Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Review Thread

his save got deleted after 8 hours.. so he would have to replay those 8 hours (which he might do faster, now that he has played them once..) but he should not have to do it.. and he does not have the time.

the review embargo is today.. the game is out today... there are NO ending videos out there.. wtf?..

There are already videos out since at least yesterday or even longer and also like i said he can still review like the 95% of the game he played even if he did not see the ending and go points down.
 
Cant tell you that in a score. I would be pissed about it and rate it down, but I would not forget how much I enjoyed the game so far. And thats my point.

I would. In fact, if I was enjoying it and wanting a conclusion, I would hate what I enjoyed even more.
 
Has he stopped them from doing the game they wanted to? He is just having a opinion, it's a big difference.

Calling out devs stupid and their decisions moronic is not something that I would call critique. Especially coming from person who is considering himself important content creator.
 
There are already videos out since yesterday also like i said he can still review like the 95% of the game he played.

Doesn't change the fact that he wasn't able to finish the game due to the bug, and thus does not affect how it's broken for him.
 
Would you prefer a pristine dvd disc with playback issues? Or anything else that is obviously not intended to happen, but happens and hinders user experience?

At least bugs can be fixed. And fast, too. If anything, my analogy is too harsh since a book can't be fixed, and the reviewer would need to be sent a new one.

No, your book analogy just straight up doesn't work. It's not a valid comparison. Even the alternative comparison I gave wasn't that great, but at least it dealt with the same type of issue, a manufacturing one.

A digital file with a game-breaking bug embedded within is different from a book that has a manufacturing defect.
 
Jim seems to have taken the review offline? The embedded video doesn't work and it's not on his YouTube channel.

Edit: Wow, dude. That's really, really big fuck up. To go ahead with thjs and then retracting it only minutes later...woof. Not a good look. Wondering what's going to happen to the MC entry now. Pretty sure they have a policy not to change scores once posted? Not sure.
 
People really need to read / listen to the review, rather than focusing on the score.

A problem that is endemic in gaming reviews, not just this particular one.

edit : Oh, interesting plot twist............
 
This is why I hate reviews that focus on a numerical score - it eliminates all nuance. Jim's 1/10 is rubbish, but what else can you expect from a system that asks you to summarise an entire experience ranging from the artistic to mechanical in a fucking number?
 
I personally not planning to buy this game because already spend my money on getting DQ8 and I need to save my money for Evil Within 2 and .hack//G.U. Last Recoded.

But I would say this. I never did consider people like Jim and Angry Joe as real reviewers because they more interested selling the whole "angry internet guy" to u than give u an actual review. I don't give a shit about this whole MC, but when someone gives 1/10 score, its clear click bait.

Jim knows most people theses days really pay attention to scores. so when suddenly gives absurd score like this, people get curious to see why give such score or even people who don't agree with him will click to his video just to post about how crappy reviewer he is in the comment section.
 
Jim's score is really unfair, it might be a 1 in a million bug, he can't be so brutal because of such unfortunate case, he thinks the game is good, he do realize his opinion can lose a lot of money to the devs, be a little humane, how can you give all of their hard effort and the 8 hours you did enjoy up until that point a fucking 1/10?

This is insane imo, it's a a score that is given to games like Ride to Hell or Big Rigs, not an 8 hour of very good gameplay and a rare game breaking bug than no other reviewer got to experience.

It smells like attention seeking and provocation for me. Like WTF Jim??
 
Except that he was literally able to play the game for hours. It is "only" unfinishable (at least that one playthrough of it).

This is more of a matter of why you're playing the game. If it's only to enjoy the combat or the graphics then you're good. If you want to know the entire story and you're stripped of that (and apparently at the last moment) then you have the right to treat your entire playthrough up to that point as wasted time.
edit: to be clear, I'm not saying that this scenario should result in an instant 1/10 if you're reviewing the game, every professional reviewer should know about the existence of day1 patches and should try to contact the devs if something like this happens
 
It's more likely him being the only reviewer dying there at that spot, running past a torch on respawn and dying beyond a new savepoint, than anything system related.

Most probably you are right.

A game designed with such a harsh penalty should be airtight--it seems like this is an oversight from Ninja Theory.
 
No, your book analogy just straight up doesn't work. It's not a valid comparison. Even the alternative comparison I gave wasn't that great.
You are right, his book analogy wasn't that great. You can't patch books. But you can patch games and turn unplayable game into playable one without customer every having to leave their house or do anything at all, except wait for (usually) small patch file to download.
 

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Well at least Jim himself thinks his review wasnt maybe the best way handled.
 
Such a shame about the bug sullying Jim's review. I watched the video and he seems to be enjoying the hell out of the game up until that point. Easily sounds like a 8/10 review.

Turns out it was an autosave bug after he accidentally missed a trigger earlier on in a section. Easily done I suppose so I can 100% understand his frustration and it is definitely a QA issue. I also don't think he'd have attacked the game with as much vitriol if he wasn't engrossed in it beforehand.

In fact when asked if he'd recommend the game he said:

"Players missing things are part of the game experience. I didn't create those autosaves and bizarre checkpoints. But as soon as they're sorted out, then yeah, I'd say pick this up."

Given the subject matter I think this is one I'll be picking up myself.


Probably a fair move. I don't blame him at all for the 1/10 score though. If the game stopped him completing it then in his eyes it's broken. Hopefully he's in touch with the developers and they can sort the issue so he can post an appropriate score based on his impressions up until, and beyond that point.

Like I said he seemed to be enjoying it until it f*cked up.
 
The plot thickens.

So what will people say when even Jim realizes a 1/10 isn't reasonable?


We'll debate with the defense force of the defense force of the 1/10 obviously.

So he will either fix things up or, knowing his character, double down. We'll see I guess
 
I always thought of review scores as how good or bad the time was with the game you played, and 1 would tell me it was really bad all around. And yeah, not a good look for Jim, unless he gives it a 0 now.
 
You are right, his book analogy wasn't that great. You can't patch books. But you can patch games and turn unplayable game into playable one without customer every having to leave their house or do anything at all, except wait for (usually) small patch file to download.

So, with this knowledge, what do you think would be a fair review score TODAY?

In my view, he has three valid choices:

- Score it based on how the experience was for him when he played it
- Same as above, but update the score later if the issue is addressed by the developer
- Assign no score to the review, advise his audience to wait and see how the bug is handled, then assign a final score shortly. I personally wouldn't give the dev more than a few days to one week, but that would be a call for each reviewer to make.

I guess a fourth option would be to not publish a review at all, but if you're going to go this route, you've better be pretty transparent with your audience as to why that is. Make it very clear that you encountered a game-breaking bug.

I think all of the above options are perfectly reasonable and fair.
 
This kind of stuff is why I prefer reviews that go through a standard editorial process. Beyond Jim, I find too many solo media outlets/reviewers just do what they want without the normal journalistic process I appreciate.

Same.
Still don't know the story behind him being on metacritic, though, where the majority does follow that process.
 
I'm assuming the bug can be patched out? It's a shame really that even when it were to be patched, that score will remain like an anchor on an apparently decent game.

Maybe he should've held off on giving it a score, to see if it gets fixed?
 
As they should. Reviewers should give the score they feel the game deserves or what's the point of reviewing the media in the first place.

As much as I think Jim's score is reflective of why I don't think highly of him as a critic, I agree that he has every damn right to score the game whatever he believes it worth.

My chief beef is with our collective obsession over demanding scores in the first place. We get up in arms whenever someone says video games aren't art, but refuse to actually treat them like art ourselves
 
Honestly this thread is another reason I think the 1-10 review scale does not work. People can't use the full scale without fans and non fans going into a frenzy. What's the point using a ten point scale if using half of it is considered "unprofessional"?
 
But people here will still defend it anyway lol.

Yeah, I will. I am quite frankly disgusted by people claiming that reviewers should worry about developer MC bonuses. That's utterly absurd and is a literal downward slope that encourages publishers to implement even scummier contracts, with bigger ties to these things, to encourage reviewers being even "nicer" because "they don't want to make developers lose out on their paychecks".

They way we put each other down to empower and encourage exploitative practises is depressing.
 
Most probably you are right.

A game designed with such a harsh penalty should be airtight--it seems like this is an oversight from Ninja Theory.
at the very least a log of save files. One save slot systems make no sense, it means you either make a perfect game or you risk this sort of shit.

At least IGN had the decency to give Prey a 4/10 lol.

Of what I played that seems fair.
 
Yeah, I will. I am quite frankly disgusted by people claiming that reviewers should worry about developer MC bonuses. That's utterly absurd and is a literal downward slope that encourages publishers to implement even scummier contracts, with bigger ties to these things, to encourage reviewers being even "nicer" because "they don't want to make developers lose out on their paychecks".

They way we put each other down to empower and encourage exploitative practises is depressing.
Yep. Those posts are terrifying.
 
At this point, I don't know if this kind of comment is serious or not.

Sorry but I believe a full review is better/more-professional than a half done review bug or no bug. Jim can give the game a 0/10 afterwards for all I care but at least the review would cover the whole game including the bug. You can disagree with me that's perfectly fine but no need to be passive aggressive.
 
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