IGN Beyond Good and Evil Review...

[martTM]

What has cracked over at IGNCube? It is clear to anyone that they have some kind of Anti Nintendo vendetta at present. And that isn't a Pro Nintendo opinion, its plain to see. They seem to constantly be taking swipes and digs. You would think it was Team XBox or a rabid Anti Nintendo fan site.

Just so people know and don't go off (too much) when it comes to slagging off IGN, the BG&E review appears to be a cross-site one - it's the same one (word for word) that appears on IGNPS2 and IGNXbox. As such, you have to assume that whoever reviewed it was writing it for (most likely) the PS2 site and then the others just ported the text straight across. Still, that just highlights sloppy production values on the part of IGNCube - you'd have thought they might have actually read the text and made some changes before putting it up live.

[JibberX]

Same for the Prince of Persia review, they seem to have about 3 console specific paragraphs, then other paragraphs slip into multi format, or even complete bollocks, like controlling the camera with the left stick (is that right?)

[PeteJ]

I don't care that it's IGN, but when reviewing a multiformat game 3 times, rather than just write three console-specific paragraphs for each platform, I'd much rather three entirely different reviews tackling the game from three different angles.

Like we did for Soul Calibur 2, in fact.

Saying that, IGN are in the position to please the fanboys. They have been for years. I expect they'd get confused if Cube and PS2 had two different opinions...
It's a shame, as IGN are in a prime position to actually improve gaming, but they are just helping things come down.

[Che Musashi]

Please don't give IGN attention they don't deserve. I noticed that sameness about the Prince of Persia reviews. I didn't know that suddenly Zelda was the suxorors though, I guess it didn't have enough Pig sidekicks or whatever.

If look close enough at IGN cube and IGN xbox, they are one and the same. It's disapointing to see letters about Halo 2 in the cube section but what can you do.

BTW I made the last bit up, but its not far from the truth.

[Max M]

IGN Cube's problem is that they're getting caught up in the anti 'kiddy' mentality that's plagued this generation of gaming. I realised this when I read their Billy Hatcher review which was full of snide comments about the game being too 'bright' or the music being too cheery. They also wrote off Kirby Air Ride and Donkey Konga the minute the first screenshots were released.

Reading their 'Nintendo difference' articles, it's clear Matt and Fran just want the GameCube to be a PS2 clone. I hope they're happy when all games start to look the same.

[Crispin]

IGN Cube's problem is that they're getting caught up in the anti 'kiddy' mentality that's plagued this generation of gaming. I realised this when I read their Billy Hatcher review which was full of snide comments about the game being too 'bright' or the music being too cheery. They also wrote off Kirby Air Ride and Donkey Konga the minute the first screenshots were released.

Reading their 'Nintendo difference' articles, it's clear Matt and Fran just want the GameCube to be a PS2 clone. I hope they're happy when all games start to look the same.

OH GOD! I hope not! At least in Doshin the Giant I could always see where I was going. No matter how much I detested the game, the simple notion of sunlight shining on a TV screen was not, surprisingly the game's worst enemy.
But SOCOM, oh man, hey if I'd wanted pitch blackness I'd stick my head in a bucket and bang on it going:
"Woo, woo, I'm Carmack, watch me release a game where you have to up the Gamma levels if you don't want to see your lunch again, after eating it"

Sorry, dark games do my head in. Dark with a torch or visual aid = fantastic.
Dark with nothing = pass the sick bag, I think I just played an id game.

[scottcr]

Exactly... this whole "mature" nonsense that we are seeing this gen is getting on my wick... Jak and Daxter 2, made more "mature" gets a great rating.. IGN, imho, because of their popularity are trying to push an agenda of convincing nintendo that their games are "teh kiddie".

The clearly dislike Nintendos attempts to make games more accessible.. complaining that the control of MKD is too straightforward, it's not hardcore enough...

.. but.. what about FUN?

I'm getting sick of it... in 5 years time we'll be moaning about the good ole days as we play faceless mature game number 1332.

argh

[kuran]

I know. Its disgusting.

Someone needs to write an article about this issue.

[Crispin]

Exactly... this whole "mature" nonsense that we are seeing this gen is getting on my wick... Jak and Daxter 2, made more "mature" gets a great rating.. IGN, imho, because of their popularity are trying to push an agenda of convincing nintendo that their games are "teh kiddie".

The clearly dislike Nintendos attempts to make games more accessible.. complaining that the control of MKD is too straightforward, it's not hardcore enough...

.. but.. what about FUN?

I'm getting sick of it... in 5 years time we'll be moaning about the good ole days as we play faceless mature game number 1332.

argh

Ah, so did you like Mario Kart 64. Personally I loved it. Such a simple handling dynamic, such a beautiful game. Perhaps the singleplayer mode was easy, but I had a lot of fun and it lasted me a lot longer than harder, more gruelling games.

And Rainbow Road was quite possibly the most beautiful track I have ever played. It is between this and the sublime Moto GP, (again, simple dynamic which gets more complicated if you decide to switch to manual and cockpit view - but that is not fun) that I have any faith in racing games.

That was lovely. As fun as Mario Tennis. In fact I would say it was the DOAXBV of it's time. Beautuful, fun, relaxing. If you want to give yourself a hard time, play time trial, but just drive by otherwise and have a good time.

Ah, I have happy memories of my parents and siblings talking about a game where you drove around a field with moles and cows, and upon asking them about it, they said they didn't know what it was. I thought it sounded brilliant and was heart broken that I didn't know the name of this title. It was a wind up, of course, they knew what it was. The bastards had bought it for me as a present and liked it so much that they were playing it whilst I was out of the house. Gawd bless 'em. My Dad loved racing the train round the tunnel as did I.

I also loved Diddy Kong Racing - the yin of MK64's yang. Not saying that one style of play is better than the other. But that they complement one another beautifully.

[npg]

I've been looking forward to BG&E for the past year now because I love Michel Ancels imagination and his whimiscal style. Rayman 2 and 3 were good but this should put him up there with the best and deservedly so.

On another note, I have to say I think EA and Ubisoft are one of the most consistent developer's out there lately.

[Crispin]

I've been looking forward to BG&E for the past year now because I love Michel Ancels imagination and his whimiscal style. Rayman 2 and 3 were good but this should put him up there with the best and deservedly so.

On another note, I have to say I think EA and Ubisoft are one of the most consistent developer's out there lately.

Well for the past year, Ubisoft has been showing promise. It began with SC last year, flawed but nice touches all the same. GR was also flawed, but had nice touches. But put 'em together and you have uber game daddio! Man, the RS3 demo was fun.

Yeah, as crazy as it sounds after recently watching the (E3?) Trailer for Sims 2, I'm excited. Clearly EA have some sense of humour.

[npg]

Off topic slightly, but did anyone else manage to get the Good and Evil PC demo running? I installed it off this months PC Gamer DVD edition and the damn thing keeps locking my system up.

Apparently the European demo has issues with AMD chipsets and there is a patch but that did sweet fu*k all.

Anyone?

[toy_brain]

I bought BG+E yesterday but havent had a chance to play it yet (damn night-shift work). I've been looking forward to it ever since I saw the first trailer on PSM2 years back. Once I've finished work and gotten some shut-eye I'll be able to have a blast.
I took a look at IGN's video review of it. It wasnt fantastically in-depth and did feature a lot of the reviewer saying "this game is just really great" (which is promising despite being monotonus), but I did get to see a lot of the game in action which is kinda what I was after.
As for their copy-and-paste multiformat review policy, well its probably best for them to have a unified overall score for the game across all 3 platforms, than to have 3 different reviewers all with different tastes and opinions, giving 3 different scores for reasons other than just graphical differences between versions.

[Ghost]

There Mario Kart review scares me, a 7.9 from ign is really like a 4 or 5 lol

Yeah but IGNCube's reviews are pretty bad as of late, the main gripe with the game was that it was too childish and that it had no extra skins for karts.

It's a more simply designed racer, and while that's okay for a new audience of children, it does little for the millions of hardcore fans that have grown up.

[ryodi]

It's a more simply designed racer, and while that's okay for a new audience of children, it does little for the millions of hardcore fans that have grown up.

Damn straight. Finally someone telling it like it is

As for BG&E, I am really looking forward to it when it hopefully arrives on the GC sometime next year.