SkillUp's Review, plus a ray tracing showcase: (Gaming)

by cheapLEY , Friday, August 30, 2019, 17:26 (1919 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by cheapLEY, Friday, August 30, 2019, 17:41

I sort of see where he's coming from, even if I disagree (so far--I'm still not finished with it).

So far the entire game is firing on all cylinders for me and works together wonderfully.

I love the things that he seemingly hates. His biggest complaint is the story and it's presentation, namely that the story is delivered primarily with conversations with NPCs and exposition and dialogue options. And he specifically calls out the player character's inner dialogue that gets voiced quite a bit with extreme close ups on her face (mainly her eyes).

I can totally see why he doesn't like that stuff, but it works absolutely perfectly for me. It's cheesy, for sure, but in the best way possible, in a way that Remedy always seems to nail. I just adore it.

He says the ending is bad, which I can't comment on, so we'll see.

One of his gripes that I have the biggest issue with is that a lot of the most interesting stuff is in the side quests that are easily missed. (He completely spoils a really great one, but it's also a poor example for his point, as it's basically impossible to miss this quest unless the player just sprints past everything). I think he's making a really huge assumption about how stupid players are to miss some of this stuff, or, at the very least, how most people engage with video games. Maybe he's right, but I have a hard time imagining most people playing this game will simply mainline the entire thing without exploring a little bit. I also just fundamentally like that the game actually rewards exploration, instead of just placing little trinkets to collect like Assassin's Creed or Uncharted or something. There is actual meaningful content that you must intentionally seek out.

And finally, a cool video showing off the graphical effects of the game. Control is gorgeous on Xbox One X. The reflections look legitimately great and really convincing. But ray tracing really takes it up a level. All the glass in the game (and there's a lot of it!) looks amazing. It's very subtle overall, but it's really impressive.