Xbox One

[Chaos2Frozen]

Gotta clear dem stocks

[Nightengale]

Not entirely related, but let's see if I get into Titanfall Beta. :/

I'm not expecting it though, since I didn't tick 'share your details with EA partners.'

I still have Origin from my more innocent days of expecting Mass Effect 3 to be the greatest game ever. Blah. At least it's got its uses for this.

[Chaos2Frozen]

^
Have you seen Titanfall...'s beta trailer :3 ?

[Nightengale]

If there's one thing to be praised of Titanfall, it's that it's so easy to make a great trailer of it.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

If there's one thing to be praised of Titanfall, it's that it's so easy to make a great trailer of it.

It's mech. Mechs always look cool! Here's a HAWKEN patch trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWI-koEbK9k; the most boring information ever, with nice-trailer bits just because mechs always look cool. Wait for the details on the implementation and it to be proven right, because if there's any trend nobody really sticks the finger at enough, like people stick the finger on crowdfunding, or shady business, it's promising CONCEPT to good-but-not-good-enough IMPLEMENTATION (not that bad-implementations don't exist). SimCity, Guild Wars, The Old Republic, and so on are all games who were a lot bigger in concept then implementation ("its the power of the poof poof in the sky", "the world reacts to you! yeah!!", "totally unique experience" and so on).

I'm sorry to say but more often then not either the trailer stuff is the stuff you'll never touch, or its stuff you'll never see from that perspective unless you're watching a match as a spectator and even then even games like dota 2 dont have systems good enough to give you a experience similar to what you might see in a trailer.

If it ever gets a demo, play it. If it doesn't, don't base your opinion on the trailers. Otherwise just watch something like a stream to get a pretty informed opinion on what it is you're actually buying.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by felix

If it ever gets a demo, play it. If it doesn't, don't base your opinion on the trailers. Otherwise just watch something like a stream to get a pretty informed opinion on what it is you're actually buying.

On that note, here's Giant Bomb's one hour video of their playthrough of Titanfall's beta.

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/unfi...014/2300-8489/

Probably would want to skip to 10-15 minutes, the first part is the tutorial.

[Jazzrat]

While i'm pretty interested in playing Titanfall, I'm gonna wait till the after release reviews. EA's recent track record have been shit and i'm too jaded by now to fall into the hype marketing machinery.



Also, Pre-orders are stupid in the digital download age.

[Nightengale]

lol reviews.

Titanfall will get 10/10 so fun so wow so revolutionary from most sites. There'll be a small group of those with vocal criticism of something, and these opinions will eventually be seen as the unadmitted truth once reviewers get over their hype train.

[KleenexGhost]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

lol reviews.

Titanfall will get 10/10 so fun so wow so revolutionary from most sites. There'll be a small group of those with vocal criticism of something, and these opinions will eventually be seen as the unadmitted truth once reviewers get over their hype train.

Pretty much this.

[Urzu 7]

So how much weaker is XBO compared to PS4?

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Gotta clear dem stocks

They still going to sit @ gamestops anyway until they are paid off.... not going to clear out any room and this is a silly thing to try and make fun of.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

lol reviews.

Titanfall will get 10/10 so fun so wow so revolutionary from most sites. There'll be a small group of those with vocal criticism of something, and these opinions will eventually be seen as the unadmitted truth once reviewers get over their hype train.

I manage to avoid BF4 and Sim City based on post release reviews even if they manage to score highly on most websites. If there's a big enough problem with a game, the internet will come out and tell it.

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

lol reviews.

Titanfall will get 10/10 so fun so wow so revolutionary from most sites. There'll be a small group of those with vocal criticism of something, and these opinions will eventually be seen as the unadmitted truth once reviewers get over their hype train.

Hey I've seen advertisements on gaming sites where Titanfall was the winner of 80 awards... A game that hasn't even been released yet... And yes, I know that they're probably referring to the E3 show awards but it's still pretty stupid.

I agree with your forecast, but I suspect process would speed up a lot fast because EA games always screws up somewhere, case in point- Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, Sim City, Battlefield 4 etc.

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

So how much weaker is XBO compared to PS4?

30% ?

[felix]

Reviews are normally meant to provide you with an informed opinion on a product; "review" has come to bear the meaning of "something written by a journalist" but its essentially just "in-depth look at a subject presenting the things that ARENT OBVIOUS." And to be clear claiming "I'm not a reviewer" does not exclude you from being one when you write review-like content since being a "reviewer" is not a title, it's a description; there are such things as shorter reviews but if your content is claiming to be a short-review of some sort yet is something like 40min to an hour video or some shoddy one page "blog post" with barely relevant screenshots, then that is not "something different that's not a review" that's just a dumb review, especially if it's your final word on it (here's looking at you half-assed "first look" reviews that claim they have some right to be as poor as they are because it's only 15min; as if there is a direct correlation between depth of subjects covered by a review and the time spent). There are exceptions, but unless its designed to be humorous at some level then it's probably not an exception; and I strongly recommend people don't fall for the whole buddy-buddy syndrome on the internet and waste their time on awful "first impressions" and some other similar nonsense that aside from claiming the obvious when the obvious is in your face are more then likely to just make you lose both your money and your time.

Here's an example of how a proper review looks like, albeit hardware review in this case: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7720/a...gryphon-review (its not intuitive, but that's page 1 of 8 of the review). There's this misconception in the gaming review scene that "you can't review a game." Like hell you can't! What they really mean is "nobody is putting the effort to properly review the games so we have nobody to copy from." Also it is very clear that due to some unknown idiocy with gaming journalists of obsessing over "a number" as a foot note expressing an opinion dating from way before internet game reviews were the thing and you only had gaming magazines (purchased mostly by very young people), we now live in a world where the content is all about the number. The number was there because the 10 year-olds that would also purchase the gaming magazines would need something to read aside from the title and whatever was on the pretty pictures (because 10-year-olds don't really have the attention span necessary to get any "point" across, otherwise). Essentially, unless you're a 10-year-old you shouldn't pay attention to "reviews" that are just dressing up a number; number which is itself just a random number between 7 and 10 (yes review sites give 10 like its nothing, deal with it) at this point due to the interactivity of the world, compared to the wild waste of gaming magazines of old.

Getting back to the "games cant be reviewed" argument, a game review among other things can contain the following:

Spoiler for semi-long list (not an exhaustive list by any means):

• Hardware/Functionality topics
  
  
  • is it functional on hardware from different vendor (ie. if it works with amd, nvidia, intel hardware; not necessarily if it works on all configurations)
  • are there any noticeable differences between platforms (PC, consoles, portables, etc)
  • does it actually work on other OSes it advertises? are there workarounds
  • does it have known graphical artifacts and issues (clipping, errors, etc)
  • does it have odd runtime behavior (eg. forces dump resolution, runs in compatibility mode, etc)
    There are games that have main menus in something stupid like 1280x720 that just stretches to the full screen regardless of what you have set for actual game resolution. Unnoticeable on single-monitor setups, a pain on multi-monitor setups.
  • is it's network code functional and does it have good servers (post release)
  • does the game handle load well?
  • what's the minimum resolution the game requires
    I've seen a lot of loudmouth game reviewers bitch and praise option menus but are too dumb to notice games that require specific monitor resolution
  • does the game support fullscreen? does the game support window? is the window mode limited in size? does the game support fullscreen window?
  • does the game have obnoxious loading times or some other restrictions such as network connectivity nonsense or DRM issues
  • what form of drm and or "guard system" does the game use and what are the obnoxious issues one might face with it (eg. game lockout if you change your hardware after the initial install)
  • on decent hardware, how well does the game handle system resources? is the game CPU heavy? (eg. minecraft, eq:landmark, etc), is the game GPU heavy? Given a sample what's the load the game exerts on the hardware
  • does the game support lan play? (as in no-internet lan)
  • does the game support co-op? does the game support co-op on same device (eg. couch co-op)
  • does the game support a controller? which ones? are they usable/better? are different control methods balanced?
    Some games advertise "controller support" but what they really mean is they're locked into a form of "xbox controller"
  
  
• Gameplay issues
  
  
  • is the UI of the game usable? is the UI of the game confusing? is the UI slow/annoying?
  • are the game's mechanics intuitive?
  • does the game have a tutorial? is the tutorial any good? does the game's tutorial gameplay hints teach you all you need to know; obviously what are the missing parts the game doesn't teach you about itself
  • speed running the game, what's an estimate of the game's length
  • casual any%, what's an estimate of the game's length
  • 100% completionist, what's an estimate of the game's length
  • do the mechanics hold up after playing for hours?
  • does the engine hold up when the limits of possible are reached?
  • does the game feel restrictive in it's mechanics (eg. obvious options missing, counts too low such as number of units in a RTS, or the size of the maps)
  • is the game too easy for what it presents itself as
  • is the game too hard
  • does the game have difficulty options? what are they in detail, how do they affect the game, and are any of them "game breaking" (as-in the game was clearly not tested or played with the modifiers in the difficulty and is out right broken)
  • does the game have a perma-death difficulty?
  • does the game have a multiplayer aspect
  • how does the multiplayer differ from the singleplayer
  • does the multiplayer have unlocks or some leveling curve?
  • is the multiplayer accessible to new players post-launch?
    veteran players will always claim everyone being thrown in a single group is the best (because its the best for them)
    however, many games at some point post launch become extremely awkward and unaccessible if new players are just pitted against anyone
  • does the ai follow extremely predicatable patterns
  • can the game be beat by extremely obvious/cheezy strategies or does the game account for stupid repetitive nonsense
  • how long is a minimum gaming session? (ie. minimum time to get something done, assuming state can be saved)
  • how long is a game or chapter? (whichever applies; where chapter may also be understood as time between checkpoints)
  • are there potentially annoying gameplay elements (QTE that force battle restarts, puzzles/battles with awkward checkpoints, etc)
  
  
• Dialog/Narative/Plot (purely non-spoiler topics)
  
  
  • what's the general mood of the setting (extremely optimistic world, extremely pessimistic, etc)
  • what can be said about the logic of the world (ie. how much suspension of disbelief and blissful ignorance is required)
  • are the characters realistic or archtype based (ie. varied emotions or for better or worse just plain cliche emoticon type characters)
  • is the writing of reasonable quality? if applicable, is the translation of good quality? (ie. sentences that make sence, dialog that sounds like it might actually be dialog and not some half-baked nonsense nobody would ever say, etc)
  • is the plot of good quality? (ie. not too many plot holes, good exposition, and actual ending, etc)
  • does the plot/writing have any representative features? (ie. cases such as darksouls where the lore/plot is intentionally obscure)
  • how many layers of plot are there? (ie. besides the "main story" are the side stories/quests/whatever interesting enough by themselves to entice you in any way)
  • is the quality of the voice acting good? (does the translation have voice acting?)
  • is the choice in voice actors any good?
  • are the characters relatable on any level?
  • are the characters and their interactions meaningful?
  • how many meaningful characters are in the game?
  • what's the number of player controller or otherwise main characters?

Okey so that's what it could be reviewed on. Here's what the depth of game reviews usually boils down to: "Hey [insert personal life problems/events] so I was playing this game [insert round about way of saying/excusing "not properly," couldn't figure out how to play it properly and played it for really short time] and my feelings on it are 9/10, I was kind of 7 but after like-getting-wowed-and-seeing-awesome-stuff my 'opinion' changed to a 9." It's sad but that's the depth and breath of gaming journalism these days.

So please, for the sake of moving the human race forward don't give attention to game reviews!

If you really want to read reviews then at least go use something like steam and find the reviews for the game in their listings where the people who wrote it have (a) the game's completion length and then some (b) at least 5h, because those are bad too, but at least those people have some right to a half baked opinion after paying for it, and playing it a large amount of time. Obviously if there are none there that meet the criteria, just assume the game is garbage and be done with it. For all intents and purposes journalists, which are people that don't necessarily have a interest in something but still talk about it, have a 50/50 chance to bullshit you with totally idealistic nonsense you won't give a damn—they're actually more useful for people watching other people play due to the aspects they tend to cover then actually people looking for a fun game to play.

[Jazzrat]

Hmm i thought i was the cynical one on the forum but jeez, you guys are terrible. Here's the problem with user reviews, it's unreliable. Everyone have difference in preference when it comes to gaming. Some folks will prioritize gameplay over aesthetic and vice versa and it's hard to established that without digging through the user's prior reviews. They are great supplementary materials but by no means should anyone go by user reviews alone.

Anyway, it's going offtopic. There's tons and tons of materials online these days for anyone to research up and formulate their own opinion and videogames at the end of the day is like movies and musics. It's very much about finding the right game that appeals to your personal taste and not a product that can be simply summarized with numerical scoring.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

Hmm i thought i was the cynical one on the forum but jeez, you guys are terrible. Here's the problem with user reviews, it's unreliable. Everyone have difference in preference when it comes to gaming. Some folks will prioritize gameplay over aesthetic and vice versa and it's hard to established that without digging through the user's prior reviews. They are great supplementary materials but by no means should anyone go by user reviews alone.

Just so you know the whole "you can understand this review better because you know my likes and dislikes" is nothing but a sham done by most reviewers (more notably and shamelessly in video) to get you to give their content more legitimacy then it ever deserves from their poor presentation and of course to get you "subscribed" (figuratively speaking) to their conten. It's essentially "Hey you know me! c'mon sure you do! So you can trust me on this and you just have to follow me by reading/watching all my stuff to get the best experience. Don't worry you can trust a friend right!" ie. food for the gullible weak minded netizens (out of which there are plenty), particularly effective the younger you are since you're more easily duped into some fake sense of friendship by simply them saying that their your friend (reverse psychology also works here; ie. "I'm not your friend I just [insert something]") over and over with different wording.

If you actually fall for that then sorry but the hard truth is all of them including something like youtube figures have a "persona," you never really "know them" you just know their persona, and this persona is always their business persona which means they won't ever be too negative (unless it suits their persona, in which case they'll very likely be overly unrealistically negative) or when they're positive they'll have some fake positivity, or otherwise they'll just have some filler to keep you occupied with their content. So, if you even believe such a barely scientific way of psycho-analysis-prediction exists and you are "magically" doing it, just because they told you are, In addition, while it's true that you can do some form of basic prediction based on certain characteristic, they're generally no more complex then "this person doesn't like multiplayer" and "this person only likes fps'es" and so on, which to be frank (aside from in the context of a reviewer/content-producer being potentially fake to begin with for the sake of building an image) they're also pretty useless since as far as comparing A to B that have subtle traits between them you know nothing. But wait it gets better, since it's in their best interest to only put out content of "good quality" (whatever that is in context of their distribution system) they'll very likely either only touch on the positive example and only a few negative ones that as people say "make the news" or vice versa.

(of course the shorter version if we're talking review sites is that the reviews are not all written by a single person, and even the same review is edited by multiple people—so you get no persistence to begin with)

I don't put much worth in something like steam reviews (and just for the record unless I have a metric of how much they've played, and that they own that which they are blabering about, user reviews are absolute garbage) IMHO the opinion of 30 people albeit how good or bad or unfocused it might be is much better then that of a "professional reviewer," if nothing else those people have no reason whatsoever to hold back and no professional/writing agenda to keep some things hidden because of petty reasons such as not sounding fancy enough.

[Jazzrat]

Originally Posted by felix

J
I don't put much worth in something like steam reviews (and just for the record unless I have a metric of how much they've played, and that they own that which they are blabering about, user reviews are absolute garbage) IMHO the opinion of 30 people albeit how good or bad or unfocused it might be is much better then that of a "professional reviewer," if nothing else those people have no reason whatsoever to hold back and no professional/writing agenda to keep some things hidden because of petty reasons such as not sounding fancy enough.

There's no unbiased opinions. People who tells you that are lying to you and themselves. This is why i recommend against basing your opinion solely on user reviews because you rarely know what's the user bias are and that makes it difficult to separate personal bias from facts. Especially when it comes to medium that are very subjective based, there's always a personal bias in it even if there's no ulterior motive behind it. That's why people read multiple sources on a single subject. This applies not just to game reviews but almost everything in the world.

Anyway, as i said, there's plenty of materials out there. It's up to people whether they want to take the effort to read and research it to formulate their own opinion with their own judgement or rely on a few people to make that judgement for them.

[felix]

Originally Posted by Jazzrat

There's no unbiased opinions. People who tells you that are lying to you and themselves. This is why i recommend against basing your opinion solely on user reviews because you rarely know what's the user bias are and that makes it difficult to separate personal bias from facts. Especially when it comes to medium that are very subjective based, there's always a personal bias in it even if there's no ulterior motive behind it. That's why people read multiple sources on a single subject. This applies not just to game reviews but almost everything in the world.

It's kind of hard for EVERYONE in a group of people with little in common and not much interference to have the same bias and sometimes it might be something you yourself are biased towards so it's not necessarily even bad, it's not like you're reading "good" or "bad" either so you can make a rough assessment on it. When I said you can read 30, I didn't mean it as combine the wording in 30, but as intersect the so called "facts" presented until you get to a reasonable "truth" with high probability.

[felix]

Microsoft invents... the remote

http://news.xbox.com/2014/02/xbox-one-media-remote

[GDB]

I thought the entire point of the bone was that you didn't need a remote or a controller?