Your comments about its aesthetics lacks objectivity, a characteristic required for good journalism. Your moral views are irrelevant to aesthetics, probably shaped and nurtured by some corporate religion. This is a meta-ethical moral relativists world we live in by the way
Morals are absolutely relevant to aesthetics if the aesthetics offend.
To some small degree it does. But this view totally conflicts with logic and the very definition of aesthetics. I think he's mixing up what's morally ugly to what's visually ugly. Take for instance Rola Takizawa. Undeniable beauty with innate look of innocense. She had a legitimate potential to become a commercial star. She decided she needed money and went to porn. Fans were surprised. Is she now aesthetically ugly. Saying yes to that makes no sense what's so ever. Morally ugly yes. But not aesthetically ugly. Get it?
Moral views can certainly effect the aesthetics. All we have is our own perception which is affected by everything we think, feel, and believe. If you believe that blondes are evil, every blonde girl no matter how pretty she might be will automatically look ugly to you.
That's a good example. As a matter of fact, I'm not attracted to blondes. I think their looks age faster than others. I prefer asians. And even moreso, I'm least attracted to blacks for partnership to point I wouldn't even sleep with them when offered . But i recognize their beauty. Hally Barry is super cute. See that? Objective. I don't let anything unrelated affect another. I'm not that closed minded. I do recognize not everyone possess that good trait. ;-)
I haven't read the article, but I probably agree with a lot of what was said in there. At this point though, it doesn't seem likely that there's anyone who doesn't know about the game, or doesn't know that it's offensive to a large number of people.
The common thread I've seen running through reviews, other than the obvious hot button issue is that if you removed all the stuff that is getting people worked up, there's not much of a game there. If you ignore the all female cast and the under dressed characters, it's a cr@p game. Nobody that I'm aware of has really disputed this.
Which says a lot about the developer's expectations of gamers. They expect gamers will pay for and play a total cr@p game if you show enough virtual skin.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
First how many of us commenters even tried the game or willing to with the ads they threw up? I bet not one of us, because frankly it looked like a boring game with boobs showing, if I'm looking for an adult film, I'll watch and adult film, not play a naked pixel fest. No storyline or reasoning behind they nakedness. Someone mentioned AoC having some boobs. It is in context of the storyline and the world of Hyboria.
This game came along had ads that were meant to target young men who get their rocks off to hentai. Whatever floats your boat. Calling it degrading sure, but that is what the game was going for, women were not the target audience. Not like Aeria produces anything really worth a damn anyways, so the probably needed the naked ladies just to peak interest in the game so they could sell some stuff.
Originally posted by Panzerbase You really can't condemn a game and call it a review when all you have is opinion.
A review is nothing BUT an opinion. It's just a skilled reviewer can be objective even to the games they don't enjoy at all, and still find the bit of good in it, and vice versa. It's the reviewers experience, not anyone else's.
Whenever I read articles about this game, I get the feeling the author is loudly proclaiming each and every word out loud, in order to secure brownie points with any women within earshot.
Does seem odd to give the job of reviewing the game to someone so clearly offended by the female form. Even odder that this upright defender of moral purity, while disgusted by boobs, had absolutely no issues with the endless violence in the game.
What's really 'shameful and degrading'? How many reviews ya'll (as a group) have turned in on this one p.o.s.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Your comments about its aesthetics lacks objectivity, a characteristic required for good journalism. Your moral views are irrelevant to aesthetics, probably shaped and nurtured by some corporate religion. This is a meta-ethical moral relativists world we live in by the way
really? i felt the game as a whole has an interesting underlying current which represents man's inhumanity to man, tinged with the juxtaposition of the mundane against the tapestry of the surreal.
I've played this game. I got my Punisher to about level 12 i think, then I uninstalled it after a few hours of playing. Environment looked too 2D to me. Not enough texture for my taste. combat mechnics is bland. UI not very friendly for newbs like me, but if played more, i can probably get use to it. unfortunately, not enough fun factor, even with ti's legit model aesthetics :-)
This is kinda funny to be honest. Think of it like an attention starved individual, even bad attention is good attention to the right mind set. I've known more than a few kid's that would get into trouble just to get attention from their parent's.
Bad review's can still be good if someone decide's to try the game and end's up liking it, guess what the person who gave the negative review just did the developer's a favor. Kinda funny if you think about it.
@clumsy, yeah, you are probably right. however, his reputation will go forward beyond this review and i won't take them seriously if i read them or i'll just skip them.
Whenever I read articles about this game, I get the feeling the author is loudly proclaiming each and every word out loud, in order to secure brownie points with any women within earshot.
Does seem odd to give the job of reviewing the game to someone so clearly offended by the female form. Even odder that this upright defender of moral purity, while disgusted by boobs, had absolutely no issues with the endless violence in the game.
First how many of us commenters even tried the game or willing to with the ads they threw up? I bet not one of us, because frankly it looked like a boring game with boobs showing, if I'm looking for an adult film, I'll watch and adult film, not play a naked pixel fest. No storyline or reasoning behind they nakedness. Someone mentioned AoC having some boobs. It is in context of the storyline and the world of Hyboria.
This game came along had ads that were meant to target young men who get their rocks off to hentai. Whatever floats your boat. Calling it degrading sure, but that is what the game was going for, women were not the target audience. Not like Aeria produces anything really worth a damn anyways, so the probably needed the naked ladies just to peak interest in the game so they could sell some stuff.
This pretty well sums up my view as well. Look, feel outraged all you want at the reviewer for taken offense at the sexual imagery/content of the game: It is a review after all, the author's opinion on the game. But lets not kid ourselves, the game is a bland and uninspired POS and the only reason we are talking about it is because of the "boobs". The developers knew this when creating the game and were going for a specific demographic: the 18 - 35 year old male who get their jollies from cartoon porn. So get of the soap box and stop defending this POS like it was a Michelangelo sculpture or a Picasso.
And MMORPG.com: get off your soapbox about this game as well. We get it, you are outraged at the sexual content and don't like the game. Time to move on...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Your comments about its aesthetics lacks objectivity, a characteristic required for good journalism. Your moral views are irrelevant to aesthetics, probably shaped and nurtured by some corporate religion. This is a meta-ethical moral relativists world we live in by the way
I seriously doubt you understand what the word "aesthetics" means.....
First how many of us commenters even tried the game or willing to with the ads they threw up? I bet not one of us, because frankly it looked like a boring game with boobs showing, if I'm looking for an adult film, I'll watch and adult film, not play a naked pixel fest. No storyline or reasoning behind they nakedness. Someone mentioned AoC having some boobs. It is in context of the storyline and the world of Hyboria.
This game came along had ads that were meant to target young men who get their rocks off to hentai. Whatever floats your boat. Calling it degrading sure, but that is what the game was going for, women were not the target audience. Not like Aeria produces anything really worth a damn anyways, so the probably needed the naked ladies just to peak interest in the game so they could sell some stuff.
This pretty well sums up my view as well. Look, feel outraged all you want at the reviewer for taken offense at the sexual imagery/content of the game: It is a review after all, the author's opinion on the game. But lets not kid ourselves, the game is a bland and uninspired POS and the only reason we are talking about it is because of the "boobs". The developers knew this when creating the game and were going for a specific demographic: the 18 - 35 year old male who get their jollies from cartoon porn. So get of the soap box and stop defending this POS like it was a Michelangelo sculpture or a Picasso.
And MMORPG.com: get off your soapbox about this game as well. We get it, you are outraged at the sexual content and don't like the game. Time to move on...
you should read the comments again, then again, then maybe for good measure read them again. we are not defending the game. defending the game would suggest the commenters would like you to try it. we are offended by THIS review or any review for any game that's not objective.
Moral views can certainly effect the aesthetics. All we have is our own perception which is affected by everything we think, feel, and believe. If you believe that blondes are evil, every blonde girl no matter how pretty she might be will automatically look ugly to you.
The problem here is that the reviewer is supposed to review the aesthetics of the entire game (or as much as they're able to see of it within their play-time. Instead the reviewer gives a very short, vague paragraph on the aesthetics of the game-world and then gives another paragraph twice as long on just the shamefulness of the characters.
To compare it to your example, let's say someone is supposed to review the aesthetics of a mansion, inhabited by a blonde, located on a small tropical island. Yes the reviewer may believe blondes are evil, and their review of the aesthetics of the blonde will show that, but that should NOT affect their review of the aesthetics of the mansion or the rest of the island. Having an "evil" blonde woman on the island shouldn't magically make the mansion look like a prison or the island like the pits of hell.
In other words, at least as far as the aesthetics section goes, the reviewer should have done the opposite and made a really long paragraph about the world's aesthetics and then a much shorter paragraph about the characters. Judge the game world on it's own as if the characters weren't even there and THEN you can throw in your thoughts on the characters.
What's worse is that the "blondes are evil" (in your example) bias blends over into most of the other sections of the review:
--What's the review for the Food on the island? "Well, the Island's food is blah blah blah and the mansion's food is blah blah but what REALLY ruins the food is that those evil blondes get to eat it too."
--What's the review on the accessibility of getting around the Island? "Well, there's roads and trails but what REALLY makes getting around the island such a pain is putting up with those evil blondes."
The problems some here do not seem to grasp is that ..
He did not give it a bad score just because of the boobs..He explained l every area of the game and the boobs are just the tip of the iceberg..IT´S BAD GAME boobs or NOT. Without the sexual hinting that is present in this, the score may have been abit higher but I'm guessing not by much.
This will not hinder it from getting the attention it does NOT deserve how ever and many of you will try this game based of this article alone..
It's a typical FTP game among many many many other of these asian style MMO's that plagued the market, and to produce yet another game with as little funds as virtually possible, they got to have some sort of edge or uniqeness towards these other crappy games, in this case it was VERY lightly dressed manga girls, . It is a very simple trick that made this game a unique edge, yet It's the same idiotic FTP game than any other..
So..this is what and how the market will change given the nature of FTP, to produce the next junk game as fast as possible and with a small spin like this and sell a few kewl bra's in the itemstore before they start to create the next BAD game..:)
The thing that bothers me most about this game I have never heard a reviewer mention. And while I of course agree that the scantily clad toons are obviously offensive, the true degradation in Scarlet Blade is more insidious. It is the fact that the player is not playing AS the girl( of course not. God forbid we ask men to play as women), but rather is controlling the girl, in a pseudo master/slave relationship. The toon defers to you, the master, in oh so coy double entendres and submissive language. It disgusted me and I can only conclude no reviewer has mentioned it because the reviewers are male and may not have even noticed how insulting this is to women.
Can't lie/, the game isn't worth my time personally but as strong as words like "Shameful" and "degrading" are, this site seems to have no problems using the ads for the game.
oddly enough its not 'porn' or 'perversion' that troubles me here. im more deeply concerned at the portrayal of women in general in mmos and videogames at large..
is sexual desire and fantastical portrayals of the primary sex glands/organs of women something men like to look at, no doubt. but you will find it increasingly difficult to train younger males to control themselves in a civilized society around females if you continue to allow at large objectification of women and girls.
do videogames cause rape? of course not. but as one part of a larger ocean of media that we are all submersed in it would certainly help if videogames did not give in to the overall trend of objectification.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
First how many of us commenters even tried the game or willing to with the ads they threw up? I bet not one of us, because frankly it looked like a boring game with boobs showing, if I'm looking for an adult film, I'll watch and adult film, not play a naked pixel fest. No storyline or reasoning behind they nakedness. Someone mentioned AoC having some boobs. It is in context of the storyline and the world of Hyboria.
This game came along had ads that were meant to target young men who get their rocks off to hentai. Whatever floats your boat. Calling it degrading sure, but that is what the game was going for, women were not the target audience. Not like Aeria produces anything really worth a damn anyways, so the probably needed the naked ladies just to peak interest in the game so they could sell some stuff.
This pretty well sums up my view as well. Look, feel outraged all you want at the reviewer for taken offense at the sexual imagery/content of the game: It is a review after all, the author's opinion on the game. But lets not kid ourselves, the game is a bland and uninspired POS and the only reason we are talking about it is because of the "boobs". The developers knew this when creating the game and were going for a specific demographic: the 18 - 35 year old male who get their jollies from cartoon porn. So get of the soap box and stop defending this POS like it was a Michelangelo sculpture or a Picasso.
And MMORPG.com: get off your soapbox about this game as well. We get it, you are outraged at the sexual content and don't like the game. Time to move on...
you should read the comments again, then again, then maybe for good measure read them again. we are not defending the game. defending the game would suggest the commenters would like you to try it. we are offended by THIS review or any review for any game that's not objective.
All this talk of "objectivity"... A game reviewer can only speak from his/her experiences and likes. That’s all a review really is. It’s the author talking about his or her experience playing a game. Sure, the reviewer may have a bias to a certain type/style of game, but the review is an opinion and should be treated as such.
But sure, rage and be offended all you want. I just find it silly and childish at the things people get offended about this days... particularly when it is in regards to a shoddy product as this.
But hey, it's your soap box and time...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
Moral views can certainly effect the aesthetics. All we have is our own perception which is affected by everything we think, feel, and believe. If you believe that blondes are evil, every blonde girl no matter how pretty she might be will automatically look ugly to you.
The problem here is that the reviewer is supposed to review the aesthetics of the entire game (or as much as they're able to see of it within their play-time. Instead the reviewer gives a very short, vague paragraph on the aesthetics of the game-world and then gives another paragraph twice as long on just the shamefulness of the characters.
To compare it to your example, let's say someone is supposed to review the aesthetics of a mansion, inhabited by a blonde, located on a small tropical island. Yes the reviewer may believe blondes are evil, and their review of the aesthetics of the blonde will show that, but that should NOT affect their review of the aesthetics of the mansion or the rest of the island. Having an "evil" blonde woman on the island shouldn't magically make the mansion look like a prison or the island like the pits of hell.
In other words, at least as far as the aesthetics section goes, the reviewer should have done the opposite and made a really long paragraph about the world's aesthetics and then a much shorter paragraph about the characters. Judge the game world on it's own as if the characters weren't even there and THEN you can throw in your thoughts on the characters.
What's worse is that the "blondes are evil" (in your example) bias blends over into most of the other sections of the review:
--What's the review for the Food on the island? "Well, the Island's food is blah blah blah and the mansion's food is blah blah but what REALLY ruins the food is that those evil blondes get to eat it too."
--What's the review on the accessibility of getting around the Island? "Well, there's roads and trails but what REALLY makes getting around the island such a pain is putting up with those evil blondes."
And so on...
However you twist and turn this, the bimbos present in this game will NOT go away...
You can't simply ignore the fact that they are the foundation pillar of this game and close your eyes and pretend that they are NOT there..This game is adverticed with these manga bimbos , almost as the MAIN feature of the game. Its It's MAIN selling point., So If the games MAIN feature is bad You get the picture..
Comments
Morals are absolutely relevant to aesthetics if the aesthetics offend.
To some small degree it does. But this view totally conflicts with logic and the very definition of aesthetics. I think he's mixing up what's morally ugly to what's visually ugly. Take for instance Rola Takizawa. Undeniable beauty with innate look of innocense. She had a legitimate potential to become a commercial star. She decided she needed money and went to porn. Fans were surprised. Is she now aesthetically ugly. Saying yes to that makes no sense what's so ever. Morally ugly yes. But not aesthetically ugly. Get it?Moral views can certainly effect the aesthetics. All we have is our own perception which is affected by everything we think, feel, and believe. If you believe that blondes are evil, every blonde girl no matter how pretty she might be will automatically look ugly to you.
That's a good example. As a matter of fact, I'm not attracted to blondes. I think their looks age faster than others. I prefer asians. And even moreso, I'm least attracted to blacks for partnership to point I wouldn't even sleep with them when offered . But i recognize their beauty. Hally Barry is super cute. See that? Objective. I don't let anything unrelated affect another. I'm not that closed minded. I do recognize not everyone possess that good trait. ;-)I haven't read the article, but I probably agree with a lot of what was said in there. At this point though, it doesn't seem likely that there's anyone who doesn't know about the game, or doesn't know that it's offensive to a large number of people.
The common thread I've seen running through reviews, other than the obvious hot button issue is that if you removed all the stuff that is getting people worked up, there's not much of a game there. If you ignore the all female cast and the under dressed characters, it's a cr@p game. Nobody that I'm aware of has really disputed this.
Which says a lot about the developer's expectations of gamers. They expect gamers will pay for and play a total cr@p game if you show enough virtual skin.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
First how many of us commenters even tried the game or willing to with the ads they threw up? I bet not one of us, because frankly it looked like a boring game with boobs showing, if I'm looking for an adult film, I'll watch and adult film, not play a naked pixel fest. No storyline or reasoning behind they nakedness. Someone mentioned AoC having some boobs. It is in context of the storyline and the world of Hyboria.
This game came along had ads that were meant to target young men who get their rocks off to hentai. Whatever floats your boat. Calling it degrading sure, but that is what the game was going for, women were not the target audience. Not like Aeria produces anything really worth a damn anyways, so the probably needed the naked ladies just to peak interest in the game so they could sell some stuff.
A review is nothing BUT an opinion. It's just a skilled reviewer can be objective even to the games they don't enjoy at all, and still find the bit of good in it, and vice versa. It's the reviewers experience, not anyone else's.
Whenever I read articles about this game, I get the feeling the author is loudly proclaiming each and every word out loud, in order to secure brownie points with any women within earshot.
Does seem odd to give the job of reviewing the game to someone so clearly offended by the female form. Even odder that this upright defender of moral purity, while disgusted by boobs, had absolutely no issues with the endless violence in the game.
What's really 'shameful and degrading'? How many reviews ya'll (as a group) have turned in on this one p.o.s.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
really? i felt the game as a whole has an interesting underlying current which represents man's inhumanity to man, tinged with the juxtaposition of the mundane against the tapestry of the surreal.
RIP Orc Choppa
I have to agree. The game is touted as an "adult themed" MMO...you know that going in. Did they deliver as advertised? Is it adult themed?
It's like going to review a Porn Film and bashing it because it focuses too much on sex and not on character development...
This is kinda funny to be honest. Think of it like an attention starved individual, even bad attention is good attention to the right mind set. I've known more than a few kid's that would get into trouble just to get attention from their parent's.
Bad review's can still be good if someone decide's to try the game and end's up liking it, guess what the person who gave the negative review just did the developer's a favor. Kinda funny if you think about it.
this review is biased. a lot.
isnt worth a cent. problems with big boobs? create a girl with small ones. lol
lol. this +1
This pretty well sums up my view as well. Look, feel outraged all you want at the reviewer for taken offense at the sexual imagery/content of the game: It is a review after all, the author's opinion on the game. But lets not kid ourselves, the game is a bland and uninspired POS and the only reason we are talking about it is because of the "boobs". The developers knew this when creating the game and were going for a specific demographic: the 18 - 35 year old male who get their jollies from cartoon porn. So get of the soap box and stop defending this POS like it was a Michelangelo sculpture or a Picasso.
And MMORPG.com: get off your soapbox about this game as well. We get it, you are outraged at the sexual content and don't like the game. Time to move on...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
I seriously doubt you understand what the word "aesthetics" means.....
you should read the comments again, then again, then maybe for good measure read them again. we are not defending the game. defending the game would suggest the commenters would like you to try it. we are offended by THIS review or any review for any game that's not objective.
The problem here is that the reviewer is supposed to review the aesthetics of the entire game (or as much as they're able to see of it within their play-time. Instead the reviewer gives a very short, vague paragraph on the aesthetics of the game-world and then gives another paragraph twice as long on just the shamefulness of the characters.
To compare it to your example, let's say someone is supposed to review the aesthetics of a mansion, inhabited by a blonde, located on a small tropical island. Yes the reviewer may believe blondes are evil, and their review of the aesthetics of the blonde will show that, but that should NOT affect their review of the aesthetics of the mansion or the rest of the island. Having an "evil" blonde woman on the island shouldn't magically make the mansion look like a prison or the island like the pits of hell.
In other words, at least as far as the aesthetics section goes, the reviewer should have done the opposite and made a really long paragraph about the world's aesthetics and then a much shorter paragraph about the characters. Judge the game world on it's own as if the characters weren't even there and THEN you can throw in your thoughts on the characters.
What's worse is that the "blondes are evil" (in your example) bias blends over into most of the other sections of the review:
--What's the review for the Food on the island? "Well, the Island's food is blah blah blah and the mansion's food is blah blah but what REALLY ruins the food is that those evil blondes get to eat it too."
--What's the review on the accessibility of getting around the Island? "Well, there's roads and trails but what REALLY makes getting around the island such a pain is putting up with those evil blondes."
And so on...
The problems some here do not seem to grasp is that ..
He did not give it a bad score just because of the boobs..He explained l every area of the game and the boobs are just the tip of the iceberg..IT´S BAD GAME boobs or NOT. Without the sexual hinting that is present in this, the score may have been abit higher but I'm guessing not by much.
This will not hinder it from getting the attention it does NOT deserve how ever and many of you will try this game based of this article alone..
It's a typical FTP game among many many many other of these asian style MMO's that plagued the market, and to produce yet another game with as little funds as virtually possible, they got to have some sort of edge or uniqeness towards these other crappy games, in this case it was VERY lightly dressed manga girls, . It is a very simple trick that made this game a unique edge, yet It's the same idiotic FTP game than any other..
So..this is what and how the market will change given the nature of FTP, to produce the next junk game as fast as possible and with a small spin like this and sell a few kewl bra's in the itemstore before they start to create the next BAD game..:)
Its a borderlining scam ..
oddly enough its not 'porn' or 'perversion' that troubles me here. im more deeply concerned at the portrayal of women in general in mmos and videogames at large..
is sexual desire and fantastical portrayals of the primary sex glands/organs of women something men like to look at, no doubt. but you will find it increasingly difficult to train younger males to control themselves in a civilized society around females if you continue to allow at large objectification of women and girls.
do videogames cause rape? of course not. but as one part of a larger ocean of media that we are all submersed in it would certainly help if videogames did not give in to the overall trend of objectification.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
All this talk of "objectivity"... A game reviewer can only speak from his/her experiences and likes. That’s all a review really is. It’s the author talking about his or her experience playing a game. Sure, the reviewer may have a bias to a certain type/style of game, but the review is an opinion and should be treated as such.
But sure, rage and be offended all you want. I just find it silly and childish at the things people get offended about this days... particularly when it is in regards to a shoddy product as this.
But hey, it's your soap box and time...
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
However you twist and turn this, the bimbos present in this game will NOT go away...
You can't simply ignore the fact that they are the foundation pillar of this game and close your eyes and pretend that they are NOT there..This game is adverticed with these manga bimbos , almost as the MAIN feature of the game. Its It's MAIN selling point., So If the games MAIN feature is bad
You get the picture..