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"I'm a harsh critic"

How do you define a bad game?

Dodgy camera angles? Boring bits? Annoying control system? Bad graphics? Awful Sound?

All of the above?

In my case it is simple, whether I finish it or not. For those that don't know I own over 50 Gamecube games, and I've recently sold 13 so I did have much more. A game precentage score for me works out by how much I complete it.

I don't like the "does it have good graphics or sound", for me it comes down to simply whether I enjoyed it and how much I played of it. Take Eternal Darkness, it may surprise you that I never finished it. As I have said I have a lot of games and not a lot of time, so only the games I truly enjoy are the games I finish.

Is Eternal Darkness a bad game then?

No, although I never finished it I got about 93% through the game before I just got fed up and moved onto the next one. This is why long games have to be truly spectacular in order to keep my attention. So Etenal Darknes was mostly good.

But is this a fair way to assess games? I mean I finished Mario Sumshine with all 120 shines which surly means I enjoyed the game and I did the same with Zelda, finished it totally.

But surly I cannot continue this assesment onto certain games, such as Luigi's Mansion, Wario World and Pikmin. 3 very short games. Well I guess I can in a way. Luigi's Mansion had "hidden mansion mode" I never played it because to be frank if I saw any more than 4 hours of the game I'd scream. I came back to Pikmin several times and... shock horror... I never finished Wario World.

In fact I never finished half the games I got. This year I have completed just the one game, Prince of Persia. To be fair I've only ever really played that and FIFA this year but regardless the only game I can truly declare as great this year is Prince of Persia.

But what about Harvest Moon? We all ended up criticising harvest moon because it got boring in the end but lets be fair here. We played the game for 10 hours plus before we started to get bored. In fact I had played the game for about 20 hours, far longer than I played Prince of Persia.

So what is the better game? Well I'm afraid it is still Ubi-Soft's platformer. It is all part of good game design, if the game is going to get boring then liven it up. If you feel you've exhausted your options then stop the game. I would have stopped playing Luigi's Mansion after 4 hours if it didn't finish itself. The game never got boring because it didn't let me, it kept me interested and Miyamoto finished the game before interest was lost.

If Harvest Moon got boring it is the fault of the Natsume, they should have improved it greatly, added more variety or... shock horror... ended the game.

But you see some games, especially in my collection, still get a bad time. Beyond Good and Evil remains unplayed, I played just 5 minutes of Metal Gear Solid and the same for Skies of Arcadia. All 3 games are supposed to be very good, but going on my Good-Bad game system they are all "technically" bad.

The Metroid Prime case study is also an interesting one, my game was wiped and therefore I only finished 70% of the game. I loved what I played but I'm not going back to it. But this isn't the first time that I've "ditched" Metroid Prime and the time before was again not the game's fault.

You see I don't like getting frustrated, no one does. So when someone tells me sections of games are rock hard I dread getting to them, in fact it can sometimes stop me playing the game altogether. Now there were a few tough bits on Prince of Persia, I lived in total bliss that these sections existed. So when they arrived I struggled through them and carried on. So it was the reviewers and you guys that put me off Metroid Prime. All the "omega pirate" talk actually frightened me from playing the game, I didn't want to get frustrated. Yes a hard boss fight is great and a game that frustrates you is also important, but I don't want to be aware in advance this would happen.

Viewtiful Joe suffered the same fate as the ill-fated Retro Studio's classic. I got through that funny shark boss, although it was tough I enjoyed it.

I knew it wasn't going to get any easier. So I stopped playing.

And it was because I knew it was going to get VERY hard.

Not that I couldn't beat the Omega Pirate or the boss level in VJ. I am a very talented games player and I could do them easier than most. But the knowledge that I could be stomping my feet and throwing controllers isn't one I wanted.

It makes me sad slightly. On the eve of getting my X-box I have barley progressed in Skies, I haven't even turned Beyond Good and Evil on and Metal Gear Solid should have been finished by now... instead I'm playing a below par football sim and Mario Kart multiplayer with my mates.

This summer I played and finished Super Mario World again. Now why would I want to do that with so many games I have yet to even start??? When classics like Metroid Prime and Viewtiful Joe lie unfinished.

Is it because the games in question just can't live up to the excellence of the older titles? Or am I just too lazy to play games?

What do you think?

I'm off to play Beyond Good and Evil.

How do you define a bad game?

Dodgy camera angles? Boring bits? Annoying control system? Bad graphics? Awful Sound?

All of the above?

In my case it is simple, whether I finish it or not. For those that don't know I own over 50 Gamecube games, and I've recently sold 13 so I did have much more. A game precentage score for me works out by how much I complete it.

I don't like the "does it have good graphics or sound", for me it comes down to simply whether I enjoyed it and how much I played of it. Take Eternal Darkness, it may surprise you that I never finished it. As I have said I have a lot of games and not a lot of time, so only the games I truly enjoy are the games I finish.

Is Eternal Darkness a bad game then?

No, although I never finished it I got about 93% through the game before I just got fed up and moved onto the next one. This is why long games have to be truly spectacular in order to keep my attention. So Etenal Darknes was mostly good.

But is this a fair way to assess games? I mean I finished Mario Sumshine with all 120 shines which surly means I enjoyed the game and I did the same with Zelda, finished it totally.

But surly I cannot continue this assesment onto certain games, such as Luigi's Mansion, Wario World and Pikmin. 3 very short games. Well I guess I can in a way. Luigi's Mansion had "hidden mansion mode" I never played it because to be frank if I saw any more than 4 hours of the game I'd scream. I came back to Pikmin several times and... shock horror... I never finished Wario World.

In fact I never finished half the games I got. This year I have completed just the one game, Prince of Persia. To be fair I've only ever really played that and FIFA this year but regardless the only game I can truly declare as great this year is Prince of Persia.

But what about Harvest Moon? We all ended up criticising harvest moon because it got boring in the end but lets be fair here. We played the game for 10 hours plus before we started to get bored. In fact I had played the game for about 20 hours, far longer than I played Prince of Persia.

So what is the better game? Well I'm afraid it is still Ubi-Soft's platformer. It is all part of good game design, if the game is going to get boring then liven it up. If you feel you've exhausted your options then stop the game. I would have stopped playing Luigi's Mansion after 4 hours if it didn't finish itself. The game never got boring because it didn't let me, it kept me interested and Miyamoto finished the game before interest was lost.

If Harvest Moon got boring it is the fault of the Natsume, they should have improved it greatly, added more variety or... shock horror... ended the game.

But you see some games, especially in my collection, still get a bad time. Beyond Good and Evil remains unplayed, I played just 5 minutes of Metal Gear Solid and the same for Skies of Arcadia. All 3 games are supposed to be very good, but going on my Good-Bad game system they are all "technically" bad.

The Metroid Prime case study is also an interesting one, my game was wiped and therefore I only finished 70% of the game. I loved what I played but I'm not going back to it. But this isn't the first time that I've "ditched" Metroid Prime and the time before was again not the game's fault.

You see I don't like getting frustrated, no one does. So when someone tells me sections of games are rock hard I dread getting to them, in fact it can sometimes stop me playing the game altogether. Now there were a few tough bits on Prince of Persia, I lived in total bliss that these sections existed. So when they arrived I struggled through them and carried on. So it was the reviewers and you guys that put me off Metroid Prime. All the "omega pirate" talk actually frightened me from playing the game, I didn't want to get frustrated. Yes a hard boss fight is great and a game that frustrates you is also important, but I don't want to be aware in advance this would happen.

Viewtiful Joe suffered the same fate as the ill-fated Retro Studio's classic. I got through that funny shark boss, although it was tough I enjoyed it.

I knew it wasn't going to get any easier. So I stopped playing.

And it was because I knew it was going to get VERY hard.

Not that I couldn't beat the Omega Pirate or the boss level in VJ. I am a very talented games player and I could do them easier than most. But the knowledge that I could be stomping my feet and throwing controllers isn't one I wanted.

It makes me sad slightly. On the eve of getting my X-box I have barley progressed in Skies, I haven't even turned Beyond Good and Evil on and Metal Gear Solid should have been finished by now... instead I'm playing a below par football sim and Mario Kart multiplayer with my mates.

This summer I played and finished Super Mario World again. Now why would I want to do that with so many games I have yet to even start??? When classics like Metroid Prime and Viewtiful Joe lie unfinished.

Is it because the games in question just can't live up to the excellence of the older titles? Or am I just too lazy to play games?

What do you think?

I'm off to play Beyond Good and Evil.

I'm in the same situation - with nearly 50 GameCube games (again, I had more, but sold a load of them), nearly 30 Xbox games and well over 50 Game Boy games, I barely have time to play them. I also havne't even touched Beyond Good and Evil yet, but have gone back to playing Ocarina of Time on the GameCube and due to it arriving this morning from SR, Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advance.

Although, when I review games, I often include stuff about the graphics and sound, I rate the games on how much I've actually enjoyed them. It is this reason I would give Metroid Prime a below average score. I got bored way too easily.

Starfox Adventures gets a higher score in my book because, although it wasn't the best game around at the time, I did complete it 100% and enjoyed it throughout (with the exception of the button bashing moments).

Ocarina of Time rates highest for me at the moment though because it is one of the only games of that length I have ever completed and gone back to do again.

Graphics don't matter to me. They effect how much I enjoy a game, as if the game looks terrible and becomes unplayable due to lazy visual effort, then I wont get enjoyment out of it at all. But other than that, I can enjoy a game regardless of the amount of polygons and shiney bits. After all, I enjoy most of the NES classic games!

Musical scores also play a part in how much I enjoy a game. For example, ever since watching the cartoon series Zelda, I have fallen in love with the Zelda theme. It's one of the few pieces of videogame music that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It's the same effect watching re-runs of the classic Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoon for example.

So I do believe that graphics and audios play a part, but when it comes to rating games, I go by how much I enjoyed it, not by how much I think the game should have got.

The shark boss in VJ was really, really easy. :-)

I only own 20 games, and out of all of them, Mario Kart, 1080 Avalanche, and NFS are the only ones I haven't completed, because I hate games when they get to Mirror mode (almsot completed NFS, only 4 races left or something, but it cheats me on the last lap of the race I'm on.)

The only other games I've had but never completed are:

Rogue Leader (Crashed on the prisoners of the Maw level, becasue My GC sucks, all games crash) and Pikmin, which I bored of after 12 days in it.

Got bored of Pikmin??? Get out.

I admit, I admit, I also got insanely bored with Pikmin.

To be honest, I'm at a complete loss as to why there's so much excitement about Pikmin 2. It looks like more of the same, which is to say, a nicely done quirky console strategy game.

Heh I dunno perhaps it's better? Seems so looking at reviews for it.

Pikmin is genius, fools.

Bored of Pikmin?

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft

Pikmin is one of the best games on Cube, it's the most Nintendo game available for the console. How anyone could not enjoy it is beyond me, it's just so much damn fun.