TechTV Rates the game....... 40%????

[Saint Nuke]

The SP game has it's share of flaws, it is quite linear in it's design and the puzzles are pretty simple. I don't think it gets a 90 (we love ALL quake games no matter how boring and repetative it's become!) or a 40 (I suck at FPS and live in my parent's basement, I hate everyone and everything). I'm in the middle ground like most people. As far as examples of FPS games that are not so linear how about Operation Flashpoint? Not only can you do a mission pretty much as you please (as long as you meet the mission's goals) but it has a pretty easy to use mission designer so you can MAKE missions. Most people who play it online don't play overdone deathmatch, they play hundreds of player made missions either coop or missions for both sides of a game (attack/defend a town/base, snipers vs. officers, endless list). My biggest problem with JK2 is the MP side of it. Deathmatch and CTF are all way overdone. And they made lightsabers too clumsy and random (quite like how Obi Wan described a blaster). All in all it's fun for mindless fragging, but after all is said and done....it's QUAKE WARS.

 

Another example of an FPS that's not linear....System Shock 2. Every door can be opened (no NPC allies because everyone is dead) and the atmosphere on it is creepy.

 

When I want a creative online community that everyone can contribute to I'll play Operation Flashpoint. (VERY realistic too, things like you can't run and shoot at the same time, you have to use a weapon's REAL iron sights like the M16)

 

When I want a good lightsaber experience I'll make lightsaber noises and blast a star wars music CD from my stereo and play Bushido Blade. That's what lightsaber combat SHOULD have been.

 

When I want mindless fragging I'll play JK2.

[toolboi]

Wow, I agree with a lot of what the guy said, but Id still give the game a 80% mark. Hes right about the level design, hes right about the Ai, hes right about a lot, but hes missing all the good parts.

For example:

-Insane coolness and gameplay. Quite frankly this game has the best game play of any game Ive played in a LONG time. I remember when I played Max Payne thinking "this would be cool with lightsabers" well here it is.

 

And the parts the guy complains about, troopers on top of power things, those are other jedi.. it kinda makes sense since they can "feel your presence".

[Rohan Quintus]

I remember a line from the movie "Cool Hand Luke" it was

"What we've got here is failure to communicate"

 

From my time on this planet I have noted there are two major species of people.........The ones who love Star Wars and those other ones who love "Star Trek" call me biased, but I'd rather not live in a society where we all wear tight jumpsuits have no jobs(there abouts as everyone has function within society) let alone get dirt under our fingernails..as we rush off to moderate peace and good will to all and sundry.....call me Mr boring but i'd imagine the Star Wars universe would be a whole lot more interesting!

 

Folks, what we have here is deeper than a failure to communicate

we have someone who is useless at playing FPS shooters, and probably went to the office fancy dress party as a Federation Security person with matching phaser and handbag (you know the one...the one that always gets killed in every episode)

 

Pay it no mind there are those of us who know, and there is those who dont care as we are on the company (federation) payroll...I suggest some of you talented skins artist's create a Star trek style bot that we may smite with our sabers and level 3 force grip's over and over and over again......

 

PFFFFFFfff Universal peace? what a loser......

[Canis_Aureus]

The reviewer is clearly an idiot, but I do agree on one point he makes. I too hate every kind of jump puzzle in FPS. It is just so damn boring to jump from place to place and even more frustrating when you fall down. Whenever I play a FPS and come to a jump puzzle i go "OMFG Not again... not in this game also?".

 

But the jump puzzles are not a big part of this game, so it wasn't annoying for long. I like JK2 and anything less than 90% is simply idiotic.

[Econ]

Originally posted by Swamp

i doubt that everyone here who plays it is a star wars fanatic ... hell, i havn't even watched the movies and i love the game ..

 

 

 

WTF Man, You never saw the Star Wars films.. Have you been locked up in a cave.. Do you not have a DVD player, VCR, VHS, BETA, RCA Disc. OMG..

 

Make it a Block buster weekend... get the popcorn and Beer..

[funkyeire]

clearly an idiot? come on...he's right about pretty much everything...the score he gave is pretty low--but i, for the most part, see where he's coming from...

 

at least up until i got the saber...it was all awesome after that...just my $0.02

 

 

go read the actual article

 

http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=69397

 

he basically said everything we've been *****ing about--it looks great, but level design in the start kinda sucks. is he wrong? come on---the crate jumping blows

 

 

mp--kinda boring..-as a result of lack of co-op.

 

oh well--i agree with him. and even if oyu dont--he's not a "f-ing idiot" or "obviously a complete moron"

come on guys, dont be so tunnel-visioned.

[funkyeire]

read what hughj wrote. i agree 100%.

its not that these other games weren't linear--they really were...however, you didn't FEEL like they were. that's

what's important. a real non-linear game (besides something

like GTA) would be HUGE--as in gigs and gigs

[thrEEpaGe]

i have mixed feelings about this review

 

first, it is contrary to about every other review we've seen...

 

second, it is somewhat generic, but reviews are supposed to be

 

 

 

but...

 

i agree very much on the subject of level design

 

for a long time, i have been noticing that games have strange level design for no apparent reason...i mean its nice to be able to find secret areas, but why would someone put them there? if i was being invaded by a rogue jedi, i would want my ammunition and weapons and explosives at the fingertips of my troops, not at the mercy of my attacker....

 

it would have been nice to have a reason to go searching for stuff....i really liked the hiding spots of many of rtcw's secret areas, and the gold that was in them....it made sense...in JO, the context of the game basically dictates that there SHOULD not be any hiding spots

 

but for an fps, this is understandable for gameplay reasons....

 

something i REALLY agree on is the lack of civilian interaction.....i mean there was very little neutral/non ally chat, and it seemed out of place in many of the places...in ESB, even when the empire had taken control of cloud city, the city was still a bustling hub of trade and simply people....there werent any civilians in JO....that would have been nice...

 

but overall, gameplay has to take preference over upholding fantasy reality truths, and this game had a so-so way of balancing it....i dont really think that this game has been warranting 90%s, but hte 40% is way out of place...

 

the latter review did have insight, after all

[StarWars]

tech tv did give MOHAA a 5 out of 5. So I still read their reviews occasionally.

[ps2maddenman]

Well, the bottom line is giving the game a 40% is outrageous, if anyone here agreed with it, they wouldn't be posting on this forum (barring your occasional 3 day trolls) 40% is reserved for games like Diakatana, not games that are mentioned when "game of the year" comes up.

 

 

btw this in not the Game of the year in my opinion, but it should be mentioned in that category.

[thrEEpaGe]

yeah i agree the 40% was a little uncalled for..

[Threetall]

Their points were somewhat accurate but 40% is low. I would say 70-80 imo.

[LooNBB]

The level design in the game did Suck. They violated so many rules on making realistic levels that flow together it is Nuts! I loved the action sequences of the game, but moving from sequence to sequence made the game one of the most annoying I have played in years. I am just glad I finished so I can now go back and just play my favorite parts.

[LInKINParkD00D]

yo wtf? 40 pacent yo I be all str8 up fo givin thiz game at least a 45

[Groundrunner]

OK I've seen tons of complaints about the Doomgiver comm station level where you must force jump in that cavernous room between the cubicles with different signals...

 

1. The game points out - as Kyle says "I guess I have to set it MANUALLY" ie. the Imperials would not normally go down there to change signals, it's just that Kyle was locked out of the controls. Only a Jedi could do that without some kind of floating skiff or jet-pack.

 

2. It is very in-keeping with Star Wars classic environments from the movies. 'Bottomless pits' abound in ESB and RotJ.

 

I think there's other 'puzzles' more worthy of complaints.

[Trienco]

manually or not, it doesnt make sense. nobody would construct something like that, nobody would waste so much space on a ship and theres no way for the troops to get there that seem to stand around in those small rooms all day long, hoping for some jedi to come along.

 

something like that would never appear in the movies because its nothing more like 'hey, we need some more mario-like parts in this level'. if there is the option to set and activate it manually there must be a way to DO so for them because else they wouldnt bother to have it. and i doubt anybody (well, obviously except some braindead imperial architect) would scatter consoles in as money unaccesable small rooms as possible.

 

also: i wouldnt even call that a puzzle. a puzzle is something that requires someone to think not just jump around and search the right room.

[hughJ]

"not games that are mentioned when "game of the year" comes up"

 

i honestly can't imagine a single respectable reviewer even considering this game as a 'game-of-the-year'... that's something that's reserved for the 'AAA' titles out there that can offer a hint of depth... JK2 has the polish of a AAA title, but it doesn't come any where close to how a AAA plays and feels.. which is what counts (or should count) most above all other features of a game..

 

you'd have to be a pretty deluded human being to be able to look past all the game design flaws, to give it a mention solely based on laber saber 'coolness' appeal..

[grandmasterlee]

Why don't you all stop preaching to the choir and email TechTV and the guy that wrote the review.

[GRIMLOCK]

the partner AI is EXTREMELY well done, i had 2 jedi (1 jedi and 1 trainer) on the second time to Yavin, and they worked very well as they should. Jan worked grand when she was with ya.

and well... this isn't a team game! Kyle is a solo merc, in truth he prefered solo in DF1, and jan was only supposed to be his informant through the missions, twas DF2 that got them together , but still Kyle worked alone.

[Pvt_Dancer]

I said they are far LESS linear than JK2... all of those games of course had a beginning and an ending, however through better level design they made each level experience seem like an actual place *enough* that it gave the level some atmosphere..

 

Well, atmosphere and linear gameplay are two completely seperate things. In linear gameplay the story line moves from one incident to another in an unchangeable manner. With atmosphere that linear storyline has a lot of flavor, excitement and mood. I just got confused as to what you meant.

 

If you were talking about the fact that this game could have had better atmosphere... I agree. All in all I think they did a decent job but some neutral NPCs and less button related objectives would have put this game over the edge. The part where you lead the commander at gun point to open the bay doors.... cool. More things like that would have been sweet.

 

I agree that there are things that could have been better but I also think there are things that were done very well. Whereas I thought some things could have been done better as far as level design... the levels never fell below standard for me so I couldn't rate the game any lower than 75%... my fan appeal probably kicks that up to 85% / 90% though. ESB was the first movie I ever saw. Saw it in a drive in theatre in my pajamas.

[YodaJunior2]

jk2 was linear, and there are some problems (particularly with last levels and nar shadaa), but how you come to the conclusion rtcw was not as linear. Jk2 suffered because it was set in installations and/or ships all the time, as such unlike rtcw (or moh which hid linearity much better) it couldnt always use big levels to hide it. that sneaky rtcw level, nice big level, but of course, you have to go the proper way or you get seen, and its game over...its the same difference and its just as obvious and just as annoying, at least in jk2 the guards would have been able to see you unlike some hawk eyed guards in other game's sneaky parts...

[WhiteChedda]

Originally posted by Swamp

i doubt that everyone here who plays it is a star wars fanatic ... hell, i havn't even watched the movies and i love the game ..

 

 

i am fine with someone not likeing the game but his review kind of makes no sense ... he talks about how dumb the levels are, and then at the end he comments on how they are good?

 

 

 

o well, hes an idiot, problem solved

 

Thats the first and only negative review, I never read TechTv, probably because I watched the show yet, and the guy was clueless, trying to tell the world that zip drivers were replacing floppies, err, uhh, no, they are useful mass storage devices, but CD's are replacing floppies, considering they cost a few pennies per CD, and hold 600+MB, rather than #10/sick and only hold 100MB..... Oh well, wonder what he thinks of Barbie fashion designer, I bet he liked it..........

\

 

 

As to you having not watched the movies mister

 

[vader voice]Don't make me destroy you![/vader voice]

[acgreen]

TechTV hurt themselves more than anything. When people see the tens of reviews that reputable organizations such as Gamespot, PCGamer, Gamespy, that have given it at least 90%, they'll realize that those people over at Extended Play are just full of ****.

 

I know I'm never going to go to that show for reviews anymore...

[hughJ]

"Well, atmosphere and linear gameplay are two completely seperate things"

 

yup, they are completely different things, when on their own... linearity within itself doesn't necessarily cause a bad result either... it's blatant linearity that does this... and blatant linearity can, and will hurt atmosphere by drowning out the possibility for the suspension of disbelief to be maintained..

 

(imo), the (by far) most involving atmosphere of the entire game is created on Yavin (prior to getting your force powers and saber).. coincidentally that map also offers the least linear of gameplay (the simple ability to walk around, see what the Jedi are like in their home, etc), the most use of regular people whom belong in that setting, and it actually is designed like it could be used by the people who inhabit the level.. rather than simply leading you where you need to go..

 

"that sneaky rtcw level, nice big level, but of course, you have to go the proper way or you get seen, and its game over"

 

when I originally played that level (assuming we're talking about the grass level, with the watch towers), I orginally thought how linear it was going to be (being that I needed to sneak through without much option)... but as I continued playing it, I realized I had more options open to me.. being able to disable alarms themselves.. or choosing to sneak through it completely.. and none if it felt scripted... it didn't feel to me like I was, "supposed" to do anything in particular.. just play the level the way I felt best in each situation...

 

the maps in JK2, on the other hand, start off looking large and open-ended, but at the end they are very obviously linear.. every level *actually feels* like it's scripted from start to finish, it almost doesn't feel like I'm playing the game anymore, rather just getting lead from checkpoint to checkpoint by whomever designed the map.. it reminded me more of my experiences playing Rebel Assault 1+2, to be honest..

[Phoenixhunter]

Hey, can someone tell me what the last AAA quality game was?