That feels like a sponsored video, tbh.
He disliked AC Valhalla, and made a long video shitting on it, in fact he makes reference to that in this very same video, so yeah, I doubt he takes sponsorships with Ubi…
Interesting. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste then. There’s certainly a sort of “Nintendo Core Gamer” archetype, for sure.
He also doesn’t seem to play Nintendo games, or at least not a lot of them…
I like his reviews. His Death Stranding review sold me on the game and I’m glad it did. I loved Death Stranding.
By the way, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is now available for preload on PC (not sure on consoles). It’s already preloaded and ready to go here. ;)
I actually think I may give this a try since I forgot to cancel UPlay+ and it might be fun to play through with my kid if it goes over well. I do like that it is described as an Ubi/Zelda open world that only takes about 25 hours to complete. That is a point in its favor.
When I keep hearing about games that take 10 hours just to see the title card I sort of throw up in my mouth a little.
I am officially cutting myself off from any further open world games unless they have some kind of prescribed limit. 25 hours? OK, I can live with that.
Why? In my backlog: Witcher 3, Fallout 4, most of BotW, RDR2. And I guess No Man’s Sky, though it doesn’t seem to quite fall into the same category.
ACG liked it, and seemed so excited by his experience he forgot to say his rating.
I started to watch this, because while the gameplay clip from the demo I saw turned me off of it (as well as comments I read here mirroring my own observations) I want this to be a cool game. The video starts off well, but when he attacked Valhalla’s graphics I had to say something.
I know he wasn’t a fan of Valhalla and felt he had wasted his time (for some reason - I personally had a blast with that game start to finish) but this just felt completely out of place here. It’s one thing to praise a game’s visuals, but there is no reason to tear something down to make his point here. And what he’s showing in the video while praising these visuals didn’t look like it was going to blow me away, having spent 76 hours in this world:
Scott, that gorgeous screenshot you posted is still mostly brown/green. ;)
I get your point, but I get his too. Immortals - due to its setting and art style - gets to use a lot more color, and to be more vibrant than anything held back by aspirations of “realistic scenarios”.
I know this is out of left field for this forum, but this would be the perfect copy pasta for every Tom Chick 1-star review.
So okay, if we aren’t allowing artists to use brown or green in nature settings that’s going to be a problem.
Also, I saw 90% green in immortals screenshots and gameplay - just more vibrant and cartoon green, so I am still a little confused by the argument.
This is literally the screen grab you can see while he’s making this particular point.
I mean, c’mon.
Also, I forgot but he slams Valhalla earlier for the synchronization bits where you climb a tower to unlock the map area and see the collectibles. Seems like another unnecessary dig just to try and elevate this game he is enjoying.
I normally really enjoy this guys work, but this feels off to me - he’s not usually this hard to attack something that I had fun with.
Well, that’s how disappointed he was at Valhalla. And those jabs are his way to express that frustration. Maybe they don’t reflect the “objetive truth”, but they are a faithful portrait of how he feels about the game. Isn’t that what reviews are all about?
It’s also hard for him to not compare those two games for a huge variety of reasons. I feel you’re being too hard on him. Just think of that video as being 80% a review of Immortals and 20% some late notes on his Valhalla review.
Yup. It would be weird to not make the comparison. Same company, coming around at around the same time, and it’s obvious they share DNA.
My greater point is he is (from my point of view) poisoning his review as I came to him wondering if I should be checking this out, and rather than finding his enthusiasm for it bringing me to pre-order, he’s instead shitting on a game I did enjoy by way of comparison that makes it a lot more muddy if I’d like this or not.
What if I won’t like this since I did like Valhalla? That’s my issue with bringing these comparisons in. If he had never mentioned Valhalla, and just said “I love the way the game looks” or talked about the mechanics unto themselves, none of these concerns would have arisen. I get where these comparisons come from, but from my perspective they did the opposite of what he was hoping for. Which is too bad, I wanted to be sold on this one.
His review is not meant to “sell” anyone on the game. It’s a portrait of what the thought and how he felt about the game. That’s it.
Maybe that does mean you won’t like the game. Maybe it means that before watching his review you would like the game, but if you play now you won’t because you felt attacked by his jabs on Valhalla when compared to your own feelings on that game. BTW, he loved Ghost of Tsushima. How did you feel about that one?
He didn’t poison anything in me with his review. I don’t think there is poison in that review. If there is any poison, then, it must be in your reaction to what he did, not anything else. I think his points are valid, even if I don’t agree with them. That’s true of many reviews I read by Tom, and never once they refrained me from enjoying a game Tom was not so enthusiastic about, or not liking a game Tom loved. But I know Tom enough to know what kinds of things he likes, and I know enough to compare to my own expectations and likings.
Same is true of SkillUp. Or any other reviewer, for that matter.
I guess I misunderstand the “Buy, Wait for Sale, Never Touch” style of the titles in this series - I had assumed he was trying to get folks to dip into a game he was enjoying.
I have never played Ghosts of Tsushima.
Correct, which is why I phrased it “from my point of view” - I am only telling you how I am reacting to the review, I’m not saying I’m right or that his review is “unprofessional” or anything, I’m not saying that, I’m just commenting on how I felt watching it. That’s all I can do. I didn’t mean to rile anyone up, my apologies if that was the case!
Meh, it’s a “Bitch eating crackers” issue.