Edge #379

[Stanley]

25 minutes ago, partious said:

 

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. 

The point is that BOTW was still not out yet, which is rare for a magazine review. Mind you it was 5 years ago. It was possibly the first review as well? 

[Mr. Gerbik]

I don't think many publishers have the balls/are confident enough about the quality of one of their big releases to give edge an exclusive early review. Nintendo though, they have BALLS OF STEEL 

[SuperFamiTom]

Yeah but to be fair, BotW is an 11/10 and Nintendo knew it. 
 

The Edge score was pretty harsh. 

[Qazimod]

From what I've seen of Frontiers, it looks fine. Not a glorious return, and not especially groundbreaking, but not the trainwreck some are painting it as. But from some of this critical reception, anyone would think that it belongs with 2006, Boom and Free Riders or something.

[Kevvy Metal]

4 hours 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.
 

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

 

I was going to get it anyways, being a Zelda fan who knows those games are dialled into my brain's pleasure zones and there was already some footage shown. 

EDGE gave it a 10 and I went "oh'. 

EDGE giving stuff like Immortality a 10 in the here and now simply translates to me that this game is doing something unusual and if you have an appetite for the ununsual, you might really resonate with it... rather than "this game is amazing". 

...and Immortailty is just that, it's just like the other Sam Barlow games. It starts off totally confusing with lots of opportunity to bounce right off it.

As the journey continues, the breadcrumb-trail gets more interesting, it gets into a flow that's really good and weird and compelling... then it ends with a bit of a "eh? is that it?" feeling.  It's an example of a 7/10 for me. Where as something like Elden Ring, or the new GOW is a 10/10 or 9/10 as it's a huge slab of amazing entertainment that just gets better as the adventure unfolds. 

[footle]

40 minutes ago, Kevvy Metal said:

r the new GOW is a 10/10 or 9/10 as it's a huge slab of amazing entertainment that just gets better as the adventure unfolds. 

 

Strangely, opinions can differ. Elden Ring, Immortality, Pentiment - all of them have stretched the scope of videogames this year and brought something new and entertaining.

 

GoW is entertaining, but it is extremely formulaic: just like a CoD game, Assassins Creed game or Marvel movie.

Which is fine.

[Rex Grossman]

It's mad to think that when Edge launched in 1993 it was simply the start of an elaborate long con set up so they could score Sonic Frontiers 3/10 in 2022 and have people lose their minds.

[robdood]

I think what we're all realising is that review scores are pointless marketing tools and need to die in a  fire. 

 

The body text of a review is what might pique my interest.  

 

I.E.  LET TIM ROGERS TALK TO ME FOR SIX HOURS ABOUT A GAME ABOUT A CHILDS SUMMER VACATION INSTEAD. 

 

The idea of game reviews being a 'buyers guide' is so odd to me, given art/entertainment is so subjective in interpretation.   No magazine / publication / website / individual is going to be exactly the same as you. Idk.  

[K]

If any game is a 10 for me, it's Immortality. It tells a story in a completely new way that wouldn't be possible in any other medium. And not only that, it's a really good story too. I don't think the 10 was some kind of sympathy bung for trying to do something new - the game is a combination of formal innovation, technical proficiency and the absolute straight-faced commitment to their story and their chosen method of telling it.

 

It's a genuine masterpiece that takes the world's worst genre, the FMV game, and creates something unique and beautiful and unsettling out of it, which makes the viewer an active participant in piecing everything together. It's almost a new genre in itself, except I can't really see anyone building on it given that it's such a singular vision. 

[K]

What I want from a games magazine is for it to be a buyer's guide that confirms my own opinion of games that I've already bought and completed. You Are Correct magazine, issue 37, on newsstands now.

[dataDave]

6 hours ago, Stanley said:

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

 
You really shouldn’t.

[Gabe]

7 hours ago, CrichStand said:

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. 

You are bemoaning that Edge will have different people using their own systems, but then say you prefer the opinions of those on here - but why? They would also be judging things by their own systems, its the same kind of vague except most people don't stick on score at the end of their posts.

[Stanley]

24 minutes ago, dataDave said:

 
You really shouldn’t.

Ah well, I’ve lasted this long! 

[Rex Grossman]

If people could stop buying/avoiding/liking/disliking the wrong games we wouldn't be in this mess.

[dataDave]

17 minutes ago, Gabe said:

but then say you prefer the opinions of those on here - but why?

 

I think he already explained that he'd much prefer the opinion of a genre-specific enthusiast who's put the hours in, as opposed to someone who's probably been writing for longer than he's been playing games and who has to hit a certain quota per month.

[Kevvy Metal]

6 hours ago, Stanley said:

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

 

I used to when I was a younger, more naive man... a poor student, and instead of spend my £40 on something great like Final Fantasy X I'd be buying something shit like Stretch Panic / Freakout because EDGE was drunk on Treasure. 

 

There's numerous more examples but that's an infamous one, and it has absolutely fuelled my bitterness. It's why I wade into these threads month after month and scoff away. 

[dataDave]

The last time I could genuinely align with reviews was back in the Mean Machines days (before the split), and then not again until maybe '96-'98 C&VG.

 

Although, thinking about it that's probably attributed towards just how good those years were in gaming. A Link to the Past! / Super Mario World! 96%! Well yeah, no shit!

[Harsin]

Kevvy, you know when you're regularly reminding us that you're actually a very positive person you and that you don't like reading recurring negativity from posters on here. Think how the rest of us feel having to read you repeating the same complaints again and again and again and again in every single Edge thread like some kind of games magazine related Groundhog Day.

[Qazimod]

3 minutes ago, dataDave said:

 

I think he already explained that he'd much prefer the opinion of a genre-specific enthusiast who's put the hours in, as opposed to someone who's probably been writing for longer than he's been playing games and who has to hit a certain quota per month.

 

I don't completely dismiss professional opinions - but I don't dismiss the wider discourse either. None of us are writers, but I feel like we do have "genre specialists" (fighting game fans, JRPG folk, the sim racer bunch) who have the luxury of no deadlines or wordcounts. (As an aside, there are times when the environment of professionals can actively harm perceptions of a product. Look at how many people enjoy PSVR now, compared to the knee-jerk panic and pre-order cancellations when Giant Bomb didn't set up their hardware properly.  )

[Kevvy Metal]

18 minutes ago, Harsin said:

Kevvy, you know when you're regularly reminding us that you're actually a very positive person you and that you don't like reading recurring negativity from posters on here. Think how the rest of us feel having to read you repeating the same complaints again and again and again and again in every single Edge thread like some kind of games magazine related Groundhog Day.

 

That is fair point, I will give you that. I have pretty much said my peace with my point above. 

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

I used to when I was a younger, more naive man... a poor student, and instead of spend my £40 on something great like Final Fantasy X I'd be buying something shit like Stretch Panic / Freakout because EDGE was drunk on Treasure. 

 

There's numerous more examples but that's an infamous one, and it has absolutely fuelled my bitterness. It's why I wade into these threads month after month and scoff away. 

These days it doesn’t have to be like that of course, there are opinions and reviews everywhere so no one should end up with a real stinker. For me now it’s more for games I might be on the fence about and in no rush to play, such as Diofield Chronicles or Somerville, and then it might just be what to do with my time as many of them are on Game Pass or whatever anyway. 
 

As for Edge I love reading about stuff like Immortality and Pentiment, games I might have overlooked completely, and then getting excited to play them. 

[Graham S]

Edge threads being exactly the same every month since the turn of the century is the only point of stability in my life amidst all the turmoil. Please don’t take this away from me too. 

[merrychan]

2 hours ago, Kevvy Metal said:

 

I used to when I was a younger, more naive man... a poor student, and instead of spend my £40 on something great like Final Fantasy X I'd be buying something shit like Stretch Panic / Freakout because EDGE was drunk on Treasure. 

 

There's numerous more examples but that's an infamous one, and it has absolutely fuelled my bitterness. It's why I wade into these threads month after month and scoff away. 

I once went to CEX Rathbone Place (the Tottenham Court Road one) and asked if they had any copies of Sin & Punishment N64 just after it was released and was chided for being an EDGE reader! Something derisory about how the only reason I wanted it was because I'd have most likely seen it in EDGE.

I bet that person has since done some epic Gatekeepery online

[Rex Grossman]

58 minutes ago, merrychan said:

I once went to CEX Rathbone Place (the Tottenham Court Road one)

Those are two different branches I believe. 

[merrychan]

6 minutes ago, Rex Grossman said:

Those are two different branches I believe. 

Meant to say the one off Totenham Court Road, tucked in behind kind of

[BitterToad]

I played Immortality specifically because it got an EDGE 10. It’s one of the most interesting, most brilliant pieces of entertainment I’ve ever played. It’s so clearly a 10 to me because it does exactly what I want my entertainment products to do and all of this was superbly hinted at without being spoiled in any way by the excellent review in EDGE. 

 

If you disagree, as I do with a lot of their reviews, that’s fine. It doesn’t make them irrelevant in any way though because all art is subjective and reviews are there as a way of one person or one publication to explain what works and what doesn’t for them in a piece of entertainment. It’s a way of engaging with the themes and intricacies of art and for people like me who care about all of that shit they’re essential reading. 
 

Anyway, see you all next month!

[Keyboard Koala]

9 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

I don't think many publishers have the balls/are confident enough about the quality of one of their big releases to give edge an exclusive early review. Nintendo though, they have BALLS OF STEEL 

 

That was you?!

 

 

[CrichStand]

4 hours ago, Gabe said:

You are bemoaning that Edge will have different people using their own systems, but then say you prefer the opinions of those on here - but why? They would also be judging things by their own systems, its the same kind of vague except most people don't stick on score at the end of their posts.

Edge don’t have names attached to their reviews do they? On here, say you praised 10 games, I tried them, liked them all, then I would have built up trust that you have similar tastes to myself and so would be more likely to enjoy the games that you recommend in future. Plus, on here you’re getting multiple opinions, both good and bad on a game, instead of just one persons opinion. At the end of the day, that’s all a review is, someone’s opinion on something. 
 

I’m not bemoaning anything, just stating why Edge reviews or other reviews, don’t have any real relevance for me anymore and haven’t done for years. Buy, hey, that’s just my opinion. 😁
 

 

 

[thesnwmn]

20 minutes ago, CrichStand said:

Edge don’t have names attached to their reviews do they? On here, say you praised 10 games, I tried them, liked them all, then I would have built up trust that you have similar tastes to myself and so would be more likely to enjoy the games that you recommend in future. Plus, on here you’re getting multiple opinions, both good and bad on a game, instead of just one persons opinion. At the end of the day, that’s all a review is, someone’s opinion on something. 
 

I’m not bemoaning anything, just stating why Edge reviews or other reviews, don’t have any real relevance for me anymore and haven’t done for years. Buy, hey, that’s just my opinion. 😁

 

Or maybe treat reviews from magazines exactly how you treat the opinions of others. Magazines or any publication is, as you say, just an opinion. Maybe occasionally filtered by an editor asking the reviewer if they're sure when the score doesn't match expectations but just an opinion all the same.

 

This seems like your own stupidity rather than an innate issue with magazines or reviews.

Consider them as part of a wider critique of games and they're perfectly relevant.

In fact they're just as relevant as they've always been.

 

[Isaac]

On 02/12/2022 at 10:08, Kevvy Metal said:

Where as something like Elden Ring, or the new GOW is a 10/10 or 9/10 as it's a huge slab of amazing entertainment that just gets better as the adventure unfolds. 

 

I will give you Elden Ring but the new GoW is the most 7/10 game out there. It's just shiny and expensively produced, it does nothing new, interesting or original. It's also overlong, and needed an editor.