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Games Entertainment

Imperfections In Rise of the Imperfects 24

Posted by Zonk from the flawed dept.
Game Girl Advance has an intriguing screed from an EA designer who has a lot to say about what went wrong with the Marvel title "Rise of the Imperfects". From the article: "When you make games for a living, sometimes you play games for fun, and sometimes you play games for research. If you're not playing Marvel Nemesis for research, there really isn't much point to it, I'm afraid. This game shows a lot of signs of being forced out the door before it was ready, which is a fairly common trait of the first game in a new genre for a developer. I'm going to step through my impressions of the game: what didn't work, what did work, and what I'd like to see expanded upon and improved if EA or Nihilistic ever tries to do another fighter in a similar mold (which I wouldn't be opposed to, honestly)." Shocking to see such honest talk from a member of the developing company.
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Imperfections In Rise of the Imperfects

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  • Of all the games ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Winterblink ( 575267 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @02:30PM (#13706746) Homepage
    Of all the games out there that come out this week, why post a review of THIS ONE? It's probably more informative to tell everyone how Virtua Tennis is comming out and is getting ridiculously good reviews from almost everyone, rather than tell us how much a 3D fighting game based on Marvel characters sucks.
    • It's not the game itself that's important, it's the focus on a member of the development community providing his critique of the game, as well as opening the door for a commentary on the industry in general. In athletics, teams and coaches analyze their losses so they can identify their weaknesses and improve. In the gaming industry, this kind of honest self-evaluation is something that's sorely lacking.

      • Re:Of all the games ... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by iocat ( 572367 )
        In the gaming industry, this kind of honest self-evaluation is something that's sorely lacking.

        I have to take issue with this. Just because you don't read about it, or it isn't done for public consumption, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Most games I've seen worked on begin with a clear idea of what to do differently from before, what went wrong on past projects, etc. (Which isn't to say that mistakes aren't repeated, even by people who know what they're doing.)

        Regarding this specific story, it might be

        • I have to take issue with this. Just because you don't read about it, or it isn't done for public consumption, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Most games I've seen worked on begin with a clear idea of what to do differently from before, what went wrong on past projects, etc. (Which isn't to say that mistakes aren't repeated, even by people who know what they're doing.) Thank you for pointing that out! How do you think that games that don't sell well get sequels!

  • Does anyone even work in the EA marketing dept.? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Puhase ( 911920 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @02:36PM (#13706796)
    They obviously pushed development to hit the peak season. But in their rush they seemed to not notice another Marvel liscened game was being released on the same weekend, "X-Men Legends:II". I personally was looking forward to Marvel Nemisis until I read a couple reviews and then saw that the Legends sequel was coming out. How could they possibly feel that an underdeveloped piece of rental-bate could compete with one of the top selling games from last year? I guess I'll find out when I get off of work and get on a computer that doesn't have the "Websense" website filter.
    • How could they possibly feel that an underdeveloped piece of rental-bate could compete with one of the top selling games from last year?

      I'm going to venture a guess and say: the fact that tons of people still buy games that are just as you describe.
    • I have both XL2 and Nemesis and must say I enjoy Nemesis MUCH more, although I haven't had much time to play either much yet. Nemesis is something different, where XL2 feels like just an expansion pack.

      I don't see why reviewers are hating:
      • similar character controls - yes certain characters control very similarly, but guess what.... THEY ARE SIMILAR!!! The important differences are deffinately here: the Hulk controls like a lumbering giant, Spiderman whizzes around like a freaking bug, and Storm flies a
      • I have actually rented and played the game and I do agree that the basic graphical work is well done. So thumbs up to that department. But its a fighting game. And fighting games don't have depth and storyline to back up extremely weak gameplay. I will play Soul Calibur 2 for hours/weeks/eons because I can't get enough of how finely developed the system is. It is a system where continued practice will exponentially increase the players effectiveness at the game. I found myself playing against my friends and
    • Websense filter sucks! i also am locked down at work. but i have found a few little ways around the Websense filter. Here is one site that works well for viewing no "framed" pages at work: http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck/vischeckURL.php it will change the colors on the page so you can view it as if you had a type of color blindness. Also MSN Beta search has THE BEST cashed page viewer that wont get you Websensed. http://beta.search.msn.com/ Or another cool way is the delicatizer.. that changes the wording

  • Why is a candid report so newsbreaking? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TossCobble ( 838424 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @02:36PM (#13706797)

    Having freelanced on and off for a couple of gaming companies, I've honestly felt that the American gaming industry has been unhealthy for a while - young boys making prurient games for young boys, with only the occasional break-out title that's appealing to a more diverse audience. Not that I'm against a little prurient fun now and then, but any objective visitor to E3 will quickly realize the fanboy infatuation and shallow flashiness alongside very little constructive cultural presence (not to mention very few women outside of skin-tight clothing).

    This is the problem with an industry that's engaging in design-by-comittee. Back when all it took was six or seven guys in a garage to create a video game, real innovation was easy. Now with games approaching or surpassing major motion picture budgets, you have tight-fisted executive boards that are terrified of anything outside of the mainstream, and rely heavily on tried-and-true rehashed sequels.

    The well-known fanboy corruption of the video game media has contributed to this culture for a long time now, and only recently are we starting to see a little stabilization in both video game exposure and video game reporting. It's a little embarrasing that an article like this should be remarkable for it's candor, as opposed to being the norm.

  • 'eh' (Score:2)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 )
    She does state she doesn't have any contact to that division at all, so I don't really see what the big deal is about this review. There are lots of employees that are critical of products of their own employer produced. In fact, today's User Friendly comments on that very phenomenon.

    As far as the game itself, yeah, it sounds like pretty standard slapdash game producing. The commercials are the type I hate, with all FMV and no game play. Show me what the game looks like! But yeah, mirroring of charac

  • To each his own. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Edgewize ( 262271 ) on Monday October 03, 2005 @03:01PM (#13706993)
    I disagree with some points, agree with others, but in general, I *like* the game. Sorry that the author doesn't, but hey, to each his own.

    Maybe it's not what he was hoping for, but that's not the same thing as being a failure.

  • A little background. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 03, 2005 @03:08PM (#13707057)
    Meet the author, a recent M.S. grad from CMU who interned as a testing programmer on The Sims 2 and did a little work on Ultima X Online.

    http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/bkj/ [cmu.edu]
  • I thought it was a good one day rental. I rented it and beat it in about 4 and 1/2 hours and took it home. It wasn't great, had a lot of bugs and camera problems, but it was fun.
  • From http://www.answers.com/screed&r=67 [answers.com]:

    A long monotonous speech or piece of writing.

    It's a new word for me. Maybe it's new for someone else.

  • I was honestly watching this game with allot of interest. I really wanted to see how EA would turn out a fighting game. Although I am a huge fan of the fighting game genera, I think this is one of the easier generas to move into at the moment. There are allot of games that you can look at that did very well and at the moment there isn't much competition. Both of those factors in mind makes this game that much more of a disappointment.

    The controls are more like a beat-em up action game (like streets of rage
    • "Genre". Incidentally, its pronounced "John Ra".

      "a lot", not allot.

      The controls are more like a beat-'em-up action game ... than like a fighting game. Comparisons always use "than" . "Then" is for sequences and causation.

      "The thing that allows" -- subject and verb should agree, and later in the sentence the thing is a fact, singular.

      "lacking"

      one character's move list

      The thing that showed me just how bad this game is was the IGN review of it; when IGN (normally very producer-biased) gives an E

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