• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Metacritic user troll reviews Witcher II

Sage00 said:
"Look to the masters at Bioware" :lol
Click to expand...
badum3id9.png
 
Pfft... Nobody'll take it seriously when there's already 50 other user-reviews that are in the range of 9-10. Why even bother? Must've been a slow day at the office.
 
EatChildren said:
This I'll agree with, but that's pretty much every RPG protagonist ever, largely due to the amount of control given to the player. While Geralt is a fantasy to live through, players are still given the options of making decisions and doing stupid shit.

In the face of BioWare's games, it's hardly a fair criticism no matter how valid it is. BioWare are by far one of the worst culprits in writing two dimensional and/or Mary Sue characters.
Click to expand...


Then let's take back some control? Why are we stuck controlling flat, emotionless dolls with the psychological dept of a jellyfish in order to be able to being fooled into the illusion of choice?

I understand the idea of letting me decide what to do. It's glorious, on paper. But when all my characters don't give a fuck about anything that happens to them, then I won't give a fuck either. RPGs have become emotionless affairs. Give me back the limited choices of the 90s, and give me back the interesting characters and the emotional investment of the character I play.

Sure, keep giving me games where I make my own character and shape the rest of the world with my choices, but not every game has to be like that, expecially those that DON'T let me create my own character. Let me disagree with the toon I'm impersonating. Let him watch him fail. Let me be amazed by him, and not myself. Let him do or think something exceptional that will remain with me over the years, instead of letting me pick from 6 lines every line of dialogue and archive the game as the next episode of "me playing pretend in a 4x4 ft room with 15 tons of luggage chained to my feet".


Incidentally, Hawke is an excellent example of what is wrong with this approach. Default Hawke is an interesting character. He's a mage, and an apostate but with tons of reasons to see the Circle system as something positive. He's clearly divided on the issue, and he's a rational alternative to Anders' fanaticism. He's also a refuge, and an ambitious and smart man who wants to carve a place for himself and his family in the world. He's a family man. He's a businessman. How often do you see that in videogames? He could have been amazing. He wasn't the "I don't give a fuck, except for nice asses and gold" stereotype we swallow all the time.

But no, FREEDOM is what it's all about. So let's demolish the character to give him the option to be a shallow badass in 3 different ways. Why can't you just take the responsability of creating ONE good character I can enjoy? You know, I enjoy novels. I like a good character. JRPGs worked that way for decades. Why must Minsc be more interesting than "me" by default because of "freedom"? Give us a solid lead once in a while. Let my character persuade me that what he's doing is important for him, because that way I'll be involved in the story, and it will be important for me. Let me care because he cares. Otherwise, it's just a game, because I'm a human being, and those are pixels, and they die the moment I shut down the consoles. Don't always pull the lead out of the world, with the excuse of roleplaying.
 
TheOddOne said:
If true, the troll is a dumbass. But lets not take this guys opinion and spin it as Bioware as a whole thats saying it.
Click to expand...
That's the kind of people Bioware is interested in. Every employee represents their company.
 
There is a lot of meta-trolling going on in this thead. It's like the Inception of trolling, layers upon layers.
 
VisanidethDM said:
Incidentally, Hawke is an excellent example of what is wrong with this approach. Default Hawke is an interesting character. He's a mage, and an apostate but with tons of reasons to see the Circle system as something positive. He's clearly divided on the issue, and he's a rational alternative to Anders' fanaticism. He's also a refuge, and an ambitious and smart man who wants to carve a place for himself and his family in the world. He's a family man. He's a businessman. How often do you see that in videogames? He could have been amazing. He wasn't the "I don't give a fuck, except for nice asses and gold" stereotype we swallow all the time.

But no, FREEDOM is what it's all about. So let's demolish the character to give him the option to be a shallow badass in 3 different ways. Why can't you just take the responsability of creating ONE good character I can enjoy? You know, I enjoy novels. I like a good character. JRPGs worked that way for decades. Why must Minsc be more interesting than "me" by default because of "freedom"? Give us a solid lead once in a while. Let my character persuade me that what he's doing is important for him, because that way I'll be involved in the story, and it will be important for me. Let me care because he cares. Otherwise, it's just a game, because I'm a human being, and those are pixels, and they die the moment I shut down the consoles. Don't always pull the lead out of the world, with the excuse of roleplaying.
Click to expand...

A nice, structured, wrpg tale could be interesting. I want a game where you aren't the head of the posse. The leader of the group chooses whether he wants to go (to use Mass Effect as an example) to Noveria or Feros and you have a series of in-depth conversations with the other crew members. You see how these crew members respond differently when they are talking to the commander.

What I'd really want to play, and this was brought up amongst the AusGAF group at one point, would be a pirate rpg. You aren't the captain, you are just some schmo who is a member of the boarding and raiding parties. You level up your skills and abilities based on how you go about life on this ship. Kind of like what Fable promised. But easier to implement given you aren't the one making these massive decisions. Instead you're left with, "I'm about to board this ship do I take two pistols and a dagger, or do I go cutlass and a single pistol?", and whether you live among the rigging & the crow's nest or spend your time in the galley. Could be fun.
 
"CD Project releases another misogynistic jaunt into the Mary Sue world of 'the witcher."

HEHEHEHE.
 
brotkasten said:
People will never accept this. They still think Microsoft's Rare can make games like Killer Instinct or Conker.
Click to expand...
Haha thats so true, every thread Rare is mentioned they get all up in arms about Rares wasted talents.
 
VisanidethDM said:
The world, not, but the character... Geralt is, at least in the first game, the fantasy version of the space marine dudebro. He's just a big, brawny, supersmart, "I don't give a shit about anything", gets-all-the-girls male power fantasy. You don't get much more Mary Sue-ish than that.
Click to expand...

Welcome to videogames. Enjoy your stay.
 
Zeliard said:
Clearly we've delved into jokesville here. No way that guy is serious.
Click to expand...
Isn't that the point? No one thinks this guy really reviewed it honestly. Employees caught score bombing should be reprimanded, it's about as unprofessional as it gets.
 
I admit I hadn't heard the term "Mary Sue" before, but Wikipedia helped out:

[quoteThe term is also associated with cliché such as exotic hair and eye colors, mystical or superhuman powers, exotic pets, possessions, or origins, or an unusually tragic past[/quote]

Then it struck me. That is Drizzt Do'urden!

Disclaimer - not a hater, I really like the Drizzt books. Their formulaic nature isn't lost on me, but they're still fun :)
 
I went to Metacritic first thing this morning to see what the game was getting and saw that, had no idea it was a Bioware employee.

Funny stuff, they get bonuses for that? :P
 
how is this anything other than a user name someone typed into a computer
 
TheOddOne said:
If true, the troll is a dumbass. But lets not take this guys opinion and spin it as Bioware as a whole thats saying it.
Click to expand...

Its an employee of said company. Every employee reflects their company. Its why moral clauses and other such stipulations exist in employment contracts. To say nothing of company policy about firing said employee.
 
VisanidethDM said:
I understand the idea of letting me decide what to do. It's glorious, on paper. But when all my characters don't give a fuck about anything that happens to them, then I won't give a fuck either. RPGs have become emotionless affairs. Give me back the limited choices of the 90s, and give me back the interesting characters and the emotional investment of the character I play.

Sure, keep giving me games where I make my own character and shape the rest of the world with my choices, but not every game has to be like that, expecially those that DON'T let me create my own character. Let me disagree with the toon I'm impersonating. Let him watch him fail. Let me be amazed by him, and not myself. Let him do or think something exceptional that will remain with me over the years, instead of letting me pick from 6 lines every line of dialogue and archive the game as the next episode of "me playing pretend in a 4x4 ft room with 15 tons of luggage chained to my feet".
Click to expand...
The defining trend in videogames for a decade or more now (besides the false gold rush towards 'cinematic' 'experiences') is making the player king.

Sadly, most players are impatient, lazy, easily distracted, and generally incompetent, and the games have been tailored to deal with that, because publishers are terrified no one will buy the games otherwise, and developers are terrified no one will finish them.

So you will not often encounter interesting or engaging protagonists, because they take away from, you know, the real star: that's you, player 1! Go and impose your personality on the world! Oh, I see your personality is not exactly the stuff of elegant and engaging storytelling. Well, you're the boss, can't be helped! And fuck me, if you're this dumb and make such bad choices, we'll just have to make the choices meaningless and the game easier to compensate. But please, please, please don't quit, because we spent a lot of money on the voice actors for the next cutscene.

(Also, when we are given lead characters that are in any way flawed or irritating by design, people complain. Recent example: Alan Wake.)
 
DodgerSan said:
I admit I hadn't heard the term "Mary Sue" before, but Wikipedia helped out:

The term is also associated with cliché such as exotic hair and eye colors, mystical or superhuman powers, exotic pets, possessions, or origins, or an unusually tragic past,
Click to expand...

Then it struck me. That is Drizzt Do'urden!

Disclaimer - not a hater, I really like the Drizzt books. Their formulaic nature isn't lost on me, but they're still fun :)[\spoiler]
Click to expand...
Drizzt as a Mary Sue is dwarfed only by fanfics characters of the author.
 
Saw a ton of this crap on /v/. The very idea of paid shills giving games high scores made everyone furious, so I'm not surprised someone extended it to Metacritic.
 
HeadlessRoland said:
Its an employee of said company. Every employee reflects their company. Its why moral clauses and other such stipulations exist in employment contracts. To say nothing of company policy about firing said employee.
Click to expand...
Maby, but still I personally will not see it as a statement by the whole company.
 
nephilimdj said:
Gamefaqs remove troll reviews unlike metacritic, for whatever reason there happy there site is a internet hatemachine.
Click to expand...

Except metacritic removed tons of trolling Portal 2 reviews complaining about the ARG. You may not agree with what this guy is saying, (and some of it is pure hyperbole) but he does have some valid points about the setting and source material.

I couldn't finish the original The Witcher (And have no interest in the sequel) for much of the same reasons. While I appreciated what they did from a dynamic storytelling perspective, the actual stories being told suffered because I just didn't find Geralt to be compelling as a character.
 
Shake Appeal said:
(Also, when we are given lead characters that are in any way flawed or irritating by design, people complain. Recent example: Alan Wake.)
Click to expand...

It certainly seems as though gamers want to play as Mary Sue characters.

It's also something very easy for hack writers to put down on the page, and let's be honest, there is no shortage of hacks writing for videogames.
 
I can't believe that on GAF of all places people will get fooled by reviews like that. Of course it's trolling. There's no credibility to it.

Fucking hell, what's the matter with some of you?
 
So if this is fake why was that other thread never corrected? Some went on a 12 page rant against BioWare and EA.
 
What evidence shows that the user is indeed a BioWare employee? Even so, it's kind of ridiculous to judge an entire company by one employee. I don't agree with a lot of BioWare's recent decisions, but come on, let's be reasonable.

Who gives a shit about Metacritic, anyway? Personally, I think it's one of the worst things to influence the industry recently.
 
diffusionx said:
It certainly seems as though gamers want to play as Mary Sue characters.

It's also something very easy for hack writers to put down on the page, and let's be honest, there is no shortage of hacks writing for videogames.
Click to expand...
Geralt is a more nuanced character in the books, but as soon as you cede some control of him to the player, it becomes very hard to express, no matter how good the script is. The devs originally planned the first game to be more D&D like, where you make your own witcher, but everyone wanted to be Geralt anyway. It's a shame for the character, but the game was better overall because it had a central identity to focus on. I also thought his English voice actor was kind of bad. I hear it was better in the native Polish though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Resident Evil Requiem currently has the highest user score of all time on Metacritic
Review Hype 
33
596
Deerock71 replied
MetaCritic removes AI written Resident Evil Requiem Reviews
News 
14
512
simpatico replied
Larian studio boss Swen Vincke thinks game reviewers should be graded by people similar to metacritic user scores
Opinion  2
89
856
crackajack replied
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake - Reviews Thread
36
1K
RedC replied
Steam adding option to attach hardware specs to user reviews
News  2
92
727
brokenwatch replied
Top Bottom