Ah, it's been awhile but your (least) favorite Pig is back with another editorial about why the video game industry continues to disappoint in so many, many ways.
As many VGC forum-goers have been discussing with great exposition lately, there are many of us who feel as if the reviewing segment of our hobby has gone completely awry over the past few years. In my ever-so humble opinion, when it comes right down to it, I question whether it was any good from the outset. Many of us grew up with gaming but unfortunately, in many ways, gaming hasn't grown up with us. We're still the purchasers of hackneyed trash and in most cases, we do it with a smile. I had an opening rant prepared on the review system for this editorial but after lengthy consideration, I will defer to Rob Reiner and his mockumentary classic, This is Spinal Tap .
Talal writes: "I'm talking about having that rush of excitement - that feeling you get when you know you've just made a memory for a lifetime."
There are different games. Some have gamplay at it highest priority, some have the story, some have the replay value and choices... There are a lot of different game experiences.
It is laughable that just now graphics does not have anything to do with that experiene. We have had many games of that type over time. This is just the one that have come closest to feel like playing an actual movie. Just look the the Digital foundry walkthrough it is a masterpiece in that perspective and hence wrth trying. But yes do not do it for the gameplay - but that was never the goal of this experience.
It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!
Pretty much my thoughts. They were technical marvel's on PS and still are. The moment Xbox puts out a graphically intense game is doesn't matter suddenly.
4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. Glad to finally see it in its glory.
FFS, gaming journalism has really gone downhill. At least hire people with a basic grasp of grammar... "Me neither" means the exact opposite of what the "author" is trying to say. That's like saying "I could care less"... lol.
Maybe because the gameplay being dull allowed it to have the amazing graphics and people are not as impressed by graphics alone anymore? I mean there is a lot of sites saying the story and the gameplay are lackluster. So what are we supposed to enjoy then? Cgi graphics are beautiful but since they arent interactive, they dont impress me as much as they used to. Thats an extreme example, but you get my drift.
When Playstation (Sony) does it..its usually a great game and not a cinematic experience..or at least something new at the time..like Until Dawn back in 2015.
@gamer:” It's because it's on Xbox. When Xbox has amazing graphics, they don't matter. When PlayStation does, it's a game changer!”
The game looks as good as any other PlayStation game in my eyes why can’t you and the other hardcore Xbox be happy about it and drag PlayStation into every conversation and force PlayStation hardcore to look into the game and find flaw that most games have in one way or another.
@light: “ 4 years ago this month would the UE5 tech demo debut with the girl flying (tech demo said it was only possible on PS5 because of the SSD. ”
Yes at that time it was only possible on PlayStation SSD how ignorant of you to think that after 4 years the technology wouldn’t evolved and move to a industry standard 🤦🏿I wish your mentality wasn’t so naive and narrow to post stuff like that 😩 in a year or 2 a new game will come out that might look better, it’s the nature of the industry.
Now that the distraction is gone I feel that is a good thing that the graphics in games are starting to hit the rooftop and hopefully the developers will put more thoughts into story and gameplay mechanics than just the next shiny oily skin of old.
So true. Not surprised by all the negativity. It's a really good game and looks better than any game I've ever seen. GOTY nominee for sure. Like I said before, sony screwed up big time by not purchasing Ninja Theory.
Pretty much. It's like how the Switch and Steam controller using haptic feedback in their controllers wasn't a big deal but then Sony did it and it was then a "game changer".
The game runs at as low as 21fps... That isn't much to brag about no matter how good it looks.
We've had graphical gamechangers before, such as Crysis but those games still had gameplay to compliment it. Hellblade pretty much has none, and only achieved such graphics through being incredibly linear and having very small, closed off environments where very little is happening.
GFX does not mean anything if the game is boring. It is simple like that and these major companies need to understand this simple concept.
Games are like your lady, she may be beautiful to look at for a while but then it gets boring if her character isn't interesting and fun to be with.
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I agree and I actually think Forbidden West looks better than Hellblade 2. I easily prefer looking at it at least.
It does look better in my opinion as well. I don't know why it looks better but there's something about the Decima engine or that guerrilla games is using tricks that we don't know of
While some video games overwhelm you with sheer scale, titles like Asura's Wrath and Doom Eternal make you the boss player right upfront.
Wolfenstein: The New Order turns ten years old today, so we decided to play it again and discovered just how much of an extinct kind of game it is.
It's an outstanding game and so was The Old Blood. Also a lost era of gaming. Interesting, I received a physical copy of The Old Blood 9 years ago today from Poland. It was digital only in North America initially upon release so I had to import.
cant forget halo 3
seem to get better than they deserve scores.
Look at for instance Gta 4 , FF12 and...yes Halo 3.Im not saying they suck but lets say they get 1 or 2 extra points.
Its not the case for all of them but some of them.
Then theres the fanboy reviewers.Look at Too Human for instance.Alot of non founded hate.It doesnt even look like criticism , just looks like plane dislike/hate for the dev or the game itself or whatever.
I think the GTA 4 was overscored, but still is an excellent game.
MGS 4 was another game that got overscored, no where near as good as the hype. Single player was pretty good, online sucks ballz.
One has to take caution when looking at scores on games.
(Claps) Well done 100% agree...
If IGN let two different people review lets say MGS4, do you think they'll come out the same? No, one might give it a 10, one might say its an 8. And there are a number of reasons why they'll see different. Game Reviews are all opinions, there not based on facts or anything, just one persons review. And, One guy might give out 10's a little easier than a some other guy, who's 7 is other people's 10's. Game Reviews will always be broken if this continues. And it's not an easy problem to solve either. Reviewing games is different than reviewing a car engine. A car engine has measurable statistics. Games do not. There's no meter that say's how fun the game is. And that is a problem that the Gaming Media needs to solve sometime in the near future, I'm really tired of not having a reliable source for game reviews.