Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

[6souls]

Play as Alucard, Revelations DLC found in the .dat's

Play as Alucard and reveal a whole new aspect of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Uncover new plotlines and discover the true extent of Alucard's involvement!

Play as Alucard in this extensive add on for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. The immersive story is expanded further as new branches of the plot are uncovered, along with rich new environments and challenging puzzles. Fight creatures of darkness and discover the true extent of Alucard's involvement in Dracula's story, his deal with death and his fight against Satan. Experience a whole new aspect of the thrilling conclusion to the 'Lords of Shadow' saga, including some enlightening revelations!

Devs blame each other for what they call a 'mediocre' game

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 has received a mixed reaction from the press, prompting a developer of Mercury Steam to come forward and discuss the sequel’s development, and to place the blame with studio director Enric Alvarez, a man he claims is both “mean,” and bearing, “serious problems.”

The insight follows a string of middling Castlevania: lords of Shadow 2 reviews, and comes from the Meristation forums, by way of a user who is known for having direct contact with one Mercury Steam developer. The anonymous employee has expressed his distaste with the game’s development, and with Alvarez himself.

He explained that he experienced a degree of “hell” during Lords of Shadow 2 development, and stressed that Hideo Kojima actually had little to do with the first game. “He came by, set a seal, visited the studio, signed some things and that was it. He had even less to do with Mirror of Fate and LoS2,” they claimed.

“The vast majority of this team is aware that the game we’ve done is a real piece of shit that has nothing to do with the first one’s quality and production values,” he went on. “Nobody is surprised by the low reviews we’ve got.

“If there’s someone to blame here, that’s Enric Álvarez. He is the person who has led a broken development based on his personal criteria, completely overlooking programmers, designers and artists. Despite his nice look to the press, often considered as some sort of creative ‘visionary’ in the looks of David Cage and Molyneux, this guy has serious problems. He is a mean and naughty guy, and since the ‘success Lords of Shadows 1′ his ego has grown to the point of not even daring to say ‘hello’ when you meet him in the hallway.

“His distrust to his own workers is enormous. Most of the development team often found out features of the game through press news, rather than from the studio’s head – unbelievable. And there is no corporate culture here at all… this is just a handful of people working blindly and at the disposal of an alleged visionary.”

The employee added that mercury Steam’s internal structure is “archaic,” and that its founders have, “zero abilities for running a studio.” He also called the game’s art direction, “erratic and beheaded.” Quite damningly, he claimed that Mercury Steam’s “QA department is treated like cattle, with shameful wages and almost everyday bullying.”

He explained, “The studio’s signature engine (one with many flaws) was solely coded by two guys, one of them being a founder of the company and Enric’s confident. Access for the new programmers to the source code to update or refurbish the engine is denied, so things are still done in a 10-year-old fashion.”

“Often here newbie developers know more than their own bosses,” he stressed. “This structure only leads to a slow, messy and absurd development process, with the end result of Lords of Shadows 2 being a perfect example of what happens due to that.

“Absolutely every design idea has to be monitored, taken away and mutilated by Enric Álvarez. Several game designers have grown tired of this and have abandoned the studio.”

He revealed that since work on Lords of Shadow 2 wrapped, Mercury Steam, laid off 35 employees, and that more firings are expected. It is now feared that the studio’s future hangs in the balance as Konami is upset with the “mediocre,” game. “Expectations for our future are quite bad,” he said.

In closing the developer said, “And finally, because not everything is bad in here, I wanted to say that the real team behind this company is an incredible bunch of people. If all those guys who are not allowed to be promoted due to our Jurassic studio leads had the chance to set the course of the company, our future would be so bright.

“There’s just so much passion and talent here, more than I’ve ever seen anywhere else, but it’s completely held back. I really hope that those who read this understand what we’ve lived here. Someone has to say this so it is not lost in time after the game’s launch.”

http://www.vg247.com/2014/02/28/cast...mediocre-game/
http://zonaforo.meristation.com/anal....html#40384572

Follow-up

Spoiler: show

A Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 developer has come forward to confirm parts of yesterday’s report that development of the Mercury Steam tile was a troubled endeavor.

Speaking with Spanish website Vadejuegos, the developer – who asked not to be named – confirmed most of the original story’s contents, citing leadership and communication problems issues between the game’s leads and core team.

“The problems we’ve been through are basically those in the original post,” said the developer. “There’s plenty of talented devs [in MercurySteam], though they’re not among the [studio] heads. There’s almost no actual lead in here. The only ones who really have something to say are those who have been here since the early days or those who struggle to please Enric [Álvarez, Mercury Steam CEO].”

In light of yesterday’s report, Álvarez took to Twitter to state that it was “sad [to] see people giving credit to the lies and insults from an enraged ex-worker. What a world we live in.”

The source went on to say that all ideas or decisions were monitored by CEO Álvarez, who also had to sign off on all decisions.

“It isn’t easy to be a creative guy in there, because people’s ideas are never really free to exist,” the source continued. “In fact, they expect you to not give any ideas, they do not like people who do so, causing many big names to leave without a second thought.

“Our art director [José Luis Vaello] went to Tequila and now he is making RIME. He left due to the creative situation here. He was being completely held back and couldn’t force any changes, so he was just like: ‘okay, see ya, good luck with your amazing ideas’, and left the team…”

Conflicts between key members of the studio, per the source’s opinion, were the cause of issues inherent in LoS2, with the developer citing the artwork, stealth mechanic and Dracula’s ability to turn into a rat as just a few examples of internal conflict.

“[Vaello] is the guy who made all the main art for the first Lords of Shadow, but LoS2 is a Frankenstein monster due to the lack of a consistent art lead,” the source stated. “After Vaello left we have had several art directors and there was like some sort of power struggle within the studio heads. That’s why some sections of the game are gorgeous and the newer are not.

“This Castlevania is a weird experience because everybody has been doing their own stuff without a proper lead. Each department has been minding their own businesses without any kind of communication between teams. They deal with people like… they don’t trust you. It’s a very uncomfortable atmosphere, it’s utterly uncreative. They don’t trust anybody.”

The source went on to say that a toxic atmosphere has permeated the studio for over two years, but the developer also insisted that wasn’t always the case: instead, dissidence has been growing slowly inside the studio.

Finally, the developer stated that they were unaware whether or not Konami was unhappy with the final product or not. The original source from yesterday stated that the publisher was displeased with the release of such a “mediocre” title and stated that “expectations” for the studio’s future were “quite bad.”

Vadejuegos’ source said there was no way to know whether or not this was the case, as lack of communication at the studio lead to “there not being any meetings” and to the staff learning about many things “through the news”.

“We can’t know that. Not yet. We don’t know if [our studio's relationship with Konami] good or bad at this moment,” they said.

In closing the source stated the six month delay of Lords of Shadow 2 forced the studios to self-fund the extra development time, but Vadejuegos’ other development sources have said the delay wasn’t an unusual occurrence in triple-A development – especially for a game of this size.

Update
A second unnamed source credited as a MercuryStream employee has added their voice to the report, responding to demands that the original source be named and describing MercuryStream’s response to the alleged leaks as a “witch hunt”.

“If you knew just a little about how the games industry works (particularly in Spain), you would remain anonymous as well. At least, if you ever want to work in the industry again. So I completely understand that as mere employees (should I remind everyone what’s the situation in Spain?) they don’t want to reveal their identity. I can also confirm you that most of what’s been said is exactly how everything works in MS,” the second source said.

“I would like to add that the end product looks spectacular to me, you can feel all the passion and effort that everyone has put into it, however on the management side this development has been a complete mess.

“But you’re not going to find someone who’s willing to tell this publicly or even in a private conversation because, as I said, this is a veeery small industry, and life’s just not that easy. There’s a large witch-hunt at this moment in search for the moles that revealed the situation, and that will only turn in even more firings and being blacklisted not to work in the industry here, well, forever. There has been a large reduction in our workforce lately.

“So please show a little respect for those who are risking their asses for what some of you think is just resentment to our boss.”

http://www.vg247.com/2014/03/01/cast...pment-reports/
http://www.vadejuegos.com/noticias/d...-20140228.html
https://twitter.com/Enric_Alvarez

[Seraph]

Alright, let see if I can give a reasonable opinion here without spoiling anything...

The game overall is good, but nowhere near as good as LoS1. In my mind, LoS1 was either 9.0-9.5 while LoS2 is probably closer to a 7.5-8.0 in my opinion. There are some pacing problems, the plot is a little thin, and I just had very little patience for most of the 'sneaking portions' as many other have already bitched about. Those were my major issues.

In neutral territory for me, this game has a map layout that is more 'Symphony of the Night'ish in that most areas are connected to each other somehow as opposed to the more linear pacing in LoS1. I do not necessarily feel one style is better than the other, it just depends on your preference. I felt it worked, and there are some definite other SotN references for fans of that game too, which gave me a few good chuckles.

On the good side, I did enjoy the combat overall, most of the boss fights were really fun, some of the scenery is fucking breathtaking (some of it is terrible though, my understanding is there were multiple teams), and the music is amazing even if it does get a little repetitive. For people on the fence, I would say this is totally at least a 'rent or wait to go on sale' purchase. It is worth your time, it just might not be worth $60. Maybe the rumored DLC will change that.

[Esvedium]

I was on vacation when this game was released, and now I'm glad I was, after reading most of the reviews. I'll get the game when it goes on sale, but not paying $60 for it.

[Damane]

I dont know about the bad reviews. I find the game good. granted I didnt finish it yet, (i think I am in the middle somewhere), but I really like it. The onyl thing I dont like is the mish-mash between present city and past castle, seems forced to me. More like they wanted to tell rather a story from the past, but since they did such a dumb cliffhanger in LoS1 with the present day they were forced to include present day in. Its also some times a mood breaker and I like the castle mood more then the present day mood!

So far I am satisfied with the game, so I am happy

[Krazy]

Yeah, I've enjoyed the game too. I'm just about at the end I believe. What I enjoyed most is getting past the stealth segment that some reviewer idiot on Kotaku was stuck on for over four hours in less than fifteen minutes.

[Xno Kappa]

Poor people problems. I don't give a shit about reviews on a game I genuinely want. Once I'm done with South Park I'm going to marathon this motherfucka and enjoy every minute of it.

[Cichy]

I dont know about the bad reviews. I find the game good. granted I didnt finish it yet, (i think I am in the middle somewhere), but I really like it. The onyl thing I dont like is the mish-mash between present city and past castle, seems forced to me. More like they wanted to tell rather a story from the past, but since they did such a dumb cliffhanger in LoS1 with the present day they were forced to include present day in. Its also some times a mood breaker and I like the castle mood more then the present day mood!

So far I am satisfied with the game, so I am happy

I also think they were forced to use future cuz of that dumb cliffhanger. It's the thing that bothers me the most. They should've just scrapped that setting and say the world dint advance at all.

[Tajin]

Poor people problems. I don't give a shit about reviews on a game I genuinely want. Once I'm done with South Park I'm going to marathon this motherfucka and enjoy every minute of it.

I can roll with this.

[Loziel]

This game is marmite, just like the last one, you will either love or hate it. Personally I could not put this game down and loved every minute. Screw the reviews this game was end to end fun

[Damane]

ok finished the game, and its awesome for me. granted its not perfect, but its really really good. And the bitching abou the stealth parts I dont understand, I finished them in 10-15 min usually. Really love the game, especially the Art and the design. Boss Battles were some yumm. Especially Death was very well designed.

[6souls]

[Seraph]

I am optimistic about the DLC, but I am annoyed at the obvious cash grab. I passed on the DLC for LoS1 and am glad I did, maybe it will be different this time. If it is something like $5 I would consider it.

[Cichy]

I finished this finally. I would not go as far as give it 4/10 but I find a lot of complaints to be true. The whole stealth sections are just completely awful and should've never made it into the game. The story is utterly weak and disappointing on so many levels. It's infuriating that they had such good voice actors and completely dropped the ball on utilizing them.