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[RobFox64tm]

This is disappointing. It seems all the kickstarter games I was excited about end up mediocre or worse. Of course, I'll wait to play Yooka-Laylee for myself before I say that's true or not. Still discouraging to hear though.

I hope Bloodstained doesn't fail to impress.

 

[Neff]

That 7/10 put him on the MAP.

It's probably his most infamous stunt but not his worst imo.

But yeah, his rep took a huge nosedive after that review, and his subsequent, repeated attempts to demonise the Zelda fanbase (although they did certainly do some dumb shit in return). He's essentially the boy who cried wolf at this stage, and it's only the fact that LKD is chiming in with the same view that gives him any credibility regarding this for my money.

 

[CalamityPixel]

But this was suppose to be the new Rare.

Rare are the new Rare

 

[Deleted member 465307]

The GameXplain 50 Q&A video said that performance on Xbox One (the only console version they had) was spotty, with the guy saying the game didn't feel like it was optimized for consoles. They also mentioned that the camera was quite bad (GameSpot mentioned this, too). The final negative I sensed was very individual and all came down to how much of a direct successor to the Banjo games you were looking for. Everything else I've seen has been positive or neutral.

The DF analysis should be interesting. I'm not optimistic about the Switch release.

 

[SmokedMeat]

That's one way a AAA publisher can punish, blacklist the critic from receiving any further games' review codes. Jim has that with Ubisoft, I think.

As a consumer you actually like this idea??

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

Based on what dark and Karak stated in this thread I'm taking their comments with a grain of salt

 

[Mael]

I'm always confused as to how people think he benefits from being "clickbaity". His entire income is based on patreon. None of the website clicks or youtube views are monetized. It's not like getting people to click on a controversial opinion they don't agree with is going to make them want to donate money to him.

The more exposure he gets the more likely there is someone is going to donate on patreon.
It's kinda like subs in regular magazines, the louder they are the more likely they are to increase their subs.
It's a pretty standard MO used in the old press, nothing new at all.

 

[Kilrathi]

Why do devs keep using fucking Unity? Isn't Unreal 4 cheap now anyway? And superior in pretty much every way imaginable at that?

First up unreal 4 has a 5% royalty on it, unity3d does not. Unreal editor is heavier to run it got higher requirements then the unity editor. Your also dealing with c++ instead of c#, not that's there is anything wrong with c++'

 

[Lijik]

It's a linear 3D platformer.
If you expect the kind of games Mario 64 and Spyro were you're going to be massively disapointed.
Like going in Uncharted expecting GTA.

Uncharted isnt an action adventure game it has more in common with temple run

Spoiler

/s

 

[dh4niel]

As much as I like the premise none of the footage I've seen has really interested me.

 

[spazimoose]

The one time I saw the game in person it look very choppy, it was hard to watch. I figured, since it was still months to release, it would get sorted out. Sad to hear it's still in such a sorry state.

 

[Neuromancer]

What other people do with their money effects industry decisions and trends, some of which can be pretty shitty, so yes, people absolutely have the right to call that out.

OK cool, please share with us everything you've bought within the last 30 days so we can judge every decision you make. Seems fair since you're judging anyone who preorders anything for any reason!

Also I don't know what's 'pretty shitty' about ordering a game and having it arrive at my door on release day. Seems to me its pretty awesome. And by the way if the game gets awful reviews or impressions or I decide I don't want it any more I can return it and lose nothing.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer. It has more in common with today's autorunners.

lmaooooo


seriously the mental gymnastics some detractors concoct give me fucking life.

 

[UncleSporky]

I'm always confused as to how people think he benefits from being "clickbaity". His entire income is based on patreon. None of the website clicks or youtube views are monetized. It's not like getting people to click on a controversial opinion they don't agree with is going to make them want to donate money to him.

Clickbait doesn't imply money must be made per click.

Some people just crave attention. And some people (correctly) think that increased attention increases the chances of more Patreon subscribers as well.

 

[Kouriozan]

I hope I won't regret picking the Switch as my console choice, really want it portable but not at 19 FPS.

 

[CalamityPixel]

Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer. It has more in common with today's autorunners.

 

[Boy Wander]

It's probably his most infamous stunt but not his worst imo.

But yeah, his rep took a huge nosedive after that review, and his subsequent, repeated attempts to demonise the Zelda fanbase (although they did certainly do some dumb shit in return). He's essentially the boy who cried wolf at this stage, and it's only the fact that LKD is chiming in with the same view that gives him any credibility regarding this for my money.

Why does LKD chiming in make Jim's views any more credible? One could equally be cynical and say that she's on his payroll and hence adds nothing in that regard.

The problem I have with this is that it isn't fair to insinuate shit about a product which is clearly going to provoke a reaction, knowing full well that you can't say anything more about it. You could almost see it as a pre-emptive strike on the games sales. Jim has a lot of subscribers so could have a material impact on sales by swaying peoples preconceived views on the game before it has even released.

 

[vulva]

Sure Playtonic isn't going to be happy with this but this idea they should keep this to themselves is silly.

Shouldn't discussions like that, of any form of public sort, be withheld until after the embargo is up? There's a reason for an embargo and to make vague statements that will lead to people jumping to conclusions (look at this thread) seems pretty irresponsible.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

Can't say I'm surprised. They chose the hill were to die when they went Unity. I just skip any game done on it even if they make a PC version

Edit
Ayy
Of course this shit turned into a Jim Sterling Son kind of thread and CB isnt a platformer

 

[BADMAN]

The more exposure he gets the more likely there is someone is going to donate on patreon.
It's kinda like subs in regular magazines, the louder they are the more likely they are to increase their subs.
It's a pretty standard MO used in the old press, nothing new at all.

I imagine the overwhelming majority of the patreon subs are doing it for his Jimquisition work and not for his game criticism. I mean how many people do you think he got to donate to him based on the Zelda 7/10 thing? At best he probably lost as many as he gained. Even if he's getting exposure based on being contrarian people aren't going to give him money unless they see the rest of his work AND enjoy it.

 

[Pandy]

Uncharted isnt an action adventure game it has more in common with temple run

Spoiler

/s

But if Retro are making a 3D Donkey Kong, will it have more in common with Uncharted or Crash Bandicoot? That's the real question here.

On topic: If they've seen the PS4 or XB1 version, then I wouldn't be too surprised if they were somewhat accurate about performance. Team 17 are trash.
I don't imagine Playtonic would want the first game with their name on it going out in a state they weren't happy with, so I expect their versions (PC and Switch, right?) to perform better.

 

[HonMirin]

Unity is far easier to use then UE4 directly out of the box and to get stuff up and running, it's just that it's also harder to properly optimise for console, especially with current systems having poor single-threading support. PC owners are gonna be fine, though.

Though, frankly, for those devs who really want the best performance possible, they should skip engines like UE4 and Unity and just go full custom, perhaps with open source frameworks to make it easier. That way you can tailor things to exactly the sort of game you want to make and cut out any unnecessary code. Yes, that option is really only recommended for experienced programmers, but if you don't do that, you're gonna have to accept that you'll be handicapped in terms of performance one way or another with Unity or UE4.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. Consider me educated on the subject! Much appreciated.

 

[UncleSporky]

Thinking about this a bit, with most of my memories from the first game, this isn't too far off the mark. I suppose if you want the comparison to be less valid you could argue that autorunners are a form of platformer? But seriously there weren't a ton of platforms in the first person view levels of Crash. It was mostly about jumping over pits and smashing boxes, it didn't exactly have Mario or DK-style platforming. Side scrolling levels, yeah, there was a bit more of that.

 

[kpaadet]

Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer. It has more in common with today's autorunners.

What am I even reading. Sterling really is bring out the crazies lmao.

 

[thumb]

It's probably his most infamous stunt but not his worst imo.

But yeah, his rep took a huge nosedive after that review, and his subsequent, repeated attempts to demonise the Zelda fanbase (although they did certainly do some dumb shit in return). He's essentially the boy who cried wolf at this stage, and it's only the fact that LKD is chiming in with the same view that gives him any credibility regarding this for my money.

You call it a "stunt" that he wasn't a big fan of BOTW? Are you alleging he's being insincere about his actual opinion of the game so as to gain attention? I just want to make sure I'm understanding you.

 

[Neff]

Why does LKD chiming in make Jim's views any more credible? One could equally be cynical and say that she's on his payroll and hence adds nothing in that regard.

Only reason being I haven't got any reason to suspect that she is, and she doesn't share his propensity for sensationalism and controversy.

I'm not saying her impartiality record is 100%, I don't think anyone's is, but it's certainly better than Sterling's.

You call it a "stunt" that he wasn't a big fan of BOTW?

A 7/10 for BotW certainly feels to me like a stunt. He may be sincere, he may not be, but his contrarian persona is what he's known for and probably goes some way towards paying his bills, so it's hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[JazzmanZ]

Thinking about this a bit, with most of my memories from the first game, this isn't too far off the mark. I suppose if you want the comparison to be less valid you could argue that autorunners are a form of platformer? But seriously there weren't a ton of platforms in the first person view levels of Crash. It was mostly about jumping over pits and smashing boxes, it didn't exactly have Mario or DK-style platforming. Side scrolling levels, yeah, there was a bit more of that.

Crash Bandicoot IS basically a Mario or DK-style Platformer, just from another perspective.

 

[Randdalf]

So when it comes to the reputation it has among console gamers as being poorly-performing, is it because all of the developers behind these games are inexperienced?
Couldn't it be that there are issues beyond widespread user error? Surely there's more to this than "all those devs are bad", after all, even if it's an issue of communication.

There is a certain style of developing games in Unity, that Unity encourage because it's the friendly-easy way to use Unity for small and novice developers, that is totally inefficient at scale. Unity is a deep and multi-faceted beast with many features, not all of which are well documented from a low-level standpoint. A studio new to Unity can easily be led down a road of thinking "well I just drag in this mesh and it works!", which it does, but it probably doesn't have the right import settings, it might have a mess of transforms when instantiated, and so on.

I guess what I'm saying is that Unity is really good and easy to get into for "high-level" game development where you can drag and drop stuff, and it kind of works, but low-level Unity development, and Unity's recommend practices for that can be remarkably different. You have to pay just as much attention to things like vertex budgets, draw calls, occlusion, and all that jazz as you would in any other game.

There are also hidden traps that are easy to fall into. For example, the foreach syntax in C# should not be used during update loops because it allocates memory, causing frequent garbage collection spikes. Also using things like Linq extensively is a bad idea too, despite its convenience.

I can't remember if this is the case any more, but using the Update() method on Unity MonoBehaviours has a hidden cost. So in complex scenes with lots of GameObjects, that cost could become substantial. In that case it's actually much better to write and manage your own Update hierarchy (which I'd argue should be done anyway, but that's another topic).

Unity's like a Swiss Army Knife in that it's really flexible, but it's easy to cut yourself on it.

 

[Boy Wander]

I imagine the overwhelming majority of the patreon subs are doing it for his Jimquisition work and not for his game criticism. I mean how many people do you think he got to donate to him based on the Zelda 7/10 thing? At best he probably lost as many as he gained. Even if he's getting exposure based on being contrarian people aren't going to give him money unless they see the rest of his work AND enjoy it.

I don't sub Jim on Patreon but if I did, it would be more for his impressions of random crap Steam games than any appreciation of his reviews of "proper games". He tends to ramble and over emphasise particular points or criticisms for my liking so if I want impressions on games that I'll ever buy, I wouldn't get them from him. He's more of a quick circus attraction for me when I want to have a bit of a laugh at shittily put together games.

 

[Thud]

Didn't they want to use Unity engine at first because Wii U didn't support Unreal Engine 4? So they had to use Unity.... But now Wii U version dropped in favour of Switch version which supports Unreal Engine 4 welp maybe too late

No, they played around with engines a bit and decided Unity was best for their purposes.

 

[ultrazilla]

All engines have inherent problems and can be hard to deal with if its not a bespoke engine for a specific project.

The fact you don't understand why people use it is literally the reason you offer no insight into whether it is or is not a good engine for any given project.

You're missing my point. When AAA developers like Playtonic and Insomniac have problems with the Unity Engine.....I don't need to give my insight. And almost every single game I've ever played/own with Unity have to be patched or I can't play them because of frame rate hitching, etc. And Insomniac saying they won't use Unity ever again is a pretty big indictment of the engine. So, while I may not program for it, I can cite companies and my personal gaming experience to know the engine has problems, moreso than other engines.

The only game I've ever seen and played that's on Unity that is mind blowing good in both terms of performance and graphics is Ori and the Blind Forest(absolutely nailed the game and performance)

 

[UncleSporky]

Crash Bandicoot IS basically a Mario or DK-style Platformer, just from another perspective.

Side scrolling, yes, a bit closer to DK-style at least. Behind-the-back, no. Unless things changed drastically in later games.

 

[Oneself]

So it runs like an N64 game?

I laughed. And also backed the project. :/

 

[Mael]

I imagine the overwhelming majority of the patreon subs are doing it for his Jimquisition work and not for his game criticism. I mean how many people do you think he got to donate to him based on the Zelda 7/10 thing? At best he probably lost as many as he gained. Even if he's getting exposure based on being contrarian people aren't going to give him money unless they see the rest of his work AND enjoy it.

The Patreon is covering the reviews he does so people are paying for that.
It's content is also very dependent on his persona, the more exposure he gets the more marketing that is for his patreon.
It's got his name in the title after all.
The saying goes as there's no such a thing as bad publicity after all.
He's also pushing for his cred with the controversies too.
This kind of stuffs is no different than the usual marketing you see for other media outlets.
And unless you can back that assertion that his Zelda review had an impact, I'd refrain from using it to make any point.

 

[maxcriden]

Crash Bandicoot IS basically a Mario or DK-style Platformer, just from another perspective.

I have to concur with JazzmanZ, here, UncleSporky. I think the Crash games actually bring traditional 2D Mario-style platforming to 3D more directly than the early open world Nintendo 3D platformers did (just from a couple of different camera angles from those games, most of the time). There are plenty of gaps to jump over, and even when there aren't, there are obstacles to avoid in platforming similar to what you need to avoid at times in SMB3-type levels filled with obstacles or even SMB1 levels that had you evading enemies and non-gap environmental hazards.

 

[Boy Wander]

Only reason being I haven't got any reason to suspect that she is, and she doesn't share his propensity for sensationalism and controversy.

I'm not saying her impartiality record is 100%, I don't think anyone's is, but it's certainly better than Sterling's.



A 7/10 for BotW certainly feels to me like a stunt. He may be sincere, he may not be, but his contrarian persona is what he's known for and probably goes some way towards paying his bills, so it's hard to give him the benefit of the doubt.

She didn't write his Persona review for free, I'm sure.

 

[GoldandBlue]

People still can't calling his BotW review a stunt for clicks? Y'all need to get over that already.

 

[oti]

Whilst a warning like this is always appreciated I don't think this is the right way to go about it. Rubs me the wrong way. And I never cared about this game to begin with, just to clear this up right now.

 

[Mael]

You call it a "stunt" that he wasn't a big fan of BOTW? Are you alleging he's being insincere about his actual opinion of the game so as to gain attention? I just want to make sure I'm understanding you.

His review wasn't, the way he advertized and framed it certainly was.

 

[Neff]

She didn't write his Persona review for free, I'm sure.

Oh, I wasn't aware she worked for/with him. That could change things.

 

[Skyzard]

Thinking about this a bit, with most of my memories from the first game, this isn't too far off the mark. I suppose if you want the comparison to be less valid you could argue that autorunners are a form of platformer? But seriously there weren't a ton of platforms in the first person view levels of Crash. It was mostly about jumping over pits and smashing boxes, it didn't exactly have Mario or DK-style platforming. Side scrolling levels, yeah, there was a bit more of that.

It was like 90% platforms lol.

At least the first one was, never actually played the others.

 

[UncleSporky]

I have to concur with JazzmanZ, here, UncleSporky. I think the Crash games actually bring traditional 2D Mario-style platforming to 3D more directly than the early open world Nintendo 3D platformers did (just from a couple of different camera angles from those games, most of the time). There are plenty of gaps to jump over, and even when there aren't, there are obstacles to avoid in platforming similar to what you need to avoid at times in SMB3-type levels filled with obstacles or even SMB1 levels that had you evading enemies and non-gap environmental hazards.

Again, from what I remember of Crash 1, I don't remember any behind-the-back maps with this level of complexity in design (just pulling a random example):

Instead I remember clusters of boxes, the occasional enemy or trap, and pits to jump. Primarily linear.

 

[Toxi]

Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer. It has more in common with today's autorunners.

Thank you for demonstrating that you have never actually played a Crash Bandicoot game.

 

[dragonfart28]

I don't sub Jim on Patreon but if I did, it would be more for his impressions of random crap Steam games than any appreciation of his reviews of "proper games". He tends to ramble and over emphasise particular points or criticisms for my liking so if I want impressions on games that I'll ever buy, I wouldn't get them from him. He's more of a quick circus attraction for me when I want to have a bit of a laugh at shittily put together games.

This.

He really took a bender over the weapon system in Zelda and I have yet to see any other reviewer dislike it to the same degree.

 

[Boy Wander]

You call it a "stunt" that he wasn't a big fan of BOTW? Are you alleging he's being insincere about his actual opinion of the game so as to gain attention? I just want to make sure I'm understanding you.

To be fair, he labours his criticisms so much sometimes that they become the soul focus of his reviews to the extent that one could quite easily assume that he doesn't actually give two shits about the score and simply wants to make a point about weapon durability and how shit it is.

 

[『Inaba Resident』]

Are we really arguing that Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer lol

 

[Toxi]

"Super Mario 3D World isn't a platformer. It has more in common with today's autorunners."

 

[MrBadger]

wait how the hell isn't Crash a platformer? It's one of the few 3D platformers of its day that focused exclusively on platforming, while others would branch out with exploration and combat elements

 

[Calm Mind]

Thank you for demonstrating that you have never actually played a Crash Bandicoot game.

I have and most likely before you.

 

[UncleSporky]

Are we really arguing that Crash Bandicoot isn't a platformer lol

I'm saying that one poster wasn't wrong in saying it had a lot in common with modern endless runners, and if you want to say endless runners are a type of platformer then more power to you.

I just watched some footage...yeah the Great Gate is the first actual platformer level and unsurprisingly it's a side scroller. The two before it and one after are just dodging obstacles and jumping pits, and so far none of them have really had significant branching paths.