People are absolutely absurd when it comes to BioWare games. If it's not a 10,000/10 it's a catastrophic failure and the end of BioWare's existence while at the same time if it's not given an automatic 0.1/10, it's a biased, inaccurate, copium review. If it's not the greatest game ever made somehow, then it's not worth their time, but they will go play MMO's of objectively questionable quality and pretend they're the greatest games ever made.
People are not believing the score because of what has already been explained: the reviewers were hand picked, there's enough information out there about the game to know that it's not a 8.8/10 (almost masterpiece?? hard to believe), destroyed lore and cringeworthy dialogue scenes included, and there's a long historic record of critic reviews not being representative of the actual rating that consumers give a game later. Moreover, people are burnt about BioWare's latest flops, including abandoning Anthem after they said that they were going to fix it (I avoided that bullet, luckily), so of course no one is trusting their competence.
I can guarantee you that this is not "just" because it's BioWare. Wait until AC: Shadows gets its critic reviews next year, for example, and you'll see the exact same thing happening (high critic scores), including users calling them BS.
Sorry but it honestly sounds more like the classic bandwagon haters BioWare has had for years regardless of their successes or failures in combination with aging gamers who can't stand to watch legacy franchises evolve beyond their limited scope of what makes a good game or acceptable inclusion more than "destroyed lore" (what?), and "cringeworthy dialogue scenes" (we've only seen a hand full of dialogue scenes publicly and none of them have been very cringe worthy so far which is not to say none of it will be but there have been plenty of games that have that and have still been incredibly good games so that's not exactly the defining factor for what makes a good game for many people.
Bandwagon haters? If this wasn't something widespread in the industry where the customers have been proven to be right again and again I would agree with you. But it isn't the case, isn't it? And that's what I was pointing out, that this is not "because it's BioWare". Moreover, how many 8.8 successes has BioWare had recently? They all had mediocre receptions by the actual players, and the last one was directly an utter failure that they abandoned. People are obviously cautious, especially given what we know about the game, and also how there's a long history of critics' scores not matching the reality.
And yes, for a game that is selling itself as being narratively driven, lore accuracy and consistency as well as proper dialogue (so, is it okay if it's not VERY cringeworthy, in your own words?) are core parts of how the game should be rated. Or can you give any examples of narratively driven (important part, if it wasn't obvious already) games that did that and fared well? Games worthy of being an 8.8/10, or incredibly good as you said, which equals to being almost a masterpiece?
Anyway, if you want to believe that the "hand full" of stuff that we've been able to see already will be the only bad parts of the writing, I have a bridge to sell you. Even this "review" is mentioning that it has been made for the so-called "modern audiences" ("modernized for a new age of potential fans"), and we all know what that ends up meaning about the quality. Unless you choose to believe that this is going to be that one time fluke where this is going to be good. Note how I'm not even mentioning how they changed the game systems from previous entries of the series, which would be okay per se, or the change of art style which alters the overall atmosphere of the setting.
Anyway, time will prove each one right or wrong. Objective sales and customer reception will be indicative of this. Remember that recently Concord was also highly praised by critics and rabidly defended by "fans", yet it was a failure with raw unbiased numbers on our hands. And that game didn't even have a story that could affect the experience.
I just finished watching that Skill-Up video and my god! This is even worse than I feared.
Those character designs and what's up with their faces? They all stuffed to the max with Botox fillers, lacking any emotion and facial expressions.
How in earth did they manage to screw that up so badly? How did that managed to get approved and passed as acceptable in 2024? Seriously! I know Bioware was never really strong in this, but the previous game from 9 years ago looked heaps and bounds better than this garbage.
I am glad someone posted this Skill-Up video. It's all I needed to see to pass on this game.
It's clear we no longer are the target audience and instead targeting kids now, with it's utterly childish and insulting cringe dialog. This whole game looks like an old Pixar animation that is promoting Botox fillers.
And that these "pro" gamers were turning the gaming difficulty down to Easy, because the combat was so boring and excruciating.....
Honestly, after the whole Anthem debacle and now this. I seriously wonder Bioware is going to survive this and is allowed to make another game. Especially what's going on in the industry right now with all the lay-offs and all.
Or, hear me out, until it's out, we don't get to decide which is "better."
That's the contract for Buy to Play titles though.
Once you pay you're no longer valid, and you may yell at walls for all they care, that's the game you get to keep... because you bought into the lies and marketing traps.
That's the catch 22 isn't it though, and it's why demos are essential.
It will boil down to profitability as to whether Bioware survives or not. If this is another Anthem then I think not. Personally I'll give it two weeks or so to see where the Steam reviews land. I've always assumed that the gaming industry curated their reviews and that video posted on page 2 of this thread corroborates that and details exactly how that goes down. That being said I've never thought RPG writing was particularly good. It's all very cliche and eye rolling to me. "Oh no the person shooting me side eye since I met them betrayed me! I'm so shocked!" --insert not shocked face. I've always played based on gameplay and tolerated the story. Often skipping ahead of it's particularly bad. All the blah blah blah is very exhausting to me. All this to say I can enjoy games people hate and vice versa. If it's just an on rails linear narrative with combat interludes to break up the monotony then I'll probably pass.
It will boil down to profitability as to whether Bioware survives or not. If this is another Anthem then I think not. Personally I'll give it two weeks or so to see where the Steam reviews land. I've always assumed that the gaming industry curated their reviews and that video posted on page 2 of this thread corroborates that and details exactly how that goes down. That being said I've never thought RPG writing was particularly good. It's all very cliche and eye rolling to me. "Oh no the person shooting me side eye since I met them betrayed me! I'm so shocked!" --insert not shocked face. I've always played based on gameplay and tolerated the story. Often skipping ahead of it's particularly bad. All the blah blah blah is very exhausting to me. All this to say I can enjoy games people hate and vice versa. If it's just an on rails linear narrative with combat interludes to break up the monotony then I'll probably pass.
It really depends on the setting. Though both Mass Effect and Dragon Age games had a pretty dark setting and it always reflected in the story and dialog. It's what made them good games and successful in my opinion.
This has now been thrown out of the window entirely with Veilguard and turned into a childish game with cringe dialog.
Some new has leaked that reviewers that did not give the game a perfect score initially did not later get the review copy to test before launch to give their feed back. Looks like cherry picking to get good reviews is happening again. Thank you EA/BioWare.
1. From the Fextralife video it seems that reviewers were selected based on the likelihood of giving the game a good review. I guess that’s not totally shocking, but it is kind of sad to hear all the background on it.
2. I don’t think most reviewers are dishonest. I think they honestly give their thoughts. Those thoughts of course come with their own personal biases, but that’s why reviews will always be subjective.
3. It’s obvious this has become something more akin to a social cause than a game. Some folks instantly object to certain dialogue choices and fantasy characters etc…. On the other hand, when I read the IGN review and it includes the sexuality of not only a game character, but also the reviewer and the person who wrote the character’s dialogue…. I have to believe the game is not being graded as a game but as a social cause. I don’t care what sex, race or religion a reviewer is. I don’t care what sex, race or religion a dialogue writer is. It should be totally irrelevant.
4. Folks should (and most do) make up their own minds. Shouldn’t be hard as there will be hundreds of hours of gameplay vids to watch soon.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Myself, this leaves me to wait for Steam Reviews. Seems less and less can you trust any reviewers. Game companies are gaming the system. Ubisoft did this with their Star Wars game.
Myself, this leaves me to wait for Steam Reviews. Seems less and less can you trust any reviewers. Game companies are gaming the system. Ubisoft did this with their Star Wars game.
Yeah it feels like alot of reviewers are paid off nowadays. Hard to trust almost anything in the media anymore.
Myself, this leaves me to wait for Steam Reviews. Seems less and less can you trust any reviewers. Game companies are gaming the system. Ubisoft did this with their Star Wars game.
Yeah my understanding from watching that video is the way this all works is basically:
1. The marketing teams at the big AAA studios are closely monitoring press coverage of their game 2. Any website that gives a hint of negative or even neutral feedback on the game will not be given pre-release codes for review purposes and are subsequently cut off from communications with the developers and publisher 3. This results in sites that make their living off delivering pre-release reviews being "encouraged" to constantly give glowing feedback in order that they can produce pre-release reviews and generate clicks which sells ads and they get paid. 4. Sites that refuse to play the game and comply no longer get access to pre-release copies of the game and are also shut out of any insider communications with the developers and publishers of games, so they quickly slide into irrelevance and have to shut down because they aren't generating the traffic to sell the ads and can't pay their staff. 5. Sites that do comply can honestly say they are not being paid by the publishers because they are, in fact, not. Instead, they have a figurative gun held to their heads requiring full compliance with AAA studios or they get shut out and can no longer deliver the "news".
It's censorship, when you boil it down, but it's handled in a behind the scenes way that gives sites that comply "plausible deniability" to what is going on in spite of knowing exactly what's going on. This is the world we live in now.
Normally I allow reviews to sit as written but I did want to address a few things related to some comments here. To begin, let's start with the review codes, and the selection of the reviewer (me). As one could surmise, game review outlets are usually selected ahead of time (or we request codes) for games we wish to review.
If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer.
The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores.
In regards to difficulty, I played the entirety of my first play through on standard difficulty, It was challenging, but not overwhelmingly so. As someone who happily earned all achievements on Elden Ring, it was far more forgiving than that. I did not decrease the difficulty until my second play through, and the reason for the difficulty decrease was to push through to parts of the story I wanted to do differently.
As for why there aren't gameplay videos, this came down to timing. I didn't have the time to finish a 50+ hour game, write the review, and editorialize video content in the time frame I was given.
When it comes to addressing the diversity the game expresses (that I purposely hoped I didn't need to address in the review) the game provides options, and players can choose to explore those options. We aren't forced to explore those options, and my first play through encountered less than 10 minutes of that storyline. The opportunity that you can experience that avenue of storytelling for those that wish to explore those options is a good thing, but not a forced thing.
And finally, why 8.8?! I enjoyed Veilguard a lot. There were a few minor pieces that could have pushed the game past 9. Apart from some of the bugs I encountered, making the difficulty beneficial for more than challenge would have been a great place to start, as would a New Game Plus mode. Veilguard's character models look pretty good, but character creation could have provided more preset options to get you closer to a good looking character from the beginning.
Hopefully that clarified a few points for those on the fence about the game still.
Here is one reviewer I trust and his "positives an negatives" point to fine.
I think some people tend to put these games on a pedestal and can't see the forest from the trees when it comes to the good. If they don't surpass the game in their head then they tend to ignore any good and just trash it.
Earlier in this thread someone said that if it wasn't to the level of Baldur's Gate 3 then it's a pass (or some such thing.) Sorry, but Baldur's gate 3 is a bit of a fluke and I doubt many games will get to that level.
On the same thought, how good was that really? I just stopped playing it once I got to the underdark. the whole Myconid (or mushroom people) bit was just dull and I just stopped having any desire to continue. Just like Inquisition come to think of it. Sometimes these games have bits that aren't engaging and that destroys momentum.
I'll play this game when time allows and see if it can be better than Inquisition which I thought was awful.
In other news, this was just released and I highly recommend it if you like these sorts of games.
"If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer."
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
Myself, this leaves me to wait for Steam Reviews. Seems less and less can you trust any reviewers. Game companies are gaming the system. Ubisoft did this with their Star Wars game.
Yeah it feels like alot of reviewers are paid off nowadays. Hard to trust almost anything in the media anymore.
The worst is, that they don't even need to be paid directly.
If they give a honest / bad review that puts the game into a negative light and affect the sales of said game, then you get simply black listed by these companies and not get any prelease / review copies anymore. Like what basically happened now to Fextralife. And they screwed up by accidently giving Skill Up a review copy. You can bet they are on EA's black list too now.
These big companies know that many of these sites/channels depend on getting early review copies to generate traffic and thus income.
It's basically just black mail honestly.
It's only certain youtubers that have a large following with paying members/patrons that can deal with this, give the middle finger to these big studios, just pay for the game themselves on release and just post their gaming videos after release, as their following don't mind and know the crap these studios pull with getting favorable reviews.
For my two cents, most pre-release reviews should be taken with a pinch of salt. I honestly cannot remember the last rpg game I played that didn't have a day 1 patch to fix a multitude of issues.
Skyrim received fantastic scores from reviewers on the (PS3 or 4 cant remember which one, maybe both) but actually was a buggy mess with some DLC not running on it for years.
BG3 (on release) really didn't deserve the reviews it received based on the product that the reviewers were playing as it was buggy after chapter 2 and then pretty much unplayable in chapter 3.
Cyberpunk 2077 - Enough said.
I guess as a pre-release reviewer all you can really do is look at the game and work out if it looks like it has good bones, and whether you think the issues that it has will be fixed at some point.
"If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer."
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
Why in the world should he give the game a score that he doesn't believe in to satisfy your skepticism?
If we want to play that game then, oh, I don't know ... You're paid by a rival site to sew doubt and distrust on this site.
That game can be played all day.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
"If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer."
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
Why in the world should he give the game a score that he doesn't believe in to satisfy your skepticism?
Because at the end of the day this site is a business and not run on charity. Unless I am wrong?
"If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer."
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
Why in the world should he give the game a score that he doesn't believe in to satisfy your skepticism?
If we want to play that game then, oh, I don't know ... You're paid by a rival site to sew doubt and distrust on this site.
That game can be played all day.
I never said he should give a lower score. That's a complete strawman. I'm pointing out that the AAA studio marketing's algorithm works. Namely give keys to sites that regularly have positive press on your in-development game and more than likely they will produce a positive review at launch. This is just a case in point of that process working. That's all I'm pointing out. If you were wanting to prove me wrong then either the review score would have needed to be poor or MMORPG would have needed to be publishing a bunch of skepticism leading up to release and then turn in a surprise high review. My guess is had they gone the skepticism route the pre-release codes would have been withheld and this article wouldn't even exist for people to debate about it.
As to if I'm some infiltrator paid by a rival site, I mean I guess I need to figure out how to get on that bandwagon. I didn't realize people would pay you to do that. I rather doubt they could afford my hourly rate, but hey I'll take their money. Regardless I am just another anonymous poster flapping his gums on this site like everyone else. I have no credentials that anyone should believe me. If anyone does believe me it's on the merits of what's being said, not who I am or what I've accomplished because to my knowledge I haven't posted anything that would outright dox me. Even if I did post who I actually am, you would be very disappointed. Average joe of average joe's. I'm not someone that anyone is going to be impressed with that they should take my word over MMORPG's.
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
Greetings skeptical MMORPGer,
As a one time avid Bubble Bobble player, I'm accustomed to bursting bubbles, so it may interest you to know that detrimental scores do not prohibit us from receiving advanced review codes. My review score history should be a testament to that.
I think sometimes people just want to read things that reaffirm their opinions, and that's okay.
Not everyone will agree with every review, and that's okay too.
But I also think it's okay to realize that a game can receive a good aggregate review score and there will be people who still don't like it.
Our review and editorial content is independent of everything, including advertising, with the exception of the clearly marked sponsored posts. There was nothing influencing me apart from the game itself.
"If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer."
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
Why in the world should he give the game a score that he doesn't believe in to satisfy your skepticism?
If we want to play that game then, oh, I don't know ... You're paid by a rival site to sew doubt and distrust on this site.
That game can be played all day.
I never said he should give a lower score. That's a complete strawman. I'm pointing out that the AAA studio marketing's algorithm works. Namely give keys to sites that regularly have positive press on your in-development game and more than likely they will produce a positive review at launch. This is just a case in point of that process working. That's all I'm pointing out. If you were wanting to prove me wrong then either the review score would have needed to be poor or MMORPG would have needed to be publishing a bunch of skepticism leading up to release and then turn in a surprise high review. My guess is had they gone the skepticism route the pre-release codes would have been withheld and this article wouldn't even exist for people to debate about it.
As to if I'm some infiltrator paid by a rival site, I mean I guess I need to figure out how to get on that bandwagon. I didn't realize people would pay you to do that. I rather doubt they could afford my hourly rate, but hey I'll take their money. Regardless I am just another anonymous poster flapping his gums on this site like everyone else. I have no credentials that anyone should believe me. If anyone does believe me it's on the merits of what's being said, not who I am or what I've accomplished because to my knowledge I haven't posted anything that would outright dox me. Even if I did post who I actually am, you would be very disappointed. Average joe of average joe's. I'm not someone that anyone is going to be impressed with that they should take my word over MMORPG's.
Great, and fair enough.
Still, we can't have reviewers desiring to be considered trustworthy altering their reviews so that they can seem more "trustworthy."
Companies want their products to be reviewed as good and have always sought some edge in order to have them seen as so.
Even if Bioware gave codes to reviewers who tend to be on the positive side, reading the reviews, provided they are being honest, will give one more than enough info on whether the product/game is good or bad or somewhere in between.
This is why number systems don't work. Let's look at Mortisimal's review. at the end he gives his pros and cons. Well, the pros sound good. but oh those cons! Not having a lot of info being ported over from earlier games ... what? That's a con? In games where there are a LOT of different ways that outcomes can be decided? The main pillars of the story are fine. So for me it's not a con at all. I don't give a sh*t. But ... there are those who do and they need to decide if that's just an eye rolling "ok fine" decision or a "you don't get my money" decision.
In the end there are going to be a lot of reviewers, despite Bioware being selective about who gets keys, who will review the game to their liking and some sort of truth will come out. That's why I like ACG's reviews. He buys his own games and if he's given a key he buys a copy and gives it out for free to some watcher.
All one has to do is wait a small bit and "all" the reviews will be there.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Still recon it will get a 75 to 80 average score at MC, but we shall see.
I mean let's say for the sake of argument that it averages out to a 70. If you tell me that none of your favorite games are scored 7/10, you're either lying, haven't thought about it, or haven't played that many games. Everyone has at least one 7 that hits just right.
I don't think it will score that low but that's possible. Remember "Elex", that got a MC score of 67, it was a great game. I trusted it for two reasons (aside from watching videos etc) it was from a studio that had made a number of similar titles and the more negative reviews kept going on about it being old school and I knew that would not put me off. But of course for many players a 70 will quite rightly put them off, to decide you always need to look past the score.
SW Outlaws got a 70 btw, I think that could fall into the area you mention as well, still undecided if I will get it. So I think we agree pretty closely here actually.
Comments
And yes, for a game that is selling itself as being narratively driven, lore accuracy and consistency as well as proper dialogue (so, is it okay if it's not VERY cringeworthy, in your own words?) are core parts of how the game should be rated. Or can you give any examples of narratively driven (important part, if it wasn't obvious already) games that did that and fared well? Games worthy of being an 8.8/10, or incredibly good as you said, which equals to being almost a masterpiece?
Anyway, if you want to believe that the "hand full" of stuff that we've been able to see already will be the only bad parts of the writing, I have a bridge to sell you. Even this "review" is mentioning that it has been made for the so-called "modern audiences" ("modernized for a new age of potential fans"), and we all know what that ends up meaning about the quality. Unless you choose to believe that this is going to be that one time fluke where this is going to be good. Note how I'm not even mentioning how they changed the game systems from previous entries of the series, which would be okay per se, or the change of art style which alters the overall atmosphere of the setting.
Anyway, time will prove each one right or wrong. Objective sales and customer reception will be indicative of this. Remember that recently Concord was also highly praised by critics and rabidly defended by "fans", yet it was a failure with raw unbiased numbers on our hands. And that game didn't even have a story that could affect the experience.
Those character designs and what's up with their faces? They all stuffed to the max with Botox fillers, lacking any emotion and facial expressions.
How in earth did they manage to screw that up so badly? How did that managed to get approved and passed as acceptable in 2024? Seriously! I know Bioware was never really strong in this, but the previous game from 9 years ago looked heaps and bounds better than this garbage.
I am glad someone posted this Skill-Up video. It's all I needed to see to pass on this game.
It's clear we no longer are the target audience and instead targeting kids now, with it's utterly childish and insulting cringe dialog.
This whole game looks like an old Pixar animation that is promoting Botox fillers.
And that these "pro" gamers were turning the gaming difficulty down to Easy, because the combat was so boring and excruciating.....
Honestly, after the whole Anthem debacle and now this. I seriously wonder Bioware is going to survive this and is allowed to make another game.
Especially what's going on in the industry right now with all the lay-offs and all.
It's what made them good games and successful in my opinion.
This has now been thrown out of the window entirely with Veilguard and turned into a childish game with cringe dialog.
Please explain what you mean by woke and what your issue is with it.
1. From the Fextralife video it seems that reviewers were selected based on the likelihood of giving the game a good review. I guess that’s not totally shocking, but it is kind of sad to hear all the background on it.
3. It’s obvious this has become something more akin to a social cause than a game. Some folks instantly object to certain dialogue choices and fantasy characters etc…. On the other hand, when I read the IGN review and it includes the sexuality of not only a game character, but also the reviewer and the person who wrote the character’s dialogue…. I have to believe the game is not being graded as a game but as a social cause. I don’t care what sex, race or religion a reviewer is. I don’t care what sex, race or religion a dialogue writer is. It should be totally irrelevant.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Yeah it feels like alot of reviewers are paid off nowadays. Hard to trust almost anything in the media anymore.
1. The marketing teams at the big AAA studios are closely monitoring press coverage of their game
2. Any website that gives a hint of negative or even neutral feedback on the game will not be given pre-release codes for review purposes and are subsequently cut off from communications with the developers and publisher
3. This results in sites that make their living off delivering pre-release reviews being "encouraged" to constantly give glowing feedback in order that they can produce pre-release reviews and generate clicks which sells ads and they get paid.
4. Sites that refuse to play the game and comply no longer get access to pre-release copies of the game and are also shut out of any insider communications with the developers and publishers of games, so they quickly slide into irrelevance and have to shut down because they aren't generating the traffic to sell the ads and can't pay their staff.
5. Sites that do comply can honestly say they are not being paid by the publishers because they are, in fact, not. Instead, they have a figurative gun held to their heads requiring full compliance with AAA studios or they get shut out and can no longer deliver the "news".
It's censorship, when you boil it down, but it's handled in a behind the scenes way that gives sites that comply "plausible deniability" to what is going on in spite of knowing exactly what's going on. This is the world we live in now.
Normally I allow reviews to sit as written but I did want to address a few things related to some comments here. To begin, let's start with the review codes, and the selection of the reviewer (me). As one could surmise, game review outlets are usually selected ahead of time (or we request codes) for games we wish to review.
If you recall several weeks back, we were already selected to attend a preview of the game along with dozens of other outlets and YouTubers. Reviewers are not requested or selected by the studio or publisher. While the outlet was selected, we select who reviews games based on availability and knowledge of the IP or genre. There was no "cherry picking" here related to finding a favorable reviewer.
The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores.
In regards to difficulty, I played the entirety of my first play through on standard difficulty, It was challenging, but not overwhelmingly so. As someone who happily earned all achievements on Elden Ring, it was far more forgiving than that. I did not decrease the difficulty until my second play through, and the reason for the difficulty decrease was to push through to parts of the story I wanted to do differently.
As for why there aren't gameplay videos, this came down to timing. I didn't have the time to finish a 50+ hour game, write the review, and editorialize video content in the time frame I was given.
When it comes to addressing the diversity the game expresses (that I purposely hoped I didn't need to address in the review) the game provides options, and players can choose to explore those options. We aren't forced to explore those options, and my first play through encountered less than 10 minutes of that storyline. The opportunity that you can experience that avenue of storytelling for those that wish to explore those options is a good thing, but not a forced thing.
And finally, why 8.8?! I enjoyed Veilguard a lot. There were a few minor pieces that could have pushed the game past 9. Apart from some of the bugs I encountered, making the difficulty beneficial for more than challenge would have been a great place to start, as would a New Game Plus mode. Veilguard's character models look pretty good, but character creation could have provided more preset options to get you closer to a good looking character from the beginning.
Hopefully that clarified a few points for those on the fence about the game still.
Happy posting!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
And yet an 8.8 was produced, so the Publisher got the result they wanted so...
"The second part of that, which happens here every so often, is this idea from some of our community that staff is being paid for these review scores. It should go without saying (but apparently needs to be said) that while we do pay our freelancers and employees, studios are not directly paying our staff to influence our scores."
See point No. 5 in my post just prior to yours.
If they give a honest / bad review that puts the game into a negative light and affect the sales of said game, then you get simply black listed by these companies and not get any prelease / review copies anymore. Like what basically happened now to Fextralife.
And they screwed up by accidently giving Skill Up a review copy. You can bet they are on EA's black list too now.
These big companies know that many of these sites/channels depend on getting early review copies to generate traffic and thus income.
It's basically just black mail honestly.
It's only certain youtubers that have a large following with paying members/patrons that can deal with this, give the middle finger to these big studios, just pay for the game themselves on release and just post their gaming videos after release, as their following don't mind and know the crap these studios pull with getting favorable reviews.
Skyrim received fantastic scores from reviewers on the (PS3 or 4 cant remember which one, maybe both) but actually was a buggy mess with some DLC not running on it for years.
BG3 (on release) really didn't deserve the reviews it received based on the product that the reviewers were playing as it was buggy after chapter 2 and then pretty much unplayable in chapter 3.
Cyberpunk 2077 - Enough said.
I guess as a pre-release reviewer all you can really do is look at the game and work out if it looks like it has good bones, and whether you think the issues that it has will be fixed at some point.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As to if I'm some infiltrator paid by a rival site, I mean I guess I need to figure out how to get on that bandwagon. I didn't realize people would pay you to do that. I rather doubt they could afford my hourly rate, but hey I'll take their money. Regardless I am just another anonymous poster flapping his gums on this site like everyone else. I have no credentials that anyone should believe me. If anyone does believe me it's on the merits of what's being said, not who I am or what I've accomplished because to my knowledge I haven't posted anything that would outright dox me. Even if I did post who I actually am, you would be very disappointed. Average joe of average joe's. I'm not someone that anyone is going to be impressed with that they should take my word over MMORPG's.
As a one time avid Bubble Bobble player, I'm accustomed to bursting bubbles, so it may interest you to know that detrimental scores do not prohibit us from receiving advanced review codes. My review score history should be a testament to that.
I think sometimes people just want to read things that reaffirm their opinions, and that's okay.
Not everyone will agree with every review, and that's okay too.
But I also think it's okay to realize that a game can receive a good aggregate review score and there will be people who still don't like it.
Our review and editorial content is independent of everything, including advertising, with the exception of the clearly marked sponsored posts. There was nothing influencing me apart from the game itself.
Happy posting!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If this discussion occurred on some competitors sites, comments would have been stealth edited and deleted. That doesn't happen here.
Love live MMORPG.COM!
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
SW Outlaws got a 70 btw, I think that could fall into the area you mention as well, still undecided if I will get it. So I think we agree pretty closely here actually.