@martinwan: No game is supposed to be frustrating; what the hell is that kind of sick mentality?! Some games can be hard, yes, genuinely hard for good reasons, teaching you skills or mechanics, showing you clearly why your character died, even if the character dies over and over again. As long as it is clear *why* the character died, then it can be hard, but it is not universally frustrating (only to a few people). However, when a game *randomly* kills your character, or leads your character to death in a completely random way, for no mistake that you did as a player, thus teaching you no lesson from that death, and *especially* if the game accompanies that with no quicksaving but sporadic save points, then the game is universally frustrating and not really fun. If you're a masochist who enjoys this shit, that's fine; but please don't pretend that some games should be “frustrating” like that for everyone.
Lots of people disagree with Kevin's reviews; I only rarely did. Usually I mostly agree, and partially disagree. About half the time, I believe the game deserves one more point above his review points. The most I disagreed with him on was Dying Light; I thought it was significantly better than his review. However, after trying the first few chapters of Alien Isolation, I find myself mostly agreeing with Kevin on this one. The game may deserve 7 rather than 6, but really no more than 7. The reasons are: I quickly found myself spending most of my gameplay time in lockers, with my finger firmly and tiresomely pushing one button to keep the freaking motion sensor on; it really got boring and tiresome too fast. Sega should've really made the activation of the motion sensor with a Toggle option. And...actually the motion sensor should've been on all the time, perhaps built into her hand watch or even attached to her uniform, whatever, so that she can check containers and look around normally while hearing the beeps (when the motion sensor is turned on), and only hide when they get too fast indicating close proximity of movement. But the constant, frantic checking of the motion sensor when frantic searching for useful items or objective items, gets confusing, stressful, and tiresome really too fast. Secondly, then alien should not have been scripted so lazily and cheaply; it should have been made artificially intelligent (AIed) instead, and kept purely random. But it is actually scripted in the game unfortunately. How so? No matter how quiet you are, and no matter where you go in a very big area, it always moves to the area you're in, always...no matter how far you go and quietly! One can argue that, Oh, that's because of its...“heightened senses”. My counterargument is: Oh yeah? If its heightened senses are so high and it just “instinctively” follows you around or moves to wherever spot you're hiding in, then why the hell does it not complete the job using its “heightened senses” and find you in your locker, no matter how much you move back or hold your breath? No, really, it's just nonsensical and obviously scripted to just follow you around, but never really find you. Almost never, at least, if you beat the game. It really, really should have been made artificially intelligent instead, and its search patterns should have been completely random. So that if you leave it behind in an area, it keeps scouring every corner and sniffing every locker there, even though you're not there, giving you time in the area you move to, to search things, find quest items, etc. And if it finished searching the area behind, then perhaps at that point its AI search patterns would move it to a new area, perhaps the area you're currently in, and so on. But when I magically find it in my area and my specific room and sniffing my specific locker, even though I was really quiet all the time, then it just puts me off and makes me realize this is a friggin’ script and not programmed artificial intelligence that would've made me feel that the creature is genuine and has acceptable intelligence.
So yeah, overall, maybe it deserves a 7 for a new way of playing, but no more than that. No game that keeps you in a locker with your finger painfully holding down a button for minutes on end, and punishes you for not doing that with completely random deaths, AND moves you back to friggin’ pre-determined save points rather than loading a quicksave, no game that does all that crap deserves more than 7.
@nnhood: Yeah, because Far Cry 3 had a lot more creative stuff than “Jason, go kill that dude...Jason, go fetch that leaf and pelt...Jason, go climb that tower.” Yep, Far Cry 3 had a LOT more than that, and that's why it's so different and kept you interested.
@northside: Collectivism? Where do you see that in Mass Effect? I thought ME3 was about transhumanism propaganda, not collectivism. And no Frostbite? What the hell? Frostbite is doing awesome stuff on games like Battlefield 2 and 3...I wish ME2 and ME3 had the same engine as those; lighting effects and many things would've been much better in the series. Lighting and dark shadows are horrible in the series.
I want BioWare to just apologize and say that they made a mistake and will correct it; and I'll pretend Mass Effect 3 never happened. No, really, I can and will, if so. I want the old story-writing team from ME1 especially, but also from ME2; they're gone if others weren't aware. I want BioWare to stop with the transhumanism shit, and get back to pure fun and immersive universes, with no agendas and brainwashing. We really don't have to have human-machine integration shoved down our throats in every current movie and game (even Fallout 4 now jumped on this awkward bandwagon); Legion was a lovely touch, and I wish BioWare and others nowadays left it at that.
Thankfully, I quit years ago. This expansion sounds promising. I see that the developers finally realized that things like a universal auction house and a streamlined LFG system are more important than a freaking fancy panda; however, alas, this a bit too late, Blizzard. Arena Net has already done this two years ago with Guild Wars 2. Moreover, ANet has already offered superior graphics and mechancis that build community (rather than build frustration and enmity among community members) for nothing more than the game's price; we do not pay a monthly subscription to keep playing Guild Wars 2. This is not remotely a comparison between the current WoW and any other game; this is merely a comparison between two offerings that represent "value for money".
In other words, all this is fine and dandy; this expansion does sound very promising, and I'm saying something positive about WoW for the first time in many years, but...it is far too late now, and more importantly, never going to be worth the investment of money and time for a monthly subscription fee, when I get equally satisfatory entertainment, if not arguably superior to the current WoW, without paying anything other than a game's initial price. Maybe if the monthly subscription is lifted one day...maybe!
Oh, the balloon that was about to burst just got comically deflated, with funny sound effects. Laugh out loud at Maxis and EA. They both deserve it.
And based on the average user rating of 5.2, Kevin was actually a bit generous with 6, which is something he rarely does, except for Blizzard games...everyone's very generous with them for some reason.
100 hours of gameplay, no DRM, speaking out for the true interests of honest gamers, regular updates and improvement and patching...I would freaking buy The Witcher 3, even if I were not going to play it! Just to encourage producing games with passion and making a reasonable profit while on it, rather than producing games with greed and fanatic obsession over profits.
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