Poll: Battlefield V open beta and Spooderman reviews

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Hello, wildly colourful and mildly concerning humans...anyone interested in trying out Battlefield V on either PC, PS4 or the Xbonks can download the open multiplayer beta right now, though it starts on the 6th for anybody who isn't foolish rich fanatic veritably eager enough to pre-order or subscribe to...EA...world? Otherwise it's the 4th. I tried to see if they'd notice my inferior status and yup, definitely the 6th for muggins here.

Some link about it: https://www.battlefield.com/news/battlefield-5-open-beta-details-dates-and-early-access

Any added impressions are always appreciated!


Annnd Spiderman has produced reviews;

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-09-04-marvels-spider-man-review

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/marvels-spider-man (88% currently)


Take them however you will. I cannot get the game on release personally for reasons, but have seen a lot of positive reputation around insomniac games and the few I have played of theirs were pretty damn good. Onions on this are also appreciated!

Edit: Ok, no idea why this decided to become a poll, I clicked on no such thing! Sorry!

Edit 2: The Edittening: Link to Battlefield V's technical details on balance and other stuff I couldn't care less about but know there are those that do, so this is for yoooouuu; https://wccftech.com/dice-battlefield-v-open-beta-changes/

 

[stroopwafel]

Spooderman looks terrific. Can't wait to play that game friday!

 

[CriticalGaming]

I plan to avoid Battlefield V like I do every FPS, because I hate them and find them incredibly boring.

Spider-man I was very much on the fence about. I'm not a Spider-man "fan" though I enjoy him in passing, but the reviews and the way the game looks definitely has me interested.

I'll pick it up probably later in the year or early next year because today is Dragon Quest 11 day and that is going to be my next two weeks, followed by Tomb Raider 3, then back to DQ11. So I'm busy for September thanks.

 

[Catfood220]

Well my game for September will be Valkyria Chronicles 4, the demo has convinced me that its going to be worth the money. I have said to my brother, get me either Spider-Man or Tomb Raider 3 for my birthday and the other for Christmas. I haven't the time or money to buy them all, so he can get me those and I'll get RDR 2 in October.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

What's the point of game reviews when people who haven't even played the game can predict the scores? I was personally guessing 88, which Spiderman is at 87 at the time of this post.

 

[stroopwafel]

What's the point of game reviews when people who haven't even played the game can predict the scores? I was personally guessing 88, which Spiderman is at 87 at the time of this post.

That's not really a hard guess. The handful of AAA games that get released are either really good or atleast good. This is a huge game with a huge budget and a huge development cycle backed by Sony, did you honestly expect it to be garbage?

Games used to be all over the place in terms of quality, and while that is still the case for games in the lower budget on the high-end game development is so professional that titles ar atleast decent.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

What's the point of game reviews when people who haven't even played the game can predict the scores? I was personally guessing 88, which Spiderman is at 87 at the time of this post.

That's not really a hard guess. The handful of AAA games that get released are either really good or atleast good. This is a huge game with a huge budget and a huge development cycle backed by Sony, did you honestly expect it to be garbage?

Games used to be all over the place in terms of quality, and while that is still the case for games in the lower budget on the high-end game development is so professional that titles ar atleast decent.

I've rated several AAA games as bad to average games. It's the mid-tier devs that have been making the 7+/10 games during this generation IMO. I'd give Uncharted 4 a 4/10 and God of War a 5/10. Bad game design is bad game design no matter how much you polish it up or how good looking the game is. AAA games have worse game design the most lower budget games because of "kitchen sink" design where every AAA game needs an open world, a skill tree, a loot system, a crafting system. Each element of a game should be there only to support that singular game's core but many AAA games have elements that only dilute the core game. Why did God of War need RPG elements and a loot system? Why did Uncharted go semi-open world when it's at its best during set-pieces and well-designed linear areas? Why did Mirror's Edge go open world? Why did like every game with melee combat copy Arkham combat? It's all because "hey, that game with XYZ in it sold well so if we put XYZ in our game, it'll sell well too." The games that really standout and resonate most with players are games that are built in a singular sense with game elements only there to serve its core.

Anyway, the fact you can predict a game score by "professional" critics without even playing it exemplifies the shitshow that is game journalism. Games can be so much better in both design and writing that these standard scores of 80+ are ridiculous.

Just from Jim Sterling's impressions, Spiderman has quite a bit of copy-pasted content including even radio towers. I understand just having cliche open world side content so the player can fight some thugs when they want but you can have world fitting design to accomplish that as well. The city can have like 6 districts and you'll come across bad areas with respawning enemies (as the district crime leader hires more thugs every time Spidey dispatches them) and you gotta investigate to get rid of the leader to clean the district of crime for good. Which you can have Spidey be able to do via his day job of taking pictures and actually getting proof of the top level guys getting their hands dirty. Taking down each one stops the enemies respawning in that district. That accomplishes allowing the player to fight thugs in the open world basically whenever in a thematically logical manner without putting in lame side activities that they've done a million times in before in 10s of other games. If the devs wanted to get really fancy and spend the extra time, they could have each of those leaders being a Spiderman villain like Mysterio and it leads into a boss fight for each villain. And, that's just what I thought of in like 5 minutes. Surely professional developers should be able to design stuff better than I could and be held to higher standards to get 8+/10s.

And, I'm picking up Spiderman Friday and think the game will be a lot of fun (as it looks like Insomniac nailed the Spidey gameplay) but it's doubtful that it'll be a freaking 87/100 game.

 

[stroopwafel]

Anyway, the fact you can predict a game score by "professional" critics without even playing it exemplifies the shitshow that is game journalism. Games can be so much better in both design and writing that these standard scores of 80+ are ridiculous.

Unoriginal game design doesn't make a game 'bad' just predictable in it's creative decisions, which can be explained by having to meet high sales expectations. It's the same with superhero blockbusters, Hollywood knows what the audience wants. Sure, movie buffs might complain all those movies are shallow and the same(with Logan being lauded as some kind of Macbeth for the genre) the general public obviously thinks otherwise.

A well made AAA game can still be a lot of fun but at this point you kind of know what to expect. Even when not breaking new ground in terms of gameplay or story that itself doesn't have to deter from a game's quality. I remember the days of LJN when many games were truly shite and often broken to the point of unplayable without the possibility for a patch. If you compare the standard for game development nowadays(with games that are infinitely more complex) it is like night and day.

If the devs wanted to get really fancy and spend the extra time, they could have each of those leaders being a Spiderman villain like Mysterio and it leads into a boss fight for each villain. And, that's just what I thought of in like 5 minutes. Surely professional developers should be able to design stuff better than I could and be held to higher standards to get 8+/10s.

I disagree, they did that with Arkham Knight and it didn't really work. Like for example you have these bank robber side missions and they shoved Two-Face into them as the leader and it just made the character look ridiculous and 'robbed' him of his entire personality by just making him the leader of the robberies for no real reason. Same for Penguin and pretty much any other side villain in that game. Better to save these characters for some other time when atleast they have some time in the spotlight.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Anyway, the fact you can predict a game score by "professional" critics without even playing it exemplifies the shitshow that is game journalism. Games can be so much better in both design and writing that these standard scores of 80+ are ridiculous.

Unoriginal game design doesn't make a game 'bad' just predictable in it's creative decisions, which can be explained by having to meet high sales expectations. It's the same with superhero blockbusters, Hollywood knows what the audience wants. Sure, movie buffs might complain all those movies are shallow and the same(with Logan being lauded as some kind of Macbeth for the genre) the general public obviously thinks otherwise.

A well made AAA game can still be a lot of fun but at this point you kind of know what to expect. Even when not breaking new ground in terms of gameplay or story that itself doesn't have to deter from a game's quality. I remember the days of LJN when many games were truly shite and often broken to the point of unplayable without the possibility for a patch. If you compare the standard for game development nowadays(with games that are infinitely more complex) it is like night and day.

If the devs wanted to get really fancy and spend the extra time, they could have each of those leaders being a Spiderman villain like Mysterio and it leads into a boss fight for each villain. And, that's just what I thought of in like 5 minutes. Surely professional developers should be able to design stuff better than I could and be held to higher standards to get 8+/10s.

I disagree, they did that with Arkham Knight and it didn't really work. Like for example you have these bank robber side missions and they shoved Two-Face into them as the leader and it just made the character look ridiculous and 'robbed' him of his entire personality by just making him the leader of the robberies for no real reason. Same for Penguin and pretty much any other side villain in that game. Better to save these characters for some other time when atleast they have some time in the spotlight.

It's bad game design if the said element is indeed bad or it doesn't help enhance the core game. Arkham combat worked for the Batman games because probably about a third of those games is melee combat so you don't need combat to be as in-depth as a full-on character action game combat system, but when you do nothing but fight Orcs for hours on end in Middle-earth with nothing breaking it up, the combat becomes super repetitive due to Arkham combat not having enough depth. Thus, Arkham combat for the right game is good game design but for another game it can be bad game design. Basically, you can't just pull stuff from other popular games or even genre norms and assume it will work for your game.

An 87/100 as the average score is ridiculously high for ANY game. Not only does Spiderman have to be an 8+/10 as a game (on design, gameplay, graphics, AI, etc.), it also has to be basically an 8+/10 movie with regards to writing (characters and story) on par with a movie that would be rated 8+/10. That is one hell of a tall order. Just looking at the Phase-3 Marvel movies on RottenTomatoes, only one of them has an average review score of 8+/10, which is Black Panther. It's not easy to make one thing great (8+/10) yet alone make 2 great things in one package AND have just about every critic agree that you made something great to actually get your average score up to 80+ because you need near consensus praise for that to happen. Just having the vast majority like something is quite a feat let alone the majority agreeing it was great.

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I wasn't saying to do it like Arkham Knight. Firstly, I said to have some pockets/areas/buildings in each district that would have thugs to fight so the player can fight at their leisure outside of official story missions. That's exactly why the game has tons of enemy bases to takeover so the player can fight in the open world outside of structured missions but it feels horribly inorganic and just fulfilling a checklist. Then you can have Spidey investigate (utilizing his photography) to find the cause of the problem leading to taking down that district's crime boss. Even though that's like 80% exactly like taking out enemy bases, it feels organic and natural to the world. Like how in Arkham City, you just did some extra fighting just cuz you felt like it, you didn't do it just to clear something off a checklist like clearing 20 militia checkpoints in Arkham Knight. Have faith the player can find their own fun, make their own objectives to at least some degree. Secondly, I didn't say the crime bosses have to be Spidey villains but could be if the devs had the time and could make real boss fights out of it, which Arkham Knight totally didn't do. IIRC, you just took down Two-Face like any other thug when he showed up at the final bank robbery. Even Arkham City did a Two-Face mission with Catwoman more elaborately than Arkham Knight.