Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Welcome back to the stage of history

Above: Something happens, and doo doo doo doo.

Well, in between sessions of Geometry Wars and Braid, I did find time to be totally mystified by Soul Calibur IV. Head-to-head fighters are a genre I abandoned long ago, and I found it next to impossible to just jump right back into it here.

Fortunately, I think I avoided resorting to the tautological, "Fans of the series will love this," so I guess it's not a total loss. You can tell I was trying to use humor to deflect attention from my weak handle on the game, though. They can't all be NEPA award winners, folks.*

*None of them are NEPA award winners.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you did a good job on the review. I already own the game, and so I'm a questionable judge I suppose, but I couldn't agree more with you on the control scheme. It really seems a certain sort of game for a certain audience.

Mitch Krpata said...

One of the hardest things about reviewing games is figuring out what to do when you're not in that "certain audience" a game shoots for. Every game is intended for a particular kind of player -- and if you're not it, it can be very difficult to write a fair and worthwhile review. We've seen this most saliently in the enthusiast press's reaction to the flood of casual-play Wii titles. Which is not to say that you can't write a good review about something you're not an expert on, just that it takes even more effort and circumspection than usual.