Comments 1,574

Re: Ubisoft's Immortals Fenyx Rising Was Born Out Of An Assassin's Creed Bug

clvr

@link3710 lol @ kings of open world games.
Just because the majority of games they make is open world, doesn't mean they're good open worlds.
For one, they all work pretty much the same, regardless of the franchise; and they're basically checklists where the important bits are already highlighted, and the rest is just useless, empty space.

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy yes, indeed! I really like writing and storytelling in general, and in the last 4 years or so I spent a lot of time studying and researching, in order to be able to understand what works and what doesn't, and also improve my craft.
But returning to the point I made earlier, that's where my "expertise", if I have any, ends; if we were to analyze the photography, blocking, lighting, etc. I'd refrain from commenting, as I have little knowledge of those technical aspects 😃

Edit: by the way your home theater looks amazing! Great job man 😃

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy well, no, it's not.
One thing is liking X, another is X actualybeing good.
Subjective vs. Objective.

As I said beforehand, I like things that I know for a fact are not good, but I don't go around telling people that they're wrong for calling it bad.
That's what "guilty pleasures" are.
You can like The Room, sure, but would you say that the story makes sense? It's well acted? It's well written? I sure hope not.

The hard thing to understand for many is that there's someone out there who knows more than that and hence can discern good from bad. Just because one is more ignorant on one topic doesn't make the other invalid, it's the opposite.
See, many people (not you though) are so arrogant as to believe they know everything perfectly adequately, while intelligent people, as I said before, are those that recognize their own gaps in knowledge.
I mean, we're only human, you cannot expect any single one of us to be perfectly knowledgeable about everything.
The thing is that our little monkey brains hate the idea of being inadequate and wrong, and so heuristics come into play and mess up our assessments of reality in order to explain something that our brains don't have the tools to comprehend.

Edit: I got carried away as usual cause I study psychology and love this kind of stuff, but I wanted to make clear that I don't want to change tour mind, absolutely!
I just hope to shed light on somw of these mechanisms if you don't already know them 😃

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy hey, I appreciate the friendly tone 😃

I think the best thing one could do is put one's opinion to the test.
There's lots of things I don't like about my personality, trust me, but one thing I'm proud of is that usually it's not that hard for me to change my mind, if the data suggests I'm wrong.
I've changed my mind on so many topics I really don't know where to begin, but the thing is it will only make you more elastic and capable of understanding others' point of view.
Do you think I don't get why people defend this game? I was a Pokémon defender and more in general a Nintendo apologist for the longest time. I was born and raised on Nintendo consoles and handhelds, and I never had another console until I was 17 or so; so yeah, it took a looooong time for me to detach from "mommy Big N" and start appreciating the games on other consoles, and also criticizing Nintendo's mistakes.
That's why I advocate for this kind of thinking.

And regards the masses' opinion, to be honest I do think it it less relevant in some contexts:

-if you're trying to gauge appreciation for a general audience, a regular review or any one's opinion is way more useful than an in-depth analysis;

-if you wanna gauge the artistic and objective merits of a game, then by all means dive deep into the analysis channels I mentioned early, and don't expect a random bystander to give you deep insight.

See? There's a place for everyone, it's just a matter of learning what works where.
But if you ask me if Swoosh is a good game, I'll always tell you "no, god, no, it's not; it's embarrassing for the standards of the series and Nintendo's first party games.
Will you enjoy it? Well, it depends on what you want out of it. If you're a hardcore Pokémon fan, don't bother; if you're looking for a very simple, breezy adventure with colorful creature to catch, you'll have a great time."

As I already said, it's ok to enjoy something bad, just don't call it good 😉

Re: Soapbox: Here's How I'd Fix The Pokémon Series

clvr

@Xaessya "Problem is that they don't need to fix anything since people still buy it anyways."

Exactly, this is the biggest problem. That's why Pokémon needs serious competition, otherwise it's clear it won't get better by itself.

The second biggest problem is that every single time you point out an objective flaw in this game a member of PokéDefense Front is summoned, telling you that you're a manchild for simply expecting the biggest multimedia franchise in the world to be good again.
Yay for nuanced criticism, eh?

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy #143 rewrite that thing, otherwise it's unintelligible.
Also, by the way you phrased, it seems you're accusing me of saying reviews matter while other people dismiss them? What?

It should be obvious that not every reviewer is as good as the next, just like with everything else.
You want good, well thought out reviews and thinkpieces?
Go on YT and look for SkillUp, Writing On Games, Adam Millard, and many many more.
Just please have a point next time you reply to me.

Edit: I'll explain it better: reviews on NL and similar sites are not very useful, as they have limited time to play through the game.
On YT you'll find a lot of people who does not have the usual deadlines journos have, so they have much more time to inspect the game in its more minute details and have a more well-round assessment of the game.

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy oh, then that's my bad for taking that too seriously!

But you seem to have a knack for distorting what people tell you though.
You said that the masses are stupid and their opinion doesn't count, I just said that factually, the majority will not be made up of experts. There's a reason why competence is valuable, you can't expect everyone to be knowledgeable about everything.

I think what separates and intelligent person from an ignorant person is being able to admit ignorance, as I said before.
I'm knowledgeable enough in a couple of fields to recognize that I'm unbelievably ignorant in a thousand others, and that's why I voice my opinion on things I know, and shut up about things I don't know.

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy the "paid for" jump in logic devalued everything you said prior to that. Unfortunate, cause I was willing to have a serious conversation, but if anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a conspiracy theorist then there's not much use.
I agree that the numbers are very small, but I think a poll on a site like this is more indicative than a general population poll. How useful would that be, if everyone buying the game doesn't have a clue how and why a game is good? Do you honestly believe an average consumer knows how to assess the quality of a game, movie, whatever? No, that's why reviewers exist. Passionate people inform themselves and learn how to judge the craft, while the general population is clueless. That's a fact, it's not opinion.
And it's not me putting myself on a pedestal, as there are so many arts I am clueless about, simply cause I'm not passionate about them; and exactly for that reason you won't find me on sculpture forums telling people what is good and what is not, because I knpw that I am ignorant.
And in this era where everything is a tap away, that's very very rare, as everyone believes to know it all about everything without putting in the time and work.

@Screen ok but first you gotta give us proof that 99.9% of the people playing it is indeed enjoying it, and that's laughable.
If you said that about BOTW, or Ghost Of Tsushima, or any other unanimously acclaimed games I wouldn't question you, but saying that about Swoosh is just plain ignorant and delusional. I'm not saying the majority doesn't like it, but a lot of people certainly don't, more than 0,01% for sure.

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

@johnvboy 1) no evidence to back it up? I get defending a game you like but now you're plain delusional or lying.
Lots of people are unhappy with this sorry mess of a game, it's a fact and one that's easy to demonstrate.
Look at how many negative reviews there are, how many people decrying the death of a once beloved franchise. Seriously, do that if you don't believe me, you'll find plenty of videos and articles.

2) ok, so now 50% saying it's bad is a small number, ok. You decide that.
But if any other game is scored a 7 or even an 8, on the internet it's automatically a bad score (which is also BS).

3) shouldn't be hard to understand, but a passionate minority is certainly more believable than the clueless masses, since, you know, we're passionate enough to look up gaming news. And being so passionate, we tend to inform ourselves and learn what makes a good game or not. But yeah, certainly a soccer mom buying it for little Timmy counts as a well-informed, pondered purchase.

@Screen read point number 3, then get back to me.
If you genuinely believe that quality is dictated by success, or vice versa, you're in for a rude awakening.
Unfortunately this word is not as ideal as we'd like it to be, and our small monkey brains are of no help, since they tend to simplify everything we don't understand right away.
And that's how heuristics come in: "woah this game sold 20 millions, must be good!". So yeah it's not your fault or anybody's fault, our brains work like that when we have little information, but at least don't convince yourself that sales = quality.

Re: Poll: Pokémon Sword And Shield Launched A Year Ago, Has Your Opinion On Them Changed?

clvr

I'm sorry to say this, I really am, but that 17% with abysmal expectations is a big part of why we cannot have good things.
How is it possible to be positively surprised by such a trainwreck of a game? I get it that not everyone is an expert and everyone has different wants and needs, but it seems so easy to me to see the differences between a polished game and this sorry excuse for one.
I'm not saying you can have fun with it, I've had fun with my fair share of bad and even terrible games as well, but that doesn't mean I'm blindfolding myself and calling everything "good" just becauseI had fun for an hour.

Re: Rumour: Amazon France Lists Nier Replicant For Switch, But The Retailer's Track Record Is Patchy

clvr

Currently playing through Automata (I'm on C, if you've played it you know what I mean), and it's definitely one of the most unique and magical experiences I've ever had in a game.
It had me tearing up multiple times, if I have to be brutally honest ahahahha

No but seriously, if you're on the fence with this one by all means get it, it's an intoxicating experience that won't let go of you for a long time.
I haven't finished it yet, but I'm sure this game will stick with me for a very long time.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to Replicant as well!

Re: Gallery: Game Freak Has Moved In With Nintendo, And The New Offices Look Sublime

clvr

@westman98 ah, yes, the good ol' "it sold well, therefore it's good" fallacy.

If quality was the only determining attribute for sales, that'd mean that the Emoji Movie is good, the Fifty Shades books are good, and The Big Bang Theory is good.
If you know the first thing about writing as an art, you'll instantly recognize these as some of the worst examples in their respective art form in recent years.

And well, this is a more personal thing, but really, how can you Swoosh apologists still defend this game? For Pete's sake, is it really so hard to analyze a game outside of a vacuum?
Every argument I hear from your faction sounds like they've never played a non-Pokémon game.

Re: The First Review For Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity Is Now In

clvr

Well, we all know how trustworthy Famitsu is these days unfortunately.
Giving 9 to a musou is certainly amusing though; yeah, this and P5S look more like prequels/sequels with musou combat instead of being just a Dynasty Warrior reskin, but a musou game is still a musou game, and for as much fun I had in 50 hours with the first HW, I'd never give it anything above a 6,5.

Re: MiHoYo Accused Of 'Carelessly Putting Players At Risk' In Genshin Impact Data Breach

clvr

@shani you seriously don't see the difference between a F2P game locking pretty much everything behind MTX with actual money, and a gear meta that normally gives random abilities but can also be planned via Ability Chunks, Food Tickets, etc.? You really don't?

I mean, even if Splatoon 2's gear meta didn't feature those and actually was totally random, spending real money versus spending none is not a difference? Are you serious?

Re: Review: Bakugan: Champions Of Vestroia - The Kids Deserve So Much Better

clvr

@Heavyarms55 the impression I get personally is not that people are glad they got it wrong, more like that several people are gradually growing tired of NL's sloppiness, with them hyping this game up only to give it a 3.

I think those people are more sensing foul play, rather than being glad NL got their first impression wrong; but then again, maybe I see it this way cause I fall in this camp, too.

Re: Control: Ultimate Edition Is Available Now On Switch, But There's A Catch

clvr

I tried it for a few minutes since it's free for some time before needing to pay up, and I have to say I wasn't really impressed.
I played it in "graphics mode" and they still weren't very good, despite being streamed and not run by the Switch itself, and the performance was pretty choppy.
I have a pretty solid connection so I was kinda let down.

Re: Hitman 3 Is Coming To Switch, Just Don't Try To Play This One Offline

clvr

Wow, it might be cloud but whatever, it's not Hitman on Switch and my jaw was on the floor!

Seriously, if any of you has a passing interest in stealth, immersive sims, and/or sandboxes, this trilogy (well, the two that are out at the moment) are absolutely amazing games with basically endless replay value.

Re: Review: HyperBrawl Tournament - A Fun And Frantic Arcade Handbrawler

clvr

@Hero8-Bit see, that's what's wrong with reviews nowadays: the fact that they get people used to associate a 7 with "average", and consequently conditioning people to only consider 8 and up games, which is downright asinine.
There's a full freaking scale, let's use that. Or better even, let's get rid of freaking scores.

Re: "Nintendo Isn't That Smart": Pachter Says Nintendo Should Scrap Switch And 'Only Have Switch Lite'

clvr

@ryan_craddock stop reporting this idiot's opinions.
It's clear not even you, as in NL, trust him (and why should you), so why make a fool of yourselves and offer him space, time and effort?

Oh right, because people will come in droves to insult the old, out of touch man.
What amazing integrity, it's clear you only report worthy stuff 👍🏻
I don't know what makes me more sick: this man's incredible streak of BS, or the fact that despite that outlets like NL still see fit to give his opinions weight.

Re: Review: MindSeize - Slick Mega Man Zero-Style Action Jammed Into A Metroidvania

clvr

@AnorakJimi yeah Super Metroid definitely was slapped together in the span of an afternoon 🙄

It's ok for you to like linear games better, but saying they are intrinsically better is utter asinine nonsense.
Every game has a different goal, and for some linear is the way to go, while for others it's better to be open-ended. It's not rocket science.