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[prwxv3]

Nah, I believe it's more a case of Sony finally having enough and sending their guy over to get this nightmare out of the door.

This is all completely wrong. Here is what happened

http://kotaku.com/what-happened-to-the-last-guardian-1711835457

 

[GlamFM]

This is all completely wrong. Here is what happened

http://kotaku.com/what-happened-to-the-last-guardian-1711835457

Oops, yep - I was wrong.

Thought the Cerny thing was true.

Sorry.

 

[Tain]

Lets talk about this "good" or "bad" controls thing for a second, because its not really true. There are no such things as universally, objectively good or bad game design. Its just rules and standards we've accepted over time. There are infinite examples in art, music, movies, comics, books, etc that break from traditional standards because they want to create a specific effect, a specific experience for the consumer. And not everybody is gonna like Wreckmeister Harmonies or the Sex Pistols or Flex Mentallo, they might they all suck, but a lot of people love them. They go on the wavelength of the experience they were trying to put forth and they think its great. Nobody's right or wrong here, its just honest statements about their subjective experience.

Ueda is trying to make a very specific experience. He's using the tools of game design to put you in the shoes of this clumsy kid who isn't the master of the world like every other third person mainstream game. He's not great at combat, he doesnt run with perfect accuracy, he doesnt have those perfect Nathan Drake leaps and forgiving controls. Everything this boy does is a struggle, and the controls and camera are the way they are because he wants to give you that interactive experience. He wants you to embody this adventure. And he wants you to do it with a very realistic AI of an pet animal of sorts. A pet that sometimes obeys and sometimes doesn't, who sometimes is immediately helpful and sometimes you gotta pry him to do things your way.

Now you may not like that. You can write a review and talk about what you liked or didn't like, you can go into detail, you can give a 6/10 score, and there ya go. That's your opinion. That is your subjective experience with the game, based on your personal biases and what you were looking for in the game.

But someone else might play it, get on the same wavelength as Ueda and embrace, possibly love the controls and camera and the AI. They think this kind of form matching function is brilliant, and increasingly rare in a mostly safe homogeneous AAA market space. They love the game and give it a 9/10. And that's their opinion. That is their subjective experience with the game, based on their personal biases and what they were looking for in the game.

And you can discuss it, you can argue about it, but don't pretend for one second that the controls are universally bad is some platform you can stand on. They're different from traditional standards, but so is a lot of weird, divisive art and entertainment products. Just be honest with yourself when you're experiencing this thing, that's all.

yeah. I mean, so many things about video games are subjective (obviously not to say you can't discuss and judge them), and it busts me up to see people treating some of the more subjective elements like movement mechanics and animation as though they were, like, straight up framerate or some shit.

 

[hemo memo]

Is this their first Team ICO game?

My thought exactly.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

I don't think you can just explain away bad cameras like that. A camera is functional or it is trash.

I mean, it functions, right? You can see your character on screen. You can see parts of the environment, you can see some traps, or maybe some statue in the background or a lever you have to reach. But you are a very small boy in a very big, weird world. You don't have a total understanding of the world around you, and the camera reflects that limited perspective. Now if its constantly getting stuck on environmental objects that's one thing, but I don't think the camera being so close and choosing specific angles is a mistake.

Now for the record, I do NOT like Ico. For many of the reasons I probably won't like this game. I hated the controls, I hated the camera, I fuckin' hateeeeeeeeeed Yorda, I really didn't like that game.

But I can see why some many other people love it, who can get on board with its quirks and particulars and it provides a very unique experience.

I just ask that people be honest. We're all so quick to type this is shit or this is trash the minute somebody dares to color outside the lines. Its like hey AAA devs, be creative, be original, give me something new!...but only in the established modes of operation that I like.

 

[prwxv3]

Oops, yep - I was wrong.

Thought the Cerny thing was true.

Sorry.

That's fine you are not alone lol

 

[Confused Cheeseburger]

Cool. It's been in development around 2007 for a good while until someone picked up the scraps recently and stitched together what was there for cheap.

It's still a 2007 game in its soul. With all the jank that comes with that.

Does not really make a difference.

I mean, if you're gonna reduce TLG to foot long measurements and hazy approximations, not quite sure what we're doing here. The game will undoubtedly have issues. I think the the camera will be a legitimate problem because of the unusual dynamic between a tiny, clumsy boy and a giant in enclosed environments. I also think this approach will likely be the thing that sets it apart warts and all. But let's not act like TLG is some asset flip using tech lying around on the cheap, that is totally disingenuous.

 

[kaching]

What a surprise!

Did you read that i also tried gow1 and others? the "oldness" Isn't just in the controls, it's in the overall game, because the way to do games in the ps2 era was different than now.

In any case if some people want to think that ps2 feel in 2016 is a good thing then good for them, i'm out.

Yeah, I read that you barely tried the tip of the iceberg when it comes to PS2 games and felt perfectly smug in passing overall judgment anyway.

The point is that the "PS2 feel" is the kind of observation that could only come from someone like yourself who only had the briefest of encounters with that era, or someone ignoring large swaths of what was released.

Don't misunderstand - you're not obliged to know a damn thing about PS2 games if you don't want to. But if you want to comment on them as a whole, it rather helps to have tried more than a few remasters from an era that produced almost 2000 games.

 

[RulkezX]

This "that's how Team Ico games play" is only true as they haven't released a game in 11 years.

Can't say I've ever saw a mass pinning for a return to the janky as fuck controls all games had back then, but now it's an intentional trait because there are negative previews?

You'd think people would have learned about blind defence of games after the way NMS turned out.

 

[NoFaceNico]

It sounds like any other Team ICO game. I have no problem with anyone giving their first impressions on a game but if you're going to point something out to the extent that it becomes the title of your article then you need to do your damn research.

I would hope that Polygon never gets its hands on an Armored Core game. God forbid those controls make them "concerned" about whether the people waiting for the game will be disappointed.

 

[OldRoutes]

And you can discuss it, you can argue about it, but don't pretend for one second that the controls are universally bad is some platform you can stand on. They're different from traditional standards, but so is a lot of weird, divisive art and entertainment products. Just be honest with yourself when you're experiencing this thing, that's all.

You're switching 'objectively' to 'universally'. I still believe that entertainment can be objectively bad is you look at it from a design perspective.

Games have evolved over time and players did, too. Because the fidelity of the experience keeps getting higher and higher, people have been used to a specific set of rules to expect in a game. Mario jumps, Mario swims, Mario runs. You expect that when you see a platformer and, for a while, people compared plateformer on how they fared against the best of the genre.

Platformers tried new things, but other just made it even better. The standards have changed. That's why Little Big Planet felt off for most people ; it chose to do its own thing, and it failed at that design. It made me, and people, uncomfortable. It didn't feel 'right' because it didn't respect certain design pattern.

The designers probably had a reason for that. But they can be wrong. And if they're wrong, they failed at designing something enjoyable.

Now whether or not people LIKE it, that's the subjective part. But everyone could agree that 'it's different'. That's objectivity, because then people would say "it's different, but you get used to it" or "it's different, because that's narratively justified".

A game has bad controls where it hinders the experience intended by the developer. Again, I'm not saying TLG has bad controls ; I'm saying that objectively bad controls exist.

 

[prwxv3]

This "that's how Team Ico games play" is only true as they haven't released a game in 11 years.

Can't say I've ever saw a mass pinning for a return to the janky as fuck controls all games had back then, but now it's an intentional trait because there are negative previews?

You'd think people would have learned about blind defence of games after the way NMS turned out.

It's completely fine to defend the controls if you are being civil and don't expect all reviewers to like the contols when reviews are released.

 

[system11]

Now if its constantly getting stuck on environmental objects that's one thing, but I don't think the camera being so close and choosing specific angles is a mistake.

One of the previews mentions exactly that - getting caught on things, sudden swings and so on.

 

[DooMAGE]

so much delay for nothing? this game sure was in development hell :/

 

[Smax]

Would anyone just accept it if Rockstar for example, released a new GTA game now with gameplay almost identical to GTA3? Would you say 'Cool, just like GTA3' and be happy with it?

Personally, I played Ico when it originally came out and I always remembered it as one of the best gaming experiences I had. But when I played the remaster a couple of years ago, it was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had and totally ruined my memories of the game.

ICO is awkward and frustrating by today's standards because technology and game development have made huge advancements the last 10-15 years. If TLG plays like Ico did back in the day that would be a massive failure of the development team in my mind. It would actually be similar to another Sony japanese studio that seems to be stuck in the PS2 era; Polyphony. It seems to me this is a pattern with most japanese developers who used to be pioneers 2-3 generations ago. They seem unable to keep up with the pace.

 

[DoomGaze]

So what kind of controls would be "objectively good" for a game where you're trying to portray young, awkward, inexperienced child navigating a dangerous environment with a giant companion that has a mind of its own? Walk us through it.

Come on now... let's not use the Lair argument here.

 

[Shredderi]

If the story in Horizon:Zero Dawn sucks will people say "is this your first GG game?" when someone critizes it?

 

[Steve Youngblood]

To me, the main takeaway is simply that there's no need to obnoxiously defend or deride the game."LOL is this their first Team ICO game!?" and "I see fans are defending that bad things are good as long as they're supposed to be bad" are both equally shitty sentiments. To the former, tradition isn't automatically a good thing. To the latter the problem is that some people can understand and agree with why some decisions are deliberately made in spite of the fact that they might not resonate with every potential player.

 

[kaching]

Well, for one, you'd have to believe that this is the intended design by the creator. They'd have to communicate that to the player throughout the game. That would also mean that the user also somehow gets used to those controls and that they can be mastered ; they shouldn't be a problem later in the game.

I haven't played the game though, kaching, so I can't comment on how it actually plays. I was just arguing that I believe games can have objectively good and bad controls.

I loved SOTC and ICO, but if they could remake those games with a better camera system and tighter control, I do believe they'd be better games from it... If that makes sense?

With ICO and SOTC, controls were consistent and clearly mirrored the same theme of character awkwardness while not demonstrating any significant problems that might actually indicate an unintended consequence, a flaw, like the controls randomly not working. You could clearly get used to the controls, plenty of people played these games to completion without any major problems later in the game.

And what Kollar describes here for TLG sounds almost identical to that experience.

Calling "tighter controls" objectively better is based on what premise of objectivity here?
If these games had tighter controls, they'd entirely misrepresent the characters they're trying to realize. They wouldn't be the same games. They'd just be part of a larger, more homogeneous pile of action adventure games with characters that all are largely interchangeable because they all control very similarly.

Come on now... let's not use the Lair argument here.

See above, hardly the argument I'm trying to make. I'm not absolving controls that can't be consistent more than 80% of the time. ICO/SOTC are consistent, reliable and as such can be readily mastered. But they don't qualify as "tight" or precise controls due to the fact that they're trying to present a different experience than most other shooter/action games out there.

 

[More_Badass]

If the story in Horizon:Zero Dawn sucks will people say "is this your first GG game?" when someone critizes it?

Except much like the films of Wes Anderson or David Lynch, Ueda's games have very distinct aesthetic and goals that designed to evoke and reinforce those aspects.

Would saying "is this your first Wes Anderson film? He has a certain style" be a reasonable reply if someone started criticizing the use of minatures or the symmetrical cinematography?

GG's games don't have that kind of overarching pervasive through-line of tone, aesthetic, means of storytelling, and aspects of gameplay that all of Team Ico's games do, so comparing Guerrilla games to Ico's doesn't make much sense

 

[Dargor]

If the story in Horizon:Zero Dawn sucks will people say "is this your first GG game?" when someone critizes it?

Wut?

This makes no sense. Killzone 2 has one of the best stories in gaming.

I think you chose the wrong dev for that comparison.

 

[CrisKre]

Im not concerned about the controls. The climbing mechanics in SOTC where, in my opinion, really well excecuted and conveyed the feeling of effort and resistance that such an action would have.

I am concerned though, about the reports the camera and other actions seem to be janky and flawed. That would be frustrating and disappointing.

This is one game, though, I would be ok working around its kinks to be able to experience in full. I just hope those kinks aren´t too rough to ruin the rest of the experience.

 

[pixelation]

Is this their first Team ICO game?

I suppose, unless you've never played a Team Ico game then i guess those are valid concerns. But i am willing to bet that the positives far outweigh any potential negatives, which aren't really negatives to me.

 

[webrunner]

the controls in shadow of the colossus were interesting- the sword was extremely clumsy but in such a way as to narratively imply that this may be the first time this character has ever used a sword. conversely, he's completely fine with the bow, which suggests he's a hunter/archer and not a swordsman. His horse is also an indication of being a hunter.

You get all of this (which may or may not be true) just from how the controls feel, which I think is one of the unique things about ico and nico

 

[ViewtifulJC]

The designers probably had a reason for that. But they can be wrong. And if they're wrong, they failed at designing something enjoyable.

There isn't any right or wrong. What about all the people who love LittleBigPlanet? What about all the people who love the slow floaty controls of Super Metroid or the complexity of Guilty Gear's mechanics or the more fiddly UI of classic X-Com or the dual analog sticks of Halo CE or the Gamepad utilization for Wonderful 101 and Star Fox Zero, or the gyro controls for Splatoon, or the context-sensitive complexity of MGS3, or whatever the fuck Kid Icarus Uprising or etc etc. If all these games are enjoyable, or "enjoyable" to people who are fans of that game, were the devs wrong? It sounds like its a personal taste issue.

 

[Shredderi]

Except much like the films of Wes Anderson or David Lynch, Ueda's games have very distinct aesthetic and goals that designed to evoke and reinforce those aspects.

Would saying "is this your first Wes Anderson film? He has a certain style" be a reasonable reply if someone started criticizing the use of minatures or the symmetrical cinematography?

GG's games don't have that kind of overarching pervasive through-line of tone, aesthetic, means of storytelling, and aspects of gameplay that all of Team Ico's games do, so comparing Guerrilla games to Ico's doesn't make much sense

I disagree. One thing that has been a constant force in GG's games is lackluster storytelling and on that I made my example of and I still stand by it.

Wut?

This makes no sense. Killzone 2 has one of the best stories in gaming.

I think you chose the wrong dev for that comparison.

Killzone franchise has some good lore and backstory but the stories presented in their games? I disagree hard here.

I'm not talking about the aesthetics. They're fine. I like the look of it visually.

 

[Forever Changes]

Wut?

This makes no sense. Killzone 2 has one of the best stories in gaming.

I think you chose the wrong dev for that comparison.

What!?!?!

 

[ScOULaris]

Wut?

This makes no sense. Killzone 2 has one of the best stories in gaming.

I think you chose the wrong dev for that comparison.

Damn... you really feel that way about KZ2's story? It's a very common sentiment to criticize Killzone games for their lackluster plots and piss-poor writing. Most fans (myself included) feel that the lore propping up KZ's world is pretty interesting, but we just never get to experience much of it in the actual singleplayer campaigns. It's usually just a bunch of "hoo-rah" marine skirmishes.

 

[Bolivar687]

I disagree. One thing that has been a constant force in GG's games is lackluster storytelling and on that I made my example of and I still stand by it.



Killzone franchise has some good lore and backstory but the stories presented in their games? I disagree hard here.

I'm not talking about the aesthetics. They're fine. I like the look of it visually.

The overall Killzone narrative is one of the most iconic stories of redemption and moral failure in gaming. The plot revelations and character arcs are some of the most unforgettable I've ever experienced.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

There isn't any right or wrong. What about all the people who love LittleBigPlanet? What about all the people who love the slow floaty controls of Super Metroid or the complexity of Guilty Gear's mechanics or the more fiddly UI of classic X-Com or the dual analog sticks of Halo CE or the Gamepad utilization for Wonderful 101 and Star Fox Zero, or the gyro controls for Splatoon, or the context-sensitive complexity of MGS3, or whatever the fuck Kid Icarus Uprising or etc etc. If all these games are enjoyable, or "enjoyable" to people who are fans of that game, were the devs wrong? It sounds like its a personal taste issue.

Right. There are going to be many instances where things get scaled back or the design didn't go exactly according to plan. However, there are also going to be plenty of instances where a deliberate choice was made, plenty of people agree with that decision, but it may not reach mainstream popularity. This is how you arrive at tradeoffs. Do you stick to your guns, or do you try and tweak it to make it more popular? If the only metric of whether or not a game is "good" is sales and/or a Metacritic score, then you go for the latter. But if you're fine existing as a niche product, there's nothing wrong with the former either so long as you have realistic sales targets.

 

[Breakfast at Noon]

All i read was "Did not play like CoD" ok.

 

[Coda]

the controls in shadow of the colossus were interesting- the sword was extremely clumsy but in such a way as to narratively imply that this may be the first time this character has ever used a sword. conversely, he's completely fine with the bow, which suggests he's a hunter/archer and not a swordsman. His horse is also an indication of being a hunter.

You get all of this (which may or may not be true) just from how the controls feel, which I think is one of the unique things about ico and nico

I agree, the controls were clunky at first in SotC but once I got a grip on them the game felt blissfully natural; something only people who stick with the game will understand. Taking out some bosses was cumbersome but I think that was always the point. It made you feel incredible when you finally did it and I never felt like it was unfair.

 

[Nocturno999]

Looks like they are not the only ones concerned about the controls.

Hopefully they will polish it before release.

 

[EatinOlives]

Lets talk about this "good" or "bad" controls thing for a second, because its not really true. There are no such things as universally, objectively good or bad game design. Its just rules and standards we've accepted over time. There are infinite examples in art, music, movies, comics, books, etc that break from traditional standards because they want to create a specific effect, a specific experience for the consumer. And not everybody is gonna like Wreckmeister Harmonies or the Sex Pistols or Flex Mentallo, they might they all suck, but a lot of people love them. They go on the wavelength of the experience they were trying to put forth and they think its great. Nobody's right or wrong here, its just honest statements about their subjective experience.

Ueda is trying to make a very specific experience. He's using the tools of game design to put you in the shoes of this clumsy kid who isn't the master of the world like every other third person mainstream game. He's not great at combat, he doesnt run with perfect accuracy, he doesnt have those perfect Nathan Drake leaps and forgiving controls. Everything this boy does is a struggle, and the controls and camera are the way they are because he wants to give you that interactive experience. He wants you to embody this adventure. And he wants you to do it with a very realistic AI of an pet animal of sorts. A pet that sometimes obeys and sometimes doesn't, who sometimes is immediately helpful and sometimes you gotta pry him to do things your way.

Now you may not like that. You can write a review and talk about what you liked or didn't like, you can go into detail, you can give a 6/10 score, and there ya go. That's your opinion. That is your subjective experience with the game, based on your personal biases and what you were looking for in the game.

But someone else might play it, get on the same wavelength as Ueda and embrace, possibly love the controls and camera and the AI. They think this kind of form matching function is brilliant, and increasingly rare in a mostly safe homogeneous AAA market space. They love the game and give it a 9/10. And that's their opinion. That is their subjective experience with the game, based on their personal biases and what they were looking for in the game.

And you can discuss it, you can argue about it, but don't pretend for one second that the controls are universally bad is some platform you can stand on. They're different from traditional standards, but so is a lot of weird, divisive art and entertainment products. Just be honest with yourself when you're experiencing this thing, that's all.

I don't have anything else to add other than to say I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[Screamapillar]

And if the character controlled fabulously, and Trico immediately came to you and did exactly what you asked every time, they would complain the game is too boring, and it's not realistic, because animals don't always listen or follow directions.

So, you just can't win either way. Either the game is the way it's made, and it's half platformer, half animal pet simulator/ puzzle-solving, or it's half precise platformer/ half super-easy puzzle solving

 

[Mass_Pincup]

That video was intended to be a stream of the first 15-minutes of the game and it was what they promised. Unless the person playing started up the wrong game or played the wrong section of the game I can't see why they would need to deem that "unfit" to be published. That's like saying that Phil was "unfit" to write this preview because he didn't spend 2 hours mastering the controls before forming an opinion.

What does that have to do with viewing Polygon as one entity?

If the video was published then Polygon's editorial was ok with it, hence why we can view Polygon as one entity.

 

[OldRoutes]

There isn't any right or wrong. What about all the people who love LittleBigPlanet? What about all the people who love the slow floaty controls of Super Metroid or the complexity of Guilty Gear's mechanics or the more fiddly UI of classic X-Com or the dual analog sticks of Halo CE or the Gamepad utilization for Wonderful 101 and Star Fox Zero, or the gyro controls for Splatoon, or the context-sensitive complexity of MGS3, or whatever the fuck Kid Icarus Uprising or etc etc. If all these games are enjoyable, or "enjoyable" to people who are fans of that game, were the devs wrong? It sounds like its a personal taste issue.

Humm, well, if you disagree with me with the simple statement of 'right and wrong', then it'll be hard for me to give you more examples, but let's try this : there's a dude that loved Bubsy 3D, does it make the game good in any reality?

I think my point is the intent of the creator versus the result of the creation. You can have the intent of making a game character controller realistically, falling down because you turn too fast, stumbling when the ground is uneven, etc... but if the intention don't match the result, I can safely say that, in other words, 'they fucked up'. It's like latency, right? You can get used to latency, but a low input latency won't help the game unless it was designed and purposely made to be like that. Then you'd have to argue that this is a good idea to begin with.

You have to see it this way : would LBP have been more enjoyable with a tighter jumping mechanics? Maybe. Would it have changed the design and the intention of the creation? I don't believe so. So, objectively, the game could be better.

Calling "tighter controls" objectively better is based on what premise of objectivity here?
If these games had tighter controls, they'd entirely misrepresent the characters they're trying to realize. They wouldn't be the same games. They'd just be part of a larger, more homogeneous pile of action adventure games with characters that all are largely interchangeable because they all control very similarly.

Well, yeah, probably. We'd have to debate the intentions, again. I firmly believe they'd be better for it. If your games relies on an inconvenient camera system and controls for narrative purposes, you better be sure that you can justify it. And I'm not sure most people would've found the game less 'profound' or 'meaningful' if they had tighter control scheme and camera.

 

[BarringGaffner]

Obvious but... people who are extremely hyped for this game need to lower their expectations or will most certainly be disappointed.

I know everyone is excited that it's finally coming, but it seems like an obviously bad idea to force a game that never managed to be finished for years to finally release.

If I am wrong please publicly shame me after release. I hope I am.

 

[nemisis0]

I am in tokyo for the tgs, I will report back my opinion on the controls when I have time to play the demo.

 

[Greatest Ever]

This whole "hype accumulation" over a span of a decade doesn't make sense. It's obvious the game went through development hell, no one's thinking it's going to have ten years worth of quality content and polish.

Shadow of the Colossus is my favorite game of all time. I'm just happy The Last Guardian is coming out, and I fully expect it to be something unique. If it's not great, that's fine, I think it'll be at least good and I'm not letting any preview worry me. I trust Ueda enough.

 

[kaching]

Can't say I've ever saw a mass pinning for a return to the janky as fuck controls all games had back then, but now it's an intentional trait because there are negative previews?

Yes, because the people looking forward to one game that controls similar to only two other games from over a decade ago, are really looking forward to some kind of mass infection of all other games to have the same control scheme.

It's one game, you don't have to act like it's going to get its cooties all over whatever games you prefer. Fun fact; many of these people pining after this game's return to "janky as fuck controls" have played many other games with tighter controls in the meantime, enjoyed them thoroughly, and just didn't feel like that that should preclude other games from trying something different, even if it is a throwback.

 

[Screamapillar]

The game is up against...unfortunately high expectations. A lot of which are undoubtedly from people who like the footage, but have never played a previous ICO game.

ICO games are not like other games. They aren't about highly precise controls, they're more like big, beautiful works of art that are very deliberately made to be exactly the way they are, and you have to accept it for what it is, and enjoy it for what it is. Don't go in assuming you're going to have the ride of your life on the back of a giant hippogriff.

Consider the Mona Lisa. The most famous painting in the world. Have you ever seen it in person? It's *tiny*, very underwhelming. Doesn't stop it from being the most famous painting in the world, though. Doesn't change that at all.

 

[Stevey]

Jeez, the amount of apologists in this thread is amazing.
There's no excuse for shit controls in 2016.
No excuse.

 

[GillianSeed79]

Janky controls I can live with and sometimes overcome, but bad, inconsistent or unpredictable NPC A.I. is one of the cardinal sins of gaming. Bad controls aren't going to make or break this game, it's whether or not Trico's A.I. works as intended or not.

 

[Sakujou]

my problem is that the game does look likr a ps2 game. being in development for so many years, i would've thought that they might have some better graphics in this game. looks and plays like a ps2 game. so why do you ask a premium price for this one?

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Humm, well, if you disagree with me with the simple statement of 'right and wrong', then it'll be hard for me to give you more examples, but let's try this : there's a dude that loved Bubsy 3D, does it make the game good in any reality?

Paul Verhoeven made a movie called Showgirls back in 1995. A NC-17 sexpoliation movie that was almost universally hated and lampooned as one of the worst major releases of the 1990s. It broke away from many standards and ideas of what most consider "good", and was labeled as "bad" by the vast majority who saw it.

However, in recent years, Showgirls reputation has started to turn around in a lot of cinephile circles. It held as an subversive, craft-filled movie made by an intelligent director, utilizing themes of provocation he's been using his entire career. And I've read many long reviews/essays by people's voices I admire, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

Was Verhoeven "wrong" to make this movie, since most people didn't find it enjoyable? Well, it tanked with critics and it wasn't a big box office hit, so there's that regard(of course this standard doesn't even work for LittleBigPlanet, which has a 90+ metacritic and sold millions so lol). But everybody watches movies differently, and people went in with different expectations, different experiences, different values in cinema, and saw something quite good out of something most thought was bad.

Art does not have a one-size-fit-all design book 101 that can never be deviated from. Art and entertainment has no right or wrong, no yes or nos. There are certainly ideas and rules for constructing traditions, but many of the best work is unique, is not enjoyed by most people, is inherently weird and divisive. It does not make them "wrong".

Personally, I'd love to see somebody write an essay on the secret genius of Superman 64 or Bubsy 3D or some shit. Or vice versa, a negative review for a canonized "classic" like Super Mario World or Uncharted 2. That would definitely be interesting. If somebody really loves Busby 3D, they think its good, and they can tell me why, who the fuck are you, or I, or anybody to tell them they're wrong? Or vice versa for a game everybody loves and you don't like it.

 

[DoomGaze]

Jeez, the amount of apologists in this thread is amazing.
There's no excuse for shit controls in 2016.
No excuse.

People train themselves to eat shit and like it all the time.

"It's part of the challenge!"
"He doesn't platform much so it makes sense that you wouldn't have control over him."
"Sixaxis is the best thing that ever happened to anyone."

 

[Apathy]

Lol polygon. Never once player a team ICO game

 

[More_Badass]

Jeez, the amount of apologists in this thread is amazing.
There's no excuse for shit controls in 2016.
No excuse.

There's a difference between shit controls and purposefully awkward controls

 

[John Kowalski]

We should have a gaming gaf month when the use of good and bad and similar words would be forbidden.