Last of Us [PS4]

[Nesh]

Yeah, I get your point.
And i agree to some extend. It's like asking someone that hates science fiction to review an episode of Star Trek.
Some objectivity is required.

But honestly, because each reviewer will bring his own taste-prejudice-etc into his review, my point stands!

So, no, I wouldn't read the reviewer of your example. I'd go with someone with tastes similar to my own!!!

Thats the point. We search for the review that matter.

Maybe not liking the game, but liking/knowing the genre?

E.g. someone hates games...now he does a game review...you are interested?

E.g. someone hates fighting games...now he does a Street Fighter review...you gonna read it?

E.g. ...


I have to review scientific manuscripts before they can get published as part of my job. If I feel that I am no expert on the topic presented in the paper...I reject to review it because of this reason...it simple does not make any sense.

I do not see such a behaviour for game review.

Bingo

 

[tuna]

If I am a reviewer I may also try to put my personal taste aside because I want to do my job right and I am AWARE of what kind of people my readers are. Hence taking THAT into consideration I look into what people are looking for into that type of game, and how well these are implemented.

If you put your personal taste aside you are not doing your job as a reviewer. As a reviewer of a football game that does not like football you should state that in the review. You should also state that you do not know much about what is being simulated.

I do not like the US military, but I think that Desert Strike is an awesome game. I do not know of the simulation of the helicopter and other parts is correct, but I do not see why that would make my opinion of the game be of less value than someone who likes the US military and knows more about it.

 

[Gitaroo]

wow what happen to this thread? Mod I think you should start doing some cleaning up.

 

[Archgamer]

Looks like a must buy. But the graphics are overrated. Hopefully the demo isn't the final representation of the final product. UC3 and KZ3 destroys it night and day.

 

[Nesh]

If you put your personal taste aside you are not doing your job as a reviewer. As a reviewer of a football game that does not like football you should state that in the review. You should also state that you do not know much about what is being simulated.

I do not like the US military, but I think that Desert Strike is an awesome game. I do not know of the simulation of the helicopter and other parts is correct, but I do not see why that would make my opinion of the game be of less value than someone who likes the US military and knows more about it.

You are actually repeating what I said in different words
Yes if your lack of knowledge or personal taste can get in the way of providing a good review you can prepare the reader as a disclaimer. Thats another way to be honest so that the reader knows how to perceive your review and if he has to look somewhere else. I can guarantee you that my review on Flight Simulator will suck because I know nothing about flight simulators or piloting a plane. If I judge it based on casual fan factor and I am not knowledgeable I have to state it so the reader who is looking for a simulator knows that my review is talking to a different kind of person. Not the simulator guy, who is the person that the game targets. As I said earlier an opinion is dependent on the context.
If in the case of Last of Us I hate zombie games and dislike violence, but I state that the game is awesome either the game is so good that my personal taste didnt get in the way, or I didnt let it get in the way so that I give the reader what he is looking for, if I can.

 

[L. Scofield]

Phil Fish tweeted earlier today that any reviewer who lowered their score of Last of Us because it wasn't "fun" was doing the medium a disservice, and that is a sentiment I wholly agree with. And it's obviously that tweet was aimed squarely at Phil Kollar's review on Polygon. It's a shame that in 2013 there are still professional critics getting caught up in 1992 era GamePro concepts like "fun factor".

Movies don't have to be fun to be good. Books don't have to be fun to be good. Music does not have to be fun to be good. It's absurd to suggest a game has failed to any degree simply because it didn't aim to be "fun". There is a whole world of human emotion and experiences out there to explore, and games offer unique opportunities for such investigations, so it is tragic when anyone reinforces the idea that games shouldn't try to be anything more than toys that provide "fun".

I think fun is a very broad term. What somebody might mean when they something isn't fun isn't that it wasn't funny/uplifting but rather that it was boring/annoying/felt like a chore.

 

[Bagel seed]

ND comments on Polygon's 7.5 review and other stuff

Naughty Dog’s Max Dyckhoff (Programmer), Doug Holder (Visual Effects Artist), and Reuben Shah (Environment Artist) conducted an IAmA on Reddit today where they shared some intriguing details about the highly praised, The Last of Us, as well as their thoughts about the PS4, the chances that we’ll see Nathan Drake in the future and Polygon.com’s critical review of The Last of Us.

Ahead of the release of The Last of Us reviews have been extremely glowing. Programmer Max Dyckhoff stated that he was up until the wee hours of the morning refreshing this Neogaf review thread anticipating any leaked reviews. Among the dozens of critiques The Last of Us has received this week, Polygon’s 7.5 score may be the most talked about.

When the question was raised about the review during the IAmA, Doug Holder and Reuben Shah’s response to the opinions expressed by Polygon were pretty classy:

Holder: “I like what was said in the text. The reviewer seemed to be emotionally impacted by the experience of the game and the result was that it was not fun for them. By “not fun” I took that to mean it was difficult to experience some of the things in the game and it left a big impact on them emotionally and that wasn’t their cup of tea.”

“They maybe expected something more uplifting and the reality of our vision in this post pandemic world is just not so. Human nature is a scary thing. The reality of such a world would “not be fun”. A perfect score would have been lovely but everyone is entitled to their own opinion and that’s important to us.”

Shah: “Everyone is entitled to their view… even if it’s not what we want to hear/read.”

On PS4

On the subject of the PS4, Max Dyckhoff had this to say:

“I think the PS4 is pretty awesome. I actually know very little about it, been too busy working on TLOU, but what I saw at the announce makes me excited.”

“I am super excited about the PS4,” he added in a separate response.”The announce back in February was new to me as everyone else. The hardware is bad ass, the games they showed look beautiful, and I have a lot of confidence in what will be shown at E3.”

Lastly, even though The Last of Us is just over the horizon, the Uncharted trilogy remains on the minds of many fans. A Reddit user asked, “Will we see Nathan Drake any more?” Dyckhoff responded.

Max Dyckhoff: To be determined!

http://thesilentchief.com/2013/06/07/naughty-dog-comments-on-polygons-tlou-review-ps4-and-more/

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

wow what happen to this thread? Mod I think you should start doing some cleaning up.

I agree. I've been following this thread because this game, like a few that came before it, might be THE GAME that makes me purchase a PS3. (Especially after E3 when prices are expected to drop on current gen consoles.)

I haven't posted in this thread because I don't like to thread shit on consoles I don't and haven't owned.

However, I do find the "gaming reviews" portion of the last two or so pages interesting and would like to comment, but I don't feel this is the appropriate thread to do so.

If a Mod would like to split off a new thread bashed upon Nesh's and others comments about the validity and practice of game reviews, I'd appreciate it. It would thin this thread back out to specifically a PS3 game related thread and it would also give me the opportunity to chime in on my feelings of gaming reviews without seeming to be a 360 fanboy jumping into a PS3 thread.

 

[jonabbey]

Crap, Sony is putting Uncharted 3 on PS+ Tuesday. I guess I'm not going to get to start playing The Last of Us for a little while longer than I thought.

 

[tuna]

You are actually repeating what I said in different words
...
If in the case of Last of Us I hate zombie games and dislike violence, but I state that the game is awesome either the game is so good that my personal taste didnt get in the way, or I didnt let it get in the way so that I give the reader what he is looking for, if I can.

No. If you are giving the reader what he/she is looking for you are not doing a review. Also, the reason why you do not like zombie games could be because all zombie up until TLOU was crap.

 

[Yemeth]

Crap, Sony is putting Uncharted 3 on PS+ Tuesday. I guess I'm not going to get to start playing The Last of Us for a little while longer than I thought.

If I buy the PS4 and Playstation Plus is giving a similar value like on the PS3, I am so going to subscribe to it!

BTW, pre-ordered Last of Us on the first EU day . Even though I laugh at all these 10/10 reviews, I really look forward to playing it. 9 and 10/10 should be reserved for iconic (or at least so innovative that it gets it because of that; there is an difference between "very good and brilliant") games like Planescape: Torment, Super Shinobi, Shining Force, Company of Heroes, Tomb Raider 1, Pirates, Demon's Souls etc., not every n-th AAA hit title that comes around. Going with that logic every second summer movie blockbuster would need to get an 10/10.

I expect a good 8/10 and that would be great for these days, if it is going to be better than that, fantastic .

Thanks to all of you for not spoiling anything, I am avoiding comment sections etc., like a plague .

 

[Npl]

If I buy the PS4 and Playstation Plus is giving a similar value like on the PS3, I am so going to subscribe to it!

BTW, pre-ordered Last of Us on the first EU day . Even though I laugh at all these 10/10 reviews, I really look forward to playing it. 9 and 10/10 should be reserved for iconic (or at least so innovative that it gets it because of that; there is an difference between "very good and brilliant") games like Planescape: Torment, Super Shinobi, Shining Force, Company of Heroes, Tomb Raider 1, Pirates, Demon's Souls etc., not every n-th AAA hit title that comes around. Going with that logic every second summer movie blockbuster would need to get an 10/10.

I expect a good 8/10 and that would be great for these days, if it is going to be better than that, fantastic .

Thanks to all of you for not spoiling anything, I am avoiding comment sections etc., like a plague .

PS+ is a double edged sword, I bought alot games and got them for free a few months later - often before I was able to play them ("Shadow of the Colossus" just this week).
You cant argue against the value you get for 60€ per anno.

As for LoU - well the release hits my birthday nearly perfectly and I already directly hinted at my wish.

 

[Yemeth]

PS+ is a double edged sword, I bought alot games and got them for free a few months later - often before I was able to play them ("Shadow of the Colossus" just this week).
You cant argue against the value you get for 60€ per anno.

The same happened to me with several games, but Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the latest examples, bought them on disc and only played a few minutes and now got them "for free" again. patsu praised these games so much that I had to buy them, unfortunately I never found the right mindset to get into them in front of the PS3...

Hope you will have a great birthday party and enjoy the rest of the time until the next birthday .

 

[Nesh]

No. If you are giving the reader what he/she is looking for you are not doing a review.

I didnt mean "giving the score he would like to see regardless of how good a game is" with the "giving the reader what he is looking for" comment. I was referring to the right review. The review that is analyzing the right aspects of the game that the reader is looking for to know if they are good or not. So yes thats doing a review. Whats not a review is giving an opinion about a game based on aspects that are unimportant/irrelevant or aspects that were not perceived with the correct mindset

Also, the reason why you do not like zombie games could be because all zombie up until TLOU was crap.

In that case the reviewer was objective from the beginning and hence gave bad scores to bad games and good scores to good games. So?

 

[tuna]

In that case the reviewer was objective from the beginning and hence gave bad scores to bad games and good scores to good games. So?

Liking something has nothing to do with being objective.

 

[tuna]

I didnt mean "giving the score he would like to see regardless of how good a game is" with the "giving the reader what he is looking for" comment. I was referring to the right review. The review that is analyzing the right aspects of the game that the reader is looking for to know if they are good or not. So yes thats doing a review. Whats not a review is giving an opinion about a game based on aspects that are unimportant/irrelevant or aspects that were not perceived with the correct mindset

If you are going to do it that way you have to somehow analyze what all future readers will be looking for. How exactly are you supposed to do that?

For example, I would really like to read a review comparing the game mechanics of Telltale's The walking dead and Sakura Taisen, but I would be greatly surprised if I ever read that.

 

[upnorthsox]

So back to The Last of Us...................

 

[patsu]

The same happened to me with several games, but Shadow of the Colossus and ICO are the latest examples, bought them on disc and only played a few minutes and now got them "for free" again. patsu praised these games so much that I had to buy them, unfortunately I never found the right mindset to get into them in front of the PS3...

Hope you will have a great birthday party and enjoy the rest of the time until the next birthday .

Yap, I love Ico. Played it from beginning to end wearing 3D glasses.

I cheated in several places because I didn't have time to explore thoroughly. The most difficult section concerns a waterwheel. Other than that, the love story resonates with me ! ;-)

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Yap, I love Ico. Played it from beginning to end wearing 3D glasses.

I cheated in several places because I didn't have time to explore thoroughly. The most difficult section concerns a waterwheel. Other than that, the love story resonates with me ! ;-)

Hey ! Don't do that to me ! I have it sitting on my ps3 HDD but I have lotsa work to do ! :smile:

 

[patsu]

What was I thinking ? Ico s*cks. Should free up the HDD space for DoA5 costumes instead.