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[tebunker]

5 out of 10 is average to me. Not mediocre

It's using a scale like that which is why a game getting a 7 is deemed as hot garbage, and only a 9 constitutes a good game.

Yiu do realize that Average and Mediocre are synonymous.

me·di·o·cre
ˌmēdēˈōkər/
adjective
of only moderate quality; not very good.
synonyms: ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, uninspired, undistinguished, indifferent, unexceptional, unexciting, unremarkable, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian, prosaic, lackluster, forgettable, amateur, amateurish; More

 

[danowat]

Those saying that all the planets are samey - have you travelled to other star systems? Are there like 'styles' to each star system? or are we saying from planet one to 'near the centre' there's little variation?

From what I've seen in my own game, and on the numerous streams, there is little variation.

 

[Sephimoth]

They did look pretty samey from what I've seen so far...
Would be good if you could land on planets like that one in Interstellar which is all water with huge tides.

 

[MassiveNights]

I would actually imagine this game dying faster than Evolve. The surprises are over within a few hours.

How many hours are you in?

I've not gotten to this point yet. Hope it does't wear off.

 

[Ollie Pooch]

That seems like a good metric if someone would enjoy this game. Those kinds of moments are what makes exploring fun and exciting.

I just got stuck in a cave system for 20 minutes - it went on and on and it looked pretty but there is just nothing there. A few Avatar fungi and resources, but it's not like there actually anything new or interesting to find. At least Minecraft might have something to discover or some rare ore or something. There's barely a purpose to on-foot exploring in this game. It's kind of bizarre.

 

[Znedd1]

I don't understand how Jim gives his review scores. PvZ GW 2 — 9.5, Unravel — 4, Battleborn — 8.5, Overwatch — 8.5... I like this guy, but his scores are so random sometimes.

You may understand the review scores better if you read all the text above it.

 

[Keasar]

Remember when people used to get mad at others for asking about the game "So what do you do"?

Turns out that was actually a very valid question. I think the actual questions was "What do you do that is fun?"

 

[jmaine_ph]

His thoughts on the planets being different but having the same objectives/missions on them is exactly how I feel and I'm only 3 hours in. It's kinda what I expected which is why I haven't been spending much time on each one.

 

[LordOcidax]

This is going to be good... Grabbing popcorn... Jim Sterling discreditation and 5 is a Ok game posts incoming.

 

[erotic grandpa]

Jim's review score feels...generous? Given what he said and all (and based on my own impressions).

Haven't been this disappointed in a game in I don't know how long.

 

[goonergaz]

I have a couple issues, I don't get much play time - so in a way that's good because it will take longer for me to get bored...however...it sounds like I won't get anywhere due to needing to put the hours in :S

D'oh!

 

[Anung]

What's in the day 1 patch?

I'm on system 3 - they're pretty samey to be honest.

It didn't bother me til now, I'm on hour 8ish, it just starts to get a little old.

Do the planets sizes vary? Like do you get huge planets with massive life forms? Or are they all human friendly sized?

 

[Bl@de]

Same review to some impressions from gaffers here.

Yep. Let's wait for 2 weeks until everyone has played the game for 10h and more. Now it's all hype and hooray. But I think it will change after a while. Expect reviews at around 70 metacritic.

 

[jacobeid]

So glad I didn't preorder this. Absolutely not at all a game for me. Sorry it isn't reaching people's expectations either :/

 

[arts&crafts]

You may understand the review scores better if you read all the text above it.

Also people like different games, just like movies and music.

 

[Kenzodielocke]

Remember when people used to get mad at others for asking about the game "So what do you do"?

Turns out that was actually a very valid question. I think the actual questions was "What do you do that is fun?"

Grinding and exploration is fun to people.

 

[Baloonatic]

Remember when people used to get mad at others for asking about the game "So what do you do"?

Turns out that was actually a very valid question. I think the actual questions was "What do you do that is fun?"

I wonder if people kept asking that because what they showed you actually doing looked monotonous, so people just wanted there to be something more to it.

 

[Chaos]

403 for me.

Webcache of Sterling review -

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...//www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

 

[daveo42]

Haven't read the review, but I can kind of understand if that's not his bag. This game has a loop and is procedural, so repetition is kind of the name of the game. It just depends on if seeing new planets and odd creatures is enough to keep you moving system to system. Or at the very least getting that weird itch to see what that '?' is on the map, similar to discovering stuff in games like Fallout/Skyrim.

That said, I think this will become a podcast game for me as a way to chill out and see the stars.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Gamersglobal.de : 6/10
http://www.gamersglobal.de/test/no-mans-sky?page=0,6

Reviewer says, it's basically an One-Trick-Pony that is able to wow you for the first 5 hours when you encounter news things but after that it's all routine. He played 40 hours and says he wished he stopped after 10.

edit: I will still buy it and play it in smaller doses. I don't think a review marathon is a good thing for this game.

Is this a sign that the game uses Skinner's techniques to be compelling?

Some good quotes from an old thread about the game:

While you're correct nobody is being forced, the developers use Skinner Box techniques to get players to stay which is the issue here. These psychological techniques makes it really difficult to tell the difference between empty gameplay mechanics and fun content until you've spent a large amount of time experiencing them. That's why you'll see people spend hundreds of hours in a game, then complain they weren't having fun. It's because it wasn't fun, and they were essentially tricked to stick around thinking that the real fun was just around the corner.

Well it's not a direct or obvious Skinner Box, which is what makes them so effective. When designed on purpose, Devs are able to mix in fun mechanics with the Skinner Box mechanics to "extend the Box" so to speak.

Generally you start playing the game and have a great time, you continually progress through the story and leveling system with constant rewards. Then you finish the main part of the game and hit end game, which comes with a new set of mechanics. Since you've had a great time before hand, you decide to try it and see if its fun. Well you start off getting decent rewards, but much slower. But this is end game right? The items are now worth more so it makes sense that you don't get as many. Well the rewards become more and more spaced out, until you're grinding the daily and weekly challenges to get a reward once a month. Suddenly, you realize this isn't fun anymore. But when did you stop having fun? Was it at hitting endgame around 30 hours? Halfway through endgame at 70 hours when it was taking a week to grind for rewards? Or was it only at the end near 120 hours, because you never really got the fun you expected after all that grinding? It's hard to tell WHEN you stop having fun as you transition from playing a game to working a side job.

There's more to it than just this transition, like offering special content only available after playing endgame for awhile (Raids in Destiny) or promising new mechanics with new armor. But they're all centered around slowing the player down so they gradually accept the grind over new and fun gameplay. The best Devs can make this transition almost unnoticeable to the player, so they can easily spend hundreds of hours before realizing the Skinner Box. Some players never understand and spend thousands of hours playing, then turn around and try to find a similar game since they think it was fun. The effectiveness of the Skinner Box is extremely scary, I bet we'll see studies into how games abuse player's psychology in the future.

 

[prwxv3]

Remember when people used to get mad at others for asking about the game "So what do you do"?

Turns out that was actually a very valid question. I think the actual questions was "What do you do that is fun?"

There are people having fun and enjoying the game. Unless you want to just pull the "honeymoone phase!" argument

 

[shark sandwich]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

 

[Ceaseless Discharge]

For me 5/10 is generous as most of the game's systems are either half-baked, annoying, or simply boring. I thought my expectations were in check but I certainly wasn't prepared for a repetitive resource management heavy survival game.

At least the marketing has been excellent.

 

[Fliesen]

Yep. Let's wait for 2 weeks until everyone has played the game for 10h and more. Now it's all hype and hooray. But I think it will change after a while. Expect reviews at around 70 metacritic.

to be fair, even 6 hours of "hype and hooray" would make a game worth buying.
The issue might be that this game gets worse over time for everyone but it also might just be that this game doesn't ever get good for some people.
NMS is all about what you're expecting from a game. It's not a tight-knit narrative experience.
Some would say the fact that it's as empty as outer space itself is actually among its achievements
(

Spoiler

no one should say that

)

 

[DeepEnigma]

Is this a sign that the game uses Skinner's techniques to be compelling?

Some good quotes from an old thread about the game:

Most games use Skinner's techniques. Some are better at hiding it than others.

Loot games, etc., are the most obvious. Hell even shooters and RPGs with level up, etc..

 

[LordOcidax]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

 

[Hupsel]

Review seems reasonable. I mean, Hello Games did try at least to do something new, which is cool. The game was overhyped, yeah. I still don´t get how a company that did fucking Joe Danger (which is good but c´mon) and without an amazing track record could generate this amount of hype for one game.

 

[Mr. Mister]

Proteus with an annoying grind loop. No thanks.

 

[Kacho]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

I'm honestly surprised he gave it a 5/10 after reading the review. Damn shame though. I loved the reveal trailer and wanted the game to deliver but the heavy reliance on procedural generation and little to no complexity with the gameplay systems, it was almost a given the novelty would wear off incredibly fast.

I may check this out in a year or two if there are several meaningful content patches and a deep, deep discount.

 

[Zedark]

Yiu do realize that Average and Mediocre are synonymous.

Average and mediocre are only synonymous when used in the meaning of 'not really good', right? Mediocre does not mean 'right there in the middle' like average usually means (and is used in this case). (Non-native here, please correct me if wrong, but this is how I interpret the dictionary entry)

 

[butman]

Grinding and exploration is fun to people.

And boring and repetitive as hell too.

 

[CharminUltra]

5/10 - Mediocre

Jim Sterling's review

http://www.thejimquisition.com/no-mans-sky-review/

WELP

Not a "skip" for me yet, but it's getting closer and closer.

Even reading the OT and going through the positive impressions doesn't give me a lot of confidence since the gameplay sounds pretty dull. This is one of those games I'd love to try for myself via demo.

 

[ACE 1991]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

This should be at the top of every review thread.

 

[PBY]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

Spot on

 

[Toadthemushroom]

Most games use Skinner's techniques. Some are better at hiding it than others.

Loot games, etc., are the most obvious. Hell even shooters and RPGs with level up, etc..

Yup, a lot of games do, it's become an increasing trend to intersperse Skinner's techniques in purer genres too (heck, the new Hatsune Miku: Project Diva game now turns costume unlocks into random rewards to make you grind the same stages or pay real money to unlock them all).

It's actually one thing I don't like about the new Wii U/NX Zelda game: Its gathering system, crafting and the use of RPG-like stats for weapons. We haven't seen enough of the game to judge whether we'll be randomly killing enemies for no reason other than to collect materials, but it is something I'm keeping an eye on. Even if the rest of the game looks brilliant. The best Nintendo games tend to motivate the player without the need for extrinsic goals or superficial systems, and it's a shame to see Zelda adopt them of all series. The lack of RPG elements is why I believe Super Metroid is a more rewarding game to Castlevania: SoTN, too.



But I digress!

 

[Aztechnology]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

On point.

 

[Baloonatic]

And boring and repetitive as hell too.

Some people do like it though. It's like MMO endgames. I lose interest as soon as I've done all the story stuff in MMOs but some people like to keep playing, running raids and dungeons over and over to get slightly better stuff.

I suppose the question is does the whole gameplay aspect of NMS just feel like an MMO endgame.

 

[ldcommando]

Where are the scores? Hard to find them in such a big thread

 

[finalflame]

Been watching streams of this for the past couple of days and it's 100% obvious how repetitive it gets. Planets all follow the same pattern of discoverable shit and finding them is of no real consequence.

I'll wait for winter and get it for $10.

Some people do like it though. It's like MMO endgames. I lose interest as soon as I've done all the story stuff in MMOs but some people like to keep playing, running raids and dungeons over and over to get slightly better stuff.

I suppose the question is does the whole gameplay aspect of NMS just feel like an MMO endgame.

The level of complexity and teamwork aspect in MMO endgame content is nothing like the boring repetitive grind in NMS. I don't think they can be compared at all.

 

[Ollie Pooch]

Haven't read the review, but I can kind of understand if that's not his bag. This game has a loop and is procedural, so repetition is kind of the name of the game. It just depends on if seeing new planets and odd creatures is enough to keep you moving system to system. Or at the very least getting that weird itch to see what that '?' is on the map, similar to discovering stuff in games like Fallout/Skyrim.

That said, I think this will become a podcast game for me as a way to chill out and see the stars.

This isn't at all fair to those games - at least a POI in Fallout or Skyrim requires you to engage in a shootout or you find some cool lore or items or similar. In NMS you literally walk into space container #3427 and converse with a palette swapped receptionist for a random upgrade or a single word. Sterling review is spot on.

 

[OCD Guy]

Average and mediocre are only synonymous when used in the meaning of 'not really good', right? Mediocre does not mean 'right there in the middle' like average usually means (and is used in this case). (Non-native here, please correct me if wrong, but this is how I interpret the dictionary entry)

Yeah as I tried to explain mediocre (regardless of the technical meaning) is often used to describe something terrible as opposed to average.

To the majority of people something being mediocre has a much more negative connotation.

Scores (and word) aside, does the review read like an average game??

 

[Primethius]

And boring and repetitive as hell too.

Almost every game comes down to a repetitive game play loop that calling a game repetitive by itself is almost empty criticism.

 

[Zombie James]

Where are the scores? Hard to find them in such a big thread

There's one, Jim Sterling gave it a 5/10. Cue the confirmation bias.

 

[etta]

Looks like it should've stuck to being a $20-30 indie title.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

 

[SparkTR]

Will probably give this a miss like 90% of the other survival/crafting/exploration games that flood Steam these days. Not to say that this isn't higher quality than those, but that gameplay loop is just so damn tiring to me these days.

There's one, Jim Sterling gave it a 5/10. Cue the confirmation bias.

And a 6/10 from a German publication.

 

[Castef]

Some people do like it though. It's like MMO endgames. I lose interest as soon as I've done all the story stuff in MMOs but some people like to keep playing, running raids and dungeons over and over to get slightly better stuff.

Bad comparison here.

MMO are... err... massively multiplayer online games. Lots of people continue playing them for the community.

 

[SlickShoes]

I would actually imagine this game dying faster than Evolve. The surprises are over within a few hours.

How can the game "die"? It's a single player experience, Evolve relied on multiplayer and people playing it for it to have any purpose at all. If I buy NMS and i'm the only person online then I can play the game fine, if that happens in Evolve then I'm not doing anything.

 

[danowat]

You know what, as much as I am disappointed with the game, you've got to hand it to them, the idea of a limitless galaxy to explore seamlessly from space to planet side is a hell of a proposition.

It's just a shame the actual game part of it is just really boring.

As for the skinner box principal, I think I was at that stage this morning, then it dawned on me that there probably isn't anything great round the corner after all.

 

[Bloodporne]

The stages of review denial:

Stage 1: redefining the meaning of the score. "5/10 isn't bad, it's average".

Stage 2: digging through the reviewer's history to find a review I disagree with.

Stage 3: find a sentence in the review that sounds dumb when taken out of context, then say "I stopped reading right there"

Stage 4: pretend you don't care about scores anyway. "I feel sorry for people who can't form their own opinion"

Stage 5: accept that a game's critical reception is not tied to your personal sense of worth. It's okay to like something that someone else disliked. It's okay if you overlook a flaw that someone else is not willing to overlook. (LOL just kidding, we never reach stage 5).

Arguing actual semantics has to be the bottom of the barrel you're forgetting here. "But what does mediocre actually mean!?" Give me a break, no matter what your personal investment, someone else giving it a five means they thought it was fucking lame obviously.