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[jpgray]

i wasn't saying not to use the words, just that if you actually believe there's such a thing as a bad game, i don't look forward to playing your games. of course you might use the word occasionally, and call a game bad for various reason, even though you consciously recognize that there's actually no such thing as a bad game, that's a different thing.

also, superman 64 is awesome. if not for superman 64 we would have never had that avgn episode about that game, which would be a shame.

I think you have an inflated idea of what language use expresses about a person's ideas, whether in thought or communication.  Like the numerical rating you provide for your TIGDB reviews, "bad" is a compressed expression of a complex idea about an object.

I could just as well say "Anyone who thinks of games in terms of 'one star to five stars' will never make an interesting game," but I try to avoid talking nonsense.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@eric: well, you can enjoy them ironically as long as you don't play them -- in other words, a really "bad" game makes for really good entertainment, as long as it's not you that's playing it

@jpgray: well, i couldn't avoid giving them a star rating, you have to in order to review the games there. if i had the choice i would have left all the star things blank. i thought it was a reasonable sacrifice to make in order to help that database get some more reviews up.

[s0]

@eric: well, you can enjoy them ironically as long as you don't play them -- in other words, a really "bad" game makes for really good entertainment, as long as it's not you that's playing it

I just wanted to reply with the exact same thing. 

Also, ironic appreciation aside, bad games are almost always interesting from a design standpoint. There's a lot you can learn from analyzing a bad game.

On a side note, I've always viewed ratings as something for people who are too lazy to read and/or make up their own mind. This is also reflected in the hilarious drama they often cause on gaming sites.

[Brother Android]

The reason why I dislike the scaling in Oblivion doesn't doesn't really have to do with "challenge".

Firstly, it's what FatHat said about making the world more samey and taking away the incentive to explore, and secondly, one of the biggest I enjoy playing "open-world RPGs" like Elder Scrolls is that they give you the illusion that you're just part of a simulated world and not the "center of attention". The level scaling breaks that illusion, and consequently breaks the immersion into the game's world.

On this subject, I'd just like to say that for me, the thrill of open-ended games is doing stuff you're not really supposed to do, fighting stuff you're not supposed to be fighting yet, etc. just because, like in real life, stumbling around blindly sometimes gets you into big trouble. That element of being able to stumble around blindly is almost wholly what makes open-ended games interesting for me, and thus Oblivion is in my opinion a very bad open-ended game.

Also, ironic appreciation aside, bad games are almost always interesting from a design standpoint. There's a lot you can learn from analyzing a bad game.

Yeah, I agree.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think that 'worst game thread' is an example of why there really aren't any bad games, because a lot of the games some people say are the worst are games other people say are their favorites. i don't think there's a single game that isn't somebody's favorite game. even superman 64 is probably the favorite game of some guy out there in the world.

[s0]

My definition of the "worst game I've ever played" is the game I least enjoyed playing, which of course doesn't exclude others from enjoying it.

[tim-bo-jay]

even superman 64 is probably the favorite game of some guy out there in the world.

I dunno man, even bad taste has limits...

[team_q]

I don't think there is a way you could unironically like Desert Bus. That game was designed to be as terrible and mundane as possible. Everything good about it is derived by that fact.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

exactly, and calling desert bus a bad game would be missing the point: it's not a bad game exactly because it was designed to be "bad", it's a successful game at what it does. it's a good joke game.

[jpgray]

@jpgray: well, i couldn't avoid giving them a star rating, you have to in order to review the games there. if i had the choice i would have left all the star things blank. i thought it was a reasonable sacrifice to make in order to help that database get some more reviews up.

I'm not expressing myself very well here.  :-(  "Good" and "bad" are essentially meaningless when taken generally.  They only have meaning when tied by an individual to a set of ideas.  Those ideas can quite literally be anything, and this is why making any generalization on the basis of their usage is a useless task.

When you use terms such as "enjoyable," "interesting," etc., you are expressing facts about the game--it was enjoyable to you, or interesting to you.  If someone's idea of "good" is "enjoyable and interesting to me," then that person is saying (or thinking) nothing whatsoever different from you, since "good" simply describes the set of ideas.

[s0]

I love how Desert Bus is specifically designed to not allow for just putting a weight on a button and doing something else, with the bus randomly veering off the road.  

[Curseman]

i think that 'worst game thread' is an example of why there really aren't any bad games, because a lot of the games some people say are the worst are games other people say are their favorites. i don't think there's a single game that isn't somebody's favorite game. even superman 64 is probably the favorite game of some guy out there in the world.

So, what, should we just invalidate the concept of quality for everything because there's probably someone somewhere who will disagree?

There's more than one way to interpret what a person means by "good" or "bad," and just because they don't always match up with each other in every possible way (the desert bus team did a good job of making an intentionally bad game) doesn't mean we need to completely abandon those concepts.

[falsion]

I think we all can universally agree that that Cheetahmen is a bad game. Or even Action 52 in general.

That's why it's the best candidate for a remake. It has an awesome concept and the best music ever. It has to be the most deserving universally accepted bad game in need of a remake.

[Paint by Numbers]

I think we all can universally agree that that Cheetahmen is a bad game. Or even Action 52 in general.

That's why it's the best candidate for a remake. It has an awesome concept and the best music ever. It has to be the most deserving universally accepted bad game in need of a remake.

See my previous post in this thread.

[gimymblert]

The problem is when you only play game from average good to excellent you have a complete skrew view about what's "bad". High standard make good game look "bad" in some way (MK DD, FFCC)

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm not expressing myself very well here.  :-(  "Good" and "bad" are essentially meaningless when taken generally.  They only have meaning when tied by an individual to a set of ideas.  Those ideas can quite literally be anything, and this is why making any generalization on the basis of their usage is a useless task.

When you use terms such as "enjoyable," "interesting," etc., you are expressing facts about the game--it was enjoyable to you, or interesting to you.  If someone's idea of "good" is "enjoyable and interesting to me," then that person is saying (or thinking) nothing whatsoever different from you, since "good" simply describes the set of ideas.

my point wasn't that good and bad are meaningless, all abstractions are meaningful as far as that goes, just that the attitude that there are good and bad games will forever prevent one from being able to make interesting games, even if good and bad games actually existed. because a person's goal would then be to make a game that is good, and they'd fear doing things that would make a game bad. the reason people like vasily zotov and mdickie and so on make such interesting games is that they ignore what other people call "bad" about their games. a world without quite soulless or the you testament would be a sad world.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

I'm not expressing myself very well here.  :-(  "Good" and "bad" are essentially meaningless when taken generally.  They only have meaning when tied by an individual to a set of ideas.  Those ideas can quite literally be anything, and this is why making any generalization on the basis of their usage is a useless task.

When you use terms such as "enjoyable," "interesting," etc., you are expressing facts about the game--it was enjoyable to you, or interesting to you.  If someone's idea of "good" is "enjoyable and interesting to me," then that person is saying (or thinking) nothing whatsoever different from you, since "good" simply describes the set of ideas.

my point wasn't that good and bad are meaningless, all abstractions are meaningful as far as that goes, just that the attitude that there are good and bad games will forever prevent one from being able to make interesting games, even if good and bad games actually existed. because a person's goal would then be to make a game that is good, and they'd-

-become gigantic development corporations bringing in billions of dollars.

[gimymblert]

Leornado da vinci were pretty bad at making abstract painting, i mean look at his crap! you always recognize a face or two, and that splash of paint? it does not look like a splash but a perfectly wrap cloth LOL!

Yep, we need a measure of bad vs good to agree upon, excellence is always the one of some norm/goal and the crap of another one.

[tim-bo-jay]

This whole thing seems like it's lost it's way from the simple idea of looking at floored ideas in games and how they could be improved on in a remake and thus a means for all of us to learn from past mistakes...looks now more like a debate over what should be deemed as bad. I miss the innocent times when everyone just kept saying cheetahmen

[Seth]

even superman 64 is probably the favorite game of some guy out there in the world.

I dunno man, even bad taste has limits...

That's what I thought, but then I remembered ulillillia.