Topic: The PlayStation Fan Thread

Oh God, what have I done...

Just purchased Dear Esther: Landmark Edition and Virginia, the latter of which is getting outstanding reviews!

I love these kind of interactive experiences, or 'walking simulators' as they are somewhat unfairly called.

@Peek-a-boo Yup, and only because of the fact that World of Final Fantasy won't be riddled with DLC since day-one. Although they do sell the Japanese audio as exclusive DLC for their special editions that can only be ordered from their own site. Man, just looking this stuff up makes me sad; it's getting absolutely ridiculous.. You know what, I've changed my mind, I'll wait for the inevitable complete edition of that game as well. I don't even dare to look up what's exclusive to DLC in Dragon Quest Builders..

@Octane I wonder if this is why Square seems reluctant to support Nintendo consoles much in terms of multiplatform games.

@Grumblevolcano How? I think that's just because Sony managed to get the better deals in the past and that currently the Wii U (or the old Wii) was really capable of running their games. I mean, we got Deus Ex on the Wii U, that was a multiplat game. I don't think the Wii U can handle FFXV, so I think it's mostly low sales and hardware limitations that prevented SE support on Nintendo systems.

@Octane I'm talking more about the DLC strategies. Maybe Nintendo didn't feel comfortable allowing certain DLC strategies be used on their systems. The first time a Nintendo console has used certain DLC strategies has been by Nintendo games so like the first time of a season pass type system was MK8 followed by Hyrule Warriors.

@Grumblevolcano Square Enix publishes its own games. They can do whatever they want on a Nintendo platform I think, as long as they have publishing rights at least. Still, they could've published the base game, but they didn't even do that, so I don't think that it was Ninty having issues with DLC.

@Octane Surely Nintendo could just block it?

@Grumblevolcano They almost certainly won't do that after one Wii U.

@Grumblevolcano Sure, but why would you do that?

I am not sure if anything this year will topple the experience I have just had with Virginia.

I spent a shy under two hours playing this - one session earlier this morning and the other this afternoon - and whilst I can understand how some folks will likely say 'it isn't a proper game', it is however an experience like no other.

You feel like you are watching a David Lynch detective noir film, where you are the 'audience' and are able to occasionally interact and walk around within this story that's cleverly being played out. The twist in the tale is both shocking and brilliant too.

I couldn't help but see a gulf between reviews; lots and lots of positive ones, with a couple of very negative ones and sadly, those negative ones are written by people who detest 'walking simulators' and constantly pursue the whole 'when is a game a game?' narrative.

You can criticise a game for not setting out what it WANTS to be, but I believe it is genuinely insulting to the developer to give the experience a very low mark/score for being something that the reviewer openly dislikes before they even pick the controller up.

This is my pet hate with reviewers these days.

I don't particularly like FPS outside of DOOM, BioShock and TimeSplitters 2, but I would never give a FPS a low score because I don't enjoy playing them. In fact, I would choose to give the review to somebody who does!

So yeah... Virginia is a real gem, and if you wish to experience something special and unique, this should be your next game. Here's the website for those of whom may well be interested: - http://variablestate.com/projects/virginia

@Peek-a-boo Agreed. In general, a game should be reviewed according to how well it performs within its given genre.

With that said, the demo for Virginia was the least fun I've had with a game in memory, so I'll be avoiding this like the plague. Glad you liked it, though.

I think all games are games, especially if they have cutscenes, and dislike most walking simulators. Especially historical fictions ones, bleach!

I do not know what this Virginia is, but it sounds disappointing.

On a side note, I've been having a pretty good track record with Destructoid for a while now. Their reviews aren't always so well written, but at the very least, we always seem to be on the same wavelength, which is a good a very sign. Too bad their layout is terrible, and they don't seem to be very good for reporting news. I already have to put up with that here, so I don't think I'll be using it as a consistent source or anything. However, they will continue to be the first one I look for whenever I go on Metacritics.

I often find that my own ability to judge a trailer + knowledge of the developer and publisher is enough to accurately judge ~95% of the games before release. At least, to have a good idea whether it'll be any good or whether I'll like it or not. If I'm on the fence, I'll resort to reviews.

@Octane I do that a lot, too, but I still like reading reviews if I can get a dedicated source that I generally agree with, or at least feel I can familiarize myself with so it's easier to cut the wheat from the chaff. It's good to have filters, essentially. This place, once upon a time, was great for interacting with the reviewers, so I could always get a feel for their tastes and know where their coming from. Now I don't know who's who, but at least the reviews are generally written well enough that I still find them helpful (i.e. I never thought Dual Core was worth a look, but a quick look over the review reveals that it's not as co-op-based as I originally assumed. Now that it's on sale, I might just pick it up). I got RPGFan for RPGs, and I can go to metacritics if there's anything I'm on the fence about (Read: feel there's at least a remote chance that it might actually be enjoyable for me).

@CanisWolfred I too read a lot of reviews, but in hindsight I often wonder how much they'll influence my buying habits in the end. I think my initial gut reaction is often the one I follow in the end. It usually works out. I follow some reviewers on YouTube and I listen to the EasyAllies podcasts every week, so there's two places where I get some insight from reviewers if I'm on the fence. The only issue is that indie games are often overlooked and difficult to find information about. I'm sure there's plenty of games that flew under my radar that I would've enjoyed!

@Octane I know Videogamer UK did a review of Virginia and the Bunker, for one.

I've pretty consistently enjoyed a lot of the articles and reviews on Destructoid. Doesn't have a forum, though, so there's no point in lingering.

@Ralizah I forgot they tossed their forum a few years back. I know I signed up there back in 2012, but I don't even see any sort of discussion page now...at least Gematsu does that (not that I ever want to talk to people there. Under-article Comment sections are almost universally vitrial).

Someone's typing on their phone