RolStoppable said:
It's clearly an opinion that is supported by cherry-picking. Highlight all positive aspects of 'Splosion Man and ignore the negative ones while doing the opposite for New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It's an incredible and blatantly one-sided way to compare two games which makes it a verifiably wrong opinion, because the author of the editorial deliberately ignores certain points. Just look at all the exhibits. A) More originality: A new IP is more original than an established one. What a shocker. B) Online co-op and leaderboards: A 2D platformer like Super Mario Bros. where characters can bump into each other to do good and bad stuff requires pixel perfect precision. The slightest bit of lag would ruin the experience. We live in a time when even one-on-one 2D fighting games aren't safe from lag, now imagine connecting not just two, but four systems over the internet. It's not really feasible on a highly consistent basis. Online leaderboards are just reaching. C) More content: He only mentions the number of levels, but not their length, variety or quality. That is all he got. Based on these exhibits, any new IP in any genre is better than a comparable established game, if only it has online and more levels. Gameplay? Doesn't matter at all, according to him. But the reality is that for a 2D platformer gameplay is what matters by far the most. What can 'Splosion Man do? Run and explode up to three times, including wall sploding. What can Mario do? Walk or run and jump at different heights depending on how long you press the button. This alone gives the platforming in Mario already much more variety than 'Splosion Man can offer. But Mario can also double and triple jump, wall jump, stomp, crouch, slide and he also has more options to interact with his surroundings than 'Splosion Man. The fact of the matter is that the only way Hatfield's opinion can be defended is by completely ignoring the platforming controls, mechanics and physics of both games. This is an absolutely dishonest approach to a comparison. Especially when he then on page 2 goes on to ridicule the people who like the gameplay of the Super Mario Bros. series as if it would be a sin to like the most wellcrafted and polished platformer series in existence. You might as well complain that straight man are attracted to beautiful women and how unfair it is that they don't think your average looking girlfriend is hot. From there on out it just turns into a rant that can be summed up by "I hate Nintendo so much. I really do.", because he had not much to back up his opinion to begin with. |
A) I think that's a legit reason. Like you said, a new IP is more original than an established one, just because that's obvious doesn't mean it isn't a good point.
B) Just because it wouldn't work well in that game, doesn't mean it doesn't exist in comparison to another game. If his point is, game 1 has good co-op, game 2 doesn't, and that's another reason to pick game 1 over game 2, there is nothing wrong with that.
3) I agree with you there.
Basically it boils down to him giving an opinion. He knows that not everyone will agree with him and even if the opinion isn't supported very well, it's still an opinion. Even if he asserts that this is so, he's assuming everyone will still realise it's just his opinion.
The one thing that really pisses me off is that he'll get so much shit for something rare like that, but he won't ever get the same amount of attention for the brilliant podcasts he produces and hosts or his other great reviews and editorials.
