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[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

I thought dragon age was boring as all hell
If I worked at IGN and they gave me that game to review, I could write a 10 page article about how boring that game was to me and gave it a solid 5.

Guess what, that review would be inaccurate, it would be writing a review for a game I had no intention to play


Last of Us, beautiful game, extremely over rated to me.


Guess what my opinion does not matter, and neither do these 'scores'

Yet if someone did not pick up TLOU or Dragon Age because I did not like it, I would label that person as someone incapable of thinking for themselves.


The problem here, in this thread, in this little petri dish, is people confusing opinion for facts. Oh I know I know 'people just say they like it, justify their purchase' whatever spin you can put on it and helps you sleep at night, but you have to realize, people do enjoy it, are questioning the super critical reviews ect ect.

Of course reviews matter.

People don't have all the time in the world to play games. We have a certain budget of money and time for it, and it helps to have some guidance in using that budget wisely. Maybe you're on the fence, and even though you love the look of the game, you don't necessarily want to spend your limited gaming time watching a lot of cutscenes or having the control taken away from you.

DA:I might be be boring in some ways, but overall the game delivers on what it promises, and the game respects the player. The Order on the other hand is dinged in reviews specifically for that.

It's not just an opinion. It's an evaluation of the game's merit considering that people are looking to spend their gaming time wisely.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I thought dragon age was boring as all hell
If I worked at IGN and they gave me that game to review, I could write a 10 page article about how boring that game was to me and gave it a solid 5.

Guess what, that review would be inaccurate, it would be writing a review for a game I had no intention to play


Last of Us, beautiful game, extremely over rated to me.


Guess what my opinion does not matter, and neither do these 'scores'

Yet if someone did not pick up TLOU or Dragon Age because I did not like it, I would label that person as someone incapable of thinking for themselves.


The problem here, in this thread, in this little petri dish, is people confusing opinion for facts. Oh I know I know 'people just say they like it, justify their purchase' whatever spin you can put on it and helps you sleep at night, but you have to realize, people do enjoy it, are questioning the super critical reviews ect ect.

Your opinion certainly matters, so long as you can articulate why the game is boring, uninspired, etc.

If the extent of your criticism is "this game is bullshit/sucks/awesome/rocks", no one is going to take your review as a reasonable buying guide.

There are no "facts" other than the resolution/framerate/game length/mechanics. Those don't tell you whether a game is fun or not, unfortunately. It's really telling that a lot of people seem to be basing their purchasing decisions more on DF articles ("900p/30fps? This is an insult to gaming!") rather than dozens of people explaining to them that the game doesn't play particularly well.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

Something that kind of irks me is people pushing or defending 'cinematic presentation' but not good writing to match it. There's not really much point in having 'cinematic presentation' if the writing isn't at least as good as a Hollywood blockbuster. And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games. It feels overwhelmingly like trying to run before we can walk to want to make games into movies before they have narratives that can support it.

This. This so much. So many developers aspiring to do something they simply cannot do.

 

[Spineker]

Successfully got my money back from Sony.

Thank fuck.

 

[QuickSilverD]

I can't believe this thread has 4x times as many pages as the OT for the game. Well, can't say I haven't been entertained by all of this.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Something that kind of irks me is people pushing or defending 'cinematic presentation' but not good writing to match it. There's not really much point in having 'cinematic presentation' if the writing isn't at least as good as a Hollywood blockbuster. And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games. It feels overwhelmingly like trying to run before we can walk to want to make games into movies before they have narratives that can support it.

I also think this is the biggest hurdle. The stories in these games simply aren't very good. Certainly not enough to carry the whole play through if the game play is either limited or bad. So in the end you're left with a huge focus on something the game isn't even doing well, and little focus being put into the other aspects.

So ultimately what you're left with is something that isn't doing anything very well.

 

[PBY]

I can't believe this thread has 4x times as many pages as the OT for the game. Well, can't say I haven't been entertained by all of this.

Game comes out today. That will shift when more people can play it.

 

[phanphare]

Something that kind of irks me is people pushing or defending 'cinematic presentation' but not good writing to match it. There's not really much point in having 'cinematic presentation' if the writing isn't at least as good as a Hollywood blockbuster. And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games. It feels overwhelmingly like trying to run before we can walk to want to make games into movies before they have narratives that can support it.

agreed. even Naughty Dog has a lot of room for improvement, at least judging by TLoU. that's the only modern day ND game I've played. there were a lot of cliches in that game and sometimes Ellie's use of profanity felt forced and took me out of the experience. I get what they were going for with the latter point but I think they made those points in subtler and more effective ways throughout the game without Ellie needing to say "fuck!" or "oh shit" all the time.

 

[dzelly]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

 

[PBY]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

From what Ive seen tho there aren't dialogue options or any sort of branching narrative points.

 

[Parakeetman]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

No because the game itself is not a choose your own adventure, live with your choices type of title.

 

[twobear]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

Well, isn't the whole point with a Telltale game that player agency is absorbed into the narrative? So you can actually affect the narrative with your choices. That seems to me to be the fundamental difference between this and a Telltale game; fail a QTE here and it's game over; or if you don't press the button when it flashes on screen your character will stand and do the same thing forever, never moving on to the next action.

 

[qa_engineer]

Ready at dawn will be getting my 60 us dollars in about 20 minutes. Dont care for "games journalist" and publications that much. I especially find DF's technical analysis quite comical when they find it necessary to comment on lack of gameplay etc. Nice tech analysis, guys.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

That's a completely different kind of game.

 

[RipperGrim]

Something that kind of irks me is people pushing or defending 'cinematic presentation' but not good writing to match it. There's not really much point in having 'cinematic presentation' if the writing isn't at least as good as a Hollywood blockbuster. And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games. It feels overwhelmingly like trying to run before we can walk to want to make games into movies before they have narratives that can support it.

This is under the assumption that all movies have amazing writing. The writing does not have to be good for it to have cinematic presentation because good writing does = cinematic presentation, see every shitty movie that at least looks amazing. There are plenty of games that have better writing than the latest Transformers movie and honestly that's not even an achievement.

 

[BPoole]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

No, TellTale games are choice driven akin to the "choose your own adventure" books. That is what makes them entertaining.

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

With absolutely no player control over how the narrative direction. So basically a more interactive Telltale game but without the elements people like Telltale games for lol

 

[Beelzebufo]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

Telltale games are considerably less expensive though, yeah? Probably longer too.

Anyway, have we heard anything from RAD about how they're taking the bad scores? I got the impression they thought what they were making was really good.

 

[Loakum]

After all this, more than likely The Order 1886 will be the top selling game for the month of February.

 

[twobear]

This is under the assumption that all movies have amazing writing. The writing does not have to be good for it to have cinematic presentation because good writing does = cinematic presentation, see every shitty movie that at least looks amazing. There are plenty of games that have better writing than the latest Transformers movie and honestly that's not even an achievement.

Sure, change 'average' for 'good', if you like. Not all movies have good scriptwriting.

But I actually don't think that there are that many games, at least games that aim for 'cinematic' presentation, that have scriptwriting better than even something like Transformers.

I mean, Dragon Age Inquisition, for instance, is some Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie calibre dross, if we were to take a step back and put it into a broader context than 'videogame writing'. Game of Thrones looks like Shakespeare acted by the world's strongest ensemble cast by comparison.

Videogame scriptwriting and plotting, by and large, is in the area of those straight-to-DVD movies called like, Transmorphers and Shark Volcano. It's terrible.

 

[cheezcake]

This games biggest flaw is encounter variety

Spoiler

or lack thereof

, and that issue stems from a complete and utter lack of enemy types. I honestly think if they had the same sort of enemy variety as Gears of War it would've been a decent game, of course for it to be a really good game they'd need a stronger story.

 

[Parakeetman]

How long did it take you?

About 6 hours. Though Im pretty used to third person shooters so there is that too. Also did not go out of my way too much to fully explore the environments looking for the examinable items.

Im not exactly the best choice to compare to an average player when it comes to play times for action games and such.

That and its not the play time that is important, it is if you enjoyed your experience with said title or not. As that is what makes the value of the title personally.

 

[Marcovaldo]

Ready at dawn will be getting my 60 us dollars in about 20 minutes. Dont care for "games journalist" and publications that much. I especially find DF's technical analysis quite comical when they find it necessary to comment on lack of gameplay etc. Nice tech analysis, guys.

you can get it for under fifty off amazon with prime: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DBLBMBQ/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[LastNac]

But this isn't a good argument either. Because you can wave away any criticisms by just saying "it's just different", and avoid any discussion. Sure, The Order is different, but it's utterly flawed in how it's designed, because if you look at what it sets out to accomplish, and how it accomplishes them, it doesn't succeed on it's own terms.

I think there's lots of room for variety in games, but I don't think we need a game like The Order. I love linear cinematic games, but The Order doesn't seem to do either of that very well. Sure the gunplay itself is good, but the enemy variety (or lack thereof), level design, boss battles etc are not very good. And then on the cinematic portion, if a game feels it absolutely MUST have half of the experience be unskippable, uninteractive cutscenes (although I never feel like this is a good way to go for games, because things will always be more engaging if you can play it) then story better be damn entertaining...but The Order doesn't have an entertaining story. It doesn't even

Spoiler

tell a complete story

. The moments of interactive storytelling that you love so much from Uncharted aren't represented here, apart from turning a gun model around in your hands for 5 seconds, or the occasional combat QTE with big button prompt on the screen. I don't think that this serves the storytelling, or the gameplay well. It just serves to make a frustrating, disjointed experience.

I reiterate, there is legitimate concern that has been raised, but black bars, linear path, and length aren't any of those. The Order set out to be something, it shouldn't be knocked for that, it should however be knocked for how it failed in that regard. The vitriol concerning the "Story Pyramid" is fucking embarrassing. That's not the problem, it never was. The problem was never the importance placed on story, it is apparently that the story falls apart.

The Order received a negative backlash sometime ago, not for what it ending up doing but instead for what it tried to do. The criticism was there long before the conversation ever began. That to me is the biggest shame of all.

I had originally planned on wadding through this thread and selecting every quote that I disagreed with. That would have resulted in a long response, a lot of time spent, and me defending a game I haven't played. I just picked up my copy and then, when finished, I can actually speak to The Order itself.

That said, regardless of what The Order ended up doing, I still feel can be done right. I'll return to this post once I finish it.

 

[GitarooMan]

After all this, more than likely The Order 1886 will be the top selling game for the month of February.

Single SKU maybe. I don't see it outselling Evolve overall. There's also Majora's Mask.

 

[Melchiah]

There's a difference between emergent, interactive storytelling in videogames, and a game with half of its content being unskippable cinematics. The later is not the future.
A good gameplay foundation also helps.

I don't think I said anything about it being a representation of the future. It's the mentality, that something should fail just because it's not to someone's taste, that I have a problem with it. People enjoy different things, but apparently some think there should only be those kind of experiences they enjoy, which is a very close-minded point of view. It reminds me of the reactions, that Journey's success ignited. I guess it was also one of those games that should have failed, and when it didn't, just like TLOU, there were some bitter attempts to belittle it by claiming it's not even a true game. Whatever that is.

 

[On Demand]

Reviews are far from bullshit, but there is some truth to your statement. If reviews are bullshit loads of hard working people may have gone out and bought this game day 1, Say even digitally. Spending around 50 pounds on a game that is average to most and damn right not worth 50 pounds to a lot of poeple.

This is what people need to learn. Reviews are great to get a gauge on something.

If pretty much the whole gaming industry marks a game at around a 65 surely that is a sign that there is something wrong. It's not a polarising game. It looks downright boring the more i've watched it. absolutely beautiful, but ultimately boring. Reviews help people make a decision.

I totally agree that you should form your own opinion, but how would we know to wait until it's cheaper without reviews?

I think reviews are very important for this factor. I also never lose my shit overa reviewer saying anything they want about a game.

I would of never bought Alien Isolation if I listened to reviews. Thank god I didn't. They were way off with that game. I read a couple of GAF impressions, watched a few streams, played a demo at comic con and that's how I made my decision to buy it.

Reviews are nothing special you're making them out to be.

 

[Hagi]

Shouldn't this game be viewed as a better looking, more interactive version of a Telltale game?

It should be viewed as a third person shooter. The amount of cut scenes shouldn't alter the genre. Guns of the Patriots has like 10 hours of cut scenes but it's still a third person stealth game.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

There are more 1 star reviews on Amazon than 5 star reviews, so the negativity from pro reviewers can't be too far out of line.

Most of the 5 star reviews seem to be pleading their case.

 

[Mad Season]

Something that kind of irks me is people pushing or defending 'cinematic presentation' but not good writing to match it. There's not really much point in having 'cinematic presentation' if the writing isn't at least as good as a Hollywood blockbuster. And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games. It feels overwhelmingly like trying to run before we can walk to want to make games into movies before they have narratives that can support it.

agreed. Reviews stated the story was not good

 

[LastNac]

Neither is he, stop putting words in people's mouths and trying to make yourself right by claiming false moral high ground. All he wanted (if even that) was for the game to fail. Not only does that NOT equate to wishing its developers out of their jobs, it's also not fundamentally wrong to want poor work to go unrewarded. Are you telling me that you will go out of your way to buy this game to make sure that the devs won't lose their jobs? If not, you and he are in the same boat and you should stop the demagoguery.

He wanted it to fail, and I dont know how closely you have watched this industry, but when games do poorly people lose their jobs.

And truth be told, I'm here actually talking about a game I just purchased. If he has purchased the game or plans on doing so and has certain parts he wishes to discuss than we can do so. Otherwise those talking points of his go nowhere.

 

[pharmboy044]

Wow, this post just plain sucks.

That kind of mentality students growth and is beyond ignorant. It really disappoints me to see someone cheer on failure.

Look at it this way son, no medium ever began as it is now. They all changed at one point to accommodate more features that fundamentally changed them to give us what they are to day. To deny the interactive medium this is irresponsible and close minded.

We need variety, otherwise we are are playing the same Mario that were used to.

Excellent reply.

 

[twobear]

I would of never bought Alien Isolation if I listened to reviews. Thank god I didn't. They were way off with that game. I read a couple of GAF impressions, watched a few streams, played a demo at comic con and that's how I made my decision to buy it.

Reviews are nothing special you're making them out to be.

Which reviews were way off? The ones that gave Alien Isolation 4/10, or the ones that gave it 9/10? Or the ones that gave it 6/10?

The reviews were so spread out that it's really difficult to make sense of what it means to say 'thank god I didn't listen to the reviews!'.

Here's how reviews work for me; I read a few of them, from sources I know that I've agreed with before. If they unanimously give the game a low score, I generally pass on it even if some people on GAF think the game is amazing (sorry GAF); if it gets mixed writeups or so-so writeups I pay more attention to the content and see if there's any points of agreement about the issues, and if there is I decide if those things are dealbreakers.

I reiterate, there is legitimate concern that has been raised, but black bars, linear path, and length aren't any of those. The Order set out to be something, it shouldn't be knocked for that, it should however be knocked for how it failed in that regard. The vitriol concerning the "Story Pyramid" is fucking embarrassing. That's not the problem, it never was. The problem was never the importance placed on story, it is apparently that the story falls apart.

The Order received a negative backlash sometime ago, not for what it ending up doing but instead for what it tried to do. The criticism was there long before the conversation ever began. That to me is the biggest shame of all.

I had originally planned on wadding through this thread and selecting every quote that I disagreed with. That would have resulted in a long response, a lot of time spent, and me defending a game I haven't played. I just picked up my copy and then, when finished, I can actually speak to The Order itself.

That said, regardless of what The Order ended up doing, I still feel can be done right. I'll return to this post once I finish it.

There are and were undeniably people ragging on the game from the get-go just for being linear and singleplayer only, or whatever. But honestly, to me, the early criticism that stuck in my head was a fairly long and insightful post by, I think, NullPointer, who explained precisely what it was about the first gamepaly demo that he was unimpressed by. It was talking about player agency and the total absence of it that was in the demo. That, for me, crystallised an early sense that what I was seeing didn't look all that good; and it's an early impression that, judging from reviews, resonates in the final game too.

 

[Jabba]

I'm about 2 hours in if the rest of the game is these good. I'll think even less about review sites. There's just so much quality down to the smallest details.

My findings about it, so far also. Even had a good time playing through the parts I spoiled in the spoiler thread. Hardly ever read reviews on any game so they don't factor in for me much or at all. Like I said this game for me is like Valiant Hearts. If the Order does what Valiant Hearts did for me, I'll be happy. So far so good. We'll see.

 

[Blastoise]

This game is like my Speedracer bluray. Its a great way to show off.

Speedracer bluray = Show off my TV setup.

The Order = Show off my PS4.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I don't think I said anything about it being a representation of the future. It's the mentality, that something should fail just because it's not to someone's taste, that I have a problem with it. People enjoy different things, but apparently some think there should only be those kind of experiences they enjoy, which is a very close-minded point of view. It reminds me of the reactions, that Journey's success ignited. I guess it was also one of those games that should have failed, and when it didn't, just like TLOU, there were some bitter attempts to belittle it by claiming it's not even a true game. Whatever that is.

That's not why people want this game to fail. People want this game to fail because it seems to have put an inordinate amount of focus on the story and presentation aspect of cinematic gaming, and it seemingly fails at the things it put the most focus on. So what we were left with is a video game that has uninspired game play (Because the developer thought it would be a good idea to think of the game play as more of an afterthought then a prominent tool to use to tell the story) and a mediocre to bad plot. People want it to fail because it's a bad game, not because it doesn't fit our tastes. I actually like quite a few video games that could be considered cinematic, but those games also put a significant focus on the game play aspect as well and both the game play and the story were at least serviceable.

By your logic, I shouldn't want any bad game to fail, because there is probably a group of people out there who find Shadow The Hedgehog to be an enjoyable game.

 

[Beelzebufo]

Wow, this post just plain sucks.

That kind of mentality students growth and is beyond ignorant. It really disappoints me to see someone cheer on failure.

Look at it this way son, no medium ever began as it is now. They all changed at one point to accommodate more features that fundamentally changed them to give us what they are to day. To deny the interactive medium this is irresponsible and close minded.

We need variety, otherwise we are are playing the same Mario that were used to.

If the Order started a trend towards these kind of games, wouldn't that decrease variety? We already have movies, why would it be better to have games turn into movies too?

And apparently Order is like some crappy hack movie.

 

[MrHoot]

Do people even still look at only reviews nowadays ?

Like, I do read reviews, several of them. I look at youtube playthroughs, youtuber commentaries, I come here on gaf, talk with friends, even /v/ or /vg/ when they're not too busy shitposting or whining about muh SJW. Basically, just lot's and lot's of references to make an educated purchase or opinion. And that's not counting all the news before the game comes out, articles and such.

Although I think reviews are still an important part of making a decision. It shouldn't be the ONLY source but often you can at least have a couple of reviewers you trust (I listen a lot to Sterling, GB, escapist sometimes or videogamer even though they like to be clickbaity sometimes) and even crossread with others. Because while I don't often agree with game journos, they're far from being total morons. All of them have at least played stuff for a couple years, and most of all stuff I haven't even played.

 

[Hugstable]

This game is like my Speedracer bluray. Its a great way to show off.

Speedracer bluray = Show off my TV setup.

The Order = Show off my PS4.

I would get the Order for more than just trying to "show off" the PS4, cause then you are literally spending 60$ to show the game off to someone, have them go "ohhh" and then not care after 5 minutes. You should buy a game on whether you think you might enjoy it, not because you want to show it off...

 

[Harlock]

I guess this has been posted. Feel so sort for Ready at Dawn atm, but this video is funny to be fair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=FV-u5tvQC34&app=desktop

This video is a lot of funny. Sony don't get something like that since the first PS3 E3.

But I think they deserve. Last gen Sony did everything wrong with the hardware and everything right the games. Now is the opposite.

 

[Beelzebufo]

Do people even still look at only reviews nowadays ?

Like, I do read reviews, several of them. I look at youtube playthroughs, youtuber commentaries, I come here on gaf, talk with friends, even /v/ or /vg/ when they're not too busy shitposting or whining about muh SJW. Basically, just lot's and lot's of references to make an educated purchase or opinion. And that's not counting all the news before the game comes out, articles and such.

Although I think reviews are still an important part of making a decision. It shouldn't be the ONLY source but often you can at least have a couple of reviewers you trust (I listen a lot to Sterling, GB, escapist sometimes or videogamer even though they like to be clickbaity sometimes) and even crossread with others. Because while I don't often agree with game journos, they're far from being total morons. All of them have at least played stuff for a couple years, and most of all stuff I haven't even played.

I think everyone agrees with you. We're GAF people so we do that stuff. I'd guess most people just check reviews though.

Although in this case, the Youtuber play through came first, and that's when people first started getting worried

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Do people even still look at only reviews nowadays ?

Like, I do read reviews, several of them. I look at youtube playthroughs, youtuber commentaries, I come here on gaf, talk with friends, even /v/ or /vg/ when they're not too busy shitposting or whining about muh SJW. Basically, just lot's and lot's of references to make an educated purchase or opinion. And that's not counting all the news before the game comes out, articles and such.

Although I think reviews are still an important part of making a decision. It shouldn't be the ONLY source but often you can at least have a couple of reviewers you trust (I listen a lot to Sterling, GB, escapist sometimes or videogamer even though they like to be clickbaity sometimes) and even crossread with others. Because while I don't often agree with game journos, they're far from being total morons. All of them have at least played stuff for a couple years, and most of all stuff I haven't even played.

People have been calling the issues raised in these reviews for months. There has been a lot of talk based off previews and game play videos that raised the same criticisms long before a review was even out there.

 

[Mr. Giggles]

I would get the Order for more than just trying to "show off" the PS4, cause then you are literally spending 60$ to show the game off to someone, have them go "ohhh" and then not care after 5 minutes. You should buy a game on whether you think you might enjoy it, not because you want to show it off...

Yup, For those like myself this is a double win. I love games like the order and that fact that it caters to my graphics whoreness is just gravy.

I'm a graphics slut.

 

[RipperGrim]

Sure, change 'average' for 'good', if you like. Not all movies have good scriptwriting.

But I actually don't think that there are that many games, at least games that aim for 'cinematic' presentation, that have scriptwriting better than even something like Transformers.

I mean, Dragon Age Inquisition, for instance, is some Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie calibre dross, if we were to take a step back and put it into a broader context than 'videogame writing'. Game of Thrones looks like Shakespeare acted by the world's strongest ensemble cast by comparison.

Videogame script writing and plotting, by and large, is in the area of those straight-to-DVD movies called like, Transmorphers and Shark Volcano. It's terrible.

You mock the writing in Dragon Age but do you know how much more I care for my character than I do for protagonists in movies? A lot more, same goes for my Shepherd character.

I think you need to actually see those movies because the only games I can't think of that have writing as bad as that are ones that actually don't focus on the story and more on the gameplay. Overall though I don't think they can even be compared because Story writing is one thing but when it's combined with a game that also uses gameplay to tell a story it has to be more different than a movie. It's hard to write a character that has to be controlled by a player.

In an action game it's hard to make a character who isn't more emotionally attached to things because after that cutscene the player is going to take control and do what they want with them, like shoot everyone mercilessly. How can you write a character affected by death like that? It's the main issue I saw with the new Tomb Raiders attempt at doing something new, I mean you had a charterer who had probably one of the most realistic reactions to killing someone to date in videogame but almost immediately afterwords you take control of her and can be popping headshots in no time at all. Characters for games almost always are blank as possible so players can just pretend to be them. It puts strain on the writing unless the game is controlled like it is in the Order and The Last of Us.


Overall I think it's unfair to say movies have better writing full stop because just like everything else in entertainment there are good ones and there are shit ones. For every shindlers list there's a 100 sharknados and for very The Last of Us there's a 100 Ride to hells.

 

[Necromanti]

People have been calling the issues raised in these reviews for months. There has been a lot of talk based off previews and game play videos that raised the same criticisms long before a review was even out there.

It was kind of like the situation with Destiny.

 

[QaaQer]

And honestly I can count the number of games on one hand that have 'cinematic presentation' and average summer blockbuster-quality scriptwriting, and three of them are Naughty Dog games.

what are the other ones? I'd like to know in case I missed any.

***

I'd also like to point out that the industry calls their products 'Interactive Entertainment Software', and story-based, cinematic games definitely fit into that. Videogame is an outdated and exclusionary term.

 

[twobear]

I would get the Order for more than just trying to "show off" the PS4, cause then you are literally spending 60$ to show the game off to someone, have them go "ohhh" and then not care after 5 minutes. You should buy a game on whether you think you might enjoy it, not because you want to show it off...

Yeah, pretty much this. When friends come over and they want to play PS4 because they've not seen one before, I used to boot up Shadowfall. But honestly, they generally found it so boring that they weren't interested. They'd say, 'oh the graphics are great', and then after five minutes I could tell they were done. They'd lost interest. A couple even said, 'the graphics are good but it doesn't really seem like an improvement over Xbox 360'. It's almost embarrassing for me, like they're telling me I've wasted my money.

Now when people come over I show them Hotline Miami, Nidhogg, and PT, Alien Isolation; all 'worse' looking games, but infinitely more fun, and I think the impression of the console is much higher, even though those (excluding PT) are all available on other systems.

 

[Verendus]

There ain't no games
Can hold my body down
There ain't no games
Can hold my body down

When I hear that start-up sound
I'm gonna rise right out of the couch
Ain't no games
Can hold my body down

Well, look way down the years
And what do you think I see
I see a group of games
And they're not coming to me

Ain't no games
Can hold my body down
There ain't no games
Can hold my body down

Well, look down yonder, Verendus
Put your feet on the carpet and feel
But Verendus, don't you blow your gasket
Until you hear from TLG

There ain't no games
Can hold my body down
Ain't no games
Can hold my body down

 

[XpopcornX]

So what does everyone think of it here?

 

[MrHoot]

People have been calling the issues raised in these reviews for months. There has been a lot of talk based off previews and game play videos that raised the same criticisms long before a review was even out there.

Oh absolutely, I'm not contradicting on that, i've been saying the same thing.

Sorry though, it was more of a useless tangent i was thinking about. Just seeing a lot of people considering reviews like the "be all - end all" thing for games weirded me out a bit that's a whole another topic so feel free to ignore =p