Tuesday, March 31, 2009

REVIEW: IGN "Sonic and the Black Knight" review

Yes, it's IGN on Sonic again, folks, so I imagine you're already having preconceptions of where this is going. Sad to say, you're probably right on most counts - whining about pointless gimmicks and classic days, listing virtually every example of such as if it were to prove some kind of point, and then finally concluding, as usual, that this outing is the worst addition to the series yet. You're probably not surprised that IGN still holds to this same template for practically all of its reviews on the subject of Sonic, but what might very well surprise you is that this was all just the first paragraph of the review I described there. And it doesn't get much better from there.


Naturally, they do praise the game for its visual and aural qualities, but that's to be expected - it's about the one thing you CAN'T talk shit about in some way. It certaintly ain't Sonic Unleashed, but for a Wii game the graphics are incredible, and the voice acting follows up from the slow-but-steady curve of improvement that Unleashed helped to start up. They also mentioned that the dialogue was pants, which did seem to make sense before I'd tried the game personally, but I can't find any sign of what they're talking about. Unless they have a problem with the way people actually spoke back in those days.


But you don't read a review just to hear people talk about the graphics do you? Of course not, we can already tell from a glance whether or not the game looks good. So now we go over to the gameplay critique, and even though Matt Casamassina does poke apon a decent point every now and then, much of the remainder of the review screams of ignorance and hypocrisy - not like you expected any less from IGN.


Naturally, the first thing Matt picks on is the lack of speed. Now I don't know why speed should be a defining factor in a game featuring swordplay combat, but even so, I get the impression Matt wasn't even trying. Why should working up a decent amount of speed be an obligatory part of the game as opposed to something that requries some actual skill, built apon over the course of the game (however short it is) to use effectively? It's almost as if they just want a single "go fast" button to go through the whole game.


Oh, wait.


Moving onto the control scheme. I suppose it's to be expected that Matt would complain about generic waggle controls, and ordinarily I'd forgive that kind of complain in most circumstances. But what really strikes me as odd here is that Matt himself has reviewed two games previously (Zelda: Twilight Princess, Sonic and the Secret Rings) with virtually identical attack methods and made them out to be some kind of godsend - on the latter game, I might add, he mentioned that the shaking, quote, "feels great - much better than pressing any button". So what's the deal? Is this kind of waggle control a good thing or not? This kind of redundancy only serves to confuse readers, particularly the ones who regularly frequent or even subscribe to IGN, and I can't say it's good for the writer's credibility either.


And even all that said, the reviewer tends to make it out that all you have to do is to waggle furiously to get anything done, again quote "all you have to do is shake continuously and you'll lay waste to your enemies before they are done with their opening dialogs". For many standard stages early on in the game, this is actually true, as most of the initial enemies die in a single hit before they can land a hit. The chances of this approach actually succeeding rapidly falls in probability as the game progresses though, as the game throws lances (making it impossible to do this kind of frontal attack), giants (who grab you if you get too close within slashing range), and of course my favourite, the bosses (who will literally kick your ass 30 times if you attempt to waggle-mash them).


It all makes me wonder if Matt actually attempted to hold the control stick in a direction other than up when attempting to attack - yes, that's right, even though the motion control has the approximate depth of a button press, the control stick still yields completely different attacks if you tilt in other directions whilst attacking, so in a manner of speaking it's exactly the same control scheme as Twilight Princess. So if you enjoyed Twilight Princess, go ahead and get the game anyway because obviously this complaint doesn't bother you all that much. Point is, you'd be lying if the combat was defined by the rate at which a player can shake a Wiimote if only for this reason alone.


And all of that is even ignoring the possibility that the game was built for a casual audience, who probably couldn't care less how indepth the motion control is - they just want to flail a wiimote about and watch a character onscreen swing to the rhythm, simple as that.


I've also heard some complaints of input lag as far as the Wiimote swinging goes. This, again, is actually true, but only partly - whenever two characters clash swords in a boss fight, the game requires specifically timed shakes to parry the opponent's strikes and break the clash (it deserves mention that this process both looks and sounds absolutely fucking awesome, by the way), but I found with the clash inputs that the shake not only has to come well in advance, but also still has to be inputted within the time the shaking Wiimote appears onscreen, making the area of opportunity deceptively small and incredibly confusing. For this reason I have NEVER won a clash outside of the King Arthur fights (and even that was bloody annoying), and it really baffles me as to how I'm expected to get this done.

Outside of that, though? Almost nothing. The swords swings themselves are occasionally slow and slightly unwieldly (even then, it only takes a level or three to adjust), but I've never noticed any actual input lag in the main game throughout the entire playthrough. Did me and Matt actually play the same game here?


Back on the subject of speed again, I should probably reiterate - yes, I know we're talking about The Fastest Thing Alive here, but why should the game be expected to go fast in the first place when clearly the swordplay is supposed to be the main focus of the actual game? Regardless of that though, there are actually ways to play the game on speed, ranging from comboing a Homing Attack and spinning sword move together (which is an awesome combination that tears down peons like a set of goddamn bowling pins) to, oh I dunno, jumping over the enemies altogether. I strongly suspect Matt was so stuck into the "lol waggle" mentality that he didn't give the game any creative thought at all. By Matt's logic you could say the same thing about Devil May Cry - claim that the game is all about pressing X until the other guys die, and completely ignore any possibility of using any other method of attack. Why do reviewers always do this?


Defining Points

- Matt shows strong praise for the graphical and aural displays that the game offers without tying it into the game's overall score. Smart move - if we played games based on their graphical capability we'd all be hailing Crysis as a Halo Killer.

- Writing skill is obviously top-notch, with very few, if any, spelling or grammatical errors throughout the whole two-page review. He also uses some pretty colourful dialouge when he describes how much he thinks the game sucks.

- Actually acknowledges the amount of fanservice put into the game. Considering many people, fans and reviewers alike, bitch about the very same things they asked for years ago, this is incredibly rare for the franchise.


What could've been done better

- The review is overall incredibly inconsistent and bordering on outright hypocrisy. It deliberately overlooks gameplay components for the sake of making the game out to be generic and repetitive, and goes as far as to exaggerate flaws beyond their area of context to emphasise that view.

- It has actually been proven that Matt didn't finish the game fully (up to the secret final boss). To a person with half a brain, this won't matter - one doesn't search through a mountain of shit in hopes of finding a cherry sundae and expect even if they do find one that it still won't have the unmistakable taste and stench of shit all over it - but to less intelligent readers this comes off as obligatory, so they're bound to get the wrong impression easily.

- IGN still stand firmly by its template for Sonic reviews - reference roots, reference modern failings, make current game out to be worst yet. It's so predictable nowadays that it comes off as utterly pathetic and lazy.

- The text descriptions in the score summary was repeatedly edited after the review was published - come on man, if the review ain't even finished then why bother even posting it up on the net?



Overall...

4/10: Briefely touches apon a good point or two only to twist the truth and make the game out worse than it actually is, particularly to its actual target audience. This review is suitable only for deluded anti-fanboys who get a laugh out of people pointing and laughing at Sonic's shortcomings, but even then, you could get better material of that simply by watching Yahtzee's review of Sonic Unleashed.







This review is a PARODY written in the spirit of April Fool's and is not an accurate reflection of anybody's views. If you take anything in this article seriously, you are a complete fucking moron. Good day.