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[NotLiquid]

I'm not even sure what the article or even "review-proof" is supposed to prove, a lot of games sell well despite middling reception, and a lot of good games don't sell despite fantastic reception. In Knack's case it's only arguably selling because it's bundled and a PS4 launch title.

It selling doesn't stop it from being garbage. Then again I get the impression that the article isn't exactly one that has positive things to say about the game.

 

[Acquiescence]

He really is a disgustingly charmless little bugger, isn't he? I'll still give it a try when it inevitably comes to PS+.

But those dance moves!

 

[KingSnake]

Since there are completely reasonable, easily communicated shortcomings in the game design of Knack, I don't think I agree with the celebration of its commercial success in spite of that, particularly when it's postured as celebration of another game's relatively lower sales. At least in so far as I like the idea that games the greatest number of people are likely to enjoy be played by the greatest number of people, I feel the opposite as well. I also feel strongly that children's games should have more design effort put into them than less. I don't think anyone's ever said it's impossible to enjoy Knack, but this reaction leaves a feeling of petty, counter-productive gloating in light of sales figures. A game selling isn't the same thing as a game being enjoyed.

Not a direct connection to Knack, but expose the kid to average games and he will learn to love average games. Average games will sell even better in the future. Everyone wins.

 

[T.O.P]

If Knack wasn't a exclusive title, nobody would have given a shit about it.

fixed

 

[spekkeh]

Is it possible for there to be a thread with Knack in it without it turning into a thread full of people getting a raging hard-on because it outsold Super Mario 3D World? I'm not sure what Mario ever did to y'all :lol

It exposed them for having no taste, most like.

In any case, I wonder how many of those sales were due to the Knack bundle being the only PS4s available.
I'm still waiting for the PS4 I preordered at the end of September to arrive. Over the last two weeks I've heard three times now that there were Knack bundles available. But fuck it. I'm not that desperate.

 

[Tizoc]

From what I gathered, it's just too long for its own good, were it a shorter game it might've been much more appreciated I guess.

 

[Air Zombie Meat]

No demo still?

 

[MYE]

fixed

Exclusivity and garbage launch line-up, a bad game's best friends

 

[PodcastFips]

So much hate. Stop bullying my beloved small, giant Knack. He was my personal replacement for the non-existent next gen Ratchet & Clank and I had lots of fun playing through the game multiple times for the platinum trophy

 

[RMS Gigantic]

I wish. <3 my GC

That's the thing, though.

At the time that the Gamecube launched, people were expecting a 3D Mario platformer at launch. Instead, they got a game that wasn't quite what they wanted, but within a few years people came around to calling it an exceptionally good game (Luigi's Mansion then, New Super Mario Bros. U now). Approximately a year after launch is when the 3D Mario platformer that people were expecting was released (Super Mario Sunshine then, Super Mario 3D World now), but the console was still seen by non-Nintendo players as kiddie and less powerful than the competition (I'm told now that the Gamecube was more powerful than the PS2, but at the time I don't recall anyone I know having said that that; in fact, I typically heard exactly the opposite).

Let's not forget that the Gamecube was also the worst-selling console of the big three at the time.

People mentioned wanting Gamecube 2.0. Well, here it is!

 

[:Motorbass]

Imagine if they released Knack for vita, that thing would be saved in the UK.

yeah. The vita would be a portable, cheaper Knack-Playing-Machine

 

[SmokyDave]

Exclusivity and garbage launch line-up, a bad game's best friends

Perhaps Zombi U ought to have been a worse game then. It might not have bombed so spectacularly

 

[Concept17]

Both Knack and Mario wish they were Skylanders at the end of the day.

 

[Zia]

Transformers and Nickelback are also review proof.

Just imagine a world in which movie studios and record labels had exclusive content tied to proprietary formats, and consumers tied their relationship to the mediums to these specific formats, following corporate execs on Twitter, sporting photos of them as their message board avatars and going as far to wave Nickelback and Transformers-emblazoned banners for their beloved.

This Is Video Games.

 

[Syril]

This conversation reminds me of when it came out how much money the second Transformers movie had made and everyone who talked about movies felt the compulsion to go on a big rant about the state of our culture and insult the general public because a stupid movie was popular.

 

[Prince Vultan]

Exclusivity and garbage launch line-up, a bad game's best friends

And to think you and your buddies had the nerve to dogpile me for "trolling" and "shit posting" a couple of weeks ago over far less aggressive/inflammatory posting than you've been managing in recent days.

Congrats, you, I guess.

 

[darkziosj]

It is a Mediocre game i got the bundle and trade it after 4 hours, i was expecting it to get better, it didn't.

 

[Sons Of Anarchy]

So much hate for knack wow

It's a pretty fun game even for adults

 

[BruiserBear]

Mannn, that gif is amazing ! LOL !

And yeah, i do love Knack... never understood why all the hate, the game is a love letter to old school linear platforming. It's fun !

Comments like that literally get me mad. It's like someone trying to prop up some mediocre basketball player and comparing them to Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan.

No, Knack is not a love letter to old school platforming. It's a piss poor attempt at trying to recreate an old school platformer, and I think it fails pretty hard at doing that.

The character design alone is nowhere near as charming as Crash Bandicoot, or Mario, or Sly Cooper, or Ratchet & Clank. That voice when he's big? LOL, NO

The gameplay is incredibly basic, and the enemies, oh don't even get me started. This game made me cringe the first time I saw it, and I wanted to like it, because I like these style of game, but no, in the end I think people are purely giving it praise while wearing launch goggles.

 

[Khalifa Jayy]

Exactly. If Mario 3D World were out on PS4 or XB1, no game would stand a chance against it, least of all Knack.

Based on PAL NPD's Knack just barely outsold Gears of War Judgment last month. I don't think that's anything to be bragging about.

You reference install base in defense of SM3DW sales then proceed to try to downplay Knack because it "barely" outsold a game with a much, much bigger install base.

...

OK.

 

[BurritoBushido]

Knack is a God awful, painful mess, but I think this is a great article. Whenever someone speaks positively about Knack it drives me insane, except this time, because ultimately, people are allowed to enjoy whatever they damn well please.

All that aside, my 10 year old nephew was pretty bored of it and I basically had to force him to finish it with me.

 

[nycgamer4ever]

When there's nothing to play on a system, anything will sell.

Red Steel sold over a million. Resistance sold a couple million. Those are both terrible games.

Dude really speak for yourself. I have fond memories of Resistance. The game was a solid launch title.

 

[Shaddy]

I played Knack with my 9 year old godson during the Holidays and we both had a lot of fun with it.

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

I think the fact its a launch game helped it a lot. Its nowhere near as bad as what some reviews or people here would make you think it is though. Its serviceable.

 

[genbatzu]

From what I gathered, it's just too long for its own good, were it a shorter game it might've been much more appreciated I guess.

nah.... a speedrun on very hard difficulty takes ~4hours

i plat this game end of december.
at first it was very frustating. I played on normal difficulty and it was definitely not normal... If an enemy hits you, you are dead. The most hits you can survive are 2 or 3 and the checkpoints are unfair.
e.g. you fight in an arena with 4 waves of 3-5 enemies. every enemy can 1 or 2hit kill you. after finally finishing this "arena" you move on, survive 3 more areas with enemies and then die from a ranged 1-hit-attack. The checkpoint sends you back before the arena with the waves of enemies.

I hated the game on my first playthrough. But then I started another playthrough on hard and very hard (afterwards) and enjoyed it more and more.

Since enemies 1hit you anyway, there is no real difference between the difficulties. and the road to victory is skipping all skippable enemies (surprisingly a lot) and rushing into battles. Never play defensive and try to avoid something at the beginning of a battle, just rush in an area and bash the attack button, knack is faster and has more range than almost all enemies. ranged enemies are still unfair to deal with, since while you evade one attack another one kills you, so safest bet is to use super powers ( preferrable O + &#9651.

grinding for diamond knack is a pain in the ass, though....

 

[nycgamer4ever]

Comments like that literally get me mad. It's like someone trying to prop up some mediocre basketball player and comparing them to Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan.

No, Knack is not a love letter to old school platforming. It's a piss poor attempt at trying to recreate an old school platformer, and I think it fails pretty hard at doing that.

The character design alone is nowhere near as charming as Crash Bandicoot, or Mario, or Sly Cooper, or Ratchet & Clank. That voice when he's big? LOL, NO

The gameplay is incredibly basic, and the enemies, oh don't even get me started. This game made me cringe the first time I saw it, and I wanted to like it, because I like these style of game, but no, in the end I think people are purely giving it praise while wearing launch goggles.

I'm just wondering, did you play Knack? Or are you like so many others just basing your judgement on watching reviews and videos and what others say?

 

[Cizard]

Dude really speak for yourself. I have fond memories of Resistance. The game was a solid launch title.

Agreed, Resistance is a fun game. I quite enjoyed playing it and I didn't even get it at launch!

 

[QaaQer]

this thread is bizzarre.

Original Kinect is fantastic for kids, they love it, and I praise it as such; for adults, not so much. It appears Knack might be the same.

Why does everything have to be binary?

And lol at people dissing kid's tastes in media.

 

[char0n]

I think the article does raise an interesting point... in an industry that seems to be obsessed with "growing up" as the first large waves of home-console gamers are rapidly aging, are we forgetting that new generations play games too? Perhaps the overly simplistic plot, themes, and gameplay are actually perfect for child gamers to cut their teeth on. I remember as a kid watching the same VHS cartoons over and over and over again, a lot of which were dumb/silly and drove my parents nuts, maybe this is the same sort of thing?

I guess what I'm saying is, while yes, Knack is not deep in any sense of the word and while not bad, "mediocre" seems like a perfect description for gamers like most of GAF who have been there and done that, in TV terms are we/reviewers looking at/rating Knack like how we would a Breaking Bad or Miyazaki film, when we should be looking at/evaluating it more along the lines of a Dora the Explorer?

 

[nycgamer4ever]

fixed

If Knack was a multi-platform game I guarantee you there would not be this much hate.

 

[QaaQer]

Since there are completely reasonable, easily communicated shortcomings in the game design of Knack, I don't think I agree with the celebration of its commercial success in spite of that, particularly when it's postured as celebration of another game's relatively lower sales. At least in so far as I like the idea that games the greatest number of people are likely to enjoy be played by the greatest number of people, I feel the opposite as well. I also feel strongly that children's games should have more design effort put into them than less. I don't think anyone's ever said it's impossible to enjoy Knack, but this reaction leaves a feeling of petty, counter-productive gloating in light of sales figures. A game selling isn't the same thing as a game being enjoyed.

so you are saying knack is a poorly designed game for kids? How do you determine such things?

 

[Sorc3r3r]

It's hard to review games that are made for children.

I think that in this simple statement there is a lot of truth.

I have seen the same thing at my home with my son.
The game is masterfully done to be enjoyed by kids, when Cerny was describing knack as an introduction to videogames he wasn't lying.

 

[Tom_Cody]

Exclusivity and garbage launch line-up, a bad game's best friends

Truly. There are examples "hit" games like this at every launch. Red Steel for example.

 

[charsace]

Knack was a great developer's hiccup. I have faith that someone who played a significant role in the development of Sonic 2 can bounce back and put out something great next time.

 

[BruiserBear]

I'm just wondering, did you play Knack? Or are you like so many others just basing your judgement on watching reviews and videos and what others say?

No, I have never played the game, and yet I'm still confident that I would not enjoy playing it.

As my post explained, the first time I saw it I immediately felt like I was looking at a generic platformer design 101 project. When I saw gameplay I felt absolutely no emotion from it. When I heard people's impressions who played it at E3 they were mostly "kinda boring. Not that fun". Then the reviews said "kinda boring, not that fun". Then many people who bought the game at launch said "kinda boring, not that fun".

So yeah, I feel pretty confident having never played this game, saying it kinda sucks. The art style alone leaves me feeling cold, so hearing all those meddling/boring gameplay impressions just cemented the fact I was never going to touch it.

 

[Exile20]

nah.... a speedrun on very hard difficulty takes ~4hours

i plat this game end of december.
at first it was very frustating. I played on normal difficulty and it was definitely not normal... If an enemy hits you, you are dead. The most hits you can survive are 2 or 3 and the checkpoints are unfair.
e.g. you fight in an arena with 4 waves of 3-5 enemies. every enemy can 1 or 2hit kill you. after finally finishing this "arena" you move on, survive 3 more areas with enemies and then die from a ranged 1-hit-attack. The checkpoint sends you back before the arena with the waves of enemies.

I hated the game on my first playthrough. But then I started another playthrough on hard and very hard (afterwards) and enjoyed it more and more.

Since enemies 1hit you anyway, there is no real difference between the difficulties. and the road to victory is skipping all skippable enemies (surprisingly a lot) and rushing into battles. Never play defensive and try to avoid something at the beginning of a battle, just rush in an area and bash the attack button, knack is faster and has more range than almost all enemies. ranged enemies are still unfair to deal with, since while you evade one attack another one kills you, so safest bet is to use super powers ( preferrable O + &#9651.

grinding for diamond knack is a pain in the ass, though....

That sounds absolutely terrible.

 

[CalebW]

I love that this is the thing Knack is known for. It's hilarious.

I'd say it's more of a thing that the UK gaming scene is known for. Not your finest moment, UK. As for the game, yeah, it's terrible.

 

[Nibel]

How often do you plan to re-use those gifs OP

 

[purnoman3000]

I came in here to say one thing and one thing only... Knack fuck yeah!!!


.

 

[nycgamer4ever]

Knack's ascension to embodiment of that "You'd like to judge that, wouldn't you? Well you can't! It's not for you!" PA comic is sort of hilarious. Heading in to November I thought Ryse would occupy that slot for next-gen launch titles, but then the Yosp "they hate us because they want us to use more buttons " interview happened and now we are here.

History will likely remember Knack as a passable launch game that nobody plays in 2015 and beyond because it's been surpassed by so much. Kids liking shovelware doesn't suddenly make shovelware objectively good despite opinions, and the same applies to Knack. It's okay for a game to be mediocre, especially at launch, and the idea that a game should be considered good if it's not totally broken is sort of weird.

In 2015 there will be tons of launch games no one plays, on all platforms. and "It's okay for a game to be mediocre, especially at launch, and the idea that a game should be considered good if it's not totally broken is sort of weird" there are two extremes to this situation. No one is saying Knack is a great game, but it is by no means a terrible game like many media outlets and people here makes it seem. It is a well running, good looking, average, fun game that some will like and some won't like. It isn't broken as a 3/10 or 4/10 review would insinuate.

I'm done with these debates. I played the game and like it base on what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting another "The Last of Us" but just a fun hack and slash launch game.

 

[Stumpokapow]

But it&#8217;s a game that in the UK is still outselling critical darling Super Mario 3D World by a significant margin. Eyebrows were raised at that, partly due to snobbish suggestions that &#8220;people&#8221; don&#8217;t know a good game when they see one.

No one is saying that. People are saying that an excellent game on a dead (yes, in the UK!) system with limited retail support is not going to sell as well as most games on a system with strong, varied retailer support and strong consumer interest. Knack is also outselling Chrono Trigger and Ninja Gaiden Black and Tomba! and Cooking Mama.

 

[QaaQer]

Comments like that literally get me mad....in the end I think people are purely giving it praise while wearing launch goggles.

You get mad because someone has an opinion about a kid's game?

 

[NTIETS13A_Superiority]

Heh. Lot of people missed the point.
Article is just saying that knack is good kids game and reviews do not reflect that nor hinder its sales.
I do not agree with sales part but it is a good kids game and well made.
I enjoyed walktrough of it but I do not think I would enjoy playing it that much.

 

[CorporateClown]

Although I haven't played Knack, I'm kind of rooting for its success simply because it seems to make so many people genuinely upset. Like, it's the definition of a troll game. People keep crying and I keep laughing.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

You get mad because someone has an opinion about a kid's game?

He gets mad because someone compared it to an old school platformer, but he disagrees based on the art direction, having never played the game...

Go figure.

 

[SkeptiMism]

I'm not even sure what the article or even "review-proof" is supposed to prove, a lot of games sell well despite middling reception, and a lot of good games don't sell despite fantastic reception. In Knack's case it's only arguably selling because it's bundled and a PS4 launch title.

It selling doesn't stop it from being garbage. Then again I get the impression that the article isn't exactly one that has positive things to say about the game.

Pretty much agreed. What a strange article.
If Knack wasn't an exclusive and a launch title I don't think many would care about it anyway.
Plus, we don't know how many of the people buying the game are actually enjoying it.

About the game though, I don't think it's necessarily garbage. I haven't played the game, but I have heard from people who's opinions I value, that the game isn't near as bad as some people make it out to be. Not that it would still be that good a game, but it can still be fun, sure.

The demo I played was absolutely horrible though, but demos often aren't very convincing anyway. I kinda think the game looks quite ugly too, but that doesn't really prevent at least me enjoying a game.

 

[Wickerbasket]

No, I have never played the game, and yet I'm still confident that I would not enjoy playing it.

As my post explained, the first time I saw it I immediately felt like I was looking at a generic platformer design 101 project. When I saw gameplay I felt absolutely no emotion from it. When I heard people's impressions who played it at E3 they were mostly "kinda boring. Not that fun". Then the reviews said "kinda boring, not that fun". Then many people who bought the game at launch said "kinda boring, not that fun".

So yeah, I feel pretty confident having never played this game, saying it kinda sucks. The art style alone leaves me feeling cold, so hearing all those meddling/boring gameplay impressions just cemented the fact I was never going to touch it.

You seem to have pretty strong feelings towards a game you've never played before. That's pretty weird in my opinion.

I'd never start making claims about a game I'd never played.

I don't think Knack looks very good either, but I certainly wouldn't say it sucked without having tried it.

 

[kurbaan]

Just because people have been tricked into buying it since its a launch game and there is nothing else doesn't mean anything.

knack is a below average game. Its lame and boring in every thing it does.

 

[Timeaisis]

Sure, it sold more. But guess which series is going to get a sequel.

Spoiler

Not Knack.

Nothing wrong with people playing it and enjoying it, though. I thought it was pretty meh myself, but I didn't play through the whole thing.

 

[SummitAve]

You get mad because someone has an opinion about a kid's game?

There's almost nothing about the game that resembles something made for children besides the bunk gameplay.