I’d always wondered if you could feel an earthquake while riding a bus or train. It turns out the answer is yes; you know you’re experiencing an earthquake when it feels like the train is straining to leap off the tracks.
I’m disappointed yesterday’s little trembler didn’t hit an hour earlier, though; I would have been at the office, where I could have enjoyed our building’s kinetic energy dampening technology. Which is to say, the entire skyscraper sways back and forth until the quake’s force has been dissipated. I like to call it “Mr. Ziff’s Wild Ride” due to its slightly nauseating resemblance to a 25-story Six Flags ride.
I see that the new EGM has started to hit subscribers, which means I can mention a couple of things that have been on my mind about this particular issue. For starters, my Deep Labyrinth score is in error — I meant to type “6.5” at the time but gave it a “7.5” by accident, which I didn’t realize until the printed issue had arrived. This is why I will never again finish writing a review at 2 a.m. and submit it while half-asleep. Anyway, my score was still way higher than anyone else’s, which I expected since not everyone enjoys dungeon hacks with same demented glee as I do, for whatever strange reason. Tsk, some people’s kids.
Secondly, the import version of Ultimate Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins has arrived at the office, so I can finally talk about what complete crap it is without breaking any embargoes. Although I guess I should save my juiciest venom for the 1UP review. It is a terrible, terrible game, and the fact that some people have convinced themselves it is a work of art speaks volumes about how powerful the forces of nostalgia and franchising can be. It is not the game everyone was hoping for, except that small demographic that savors physical and psychological trauma. In fact, it is the worst thing to be inflicted upon the Ghosts ‘N’ Goblins legend since the atrocious Game Boy Color port of the NES port of the original arcade game. It is not good in every sense of the phrase.
Had UG’n’G been attached to any other name, people would be throwing it off the rooftops and setting fire to the developers’ hair; but since it’s attached to a series known for its toughness, fans of the series are deluding themselves into believing that its cheap level designs, ugly graphical “style” and completely broken control scheme are positive traits. I’ve even read that Edge gave it a 9, which is unheard of for a lousy game developed outside the UK. Of course, I can’t hold that against them — my finger slipped on the number row recently as well, although admittedly not by five whole keys.
Well, stick to your guns, UG’n’G fans. Maybe if you believe in its quality hard enough a magical fairy godmother will turn you into a hardcore gamer. Meanwhile, I’ll stick to games that don’t completely suck. Like Deep Labyrinth. (I believe the proper sound effect here is zing.)
Edit: The Mega Man ZX reviewable just landed. Capcom gets a little bit of post-UG’n’G grace for taking the voice acting out of the English version. DS cards demonstrably lack the capacity for full vocal tracks, and the thought of listening to badly-acted English dialogue compressed to the point that it sounds like it’s playing over a dying transistor radio was not warming my heart. Silence is so much better.
Also, 100% LOL at the transformation of the Return Of Crystallized Knowledge SYSTEM into the Meta-Encapsulated Granule Awareness System. Much less LOL for the change of Serpent Company into Slither Inc., though — it’s much, much too Harry Potter for its own good.
Edit: I just realized that it’s been three years to the day since 1UP hired me. I feel like I’ve accomplished very little here, but hopefully posts like this will help advance my career of being disliked by people with nothing better to do with their time.
51 thoughts on “Ready to rumble”
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Damn. Posted mere seconds following my thread response inquiring about your review of the game.
So, you gave it the 4.5, huh?
Speaking of Deep Labyrinth, how did you feel about the other 2 EGM reviews?
“It is a terrible, terrible game, and the fact that some people have convinced themselves it is a work of art speaks volumes about how powerful the forces of nostalgia and franchising can be.”
Just like Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting, am i rite?
Oh, Greg and Jay’s reviews were perfectly fair. Deep Labyrinth is a very specific and niche-y kind of game. My perspective was that of someone who enjoys that sort of game, their perspective was that of people who don’t. EGM’s multi-review format is really at its best in cases like this.
What a shame, I thought Ultimate Ghosts’n’Goblins looked pretty cool. My only experience with the series was that spinoff, Demon’s Crest. Man, if they made an Ultimate Demon’s Crest, I’d buy it the minute it hit shelves and sleep with it under my pillow.
Now that I think of it, wouldn’t Demon’s Crest fit into the Metroidvania list?
Oh, it is. I didn’t think to look at the bottom section instead of the SNES one.
“My finger slipped on the number row recently as well, although admittedly not by five whole keys.”
Well, it could have always been merely a one key slip-up, in an attempt to give the game a 0.
Whew, that explains it. Good work, you’ve saved Edge’s bacon. I was worried there are no more heroes left in the world.
It’s not like G+G is a symbol of quality among platform games. While it’s better than the average Acclaim game, it’s still as cheap and unfair as Castlevania I+III. I hear Maximo isn’t much better, either.
And the GBC port of G+G was fairly accurate to the NES version, except it had the decency to give me passwords.
Guy: I’m actually wondering why Capcom hasn’t re-released those spin-offs in their collections yet.
Castlevania 1 can be considered cheap, but not 3. (Especially if you play the better balanced Japanese version.)
Guys, we’re talking NES era. Cheapness was frequently required. In the 2000’s, it is no longer acceptable.
JuanFrugal: He Gets It (TM)
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The real problem, of course, is that UG’n’G is a step backwards in many ways from the original. Really, guys, that’s just sad.
don’t try and convince GAF of that – i’m pretty sure you’ve already been crucified. How DARE you give a game they love such a low score?
“It’s not like G+G is a symbol of quality among platform games. While it’s better than the average Acclaim game, it’s still as cheap and unfair as Castlevania I+III.”
Did you play only the clock tower level of CV3? Other than that it’s pretty well balanced and amazingly user-friendly for an NES game. Aside from the Mario/Kirby titles, I can’t think of many NES games that do such a good job of easing you into the game’s controls as CV3. On top of that, you have passwords.
It’s a shame UGn’G turned out the way it did; I was hoping for Symphony of the Ghost–or Ghostvania. Hell, even a more 2D-style Maximo/Army of Zin (yes, I liked it) would have been a pleasant surprise. The PSP remains the one current game system out there without a single game I care enough to buy the system for. Of course, Valkyrie Profile would be tempting if i didn’t have the PS1 version, which is undoubtly much faster loading (on a PS2 especially) than the PSP version.
With Silent Hill Origins not being developed by Team Silent, I’m betting things will continue that way, which is just insane.
looks like toasty Frog has no skills. thier is no excuse for giving Ultinmate Ghouls n ghosts the score he did. overall others know more then he does.
Famitsu 9988
Dengeki 95 85 85 85
Edge 9
Play Magazine 9.5
Toastyfrog 4.5/10
Japanese review scores mean nothing, and Play loves platformers of all kinds, so no surprises there. Edge is the only baffling score. Not as baffling as the fact that your parents haven’t demanded a refund from a public education system which has clearly failed, though.
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scott, you don’t actually think I place stock in GAF’s opinion about anything, do you? Come for the juicy tidbits of legitimate information, stay to laugh as socially defective man-children wallow in their own verbal filth.
Wow. I have medium history with the Ghouls and Ghost games, and even I think your score is rediculous…
How far did you get in the game? I haven’t actually beat it yet, but nothing would convinve me that the game is worth less than a 7 at LEAST. I think that if you were to step back from nostalgia and review the game for what it was (Besides the whole “PSP is a dissapointment” thing”) you would have rated it differently.
Well, this sure isn’t gonna end on a pretty note. You being accused of smugness by at least a couple of GAFers, and you calling GAFers socially inept. Not to say the latter, at the very least, holds no truth. Some of those crazy kids can’t seem to accept any opposing viewpoints, even when it comes to saying you don’t approve of Sony’s recent practices.
of course not, and as you said yourself “stay to laugh as socially defective man-children wallow in their own verbal filth.”
I don’t think he cares. I think this is one of those things people do for e-press.
Like some of those blogs that rant on celebrities negatively just to get more hits. Except a thousand times nerdier.
“I think that if you were to step back from nostalgia and review the game for what it was”
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No, no, I played the “nostalgia makes you wrong” card first. Find your own fulcrum! Seriously, though, nostalgia is the only thing that makes this game even slightly appealing. Without the G’n’G name attached, it would be completely worthless — a shoddily-constructed, regressive mess of hideous graphics and bad platforming. There are some really wonderful PSP games out there (I’ve given the system as many 9s as I have the DS, so let’s not even get into silly accusations of bias); this, however, is definitely not one of them. G’n’G isn’t my favorite series, but I expected much, much better than this after Capcom got the modern-retro thing so right with MMPU and Maverick Hunter X.
so, did you guys get every extend extra yet? it’s surprisingly really enjoyable in short bursts.
Well, on the bright side they’re putting out an UGnG skin for Megaman Powered Up, so you could make a much better version of it that way. ;)
As I said, I’m not a serious GnG fan. I can drop series’ just as fast as I pick them up, but I found UGnG (Or Gokumakaimura whatever, did you really review the US version?) very enjoyable. The worst aspect of the game, IMO, was changing difficulty and having to start over.
But then again, it’s your word VS everyone else’s. I’m just glad people are logging on to see reviews of this game (Which have mostly been stellar aside EGMs) instead of looking at their magazine subscriptions.
jparish
“Japanese review scores mean nothing, and Play loves platformers of all kinds, so no surprises there. Edge is the only baffling score. Not as baffling as the fact that your parents haven’t demanded a refund from a public education system which has clearly failed, though.”
Why would anyone want to waste thier time and effort with spell checking and grammer on your worthless Blog. All those Japanese magazine know more then you ever will. I will NEVER buy another copy of EGM ever. I see they hire worthless reviewers these days, Unlike the golden-age of EGM, during the 16-bit days. It looks like the new reviewers are a bunch of cry babies, who can’t stand a little challenge in a game, and most have thier hands held. Game Informer or even Game Pro give better reviews then you.
Damn you Shivam and your early Japanese game acquisitions! :P
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Speaking of which, UG’n’G got an early ISO leak, which explains the early impressions on the game, GAF or otherwise. So you can’t accuse all of them for prejudging your review. (Though of course I’m pretty sure you still don’t care either way.)
The US version of the ISO hasn’t come out either way, so was EGM reviewing the Japanese version of the game? And if the US version is improved, oh well?
scudnmuff- japanese game magazines are all payola organizations. this is well documented proof. Famitsu’s reviews are sent to game publishers to be edited and approved by their PR. There is a distinct and recorded trend of scores going up or down based on ad dollars and the like. But hey, you know better, right? You can read japanese, and can make your own decisions based on the three sentance reviews that show up in each weekly famitsu?
right.
Oh yeah, ain’t it the truth. Remember Famitsu’s scores for FF7: Dirge of Cerberus?
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As an(other) aside Jeremy, I remember reading from one of your NeoGAF posts that you asked Koji Igarashi if he ever had any thoughts of doing a traditional Castlevania, which was responded to by Igarashi going into a rant about how everybody wants Dracula X for the PC Engine to be rereleased/ported, which wouldn’t be possible because the source code supposedly was lost. Anyways, after almost meeting Igarashi at Comic Con a couple weeks ago (I was playing PoR at one of the demo units before being asked to leave so he could be interviewed, and when I meant to meet him, he up and vanished), I met Dave Halverson of Play, who earlier spoke with Igarashi, so I asked him if he knew any of this. Dave said that this was news to him, so he would ask Igarashi about this himself later on in interview. He also said that, assuming I understood correctly, Igarashi currently hopes to create a traditional 2d Castlevania for the XBox 360 and PS3, only with 3d paths a la Klonoa. Anyways, now you know who to blame for any lost Drac X source code questions.
Wow man, I guess you’re right about people really taking those numbers seriously. You guys should do away with them like CGW, er Games for Windows. That’d show em’!
Personally, I’ll be picking up the game out of pure nostalgia. I plan on playing through half of the first level (much like I have with every other GnG game) then putting it down in disgust only to pick it up again years later and make it through the first level before putting it down again forever.
Level 1 of Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts, you’ll be mine in 2008!
-Wes
“Unlike the golden-age of EGM, during the 16-bit days.”
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I know right? Those guys were so awesome they could score a game after playing it for like 30 minutes — not like us lameasses who have to play it all the way through.
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Vagabond, EGM was reviewing the U.S. media reviewable copy from Capcom. It’s identical to the Japanese game from what I can tell.
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Anyway, yeah, review scores are retarded. No one cares about them except frothy fanboys and PR people. Jeff Green is my hero and if CGW/GFW didn’t cover a platform I detest I’d be clamoring to be on staff.
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1UP’s Every Extend Extra coverage should be coming soon although it’s fairly immaterial after last week’s Q? cover story.
The thing about review numbers in high-profile magazines and whatnot is that people really do look at these reviews and decide whether to buy the game or not. Like, EGM could literally deny the game thousands of dollars in sales if not more. People who enjoy the game and wish it success (which is a large contingent for the particular game in question) are the ones who are upset, because that curbs the chances of a sequel or appreciation of the game.
So are you saying it’s Jeremy’s duty, when assigned a review, to ignore how he feels about the game and assign a score based on how well the game “should” perform at retail? I’m not saying this to be abusive, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day. A review isn’t a loaded handgun, and it’s not Jeremy’s responsibility to keep the safety on at all times.
I think we shud all be concentrating on teh reel issue here. You gave Deep Labrinth a 7.5(6.5)! You jerk! I wud not trust anyone who did not even reconise new Mario as the best game ver! Despite your hating reviewing and whatnot, I’m glad there’s someone working for the man who can give games like Deep Labyrinth a fair shake. Not that I take your reviews as THE FINAL WORD, but if there’s anyone out there fit to review a 2D platformer, one of those people would be yourself.
If the Nintendo fanboys could accept jp’s 8.0 score for NSMB, I’m sure the PSP fanboys will one day be able to settle with these GnG’s scores. Most of the people complaining haven’t even played the game — a fact that’s quickly lost on the mob as they question your judgement.
Also, I was a bit suspicious when I saw Deep Labyrinth with a 7.5. It makes a little more sense as a 6.5. Good to see someone admitting to his accident, and clearing that up.
I agree with Nich that a reviewer shouldn’t have to compromise their viewpoints — to an extent. The 3.5 Gamespot review of Pocket Fighter, for instance, was overly harsh on a game that can be quite fun if not taken too seriously. And yeah, a subseries of that game wouldn’t have been the worst thing, especially given room for growth.
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On the other hand, if I were to have been on the review crew for Ocarina of Time, suffice it to say that I’d probably need to enlist in some witness protection program.
The last time I heard of someone reviewing a game based on what they assumed their readers would think was Game Informer’s Paper Mario 2 debacle. That is a slippery slope I would prefer not to slide down. Anyway, I feel pretty safe in thinking that the eternal debate over the role/responsibility/necessity of reviewers will not be resolved in this comment thread.
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Also, I’ve already requested EGM print a correction of my score next month. It’s a first for them! I’m so proud. (choke)
I’m sure all 2 people who weren’t planning on buying Deep Labyrinth from the word “Atlus” will be very cross that they bought a 6.5 game instead of a 7.5 game.
HOW COULD YOU GIVE CONTACT A– oh wait, no. You said good things about Contact. Yeah, I have no issue here.
That guy’s pretty condescending for a nintendo fanboy…
Capcom. They had over a decade to get it right, and they never even had the decency to steal any of my ideas I’ve had on my site for about 6 years. They’ve been ripe for the taking…
http://www.daingore.com/gng_siege_perilous.html
Dang.
Check it out, please! For what little it’s always been worth me screaming it, oh so muffled, from my little internet rooftop.
“I see that the new EGM has started to hit subscribers.” Yeah, it really needs to lay off the bottle. It’s a nice magazine when it’s sober, I swear to God.
*Why would anyone want to waste thier time and effort with spell checking and grammer?* —- First of all: GRAMMAR. And no one should waste their time in spell checking, because there should be no need to revise what we were supposed to get right in elementary school.
JuanFrugal: He Still Gets It (TM)
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By the way, Tomm, the money hat fits fabulously.
I’m glad to hear it, Parish. After sending you that second one for Steambot, I made sure I got the size right this time.
Just watch out. Those money hats can turn your hair gree– Oh. …Oh.
Personally, I’ll be picking up the game out of pure nostalgia
How dare you exercise your own judgement. Didn’t you hear? One reviewer gave the game a slightly less than optimal score!
My self-righteous indignation knows no bounds.
Gee you are the one reviewing it for 1up, and I tought that 1up was a good site :( the prey review is a excellent one.
you sound like one nintard bashing a game that you haven’t even played.
ZOMG JERIMY PERISH NO REVEIW GAMEZ GOOD LOL!
Mommy, what’s a nintard?
The pot calling the kettle black, I think.
I am shocked and appalled that someone who’s played more of a game than I have dares to have an opinion of his own on it. From the bowels of hell I send poorly-written diatribes to thee!
Also, I laughed at “nintard,” though not for the reason I think I was supposed to. It’s like being back on the playground at school, except there are no teachers to try and maintain the peace.