Your opinion: What kind of solid opinions can you make without playing the game?

[Elijin]

Technical stuff, you don't need to play a game to know how buggy it is or if it has frame rate issues

I disagree with this the most. People encountering bugs are very vocal, which can skewer the perception how common the bugs actually are. And googling for bugs will show you....bugs compilations. The only way to get a feel for how buggy a game actually is, is to play it.

Even then it can be jarring how off bugs are. I have a group of friends who play Vermintide 2. 6 of the 7 have never had crash or significant bug. The 7th cannot could not complete a match without it disconnecting from the host during the loot screen due to an undefined error.

One of those people would have said the game was an unplayable mess. The others would say its technically very stable.

 

[BrawlMan]

If any of you like fighting games, I'd like to submit Marvel Vs Capcom infinite.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is still remembered as probably the God Father of Hyper-Fighting Fighting Games. It wasn't the first, but it was the most refined.

It had 56 Playable characters, with in the original arcade game, you only started with 24. The rest had to be unlocked on that cabinet.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 had 36 playable characters from the start, with two downloadable. It received an upgrade to Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom which added 12 new characters, bringing the total to 48.

Captain America, Dr Doom, Hulk, Iron Man, Sentinel, Spiderman, Wolverine, Akuma, Chun-Li, Jill Valentine, Ryu, and Strider Hiryu. 12 characters shared between the two games. That means you need to relearn the majority of the cast. That means the developers put effort in retooling and creating a new move list for each of those characters. A graphics update from drawn 2-d sprites to 3-d computer modeled figures. Capcom made a labor of love.

Now, we go to Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. It has an initial character roster of 30. From that original 30, Captain Marvel, Gamora, Thanos, Ultron, Jedah , and Mega Man X were new characters. Just Six new characters. And if you know anything about the series, you know that 4 of the new characters happened to come from Marvel, and just two from Capcom.

To compound that, Black Panther, Black Widow, Monster Hunter, Sigma, Venom, and Winter Soldier were released as DLC. Venom already being in the series before, so that makes for five new characters. And again, the majority of the characters are from the Marvel universe, and look at that, all in MCU movies...

From Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, we had 24 new characters to learn. With only two dlc characters before the Ultimate Update bringing the number to 26. On the case of Marvel vs Capcom Infinte, we had Six characters to learn. With the update bringing it up to 11 (Venom is largely unchanged and was already in the series).

And I haven't gotten into the graphics downgrade into upgrade. You might have heard of the Chun Li's face [https://cdn.segmentnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/marvel-vs-capcom.jpg] debacle. The news got so bad and the buzz around the game was so absurd that capcom rushed to try to update it's graphics. And to be fair, they salvaged what they could [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fBw1-Kn48&].

Now, here's the thing. From all reports, it's a very tight and fun game to play. But I keep looking at this game feeling like I already played it. I have Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. I wanted to wait to see what else they would bring out. What they did was underwhelming. I felt like Capcom wasn't truly committed to this game... And guess what? As of typing this, They aren't.

Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite will not be at Evo. That's not Capcom's choice. But it won't be at Capcom's Cup, their own event. So that's telling. We haven't heard anything about future dlcs. We've heard nothing.

You can make solid opinions without playing the game. You can see how much a company is committed to giving you a quality product by seeing how much of the product is new, and how much is recycled. You can see how much the company is willing to back it, or to rip it apart to bleed your wallet for the dlc money. You can see if they don't even care to model their characters well. And if none of that adds together for a pleasant experience... walk away and find greener pastures.

It's why I refuse to touch Infinite, because of its bad practices. I blame both Marvel and Capcom, because it's obvious that the former held big influence on who appears and doesn't. No X-Men characters for you, cuz we don't want Fox getting free publicity! And then there's Capcom's lazy reuse of assets. They were always a problem before in MVC2, but it reached a new low Infinite. Giving characters that looked comic book or cartoonish a more "realistic" look is an ugly style choice and boring. Fuck both Capcom and Marvel! You're both better than that!

I've found let's plays good for games I either don't want to replay or play at all, but I'm interested in checking out the story and such.

I watched LP's for Drakengard, Nier and Final Fantasy XIII because I've heard the gameplay is pretty terrible. Just watching I can see there's some truth to that and in the case of FFXIII, it turns out there wasn't much in the way of story or characters there either. Just 10 hours of pretty graphics.

If you're looking strictly for gameplay in a Yoko Taro title, either play Drakengard 3 or Nier: Automata. More so the second option.

 

[sXeth]

You can never definitively say whether or not the game is fun or feels satisfying to play.

Most of the rest of it? Yeah, with a decent spectrum of reviews or LPS or whatever, you can pretymuch comment on. You do need that spectrum though. One clickbaity youtuber yammering about something, a review or two of highly rushed glance-bys to get their review up for the launch day clicks, actual videos editing montages of bugs with no indication of frequencym, and so on dont constitute an informed take.

But someone who has zero previous gaming experience won't be able to form an informed take either on his own. Without a reference framework (aka, games previously played), he won't be able to tell anything well founded and explained beyond if he liked it or not, because he knows no better.

Well, thats adding a qualifier not in your original post. To a gaming discussion forum, talking about people participating in said discussions. Which doesn't tend to include a lot of people with zero previous gaming experience.

Youd still eventually get a framework of visual appeal or narratives, but stuff like the quality of interface design or control schemes and level design would probably fly overhead.

 

[CaitSeith]

Everybody knows what they like and don't like, though sometimes a game will surprise you (or disappoint you).
Now consider the following: would you trust a review of a person who hasn't played the game they're criticizing?

Just a copule of caveats before I answer that:

First of all, I consider giving to reviewers the same benefit of doubt as to any gamer with an opinion: I assume they have played the game, until they admit the contrary.

Second, not all opinions are reviews; even if it's made by a reviewer. They bring topics to the conversation, but they don't evaluate the game.

That being said... no. I don't trust reviews from gamers or reviewers that haven't played the game.

OT: So, what if it's a genre you have never tried; but everyone you know says it sucks (and only losers play it). Will you claim the game sucks before you try it?

 

[Dalisclock]

If you're looking strictly for gameplay in a Yoko Taro title, either play Drakengard 3 or Nier: Automata. More so the second option.

I'm actually working through Nier: Automata right now(though I've seen the really wierd D ending for Draknegard 3 purely by accident).


I did the LPs for background info, but so far it doesn't look like it really matters. Nier Automata seems to more or less be it's own thing, with maybe a reference or two to the previous game.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

You can tell "oh its going to be [insert type of game here] and I don't like that sort of game". Which is generally pretty important

 

[dscross]

I don't feel like you are qualified to talk about it with any real wisdom without experiencing it how it was meant to be experienced. In other words, the way you take in the information, make decisions and feel about the different aspects of the game (including music etc) is different playing it than simply watching.

Therefore, you do not have the correct frame of reference if you haven't played it and you don't really have the right to review it.

 

[CaitSeith]

You can never definitively say whether or not the game is fun or feels satisfying to play.

Most of the rest of it? Yeah, with a decent spectrum of reviews or LPS or whatever, you can pretymuch comment on. You do need that spectrum though. One clickbaity youtuber yammering about something, a review or two of highly rushed glance-bys to get their review up for the launch day clicks, actual videos editing montages of bugs with no indication of frequencym, and so on dont constitute an informed take.

But someone who has zero previous gaming experience won't be able to form an informed take either on his own. Without a reference framework (aka, games previously played), he won't be able to tell anything well founded and explained beyond if he liked it or not, because he knows no better.

Well, thats adding a qualifier not in your original post.

I know. That's how I reply in "Your opinion" threads. I usually write the OP with a more neutral argument that my usual ones, and try to play devil's advocate in the replies with both sides.

To a gaming discussion forum, talking about people participating in said discussions. Which doesn't tend to include a lot of people with zero previous gaming experience.

Youd still eventually get a framework of visual appeal or narratives, but stuff like the quality of interface design or control schemes and level design would probably fly overhead.

But what if I restrict myself to one genre of subgenre (like playing nothing but multiplayer military shooters). Probably my opinion would be that the best shooters don't need a good single-player campaign.

 

[sXeth]

To a gaming discussion forum, talking about people participating in said discussions. Which doesn't tend to include a lot of people with zero previous gaming experience.

Youd still eventually get a framework of visual appeal or narratives, but stuff like the quality of interface design or control schemes and level design would probably fly overhead.

But what if I restrict myself to one genre of subgenre (like playing nothing but multiplayer military shooters). Probably my opinion would be that the best shooters don't need a good single-player campaign.[/quote]

Its a valid opinion. Though also flawed, because you're taking an impression of a subgenre and stapling it to much broader. Like saying you hate blue paint in houses when you've only seen pastel, or the Fantasy discussion thread otherwise here, or people who despise country music because they're only aware of the Nashville-pop subgenre that dominates radio play.

So yeah, lack of medium awareness will impair your ability to comment on it with accuracy, but mainly only if you over-broaden your critiques.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Even games that don't really have a feel to the gameplay like turn-based systems akin to XCOM or Divinity. XCOM is literally just DnD combat (move action, attack action) but it can still be done poorly even if you like that type of system going in.

Not true; D&D combat let you attack and then move (and eventually came to have swift, immediate, and free actions, too). I'm not being pedantic here; the tactical limitations Solomon and his team imposed funneled you down a much narrower track than Gollop's efforts did. XCOM plays like "Baby's First Tactics Game" in comparison with its older siblings, and the effects show; if you consider turn-based systems as not having their own feel, do you not see a real difference between XCOM and X-Com, or either of them and Fallout, or Jagged Alliance, or even Worms?

I know the differences but you can basically explain XCOM as DnD with guns and aliens and the person will understand the combat system rather well. Something like Divinity with action points instead of set actions allows more flexibility but is relatively similar as well. Turn-based systems don't have that sorta visceral feel like a shooter or melee combat system with stuff like i-frames and animation lengths and cancels along with a bunch of other little things making combat feel right. You can explain a turn-based system to someone and they'll understand how it plays. Of course, other stuff like balance will most likely take playing 1st hand.

 

[SupahEwok]

If you've got enough experience, you need very little in order to make a "good enough" judgement call. I've been playing games for almost 20 years. RPG's of various flavors are probably the majority of that. I can look at a Steam page, see some screenshots to get an idea of the interface and perspective, watched half a minute of gameplay to see the system in motion, see the Metacritic score from critics and fans as the first gauge in public opinion, see the number of Steam reviews to see how popular the game is...

And in about 2 minutes I can make a judgement on how smooth the game runs, how likely it is that it has technical problems, whether its slanted to critical darling or to cult favorite, and I can see if it follows or evolves conventions of other games I've enjoyed. And I think there's only been maybe one or two occasions when word of mouth has convinced me to give a game I'd previously passed up a chance.

I don't ever really get disappointed by game purchases anymore. Except for favorite series that undergo a change in direction, like Fire Emblem which broke my heart. Ace Attorney might be too, Dual Destinies was a bit of a disappointment, but not enough to give the series one more chance... when I can get it for less than the release price.

 

[Drathnoxis]

ME3? What timing, I just finished reading Shamus Young's novel length retrospective on the Mass Effect Series. I think I have a fairly good idea about the pitfalls the story fell into immediately at the start of Mass Effect 2. And I'm pretty sure I would have absolutely loathed the sequels if I had liked ME1 enough to play them.

 

[CaitSeith]

ME3? What timing, I just finished reading Shamus Young's novel length retrospective on the Mass Effect Series. I think I have a fairly good idea about the pitfalls the story fell into immediately at the start of Mass Effect 2. And I'm pretty sure I would have absolutely loathed the sequels if I had liked ME1 enough to play them.

Damn, I need to read that! Personally I liked the three of them; I just liked them for different reasons.

One ME I don't dare to comment about is Andromeda, because outside the glitches and bad facial animation, I haven't even watched any of it at all.

 

[sXeth]

ME3? What timing, I just finished reading Shamus Young's novel length retrospective on the Mass Effect Series. I think I have a fairly good idea about the pitfalls the story fell into immediately at the start of Mass Effect 2. And I'm pretty sure I would have absolutely loathed the sequels if I had liked ME1 enough to play them.

Damn, I need to read that! Personally I liked the three of them; I just liked them for different reasons.

One ME I don't dare to comment about is Andromeda, because outside the glitches and bad facial animation, I haven't even watched any of it at all.

Its the Ubisoft game. Except the radio towers (or whatever they were called) don't even have the courtesy of being different climbing puzzles. Just blonking through planet by planet checking off waypoints until you can do the big terraformy thing so you control the region.

I say that not as necessarily a critic of the formula (Dying Light and Horizon ZD were both on my top lists of recent years, despite it), but can't say Mass Effects just barely passable third person shooter gameplay and non-existent level design sensibilities really lends any meat to doing the checklist either.

That and the main narrative goes nowhere into a cliffhangar (for DLC that got cancelled seemingly), and the world building is pretty lackluster. And the colonists stranded far from home angle goes out the window pretty quickly.