Edge #379

[Grobbelboy]

Edge is still the best. Their controversial practice of giving high scores to good games and low scores to bad ones just REALLY upsets some people. 

[Benny]

The forum's unrivalled ability to still gaslight itself over this stuff every month will never cease to be amusing.

[Stanley]

At the end of the day it’s just one persons opinion, I’m sure it’s not a check list of things such as what does this game do differently, although it might factor, who knows. 
 

I applaud them for being different and providing well written and entertaining pieces. I don’t mind that they give games low marks that I have enjoyed or vice versa. It’s healthy to have your opinion challenged, and ultimately if it’s enjoyable to read that’s all that matters. 
 

As for them being relevant, I don’t see threads dedicated to IGN or GameSpot, thank fuck. This forum was borne out of the old Edge forum and carries opinions and attitudes you can trace to right back there in the day. That was its genesis so without Edge, none of us might have met up here, we’d be on Resetera or some bollocks, so fuck that. 

[footle]

6 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

 

Any indication it might come to Switch?

doubt it. You could play it in on game pass via the cloud though, and it’d be fine: it’s a deliberately slow paced experience.

[Zael]

What does relevant in this context even mean anyway? What's a relevant entity when it comes to video games critique? Edge is still up and running so I assume its as "relevant" as it needs to be. 

[JPL]

5 hours ago, stir fry said:

I think edge will give big scores to something which appears a bit novel or impactfully different in noticeable ways. Like they gave Bayonetta 3 a 9, a very uneven game with lots of problems but, crucially, it really is flexing its systems with a completely new combat system (which polarised people, but it was still something very new). My goty fwiw, liked it a ton in spite of those problems

 

Makes me wonder what they gave Nioh 2 actually now that someone brought that game up, another fairly iterative title that improves over the original. Just checked now and it says

 

As the game strays further from this core fantasy, its charms are dulled. Nioh 2 is a rather conservative sequel. [Issue#346, p.96] 7

 

So yeah, they don't really like iterative stuff that much. 

They gave RDR2 a 10 and it’s a worse game in pretty much every way than the original bar the graphics.

 

Yes, I went there again! Seemed apt though, as that’s about the time I completely fell out of love with Edge.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Enough about Little Big Planet's controls, let's talk about RDR2's controls.

[Mr. Gerbik]

You know what this tells us? If Ragnarok had bad controls, it would have gotten an edge 10.

[CrichStand]

What I’m saying is - I personally don’t find Edge reviews, or any other reviews relevant anymore, at least not in the same way as I used to. Back in the day Edge gave a 10 score and you knew it was a stone cold all time great. Not anymore. Would the old Edge have given an uninspired, derivative game, riddled with crazy bugs and glitches a 7/10. No chance! They certainly wouldn’t have then scored a game that is vastly superior in every conceivable way and treads new ground for film and game crossovers the exact same score. 😂 Just get this whole kind of “look how Edgy we are at Edge” vibe. They used to be really tough and really consistent with their scoring system. That went out the window years ago, which is why I stopped buying it and other people I know did the same.

 

Many reviews these days just seem to be marketing fluff, and paid off bullshit anyway. Stopped taking any notice of them ages ago and instead rely on word of mouth and impressions on here. Far more relevant.

[Calashnikov]

2 hours ago, CrichStand said:

Edge reviews are irrelevant (along with most other reviews these days) and have been for years. Used to buy a copy every month and still have huge stacks of them stored away somewhere. The scores and a good review from them used to mean something back in the day. Those days are loooooong gone.

 

No idea how a game (Somerville) which is basically just a worse version of Limbo and Inside, and has the worst screen tearing ever, framerate issues, control issues, characters getting stuck in scenery requiring restarts, glitches and bugs, largely derivative gameplay that for chunks of it doesn’t really work, that totally drops off a cliff 2/3rds of the game in, has an abysmal non-story and 100% feels like it’s been released before it’s fully finished etc manages to score 7/10.
 

Yet a game (God of War), that feels like a landmark for incredible production values, story telling and manages to bridge Blockbuster films with video games, in a way that is above anything else ever released, and does what it does incredibly well, with very few real flaws - 7/10.

 

And they haven’t even bothered to review the latest version of one of the best driving games going.........again. 😂 

 

 

Get it right up you.

[stir fry]

I guess to me I just don't buy that edge reviews games in this fashion purely to be performative about it. I read the Ragnarök review now and agree with every bit of it, except about some aspects of combat which I feel they didn't necessarily engage with fully but that's just what you expect with a lot of games reviews tbh

 

I think also that many games are more than the sums of their parts, which is why a rickety game built in unity with bugs and performance issues can sometimes end up being way more interesting than a hugely polished game with immaculate craft. It depends on the motivations behind some of it and how it gets expressed in its finished form. Like I'm being specific with this example, the unity game I'm talking about is Pathologic 2 and it's the best game i played in years, outstanding vision in it. But buggy as fuck and runs like shit. Edge gave that a 9 btw

[Kevvy Metal]

EDGE were right about LBP 

[layten]

When will Edge learn that scores should be given on on much money has been spent on the production, and not on how good they are at being a game.

[Not Thread Owner]

7 hours ago, Rex Grossman said:

There are people in the Sonic Frontiers thread proclaiming it GOTY.

The 3 is more like @deKay's take on the game. He should change the Sonic Froniters thread title again.

[Stanley]

42 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Would the old Edge have given an uninspired, derivative game, riddled with crazy bugs and glitches a 7/10. No chance! They certainly wouldn’t have then scored a game that is vastly superior in every conceivable way and treads new ground for film and game crossovers the exact same score.

They didn’t, they gave that game a Ten

[therearerules]

Angry at the Edge score? Why would I be angry at the Edge score? No, I'm perfectly calm about that score, it doesn't concern me in the slightest. I actually feel sorry for Edge that they felt they had to give a performative score like that. These tears are simply tears of pity for them, and my face has gone red and blotchy out of second hand embarrassment! I actually happen to be something of an expert on magazine scores, and even though I couldn't care less, Edge have undoubtedly lost all credibility with this score and will have to correct it immediately. Not that it matters to me.

[partious]

The people who roll into Edge threads with sarcastic posts looking down on the idea of review scores being a topic of discussion on a gaming forum are as predictable as the complaints about review scores.  

 

Has anyone mentioned the Immortality 10 yet?

[therearerules]

30 minutes ago, partious said:

The people who roll into Edge threads with sarcastic posts looking down on the idea of review scores being a topic of discussion on a gaming forum are as predictable as the complaints about review scores.  

 

Has anyone mentioned the Immortality 10 yet?

No, what about it?

[Keyboard Koala]

Gus. GUYS! Look at us! Squabbling, bickering, like children! What's happening to us?

 

etc.

[partious]

5 minutes ago, therearerules said:

No, what about it?

Double Dash is better

 

[CrichStand]

30 minutes ago, therearerules said:

No, what about it?

I think a better question would be - how do they review the games to come up with these scores? Not just Edge but in general.
 

Somerville can be finished in one sitting, 4hrs and you’ve seen absolutely everything it has to offer, including its multiple appalling endings.
 

In terms of God of War Ragnarok, the PS5 dash says I’ve been playing for 40hrs+ and I’m not even half way through the content on offer, a lot of which is entirely optional and so far has been the best bits of the game imo. Do reviewers play the entirety of the content on a hard setting so it gives a satisfying challenge or just mainline the stories as fast as possible on easy, to hit a deadline?

 

Just to be clear, I have no problem with God of War scoring 7/10.  I just find it odd that the other game is buggy as all fuck, pretty derivative, with some poor mechanics and yet that scores 7 too?!?!?  Absolutely bizarre and is not how Edge used to score stuff at all. They used to make a big thing, even in the magazine itself about their strict scoring system. It all seems to be a bit “indier than thou” now though going on some of the scores.

[Strafe]

Edge scores the way they do because they understand basic maths. 5 is halfway between 1 and 10, so its average by definition. Not bad, not good.
 

This means that a 6 is better than average and therefore ‘good’ but unfortunately a lot of reviews (and as a result the people reading them) tend to see 7/10 as an average score for some reason when it shouldn’t be that way but that’s the world we live in now.

 

 

[Strafe]

28 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

I think a better question would be - how do they review the games to come up with these scores? Not just Edge but in general.
 

Somerville can be finished in one sitting, 4hrs and you’ve seen absolutely everything it has to offer, including its multiple appalling endings.
 

In terms of God of War Ragnarok, the PS5 dash says I’ve been playing for 40hrs+ and I’m not even half way through the content on offer, a lot of which is entirely optional and so far has been the best bits of the game imo. Do reviewers play the entirety of the content on a hard setting so it gives a satisfying challenge or just mainline the stories as fast as possible on easy, to hit a deadline?

 

Just to be clear, I have no problem with God of War scoring 7/10.  I just find it odd that the other game is buggy as all fuck, pretty derivative, with some poor mechanics and yet that scores 7 too?!?!?  

I think you have to review things on their own terms - Somerville is a tight, short experience (and priced accordingly) that doesn’t set out to be an epic 50 hour game so you’d measure it against similar games I suppose.

 

 

[Nick R]

10 hours ago, moosegrinder said:

Oooh I'm only one off a full house of Edge Bingo!

 

10 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

If only you could talk to the Aesir

 

8 hours ago, Nate Dogg III said:

 

 

8 hours ago, BadgerFarmer said:

3rd strike and you're out.

 

THE GTA3 SCORE WAS A MISPRINT

[CrichStand]

10 minutes ago, Strafe said:

I think you have to review things on their own terms - Somerville is a tight, short experience (and priced accordingly) that doesn’t set out to be an epic 50 hour game so you’d measure it against similar games I suppose.

 

 

The point I was getting at is that one is easy to review, whilst the other is way more difficult. Somerville I finished in one sitting and thought was a 6/10 game.I mostly enjoyed it, until it dropped off a cliff 2/3rds in, even with the awful glitches and horrible technical problems which were some of the worst I’ve ever experienced on a console game.

 

After over 40hrs of God of War I’m not sure I’d be able to give it a score. It’s up and down. At times it’s felt like a straight 10, at others more a 7. The pace is all over the shop, it’s sprawling, there’s loads of substantial optional content. One early optional mission that I really enjoyed was longer and far better than the entirety of Somerville! One minute it’s an action game, next it’s an interactive movie. One minute totally linear, next it has some freedom. The freedom is mainly optional. It’s a game that I feel could potentially score very differently depending on how you choose to play it. I feel that if I’d mainlined the story it wouldn’t be as good or as enjoyable, as how I’ve actually played it, which has been wandering along at a glacial pace, taking it all in. Never really done that with a game before. It genuinely feels like playing and being part of a Hollywood Blockbuster. I’ve also spent ages marvelling at the sound design, the 3D audio and the graphics, which in many places are astonishing, something else I rarely do. 
 

Add to that - when numerous people are providing reviews, how do they even keep the scores consistent?

[Made of Ghosts]

I don’t even understand what consistency would mean in this context?

[CrichStand]

So, for example.......if I score a game I use my own system. That system provides a consistent outcome, because there’s only me coming to that outcome. If you have say 10 different people all scoring stuff, how do you keep the scores in line? One person may give away 10s like candy, another may be really stingy. They might favour certain genres. They might despise others.
 

Take Somerville - it’s glitchy as all fuck. Worst screen tearing I’ve ever seen in a game. Framerate is terrible. Characters drop through the floor and get stuck in scenery. At one point I had the character get stuck in an object then vibrate at light speed like one of those characters on Jacob”s Ladder before firing across the screen like a missile. Some puzzles don’t trigger properly and you have no idea if the game has broken and requires a reset or not. There are mechanics that seem unfinished, lazily implemented or just don’t work. Some sections totally break and require a reset, like when the characters that are accompanying you decide to stop working or drop through the floor again. The animation is awful and it literally has missing frames on big important cutscenes, to the point characters disappear then reappear. You are constantly bumping into invisible walls and the controls are horribly fuzzy. The story is a total non event and halfway through, the story and game just collapses in on itself. Plus, most of the game feels really derivative and a poor version of other games that it is essentially just copying. 7/10. Fair enough.

 

But then giving a huge, polished, sprawling, complex, genre defying, best in class, blockbuster game like GOW the same score, in the same issue? Nah mate!
 

There’s no consistency at all, which is why I stopped bothering with Edge many years ago. I simply cannot trust their opinion as a whole. I prefer peoples opinions on here (if they think Somerville is on a par with GOW I’d know not to listen to them 😂). Vampire Survivors, the Forgotten City, Unpacking, Tunic all great games I discovered on here, along with loads of others. Plus word of mouth, or thanks to Gamepass and PSPlus, I now just jump straight into giving stuff a go myself. 

[partious]

The era of people using magazine reviews as a buyer's guide for mainstream games is long gone. I doubt many people were sitting around waiting for the Edge GOW review before buying a game that came out weeks ago.

 

7 for GOW seems plausible even for a fan of the genre, and arguing that a 7 should have been an 8 is a bit petty. Extreme stuff like 3 for Sonic looks like they chose one of the many reviewers with a preexisting bias against 3D Sonic games to review this one with predictable results.

The best review of basically every 3D Sonic game apart from 06 and Boom is "you`ll enjoy this if you like 3D Sonic games".

[Stanley]

Do you remember when BOTW wasn’t out yet though and Edge gave it a 10? I remember a lot people sitting up and taking notice, suddenly everyone wanted a Switch.
 

I still use it as a buying guide in conjunction with other reviews.

[partious]

27 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Do you remember when BOTW wasn’t out yet though and Edge gave it a 10? I remember a lot people sitting up and taking notice, suddenly everyone wanted a Switch.

 

Not really. They gave Twilight Princess 9 and Skyward Sword 10. What were people expecting?

 

I'm sure the recent 10 for Immortality brought some attention to that game though.