• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Review Thread

OrbitalBeard said:
Ok, well in light of that, if this were to occur to a reviewer, they'd have every right to rip the game to shreds. Since nothing like this happened to Jim Sterling during Fallout 4 though, using that review as evidence of hypocrisy doesn't work.
Click to expand...

That's totally fair, I just wanted to point out that even with multiple save slots you can end up with a broken game.

I also never said his F4 review was hypocritical, FWIW.
 
jacobeid said:
That's totally fair, I just wanted to point out that even with multiple save slots you can end up with a broken game.
Click to expand...

Well, thank you! I honestly wasn't aware of this issue, so I learned something today. :)

jacobeid said:
I also never said his F4 review was hypocritical, FWIW.
Click to expand...

Oh, I know. Apologies if that's what it seemed like I was implying. The original poster I replied to said that, which is what you and I were both discussing.
 
Loved what I played of the game last night but I was actually expecting it to score lower. It's certainly not for everyone but man is it cool.
 
So, have all of the arguments about Jim Sterling been settled now?

giphy.gif
 
Salty Rice said:
Well luckily he came to the conclusion he reviews the games he plays and not the mood he has while playing the game.
Click to expand...

To be fair he was only in a bad mood because the game broke on him.
 
Nerazar said:
A broken side quest is game-breaking as well. At least for completionists or people who don't only want to rush the main quests. If anything, that thing should be treated the same way.

But giving FO4 a 9.5 at launch is hilarious in retrospect. Wow. Blatant hypocrisy.

However, he stood up to his mistake with this review. That's good and shows that he at least reflects about the past and himself.
Click to expand...

You won't find me defending Bethesda's trash quality control, but i would argue Jim was wrong then, not now.

Coming from games like Nier, which are still broken on PC, (although playable start to finish at least) i wish the press would just blast publishers more on this kind of stuff, instead of letting slide because maybe they will patch it, or because "oh well i played it on the other platform!".
I mean in that case, i only wish that the shitty PC port ruled the conversation about Nier, despite how good or bad the game is, so that Square Enix couldn't just ignore the issue, but alas, here we are.

The public isn't supposed to be doing beta testing for these companies, and reviewers aren't supposed to look after their metacritic score.

I wouldn't expect that from toaster reviews, i don't from game reviews.
 
Wow, just saw the Jim Sterling video retracting his score. That gives him a lot of credit in my eyes. Good decision.
 
Mr. Sterling.

I'm a nobody, so this opinion doesn't matter at all, but I know it's hard to admit... well...not necessarily when you're wrong, but when you don't feel great about something. Most people would just rush to defend their emotional hot take without thinking about it. Good show on ya. + 5 respect.
 
Papercuts said:
Well, this is from his own review

"Which brings us to the less savory matter at hand. It’s time to talk about bugs – Fallout 4 has them, and I’m not referring to Radroaches. Being a Bethesda open-world game, you might be inclined to expect glitches and, well, those expectations will yield frustrating fruit. Pretty much everything you’ve seen impact Bethesda games of the past can be seen here, from a handful of potential quest bugs to wacky A.I. pathfinding and a number of physics-based anomalies. I’m also not sure whether or not an early story mission became unbeatable on a test file, but I’m sure the raiders I needed to kill weren’t spawning.

Fallout 4 is not worse than prior Fallout or Elder Scrolls games when it comes to thinks being borked, but it’s certainly not better, and you’ll have to bear that in mind. I advise autosaving regularly, just in case.

Bethesda’s always gotten some leeway with its quality control, mostly due to how expansive its games are, and Fallout 4 is certainly of a high enough quality overall to where I find myself more forgiving than I otherwise would be. It’s certainly nothing like Assassin’s Creed Unity, where the bugs were constant and often devastating, and the fact the experience is so damn good that I’m willing the fight through even the most persistent annoyance says something about how great Fallout 4 is in spite of itself."

He says he's more forgiving of it than he usually would be and I feel like his reasons to support it work. He certainly didn't ignore anything.
Click to expand...
I see it a bit more critical but it doesn't matter, really. This isn't about the F4 review and he talked about Hellblade, let's move on.
 
OrbitalBeard said:
Well, thank you! I honestly wasn't aware of this issue, so I learned something today. :)



Oh, I know. Apologies if that's what it seemed like I was implying. The original poster I replied to said that, which is what you and I were both discussing.
Click to expand...

Oh no, not at all. I myself just wanted to be clear that I don't think the reviews are hypocritical. I don't think Fallout 4 had any sequence-breaking bugs that would prevent you from finishing the game, which was obviously Jim's issue here.

In New Vegas for instance (Obsidian, I know), I ended up not being able to progress the main plot because when I went to visit Caesar's Army (or whatever they're called in the game), the system kept detecting that I was wearing an enemy faction's clothing, which caused the entire camp to attack me on site. This happened because I had equipped and unequipped one item 15 or so hours earlier. I even tried to walk into the camp with nothing at all in my inventory but they kept attacking me. I ended up putting the game down at that point since I couldn't progress the plot.

All that being said, this doesn't excuse Ninja Theory for not including multiple save slots. Seems like a very antiquated approach. What could have been five minutes of annoyance in replaying a section turned into frustration, anger, and a 1/10 review. Seems fair to knock the developers on their decision on that front (unless it's engine limited or some other tech reason I couldn't possibly know about because I'm an idiot and don't understand game development).
 
Late in all this but its his opinion and if he couldn't progress then fair enough, 1/10 seems harsh though.

Maybe the better thing to do was not score the game at all until the bug was sorted.
 
ironmang said:
Would have rather he left up the 1/10 and offered to retract if they put the effort into fixing the bug.
Click to expand...

I like that idea, let's see how long it takes them to fix it without any added pressure.
 
Nice to see Ninja Theory knocking another one out of the park. I've got the game ready to play on my PS4 but couldn't check it out before work, which is a bummer. Now, can we get DmC2 already?
 
One note about the permadeath since I've seen a lot of people asking in here. The game by default has an automatic difficulty adjust. I think it tries to give you a challenge but not to kill you forever.
 
I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time to look through this thread. But for those in the know, was Jim's 1/10 score based on the permadeath mechanic which he misunderstood as a bug or a legit save file bug? Has it been documented that he did indeed experience a save file bug and not the permadeath mechanic?
 
ironmang said:
If the ransom results in fewer bugs then I don't see the problem.
Click to expand...
Maybe the fact that reviewers would be grossly exceeding their purview by doing so?

Back on topic, I'm really glad the game is being well received. It's one of the most unique (in a positive way) gaming experiences of the gen and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. The sound design may well be the best I've ever heard in a game.
 
mindatlarge said:
I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time to look through this thread. But for those in the know, was Jim's 1/10 score based on the permadeath mechanic which he misunderstood as a bug or a legit save file bug? Has it been documented that he did indeed experience a save file bug and not the permadeath mechanic?
Click to expand...
It seems like he missed something required to progress further and the game autosaved into a position where he couldn't get said thing anymore and so he kept dying until the permadeath mechanic kicked in and deleted his save.
Don't know if I'm entirely up-to-date though.
 
ironmang said:
If the ransom results in fewer bugs then I don't see the problem.
Click to expand...

Let me tell you the problem. Most bugs have nothing to do with developers.
Developer' bonuses has things to do with metacritic scores, at the same time.

So now two powers are over developers, reviewers AND publishers. And users. Fantastic.
By the way, large scale programming is never (and I mean NEVER) bug free. Unless you want developers to undergo the scrutiny equivalent of doing a space launch, but that will not result in open world games being made.
 
mindatlarge said:
I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time to look through this thread. But for those in the know, was Jim's 1/10 score based on the permadeath mechanic which he misunderstood as a bug or a legit save file bug? Has it been documented that he did indeed experience a save file bug and not the permadeath mechanic?
Click to expand...

It was a game ending bug, he had every right to be angry. Basically the game auto saved behind him, trapping him in an unwinnable situation.

I've been hyped for this game since they first announced it, I've praised the pricing model and I have every intention of buying it but some of the fanboy stuff in this thread is crazy, it seems we should care more about the devs feelings than the people who put their money down on a game that could become unplayable if you make a mistake and that's just not right in my book. At least this drama has illuminated the issue so the devs have no choice but to fix it quickly.
 
mindatlarge said:
I'm at work so I don't have a lot of time to look through this thread. But for those in the know, was Jim's 1/10 score based on the permadeath mechanic which he misunderstood as a bug or a legit save file bug? Has it been documented that he did indeed experience a save file bug and not the permadeath mechanic?
Click to expand...

yes, he says there is a section where you have to stay in the light while traversing the dark (which kills you) he missed one of the torches you're supposed to light (user error) but the game autosaved AFTER he had passed it (developer error) meaning he kept respawning in the dark with no way to ignite the torch.
 
I'll be more annoyed if the game breaking bug isn't even mentioned or acknowledged in the really real real review. If I see an 8/10 without any mentioned of how the game design was flawed (I'm not following this closely, I just saw Jim's video so I'm not too sure the specifics) then I'll be raising an eyebrow.
 
V_Arnold said:
Let me tell you the problem. Most bugs have nothing to do with developers.
Developer' bonuses has things to do with metacritic scores, at the same time.

So now two powers are over developers, reviewers AND publishers. And users. Fantastic.
By the way, large scale programming is never (and I mean NEVER) bug free. Unless you want developers to undergo the scrutiny equivalent of doing a space launch, but that will not result in open world games being made.
Click to expand...

Again, I don't see the problem if 1 reviewer put up a low score with the intention of removing it when a game breaking bug is addressed. It brings down the total score like 2 points... so what? If it means nobody else wastes a whole day on that bug then I'd say it's worth it. If someone was unable to finish the game in it's given state then a low score from that person is deserved.

Doesn't even look like that freakish of a bug and could happen to anybody. Even if the review score just draws attention to that fact so people are extremely careful at that point then I'd say it's also worth it.
 
Ascheroth said:
It seems like he missed something required to progress further and the game autosaved into a position where he couldn't get said thing anymore and so he kept dying until the permadeath mechanic kicked in and deleted his save.
Don't know if I'm entirely up-to-date though.
Click to expand...

KORNdoggy said:
yes, he says there is a section where you have to stay in the light while traversing the dark (which kills you) he missed one of the torches you're supposed to light (user error) but the game autosaved AFTER he had passed it (developer error) meaning he kept respawning in the dark with no way to ignite the torch.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info! Seems like something that will be patched easily.
 
ironmang said:
If the ransom results in fewer bugs then I don't see the problem.
Click to expand...
I agree with you to an extent. The thing is he retracted the 1/10 because Hellblade, even with the bug, would not have been a 1/10 experience according to his scale. Realizing the situation was mostly on him was even more reason to retract it.

This is unique situation doesnt throw away his still standing stance. He makes it clear in his in his apology video that he isnt about to settle with "contacting devs beforehand" in true cases where the game is just fucked.
 
25 reviews on the front page. about 15 or more over 80 I think. Only 1 is really low and we focus on that one...

For all, I know Jim Sterling sucks at playing video games.
 
Papo Swing said:
25 reviews on the front page. about 15 or more over 80 I think. Only 1 is really low and we focus on that one...

For all, I know Jim Sterling sucks at playing video games.
Click to expand...

He gave it a low score because of a game breaking bug, not because he "sucks at playing video games". You need to take the good with the bad, you can't just ignore negative reviews because you're hyped for the game.
 
Wavering comments on combat, as expected.

Is the protagonist played/based off of
Yara
from Game of Thones? I was watching the GS review and that's immediately who I thought of.
 
Can someone give me a quick lowdown on why Jim walked his 1/10 back? He's usually pretty adamant about these things.
 
It's really cool when people private message you to argue about topics rather than just posting in them.

Anung said:
Is there anyway to watch the original review? Been too busy to keep up with this thing.
Click to expand...
Not sure if it's cached or not. Basically he got quite far in, and there was an autosave bug where he couldn't progress or go back from that point stopping him from completing the game. He gave it a 1/10 meaning it's broken and people got upset. He's dialled back now for the reasons in the follow up video.
 
That was a good, measured statement of self-criticism by Jim. That's not an easy thing to do. He could have left things as is since it was a reasonable reflection of how he felt about his experience, but he decided to take a step back and make other considerations because he wasn't feeling great about the content he put out.

As he said, it's a unique situation to be in, and it's rather difficult to gauge what the best course of action here would be. I believe he's justified in both the original review and the retraction, as there were a couple of ways to approach the situation. It's fair to argue which approach is best as a reviewer (and I'm sure he's wrestling with this internally).
 
Jawbreaker said:
That was a good, measured statement of self-criticism by Jim. That's not an easy thing to do. He could have left things as is since it was a reasonable reflection of how he felt about his experience, but he decided to take a step back and make other considerations because he wasn't feeling great about the content he put out.

As he said, it's a unique situation to be in, and it's rather difficult to gauge what the best course of action here would be. I believe he's justified in both the original review and the retraction, as there were a couple of ways to approach the situation. It's fair to argue which approach is best as a reviewer (and I'm sure he's wrestling with this internally).
Click to expand...
Yep. I argued and will still argue for a reviewers right to give a game any score they want, but what Jim has done since then is also a fair approach.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Switch) & Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II (PS5/XSX) physicals coming via Limited Run Games
News 
20
1K
Judge Magister replied
LTTP: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Xbox Game Pass) 2018
8
891
BigLee74 replied
Digital Foundry: Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 Enhanced - DF Review - PS5/ PS5 Pro/ Xbox Series X/ Steam Deck!
2 3
111
5K
Darsxx82 replied
Arknights: Endfield | Review Thread
Opinion Review 
12
890
Thick Thighs Save Lives replied
High on Life 2 | Review Thread
Analysis Review 
34
177
intbal replied
Top Bottom