Star Wars Outlaws is rated 'Strong' after being reviewed by 54 critics, with an overall average score of 75. It's ranked in the top 40% of games and recommended by 74% of critics.
Starfield was the same. Looked pretty meh, but almost all (initial) reviewers gave it high marks. It wasn’t until people started playing that the truthful reviews surfaced. Guessing either paid reviews, or reviewers having a skewed view of what makes a game great.
This right here is why critic scores are almost always higher than audience scores. Becauee the audience doesn’t care about being blacklisted because they honestly scored a product.
Companies have a financial incentive to get high scores. Review outlets have a fincancial incentive to get review copies for free. Put two and two together and it really isn’t hard to see why the critics give whack scores.
A lot of people that played the previews were quite optimistic about the game, save for a few gripes that seem to reflect in most reviews now. But the online community has been rather toxic about a variety of things, ranging from valid concerns to pointless hate. There was one IGN preview that looked pretty bland and bad, but everything else looked alright.
It’s not an innovating game, but frankly I never expected it to be. It looks like a fun immersive experience for SW fans (the actual fans, not the ones that hate literally everything about SW lol).
Have you seen the actual “criticism” lately? Like 99% of the stuff I’ve read from SW “fans” are anything but legit criticism, just trolls incessantly bitching for the sake of bitching in an attempt to raise their social media scores by lifting on the circlejerks just hating without any constructive feedback.
I wasn’t even talking about SW here, just how fan is used these days. I’m not and never was part of the SW fanbase, but from what I’ve seen from the outside that’s because all the legitimate criticisms were ignored years ago and everyone that cared moved on from the new corporately-stoked toxic fanbase.
My comment applies to industries beyond SW as well, it has become part of the cancel culture these days. SW is just an infamous example since the new Disney movies released. Thing is that these huge corporations try to appeal to a much larger crowd than previously (this goes for other companies too) and that doesn’t always fit within people’s personal narrative.
I get that some don’t agree with choices being made, but these aren’t being made just for them. Yet a lot of people abuse this excuse to make it like a religious crusade against these corporations, a ride that a lot of people hop on to, who had nothing to do with the whole thing in the first place and just tag along for their entertainment instead of just moving along.
This game is a good example too, a lot of people just tag along with the collective hate for Ubisoft. But when you ask them the general response will be “bEcAUse iT’s uBiSOft” and have no constructive argument. Some will say it’s because the game is using the usual Ubisoft formula (it doesn’t, but that aside), so what? A lot of people do enjoy that formula, and all the people that don’t like it can move along, big enough of a world out there to find something they do enjoy, including other SW games in a variety of genres.
The funniest part of Ubisoft hate is when every other open world game uses “towers” (a logical high-altitude system to increase map coverage), for instance in Zelda, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, etc, while every Ubisoft game is banned from using them now.
They honestly weren’t even a bad system in Far Cry. They designed the climb to use different mechanics each time.
Didn’t Ubisoft or Disney send people to Disneyland and pay for vacations or whatever in connection with them being invited to play the game? In a legal context, that could easily be seen as veiled bribery. It psychologically makes people more inclined to speak positively because it abuses their desire to be grateful and show gratitude. Basically, a company that wants honest feedback would not do that. Especially not the company with a direct financial incentive to gain from the most expensive marketing campaign they have ever done.
All the gameplay I have seen looks mid at best, and bad at worst. Especially when comparing it to previous Ubisoft games such as AC Black Flag. Comparing AC Black Flag to Star Wars Outlaws demonstrates modern Ubisofts profound lack of attention to detail. Facial animations, water interactions, stealth, all of the major mechanics of the game demonstrate significant degradation in Outlaws’ gameplay footage.
These are criticisms purely based on the technical aspects of visible gameplay footage. This isn’t even touching stuff like story or writing.
I’m surprised to see generally positive reviews given just how entirely Mid the previews all looked.
Starfield was the same. Looked pretty meh, but almost all (initial) reviewers gave it high marks. It wasn’t until people started playing that the truthful reviews surfaced. Guessing either paid reviews, or reviewers having a skewed view of what makes a game great.
Apparently for lots oft publications (and people in general) it’s impossible to rate anything below 7
7 for effort.
8 if it’s executed well.
9 and up if it’s actually a creative and fun game with good mechanics, no MTX, etc.
It just makes the rating system pointless.
Anything less than a 7 gets you blacklisted from publishers.
This right here is why critic scores are almost always higher than audience scores. Becauee the audience doesn’t care about being blacklisted because they honestly scored a product.
Companies have a financial incentive to get high scores. Review outlets have a fincancial incentive to get review copies for free. Put two and two together and it really isn’t hard to see why the critics give whack scores.
Access journalism trends this way.
A lot of people that played the previews were quite optimistic about the game, save for a few gripes that seem to reflect in most reviews now. But the online community has been rather toxic about a variety of things, ranging from valid concerns to pointless hate. There was one IGN preview that looked pretty bland and bad, but everything else looked alright.
It’s not an innovating game, but frankly I never expected it to be. It looks like a fun immersive experience for SW fans (the actual fans, not the ones that hate literally everything about SW lol).
I hate how fan now means mindless consumer these days and any reflecting on the criticisms of a series means you’re somehow excluded from being a fan.
Have you seen the actual “criticism” lately? Like 99% of the stuff I’ve read from SW “fans” are anything but legit criticism, just trolls incessantly bitching for the sake of bitching in an attempt to raise their social media scores by lifting on the circlejerks just hating without any constructive feedback.
I wasn’t even talking about SW here, just how fan is used these days. I’m not and never was part of the SW fanbase, but from what I’ve seen from the outside that’s because all the legitimate criticisms were ignored years ago and everyone that cared moved on from the new corporately-stoked toxic fanbase.
My comment applies to industries beyond SW as well, it has become part of the cancel culture these days. SW is just an infamous example since the new Disney movies released. Thing is that these huge corporations try to appeal to a much larger crowd than previously (this goes for other companies too) and that doesn’t always fit within people’s personal narrative.
I get that some don’t agree with choices being made, but these aren’t being made just for them. Yet a lot of people abuse this excuse to make it like a religious crusade against these corporations, a ride that a lot of people hop on to, who had nothing to do with the whole thing in the first place and just tag along for their entertainment instead of just moving along.
This game is a good example too, a lot of people just tag along with the collective hate for Ubisoft. But when you ask them the general response will be “bEcAUse iT’s uBiSOft” and have no constructive argument. Some will say it’s because the game is using the usual Ubisoft formula (it doesn’t, but that aside), so what? A lot of people do enjoy that formula, and all the people that don’t like it can move along, big enough of a world out there to find something they do enjoy, including other SW games in a variety of genres.
The funniest part of Ubisoft hate is when every other open world game uses “towers” (a logical high-altitude system to increase map coverage), for instance in Zelda, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, etc, while every Ubisoft game is banned from using them now.
They honestly weren’t even a bad system in Far Cry. They designed the climb to use different mechanics each time.
Have you seen anything of star wars lately? Nothing has been of quality or has made any lore sense
The one thing I hate is that it is from Ubisoft. Going from one boycotted trash company to the next.
Didn’t Ubisoft or Disney send people to Disneyland and pay for vacations or whatever in connection with them being invited to play the game? In a legal context, that could easily be seen as veiled bribery. It psychologically makes people more inclined to speak positively because it abuses their desire to be grateful and show gratitude. Basically, a company that wants honest feedback would not do that. Especially not the company with a direct financial incentive to gain from the most expensive marketing campaign they have ever done.
All the gameplay I have seen looks mid at best, and bad at worst. Especially when comparing it to previous Ubisoft games such as AC Black Flag. Comparing AC Black Flag to Star Wars Outlaws demonstrates modern Ubisofts profound lack of attention to detail. Facial animations, water interactions, stealth, all of the major mechanics of the game demonstrate significant degradation in Outlaws’ gameplay footage.
These are criticisms purely based on the technical aspects of visible gameplay footage. This isn’t even touching stuff like story or writing.
Remember when critics gave positive reviews to Overwatch 2? Yeah, this is that.
I always thought it looked cool, I don’t see what was so “mid” about any of the previews.