I was never a Metroid fan, but I tried Prime for a bit as a demo at a store. I know it never claimed itself to be a first person shooter, but the complete lack of circle strafing just utterly turned me off.
Veering off topic here some but…
Wasn’t the whole combat mechanic of Prime more or less circle strafing, it’s been a while since I played it, but from what I remember you locked on to an enemy and ran around and jumped while firing away with your diverse arsenal.
Not asking for this to be an argument… just pointing out that anecdote is still not substitute for research 
Now, online forums (this one included) are hardly a place to look for level-headed, neutral opinions. People who are generally motivated to visit gaming-specific forums (nevermind actual game specific ones) have already placed themselves outside the average by doing so. I have friends that I dearly trust as well - some that are highly educated in comparative media. However, their opinions are, just as you state, merely opinions. But, how do you turn opinion into something valuable? Large data samples.
Are the rankings on gamerankings.com completely accurate? Of course not. However, it is the most unbiased, closest-to-scientific method we have of measuring a game’s overall appeal. The issue with “highest ranking games of all time” is that each game is ranked as it stands during release - not how it stands the test of time. Just like it is impossible to review a game that was made 20 years ago (you simply don’t have the proper context), you cannot look at the score of a game that was reviewed 5 years ago in an inappropriate context. What the score simply means is that at the time of its release, it was generally considered to be one of the best games released during that time.
The issue with looking for a mass of opinions from “Metroid fans” is, well, how does one define who is and who isn’t a fan of Metroid? Where is the cutoff point for how much one has to like a game before their opinion is considered? Does one have to take into consideration that perhaps some Metroid fans would rather Metroid never change? Or should you judge the game on how well it recreates a similar experience for a new generation of gamers? Should the game be judged on its past, or on its attempt to recreate an experience in a modern context?
These are all issues that are further highlighted by simply only taking the opinions of a small (and non-impartial) slice of the gaming population. You could potentially take all the user reviews from gamerankings.com, gamefaqs.com, IGN.com, GameSpot.com, etc and collate them into a single number. However, how do you judge consistency of judgement criteria? With “official” reviews, each website is relatively consistent in the scoring criteria (i.e. one website may treat 5 as a true average, whereas another may say it is 7), so even with deviations from a standard, you have consistency from title to title. With user reviews, there is no consistency between who is doing the reviews and what the review standards are.
Without doing a massive poll with the gaming audience in general and providing a clear and concise set of criteria (likely multiple choice) with which to judge the game, you’d never get an appropriate data set.
dragoon lover: Oh, and there is a circle strafe - sorta. You just have to lock-on to do it.
Well there you go, in other words my statement could only ever have been an opinion? 
And thus, the circle is complete and life begins anew
Here’s one more opinion though, the mainstream reviews for MP were transparently boosted by circumstantial factors. And your point about the sales for the games is another part of that fallout, it’s very anomalous for a follow up to a supposed breakout hit to sell much less than the original. It indicates, quite strongly IMO, that of the people who bought those millions of copies of the first game, a very unimpressive percentage loved it enough to be hyped for more. As I said I don’t think it’s a bad game exactly, but the whole episode represents a major blow to the integrity of the media for this industry. Again, IMO…
I thought Metroid Prime was the best shooter for the GC. Personally, I’m a metroid fan and I like most of the series of it.
I think its a good idea for MP to be 1st person shooter and the same but harder challenge. The only thing I don’t like is backtracking.
I think MP is a sucess along with its sequel, Echoes. I dont know why you guys complain about it since you guys also complain other games not from Sega.
I can’t wait for Metroid Prime 3 along with Super Smash Brawl and FFXIII.
I tend to be more trusting of the opinions of forum-posters than the opinions of professional reviewers. Especially when I have a good understanding of what titles he/she has enjoyed in the past.
Also, sites such as Gamespot often will have well thought out opinions of a game, but we can’t expect professional reviewers to have played and properly understand past titles and history of a game series - something that is crucial in determining whether the game is a success as part of the legacy of the series in question.
Panzer Dragoon Orta is a prime example of this. There were mixed opinions in the PD community over whether it was a good chapter of the Panzer Dragoon series. I personally thought that it was, and so did a majority of professional reviewers, but as Panzer Dragoon game that doesn’t automatically make the game a success.
As for Metroid Prime itself - from what I’ve played of it, it seems like they’ve done a good job moving that gameplay from 2D to 3D, especially when you consider how easy it would have been to turn into into a Halo clone. Whether it is better than the previous games or not I can’t say without experiencing both old and new games from the franchise in greater detail.
Not entirely. The average sequel sells only 50% of the original game. However, big hits tend to break that trend. Of course, you have the occasional game like GTA or Halo where sales of the second exceed the sales of the first, but that is more of an anomaly. The fact that (at least in the US) Metroid Prime 2 sold 80% of the original shows that the vast majority of people who bought and played Metroid Prime enjoyed it enough to play another. Now, this next part is just my opinion, but I think the reason why the sequel didn’t do even *better8 was the fact that the sequel didn’t try to do anything above and beyond, so to speak.
This is the difference between figuring out what games you are going to personally like vs a systematic and as-objective-as-possible overview of a game’s general acceptance. I don’t tend to follow reviewers opinions when I buy games, either - I look for word of mouth. But you have to separate the two when talking about overall trends and whatnot (as is the case in this thread).
Again you are using a lack of data as an argument, but you yourself are being selective about what available data is relevant. Will you truly argue that the sales of MP are the most objective a gage of it’s success, as an experience, as we can have? Because in the context of the time of it’s release, when so many people were scrambling for excuses for the Gamecube, and with such a long build up of hype, and so many reviews calling it perfect… actually if I remember right it was Gamespot that actually put up an honest rating at first and then retracted it… it’s sort of a JFK situation to me. Specific conclusions may be necessarily conjecture, but to fail to see that there’s something wrong with this picture is an admission of limited objectivity.
Well, of course. Even in scientific experimentation, you only allow data that happens in a controlled environment. When there are unknown variables, you have no way to account for them. Remember - I am differentiating between personal tastes and cold/critical analysis.
Yes and no. Sales, particularly for a sequel, are as good a tool for measuring how people feel about the previous release of a game as any. However, that is because of the context of those sales. Sales over a long period of time and/or over a series of games is more important than a dry sales number. Take, for example, something like State of Emergency. Released right in the wake of GTA3, people bought into the hype. Sold close to 500k right out of the gate. But, the game never sold past 700~800k (too lazy to look up the numbers right now). Sales tanked after word of mouth got out that the game didn’t live up to the hype. State of Emergency 2? Sold less than 40k units. It’s all about context.
Now, the issue is the parameters by which you are measuring success. Logic would dictate that since Metroid Prime has been rated as a 9.0+ and Metroid Prime 2 was rated over 9.0 as well, the quality is high. While there are individuals who may not agree with this assessment, the average shows that they are the exception to the rule. Now, this shows the game is a critical success (which differs from quality, experience, etc). Sales indicate that the game has performed well. Sales of the sequel indicate that the vast majority of the people who purchased the first game were satisfied enough to purchase the second game. This shows that Metroid Prime has either kept up the brand loyalty, or has established new brand loyalty to that IP, as the return purchase rate is far above the norm. This shows the game to be a financial success.
However, actual quality of the game and/or quality of the experience is completely subjective. There is no way to judge this in an objective way. None. So, yes, sales and review scores are the only readily available means of judging the overall success of a game. You could hold massive focus groups to add another data element to the formula, but as for what is readily available, that is the best you can do.
Subjective. People were scrambling for excuses for the N64 and for the Xbox. Does that diminish the quality of games like Zelda:OOT, Mario 64, or Halo?
And sure, long build up of hype can lead to initial sales success (see above example of State of Emergency), but the success of the sequel for MP shows that it wasn’t a fluke.
[quote=“Parn”]
Why don’t you learn to be concise and to the point with your posts. Maybe there’ll be less confusion and less arguments if you have that ability.
Tagging “unfortunately” alongside your earlier statement regarding Sega of Japan not developing these supposed titles that are under development implies many things, but can’t help but be a strange concern when Sega rakes in the cash whether they develop the games internally or not. Sega benefits no matter which way you look at it, so it kind of narrows down the implications.
So assuming you aren’t blowing smoke, what benefit is there to Sega developing these games internally versus outsourcing, other than having the title screen list Sega exclusively?[/quote]
My original point stands. If you have the intelligence to understand other people’s posts you wouldn’t keep flying off the handle. Your making out that my posts on this topic indicates that i feel that the outsourced games will be rubbish when i made it clear that i didn’t feel that way.
Here’s a reminder…
[quote=“Goonboy Panzer”]
Don’t get me wrong i’m not saying that these games will be rubbish far from it i’m glad that SOA is back producing games but i’d just like to see more titles from Sega J as well.[/quote]
Now learn to use your eyes properly,you’ll get less hassle that way.
That really goes without saying and still leads to the assumption that i think that the outsourced games won’t be great. The issue is that the games i’ve literally played in the last 22 years of my life won’t be coming from Sega Japan as much as they use to be.
[quote=“Abadd”]
Conjecture. Sega has done direct series revivals (Panzer, Shinobi, PSU, etc) that are not “gaiden” style games, but are supposed to be a proper part of the main line.[/quote]
[quote=“Abadd”]
Even so, there are a fair number of titles developed internally at SOJ still, even aside from the arcades: PSU, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Yakuza, just to name a few major ones.[/quote]
Its obvious i’m not talking about those titles. I did make it clear the majority of the games i’m concerned with are from the Sega west side of things.Like GOLDEN AXE and the upcoming RAGE title i’d like to see what the Overworks team could do with these games since most of the programmers that did SHINOBI and SOR are at the team formally known as Overworks. However i did mention the SHINING FORCE games since that is one of a few examples of a series not adhering to the leagacy of its predecessors which is why i pointed that out also. it stems from the problem that sega J aren’t releasing many titles made internally on consoles lately which hopefully may change this year.
[quote=“Abadd”]
I think this is a point we can agree on Yakuza is quite a good game, though. Just think of it as an RPG set in modern Japan, and not as a GTA-style game, and you’ll have a lot of fun.[/quote]
I’ve no problem with YAKUZA apart from the atrocious over the top dubbing which is why i perfer the japanese version.
Original point nothing. I’d appreciate it if you’d play along and answer the question. What benefit is there to Sega developing these games internally versus outsourcing, other than having the title screen list Sega exclusively? After all, this seems to be a really big deal for you, unfortunately.
Or we can continue the “if you had intelligence” and “if you knew how to read” internet forum debating method circa 1997, which would ultimately come back to your dodging the question.
Edit: And since you keep bringing it up, I never once accused you of referring to Sega of America’s development of games as rubbish. Go ahead and look through the posts. The only thing I’m accusing you of is thinking that the development of these games would be better if they were coded by Sega of Japan instead of Sega of America. And once again, answer the question.
Abadd, that’s your whole problem, that you’re differentiating between personal tastes and cold/critical analysis. You asked what my statement was based on and I expressly acknowledged it’s subjective basis. And your truckloads of generalities serve no purpose other than obfuscation of an argument about a very specific example. They really are aprapo of nothing in the scheme of things, but it’s served your purpose well. Good work in that respect. 
I certainly agree that calling any game “quality” is a subjective statement, but doesn’t that also apply to review scores? Even if the data gathered by GameRankings.com or similar sources shows a game to be a certain score (based on an average), that average score is still based entirely on opinions. And, in reality, those opinions are made up from only a small percentage of the gaming population - they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either causal or hardcore games, just a small group of professional reviewers.
There’s really only one main type of gaming success that you could really gather from raw numbers, and that’s how successful the idea of a game was at getting people’s attention, and that would be based purely on sales. That doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the game itself, unfortunately.
[quote=“Solo Wing Dragon”]
I certainly agree that calling any game “quality” is a subjective statement, but doesn’t that also apply to review scores? Even if the data gathered by GameRankings.com or similar sources shows a game to be a certain score (based on an average), that average score is still based entirely on opinions. And, in reality, those opinions are made up from only a small percentage of the gaming population - they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either causal or hardcore games, just a small group of professional reviewers.
There’s really only one main type of gaming success that you could really gather from raw numbers, and that’s how successful the idea of a game was at getting people’s attention, and that would be based purely on sales. That doesn’t tell us anything about the quality of the game itself, unfortunately.[/quote]
Oh spot on ,
I never go by game reviews these days , I only take note is a game gets a real high score across the board (like high 9?s around) or a really low score alround , otherwise I take what reviews says with a pitch of salt these days . Just look at the ridiculously high score for HALO II and PDZ when both games sucked BIG time in single player mode , and were only really saved by their Multi Player modes, you then see the likes of Kung Fu Chaos , Riddick almost go unnoticed by some mag?s and just giving the game a average score , same happed with REZ with many so called professional reviewers just ?not? getting the game .
These day?s I?m sick of reviews going on about a game length in shooters like Panzer, Riddick, ICO ect only to then give High score to the short Gears Of War?s. Who cares if its only 8hrs long, I rather have 8 hrs of gaming bliss than 40 hrs of boring dragged out game play (hello Tri Force Zelda WW) I?m also sick of reviews started out reviews, with the words I don?t like F1 , or NFL when reviwing the latest updates but I?ve been picked to review the game, Well why bloody pick the person if he or she doesn?t like the sport , that and this bullsh8t , that all games needs 80 hrs of gameplay to be consider a classic really gets to me.
I?ll go by what people say on gaming boards like this , far more than what the mainstream press having to say on games or game rankings
That was Abadd’s point though, gamerankings or metacritic offer information and scores based on all the reviews, accross the board as you say. So, you share the same opinion, considering that a valid way to more or less judge a game…
Heretic - Haha… True, but it was in response to the blanket statement that MP couldn’t be used (no qualifications when you stated that) as an example as a successful example, whereas I was simply questioning what criteria that assumption came under. It’s been fun, though
Solo/TA - If you go back and read my statement, I agree that it’s subjective on a per review basis. But, the aggregate score, which is normalized over time simply through the consistency of averages, gives you a guide to relative quality. All quality is subjective, but what an aggregate score from a consistent set of reviewers does is that it gives you some context in which you can begin to understand the quality of a game as it compares to other games released within a similar time frame.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you will automatically like a game that is scored high. But, given that scores are generated from a select control group (that’s key), you can begin to see generally where a product lies. Does that mean a game with a score of 8.6 is better than one with a score of 8.0? No, but you can begin to understand that both games are possibly not considered the very best in their genre, but the chance that you will enjoy it is significantly higher than a game that scored, say, 4.0.
Going back to the control group thing, though… When dealing with subjective things like this, it is important that you establish a control group. The numbers on an individual basis mean almost nothing, but the more data you add from the control group, the more stabilized and reliable the data becomes. You start to see patterns emerge: licensed games generally score 1.0 point lower than non-licensed games, new IP generally have to score over 8.5 in order to even make a dent in the market during late hardware lifecycle, and so on and so forth (just as an example).
[quote=“Team Andromeda”]Just look at the ridiculously high score for HALO II and PDZ when both games sucked BIG time in single player mode , and were only really saved by their Multi Player modes, you then see the likes of Kung Fu Chaos , Riddick almost go unnoticed by some mag?s and just giving the game a average score , same happed with REZ with many so called professional reviewers just ?not? getting the game .
These day?s I?m sick of reviews going on about a game length in shooters like Panzer, Riddick, ICO ect only to then give High score to the short Gears Of War?s.[/quote]
Bad examples mate
While I actually enjoyed the single player in Halo 2 (the first was waaay too long and repetitive), Riddick, Ico, and Panzer all scored in the 9’s. And heck, even Rez scored an 8, and I completely agree with that score.
If anything, it was the gamers (not the reviewers) that showed they had no interest in those games. Panzer was “on rails,” Riddick was a license that nobody cared about because the movie bombed, Rez was just “too weird,” and Ico… well, I generally think that was a Sony marketing screw up.
Hmmm… 
Well, Abadd, first I have to say that my statement wasn’t blanket in the sense you just implied. If I had indeed said "Metroid Prime ‘cannot’ be used as an example… " then you certainly would have had a case. I stated that it is not a good example for the subject, and then I qualified it with the anecdote that you took such dark exception to…
One of your objections to that anecdote:
You betray a double standard now, because gaming forums are simply another control group. And any implied arguments for them being less valuable, as such, than the ‘professional’ reviews, are necessarily greatly subjective. Is there a convenient total of every forum opinion ever rendered? Of course not, but that is in no way a negation of the innate value of the data. Every opinion is a result of data processing in the end, the human mind is actually phenomenal at that process, it’s just not good at imposing absolute limits on what data will be relevant.
With that and with the subsequence of that argument you present an assumption that the “official” reviews are (relatively) impartial, and again, in general terms it is a valid assumption. My argument is that in this specific example there is specific evidence of partiality.
Another perfectly valid general anecdote there, but once again I need to thank you for helping me make my point. That shows just how much hype alone can do for a piece of crap like SoE. MP is a very different situation because, in the first place it wasn’t broken and unfinished, and therefore it wasn’t blasted in the reviews.
[quote=“Abadd”]
to sell much less than the original
Not entirely. The average sequel sells only 50% of the original game. However, big hits tend to break that trend. Of course, you have the occasional game like GTA or Halo where sales of the second exceed the sales of the first, but that is more of an anomaly. The fact that (at least in the US) Metroid Prime 2 sold 80% of the original shows that the vast majority of people who bought and played Metroid Prime enjoyed it enough to play another. Now, this next part is just my opinion, but I think the reason why the sequel didn’t do even better was the fact that the sequel didn’t try to do anything above and beyond, so to speak. [/quote]
The anomaly you call is why I phrased it that way in the first place. My viewpoint has nothing to do with Metroid Prime’s success in general terms, or any claim that it’s a worthless game, it’s that it does not belong in the rarrified air those scores would seem to indicate. There’s a difference between a game that may be a “big hit” and a game that’s a hit and strikes a chord as being legendary as well. That anomaly you talk about is the flip side of my anomaly, as in, Metroid Prime is NOT that kind of hit.
I would also suggest that Tomb Raider 2 is a roughly equivalent example of a rapid follow up that delivered about as much in the above and beyond department?
[quote=“Abadd”]
Subjective. People were scrambling for excuses for the N64 and for the Xbox. Does that diminish the quality of games like Zelda:OOT, Mario 64, or Halo?
And sure, long build up of hype can lead to initial sales success (see above example of State of Emergency), but the success of the sequel for MP shows that it wasn’t a fluke.[/quote]
OK, no, that’s pretty well BS. Another attempt to shoehorn other examples into the argument. The games you mention there, as well as others, fully qualified as “system sellers” for the platform, and 2 of them were launch titles. Of the 3 platforms that finished the race, Gamecube was the loser, and while it certainly had games that sold the system, it really never did get that full blown, great white hope “system seller” title. The biggest titles became reasons to feel good about having a Gamecube, rather than reasons to buy one. XBOX and N64 were never in that same boat.
But the biggest thing for me at this point, is to remind you that it was you who split this issue in the first place.
[quote=“Abadd”]
Why isn’t it a good example? Who are these “more than enough people” that you mention? Considering that the game (the original at leasts) scored a 96% average on gamerankings.com and sold millions of copies would indicate that enough people thought it was a success. And the fact that the sequel sold nearly a million copies in the US alone would indicate that enough people liked the original to buy the sequel. Some would argue that game sales and game review scores don’t sum up “success” of a game, and while I agree to a certain extent, they are the only subjective ways of analyzing a game’s quality and relative popularity. [/quote]
Now we really are full circle, or at least I am… the sales of MP, and it’s score on gamerankings, had no real pertinence to my statement in the first place. I allowed for the fact many people love the game, in and of itself, I just expressed a belief that as a direct representative of a series many preexisting fans were actually disappointed. But I’ll add a little to that argument as well, in that aside from whether it’s a good example or not, it’s simply not an example of the kind of pure continuation of a series that some of the posts here already draw a distinction for. It was always presented to be a reimagining of sorts.
So yeah, it’s just the double standard that grates on me Abadd. The recurring pretense that your arguments are less subjective, by implication all of them. There is general validity in everything you have said, but applied to the specifics of this argument, the majority of those principles just fall under the auspices of “DUH!”.