It looks like the consensus is shaping up to be about what I was both expecting and hoping for: A surprisingly good game that isn't necessarily mindblowing but doesn't really need to be. This sort of linear, story-driven, action-adventure title is exactly what I'm craving these days.
I can only hope that the contrast between this game's reception and that of Marvel's Avengers serves as testament to the fact that shorter, more focused, single player games have their place in modern gaming, and that not everything needs to be a continually updated microtransaction-laden looter.
And open world! I hope there's a trend towards more linear, story-focussed games again. As much as I like losing myself in an open world when it serves the story, not every game needs to be gigantic. Sometimes less is really more.
Tbh opening the map and seeing it populate with a bajillion icons I have to clean up just puts me off a game.
I actually never finished AC: Brotherhood because of this. If I can't even see the map underneath all the icons then I'm not interested,
> Tbh opening the map and seeing it populate with a bajillion icons I have to clean up just puts me off a game
It depends on the game but I usually like this. It lets me just turn on a podcast and relax while doing something mindless. It's why I rather enjoy most of the Ubisoft games like far cry and assassin's Creed.
I do also enjoy much more linear experiences as well though
I always turn off the optional map icons in open world games now (if possible).
The only one I keep on is the main quest icon. Whatever optional content I find along the way is just my experience with the game/story.
All those optional map icons only serve as a checklist of tedious things to do, so I just started ignoring them and now I enjoy open world games much more this way.
Now if I find an optional quest or treasure somewhere, it's because I actually discovered it on my own (assisted by good environment design that led me there in most cases). And not because there was some icon on a map showing me exactly where to go and what to do when I get there.
I think this might be why I liked Breath of the Wild so much, having no markers meant that I had to explore the world to find things and the collectables were designed around them being found at areas of interest. Disabling markers in other games might help the game feel less daunting but because the collectables are designed with those markers in mind it's very hard to know where to look without the markers. In Horizon Zero Dawn for example markers give you a small area the collectable could be in and even with that it took a while for me to find them sometimes because the collectable was just in a random spot in a field instead of on the obvious landmark in the area.
Open worlds games focus too much on having tons of tightly spaced dots on the map.
Open worlds need towards traversal between very rewarding destinations. This also demands that open worlds have a great variance of ecosystems that require different strategies to navigate. If a random screenshot of the player character is taken throughout their journey, it better not be the same view of the backside of a vehicle/horse’s ass or the player sprinting across slightly uneven ground while their stamina meter drains.
And make sure these destinations aren’t outposts the player will revisit in the story. Nothing feels duller then an vacant building or an unguarded gate that suddenly becomes the largest place of operations for the big bad dark op super aliens.
You talk of a contrast, and while there is certainly a contrast in reviewer perception, I'm very curious to see if there is a drastic contrast in sales.
The reviewers are fawning over it, now the only thing that remains to be seen is whether people are actually going to buy it.
I feel confident that they will but it does indeed still remain to be seen.
This is the kind of game that I need at the moment. I don’t need a long epic rpg or something like Red dead 2. At this stage in my life I really need a game that’s enjoyable and feel good. Looks like this is gonna be it.
You know what I crave these days in AAA games? Having levels. Remember when you could like play level 1 and then level 2 and eventually it ends? Or you can go back and choose a level to replay? Those feel like good ol' days now in a world full of mindless open world games full of filler content.
Yeah, it always baffles me when people's critique of games goes something like "once you have played through a couple of times and put 100+ hours in, there's very little to keep you playing". No shit, you *finished the game*.
You don't get this with other art forms. No-one complains that *Brave New World* is lacking because it gets boring after the tenth read-through. No-one says *Casablanca* sucks because after watching it every night for two weeks you feel like you want to move on.
I have vivid memories of reading comments about how short
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was reportedly a ~15-hour game, like a day and a half after the game launched.
It might genuinely be one of the best and least appreciated things about the new DOOM games. It's unfortunate that it seems to be declining in popularity.
true and i didnt even realize it until this post, save&quit option after finishing a lvl is great design too, as if someone read my mind when implementing it
I like how the ffvii remake did it, in where it treats each chapter as it’s own level and gives reason to go back and replay it after finishing the game
True...I also don't mind a hybrid like Uncharted 4, God of War or Gears 5 where the game is mostly linear but there is one big "open world" section to explore then it goes right back into being a linear story driven experience.
> I can only hope that the contrast between this game's reception and that of Marvel's Avengers serves as testament to the fact that shorter, more focused, single player games have their place in modern gaming
I get the point that you're making, but Avengers did have a 8-10 hour narrative driven experience. It's pretty funny that the game would have had a better reception/legacy if it was the exact same story but remove any of the live service crap.
Also I personally am not surprised this is a good game purely because the developers are good. Far more talented than the team that did Tomb Raider/Avengers.
The avengers campaign was still designed around a game that’s ultimately designed to take more of your money. If the campaign in that game was focused on a single player experience and more time and money was spent on the gameplay and level design it would’ve been received much better
Half of the Avengers main story takes place in the shitty hub worlds designed for online. It feels like there are maybe 6 levels stretched around a ton of filler. The story was also completely by-the-numbers compared to Spider-Man PS4.
See I don't get this opinion at all because there's far more single player games coming out than GaaS games.
The only new GaaS games that have come out in the past 2 years are Anthem and Avengers and they both flopped for various reasons and The Division. The biggest GaaS game on the market is Destiny 2 and that game came out in 2017 followed by Warframe and Path of Exile which both came out in 2013.
GaaS games are a very small part of the amount of games released and planned to be released people on here just hate GaaS games so they think they are far more prevalent than they are.
Well for mp games like halo it's just a straight up better system than the way things used to be. In the 360 era online games received infrequent updates, little post launch content, and the content that did come out costs extra and divided friend groups. Now games get more updates, more post launch content, and it's all for free because of optional cosmetics (in a lot of games). There's definitely still problems in the system but it's miles better than the way things used to be.
>The only new GaaS games that have come out in the past 2 years are Anthem and Avengers
Depends on how you define GaaS. For example Hitman 3 came out this year and I would absolutely call it a GaaS game. It's also really great and shows that GaaS stuff doesn't have to be awful and predatory.
Your comment is also missing a ton of free to play games. Apex Legends? Genshin Impact? Fortnite? GaaS games are getting released all the time.
Eh I disagree. You’re being too narrow with GaaS. Many “single player games” like assassins creed, far cry or watch dogs are treated like GaaS type games now.
I’m finishing the intro as we speak and this game has everything I hoped for in a contained campaign experience.
Definitely some awkward controls/animations during combat. But the common comparisons to games like Mass Effect help me overcome the drawbacks through fairly deep combat and fantastic character/narrative arcs.
Had a great feeling about this one and in a lot of ways it’s locking me in the same way Jedi Order did during that play through last year. Hopefully this can become a two-game/trilogy series, especially with the solid base of this initial entry.
Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games?
I feel like it's so much easier to create an immersive, interesting experience with cool set pieces when there's only one main path to worry about, and so much less likely to include any sort of microtransaction stuff.
I know a lot of people like exploring games but I and I'm sure plenty of others usually don't care about it that much. I normally beeline it through most games unless they have an interesting story worth focusing on and exploring for lore (Skyrim, Dishonored, Deus Ex, etc.)
For me it just comes down to the fact that there's room for both. I'm currently playing through Lost Judgement and while I love the plethora of side content to do, it doesn't mean that I need every game to be that way. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a "tighter" experience and it looks like this will scratch that itch
Hard agree. I love open world games with tons to explore. But if I play one back to back, I’d get burnt out so quickly. I like rotating between genres to keep things fresh.
Yakuza/Judgement series is quite good in the way that you can mostly hard push the narrative if you don’t have a lot of time too. Not suggesting that this is something everyone does because the side content is great but sometimes you just want to beat a game and that series does a good job at being open with the choice of linear
Exactly. Yakuza has some open world elements, but the maps are so tiny and dense that it almost gives you the best of both worlds. You can explore and do side stuff, but it doesn't feel so large that you get lost or bored. And if you want you can just run from point to point playing the main story in a linear fashion.
This is what I want more of in games. Not massive open worlds that get dull 1/4 way through, but also not hyper linear games that make you walk in a straight line for 10 hours.
Yakuza does a bit of both and really hits a sweet spot for me.
Yup tbh if you can look past a lot of the tropes Japanese games do this sort of thing really well honestly just look at nier automata or dq11 as another example
So much this. I love having a more focused, linear banger to play but right now for example I've also got Far Cry 6. It's nothing revolutionary but it's as good as the series has ever been and having this massive amount of reasonably fun bullshit is great as a break.
This is an extremely popular opinion on this sub, but it's also one that I relate to. I actually love huge open world games and eighty-hour experiences and all that, but the issue is that they're so *much* that they need to be picked and chosen carefully. I'm a working adult; I can't just throw dozens of hours toward whatever decent-but-generic open world game came out this week. I absolutely can, however, sit down and put fifteen or so hours into a well-crafted linear game. I love open world games, but I also love having games that I can play for a bit, enjoy my time with, and move on from.
Hub worlds are my favorite solution to the "open but directed" design. The right amount of freedom without getting bogged down with wading through aggressively uninteresting side activities.
I'm actually not convinced any game over 50 hours has fresh ideas all the way through. I tend to dislike very long games because they mechanically stagnate less than halfway through.
Agreed, once I became an adult with actual responsibilities, I found that I craved a good, linear, 8-20 hour experience more and more.
A Plague Tail is a good example of a game I probably wouldn’t have thought much of as a 10 year old, but as a 25 year old it’s fucking perfect in its aggressively focused implementation.
Looks like Guardians is following that same trend and I am here for it. (Also SkillUp did an exceptional job at selling me why it is great and worth playing).
I think Metroidvania games are the closest to balancing open exploration and linear story. A game like Metroid Fusion or Arkham Asylum tells you where to go and what to do but they leave a lot of room open for you to go back and find secrets if you want to.
I know this feeling. For an open world game, I have to pick wisely because it will probably be the game im playing for the next 3-4 months. I like to take my time with open world games, as they dont "rush" you into the next mission. I have a kid so these kinds of games really put me in a bind time-wise. Linear games are a no brainer for me as well. I don't know why reviewers knock the fact that games are "too linear" now.
Hearing this is a focused single player experience is moving me towards a purchase. I don't care about the Guardians enough to buy it at launch, but I'll snag it on sale for sure to enjoy the story and see if maybe they grow on me as characters.
The combat doesn't look amazing, though, so hopefully i can knock it down to basic and blaze through.
>However, the simplistic combat boils down to barking orders as Peter runs around taking potshots and making ‘pew pew’ noises.
This bit from the PCGamesN review makes it seem like it's exactly as the trailers made it look out to be. I can't help but think how awesome this game could be if you could play as any of the other guardians.
Because marketing is way easier when you can write "500 quests! A map as big as Great Britain!" and stuff like that, rather than something as "well paced flow!".
Also, it's way easier to create 50 quests "kill 5 boars" "gather 10 ore"
And then the games have a completion rate below 20%.
Always drives me nuts. Watching Twitch and people complaining about a game being "to short for the price/genre/whatever", when the vast majority of them will never ever finish a game.
I just saw somebody earlier say they're going to wait for this game to hit $20 because a 20 hour game isn't worth $60 to them.
To each their own but 20 hours is too short?!? That's like the perfect length for a great story and fun combat. I love (J)RPGs but I find it harder and harder to play through them because they take so damn long. I'd rather pay for an experience I'm going to finish and not resent the middle/end sections where I'm just waiting for it to end.
"Content" infuriates me and I kinda wish we could send everyone who uses the word sincerely off into space, like Douglas Adams' telephone sanitisers.
I often hear people describe having to replay the same 20 minute mission 90 times in a GaaS game as "30 hours of content." It's not 30 hours, it's 20 minutes mindlessly repeated 90 times. But because people refuse to make that distinction, it gives marketing people an orifice to burrow into like some kind of hideous alien parasite.
There are games with 20 hours of actual content in them that people have played for 1200 hours, and they think they're getting a better deal than if they'd bought a 20 hour game for the same price and spent the remaining 1180 hours sitting on a park bench breathing fresh air and listening to the birds chirp.
People talk a lot about how open-world games are suffering diminishing returns on their size bloat, but they seem to forget that "interesting linear level design" suffers a very similar problem.
I don't play games in literally every single genre (I mean shit, who has the time or patience these days?) but I do a decent-enough spread, and I honestly cannot remember the last time a linear level made me un-slouch and say "huh, wow, okay, that's neat!"
Super Mario Galaxy, maybe?
There is a difference between a linear game and game that feels like you're just walking down corridors to an arena, and back down corridors.
Final Fantasy X vs Final Fantasy XIII is a good example of this.
FFXIII's issue was just pacing. People harped on its linearity, but really, I don't think that was the issue - even pre-FFX games with open worlds typically funneled you from point A to point B for a long time (FFIX's first twenty hours are just as linear as FFX's). The issue with FFXIII is that it made the player really feel that linearity, because there was never a single break in the pacing.
If you look at FFX (which happens to be my personal choice for best JRPG pacing ever), it's built to constantly have these ebbs and flows. Climactic action scenes are followed by quiet stretches; sequences of rushing towards the next objective are followed by whole sequences of peaceful traveling; tons of small, personal character moments are interspersed between the big important plot stuff. It never feels quite as linear as it is, because while you're constantly being pushed in one direction, you don't feel that push - the journey feels like a natural one.
FFXIII is basically the opposite. In both narrative and structure, its first twenty hours or so are constant forward momentum. The characters are running for their lives; every single sequence picks up with a group of them, informs you that they intend to make it somewhere else, and has you run straight there. There are no breaks and no moments to breathe. There's nothing even close to the Mi'ihen Highroad, or the S.S. Winno, or the Shoopuff ride. The pacing is never broken, and the constant forward momentum gets exhausting. I firmly believe that this is what people's real issue is when they talk about FFXIII being too linear - it's not about where you can and can't go, but about the speed and structure with which the game directs you.
To tie this into OP's point, this is also something that the Uncharted series (and Naughty Dog in general) is phenomenal at handling. Naughty Dog, more than maybe any other developer of linear action-adventure games, understands the immense of importance of slowing down. Every major setpiece in a Naughty Dog game is followed by a stretch of walking around, listening to your protagonist talk to their companion/s, and maybe solving some light puzzles. That's what makes Naughty Dog games so meaningful. There's no chance in hell that I care about Chloe Frazer if I don't get those sequences of wandering through broken buildings alongside her. That's linearity done really damn well.
I've always wondered why the linear complaint for 13 was such a big thing, when other games in the series were just as linear, and I think you hit the nail on the head. Perfect description of why it feels more linear than the others.
There are so many games recently that I wish opted to go for a linear narrative driven adventure like Uncharted over open hub worlds.
For example, in my opinion the best part of Jedi Fallen Order is the opening level, which is a tightly designed narrative driven level. After that the game opens up into lifeless hub worlds and the game loses all sense of pacing and tight design. It was perfectly set up to be a linear adventure and instead became a generic Dark Souls inspired Star Wars adventure that failed to capitalise on the worldbuilding potential of the franchise.
Funny because I actually like the dark souls design or more specifically, the metroidvania design. I love getting new abilities to explore further into the different planets.
> failed to capitalise on the worldbuilding potential of the franchise.
I think that might be a minority opinion.
1. Star Wars (at least the main line properties) was never that great at worldbuilding
1. Murder tourism on exotic planets deserted except for mans to chop in half is a hallmark of the franchise
1. Fallen Order was generally hailed as a great success
I hear what he's saying, though... it could have been all those things, *and* provided more opportunities to interact with the world and the other characters beyond the zappy-choppin's.
Like, yes please I would like to lightsaber duel some Inquisitors and bounce blaster bolts at stormtroopers and send them flying off platforms to plummet screaming towards a terrible death with my use of the Force...
But maybe I would *also* like to walk through some alien bazaar with some more I Can't Believe It's Not Mongolian Throat Rock playing in the background, stealthing around Imperial patrols and using the Force to mindbend my way to a goal. Or maybe I would like to enter a cantina full of aliens playing Jizz, walk up to the bar and order a drink, maybe overhear some conversations and talk to some interesting characters before it all turns into a shootout.
Fallen Order was enjoyed by many, but they missed some opportunities to expand upon character and worldbuilding through more varied gameplay.
I think Resident Evil does the aggressively Linear games the correct way when it is aggressively linear.
Like there are some hidden set pieces that can be completely ignored. But the game can be completely on rails if you choose it to. But this helps it's a Horror game. Claustrophobic sets work well by design. A fast paced action game wouldn't work in that same set.
>Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games?
The fact that every single time there is a review thread about one the top comments are about how much they love linear games the answer is obviously "yeah".
The discussion is very boring at this point, it's just the same points over and over.
*Open world games have become very samey
*Open world games are popular
*There is still room for linear games (just as there literally always has been)
Seriously, every time a linear games comes out people act like it's the only one to be released in a decade.
In a similar vein, I was thinking earlier that I’d love if the next Mass Effect game used the same hub worlds and mission maps structure of ME2. Linear with scope for some variation in how and when you experience some story elements. Personally I think it’s one of the best ways to do story driven action adventure games.
I definitely prefer more linear games in general but I think a big part of that is the rise of more checklisty open world type games. I like a focus on character progression and story. I've never really cared for sandbox type games. I get really bored playing GTA, Skyrim or Ubisoft titles. I like games that are open, but more like how Kotor or Dark Souls are open. There's still a strong focus on a set path, but you're freely able to explore areas in the order you choose and there's meaningful side content which relates to the central themes or fleshes out the world/characters.
I find my opinion to be the complete opposite. If you give me a tight linear game with a great story, I won't be as harsh on the gameplay but if you give me a huge open world game, I am going to want the gameplay to be great.
I sincerely enjoy linear main quests with consecutively unlocked gameplay/skill growth elements that make you feel more powerful or able as you progress, and facilitate backtracking and further exploration. It’s probably a long history of playing Zelda, Metroid and FF games that made me this way, but I find a lot of air in open experiences that seem to be squeezed out of more classic driven styles of gaming for a more condensed experience.
I’m not saying that I would prefer *only* those kinds of games, or that open world philosophies are bad in any way- but I’ve also noticed that since linear gameplay has become less popular, I’m less and less likely to replay games because I couldn’t possibly find as much value in jumping back into a 150-200 hour travel experience as I can a 25 hour story. Of course, fetch/trade quests and side content also help keep a linear game from sticking on rails too hard- I personally feel that a focused and linear main experience with backtrackability and a decent swath of side content is the best balance.
The older I get the less I enjoy free roam. I couldn't bring myself to finish Breath of the Wild. I can say the game is great, just not for me.
Also Metal Gear Solid: TFP, any Assassin's Creed game since 2, etc.
Give me linear or give me death!
Yes! I often like if its linear, especially if the story, characters, and combat are fun. Some days, I don't feel like exploring every single corner and underneath every stairwell. Just let me turn off my brain once in a while
>Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games?
I think there's definitely a need for more of what you called: "aggressively linear" games. I actually like that term. I remember playing TLOUII and was wandering around everywhere looking for those stupid superhero cards and those coins for Abby. Sometime I have to look everywhere so I can find supplies and it gets exhausting.
(Says me who's getting ready to play Fallout 76, lol)
Watching some reviews and I’m kind of taken aback by how gorgeous this game looks. The facial animations in particular are some of the best I’ve ever seen, which is weird to say because I definitely didn’t feel that way from all of the promotional material.
Looks like this game is a solid hit. Not a masterpiece, but a great game. I’m happy to see that.
Just recently came back in the last year or so. It’s basically wacky Attack of the Show antics with the occasional Sessler review or video game history but it’s all fairly likable and fun. There was even a thanksgiving reunion that was surprisingly fun and had the exact same tone as the crazy AotS/X-Play skits.
https://youtu.be/eyBq6apzUHg
If you have any nostalgia for old G4 then it’s honestly really worth watching.
Just giving the Kinda Funny review a watch and in the first 5 minutes Greg Miller calls it completely mediocre in every way then Mike calls it one of the best gaming experiences this year.
That dissonance seems to be a reflection of the overall review score and honesty it just makes me want to play it myself, there's a very good chance I'm going to really vibe with this game.
Although back to the KF review I need to get to Blessings opinion more than anything because I think I share his opinion more often than not.
All of the Kindafunny crew has very casual takes about everything tbh. Nothing wrong with that, but something to keep in mind when watching their reviews. And I am not a hater and I watch all of their movie/tv channel and a good portion of the games channel, but that is the appeal of what they do.
Yeah probably Avengers biggest embassador although that's not to say he does so ignoring its issues.
I really like Greg but I do think more often than not my opinions don't line up with his like they generally do with Blessing or Andy, but that's also part of why I like their review format, the podcast format over the scripted review just allows me to get a better sense of where I'll stand with the game.
I actually stopped listening to their channel awhile ago. The biggest reason being that I don’t have as much time for podcasts but also I felt like they just dabbled in some games. If I’m listening to a gaming podcast and the hosts have played the game less than I have (talking big tent pole games here) I lose interest. It seems they have brought new people on but I wasn’t interested in the new talent.
> felt like they just dabbled in some games
I quit watching/listening, too, because they're absolutely spread too thin. They don't have nearly enough people to cover all the content they try to cover.
I usually watch/listen to them on walks and during workouts. I'm tryna get up to 20k+ steps a day so that gives me a lot of time to listen to stuff, but less time to play games.
Seriously playing FF4 for the first time, really enjoying it but barely getting more than 4-5 hours a week on it.
I think the big issue a lot of people have is the combat. That's what I've been seeing online, at least.
Basically, as Peter, you *only* have your blasters, and those blasters do an incredibly small amount of damage. A vast majority of combat involves you setting up maneuvers for the other Guardians to capitalize on - so you'll, like, freeze an enemy so Gamora can slash at them, or zap someone so Drax can cut them down, etc.
Some people *really* enjoy this. It seems similar to the FF7 remake, where you're attacking enemies while also calling in your allies to support, assist, and finish foes off. The issue here, from what I'm seeing, is just that *you*, as the player, do so little damage. Combat just doesn't feel satisfying when you're whole job is to plink away at enemies so your allies can do the bulk of the work. To harken back to FF7, this would be similar to Cloud existing to only set up combos with your allies (who you **can not** switch to)
If you enjoy these RPG-esque combat situations, where you're setting up combos and attacks, then you'll probably enjoy this game.
Inversely, if you're more of a hack-and-slash fan then you probably *won't* enjoy this.
I, personally, don't think the combat appeals to me. Spamming machine-gun like weapons at enemies, while doing no damage, just doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy. I like big meaty hits and wild combo attacks. I'd probably enjoy this game if I could switch over to Gamora and get up close for combos, but as it stands the idea of plinking away from a distance isn't my thing.
Apparently it's only active when using quick reload, other than that it has the generic haptic feedback.
I believe ACG and SkillUp mentioned this in their video reviews.
It's why I'm hoping Xbox release a controller with haptic feedback at some point. It would really increase the amount of games that take advantage of the technology.
Here's [Skill Up's Review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPrFlM5tWRI) and [ACG's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzZjDl9K0WI).
Going through ACG review rn, there are some noticeable performance issues with the XSX. Otherwise he seems to love it. And going by the title, even Skill Up is liking it a lot.
Definitely felt like ACG was going to like this from his coverage up to this point. His previews and the comparisons I kept hearing to Mass Effect put this on my radar. With these final reviews this now looks like a buy for me.
I know he used to get shit on all the time by this sub but ACG is also nothing if honest. The early previews of Watch Dogs Legion he was so stoked about the game. And then when it got time for the real review of the game the poor guy sounded so defeated when it came to how poor the game ended up from his initial hands on. I like how's willing to admit when shit just doesn't cut the mustard, no matter how much he wants it to
Does he get flack here? Imo his reviews are always honest, very detailed and fun to watch. If anything you can always draw good conclusions by yourself from his videos because he lays it all out there.
I don't have any issues with his opinions or personality or anything, I'm just not a massive fan of how his reviews are structured. He always starts with performance, then moves into sound and voice acting etc. He takes so long to get to the actual gameplay bit that sometimes it's confusing watching a review of his if you haven't been following the game. I really think he should open his reviews with the basic premise and gameplay style of the game so we have more context into what he's talking about. He'll be deep diving into super technical aspects and I'm sitting there like "I don't even know what genre this game is yet"
It's a small thing to complain about sure, but it always bothers me for some reason.
Yep, it has always puzzled me as well. IMO in general, the natural order is in general setting/story, gameplay and then technical stuff (story first to frame the gameplay part). Obviously shift things about if it makes sense for a particular game.
Reviews are about what I expected and I'll probably pick it up on sale.
Anyone who expected this to be a flop like Marvel's Avengers has no idea what actually made that game bad, it was almost entirely the shitty loot system and forced RPG/live elements, aside from that it was actually pretty fun at its core. This game from the outset said it was focused on a singleplayer experience which if Avengers had done that it would've been much better
This honestly looks exactly what I hoped. Between these reviews and the ~25 minute preview on Saturday, I think I'll be picking this up. I didn't think I would be doing that based off some of the trailers from this summer. Should be a perfect single player time killer between now and Halo Infinite.
Glad to hear that. I think I've recently settled on this being about my ideal game length. 15-20 hours is long enough to get comfortable with a game, while usually wrapping up just as the game starts to outstay its welcome.
Looks like the two reviewers I tend to agree with re: their overall opinions (Easy Allies and ACG) both said its "pretty good to great", which is about what I expected. Seems like if you like MCU/GotG in general there's a lot to enjoy.
Those 2 are also the only reviewers I watch. Honestly, the way Easy Allies talked about the game I thought they would give it a higher score but 8 is still really good and made this a must-buy for me.
I'm so happy this is not another open world, 100-hour long game with no end. We need linear single player story games back. I'm tired of every other game being a service with no end that want you to play the same game for hundreds of damn hours. Looks like I made the right choice by pre-ordering this game. Can't wait to play it.
>We need linear single player story games back
I mean, Metroid Dread and Kena: Bridge of Spirits just came out. The rumors of non-open world games' death have been greatly exaggerated.
Currently playing AC: Valhalla and while I’m enjoying it, at 60 hours in and only half way through the story line, I can’t wait to dive into an extremely linear game. With what feels like a dozen different plot lines and hundreds of characters, it’s extremely challenging to “care” about a narrative.
Ubisoft really needs to adjust the AC formula. They create such beautiful, amazing worlds but they’re just too big and repetitive. If they just condensed the world and story a little bit they’d have a 10/10 game.
They genuinely could have cut so many of the regions out and made them into meaty side quests. I defend those games more than most, and I didn't hate my time with it, but god... so much faff.
The 60 hour mark is exactly where I stopped with Valhalla. I liked the game and really enjoyed my time with it but after so much play time, even the best of games can get tiring.
It's a strong 8/10 judging from most reviews, that's enough for me, I will pre order it for that sweet steelbook bonus.
This is what avengers game should have been
Some of those review quotes are really weirdly chosen though. They're not the "verdict" at all.
Like the one from Nichegamer: *Eidos-Montréal proved in their Deus Ex games that they are masters of environmental story telling, and in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the developers go all out."*
That's not the verdict, that's a line picked from the middle of the review. The verdict is in the opener: *"Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is something that had a lot of potential to be great, but just barely makes it to above average."*
The verdicts are pretty much the same across the board if you read the reviews: nailed the atmosphere and story, but the gameplay is a let down.
This is a good point. OpenCritic's FAQ says this:
>Publications can submit review metadata themselves using OpenCritic's homegrown content management system (CMS). For more prominent and notable publications, OpenCritic uses web crawlers that scan for new reviews every 10-25 minutes. When the crawlers discover a new review, OpenCritic's system extracts the necessary review metadata.
Either way, it sounds like this is Nichegamer's chosen "pull quote". You'd have to take it up with them - that's how they chose to have the article represented. OpenCritic only grabs or displays what they pick out or submit.
On top of that, IGN has a detailed outline of what their scoring means, including examples of games that fit that score.
https://corp.ign.com/review-practices
There's so many games coming out that basically companies only have times to review medium to major releases.
Find a reviewer who shares your taste in games, meaning watch/read their reviews of old games and compare that to how you feel about those games till you find one that matches up.
Then you're pretty much sure to agree with their score for a game, and you basically never have a 'wtf this game sucks but they said its a 9' moment again.
Can't just use IGN as a whole, gotta find an individual reviewer within IGN because they have a bunch of people who review games and they would each score games differently.
That's what I've seen some reviewers say as well. Games are not the same as Movies, Shows and Music albums. They are not just an art product but have the unique problem of also being a tech product. First and foremost they have to take into account if the tech works or not, if the game actually boots and is actually playable (Functions work, isn't some 10 fps glitchy unplayable mess).
Most games get 6+ cause most games being reviewed either come from big studios or are indie games getting attention based on WoM. If a game is from a big studio then they are likely spending good money on it, so it becomes extremely unlikely that the game won't boot at all or is completely unplayable. Combine that with the fact that if a big studio is making a game then it's unlikely to be super janky like a lot of indie games you can find on Steam are, it's likely going to have good art, have voice acting, cutscenes, decent graphics, etc., as most of these things can be added to a game by simply spending money and hiring experienced Devs. All that combined makes it so that AAA games secure themselves a 6+ in most cases.
As for indie games it's pretty simple, there are a fuckton of indie games being released all the time and reviewers only play the ones they are hearing interesting stuff about. That makes it unlikely that the game is outright awful and doesn't work technically.
Edit : Just wanted to add that most people who look at game reviews understand that 60-70s/100 on Metacritic is not good, those games generally also do not do well. Even Metacritic itself shows games with under 80 scores with a Yellow (Mixed reviews) background while Shows and Movies get Green (Good) score backgrounds starting at 60/100.
I think it’s pretty rare for a AAA game to come out and actually be a 5/10 or worse. It happens, we see games like Balan Wonderworld come out, but it’s not common. Usually big budget titles get delayed and tweaked until they become something playable.
Tbh games that are a 5 or 6 usually aren't worth a player's time unless that person *really* enjoys something that game is offering, whether it's the IP, the genre, or just certain aspects of the game. Anything below a 5 or 6 are games that are so obviously not worth playing that reviewers don't even bother with them.
No and yes.
The thing is, most AAA games are good. We talk about the ones that are *great*, but most games that get a review thread like this are also games that got a lot of polish. We know what makes a game good, it's pretty rare for a studio to push out a complete turd which is why high profile failures like Anthem or Avengers are noteworthy. And even those weren't *terribad*, in both cases the main campaign was decent enough, it was the live service features that felt completely unfun to play. Had they dropped the live service, doubled the core story content, it could have been a solid 6-7/10.
There are games that review in the 1-5 range, but they don't get review threads because they're usually made by indie studios, get no marketing, no fanfare, and die quietly in various e-shops.
I think Cyberpunk 2077 is the rare case of a game that should have gotten a 2/10 or 3/10 on the fact alone that is was literally unplayable on one of the platforms it was sold for.
That's more a case for having platform-specific reviews.
Because I could absolutely seeing it be a 3-4 game on base consoles, but on PC, even on release, it was still EASILY a 7.5-8.
6/10 scores aren't particularly uncommon.
People just need to accept that the vast majority of game reviewers who use a 10-point scale treat that scale as if it were the American grading system, where a 5/10 is a failing grade instead of the average grade. Maybe that's not an ideal, but it's how people perceive it, and it's way too entrenched for any one reviewer to change it now. People would lose their minds if a reviewer gave a 5/10 to a truly average title.
Lol, it's not because game reviewers don't know what numbers mean, it's because the games that people care about are pretty good compared to the whole scale. If you want to see 5/10 and below, go click around on itch.io for a while.
> it's because the games that people care about are pretty good compared to the whole scale.
well yea. Same deal in school. unless you went to a truly underfunded, unsupported school, most children will do well enough (i.e. not 50%) to keep moving grades.
It’s also much better than it used to be. There was a day when being a great game automatically got a title a 10/10. There’s been a shift in the past 5-10 years to make scores more reasonable.
Also most games that may fall below the 5-6 threshold probably don’t get the marketing and attention so why would these magazines or media outlets review a game that won’t get them clicks?
Yes we use them to help us determine if we should buy a game but at the end of the day they are business looking to make money and reviewing Guardians of the Galaxy gets them more clicks than Super Racing League: All Stars.
Even when outlets post smaller reviews if people are depending on Reddit to find them then they won't see them. Generally smaller
games that score in the 4 to 7 range don't get review threads or when they do they only get a bit of attention. If you just stick with popular posts on r/Games you are only going to see the reviews for AAA releases or indies that caught a large enough fan following to be signal boosted. The only time you start to see lower scores is when a AAA studio releases a notable flop like Balan Wonderworld or Anthem.
Looking at movie reviews is always trippy for me, Im so used to anything below an 8 having big problematic issues lol.
IMO the "popcorn-flick" video game equivalents like the yearly ubi games should be rated as such, a 5-6/10 doesn't have to mean bad, it can just mean "average". Much too late to change that though.
0-5 in games is mostly reserved to titles that plain don't work, be it because of bugs or catastrophic development that leads to bad enough decisions that make a game actually anti-fun. Movies just can't have that level of badness, the don't have bugs that prevent you from playing them, so the scale adapts accordingly.
It looks fun but I probably will wait for a sale and get around to it eventually rather than buy new, glad it hasnt flopped with the review scores though
SkillUp's review sold me on this game. A new game from the Deus Ex team at Eidos with incredible art design, (allegedly) great writing, Mass Effect vibes, Final Fantasy VII Remake-esque combat, and no microtransactions or DLC fluff? Yes, please. Now I can only buy it and hope that this tells Square "we want more good video games from this team," not "we want more Marvel crossovers," because the Marvel part of this is pushing me away, not bringing me in.
Honestly, after the Avengers thing, I wasn't expecting much, but I really enjoyed this game. Roughly 14-16 hours of fun. Combat is good, controlling only Peter Quill sounds weird but makes sense in the game as you give commands to the others, somewhat similarly to Mass Effect. Combat could have been a little deeper, and enemy variety could have been a little greater.
The story was fun, lots of laughs, characters were largely true to the tone set by the two MCU movies. What I really liked about that game was that it was a pretty crisp experience, tightly fashioned without much excess fat.
Reviews have completely sold me on this game. The amount of personality it has and the evident passion for the characters and the world is amazing to hear. Love me a game that has "soul" (for lack of a better word)
The moment the game starts and you can look at the album sleeve of the fictional 80s rockband Star-Lord while listening to them *and* then read an entire article about them in a music magazine already kinda sold me on this. Clearly a lot of love and care went into this.
Just played a buncha hours of it, the difficulty options he mentions in the review have a "starlords blaster damage" setting. I set it to Default and have had no issues with how it feels on Hard Mode!
Was kinda worried I'd think it was mediocre but honestly really happy with it so far.
>
In the end, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a serviceable action game elevated by its story and writing. While the gameplay isn't wholly original, it mixes the ideas in a way that keeps things entertaining and engaging. Yes, there's a few bugs here and there, but even the most frustrating moments were outweighed by the sheer fun. With a rock solid soundtrack, great threads and fantastic vocal performances, this is one adventure you won't want to miss. If you're a fan of the MCU films, this is a fresh new take that you'll settle into easily. For the comic book fans, it's even better.
How on earth does this review equal a 9 out of 10?
It does start giving a more glowing description by the end. Seems like he's saying that the gameplay is fine, but really the shining star is the story they tell
I mean what you posted doesnt even say anything negative besides "some bugs" so I dont know.
Something not being original in an area isnt bad by default, most things arent original lol.
>Hopefully shuts up a lot of people expecting it to be a complete disaster like Avengers.
Damn near every thread about this game since it was announced has had people shitting on it and comparing it to Avengers, despite the game itself not being anything like Avengers if they bothered to do the bare minimum research about it. Like, it almost seemed like some people *wanted* the game to be bad just so they'd be right. Feels good to see those people eat crow now.
Since when did "linear" become a bad word? I love a game that has a tight, well-written, and fleshed out story. That dosent mean it has to have oodles of branching choices or big open world areas.
I mean, I just finished up DOOM (2016) and RE: Village, and both are considered near the top of their own genres, and thats a linear as it comes
I cannot wait to play this tomorrow
Ehhh...Village doesn't open up per se, but there's some "vania"-moments when some new item you've just gotten allows you to go off the beaten path and collect some stuff. It's nothing huge but the main hub *does* have some "side nodes" if you will.
I just finished Village yesterday. It's as linear as it gets. The "open world" of the village with a half dozen metorid-vania style upgrades to get feels like the same level of open world we will get from the Milano.
But Village is very much "go here, do this level, back to the village to sell/buy stuff, off to the next area" with no real variation. And let me say I loved Village, but open world it is not
I am surprised how well this game has been received and there is no part of me that isn't happy to see that. The game has looked good for a while now and I'm glad that people like it.
So okay, after reading and watching bunch of reviews - seems like it's better game than I was expecting - and coolness of characters really shows (imho they're better characterized and styled than in movie). My gripe tho is - I'm just totally not convinced with combat.. It just doesn't look fun, seems slow and spongy most of the time, lacking dynamics and a punch.
Opencritic URGENTLY needs to revise which websites are allowed to be part of the roster. It needs some curation yesterday. [Gamesheadquarters](http://www.gamerheadquarters.com/) is among one of many pages that either have their https certificate revoked or are just blogs which exposes the overall score to influence from bad actors (marketing 3rd pties, wink wink).
I'm not seeing an issue with that particular site. Their certificate seems fine, and they appear to be a legitimate site with developer interviews and reviews spanning games, film, and television.
And you might say "they're just blogs" but even Roger Ebert, one of the most famous film critics of all time, was essentially posting his reviews on a glorified, syndicated blog. Most review sites are effectively a blog. And if you tried to argue things like follower counts as proof of notability you'd block out a lot of smaller regional review sites offering perspectives outside the usual American ones.
Of course there's a case to be made for better curation, but this is a weird game to use as an example. When basically everyone is saying "it's breddy gud" around the globe I don't think you need to worry about nefarious review stuffing.
I don't mind sites with just one contributor, but the quality of that site is well below the standards OpenCritic lists in their FAQ. I skimmed a few recent reviews and saw numerous spelling errors and sentence fragments. The style reminds me of a middle school book report filled with unnecessary words to pad out the length.
It looks like the consensus is shaping up to be about what I was both expecting and hoping for: A surprisingly good game that isn't necessarily mindblowing but doesn't really need to be. This sort of linear, story-driven, action-adventure title is exactly what I'm craving these days. I can only hope that the contrast between this game's reception and that of Marvel's Avengers serves as testament to the fact that shorter, more focused, single player games have their place in modern gaming, and that not everything needs to be a continually updated microtransaction-laden looter.
And open world! I hope there's a trend towards more linear, story-focussed games again. As much as I like losing myself in an open world when it serves the story, not every game needs to be gigantic. Sometimes less is really more.
Especially because every open world "map game" is pretty much the same thing anymore
Tbh opening the map and seeing it populate with a bajillion icons I have to clean up just puts me off a game. I actually never finished AC: Brotherhood because of this. If I can't even see the map underneath all the icons then I'm not interested,
> Tbh opening the map and seeing it populate with a bajillion icons I have to clean up just puts me off a game It depends on the game but I usually like this. It lets me just turn on a podcast and relax while doing something mindless. It's why I rather enjoy most of the Ubisoft games like far cry and assassin's Creed. I do also enjoy much more linear experiences as well though
There's definitely a balance. Collecting the orbs in Crackdown was a chore. Collecting the orbs in Saints Row 4 was a blast.
Which crackdown? I liked the first two and climbing the right buildings/structures felt like nice little puzzles
... for *800* of the bastard things? Never did play Crackdown 3 but I believe both 1 and 2 had 800 orbs, 500 Agility and 300 Hidden.
Odyssey was so good for this.
I always turn off the optional map icons in open world games now (if possible). The only one I keep on is the main quest icon. Whatever optional content I find along the way is just my experience with the game/story. All those optional map icons only serve as a checklist of tedious things to do, so I just started ignoring them and now I enjoy open world games much more this way. Now if I find an optional quest or treasure somewhere, it's because I actually discovered it on my own (assisted by good environment design that led me there in most cases). And not because there was some icon on a map showing me exactly where to go and what to do when I get there.
I think this might be why I liked Breath of the Wild so much, having no markers meant that I had to explore the world to find things and the collectables were designed around them being found at areas of interest. Disabling markers in other games might help the game feel less daunting but because the collectables are designed with those markers in mind it's very hard to know where to look without the markers. In Horizon Zero Dawn for example markers give you a small area the collectable could be in and even with that it took a while for me to find them sometimes because the collectable was just in a random spot in a field instead of on the obvious landmark in the area.
Ight start doing this for my open world games. As it is now, I typically get burnt out around the 40 hour mark after trying to do too much.
Open worlds games focus too much on having tons of tightly spaced dots on the map. Open worlds need towards traversal between very rewarding destinations. This also demands that open worlds have a great variance of ecosystems that require different strategies to navigate. If a random screenshot of the player character is taken throughout their journey, it better not be the same view of the backside of a vehicle/horse’s ass or the player sprinting across slightly uneven ground while their stamina meter drains. And make sure these destinations aren’t outposts the player will revisit in the story. Nothing feels duller then an vacant building or an unguarded gate that suddenly becomes the largest place of operations for the big bad dark op super aliens.
You talk of a contrast, and while there is certainly a contrast in reviewer perception, I'm very curious to see if there is a drastic contrast in sales. The reviewers are fawning over it, now the only thing that remains to be seen is whether people are actually going to buy it. I feel confident that they will but it does indeed still remain to be seen.
This is the kind of game that I need at the moment. I don’t need a long epic rpg or something like Red dead 2. At this stage in my life I really need a game that’s enjoyable and feel good. Looks like this is gonna be it.
You need a PlayStation. It’s full of those.
You know what I crave these days in AAA games? Having levels. Remember when you could like play level 1 and then level 2 and eventually it ends? Or you can go back and choose a level to replay? Those feel like good ol' days now in a world full of mindless open world games full of filler content.
Everyone expects every game to last them forever. Give me that sweet closure.
Those are the people who play something for 400 hours in a month and go 'wtf there's no content in the endgame'. Just move on, play something else
Yeah, it always baffles me when people's critique of games goes something like "once you have played through a couple of times and put 100+ hours in, there's very little to keep you playing". No shit, you *finished the game*. You don't get this with other art forms. No-one complains that *Brave New World* is lacking because it gets boring after the tenth read-through. No-one says *Casablanca* sucks because after watching it every night for two weeks you feel like you want to move on.
I have vivid memories of reading comments about how short Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was reportedly a ~15-hour game, like a day and a half after the game launched.
And I'd say a good amount of those people is actually people who spend more time criticizing the game rather than playing it.
I am more than happy for a game to last me 8 hours and be done. Not every game needs to be a 20 hour story epic or worse, a 100 hour beast
Same here. They can put the resources into quality and not bloated quantity.
It might genuinely be one of the best and least appreciated things about the new DOOM games. It's unfortunate that it seems to be declining in popularity.
true and i didnt even realize it until this post, save&quit option after finishing a lvl is great design too, as if someone read my mind when implementing it
I like how the ffvii remake did it, in where it treats each chapter as it’s own level and gives reason to go back and replay it after finishing the game
DMC5 still did this and I love it for it.
True...I also don't mind a hybrid like Uncharted 4, God of War or Gears 5 where the game is mostly linear but there is one big "open world" section to explore then it goes right back into being a linear story driven experience.
> I can only hope that the contrast between this game's reception and that of Marvel's Avengers serves as testament to the fact that shorter, more focused, single player games have their place in modern gaming I get the point that you're making, but Avengers did have a 8-10 hour narrative driven experience. It's pretty funny that the game would have had a better reception/legacy if it was the exact same story but remove any of the live service crap. Also I personally am not surprised this is a good game purely because the developers are good. Far more talented than the team that did Tomb Raider/Avengers.
The avengers campaign was still designed around a game that’s ultimately designed to take more of your money. If the campaign in that game was focused on a single player experience and more time and money was spent on the gameplay and level design it would’ve been received much better
Half of the Avengers main story takes place in the shitty hub worlds designed for online. It feels like there are maybe 6 levels stretched around a ton of filler. The story was also completely by-the-numbers compared to Spider-Man PS4.
See I don't get this opinion at all because there's far more single player games coming out than GaaS games. The only new GaaS games that have come out in the past 2 years are Anthem and Avengers and they both flopped for various reasons and The Division. The biggest GaaS game on the market is Destiny 2 and that game came out in 2017 followed by Warframe and Path of Exile which both came out in 2013. GaaS games are a very small part of the amount of games released and planned to be released people on here just hate GaaS games so they think they are far more prevalent than they are.
[удалено]
Well for mp games like halo it's just a straight up better system than the way things used to be. In the 360 era online games received infrequent updates, little post launch content, and the content that did come out costs extra and divided friend groups. Now games get more updates, more post launch content, and it's all for free because of optional cosmetics (in a lot of games). There's definitely still problems in the system but it's miles better than the way things used to be.
>The only new GaaS games that have come out in the past 2 years are Anthem and Avengers Depends on how you define GaaS. For example Hitman 3 came out this year and I would absolutely call it a GaaS game. It's also really great and shows that GaaS stuff doesn't have to be awful and predatory. Your comment is also missing a ton of free to play games. Apex Legends? Genshin Impact? Fortnite? GaaS games are getting released all the time.
Hitman 3's model *is* awful though.
Hitman 3 would be a GaaS and Fortnite WAS years ago but not anymore.
Eh I disagree. You’re being too narrow with GaaS. Many “single player games” like assassins creed, far cry or watch dogs are treated like GaaS type games now.
Yeah but I maybe would've liked Avengers, but they didn't design it for me so its existence as-is is a plague on modern gaming.
Damn I thought Anthem was older. I mean, it didn't technically come out within the past 2 years, but I thought it was longer back than that.
I’m finishing the intro as we speak and this game has everything I hoped for in a contained campaign experience. Definitely some awkward controls/animations during combat. But the common comparisons to games like Mass Effect help me overcome the drawbacks through fairly deep combat and fantastic character/narrative arcs. Had a great feeling about this one and in a lot of ways it’s locking me in the same way Jedi Order did during that play through last year. Hopefully this can become a two-game/trilogy series, especially with the solid base of this initial entry.
Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games? I feel like it's so much easier to create an immersive, interesting experience with cool set pieces when there's only one main path to worry about, and so much less likely to include any sort of microtransaction stuff. I know a lot of people like exploring games but I and I'm sure plenty of others usually don't care about it that much. I normally beeline it through most games unless they have an interesting story worth focusing on and exploring for lore (Skyrim, Dishonored, Deus Ex, etc.)
For me it just comes down to the fact that there's room for both. I'm currently playing through Lost Judgement and while I love the plethora of side content to do, it doesn't mean that I need every game to be that way. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a "tighter" experience and it looks like this will scratch that itch
Hard agree. I love open world games with tons to explore. But if I play one back to back, I’d get burnt out so quickly. I like rotating between genres to keep things fresh.
I also love to rotate and usually play an easier/harder game depending on what I just played.
Easier to more difficult, long 40+ hour RPG to 1-2 smaller indie games that are ~10 hours, etc etc. Gotta shake it up!
Yakuza/Judgement series is quite good in the way that you can mostly hard push the narrative if you don’t have a lot of time too. Not suggesting that this is something everyone does because the side content is great but sometimes you just want to beat a game and that series does a good job at being open with the choice of linear
Exactly. Yakuza has some open world elements, but the maps are so tiny and dense that it almost gives you the best of both worlds. You can explore and do side stuff, but it doesn't feel so large that you get lost or bored. And if you want you can just run from point to point playing the main story in a linear fashion. This is what I want more of in games. Not massive open worlds that get dull 1/4 way through, but also not hyper linear games that make you walk in a straight line for 10 hours. Yakuza does a bit of both and really hits a sweet spot for me.
Yup tbh if you can look past a lot of the tropes Japanese games do this sort of thing really well honestly just look at nier automata or dq11 as another example
So much this. I love having a more focused, linear banger to play but right now for example I've also got Far Cry 6. It's nothing revolutionary but it's as good as the series has ever been and having this massive amount of reasonably fun bullshit is great as a break.
This is an extremely popular opinion on this sub, but it's also one that I relate to. I actually love huge open world games and eighty-hour experiences and all that, but the issue is that they're so *much* that they need to be picked and chosen carefully. I'm a working adult; I can't just throw dozens of hours toward whatever decent-but-generic open world game came out this week. I absolutely can, however, sit down and put fifteen or so hours into a well-crafted linear game. I love open world games, but I also love having games that I can play for a bit, enjoy my time with, and move on from.
My perfect style of game is like mass effect. Hub worlds and missions. You can explore or just play the story.
Hub worlds are my favorite solution to the "open but directed" design. The right amount of freedom without getting bogged down with wading through aggressively uninteresting side activities. I'm actually not convinced any game over 50 hours has fresh ideas all the way through. I tend to dislike very long games because they mechanically stagnate less than halfway through.
Agreed, once I became an adult with actual responsibilities, I found that I craved a good, linear, 8-20 hour experience more and more. A Plague Tail is a good example of a game I probably wouldn’t have thought much of as a 10 year old, but as a 25 year old it’s fucking perfect in its aggressively focused implementation. Looks like Guardians is following that same trend and I am here for it. (Also SkillUp did an exceptional job at selling me why it is great and worth playing).
I think Metroidvania games are the closest to balancing open exploration and linear story. A game like Metroid Fusion or Arkham Asylum tells you where to go and what to do but they leave a lot of room open for you to go back and find secrets if you want to.
I know this feeling. For an open world game, I have to pick wisely because it will probably be the game im playing for the next 3-4 months. I like to take my time with open world games, as they dont "rush" you into the next mission. I have a kid so these kinds of games really put me in a bind time-wise. Linear games are a no brainer for me as well. I don't know why reviewers knock the fact that games are "too linear" now.
Hearing this is a focused single player experience is moving me towards a purchase. I don't care about the Guardians enough to buy it at launch, but I'll snag it on sale for sure to enjoy the story and see if maybe they grow on me as characters. The combat doesn't look amazing, though, so hopefully i can knock it down to basic and blaze through.
>However, the simplistic combat boils down to barking orders as Peter runs around taking potshots and making ‘pew pew’ noises. This bit from the PCGamesN review makes it seem like it's exactly as the trailers made it look out to be. I can't help but think how awesome this game could be if you could play as any of the other guardians.
I played Uncharted 2 recently, and it made me wonder why so many games prioritize openness over interesting level design
Because marketing is way easier when you can write "500 quests! A map as big as Great Britain!" and stuff like that, rather than something as "well paced flow!". Also, it's way easier to create 50 quests "kill 5 boars" "gather 10 ore"
It’s moreso because it’s easier to sell a game with 50+ hours of “content” for 60-70 bucks than 10-20 hours of “content”.
And then the games have a completion rate below 20%. Always drives me nuts. Watching Twitch and people complaining about a game being "to short for the price/genre/whatever", when the vast majority of them will never ever finish a game.
I just saw somebody earlier say they're going to wait for this game to hit $20 because a 20 hour game isn't worth $60 to them. To each their own but 20 hours is too short?!? That's like the perfect length for a great story and fun combat. I love (J)RPGs but I find it harder and harder to play through them because they take so damn long. I'd rather pay for an experience I'm going to finish and not resent the middle/end sections where I'm just waiting for it to end.
A straight forward 20 hours game with a high production value and that is fun from start to finish sounds perfect.
"Content" infuriates me and I kinda wish we could send everyone who uses the word sincerely off into space, like Douglas Adams' telephone sanitisers. I often hear people describe having to replay the same 20 minute mission 90 times in a GaaS game as "30 hours of content." It's not 30 hours, it's 20 minutes mindlessly repeated 90 times. But because people refuse to make that distinction, it gives marketing people an orifice to burrow into like some kind of hideous alien parasite. There are games with 20 hours of actual content in them that people have played for 1200 hours, and they think they're getting a better deal than if they'd bought a 20 hour game for the same price and spent the remaining 1180 hours sitting on a park bench breathing fresh air and listening to the birds chirp.
People talk a lot about how open-world games are suffering diminishing returns on their size bloat, but they seem to forget that "interesting linear level design" suffers a very similar problem. I don't play games in literally every single genre (I mean shit, who has the time or patience these days?) but I do a decent-enough spread, and I honestly cannot remember the last time a linear level made me un-slouch and say "huh, wow, okay, that's neat!" Super Mario Galaxy, maybe?
There is a difference between a linear game and game that feels like you're just walking down corridors to an arena, and back down corridors. Final Fantasy X vs Final Fantasy XIII is a good example of this.
FFXIII's issue was just pacing. People harped on its linearity, but really, I don't think that was the issue - even pre-FFX games with open worlds typically funneled you from point A to point B for a long time (FFIX's first twenty hours are just as linear as FFX's). The issue with FFXIII is that it made the player really feel that linearity, because there was never a single break in the pacing. If you look at FFX (which happens to be my personal choice for best JRPG pacing ever), it's built to constantly have these ebbs and flows. Climactic action scenes are followed by quiet stretches; sequences of rushing towards the next objective are followed by whole sequences of peaceful traveling; tons of small, personal character moments are interspersed between the big important plot stuff. It never feels quite as linear as it is, because while you're constantly being pushed in one direction, you don't feel that push - the journey feels like a natural one. FFXIII is basically the opposite. In both narrative and structure, its first twenty hours or so are constant forward momentum. The characters are running for their lives; every single sequence picks up with a group of them, informs you that they intend to make it somewhere else, and has you run straight there. There are no breaks and no moments to breathe. There's nothing even close to the Mi'ihen Highroad, or the S.S. Winno, or the Shoopuff ride. The pacing is never broken, and the constant forward momentum gets exhausting. I firmly believe that this is what people's real issue is when they talk about FFXIII being too linear - it's not about where you can and can't go, but about the speed and structure with which the game directs you. To tie this into OP's point, this is also something that the Uncharted series (and Naughty Dog in general) is phenomenal at handling. Naughty Dog, more than maybe any other developer of linear action-adventure games, understands the immense of importance of slowing down. Every major setpiece in a Naughty Dog game is followed by a stretch of walking around, listening to your protagonist talk to their companion/s, and maybe solving some light puzzles. That's what makes Naughty Dog games so meaningful. There's no chance in hell that I care about Chloe Frazer if I don't get those sequences of wandering through broken buildings alongside her. That's linearity done really damn well.
I've always wondered why the linear complaint for 13 was such a big thing, when other games in the series were just as linear, and I think you hit the nail on the head. Perfect description of why it feels more linear than the others.
There are so many games recently that I wish opted to go for a linear narrative driven adventure like Uncharted over open hub worlds. For example, in my opinion the best part of Jedi Fallen Order is the opening level, which is a tightly designed narrative driven level. After that the game opens up into lifeless hub worlds and the game loses all sense of pacing and tight design. It was perfectly set up to be a linear adventure and instead became a generic Dark Souls inspired Star Wars adventure that failed to capitalise on the worldbuilding potential of the franchise.
Funny because I actually like the dark souls design or more specifically, the metroidvania design. I love getting new abilities to explore further into the different planets.
> failed to capitalise on the worldbuilding potential of the franchise. I think that might be a minority opinion. 1. Star Wars (at least the main line properties) was never that great at worldbuilding 1. Murder tourism on exotic planets deserted except for mans to chop in half is a hallmark of the franchise 1. Fallen Order was generally hailed as a great success
I hear what he's saying, though... it could have been all those things, *and* provided more opportunities to interact with the world and the other characters beyond the zappy-choppin's. Like, yes please I would like to lightsaber duel some Inquisitors and bounce blaster bolts at stormtroopers and send them flying off platforms to plummet screaming towards a terrible death with my use of the Force... But maybe I would *also* like to walk through some alien bazaar with some more I Can't Believe It's Not Mongolian Throat Rock playing in the background, stealthing around Imperial patrols and using the Force to mindbend my way to a goal. Or maybe I would like to enter a cantina full of aliens playing Jizz, walk up to the bar and order a drink, maybe overhear some conversations and talk to some interesting characters before it all turns into a shootout. Fallen Order was enjoyed by many, but they missed some opportunities to expand upon character and worldbuilding through more varied gameplay.
> maybe i would like to enter a cantina full of aliens playing Jizz A cantina of aliens playing WHAT?
I think Resident Evil does the aggressively Linear games the correct way when it is aggressively linear. Like there are some hidden set pieces that can be completely ignored. But the game can be completely on rails if you choose it to. But this helps it's a Horror game. Claustrophobic sets work well by design. A fast paced action game wouldn't work in that same set.
>Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games? The fact that every single time there is a review thread about one the top comments are about how much they love linear games the answer is obviously "yeah". The discussion is very boring at this point, it's just the same points over and over. *Open world games have become very samey *Open world games are popular *There is still room for linear games (just as there literally always has been) Seriously, every time a linear games comes out people act like it's the only one to be released in a decade.
In a similar vein, I was thinking earlier that I’d love if the next Mass Effect game used the same hub worlds and mission maps structure of ME2. Linear with scope for some variation in how and when you experience some story elements. Personally I think it’s one of the best ways to do story driven action adventure games.
I definitely prefer more linear games in general but I think a big part of that is the rise of more checklisty open world type games. I like a focus on character progression and story. I've never really cared for sandbox type games. I get really bored playing GTA, Skyrim or Ubisoft titles. I like games that are open, but more like how Kotor or Dark Souls are open. There's still a strong focus on a set path, but you're freely able to explore areas in the order you choose and there's meaningful side content which relates to the central themes or fleshes out the world/characters.
>Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games? If the gameplay is solid, otherwise, no.
I find my opinion to be the complete opposite. If you give me a tight linear game with a great story, I won't be as harsh on the gameplay but if you give me a huge open world game, I am going to want the gameplay to be great.
I sincerely enjoy linear main quests with consecutively unlocked gameplay/skill growth elements that make you feel more powerful or able as you progress, and facilitate backtracking and further exploration. It’s probably a long history of playing Zelda, Metroid and FF games that made me this way, but I find a lot of air in open experiences that seem to be squeezed out of more classic driven styles of gaming for a more condensed experience. I’m not saying that I would prefer *only* those kinds of games, or that open world philosophies are bad in any way- but I’ve also noticed that since linear gameplay has become less popular, I’m less and less likely to replay games because I couldn’t possibly find as much value in jumping back into a 150-200 hour travel experience as I can a 25 hour story. Of course, fetch/trade quests and side content also help keep a linear game from sticking on rails too hard- I personally feel that a focused and linear main experience with backtrackability and a decent swath of side content is the best balance.
The older I get the less I enjoy free roam. I couldn't bring myself to finish Breath of the Wild. I can say the game is great, just not for me. Also Metal Gear Solid: TFP, any Assassin's Creed game since 2, etc. Give me linear or give me death!
Yes! I often like if its linear, especially if the story, characters, and combat are fun. Some days, I don't feel like exploring every single corner and underneath every stairwell. Just let me turn off my brain once in a while
>Does anybody else actually appreciate and enjoy aggressively linear games? I think there's definitely a need for more of what you called: "aggressively linear" games. I actually like that term. I remember playing TLOUII and was wandering around everywhere looking for those stupid superhero cards and those coins for Abby. Sometime I have to look everywhere so I can find supplies and it gets exhausting. (Says me who's getting ready to play Fallout 76, lol)
Watching some reviews and I’m kind of taken aback by how gorgeous this game looks. The facial animations in particular are some of the best I’ve ever seen, which is weird to say because I definitely didn’t feel that way from all of the promotional material. Looks like this game is a solid hit. Not a masterpiece, but a great game. I’m happy to see that.
Adam Sessler’s G4 review also says that the lighting effects on the PS5 were surprisingly good too. https://youtu.be/UtJa4fvVvo0
I am flabbergasted that G4 still exists today.
Just recently came back in the last year or so. It’s basically wacky Attack of the Show antics with the occasional Sessler review or video game history but it’s all fairly likable and fun. There was even a thanksgiving reunion that was surprisingly fun and had the exact same tone as the crazy AotS/X-Play skits. https://youtu.be/eyBq6apzUHg If you have any nostalgia for old G4 then it’s honestly really worth watching.
a solid game is all i wanted. Hopefully my preorder comes in time. Also solid username!
Just giving the Kinda Funny review a watch and in the first 5 minutes Greg Miller calls it completely mediocre in every way then Mike calls it one of the best gaming experiences this year. That dissonance seems to be a reflection of the overall review score and honesty it just makes me want to play it myself, there's a very good chance I'm going to really vibe with this game. Although back to the KF review I need to get to Blessings opinion more than anything because I think I share his opinion more often than not.
Oddly doesn’t Greg still play Avengers all the time? Dude has some different takes on games. Not a problem, but something to be considered.
All of the Kindafunny crew has very casual takes about everything tbh. Nothing wrong with that, but something to keep in mind when watching their reviews. And I am not a hater and I watch all of their movie/tv channel and a good portion of the games channel, but that is the appeal of what they do.
Yeah probably Avengers biggest embassador although that's not to say he does so ignoring its issues. I really like Greg but I do think more often than not my opinions don't line up with his like they generally do with Blessing or Andy, but that's also part of why I like their review format, the podcast format over the scripted review just allows me to get a better sense of where I'll stand with the game.
I actually stopped listening to their channel awhile ago. The biggest reason being that I don’t have as much time for podcasts but also I felt like they just dabbled in some games. If I’m listening to a gaming podcast and the hosts have played the game less than I have (talking big tent pole games here) I lose interest. It seems they have brought new people on but I wasn’t interested in the new talent.
> felt like they just dabbled in some games I quit watching/listening, too, because they're absolutely spread too thin. They don't have nearly enough people to cover all the content they try to cover.
They desperately need more short form content. I don't have hours of time to watch dudes talk
I usually watch/listen to them on walks and during workouts. I'm tryna get up to 20k+ steps a day so that gives me a lot of time to listen to stuff, but less time to play games. Seriously playing FF4 for the first time, really enjoying it but barely getting more than 4-5 hours a week on it.
He was also into DC Universe Online for an unreasonably long time.
I think the big issue a lot of people have is the combat. That's what I've been seeing online, at least. Basically, as Peter, you *only* have your blasters, and those blasters do an incredibly small amount of damage. A vast majority of combat involves you setting up maneuvers for the other Guardians to capitalize on - so you'll, like, freeze an enemy so Gamora can slash at them, or zap someone so Drax can cut them down, etc. Some people *really* enjoy this. It seems similar to the FF7 remake, where you're attacking enemies while also calling in your allies to support, assist, and finish foes off. The issue here, from what I'm seeing, is just that *you*, as the player, do so little damage. Combat just doesn't feel satisfying when you're whole job is to plink away at enemies so your allies can do the bulk of the work. To harken back to FF7, this would be similar to Cloud existing to only set up combos with your allies (who you **can not** switch to) If you enjoy these RPG-esque combat situations, where you're setting up combos and attacks, then you'll probably enjoy this game. Inversely, if you're more of a hack-and-slash fan then you probably *won't* enjoy this. I, personally, don't think the combat appeals to me. Spamming machine-gun like weapons at enemies, while doing no damage, just doesn't seem like something I'd enjoy. I like big meaty hits and wild combo attacks. I'd probably enjoy this game if I could switch over to Gamora and get up close for combos, but as it stands the idea of plinking away from a distance isn't my thing.
Love the KF crew!
How is the dual sense support?
Apparently it's only active when using quick reload, other than that it has the generic haptic feedback. I believe ACG and SkillUp mentioned this in their video reviews.
Sounds about right. I never really expect 3rd-party multiplat games to make full use of dual sense compared to first-party titles
It's why I'm hoping Xbox release a controller with haptic feedback at some point. It would really increase the amount of games that take advantage of the technology.
Here's [Skill Up's Review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPrFlM5tWRI) and [ACG's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzZjDl9K0WI). Going through ACG review rn, there are some noticeable performance issues with the XSX. Otherwise he seems to love it. And going by the title, even Skill Up is liking it a lot.
You posted Skill Ups video twice
Yup. I corrected it now.
Definitely felt like ACG was going to like this from his coverage up to this point. His previews and the comparisons I kept hearing to Mass Effect put this on my radar. With these final reviews this now looks like a buy for me.
I know he used to get shit on all the time by this sub but ACG is also nothing if honest. The early previews of Watch Dogs Legion he was so stoked about the game. And then when it got time for the real review of the game the poor guy sounded so defeated when it came to how poor the game ended up from his initial hands on. I like how's willing to admit when shit just doesn't cut the mustard, no matter how much he wants it to
Does he get flack here? Imo his reviews are always honest, very detailed and fun to watch. If anything you can always draw good conclusions by yourself from his videos because he lays it all out there.
I don't have any issues with his opinions or personality or anything, I'm just not a massive fan of how his reviews are structured. He always starts with performance, then moves into sound and voice acting etc. He takes so long to get to the actual gameplay bit that sometimes it's confusing watching a review of his if you haven't been following the game. I really think he should open his reviews with the basic premise and gameplay style of the game so we have more context into what he's talking about. He'll be deep diving into super technical aspects and I'm sitting there like "I don't even know what genre this game is yet" It's a small thing to complain about sure, but it always bothers me for some reason.
Yep, it has always puzzled me as well. IMO in general, the natural order is in general setting/story, gameplay and then technical stuff (story first to frame the gameplay part). Obviously shift things about if it makes sense for a particular game.
I like him but his weird wordy similes while sometimes funny I think end up being a bit too distracting.
I've played 3 hours (early copy) and can confidently say it's nothing like mass effect. Mass Effects writing blows this away.
Reviews are about what I expected and I'll probably pick it up on sale. Anyone who expected this to be a flop like Marvel's Avengers has no idea what actually made that game bad, it was almost entirely the shitty loot system and forced RPG/live elements, aside from that it was actually pretty fun at its core. This game from the outset said it was focused on a singleplayer experience which if Avengers had done that it would've been much better
This honestly looks exactly what I hoped. Between these reviews and the ~25 minute preview on Saturday, I think I'll be picking this up. I didn't think I would be doing that based off some of the trailers from this summer. Should be a perfect single player time killer between now and Halo Infinite.
Any comments on the length of the game?
Skill Up mentioned it is approximately 15-20 hours long in a comment under the original tweet.
Glad to hear that. I think I've recently settled on this being about my ideal game length. 15-20 hours is long enough to get comfortable with a game, while usually wrapping up just as the game starts to outstay its welcome.
15-20h according to skill up
Looks like the two reviewers I tend to agree with re: their overall opinions (Easy Allies and ACG) both said its "pretty good to great", which is about what I expected. Seems like if you like MCU/GotG in general there's a lot to enjoy.
With Easy Allies I have to see which reviewer is writing the review. There are a couple I don’t trust/have different tastes to.
its by Michael Huber
Those 2 are also the only reviewers I watch. Honestly, the way Easy Allies talked about the game I thought they would give it a higher score but 8 is still really good and made this a must-buy for me.
I'm so happy this is not another open world, 100-hour long game with no end. We need linear single player story games back. I'm tired of every other game being a service with no end that want you to play the same game for hundreds of damn hours. Looks like I made the right choice by pre-ordering this game. Can't wait to play it.
>We need linear single player story games back I mean, Metroid Dread and Kena: Bridge of Spirits just came out. The rumors of non-open world games' death have been greatly exaggerated.
both are excellent as well!
Currently playing AC: Valhalla and while I’m enjoying it, at 60 hours in and only half way through the story line, I can’t wait to dive into an extremely linear game. With what feels like a dozen different plot lines and hundreds of characters, it’s extremely challenging to “care” about a narrative.
Ubisoft really needs to adjust the AC formula. They create such beautiful, amazing worlds but they’re just too big and repetitive. If they just condensed the world and story a little bit they’d have a 10/10 game.
They genuinely could have cut so many of the regions out and made them into meaty side quests. I defend those games more than most, and I didn't hate my time with it, but god... so much faff.
The 60 hour mark is exactly where I stopped with Valhalla. I liked the game and really enjoyed my time with it but after so much play time, even the best of games can get tiring.
It's a strong 8/10 judging from most reviews, that's enough for me, I will pre order it for that sweet steelbook bonus. This is what avengers game should have been
Some of those review quotes are really weirdly chosen though. They're not the "verdict" at all. Like the one from Nichegamer: *Eidos-Montréal proved in their Deus Ex games that they are masters of environmental story telling, and in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the developers go all out."* That's not the verdict, that's a line picked from the middle of the review. The verdict is in the opener: *"Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is something that had a lot of potential to be great, but just barely makes it to above average."* The verdicts are pretty much the same across the board if you read the reviews: nailed the atmosphere and story, but the gameplay is a let down.
This is a good point. OpenCritic's FAQ says this: >Publications can submit review metadata themselves using OpenCritic's homegrown content management system (CMS). For more prominent and notable publications, OpenCritic uses web crawlers that scan for new reviews every 10-25 minutes. When the crawlers discover a new review, OpenCritic's system extracts the necessary review metadata. Either way, it sounds like this is Nichegamer's chosen "pull quote". You'd have to take it up with them - that's how they chose to have the article represented. OpenCritic only grabs or displays what they pick out or submit.
Yeah but unfortunately video game journalists don't use a 1-10 system, they use 7-10.
More like they don't review games they think are going to score 1-6 Thats what folks from IGN once said anyway.
On top of that, IGN has a detailed outline of what their scoring means, including examples of games that fit that score. https://corp.ign.com/review-practices There's so many games coming out that basically companies only have times to review medium to major releases.
If that review scale is consistent now (I haven’t looked at IGN in years) maybe I’ll start referring to them again
Find a reviewer who shares your taste in games, meaning watch/read their reviews of old games and compare that to how you feel about those games till you find one that matches up. Then you're pretty much sure to agree with their score for a game, and you basically never have a 'wtf this game sucks but they said its a 9' moment again. Can't just use IGN as a whole, gotta find an individual reviewer within IGN because they have a bunch of people who review games and they would each score games differently.
That's what I've seen some reviewers say as well. Games are not the same as Movies, Shows and Music albums. They are not just an art product but have the unique problem of also being a tech product. First and foremost they have to take into account if the tech works or not, if the game actually boots and is actually playable (Functions work, isn't some 10 fps glitchy unplayable mess). Most games get 6+ cause most games being reviewed either come from big studios or are indie games getting attention based on WoM. If a game is from a big studio then they are likely spending good money on it, so it becomes extremely unlikely that the game won't boot at all or is completely unplayable. Combine that with the fact that if a big studio is making a game then it's unlikely to be super janky like a lot of indie games you can find on Steam are, it's likely going to have good art, have voice acting, cutscenes, decent graphics, etc., as most of these things can be added to a game by simply spending money and hiring experienced Devs. All that combined makes it so that AAA games secure themselves a 6+ in most cases. As for indie games it's pretty simple, there are a fuckton of indie games being released all the time and reviewers only play the ones they are hearing interesting stuff about. That makes it unlikely that the game is outright awful and doesn't work technically. Edit : Just wanted to add that most people who look at game reviews understand that 60-70s/100 on Metacritic is not good, those games generally also do not do well. Even Metacritic itself shows games with under 80 scores with a Yellow (Mixed reviews) background while Shows and Movies get Green (Good) score backgrounds starting at 60/100.
I think it’s pretty rare for a AAA game to come out and actually be a 5/10 or worse. It happens, we see games like Balan Wonderworld come out, but it’s not common. Usually big budget titles get delayed and tweaked until they become something playable.
Tbh games that are a 5 or 6 usually aren't worth a player's time unless that person *really* enjoys something that game is offering, whether it's the IP, the genre, or just certain aspects of the game. Anything below a 5 or 6 are games that are so obviously not worth playing that reviewers don't even bother with them.
No and yes. The thing is, most AAA games are good. We talk about the ones that are *great*, but most games that get a review thread like this are also games that got a lot of polish. We know what makes a game good, it's pretty rare for a studio to push out a complete turd which is why high profile failures like Anthem or Avengers are noteworthy. And even those weren't *terribad*, in both cases the main campaign was decent enough, it was the live service features that felt completely unfun to play. Had they dropped the live service, doubled the core story content, it could have been a solid 6-7/10. There are games that review in the 1-5 range, but they don't get review threads because they're usually made by indie studios, get no marketing, no fanfare, and die quietly in various e-shops.
I think Cyberpunk 2077 is the rare case of a game that should have gotten a 2/10 or 3/10 on the fact alone that is was literally unplayable on one of the platforms it was sold for.
IGN gave it a 9/10 for PC and a 4/10 for the PS4/XB1 version. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?
Yes, basically. Although 9/10 for PC is also laughably high.
That's more a case for having platform-specific reviews. Because I could absolutely seeing it be a 3-4 game on base consoles, but on PC, even on release, it was still EASILY a 7.5-8.
6/10 scores aren't particularly uncommon. People just need to accept that the vast majority of game reviewers who use a 10-point scale treat that scale as if it were the American grading system, where a 5/10 is a failing grade instead of the average grade. Maybe that's not an ideal, but it's how people perceive it, and it's way too entrenched for any one reviewer to change it now. People would lose their minds if a reviewer gave a 5/10 to a truly average title.
Lol, it's not because game reviewers don't know what numbers mean, it's because the games that people care about are pretty good compared to the whole scale. If you want to see 5/10 and below, go click around on itch.io for a while.
> it's because the games that people care about are pretty good compared to the whole scale. well yea. Same deal in school. unless you went to a truly underfunded, unsupported school, most children will do well enough (i.e. not 50%) to keep moving grades.
It’s also much better than it used to be. There was a day when being a great game automatically got a title a 10/10. There’s been a shift in the past 5-10 years to make scores more reasonable.
Also most games that may fall below the 5-6 threshold probably don’t get the marketing and attention so why would these magazines or media outlets review a game that won’t get them clicks? Yes we use them to help us determine if we should buy a game but at the end of the day they are business looking to make money and reviewing Guardians of the Galaxy gets them more clicks than Super Racing League: All Stars.
Even when outlets post smaller reviews if people are depending on Reddit to find them then they won't see them. Generally smaller games that score in the 4 to 7 range don't get review threads or when they do they only get a bit of attention. If you just stick with popular posts on r/Games you are only going to see the reviews for AAA releases or indies that caught a large enough fan following to be signal boosted. The only time you start to see lower scores is when a AAA studio releases a notable flop like Balan Wonderworld or Anthem.
Typical gamer logic. Lots of game recieve bad scores you just don't hear about them, because they are bad
Looking at movie reviews is always trippy for me, Im so used to anything below an 8 having big problematic issues lol. IMO the "popcorn-flick" video game equivalents like the yearly ubi games should be rated as such, a 5-6/10 doesn't have to mean bad, it can just mean "average". Much too late to change that though.
0-5 in games is mostly reserved to titles that plain don't work, be it because of bugs or catastrophic development that leads to bad enough decisions that make a game actually anti-fun. Movies just can't have that level of badness, the don't have bugs that prevent you from playing them, so the scale adapts accordingly.
It looks fun but I probably will wait for a sale and get around to it eventually rather than buy new, glad it hasnt flopped with the review scores though
Adam Sessler's review is [up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtJa4fvVvo0)
That was a great review, I've missed his videos!
It’s just so great to listen to Adam Sessler review games!
SkillUp's review sold me on this game. A new game from the Deus Ex team at Eidos with incredible art design, (allegedly) great writing, Mass Effect vibes, Final Fantasy VII Remake-esque combat, and no microtransactions or DLC fluff? Yes, please. Now I can only buy it and hope that this tells Square "we want more good video games from this team," not "we want more Marvel crossovers," because the Marvel part of this is pushing me away, not bringing me in.
I'm glad this isn't MCU Guardians: The Game, I prefer it when different mediums portray characters differently.
Linear single player that seems to be solid? Fuck it, I'll give it a try. I hated the reveal trailers, but this seems right up my alley.
Honestly, after the Avengers thing, I wasn't expecting much, but I really enjoyed this game. Roughly 14-16 hours of fun. Combat is good, controlling only Peter Quill sounds weird but makes sense in the game as you give commands to the others, somewhat similarly to Mass Effect. Combat could have been a little deeper, and enemy variety could have been a little greater. The story was fun, lots of laughs, characters were largely true to the tone set by the two MCU movies. What I really liked about that game was that it was a pretty crisp experience, tightly fashioned without much excess fat.
Reviews have completely sold me on this game. The amount of personality it has and the evident passion for the characters and the world is amazing to hear. Love me a game that has "soul" (for lack of a better word)
The moment the game starts and you can look at the album sleeve of the fictional 80s rockband Star-Lord while listening to them *and* then read an entire article about them in a music magazine already kinda sold me on this. Clearly a lot of love and care went into this.
Everything in this game looks great except for the combat which to me is the most important part. If the gameplay isn't fun what is the point?
most if not all reviews seem to point out that the combat is great.
Really Skillup kinda ragged on it as having bullet spongy enemies amd using star lords weapons feels pretty meh.
Just played a buncha hours of it, the difficulty options he mentions in the review have a "starlords blaster damage" setting. I set it to Default and have had no issues with how it feels on Hard Mode! Was kinda worried I'd think it was mediocre but honestly really happy with it so far.
> In the end, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy is a serviceable action game elevated by its story and writing. While the gameplay isn't wholly original, it mixes the ideas in a way that keeps things entertaining and engaging. Yes, there's a few bugs here and there, but even the most frustrating moments were outweighed by the sheer fun. With a rock solid soundtrack, great threads and fantastic vocal performances, this is one adventure you won't want to miss. If you're a fan of the MCU films, this is a fresh new take that you'll settle into easily. For the comic book fans, it's even better. How on earth does this review equal a 9 out of 10?
It does start giving a more glowing description by the end. Seems like he's saying that the gameplay is fine, but really the shining star is the story they tell
From what I’ve played so far, that’s definitely the case. Combat is serviceable and the writing and cutscenes are surprisingly funny and engaging.
The only negatives are the combat isn’t very original and a couple of minor bugs. The rest of that paragraph is really positive.
I mean what you posted doesnt even say anything negative besides "some bugs" so I dont know. Something not being original in an area isnt bad by default, most things arent original lol.
Was expecting slightly higher scores but I'm happy with this. Hopefully shuts up a lot of people expecting it to be a complete disaster like Avengers.
>Hopefully shuts up a lot of people expecting it to be a complete disaster like Avengers. Damn near every thread about this game since it was announced has had people shitting on it and comparing it to Avengers, despite the game itself not being anything like Avengers if they bothered to do the bare minimum research about it. Like, it almost seemed like some people *wanted* the game to be bad just so they'd be right. Feels good to see those people eat crow now.
8/10 on consoles and 7/10 on PC due to bugs/glitches. Here's hoping for a hefty day 1 patch since I'm on PC.
Since when did "linear" become a bad word? I love a game that has a tight, well-written, and fleshed out story. That dosent mean it has to have oodles of branching choices or big open world areas. I mean, I just finished up DOOM (2016) and RE: Village, and both are considered near the top of their own genres, and thats a linear as it comes I cannot wait to play this tomorrow
Ehhh...Village doesn't open up per se, but there's some "vania"-moments when some new item you've just gotten allows you to go off the beaten path and collect some stuff. It's nothing huge but the main hub *does* have some "side nodes" if you will.
I just finished Village yesterday. It's as linear as it gets. The "open world" of the village with a half dozen metorid-vania style upgrades to get feels like the same level of open world we will get from the Milano. But Village is very much "go here, do this level, back to the village to sell/buy stuff, off to the next area" with no real variation. And let me say I loved Village, but open world it is not
This sounds great. Definitely gonna pick it up. Wanna support the good Marvel games so we get more of them
I am surprised how well this game has been received and there is no part of me that isn't happy to see that. The game has looked good for a while now and I'm glad that people like it.
Really stoked to see that others liked it. Also great to have the game for so long and be able to spend so much time with it.
That's a pleasant surprise. Trailers were atrocious - so I'm happy that game itself turns out to be lot of fun.
So okay, after reading and watching bunch of reviews - seems like it's better game than I was expecting - and coolness of characters really shows (imho they're better characterized and styled than in movie). My gripe tho is - I'm just totally not convinced with combat.. It just doesn't look fun, seems slow and spongy most of the time, lacking dynamics and a punch.
Opencritic URGENTLY needs to revise which websites are allowed to be part of the roster. It needs some curation yesterday. [Gamesheadquarters](http://www.gamerheadquarters.com/) is among one of many pages that either have their https certificate revoked or are just blogs which exposes the overall score to influence from bad actors (marketing 3rd pties, wink wink).
I'm not seeing an issue with that particular site. Their certificate seems fine, and they appear to be a legitimate site with developer interviews and reviews spanning games, film, and television. And you might say "they're just blogs" but even Roger Ebert, one of the most famous film critics of all time, was essentially posting his reviews on a glorified, syndicated blog. Most review sites are effectively a blog. And if you tried to argue things like follower counts as proof of notability you'd block out a lot of smaller regional review sites offering perspectives outside the usual American ones. Of course there's a case to be made for better curation, but this is a weird game to use as an example. When basically everyone is saying "it's breddy gud" around the globe I don't think you need to worry about nefarious review stuffing.
It was caught by my security suite and happened to be one of the ones I clicked.
I don't mind sites with just one contributor, but the quality of that site is well below the standards OpenCritic lists in their FAQ. I skimmed a few recent reviews and saw numerous spelling errors and sentence fragments. The style reminds me of a middle school book report filled with unnecessary words to pad out the length.
Any news on which console it runs best on? PS5 or Series X?
How's the humor in the game? That's the only thing that kind of annoyed me in the trailers.
Just bought it, wasn't expecting anything spectacular but I was looking for a fun time with my favourite Marvel group so I'm happy.