Love to Hate #7

[Jeremy]

Love to Hate #7 by Jeremy

PALGN Feature: From out of the shadows...

[View Article]

[JP2daMC]

At the time of release, Shadow certainly received its fair share of criticism for many of the reasons you point out. I personally found the camera really annoying and some slowdown worked to kill the experience for me. While they are very good games, Ico and Shadow just aren't that special to me...I found frustration was equal to the innovation.

Shadow also had heavy product placement in the movie Reign Over Me...I'm not sure that is a reason to hate it though.
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“Committed to gaming mediocrity and no platinum trophies.”

[Karai Pantsu]

I want to plus this article so hard.
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[Michael Kontoudis]

If Jeremy wasn't my fearless leader, I would cry 'BLASPHEMY!'

Oops, looks like I just did. I found Shadow to be superb from beginning to end. Imperfect, sure, but fascinating and engaging in so many ways.

Always happy to sample another's point of view, though!

[battlegrub]

A lot of contradicting statements here. You arguments don't seem to support your conclusions at all. Apologies for lengthy quotes.

[Joseph]

Oh Jeremy, I think I'm in love with you.

Brilliant. Absolutly brilliant. Now, if only someone would do a Love to Hate on BioShock.
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[Jeremy]

^Since you probably don't look like Megan Fox... I'll take that as platonic and brotherly And your wish might might come true as well...
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[Macka]

I absolutely loved Shadow of the Colossus, however I have never heard any of the game's fans claim that it was flawless. I can actually agree with you on some of your criticisms, however the good things about the game heavily outnumbered the bad for me.

First of all, I also had no idea that eating Lizards increased your health (it isn't mentioned in the manual either). I ended up figuring it out on my own on my second play-through, but I wasn't particularly annoyed by it, it only meant that it made the game harder, which I like. It would have been nice to have been told this, however this is a very minimal gripe and I overlooked it.

I never experienced Agro getting caught on pebbles. I assume you are referring to when he fails to run off an extremely small ledge in the ground? This is the closest thing that I experienced to what you described, and yes, it was annoying, but again, nothing game-breaking.

As for the games-as-art criticism. In no way do I find the gameplay sacrificed for the sake of being artistic. The game could have been tweaked to control better, but only really while riding Agro. When fighting a Colossi on foot I had absolutely no problems. The camera has issues, but it never actually bothered me, I would just adjust it every so often.

Finally, the “Oh my, I just killed this wonderful and mythical creature that was part of the land” statement was heard so often because it was true. Unlike other game bosses, the Colossi were hardly "evil" and I genuinely felt guilty when I stabbed the sword into their heads and they started whimpering in pain. The soundtrack in the game is phenomenal and really contributed to this sense of sadness as the dead giant crumpled in a heap on the ground.

While I can see the flaws you mentioned, I don't think that any of them are anywhere near irritating to the point where it detracts from the experience. Shadow of the Colossus isn't perfect by any means, but it's far closer to it than most other games.
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[Howler]

You know, I was going to do a nice long post, but Macka saved me the trouble. I pretty much agree with you on everything.

It has its flaws, but the experience is so enthralling and the atmosphere and mood so thick, you completely forget about the flaws and focus on the masterpiece before you. I was the same with Ico as well.

[unlachs]

lol at the argo jibe. not that i could find it now, but apparently the designers deliberately made argo unresponsive to your controls, to give him a kind of stubbornness. i can see the intent, but it clearly backfired massively by making traversing the map just the little bit more tedious.

although when it came to the camera, there's no excuses there. downright awful.

then again, i'm happy to overlook these failings. sometimes the strengths of a game really do outshine their design flaws. see just about every resident evil game and killer7 as shining examples of this.
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DON'T SURRENDER

[David]

It's a game I love despite all the obvious flaws.

For me the biggest one was that it got repetitive, there were really about four types of colossi, and the change was simply how you got onto them. For all the 'it's like the good bits of Zelda' comments, Most Zeldas have more variety in their boss fights. And they also have far more content on top of that (full overworld, towns, side quests, dungeons etc as well as epic boss fights).

While parts were spectacular, it was also quite ugly sometimes, the overworld was often a shimmering, colour banded, muddy PS1-like 8-bit textured mess. The developers got greedy and overstretched the PS2 hardware.

But it's a game that sticks with you. And I really liked the morally ambiguous story.

[legend166]

I tried playing it a couple of months ago. I got about 7 colossi in and stopped.

I just really didn't like it. I've heard so many people say "bububu Agro controls like a real horse because you're controlling the reins, not the horse!"

I. Don't. Care. It still controls like crap.

I also didn't like Ico either, so I think I'm a heathen. Maybe between Ico, SotC and their new game, they'll finally making something with enough content to be considered a full game.

[Macka]

[leagues11]

SotC is probably the most memorable gaming experience I've ever had, but I don't subscribe to the idea that it is anything like art. It's close to a miracle for video-games, but it is, and always will be, just a game.

roger ebert (a kinda famous film critic) once wrote that he is prepared to believe that video-games can be visually wonderful, beautiful, express a range of subtle emotions, etc, but that fundamental structural elements of the medium prevent it from reaching the stature of art, namely because of player input. In his opinion, art (let's just say art as in film, poetry, literature, fine art, sculpture, etc) is something defined by "authorial control", something which the artists shapes in a specific way in order to incur a reaction in those who experience it. All the control in video-games is handed over to the player, meaning that the player can subvert what most of the experience is meant to be about.

For example, I could turn on shadow of the colossus, but only run around in circles for the duration of my play, and then turn off the console. Essentially, it's a full game of sotc.

But yeah, I'm really super interested in the idea of games becoming art, or at least I'm interested in that challenge. Jeremey, you should look into the work of jason roher (passage, maybe) for your next piece. There's some other good stuff on the net, too.

But SotC is terribly beautiful, yes.

[choinkees]

I thought Agro controlled fine after a minute or two of getting used to him. I would have liked the camera to sit a bit higher while riding him though - I was always steering with the left stick while having my thumb pushing down slightly on the right all the time just to shift the camera to a position where I could actually see where I was going. I think I only got stopped by a pebble two or three times, and a halt or two on cliff ledges that I thought he'd be able to jump down.

I would have actually liked to have seen Agro used more. I haven't played in ages, but I only remember needing Agro for maybe 3 different battles? The rest of the time it made more sense to do it on foot.

The emotional tones worked well for me: the feeling of guilt, losing Agro, the lonely feeling of the landscape.

My problems with it:
- camera
- water battles were a bit slow and boring
- the hints about weakspots are great, but stop continually repeating them when it's obvious (to me) that I'm trying to do exactly that but I keep falling off and need 5 minutes to climb or swim to the damn thing again.
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-- stuff I've made -- games, music, short film and animation -- www.rickyvuckovic.com -- enjoy!