Zero Punctuation: Quantum Conundrum

[praetor_alpha]

Finally! Somebody else on this planet who absolutely hates motion blur in video games. It's always the first thing I turn off in graphics.

Here here! Motion blur sucks!

Me three!

And don't you get me started on depth of field. I have a nice video card and I want to render things clearly. If I wanted to blur things up, I'd turn the resolution down or take off my glasses. It doesn't matter how many uber res textures a 2+ GB video card can hold if it all gets blurred to hell before it gets to my monitor.

 

[General Vagueness]

The only thing I disagree:

Platforming in First Person is not hard. At all. It is as easy as everything else. But maybe this is just my expirience of 12y PC gaming talking.

Yeah, I suspect Yahtzee's brain isn't geared for 3D platforming, or he doesn't care enough to get that good, since he's made the complaint before. There are various tricks you can do in the Portal games that involve it and it comes up sometimes in multiplayer in some FPSs, particularly at high levels of play, and a lot of them have similar tricks that can be done that require 3D platforming or are made easier by it. I pretty much agree about not showing your character's feet, but that shouldn't be the case regardless, and IDK about you guys but I don't look at my feet when I'm walking, and I don't do it in games either (except once in a while when I'm attempting aforementioned tricks).

On the game: I like it quite a lot and several things were already patched (settings and such).

I'd say someone reviewing PC games in this day and age should wait a week to 10 days for any early, important patches.

Finally! Someone not afraid to call out elitists. Seriously. I like hanging around P.C. forums and tech forums to nerd out over the latest hardware, but the things like wot Mr Croshaw describes in this video really pisses me off.

He already did at least two years ago when he mentioned "dirty console peasants and the glorious PC gaming master race".

 

[Roman Monaghan]

Boy it didn't take this thread long to devolve into a flame war over consoles vs PC's did it? In an effort to be satirical but will only end up succeeding in fanning the flames even more, I'm going to point out that the greatest PC game ever made (Recettear: an Item Shop's Tale) could probably be run on a ten year old machine. I'd also like to point the kind of people who agree with the person Yahtzee was insulting at the end of this video to one of the Jimquisition episodes over yonder. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/4131-The-Beautiful-Irony-of-PC-Gaming]

 

[SimpleReally]

When I saw the title I knew the very first complaint was going to be the jumping sections

 

[Roman Monaghan]

Actually you know what, screw it, I'm throwing my two cents in.

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" PC game: Fuck around with the ini. files for an hour until it runs perfectly, alt tabbing occasionally to browse the forums to see if other people have been having the same problems as you and know how to fix it. This tactics as best supported by: the majority of PC gamers (going by what the consensus in this very topic seems to be, at least, that the guy Yahtzee talked about at the end was right and he was a douche for calling his douchebaggery out for what it was.)

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" console game: Put the disc into the console. Play it. As supported by: common fucking sense.



I like most of the games I have on my trusty laptop here, and I'm usually willing to jump through the hoops to get em working, but the very fact I'd need to do that to play a video game is kinda... I dunno, I'd say it speaks for itself, but apparently most "hardcore" PC gamers don't agree with me. Maybe one of them will be able to explain to me why, even though I paid ten bucks for a game (Magicka) it's still my fault for wasting money by expecting a product they were selling to work on my machine. And also the company isn't a bunch of assholes for focusing more on DLC then making sure their game can be played on the majority of possible PCs out there. Seriously, I'd love to see someone out there explain to me how that's not a downside to the whole PC vs Console thing, that the mere act of buying a game and expecting it to fucking work is only a garateed thing for one side of this debate.

 

[MB202]

lol, I like the transition between Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor to Quantum Conundrum! XD It's almost like he was going to give the first game a full review, then switched at the last minute to something else.

Wait, the scientist is voiced by John de Lancie? As in... DISCORD FROM MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? I MUST GET THIS GA- Oh wait, first-person platforming? I'll pass.

The week after reviewing a game voiced primarily by Twilight Sparkle, incidentally.

Tara Strong's in everything, not just Friendship is Magic or Lollipop Chainsaw. Although I did leave a Facebook comment saying "Tara Strong, FTW!" Besides, I already knew she was in this game so I didn't feel like commenting on it in the forum.

I've never seen Star Trek: The Next Generation, so his role as Discord is how I know John de Lancie, so I decided to comment on THAT in the forum, since I thought people will instinctively think of Q and, well, I wanted to see if anyone else would think as I did.

 

[SFR]

I've never had problems with first person platforming. In fact, I sometimes find it a lot easier because there's really no distance issues you have to deal with. It's easier to tell how far away something is. In Yatzee's case, I can't imagine having a slow computer would help the platforming process. Low FPS makes almost doing anything precise impossible. Or at the very least it feels very sluggish. For this reason, I don't really think his "review" gives a clear picture of the actual game's quality. It sucks there are no graphic settings, but I'm guessing almost every complaint he had (null the samey looking environments) would have at least been minimized considerably if he played it on a better computer... or looked up how to edit those ini files. Not that that ****'s not a ****. He is a ****.

 

[ZeoAssassin]

When I saw the title I knew the very first complaint was going to be the jumping sections

yeah me too. I must be a weirdo or something cause i found the 1rst person platforming pretty enjoyable. I don't mind it at all so long as its done well like here.

Also...as much as a enjoy portal, i find that QC uses its handheld science device "better" than the portal gun...at least when portal 2 hit. Like...in portal2 the portals started to feel secondary to the shit you were having go through them like jelly, laser, etc. While in QC the IDS device feels like THE device that drives the puzzles which changes the nature of how anything else in a given room acts.

This IS NOT to say one is better then the other..just an observation about the limits of portals and the limits of different dimensions being a bit different.

 

[Pinkamena]

I fucking lol'd. This review was bloody amazing! Love it.

 

[Racecarlock]

When yahtzee said he didn't like it I nearly got lockjaw. I guess I'm avoiding this game, then. It looked like the exact thing he would like, too. Then again, yahtzee is the toughest critic in the world, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I was not expecting him to hate it though. I mean, wow. The gameplay videos looked so good too.

And this is what's wrong with Yahtzee's fanboys. All it takes is for him to express his disapproval towards a game and every facet of YOUR opinion goes out the window. You're doing the exact thing he blasted against in the Mailbox Showdown. You wait for a simple "Yay" or "Nay" and toss out every bit of free will you have if it conflicts with your ideas.

Christ guys I don't actually have the game and I haven't played it yet. And don't tell me how intelligent I am until you've had a debate with me.

 

[Ledan]

If you have ever suffered from vertigo, this game will probably bring that forth due to the first person perspective and the crazy shit you have to do. If I was actually that boy, I can honestly say that I would have said "Fuck this. Im going home". Cause I did several times...

 

[Ledan]

When yahtzee said he didn't like it I nearly got lockjaw. I guess I'm avoiding this game, then. It looked like the exact thing he would like, too. Then again, yahtzee is the toughest critic in the world, so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. I was not expecting him to hate it though. I mean, wow. The gameplay videos looked so good too.

And this is what's wrong with Yahtzee's fanboys. All it takes is for him to express his disapproval towards a game and every facet of YOUR opinion goes out the window. You're doing the exact thing he blasted against in the Mailbox Showdown. You wait for a simple "Yay" or "Nay" and toss out every bit of free will you have if it conflicts with your ideas.

Christ guys I don't actually have the game and I haven't played it yet. And don't tell me how intelligent I am until you've had a debate with me.

2 cents from someone who likes the game and is a Yahtzee fan: He gets everything that is wrong with the game. Like he always does.
Still a great game, especially at that price. It's a fun and colorful puzzle platformer, that has a few faults.
He doesn't do reviews, he critiques games. Don't take this as a review of a game, more as a warning of what could put you of it.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

awesome review love it.

 

[Di-Dorval]

Meh the dude post wasnt that bad.

It's true that if your pc can't run this game properly then it most be quite shitty for a primary gaming machine...

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

lol, I like the transition between Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor to Quantum Conundrum! XD It's almost like he was going to give the first game a full review, then switched at the last minute to something else.

Wait, the scientist is voiced by John de Lancie? As in... DISCORD FROM MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? I MUST GET THIS GA- Oh wait, first-person platforming? I'll pass.

Ah nertz...ninja'd. I was going to comment that since we had a game where not normal things can happen and there's a character voiced by DeLancie...well, you get the idea.

Too bad that game has issues. It sounds like a sound concept and, best of all, a NEW idea!

 

[Vulpis]

It always bugged me that this was in a guy's house.

I mean, this guy LIVES in a house that can't be navigated without using an alternate dimension to place a safe on a button. Which brings me nicely to point 2....how many god damn safes does one man need?

At least portal was a deliberate rat in a maze scenario.

And then there are the gameplay goofs like the pin precision jumps. I'd also say its a lot less intuitive than portal was. I never had to think WHAT to do in portal, just how. QC had me very confused as to what the aim was in several places.

Well it *is* stated pretty early on in the story that there's malfunctioning matter replicators involved (and I seem to recall a 'Can't have too many coffee tables!' line, as well). Why the complex locks and switches are needed just to get around the house--now *there's* a valid question, which isn't answered by the 'things are broken' excuse.

One thing that does bug me about Yahtzee and his forum-buddy there is that I have a pretty crappy system as far as modern gaming systems go (only dual-core, and a GeForce 9800 GTX+ video card, which is pretty much bottom of the line for 'modern' games), and I had little or no problem with it. Though the way he describes the power lines running--it makes me wonder if it actually *was* a system issue, or if he was running into problems with the Slow-Mo dimension, as there were puzzles *based* around the idea of triggering the switch and racing to the door before the power got there, because it didn't stay open very long.

As far as the platforming...I have mixed agreement there. Yeah, the smaller objects were a pain in the tail (though I think it was even more of a problem controlling them once you got on them, particularly for the various 'flying' routines where you had to feather the reverse-grav on and off), but...not especially impossible.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Oh dear, no graphic settings? No sale. I made this mistake with Magicka a year or so ago, never again.

 

[Vulpis]

Actually you know what, screw it, I'm throwing my two cents in.

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" PC game: Fuck around with the ini. files for an hour until it runs perfectly, alt tabbing occasionally to browse the forums to see if other people have been having the same problems as you and know how to fix it. This tactics as best supported by: the majority of PC gamers (going by what the consensus in this very topic seems to be, at least, that the guy Yahtzee talked about at the end was right and he was a douche for calling his douchebaggery out for what it was.)

How to best enjoy a "hardcore" console game: Put the disc into the console. Play it. As supported by: common fucking sense.

Not really. Try 'Put the disc into the console. Wait for it to install to the hard drive. Wait for it to call home, see if there are patches, and install *those*, while staring at ads for Facebook and social networking sites since for some reason the console won't let you do too much else while letting the game patch in the background, as opposed to how it updates on a PC. Fix dinner and get some sleep while waiting for the patches to finish due to the network being slower than two tin cans and a string. Play the game, and try to rememeber why you wanted to play this in the first place.' Mind you, this is PSN--XBL may provide better results.

I *really* miss the 'Put the disc in and play' days...which is why console-wise I stick with my PS2 and am reluctant to borrow my brother's PS3. :-/