Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
u may as well say "the time i spent on assassin's creed i could have spent learning to become an assassin"

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP..

Also, I never liked God of War.. played through two levels, didnt find pressing square over and over again in different directions entertaining. Hated the "amazing combos" just pressing circle and random combos in slow motion to do some arbitrary move

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think Civ 4 was very disappointing because it substituted complexity for depth, and tacked on a ruinously bad combat system that was vastly worse than games that came out more than a decade earlier.

The thing is, parts of it were wonderful.

[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly did you hate so much about the combat that was different from Civ III? The only differences I remember are that you can see the strengths when attacking in Civ IV, the promotions, and the lack of heroes.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
u may as well say "the time i spent on assassin's creed i could have spent learning to become an assassin"

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP..

Also, I never liked God of War.. played through two levels, didnt find pressing square over and over again in different directions entertaining. Hated the "amazing combos" just pressing circle and random combos in slow motion to do some arbitrary move

[/ QUOTE ]

There you go. I finished the whole game and still felt that way. Two-thirds of it I finished on Normal difficulty, then finally in one annoying fight that I had to re-try a bunch of times I let the game switch me down to Easy.

People say how "you're not getting the full experience" if you don't use the massive combos...but you can do perfectly well in the game without ever using them (at least on Normal through 2/3rds of the game). It's not my fault that I can play it the boring way without using combos, it's the game's fault.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think Civ 4 was very disappointing because it substituted complexity for depth, and tacked on a ruinously bad combat system that was vastly worse than games that came out more than a decade earlier.

The thing is, parts of it were wonderful.

[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly did you hate so much about the combat that was different from Civ III? The only differences I remember are that you can see the strengths when attacking in Civ IV, the promotions, and the lack of heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't play Civ 3, only Civ 2 and Civ 4.

Basically, the combat system is extraordinarily shallow. You have ancient horsemen bringing down helicopters etc., as well. It really feels like some student put it together as an afterthought and somehow managed to sneak it into a potentially very good game. Going over from regular gameplay to the battle should be a highlight of a game, either dominating a game or able to compete with the rest of it. Going into the rudimentary combat model of Civ 4 was like stepping back into the 80's, and for me was a gigantic disappointment that made the game almost unplayable. A game building up to intervals of that was something I dreaded.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
You have ancient horsemen bringing down helicopters etc., as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

The "fortified phalanx in a fort on a mountain taking down a battleship" from Civ 1 is a reason why the team tried to address the combat system in subsequent games. It's pretty much been the same system throughout the lifetime of the games but tweaked to address situations like this.

But who says that some old-school archers that have basically perfected their technique can't put some well-placed arrows into a helicopter that's already pretty busted up? WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THAT, HUH!??!!? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

What do you think would be better? Bonuses for units against other units from previous eras? That wouldn't be unreasonable but it would kinda create a "rich get richer" situation where more technologically advanced civs have an even easier time crushing their opponents than they already do by virtue of having better units.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Realism be damned! In a video game if I get chopped in the head by a claymore, I want it to take at least a few chops before I die. I have a silk beanie of defense on after all!

Same thing for civ. Making combat realistic seems like it'd unbalance the game quite a bit since there'd be an obvious 'best way' to play, just military tech rush.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Re: Oblivion combat.

I love RPGs, especially JRPGs with turn based or semi-interactive combat. But I also think Oblivion's combat really needs to be overhauled. It's not 'deep'/strategic enough for turn based fans and it's not interactive enough for action based fans. It just kind of leaves both sorts of players feeling disappointed imo (does anybody really like Oblivion's combat?)


[/ QUOTE ]
I have only played about an hour and a half, and I can say I don't like the combat at all. You pretty much sum up why right here.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Oblivion sucks because of the levelling system.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think Civ 4 was very disappointing because it substituted complexity for depth, and tacked on a ruinously bad combat system that was vastly worse than games that came out more than a decade earlier.

The thing is, parts of it were wonderful.

[/ QUOTE ]

What exactly did you hate so much about the combat that was different from Civ III? The only differences I remember are that you can see the strengths when attacking in Civ IV, the promotions, and the lack of heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't play Civ 3, only Civ 2 and Civ 4.

Basically, the combat system is extraordinarily shallow. You have ancient horsemen bringing down helicopters etc., as well. It really feels like some student put it together as an afterthought and somehow managed to sneak it into a potentially very good game. Going over from regular gameplay to the battle should be a highlight of a game, either dominating a game or able to compete with the rest of it. Going into the rudimentary combat model of Civ 4 was like stepping back into the 80's, and for me was a gigantic disappointment that made the game almost unplayable. A game building up to intervals of that was something I dreaded.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe my friend was playing Civ II when he spent all his time and effort building a nuclear submarine, only to have it be taken down by an Inuit canoe. He unintalled the game immediately.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Oblivion sucks because of the levelling system.

[/ QUOTE ]just played again, it sucks because of the combat. Its atrocious.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

@ Civ comments ... I agree about the combat system. I always felt there should be some sort of "tech era" adjustment, because even with city walls on a mountain, guys using swords could never defeat tanks

@ Bioshock
This game has the best graphics/water effects on the 360 period. Probably won't see a game reach that kind of level of graphics achievements till next holiday season. That being said, the gameplay got repetitive at times. Yes there are several ways to take down big daddies, but there are also 12 of them in the game, all of which are basically the same fight. Once you figure out the "best" way to kill them there's not much reason to experiment with or use other lesser ways. Also the vita chambers are probably one of the worst respawn ideas in gaming. I feel like there should be some sort of penalty for death besides a walking inconvenience. I think a full blown revert to last save system would have been poor as well, seeing as how the player tends to die at least once for every big daddy fight. The final boss battle was also really disappointing.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Anything on the PS3 or Xbox360:

Why? It's all been done. There is nothing new to be had. I know, Halo 3 looks better and has a few new drivable vehicles. Big deal! Why not just make the graphics card on the PS2 or Xbox replaceable? Solves the whole problem right there!

(And no, I'm not a huge Wii fanboy, I think, coupled together, all of the Wii games might add up to about 2 1/2 real good games. PC gaming made me think gaming with a regular remote was stupid. Wii gaming made me think it was dead.)

Salche, if you haven't watched Zero Punctuation's review of Bioshock, I think you'd like it. If you can understand what he says.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

I'm not going to say I disagree with you, but I do not completely agree either.

I think the games today are just graphics and details and then if there is time during development we'll try to throw a story and some characters together. This is my biggest problem with games today.

I thought the gameplay on God Of War was great and the graphics were good as well, but all off that for a game that gets beat in 8 hours.

What happened to games that were hard and challenging?
There are games that, as a kid, I was never able to beat, like ghosts and [censored] goblins.
I think the game was pretty much impossible without cheating.

Other games made me struggle for damn near forever and when I finally beat it I felt like I really accomplished something. The original Castlevania comes to mind here. Took me forever to finally get to Dracula and when I did I could not beat him right away.

When I finally beat Dracula I was so damn elated that i paused the game until my buddy came home from school (i was,er, sick that day...yeah). WHen he got home I called him and told him he had to come down to watch the ending with me.

Slightly dissapointed when he changed into something else unexpectedly and kicked my arse.... But, another two tries and I killed all of his forms and we were both excited.

When is the last time people really played a game and beat it and felt like they accomplished something?

Final Fantasy 7 was that way for me.
Halo on super duper hardcore mode with my friend was that way (but only because I don't play shooters and suck at them, so this took some time for me).

Games today are regurgated from the past, dressed up a little and offer not a whole lot, especially for single player guys like me.

The new Halo is supposed to be great, online. Same with a lot of the other shooters that are out. Little gameplay, but a fucton to do if you play online.

I'm glad I just picked up Ninja Gaiden (i know, i'm a bit slow on things) because this game is actually going to take a while to beat because it's friggin difficult).


The other day I played some Final Fight and died about 3 million times.
I played the TMNT Arcade game and kept dying there too.

Other than having a blast with the games, I kept wondering why I don't die much in the new games released. Everything has been made easy so you don't have to worry about re-doing anything while you take a tour of the beautiful world that was created. The game play is ONLY there so they can show you the graphics anymore, and that sucks.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
.....

The game play is ONLY there so they can show you the graphics anymore, and that sucks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Couldn't agree more. I just think/hope that this is only a trend though. Graphics are starting to quickly reach a point of diminishing returns and so hopefully will start to become less of a selling point. And there's also an obsession with dumbing down games (*cough* Bioshock cheesa chambers) right now to try to sell them to the 'mainstream'. But the 'mainstream', as being currently targetted (which I do not think is the mainstream at all, but that's another rant), seems unlikely to be interested in playing a game like Bioshock to begin with!

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Well, Bioshock sold like 600k in the first 2 months so I think the mainstream seemed quite interested in it.
I mean what's the alternative to making a game more accessible to the mainstream, I doubt Irrational/Looking Glass would receive funding for new 'shock' games if Bioshock bombed like all their other critically aclaimed games.
Same thing with Fallout 3, it's gonna be in first person and play more like a shooter but I'd still prefer a gimped game to no game at all.

What I do find ridiculous though is the length of singleplayer campaigns in actiongames nowadays: CoD4 5-6 hours, Gears of War 8-10 hours, Heavenly Sword 8-10 hours etc.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

I've written about this here before, but Shadow of the Colossus.

It isn't that great. There are a handful of unique fights, but all the rest of the 16 are very repetitive. The controls get really annoying when you're ready to stab each monster in their sweet spot...it amounts to holding down R1 until the monster randomly decides to stop shaking around, and hoping that he randomly decides to stop before your character runs out of strength.

There is nothing to do whatsoever outside of the boss battles. I see the lonely but beautiful mood they were going for and they do a decent job at it, but it was done better and was better implemented with the gameplay in ICO.

This game appeals to a lot of gamers because they feel that it makes a good case for games being art. This argument makes sense if you just look at a short video of one of the massive majestic monsters tumbling around. But personally, I don't need any case to be made for games being art, I already know they are (and I don't know if anybody should care anyway), and any game that tries so hard is suspect in my mind. Super Mario 64 is a greater piece of art than Shadow of the Colossus despite the simplistic music, laughable plot, and silly, blocky characters.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Super Mario 64 is a greater piece of art than Shadow of the Colossus despite the simplistic music, laughable plot, and silly, blocky characters.


[/ QUOTE ]

I know how much you love SM64, but that just isn't true.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oblivion sucks because of the levelling system.

[/ QUOTE ]just played again, it sucks because of the combat. Its atrocious.

[/ QUOTE ]

I really don't get all the hate on this. I played through like half of Morrowind (was kind of a noob to the Elder Scroll series at the time so there was still a lot I didn't experience) and most of the content in Oblivion (although not the expansion packs cause my 360 got fried and Best Buy made me give my HD back with my 70 hour character on it when I got it replaced [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]) and I never once felt like the combat system was taking me out of the game or anything. I still found a lot of fights challenging and engaging. Perhaps you guys are relying on combat itself too much? I used a lot of magic spells in the course of combat and figuring out the best use of mana to win a fight required a decent amount of strategy sometimes.

Also, as for the "it's all been done before" post, I disagree. Most of the innovation in gaming does seem to happen on the PC platform, as my most memorable gaming experiences (Morrowind, SS2) have been PC games even if they've spawned console counterparts. Cross-development has become a lot more popular though with the advent of the Xbox and the 360 so I think a lot of that innovation has already made its way onto consoles and will continue to do so. All signs so far point to Mass Effect being this type of game.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Well, Bioshock sold like 600k in the first 2 months so I think the mainstream seemed quite interested in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd disagree with that point. I think 'only' selling 600k actually supports my point that it didn't really have much 'mainstream' appeal. Definitely not the 'mainstream' that needs to have games dumbed down for them, at least.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]

this would be a valid point if you were already a competitive shooter, and you spent your free time playing FPS video games instead of at the range. if someone isnt a guitar player i wouldnt expect them to understand, but when you see your guitar sitting there next to you and you re playing a game modelled after guitar playing it makes you feel bad for wasting time when you could be practicing. i dont think any of us here that play poker for money would consider spending much time playing a poker video game even if it somehow was really fun

[/ QUOTE ]
But if you're not aspiring to be a professional musician, what's the point in learning the real guitar?

In the end, all hobbies are a waste of time. That's the very definition of a hobby, something you do to occupy yourself when you're not making a living. In and of itself, practicing a real guitar is no more useful to your everyday life than practicing a guitar video game.

The thing is that some hobbies are more respected than others. Learning a foreign language or reading fine literature is something that others will respect more than watching porn or playing fantasy football.

But just because others think of playing video games as less valuable than playing an instrument doesn't mean that a particular individual ranks them the same way.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Halo 3 sucks. So does Halo 2 and Halo 1.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Oblivion sucks because of the levelling system.

[/ QUOTE ]just played again, it sucks because of the combat. Its atrocious.

[/ QUOTE ]

The levelling system actually rewards you for choosing as your major skills things you never use.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
But if you're not aspiring to be a professional musician, what's the point in learning the real guitar?

[/ QUOTE ]

To get laid?

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

yeah, i remember i had one of the Castlevania's paused for month's at my dad's house so i could continue each time I went over there

and my stepmom would watch me beat it, or wizards and warriors, etc etc

at after-school everyone would gather around the tvs and watch others play games and provide tips and support and it was just much more of a group activity...people putting their heads together to try to beat the harder lolo levels and such

these days it is much more about competition than cooperation it seems...and games are generally more geared toward individual or online than groups of players

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Super Mario 64 is a greater piece of art than Shadow of the Colossus despite the simplistic music, laughable plot, and silly, blocky characters.


[/ QUOTE ]

I know how much you love SM64, but that just isn't true.

[/ QUOTE ]

I consider video games to be art, and I think this is pretty clearly true ("high" art is another, obnoxious matter) except arguably in cases like Pong or Tetris. The game as a whole is art, not just the graphics, sound, and/or narrative. Since SM64 is a better game than Shadow of the Colossus, it's a better work of art. If you consider Shadow of the Colossus to be an overall better game than SM64 then that's fine, but I don't think that's what you meant.

If I assumed correctly about your logic, wouldn't the (apparently mediocre) Assassin's Creed be a greater work of art than Super Mario Galaxy?

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

I'm obviously working off a different definition of art. To me art is a medium used to convey an emotion or experience. Shadow of the Colossus is infinitely better in that regard than SM64 and that's all I was referring to.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

To me, that defines craftsmanship more than art. Any old work of even quite middling quality can convey stuff. So can a line of computer code or a spaghetti dinner. Sufficiently non-awful craftsmanship will suffice for that.

Art can be hard to define, and to some extent depends on the level of experience and perception of the viewer himself. But I think what lifts something to the level of art is insight and possibly intent. Or something like that. Real art has the potential to change you, shake you up, or make you think or feel differently than you have before -- sometimes even against your original biases and preconceptions. It has an element of challenge to it that mere good craftsmanship, however enjoyable, is not sufficient to provide. It is really about something. Mere craftsmanship, by contrast, can easily be about nothing or at least nothing more than its own workmanlike technical perfection, and can render what could have been an artistic experience into a tidy little dead-end. You can sometimes have artists who are poor craftsmen, and great craftsmen with no artistic spirit to speak of in them. The motivations driving the two types of creators can be different, even opposite.

So I think there has to be a little bit of daring and desire to say something true in art, the absence of which isn't necessarily felt in lesser works or by those who are simply accomplished craftsmen.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

Wrote this on another forum just now: Eternal Darkness.

It's repetitive (recycling the same locations over and over in different time periods with only minor differences), there's little variety in level design, everything looks the same except for the main house, and the "psychological effects" are just gimmicks. The fact that some people used to argue that ED was better than the Resident Evil remake is a huge joke...it's not a remotely close competition. Part of the reason ED was praised so much in '02 or whenever was because it was one of the first "mature" GC titles and was one of the only decent games on the system overall.

Speaking of art and "high art" and evoking emotion and the Resident Evil remake, the shark tank sequence in the REmake is incredibly brilliant, and I would show it to a guy like Roger Ebert who thinks that games could never be "high art" (whatever that is) because the auteur (sic) does not have complete control.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

I gave up on Oblivion when I realized that he game was at it's core, just closing Hellgates over and over again, and they were all too similar. Also the pacing of the game is totally bizzare. It wants you to wander about and do side quests, but there's this amazing urgency of the Hellgates that makes you feel like an [censored] for doing anything other than saving the world.

I liked the engine, combat didn't bug me, and think it's a neat game, it's mostly just the plotting that blows (and yeah, the monsters leveling with you is really, really dumb).

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I gave up on Oblivion when I realized that he game was at it's core, just closing Hellgates over and over again, and they were all too similar. Also the pacing of the game is totally bizzare. It wants you to wander about and do side quests, but there's this amazing urgency of the Hellgates that makes you feel like an [censored] for doing anything other than saving the world.

I liked the engine, combat didn't bug me, and think it's a neat game, it's mostly just the plotting that blows (and yeah, the monsters leveling with you is really, really dumb).

[/ QUOTE ]

To beat the main quest you only have to close 2...

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

But the way the plot's written, I feel compelled to close them all. What kind of hero ignores the flaming portal to hell when they ride by it? The whole open ended nature of the game is at total odds with the plot.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
But the way the plot's written, I feel compelled to close them all. What kind of hero ignores the flaming portal to hell when they ride by it? The whole open ended nature of the game is at total odds with the plot.

[/ QUOTE ]

What I'm saying is that closing all the portals is a sidequest like any other side quest. Plus, who says you need to play a hero? I have a dark elf vampire that is ridiculously powerful and that 'character' wouldn't close the portals anyway.

I really liked this game because you can go do the linear plot or you can do any amount of sidequests. I don't see how they contradict eachother...

That being said I know it isn't the best game ever as the levelling system kind of sucks (because you can manipulate it so much) and the monsters level up w/ you. I do like that you can control the difficulty on the fly and you don't have to touch the main quest. I am not even close to finishing this game because all I've been doing is side quests.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

I think the reason the levelling system sucks is because it encourages you to manipulate it. If you don't cheat the system you end up sucking while all the monsters kick your ass.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think the reason the levelling system sucks is because it encourages you to manipulate it. If you don't cheat the system you end up sucking while all the monsters kick your ass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tweaking the difficulty really gets around this, I usually tweak it every couple of hours depending on what I'm doing and where my character is at.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I gave up on Oblivion when I realized that he game was at it's core, just closing Hellgates over and over again, and they were all too similar.

[/ QUOTE ]

IIRC you don't have to clear more than a few of the Oblivion gates to beat the game. And once I cleared a bunch of the gates I didn't feel like that much of an [censored] for leaving others be [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I also hated the levelling system (prob mentioned that before) and another consideration w/ it is that it only takes level into account. For example, I was largely struggling against a lot of monsters at whatever level I was at, and then I went off and started doing the Daedric Shrine quests. After doing a few of those and becoming equipped with Goldbrand and a bunch of other baller equipment, I was laying waste to everything in my path and combat was no longer much of a challenge. The system ignores the fact that different characters at the same level can have completely different strengths.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

For you guys that dont like the levelling system in Oblivion, there are many mods that will fix. The best imo is Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. This is a pretty massive mod that does a whole lot more than just change the levelling system. The sheer number of mods for this game is staggering and greatly adds to the replay value of it.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
For you guys that dont like the levelling system in Oblivion, there are many mods that will fix. The best imo is Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. This is a pretty massive mod that does a whole lot more than just change the levelling system. The sheer number of mods for this game is staggering and greatly adds to the replay value of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is great if you have it on PC [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For you guys that dont like the levelling system in Oblivion, there are many mods that will fix. The best imo is Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. This is a pretty massive mod that does a whole lot more than just change the levelling system. The sheer number of mods for this game is staggering and greatly adds to the replay value of it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which is great if you have it on PC [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

There is that... [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

That brings up something that's bothered me about x-platform development on PC and X360: WHY ARE DEVS NOT MAKING 360 GAMES MODDABLE? Xbox Live is a dynamic platform which could infinitely extend the lifetime of any game by, say, freely distributing a level editor or SDK or whatever on PC. People could then make their own levels or mods or what have you and submit them to the developers, who could (with minimal effort) perform quality control on whatever people are submitting and put the best submissions up for free download on Xbox Live, thus infinitely extending the life of their product with no work on their part. WHY IS THIS A BAD IDEA? HOW ARE PEOPLE NOT DOING THIS ALREADY???

As much as I love HD gaming it [censored] kills me that when I buy a 360 game I'm pretty much getting what's in the box and nothing more (with the exception of a DLC pack or two down the road for more popular titles). PC gaming allows for so much extensibility by the user community and the foundation is there for this to happen on 360 as well, but NONE OF THE DEVELOPERS ARE [censored] USING IT. Bungie is taking a step in the right direction by including Forge in Halo 3 but there's only so much you can do with that, and using the same kind of PC tools (yes, even if they might scare some of the noobs with technical complexity) will result in much better work done by the community.

Re: Write a Brief Dissenting Opinion About a Popular Title Thread.
 

[ QUOTE ]
That brings up something that's bothered me about x-platform development on PC and X360: WHY ARE DEVS NOT MAKING 360 GAMES MODDABLE? Xbox Live is a dynamic platform which could infinitely extend the lifetime of any game by, say, freely distributing a level editor or SDK or whatever on PC. People could then make their own levels or mods or what have you and submit them to the developers, who could (with minimal effort) perform quality control on whatever people are submitting and put the best submissions up for free download on Xbox Live, thus infinitely extending the life of their product with no work on their part. WHY IS THIS A BAD IDEA? HOW ARE PEOPLE NOT DOING THIS ALREADY???


[/ QUOTE ]

It would be hell trying to sift through all the crap that people would send in. I think developers would rather sell you a new game.