Kyuu said:
I'm not gauging the difference in quality between Remedy and Team ICO using each determiner separately. The quality gap comes from the "combined" result of the three objective determiners I used (namely.. Awards, Reception and Influence)
Awards:
The original Max Payne did win a lot of them, yes. But context is important and you're ignoring it. Awards don't mean much when most have an "on PC/2001" written next to them. Sorry but 2001 sucked for PC so these awards aren't much to write home about. ICO had to compete with MGS2, GTA3, SSBB and Halo CE.. the poor thing.. but SoTC didn't just win a GOTY award in the presence of God of War and Resident Evil 4.. it took an extra step and won IGN's best PS2 game ever and later stepped it up even further by winning the runner-up award of IGN's Game of the Decade and on any system!! Well, IGN is the most popular game website out there. That's what I'd call an Award! It was chosen out of, how many? 7000+ games across 10 platforms?
Reception:
Max Payne's metascore dropped from 89 down to 86 for the 2nd entry thanks to 5 "Mixed" reviews out of 46, making it 5 points lower than SoTC (team ICO's second game) which is fairly significant.
Influence:
I'm sure you're aware of the difference here. ICO slaughters most critically acclaimed games of its generation. Not only did it influence some of the greatest games and game creators, but also trespassed its medium to influence big budget film directors. SoTC did a good job there too. Both games have also seen numerous citings by universities and authors as best examples of Art in Video games.
And you admit that Alan Wake wasn't half as hyped up as The Last Guardian. Doesn't this imply that Team ICO mean more to their fans than what Remedy meant to their fans?
I'd like to throw in one more factor called "Aging" which ICO and SoTC did exceptinally well at.. many of the games that were rated higher at the time were soon ranked WAY below them. These games grow on you.
I've played hundreds of games so by "top favorites" I don't mean 5 or 10 but around 30 or 50. ICO and SoTC are more frequenly mentioned in these lists than Remedy's which seem to have been mostly forgotten over the time. At least relatively.
When all of what I mentioned is taken into considertation, it becomes clear that Team-ICO is a level above Remedy. This doens't mean I hate Remedy, this doesn't mean Remedy is trash. It rather means it isn't exactly as special, as loved or as respected. Yes Team-ICO did screw themselves up by not releasing anything last generation but in no way does this reduce the impact of their previous works.
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So we are going from May Payne having not nearly as much awards to having awards with no significance? I'll admit SOTC is a step above the Max Payne games in terms of awards, reception and influence but I'm just not willing to accept that ICO is any signifcant step above Max payne. They are around the same in terms of awards, reception and influence with Max payne having a few more awards in 2001 and ICO having more influence as time goes on.
The main reasoning behind me seeing both the studios at the same level is that while SOTC and ICO may have more of an influence and have got a tad more awards than both the Max Payne games, its not as if they completely smash the Max payne games out of the park. Plus the fact that they have taken so long to release TLG which I know a lot of people have been upset about wondering exactly what Team ICO have been doing the past few years leads me to believe theyre not at a level above Remedy at the moment. Remedy released a pretty good game in Alan Wake in that time frame and although it was not nearly as hyped as TLG, what they accomplished with Max Payne 1 and 2 and the excitment behind the release of Max Payne 3 was due in no small part to Remedy and how good the last two Max Payne games had been.
I don't see either of us convincing the other to sway from their point of view however so I guess the only thing to sway us will be when TLG and QB release next year.
