the Suicide Squad & journalists sucking at games
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- Опубліковано 17 січ 2024
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!['Suicide Squad' is vapid, repetitive, and gross... [Review]](/img/n.gif)
"Better to be authentic than to be marketing" is wonderfully said.
Marketing really needs to be mistrusted even more than it is. Gamers really don't help themselves, most of the time.
There is a Nintendo joke in there, somewhere.
There needs to be a balance though. If it is on either end the entire point of the content (unless iits an ad) is distroyed. Ideally (if we gave journalists more money) we'd have three people trying the game and talking to eachother before writting a review. At least one above average player, one bellow and someone who has access to extra information (maybe talking to devs.) The third would most closely reflect people playing with guides.
It is fairly impossible to hit all the metrics but someone being more than a standard deviation from average skill level is not usefull if only one person is involved in the review. In general I find these sites less useful anyway as following 1 spesific person has always been a better predictor for me than whatever IGN, Fandom and the like.@@chuckles9767
I'm sorry but HOW much monetization is attached to this, and ALL of her vids? xD Try not to get any on your *collar* there, miss.
There's a big bottleneck with that sentiment and I think it's the reason why high complexity, high skill games are being demolished even in the "hardcore" demographics. Sure it works find if all you ever want from publishers is low skill, low complexity story (LSLC) games. Honestly it seems like LSLC is all we get anymore.
I don't think Alanah's point was that we need bad players to preview games, but rather that extremely curated takes don't properly reflect actual gameplay experience. Just how I interpreted it.
Exactly
Yep. I like seeing average players play most games. If you’re a souls expert, I respect your opinion very much on Souls games, but they’re experience will not be mine 🤣
@@dps0610Their.
NOT they're.
I was getting flashbacks of Cyberpunk 2077's when she mentioned "curated takes" on games. Woof, that game was rough on initial release compared to the pre-release footage being shown everywhere to market the game.
Her take does make sense, but it could also lean in the other direction. If the player in a preview is SO bad that they're not even using skills or other basic actions that the average player most likely will, then that's not necessarily representative either. It can make a combat system look MORE shallow than it actually is. I think Alanah acknowledged that and mentoned forming an opinion from both bad previews AND good previews, so I don't say this as a rebuttal, but it's worth repeating. Ideally the player in any given preview should simply be familiar with the systems so that they show them off, but not in an ultra-scripted way where the moment-to-moment looks too good to be true.
Final Fantasy XVI had a great preview. They let a streamer play a super hard boss fight after a little practice, then had the Combat Director just destroy that fight with the same build.
This
what's cool was that it wasn't just a reg streamer, it was Max Dood who is somehow a FGC afficionado, but also loves Final Fantasy lmao
Now I gotta watch that, Max it's the GOAT
you found the video name?@@damianelizondo5524
They also released a demo right?
When talking about FIFA money, I always think of the Stephanie Sterling quote. Paraphrased " They don't want to make a lot of money. They want a chance at making all of the money."
No matter what IGN says, there's always backlash because some people love to hate on them. I guarantee if their impressions were positive, then some people would claim they were paid off.
100%
This generation is summed up in "everything is trash,I'll just agree with what everybody else says" I literally have no hope for humanity anymore..
@@enigma5613 More like the 1% pf people who take to social media to complain are treated like they are the majority. Also Games sites are just echo chambers for these idiots. Outrage has been commercialized and it's incredibly profitable.
why do people hate on them maybe they have a valid reason because they're know to give terrible games above average scores and gaming journalism has become just punditry
No, there isn't hate because people don't hate IGN they know they're not consistent because of their review process. The main problem is that PEOPLE Don't LIKE A VIDEO THAT GOES AGAINST THEIR PERCEPTION OF A VIDEO GAME.
Totally agree, Alanah. Another point about previews is that journalists tend to have at most an hour or two with a game. For something like Suicide Squad, that might be enough to get a grasp of the mechanics and mannerisms of the game. But for a big RPG like Dragons Dogma, those games have so many interlocking systems and elements that the journalist/previewer are not privy to yet. Of course they're going to be worse at the game than someone who has played for hours and hours.
To be fair, I seem to recall an early gameplay from IGN having someone where they just totally had no awareness of what was going on, or how to use basic systems. For example, they would CONSTANTLY miss with basic attacks. You don't really have to get far in the game for it to teach you how to use heavy or light attacks as a fighter, adding on to the fact that it's literally just press a single button/key.
but on the same token with a game like Redfall the impressions were dead accurate :D
If you are going to have the fastest man alive be a enemy in your game, you really should have something to counter him; something as simple as an environmental trap you have to get him to run through to slow him down for 5 seconds would probably help.
Yeah. Making him really fast isn't the problem. It seems like a problem on game design as they could have represented Flash on his full power while providing creative ways for the player to beat him. The IGN guy could have explained better though.
A Flash boss fight should function similar to the Mr Freeze boss in Arkham City. Have different ways to trip him up or block him, but he won't fall for the same trick twice.
Apparently they did, I think another preview mentioned it, but I didn't get to play that bit in the closed alpha so I don't know for sure myself
@@icaroadriel7970 Flash at full power could never be fought. The man moves faster than speed and death.
I’m fairly confident those things are in there
The problem is beyond video games but modern culture simply doesn't understand how criticism works. You see this in film and television criticism as well. There's a weird posessiveness in modern fan culture that has created an unhealthy lack of clarity around how they interact and view the mediums they claim to love. It creates a cycle of toxicity in the communications around the medium and a complacency in output by creators that is unhealthy for all involved.
So much this!
I agree with You but game journalists forget what objectivity is, and if you review game from certain genre it's nice when person have experience and knowledge about those games to give nice comparison to other titles on market.
Always love the way you explain your viewpoints and how well you consider all sides - great video as always
omg the Cuphead tutorial...
in Super Seducer 2 he can't finish the Cuphead tutorial and when you pick the wrong answers he gets S.w.a.tted and the cop sits down and finishes the tutorial and beats a boss.
I think a lot of the problems that happen in conversations about game journalism are caused by vocabulary. You have a set of very common recognized terms that everyone is using but have different meanings to different people. So you get conversations where both parties are using the same set of words but are discussing two entirely different things.
True, Anti Woke vs Wokes is a good example.
1000% agree with those closing points. Been feeling this way about gamers and all their drama the last few years and glad someone in the industry is noticing it and commenting on it
I love the deeper informed takes you’re able to give on these topics, given your experience covering games
I love that you know the difference between you're and your unlike many people in the comments section. 👍
@@PSYCHOV3N0MYou must have very recently learned the difference 😂
@@PSYCHOV3N0Mmost of us don't speak english natively because we don't come from a country which purposefully and forcefully imposed its influence on the world.
So be patient and enjoy your comfort western boy 👍.
"The boring part...humans" 😂 Nailed it.
Love these videos. Very insightful and I learn something new every time. Please keep making them.
I get that with the No Man's Sky trailers (regarding Starfield preview). Every trailer, even though its all actual gameplay, is captured in a way that makes it appear you're gonna have this awesome epic experience playing it, then I download and play it and I'm like....its alright, nothing special really🤷♂️
But I fall for it every time, those trailers are always great.
yeah I hate when a trailer perfectly cuts things to look way better than it is. I remember seeing this russian made top down melee game that was kind of like a 3d hotline miami. cant remember the name. the trailer made it look very fast paced and awesome and like you had options. I ended up buying it on sale and you basically just hit punch over and over, the animations were meh and there were only 3 enemy types intruduced in the first 10 minutes. I looked up reviews and everyone said its the first 10 minutes repeated for several hours and it never changes it up. Refunded immediately. looked back at the trailer and they had perfectly cut the animations at the right time to make it look way more intense than it actually was.
I always wait for long, uninterrupted gameplay to pop up on youTube first being buying a game
Dude I always love and appreciate your takes on stuff like this. You have such a zoomed out and well rounded view on things that make what you say so insightful and smart. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much!
That's because this isn't a rage-bait channel like so many other gaming channels out there.
The scene when Batman was carrying the joker in his arms, walking out to all that rain and siren, is living free in my head, that game was a masterpiece. And feels like a crime when you make rocksteady make anything less than that.
Unfortunately, most of those main visionaries who made the Arkham games so good are no longer with the company. It's sad to say, but that Rocksteady may no longer exist.
@@travistotlea lot of that could be because of the development of Suicide Squad though.
@@travistotle That's not correct at all
Why is everyone keep saying that?
Many devs who are at Rocksteady, are there from the times of Argonaut
@@vishalvenkat6 I think that's exactly why, that's my point. Ownership wanted a games as a service, microtransaction-heavy game, and a lot of the talent basically said "Screw this, we're out."
@@travistotlesource: trust me bro
Awesome video. Love the layout you did with it. Well done. Keep up the good work and glad you've been able to take your time with the videos and hopefully feel less stressed.
Side not, came across one of you videos from about 4 years ago and holy smokes you have changed how you look by soo much. Im sure youre aware of this but wow. In a positive way, just felt I should mention it.
I had the joy of seeing Sven Vincke play baldurs gate 3 at a convention and he was soooo bad at it and it made me love the game even more
Yeah, but "Sven Vincke good, journalists bad!"
I appreciate that we have someone of your experience able to weigh in with your more nuanced takes for the industry. I agree with your overall point about journalists representing what the average player experience will be like. However, the IGN previewer for Suicide Squad got some details about the Flash boss fight wrong - I don't think that would have changed that journalists overall take, and I'm not saying that fight looked fun (it honestly does seem annoying), but their takeaway was that it was designed to be bad because it didn't have queues, even though it was that they didn't recognize the queues.
I agree with the sentiment of not showing "Flawless Gameplay" but at least put someone who can make a full combo in DD2 ffs
Very well reasoned and thoughtful points as always Ms Pearce
I appreciate the energy here! It's good to have an experienced, level-headed take on these perennial issues in gaming. I feel like this dialogue has been happening as long as PlayStation vs. Xbox.
I'm badass at video games
noobAndy
Play Dark Souls 2 with Mike
Oh my god is that the tallest and handsomest streamer on twitch Andy Cortez?!
Number 1 games journalist ladies and gentleman.
Luckily most games use your hands instead of your bad ass.
Bobby Kotick was actually really good at his job, he weathered a major controversy with little accountability, milked flailing franchises and got a massive payout for the top dogs. That’s all he was supposed to do, his job description was not to provide a good product for a fair price
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, it was very helpful.
Wow after seeing the star field direct again in your clips I am shocked how different it ended up feeling vs presented.
I think that the only thing that they should be careful about is finding people that can show off all the aspects of the gameplay, rather than make it look cool or be incredibly skilled at it. Personally, I would be more annoyed seeing someone doing the same thing over and over than being bad at combat, cuz after all that's what previews are about, showcasing the game and all of its features.
I felt like during the Dragons Dogma 2 IGN gameplay, the players character was just repeatedly climbing up the troll and stabbing it. It was cool to see once, but they went to the next enemy that was pretty large and started doing the same thing. I was like is this really it? I went from hyped for the game to it not even being on my radar anymore.
Yeah, having an enemy who just zips around barely giving you any time to hit them would be really annoying. Kinda reminds me of the sniper boss in Furi, that one got me so upset especially because the voice lines acted like your character was the one hiding despite the fact that you're chasing her.
Only part of that game I had to take a break from. Such an annoying part of an otherwise fantastic game
@@VeritabIlIti definitely understand that, from what I remember that boss took me the longest to beat by a country mile
Sandevistan enemies in Cyberpunk. "Nuh-uh. I'm hacking you so you can't use your cyberware or I'm using my own Sandy to match you." and even then, CDP realized they couldn't give the enemies the SAME exact Sandy speed you get because it's OP and fun when YOU do it, but shit if every Sandy enemy either 1 shot's you or has their damage reduced by 90% just to give you a fighting chance.
While it fits for The Flash,it also sounds like a boss fight that's have me pulling my hair out.
@@Reidroshdyit should be difficult though considering it’s the flash
Super random question…Alanah, what headphones are you using in this video? They look comfy and I’m looking for a new pair.
Love this, you honestly always have such a great perspective on things 😁❤
I totally agree. I like to think of myself as a good gamer, but when I see clips of someone playing something like the last of 2 or ghost of Tsushima, It’s just jaw dropping how good they are. Doing things I didn’t even know were possible. For example I saw someone as Ellie grab a runner and held it for a clicker to kill and then proceeded to rip the clicker a new asshole. But it’s not an accurate portrayal of how the average person will play and run through level.
Wait, you can feed people to clickers 🤯
Yeah, it's pretty sick and brutal@@CJKhaos
Those clips that people put out they play the sequence over and over and over again until it looks badass. So you could do it but that would be boring after awhile
Like speed runs - there's a difference between taking a drive for the scenery and taking the same car and going 4-wheeling with it. People get out of life what they want. Someone producing for society does better not trying to guide the use of it's products.
I know a guy high up in the industry and he told me that if a game is third person it gets docked points because he think all games should be first person for immersion. He also said if jump isn’t ”a” it gets docked points because a should always be jump…
almost as if game reviewers are humans and humans are fallible
That's the most silly made up thing I've ever heard😂
@@alvin2021 you should get out more
@@randosavich you should get in more👍
@@randosavichThat guy needs to look up Motion Sickness a bunch of gamers cannot play First Person it triggers motion sickness and 3rd person is the saving grace for them if its possible all games should have first and third person toggle option
Hey Alanah loved all your takes and I agree with everything I just feel that potentially showing all the unique attacks for instance in the case of the Dragons Dogma 2 vid maybe what they were referring too. While I do agree with your take as well I do also think that someone who knows all the ins and outs of the games can be good just so the audience gets a deeper more complete idea of the game based off the preview.
Sometimes gameplay just doesn't translate well when you're not actively engaged with it, as well. I remember way back when Dragon Age Origins was bring previewed. Every single time I saw footage from that game it looked so boring. It wasn't until I got the game that I realized it wasn't. There have been other more recent examples, too.
Dragon age is my all time favorite series, origins was a masterpiece
Respect
I was like that with Kingdom come until i played the game myself and got good at the combat and ended being one best First Person Melee combat systems i have played in game.
I was so excited to watch the Dragons Dogma 2 gameplay vid but ended up just skipping through it and rolling my eyes, I couldn't even share it with my bro lol.
I don't mind badly played gameplay footage for segments of a couple minutes to showcase potential, but for 10+ its just embarrassing.
This is a problem I have watching anyone play games for the most part - they either are really bad at gaming in general, don't read stuff, etc. - or - they are really good in a way it's like watching AI play - you might learn a few things but for the most part they just zip around with nary a worry which defeats anything the game was trying to share.
@@terrylandess6072those are two of the most common types of gamers though, I think it gives a pretty accurate representation of how others will play. The trick is to watch both bad and good players and you should be able to figure out how you'd get on with the game from how those reviews play out
When you said quadrilogy the word you were looking for is tetralogy. I got stuck on the word too, not too long ago.
I watched a reviewer of the game have a gripe about the FLASH fight but with a totally different point of view. He said that it makes no sense that the flash is slow enough to be shot at all. Which I totally agree with. lol
I agree 100%. I always take the approach that a game has to prove itself through reviews, not previews. But previews are to showcase what the game experience COULD potentially be and that, depending on the genre of the game, is where the skill of the previewer doesn't really matter to me. When I saw the Dragon's Dogma 2 footage from IGN, even though the player wasn't great, I was STILL excited to see what it had to offer. I think people need to take a more measured and nuanced approach to previewed games and skill level than a black and white blanketed one.
Or just mostly ignore reviews and watch streamers/YTers they're familiar with?
I'm not in the braindead anti-journalists camp (that they're either paid off, or imposing some imagined agenda, etc), but I feel there's been a poverty of critical faculties in games journalism going back decades. Flick through most magazines of the '90s and it can sometimes look like you're either consuming publisher mandated content, or some hack fanzine... The culture of criticism was borderline hobbyist. And to an extent I feel that culture is still there in the mainstream.
It's only really in stuff like YT video essays/critiques that you get exceptional and meaningful discourse. Gaming press is very often dragged into hype mongering, which is frankly anti-consumer.
I have just one review source I really respect, I then also skim Eurogamer and their comments, but seeing the game's streamed by people whose critical tastes I'm familiar with is by far the biggest help on whether I might be interested in the game.
I still agree with Alanah in terms of who we benefit most from seeing show off new games. There's the way a publisher wants the game to look, there's the way most people will play it, and then there's the meta (which usually isn't popular with pubs or devs)... It's important to be aware of the last two, but the first has little value.
@@SabiJD I will take an actual review over consumer reviews and content creators any day, and here's why: the "brain dead journalists" you're talking about are still more attuned to the trends and patterns in games than 70% of consumers leaving extremely volatile reviews. Content creators can be a bit better, but they still tend to favor one particular style over others and can often shit on a game just because it doesn't fill their exact wants. Whereas a reviewer worth their salt will try to maintain a balanced perspective to truly offer their experience with the game, and give you a peek at what to expect if you play it.
@@VeritabIlIti I've been gaming since the mid/late '80s, and reading gaming media since the early/mid '90s. I got rid of most of my Amiga, PS1, Dreamcast and 360 magazines last year, and flicking through them was--- illuminating... but not surprising. Industry reviewers have never offered the most intelligent or thorough critical lens on the medium. So much of it feels mired in hype culture (or just marketing), which, as I might've said in this thread, is frankly anti-consumer. It's sometimes just hobbyists gushing over something they love, without real faculties to deconstruct what they're playing, which feels a tad embarrassing.
Since video essays, in particular, really started to establish themselves on YT, the culture of gaming criticism has never been better. And streaming has given another - at times arguably much better - option for consumer information. Watch someone you're very familiar with, ideally, play an hour or two (sometimes quite a bit more depending on the game), and you'll notice things you like or dislike that reviewers might never have mentioned.
Btw, I specifically never mentioned "consumer reviews", which makes me think of the abomination that is stuff like Metacritic user reviews. That's just rolling the dice on the latest Controversy™ addled game that's either getting score bombed or boosted. Anonymous Gamers™ who flock to user reviews can't really be trusted...
As for reviewers worth their salt? In my experience that's a very marginal slice of writers. Reviewers are not *critics*, and it's the latter group who typically provide real value.
If someone's a very mainstream or casual player? Then sure, the mainstream is there for a reason, and usually that's enough. I believe it's a different matter for most others.
@@SabiJD My perusal of reviews doesn't mainly fall on journalist outlets like IGN, Gamespot, Eurogamer, etc. I follow three YT reviewers in particular for their incite because they provide a level-headed critique that I value. But I'm talking about previews for games, not reviews which is why I don't care who's playing depending on the genre. My focus is how the game generally plays and looks to give me an idea on what to expect.
@@VeritabIlItiYou think an IGN rewiev is more valid than the words of someone who has over 20 years of experience?
I can make better rewievs than IGN, no joke.
I don't care when they're rubbish at games frankly, my concern is when they're particularly poor at their journalism. Particularly those who act as client journalists.
No comment 😂
Well, would you trust the word of a journalist who's trash at the game? How can they adequately review a game if they're incredibly bad at it? The two go hand in hand.
I mean...being bad at it doesn't mean you can't research it yourself properly still. Like you can understand mechanics and be terrible at them. Plenty of people can coach a player to be a good league of legends player for example but they themselves get stuck in diamond or something. You can definitely have better observation/analytical skills than mechanical ones at stuff like this.
It seems however that IGN hires people that fail in every category.@@jase276
The original video from ign covering DD2 combat made me feel weird when they had every class well represented with the exeption of the two handed sword warrior. When it got to that class, the player was clearly struggling. But thats ok! Or it should be… Maybe if they had voiceover explaining the gameplay it would have been fine.
I think Capcom sets a good example of how marketing a game's gameplay should be done, specifically with their Monster Hunter series.
Typically their gameplay showcases include a balance of 1) cool stuff that the hunter can do, and 2) the hunter getting knocked on their ass (which, in this case, also lends itself to showing off the monster doing a cool attack). This tells me they are showcasing the potential of your hunting ability to do cool stuff, while not painting the picture that you will be doing cool stuff *every single second of playtime*. It tells me personally, "yeah here's some cool stuff you can do, but you will still make mistakes, and that's okay. You are human, and will learn from the mistakes and become a better hunter and gradually do cool stuff more and more often. That's how the game is designed."
I think having a balance of cool-looking moments *and* fumbles is the best way to market a game's gameplay in a way that's realistic for setting player expectations.
I tend not to touch online service games even with a ten-foot pole.
When online gave us the chance to play together it was a single person experience being shared - not anymore . . . .
I played the alpha a few weeks ago. The gameplay, cut scenes and story seemed pretty solid. I played with 2 others and it was fun to play as a group. But it did become very repetitive after a few hours especially playing solo got boring. I think if you play with friends it'll be a good time.
You wrote the thing.
Anything is fun with friends. Even bad games.
They shouldn't expect to people to pay 70 dollars to "kinda maybe once in a while play the game with friends".
Everything is fun with friends. You said it was solid but then said it was boring and repetitive... just have the nerve to say that it's mediocre.
Tbf you only have access to the start of the game. I think the fact that you could only replay that section of the game after you finish it once was a big player in making it boring fast.
Haven't seen anyone else comment this but the guy that made the reddit post did post a follow-up apologising to the guy that captured the gameplay footage after they explained their side and a bit of a dive into the process how the footage was captured.
that persona music in the background
From what i understand from what others who played the Alpha said, there's a mechanic in the game specifically tied to the flash boss fight where you can slow him down during his charge up move so you can shoot him a lot. Destin unfortunately didn't use that mechanic which made the fight more tedious.
But to give Destin some credit. Being given 3 hours to really dig into a live service game isnt really enough time to get to good grips with it. Meanwhile people who played the Alpha, had literally days with it usually resulting in a much more positive experience and came out wanting to play it for longer.
I think something that could help with this issue is the journalist clarifying at the beginning of the video “hey this gameplay from me is going to look bad since I don’t have enough experience with the combat system or this genre but here’s my initial thoughts” or some sort of precaution message like that before watching the video and getting the impression that the mechanics are bad or the gameplay of the game sucks. I know saying “I only played this preview for a few hours” should be enough to signal that lack of experience to the player but… well here we are with all this discourse. There should be some more transparency with the experience the journalist has with the game and possibly the genre they’re previewing as a whole considering how many cases we have of games journalists being forced to review games of genres they don’t play or even hate, which twists their reviews and lets their biases get the better of them.
I think both you and the other side are valid in your takes but we could find some middle ground giving transparency that “this gameplay is going to be played by either a complete newbie or an experienced person in this game”
I don't know, I feel like if it takes more than a couple of hours to get to grips with a game then that is definitely an issue with the game design, poor accessibility is poor game design. You will always have people that aren't used to your gameplay or the genre as a whole, I don't think it needs to be explicitly stated that someone isn't good at the game because you could just watch a couple of reviews to get a better understanding of how different people play the game, you can work out who typically plays these games just from the gameplay.
That persona music in the beginning as background music? Thanks for the video.
Had to go look that up cause I couldn't remember the term for the life of me, but four works in a series is a "tetralogy" :D
Loved the use of the South Park rabble scene 😂 i 100% agree with u tho, ive always looked at game journalists reviews for more of a casual gamer standpoint so thats where i go to UA-cam to find someone who is more hardcore about the game series or whatnot. But then even then u risk the gamer bias from a UA-camr who hates on a game cause some dumb reason or who loves the game cause they are just that games audience. Ultimately there is no place to get the perfect reviews and its up to the consumer to look up multiple sources and dictate if they want to spend their money on the game
YTers and streamers you're familiar with - their tastes, their strengths and weaknesses - are generally the best way to guage whether you might be interested in a game.
But yeah, mainstream reviews have *always* been quite mediocre and too prone to hype. The people paid to review games typically cannot truly dig into a game's systems because they just don't have the time. Add in exploitative review embargoes and the pressure to get timely coverage out vs the competition, and it's no wonder reviewers can struggle.
Your last point is always the most important, ultimately; gather information from a variety of sources. I think mainstream reviews mostly only deserve a brief skim, however, just to see how the general consensus is building.
The power of a critic is in perspective and the written word: what should a critic's skill matter if after all they can still render critique worth reading or hearing?
well, in the Cuphead example, that journalist looked like he had never played a game and couldn't read the on-screen tutorial instructions, leaving me to wonder how he made it through education to become a journalist in the first place.
@@TigonIII I will cop to omitting a mean-spirited bit about a person's lacking skill in a game suggesting a corresponding lack of experience (seldom are there novel mechanics) or literacy within the medium.
Really interesting video, I didn’t know there was even any drama 🤭 also, I have this Gengar jumper and absolutely love it! 🖤
Glad you said what you did about Starfield. I felt completely useless after a time playing it. Guess I didn't want to have to think that much about my weapons. I played so many other games from Bethesda and was able to do combat very well.
U gotta be kidding... I didn't know this Suicide Squad game was online / live service until now. Time to remove that from my wishlists. 😅
I don't get why they couldn't have made a interesting villain game that isn't just "live service game where they say quips 24/7" it gets old
Look at who they make specific games for. You don't put a lot of work into something people won't play for more than a couple months at tops. (online competitive)
I agree with the sentiment, I think any raw gameplay and/or footage taken by a reviewer/journalist will always be miles ahead of what any pr the publisher itself puts out, you always want your product in the best light for the best sales regardless of quality and I think (maybe more hope) that a lot of enjoyers of this industry are coming to that realization. That being said, i think it’s fair to assume that people want to see more of what the game has to offer beyond the graphics and fundamental gameplay, something that can be better represented with someone who has more versatility and a more nuanced approach to games other than just something as simple as run around and hit the button that’s prompted. I don’t think that necessarily means it’s a showcase curated by the publisher, or even compares to what the publisher puts out for that matter, as long as it’s raw gameplay and the gameplay comes out looking good like akin to a pr media push, that more so speaks on the quality of the game and is a better way to show people who may be more interested in said title a little more of what it has to offer. And as for people who may not be as good at the game giving their footage and feedback, it is as equally important as the former, the more perspectives to see the better. Really liked this piece and the questions and conversations it brought up, always love your work and looking forward to the next thing❤️
There is a difference between not being exceptional at your profession and not knowing what you are doing.
You can be a great movie critic and not know how to write great or how to shoot and edit a UA-cam essay. But you can’t be a great movie critic without an expert level knowledge of movie art language, narration, character building etc.
So if the games biggest and most important focus is its story and characters - by all means let, for example, a literature expert review it. Even if she/he can’t play at all.
But if it’s a hard platformer like „Cuphead”, FPS shooter etc. your ability to play the games like this is essential to judge its value compared to other titles. You don’t have to be the best player out there, but you need to be competent enough in this sort of mechanics to judge them.
In other words - it’s very hard to judge the quality of a steak if you are a vegan :)
You should setup a tournament putting games journalist teams vs casual teams vs sweaty teams vs pro teams vs developer teams and see how the results shake out.
9:50 I am not 100% agree with you. I would like to see the limits and what can be done in the game. That makes me excited even if I won't be able to do it.
That's what the publishers are already putting in their PR footage; you don't need journalists to do that.
@@AmanojakuX I think you didn't watch the video. She is literally saying pr footage can be misleading when people who play in the pr footage are too good. And she is giving Starfield as an example. And I am not saying some people like me want to see cool stuff happening in the trailers with the gameplay. For example cool combos in monster hunter footage.
I very much agree with you, the merit of expert level, average level and below average level showcase/opinions are important, and just like you said depending on the genre (&obviously the prospective buyer's priorities) one might be of more importance over the other.
And if appealing to a new audience is the goal then some games just don't showcase well, sometimes the game is more fun to play than it is to showcase, sometimes expert level actually showcases badly, cause it uses the most effective strategy instead of the flashiest, or it requires inside knowledge to know what is impressive.
Expert showcases are not the be-all end-all.
Game theory did a piece on this when the cuphead thing came out.
Played the alpha, gameplay was fun and movement felt good once you got the hang of it. The story and character interactions were interesting and funny. The thing that has me worried is the gameplay loop of things in the world, I feel like the objectives could get repetitive for most and it seems like it would be similar to objectives you would find in a far cry game. I'm more forgiving when it comes to games so I can't really say the game would be bad based on what I played.
Yeah, this is the problem with games as service games for sure.
All the generic villains look the same, they have giant purple zits on the bodies or on the vehicles that you have to shoot, its just ugly and unecessary.
Yeah but is it worth $70?
Eh not really but I don't think any game is worth that much no matter how good. I'd say wait for it to come to gamepass or buy and refund on steam if you don't like the first two hours or just wait for a sale, plenty of other games dropping soon enough.@@youngrootv
It's important to remember that when it comes to things coming out near a game's release the journalists never have ample time to play it thoroughly enough to "do it justice." Previews and reviews suffer from that the most in my opinion because they need to be out so freaking early. Often before release since that's when people are deciding whether or not to buy it. It's frustrating, but there's no perfect answer 🤷♂.
Never thought about it this way, i agree with your point
I really loved the first Dragons Dogma and I played it so much on (I wanna say PS3) but everytime I have tried to get into it on pc I haven't been able to for some reason. Still I'm super hyped for it.
My thing is you should have someone who enjoys the genre play something.. good or bad whatever, but if you enjoy a genre you will go in with some competence and not write off a game as crap because you couldn't dash over a gap. Have someone try something for an hour, show them doing it, then show someone who has had hours with the game and have a firm grasp of the system.. thats the best way to preview something that requires skill so it shows the "yeah you suck right now, of course you do, but you'll get better" aspect.
It does make sense to have Destin review Suicide Squad because he’s kind of the resident “Destiny guy” at IGN and considering that Destiny and Suicide Squad are live service games with similar but albeit different gameplay it makes sense, at least in my mind
I like a variety of opinions on games, but it seems that a lot of reviewers love long games with tons of replayability. I just want someone like me that has an hour or two here and there to play and review games so i can tell how easy it is to get into and get back into after I've taken a month away
Thanks for the code 🤘🏻
Also the dragon's dogma post seems to be saying he thinks you should have both. Looks like he thinks having a realistic representation of moment to moment gameplay and someone who can demonstrate how the gameplay shines would be his preferred method. This really does just feel like a(nother) personal demon sparring session that shouldn't have been uploaded.
11:15 you're fighting your demons in front of us, here. there's definitely way more efficient or effective ways to be deceptive than to be really good at the game. lmfao IDK, brother, that seems way too far down on the rung to be described as "helps the publisher as much as possible." This is a little disconnected from reality, I think.
It really does depend on the games like you said.
I feel like for example, previewing Monster Hunter from the perspective of an experienced player can go both ways. Either you get really motivated to stick with the pretty tough combat system to achieve such levels of play or you just give up right away since it looks too daunting. Tough job to find the right line of what and how to preview. You articulated it very well though!
I remember at some game con they had an interviewer try to play Dark Souls 1 way way back when it was just revealed. Even though I laughed at the fact he couldn't survive the first two mobs he found it really showed me that that was not the game for me.
I feel like a much bigger problem than the dragon's dogma 2 IGN gameplay was the Capcom anniversary showcase. The players only showcased like 1 or 2 of the classes and the third person just walked around picking grass the entire time. Now I don't have a problem with walking around and picking grass, just for the fact that it was done for 30 minutes straight, and the fact that there were definitely other things left to showcase.
The word you were looking for is tetralogy.
Quadrilogy would probably be better understood by most
tom nook catching strays omg
In agreement - the first gaming streamer I started following on UA-cam was PaulSoaresJr, and I followed him largely because he's good enough at the games he 'letsplays' to give me an understanding of what I can expect if I buy them & play them myself, but not so good that I feel there's no way I could improve on the experience by working out some things for myself.
Hey Alanah! Whenever I read an IGN review, I envision the author being C.W. Longbottom from Mythic Quest. It just seem as though the reviewer put more effort in making the review sound good than actually making sense. I remember one review (I forget which one) where one of the complaints was there was too much water. It should be noted that the game's setting was a watery environment.
The Dragons Dogma gameplay was fine. It let you see what some of the monsters and classes were all about without spoiling too much gameplay. There were cool moments for both the player and the monsters and showed a dynamic range of situations. Not everyone is familiar with Dragons Dogma either. The combat system is pretty unique and I'd imagine it's hard to master a game in the limited time IGN had with it.
It is probably a more realistic representation of what early gameplay will look like, I know while learning warrior in Dragons Dogma I overused jump attacks and got dropkicked by ogres plenty of times lol
You're delusional if you think this corporate greed of a game needs to succeed. Every single head at Rocksteady has left the studio and have formed their own (Hundred Star Games, look it up).
When Studio Heads who FORMED the studio leave, it means corporate BS was too much for the game they were originally developing. But sure, I hope you all enjoy your basic looter shooter before the servers inevitably shut down around 2025 due to poor reception.
Another aspect here is usability - some games make a name for themselves because of the difficulty, but the goal for most ought to be centered in accessibility and user experience.
Obviously there’s exceptions, but the super hero genre in particular ought to allow even inexperienced or limited players to feel powerful while still offering systems with depth that allow for challenge and mastery. There’s a ton of great examples of this, the Arkham games among them.
Yeah I just made this same point in a different comment chain. Poor accessibility is poor game design, with that being said there will always be people bad at games that may still struggle but they would be outliers if the game is made with everyone in mind. This is why I actually like reviews done by gamers who are awful at the game, it gives a realistic expectation, I know I'm good at games and pick them up easily so I judge how I'd get on with a game by watching and bad gamer and a good gamer play the same game.
Hey Alanah will you be checking our S2 E1 of the Halo show and do another opinions on the show. Reason I asked seems they’ve done an overhaul with the latest trailers new tone better cinematography, new showrunner
On one hand, the Dean Takahashi/Cuphead story always gets severely misrepresented online. His reporting was nearly exclusively covering the business side of journalism, usually only doing game impressions if he is the only guy the outlet has in the area where the game is being demo'd and it's a game he's more comfortable with - narrative heavy games like Life is Strange and Uncharted, and PC strategy games. Even with Uncharted, he makes his strengths/weaknesses as a reviewer clear, and makes his article on The Lost Legacy almost exclusively about the story, characters, and puzzles, with only two sentences devoted to the combat. He thought it would be funny for him to try Cuphead, as the only VB journalist in town for Gamescom to try it out, and knew he'd be terrible at playing a genre he's never played before. VB published the material in a self deprecating way, "look at how bad our business guy who occasionally covers narrative games is at platformers; aren't games crazy in how diverse they are and the different skillsets they require."
As a colleague of his said on Reddit:
"I'll just answer a few misconceptions I've seen a couple of times: Dean doesn't get paid to play or criticize games. He's primarily a reporter who covers the business side of the industry. Sometimes that means he's the only person on our staff in Germany for Gamescom and he ends up behind the controls for a new platformer that he has no business playing.
We uploaded this because I thought it was hilarious. Dean came back and said the gameplay was unusable, and I wanted him to post it because the rest of GamesBeat is constantly making fun of Dean's gaming capabilities. He prefers narrative-driven games like Uncharted/The Last of Us, so it's always a treat when he has to play something that is legit difficult."
On the other hand, Takahashi is a bit of a prick who can get basic facts wrong on the background of games when he's covering but not reviewing them; if he's reporting on a game outside of his wheelhouse, he desperately needs a fact-checker and doesn't always get one. He also ran cover for Quantic Dream when they were faced with serious toxic corporate culture accusations, in some of the most baffling ways. So maybe he doesn't really need the defense. But I've seen the Cuphead clip enough times out of context that it irks me, regardless.
Even if journalists aren't a prick like Takahashi seems to be, they're allowed to be bad at some games if reviewing games isn't their forte and/or they are highly specialized in what games they do play; this is reflective of a lot of gamers. I've put tens of thousands of hours into gaming, yet there are some genres I've barely touched and would be inadequate to review, and others I'd feel extremely comfortable reviewing. Most people buying games are not pro gamers, and having elitism in the space can really harm how effective reviews can be to the broader gaming audience.
It’s not so much that they’re bad it’s the stuff like the cuphead incident or the SpongeBob rehydrated incident where they can’t even solve puzzles a 5 year old could that gets published and good games get docked because they couldn’t solve 2+2.
to be fair the awful footage of that dude failing at Cuphead went so viral it probably helped sales
You are right about the videos before Starfield came out. I was expecting combat to be a bit different. It felt wrong when I started playing Starfield.
All this is why I really only take in uncut, long form footage. Everything else I am super skeptical of. That way I get more context of what type of player they are and what they have been provided or accessed leading up to major points.
You're absolutely right that it's the same people yelling "shill!" are the people complaining about this
It’s so funny to hear her talk about this when she was apart of the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco 😂. Oh the irony. Maybe Capcom and RockSteady should’ve given out chairs.
What are you even talking about...? Cyberpunk 2077 is a fantastic game and she should be proud to be a part of it.
I'm not sure how voicing a character for a game makes you "apart" (🤦♂️) of a game's playability regarding performance and bugs etc.
I'm not even thinking about the gameplay or rocksteady's take on buildcrafting at this point. I'm stuck on how this is Kevin Conroy's final time as Batman. They can shoot themselves in the foot and let it get infected for all I care but I don't want his Legacy tarnished.
Why would it tarnish his legacy lol? People will still consider him to be the best Batman. People will still love his parts in the game. He made an informed decision to be part of this game probably because he found the role interesting enough to be a part of it. So I don't understand these takes by people.
Alanah with glasses is a whole different ~vibe~
I disagree that having someone who is terrible is better than someone who is adept playing a game before release. Why would I want a dev to have their game badly marketed so that novices can feel better buying a game? That only really services someone who is bad at games. If I’m good at games then I want to see the potential of the game. Also my starfield combat looked like the direct.
When it comes to games we gamers are super skilled and easily top 3 best players when any game first comes out.
Honestly i think its ridiculous that a journalist who gets rushed through a 3 hour preview of the games mechanics and bosses isn't as good as i am after 10+ hours with a game. GITGUD
Exactly 👏
Having a 2hr preview where they jump to a built character after tutorial was a bad idea from the dev/marketing folks. It was never going to be a useful experience for anyone. Idk what they were thinking.
Not sure I quite agree with the take that starts at 12:10, so for fighting, racing and shooting games you say an expert should ideally preview them.
But surely for a sequel like Dragons Dogma 2 you would send someone who played the original to give their opinion on how gameplay has improved over the original, over an average player that might have not played Dragons Dogma 1?
I studied journalism at College, but I'm not a videogame journalist
I've never worked on that, but I've always wondered how tough making those reviews must be. Cause when I pick up a new game there's always this phase of feeling overwhelmed by the game (how to fight properly, how to upgrade or level up my stuff, what perks/enhancements or weapons work better, the skill trees...). I usually see a lot of things that must be done or can be upgraded along the way, but I don't yet know how to get them or do them, so I tend to feel overwhelmed by it. I recently picked Gotham Knights and I left it on the side and started playing the OG first God of War game instead
So usually the first 5 hours of me gaming (not in a single session but a few ones) is just me getting used to how things work on that particular game. And then from those 5 hours onwards (I'm using 5 hours as an estimate) is when I usually figure things out and I start feeling comfortable with the mechanics, combos and everything else
Also, for me personally my favorite games are either single players RPG/Action/Adventure/Platformers and Fighting games (usually the ones that NRS makes, Mortal Kombat and Injustice which I'm decent at those). I'm not into shooters nor racing games and what not
Fun fact a lot of people suck at games or we would all be in tournaments trying to win millions
The game is full of ESG and that alone makes it a bad game.
Well thought out
I agree, "ordinary" is probably the benchmark we want in a lot of cases. Like Alanah said, getting someone who's great is important for certain genres, so they can really push the game and report on that, but for a lot of "regular" games I think it's a lot more useful to see "typical" game play. A game should look fun (and good) when it's in the hands of an average dude like me. I'm not good at soulsbournes, but I still loved every minute of Elden Ring kicking my butt over and over!