consistent that pisses you off about them, and reviewers approach them as if they are a genre. It's not as if they review them like they do other indie games; no, they treat other indie games as smaller versions of the particular genre they are in.

This means that art games would be defined as a separate genre to the likes of Braid or Limbo as both those games have traditional gameplay, and I don't see a problem with that. They're both obviously platformers; they'd be equivelent to something like Blade Runner within noir, where it's vastly different to the majority of the films within that genre, but is still easily defined as fitting within the confines of the genre. But how are you going to describe Journey or The Path? No current genres apply, and because no one's going to be copying either on masse, then neither of them actually have a genre to fit into. That's where an arthouse definition comes in, and that's really how reviews are approaching them.

I have no doubt that there will be a similar descriptor to art house within gaming to describe them in the future, as already that's how reviews are approaching them. Still, I could be wrong, and it might never be made official, but they are effectively now a genre. It looks like a genre. It smells like a genre. It just hasn't been openly called one by the majority of the media.

I personally don't see the difference with Alan Wake. It's like Iga's argument that Metroid Other M having a story was automatically better than not having one. Fuck no, having a feature that is horrible, is not better than having no equivelent feature at all, and to me reviewers ignoring a lack of, or the badness of something, are completely analogues failings in their analysis. Of course it's usually not a failing in their analysis, but their score.