I see where you’re getting at, but you’re suggesting it’s better for journalists to live in a bubble? That’s it’s somehow worse if they discuss games with other gamers?

It might be hard to fully separate the two, but all the criticism tends to either be it’s not Sekiro (which it isn’t trying to be) or that it’s open-world. It is one of the most immersive games I’ve ever played. It just bleeds samurai and Japan, from the UI to the feel of combat. Given that, I don’t see how you could…

Good point! Though for the games I’ve personally played — and I haven’t played TLOU2 — I’d say that the over-under is generally accurate. Reviewers either overrated or underrated each those games.

That may be true, but it’s also true that many developers’ bonuses are dependent upon review score numbers.

Monster Hunter World came out over three years ago. That’s plenty of time to be an influence. Otherwise, you can’t say that Breath of the Wild was an influence to Immortals Fenyx Rising.

I suppose that’s fine, but if you’re going to stick to your “Pokemon never needs to evolve” guns, then we should try twice as hard to shine a light on games actually moving the formula forward, such as Monster Sanctuary.

What? You’re trying to say that GoT was somehow “review praised” because of TLOU2? That’s not a known thing. Something is clearly amiss with TLOU2 because it has ten times as many user ratings as any other game. The same is not true for GoT.

It’s also a very fun game! Too bad that was never mentioned in the article, tho.

This is me whenever I start a mission in Read Dead 2: “Let me guess, I’m gonna get in a gunfight by the end of this.”

Source? Because generally speaking, the wisdom of the crowd is considered quite accurate.

And I’ve made the following point before, but the gulf between critical and user score for this game is quite huge. Comparing the numbers, Ghost was underrated by reviewers by around 10 points, whereas Breath of the Wild was overrated by around 10 points. Reviewers will refer to Breath of the Wild as amazing, despite…

It’s insane for a writer to do research before writing an article?

And yet Ghost has a higher user score than Breath of the Wild.

Which reminds me, isn’t there also a game in development that’s basically a from-bottle-rockets-to-spaceships version of Kerbal?

And on the flip side, a guy like me who’s been into Monster Hunter since the original PS2 game doesn’t understand why it took this long!

I’m not sure I can fully agree with your sentiment here. Many games are becoming larger and more diverse, which definitely adds development cost. But technology is making multiple aspects of AAA development easier, not harder. The technology in The Last of Us 2, for example, allows you to motion capture movement by…

I do believe there can be a psychological component to it. For example, I remember from a very early age the experience of putting my hands over my ears and hearing a ringing. I also more vaguely recall knowledge as a young adult that there was a constant, light ring in my ears if I paid close attention. Then half a…

We have the financials to carry the game to finish line, but we’d like a little extra oomph in the marketing department, which we can’t afford. Everyone we’ve approached wants a typical indie publisher setup where they take 90-100% of the game’s revenue until they make all their investment back, even though we’ve…

Chances of rain? On the road? In a million.

Chinese SO confirms that he says he was an off-duty officer.