Avowed | Review Thread

@[email protected] · 7 days ago

Avowed | Review Thread

@ampersandrew · 7 days ago

I understand that reviews are subjective. I just found it funny that the characters in the game were shouting the solution to the reviewer’s problems at him for so long that he found it frustrating.

Jeff Grubb’s not-a-review was speaking to exactly the kind of thing that’s important to me in games and why he likes this one so much, which did me a great service, so I’m not sure why you’re shitting on him for spicy takes here, lol.

@[email protected] · 7 days ago

And good for you if that aligns with your wants (it sure aligns with mine).

But, at its core, it is “stupid games media” rhetoric. If you are in a mad dash to finish a review or even a game guide (Fandom’s gotta eat), you might not have time or even interest to go back track and do ten side quests in the starting area. At which point constantly hearing “you should get a better pistol” is gonna be REAL grating and is arguably bad encounter design. What is described as “no friction” is often designing encounters so that people can do both the critical path (just story quests) and all the side paths. And its why so many games either have continuous encounter scaling or just big levers you can flip (PoE1 and 2 did the latter).

So yeah. I do have a bit of an issue with someone in the games media space (especially at the company that steals the work of the rest of games media…) “be(ing) kind of a shit” to colleagues in a manner that just fuels the same kind of bullshit they constantly put up with on social media.

Whereas a “real” games reviewer learns to… not be a shit? I forget what game it was, but I remember Mortismal basically saying “The level scaling is kind of wonky. If you just do only the main story quests, you are going to have a bad time and you’ll need to really understand the combat systems to progress. But if you do too many side quests, you’ll be overpowered and just run right through everything” (… actually that sounds like PoE1 after the DLCs came out…). Rather than just making fun of other reviewers for not being able to handle “friction”.

Although I will say, in Grubb’s defense: That is also kind of the Giant Bomb style guide. It ignores that the OGs (Ryan, Jeff, Brad, Alex, etc) had fairly strong “games media” backgrounds by the time the site started and knew how to say something inflammatory to get a point across without angering the publishers to the point of losing ad revenue (… okay, Jeff wasn’t quite as good at the last part). But without those old hats to act as editors (and no, Dan doesn’t count), you get situations where “snark” is just shit stirring that feeds the people tormenting the rest of the industry.

@ampersandrew · 7 days ago

Grubb has no ill will toward his colleagues. But there are plenty of them praising games that he and I found disappointing for that sanding down, so I understand frustration when there are reviews knocking down a game for delivering what we feel games “ought to be” doing. You get short snark because it fits better in a character limit. If you want more nuanced opinions of his, they come in podcast form, not written form.

@[email protected] · 7 days ago

I understand frustration when there are reviews knocking down a game for delivering what we feel games “ought to be” doing.

Yeah… that is a real shit perspective. You are actively “frustrated” that people like things you don’t. That is a very big side effect of the content bubble we all liv ein.

And I say this as someone who has loved squad based tactics since the JA2 and Silent Storm days. I am WELL used to “okay, add about 30% to the metacritic score for anything in that genre” and the like.

Grubb has no ill will toward his colleagues (…) You get short snark because it fits better in a character limit.

Which gets back to what is really “the problem”. It is about building his brand by “lightly ribbing” his colleagues. His colleagues who are perpetually days away from layoffs and who are constantly attacked by the asmongolds of the world who are using the exact same arguments and are glad to say “See, this person gets it. Why can’t they?”.

Its about worker solidarity even amongst competition. It is why so many of his colleagues will make it a point to preface even the skeets with “I get that this probably came from on high but” or would have just removed the “snark” entirely and said something like

I think the complaints about being underleveled and not having the right gear, mostly come from games like these being streamlined to the point where they usually have no friction. The obstacles in this game are the main reason I love it.

@ampersandrew · 7 days ago

Well, yours is certainly one perspective that I don’t share. I’m sorry his post wasn’t polite enough for you, but I promise he is and will continue to be friends with all of these people afterward; it’s a small industry and only getting smaller.

While several reviews are knocking the game for things that he and I find not only to be non problems but in fact solutions, I found value in him sharing that perspective coupled with a negative review detailing the opposite, which is why I put it here.

Avowed | Review Thread

Avowed | Review Thread

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