Days Gone

Grumpypants

Grumpypants wrote: »

Reviewers dumped all over mad max too and that was great fun. This is way better.

Cleared that game twice. I never understand the obessesion with hammering a game that doesn't get masterpiece ratings

goon_magee

I was looking forward to this but it looks like a boring, derivative, poorly paced mess. People claiming this is being received poorly due to the protagonist being a gruff white male need to stop, honestly, it's getting lukewarm receptions all round and some of those lukewarm responses list the narrative and characters as one of the few positives.

Even Karak over at ACG is saying it isn't worth it at the moment, and I'd consider him one of the straightest shooters as far as game reviews go.

Its a shame, I genuinely thought that Bend had managed to turn this into something I'd want to play at launch, but I think I'll wait for the inevitable price drop in a couple of months. Almost reminds me of Mafia 3 where the narrative and setting were brought down by hours upon hours of repetitive busy work that you've played 100 times over in other games.

Grumpypants

It’s got 80 from the majority of the reviews. How is that Luke warm?

The white male thing comes from the IGN reviewers saying they are bored by it because of its white male protagonist.

Eurogamer slammed it for being a game for real men.

When these same sites give god awful walking simulators rave reviews purely for having women leads and knock games for having male leads then it is a fair criticism.

I guarantee the user reviews for this over the next 3 weeks will be closer to 9.

A huge portion of this game is revealed by playing the side missions. If you stay on the main campaign (as most reviewers tend to do) then you miss so much of the background story that makes the world so much more interesting.

Zero-Cool

Wait, I thought ye were joking about Eurogamer being a game for real men? I refuse to give them any more clicks but that sounds made up??

ACG would be my most trustworthy go to reviewer so disappointing he said to wait but none of this has dampened my spirits going into tomorrow

Grumpypants

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Wait, I thought ye were joking about Eurogamer being a game for real men? I refuse to give them any more clicks but that sounds made up??

ACG would be my most trustworthy go to reviewer so disappointing he said to wait but none of this has dampened my spirits going into tomorrow

I look forward to hearing how you get on. I think it’s great anyway. The first hour can be a bit janky but once past the introductory part it really opens up.

goon_magee

The majority of the reviews on metacritic scoring it 80 and higher are outlets pushing for that metacritic visibility if you ask me. The sources I trust and have used for years as well as the recent spate of YouTubers I have grown to trust are calling it out as poor at worst, decidedly mediocre but ultimately playable at best.

And maybe it's a fair criticism about a couple of specific reviews. But of the reviews I've read that have **** on the game, not one have mentioned the gender of the lead. They've attributed the low scores to the amount of busywork, poorly thought out mechanics, and atrocious pacing that makes the game an absolute slog to get through for the first third.

Grumpypants

goon_magee wrote: »

The majority of the reviews on metacritic scoring it 80 and higher are outlets pushing for that metacritic visibility if you ask me. The sources I trust and have used for years as well as the recent spate of YouTubers I have grown to trust are calling it out as poor at worst, decidedly mediocre but ultimately playable at best.

And maybe it's a fair criticism about a couple of specific reviews. But of the reviews I've read that have **** on the game, not one have mentioned the gender of the lead. They've attributed the low scores to the amount of busywork, poorly thought out mechanics, and atrocious pacing that makes the game an absolute slog to get through for the first third.

Well I've played it and it's none of those things.

Be wary of getting impressions from people who have to play a game not those who chose to. They are often jaded from games, have 3 or 4 more on the go so just beeline through the main story on an easy mode which gives you a piss poor impression of a game, its mechanics and the story.

Sephiroth_dude

Grumpypants wrote: »

Well I've played it and it's none of those things.

Are the hordes hard to take down?

Grumpypants

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Are the hordes hard to take down?

Yeah, i still haven't managed it. I've at least 40 hours in over the last two weeks. I can't seem to stop them they just come so fast and in such numbers. I guess some huge explosions will help.

gizmo

Grumpypants wrote: »

The white male thing comes from the IGN reviewers saying they are bored by it because of its white male protagonist.

Eurogamer slammed it for being a game for real men.

When these same sites give god awful walking simulators rave reviews purely for having women leads and knock games for having male leads then it is a fair criticism.

How can it be considered fair criticism when it's based on what can only be considered a complete misrepresentation of what was actually said?

Days Gone makes some interesting choices that kept my play session engaging, and the sections of its story that I experienced piqued my interest enough that I was legitimately frustrated that I couldn’t continue playing at the end of the demo. While I’ll admit that I initially rolled my eyes at yet another Gruff White Male Protagonist™ in a grim world - especially one with such a Gruff White Male Protagonist™-ey name as Deacon St. John - I ended up getting far more invested than I’d initially expected. I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose - this is a first-party Sony title, and Bend is no stranger to writing around well-developed characters and games with a strong narrative focus, either.

This is what Jon Ryan said in his preview of the game for IGN last month. He was not bored by it, quite the contrary, he "really enjoyed the few hours [he] spent with it and [was] eager to explore more of its grim, dangerous world" by the end of his play time.

From the moment I first heard about Days Gone, I wondered about its reason for existing. With so many open-world titles and games that use post-apocalyptic setting featuring zombies and/or other types of deformed creatures, why make another one? Maybe someone at Sony was looking at Horizon Zero Dawn, first announced around the time that work on Days Gone officially began, and said right girls, you've had your metaphorical glass of 'secco with this one, let's make a post-apocalyptic game for real men. Maybe someone looked at all these other existing titles and thought why not make another - people keep buying them, they'll buy this one, too. But there are only so many times that works. In Days Gone, you can see why.

This is the opening paragraph of the review at Eurogamer. It's clearly a joke on how the game got greenlit and in no reasonable way could it be interpreted as her having "slammed" the game, especially when you consider the rest of her review is, by and large, along the sames as most other high profile ones.

It's great that you enjoyed it dude, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of other folk out there who agree with you, but I'm genuinely baffled why you feel the need to rip on other reviewers who didn't in the process.

Retr0gamer

I doubt it's a bad game. All reviews say it's perfectly playable. It's just in this day and age there's so many exceptional games it's hard to make time for something decent.

In other words buy Ace Combat 7 instead. It's the best game of the year so far and there's nobody talking about it!

johnny_ultimate

TBH while I don’t think every good game can or has to be boldly new or anything, I do think it’s a pretty good general standard to hold things to, albeit with the disclaimer that some games can indeed do something unoriginal well (Dead Space, for example).

Haven’t played it so can’t meaningfully comment on its quality, but confess the general consensus that Days Gone is another long, familiar open world game (albeit with a motorbike) gives me close to zero interest in playing it. It’s the one genre I’ve truly grown tired of, especially since Breath of the Wild upped the standard so spectacularly. Would really want something to innovate and surprise if it’s going to ask dozens of hours from me.

goon_magee

The Phantom Pain wrote: »

This seems to be the general consensus - that it's fun but "does nothing new".
Personally, I don't think that 'does nothing new' is a legitimate complaint. Not every game has to break new ground. Sometimes you just want some fast food. I suppose because Sony were on a hot streak people expected more.

You're right, nothing new isn't a bad thing at all. Spiderman was completely unoriginal, yet once that got going was extremely well put together. I would even argue that God of War done nothing particularly new outside of its amazing setting and narrative. Same could be said for things like Uncharted, the Tomb Raider games and even the newer Assassin's Creed games which have all been some of my favourite games this gen..

The thing is those games generally excelled at what they did despite being derivative, whereas it sounds like this game apes other games whilst managing to play and feel completely mediocre.

I've not played so my opinion could be wrong of course. I'm just saying that I don't thing people's issue is that this isn't breaking new ground as you say, it's that it's not breaking new ground whilst being completely average in along with it.

Grumpypants

I've never been on board with this idea that every game needs to be ground breaking. It just feeds into the run away expectations players and media have now adays, which is a huge issue when it comes to studios getting worked to the bone or shut down for having games that are just good.

Taking the best bits from other games and making a new way to experience them is still very enjoyable.

The Last of Us was a generic sad dad story, with pretty dated waist high cover mechanics but i still loved it. Breath of the Wild was yet another rescue the princes story, it was a very simple game with some clever reusing of game mechanics and i loved it. Doing something well is still hugely enjoyable to me.

Red Dead is probably the first game in a long time to change a genre. It brought a crazy level of innovation. It also took 7 years to make. They are prob the only studio who can afford to do that.

Making games is really hard, making a game as big as Days Gone with such great art, story, voice work, mechanics, and engaging loop is a big achievement.

Zero-Cool

Seeing a few things like this this morning, not defending scores and different people like different things but some people are saying that some reviews are flat out telling lies about things like character development. I think mostly aimed at GameSpot review. I saw a few posts about checking journalists trophies and seeing only half of the story trophies unlocked. No names so not sure how true it is but Colin Moriarty also said to check their trophies.

I saw a couple of review quotes this morning giving the game negative points because it doesn't live up to Sony's high standards. I'm no journalist but I think that's a **** way to score a game. Does that mean if this was an Xbox exclusive, it would have been scored higher?

Anyway, this could be a mediocre game, will only know when I eventually get to play, but I feel bad for the devs today.

https://twitter.com/PS4_Trophies/status/1121436975762944000?s=19

https://twitter.com/DanAllenGaming/status/1121455964937265152?s=19

https://twitter.com/Tidux/status/1121440443156369408?s=19

Retr0gamer

Zero-Cool wrote: »

Seeing a few things like this this morning, not defending scores and different people like different things but some people are saying that some reviews are flat out telling lies about things like character development. I think mostly aimed at GameSpot review. I saw a few posts about checking journalists trophies and seeing only half of the story trophies unlocked. No names so not sure how true it is but Colin Moriarty also said to check their trophies.

I saw a couple of review quotes this morning giving the game negative points because it doesn't live up to Sony's high standards. I'm no journalist but I think that's a **** way to score a game. Does that mean if this was an Xbox exclusive, it would have been scored higher?

Anyway, this could be a mediocre game, will only know when I eventually get to play, but I feel bad for the devs today.

https://twitter.com/PS4_Trophies/status/1121436975762944000?s=19

https://twitter.com/DanAllenGaming/status/1121455964937265152?s=19

https://twitter.com/Tidux/status/1121440443156369408?s=19

Just read the tweets and that's really pathetic fanboying on the people involved.

I mean they say the reviewers lied about facts because they said the characters had no development. But that's subjective, not a fact. The fact people are defending their corporately created product from negativity is kind of sad.

Grumpypants

That's my thoughts too. If you rush the campaign, fast travel everywhere and skip optional dialogue (as i can guarantee they did) you miss so much of the world building. Even fast travelling avoids the ambushes, wildlife attacks, and random events that add tons to the immersion. Driving past a bear fighting a bunch if zombies is class. Rescuing a stranger and then sending him their fate has consequences.

It's hard to get too far into without risking spoilers. But if you remember the walking dead series where there was another camp that Jesus lived in that had food growing etc. It's a similar set up here with a number of groups in camps.

There are no clear cut good guys. But you can work with them and gain trust. Each group is different and surviving in the way that works for them, and that can be morally ambiguous.

As you drive around you save strangers and can send them to camps. Each camp pays differently per new worker, but as you learn more about the camps that choice as greater impact. This is all missed by fast travelling.

All this story, character development and world building is done through the main and side missions and extra exploring. Even some is told through NPC dialogue in the back ground. There are a few holy **** moments of realisation from over heard conversations because i was standing near something.

There are loads of different storylines overlapping and running in parallel. It's really well done. That's why i just can't get on board with the meh reviews.


As i always say, reviewers are made to play these games they don't choose to. Players will spend time exploring and getting invested, they will play for weeks not hours. Reviewers have to blast through it in big chunks over two or three days, this will change how they play or experience it.

It's the first open world game i'm drawn back to to explore the side story, not to complete the busy work or main campaign. The game is about 30 hours long but im already 40 in and nowhere near the ending.

kunst nugget

Tbf, trying to finish a 30 hour campaign in a relatively short time does sound like a chore especially if the missions start to get repetitive and I don't know if I've the stamina for did hours of cut scenes even when I'm just going to be playing the game in 1-2 hour chunks.

I'm still looking forward to giving it a bash.

Kiith

I thought this was on the PC as well for some reason

Fiftyfilthy

Sounds similar to state of decay 2 (without the buggy mess on launch date)

I watched several hours of days gone last night. Personally I think it looks quite good. It did appear to be a little too easy I thought and also too much abundance of materials which again makes it too easy?


Think the 7/10 looks about right from what I’m seeing

Sephiroth_dude

Kiith wrote: »

I thought this was on the PC as well for some reason

Time to invest in a ps4.

Retr0gamer

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

Time to invest in a ps4.

Maybe for Bloodborne, not this

Enjoyable intro

nix

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Maybe for Bloodborne, not this

Don't forget God of war! :pac:

GavRedKing

Tempted to get this as its payday and plow through next week and the bank holiday, is it worth the 50/60 quid?

Im still on the final 3/4's of AC:Odyssey and I do enjoy open world games as well as Z's but I'm a bit apprehensive of this.

Jordan 199

GavRedKing wrote: »

Tempted to get this as its payday and plow through next week and the bank holiday, is it worth the 50/60 quid?

Im still on the final 3/4's of AC:Odyssey and I do enjoy open world games as well as Z's but I'm a bit apprehensive of this.

Take a chance and roll the bones :cool:

GavRedKing

Jordan 199 wrote: »

Take a chance and roll the bones :cool:

Sold.