The Most Overrated Title of the 2010's

[DigitalFarce]

Seriously. I keep seeing 10s and 9.5s on review sites. Has everyone gone mad? It's the same symmetrical puzzle, over and over again... for $40? Unbelieveable. Games that are at least 3x better than this:

SOMA - $30
Darkest Dungeon - $25
Tomb Raider - $20
Trine 2 - $14
Trine 3 - $22
Any Myst game

Do I need to go on? I am just stunned.

[Pendulum]

Originally posted by Alcator:

Originally posted by DigitalFarce:

All a matter of perspective but the 10s this game is receiving really is quite insane.

It would seem that people are forgetting what a "10" from a review means.

10 doesn't mean there cannot be a better game ever. 10 also doesn't mean that it is better than EVERY single 9 game in every single genre ever.

10 simply means that right now, the game is fulfilling all expectations that particular reviewer had, and perhaps even exceeds them. Simply put, according to that particular reviewer, the game isn't missing anything.

It is an argumentational fallacy to compare a puzzle game The Witness, receiving a 10, with e.g. Trine 2 (a fantasy platformer), or with SOMA (a survivalist psychological horror). That's like saying "Your restaurant should not get the Michelin star, because Ronaldo is a better football player than you!" - complete non-sequitur.

Amazing comment. 10/10

[ZiGGY^]

Though I think the game is absolutely amazing I also don't think it's for everyone, so by my standards I'd never give it 10/10 because you need to have some inclination to the genre to enjoy the game. Within its (sub)genre, however, it is godlike

[Klaas Piemel]

Originally posted by ZiGGY^:

Though I think the game is absolutely amazing I also don't think it's for everyone, so by my standards I'd never give it 10/10 because you need to have some inclination to the genre to enjoy the game. Within its (sub)genre, however, it is godlike

Mate reviewers don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ about the genre. I mean there is not a single genre that's for everyone why should this be different? Not everyone likes RPGs yet the witcher got near perfect scores and it shouldn't be punished for it being an RPG that's the most ridiculous fcking thing I've ever heard considering reviewing.

[v00d00m4n]

Originally posted by Alcator:

Originally posted by DigitalFarce:

All a matter of perspective but the 10s this game is receiving really is quite insane.

It would seem that people are forgetting what a "10" from a review means.

10 doesn't mean there cannot be a better game ever. 10 also doesn't mean that it is better than EVERY single 9 game in every single genre ever.

10 simply means that right now, the game is fulfilling all expectations that particular reviewer had, and perhaps even exceeds them. Simply put, according to that particular reviewer, the game isn't missing anything.

It is an argumentational fallacy to compare a puzzle game The Witness, receiving a 10, with e.g. Trine 2 (a fantasy platformer), or with SOMA (a survivalist psychological horror). That's like saying "Your restaurant should not get the Michelin star, because Ronaldo is a better football player than you!" - complete non-sequitur.

Soma is immersive 1st person adventure that actually has a lot of common with Witness, except that it has bette graphics, better narrative design, better game design, better atmosphere and more solid expirience with overall higher production value.

Soma has 10$ lower price (in russia its actually equal to 20$ dollar games range price), im not sure what budget it has, but judging by this http://www.polygon.com/2015/10/1/9431711/soma-has-sold-92000-copies-will-pay-for-frictional-games-next-two studio spends about 1-1.2 million per year on production and ~90 000 copies (max price is 30$, in some regions it lower, sot lets count it as 25$ avarage to aproximate multi-region price) was enought for them to fund themselves for extra 2 years of production, and soma development took about 5 years, so its budged was about 9 millions, not such a big for modern day standards, since the article was posted (1st 10 days since launch already passed 100k) im pretty sure they gone beyond 120 000 (just checked after writing - yep, i was right http://steamspy.com/app/282140 ) , especially during steam sales, so now they pretty much have budget for 3 years. And thats not counting PS4 version sales.

Rating of Soma:
Score rank: 93% Userscore: 95% Metascore: 84%


And not lets look at Witness:
Score rank: 62% Userscore: 85% Metascore: 88% <see how user score and overall scoring lower than critic score and lower than Soma's score?

Owners: 62,146 ± 5,354

Blow should take a few lessons from Frictional about pricing and about game design, like this https://wiki.frictionalgames.com/hpl3/game/guides/scripters_guide?s[]=puzzles because you know, its hard to understand why people should pay 40$ for 1st person 3D version of 15 puzzle and maze with disjoined scattered pieces of quotes that does not actually make a story.


These game design tip explains why SOMA better than Witness in its very core:

Originally posted by "Frictional Games":

Foundational Rules


No Puzzles
Do not think of our puzzles as such. Think of them as Activities in stead. This is very important to keep in mind as they are not meant to pose a challenge but to make the player feel more part of the world. The player might still be required to think, but we do not want to end up in a “guess the designer” type of gameplay. It should feel natural and the player should “solve” any activity by simply just trying enough. For instance in Amnesia you can break down a wall by throwing a rock at it or simply clicking on it a lot. In either case the player has made a proper attempt at breaking down the wall and needs to be rewarded. Being streamlined, intuitive and coherent comes way ahead of being a satisfying problem to solve.

Always Interactive
Whenever possible, the objects in the environment needs to be interactive. For instance, a locked door should be able to move so the player can notice, by interacting, that it cannot be opened. Another examples is that the player might be able to grab and swing lamps that hang down from the ceiling. We want the player to feel part of a real living world and the interaction is the way we do this. Never waste an object that can be made interactive.

No Trial and Error
Never have challenges where failure means restart. Examples of this is just about any puzzle in Limbo. We want the player to a smooth narrative experience that always moves forward. We do not want to to be stuck repeating the same actions over and over.

Physics When Possible
Do not “hard-code” behaviors, but try and use physics when ever possible. This will also allow the player to experiment more and to allow a great set of possible solutions to activities. Beware that physics can be very unruly and make sure that there are restraints on what can be done. When using physics you really need to test a lot.

Yet this game is cheaper.

Valve;s Half Life 2 and Portal are somwhwat similiar, with HL2 adding some shooter into such concept and portal standing i a middle of puzzles and immersive adventure, which are pretty well joined together (not like Witness) and all puzzles justified by story and at some point game leaves pure puzzle levels and turns into what Frictional calls activities - situation that has to be solves naturally with logic and attention to environment. Half life 2 back in time had price of 49.99$ but offered way more, it also included CSS, Hl2DM and something else for this price, Orrange Box was cheaper, it offered more of refreshed HL2 + Team Forttress 2 + Portal and all was including for about same price as Witness, that has much less to offer asks now.

You can take any somewhat simular game or bulndles like Orange Box and all of them will have more and better experience to offer for same or lower price, so like it or not, but price of Witness is totally unjustified and higher than it should be.

[Alcator]

Originally posted by Voodooman:

And not lets look at Witness:

Owners: 62,146 ± 5,354

Umm....

Did you really just take data from a source that is known to give bogus results for niche games?


Because Thekla themselves are stating that in a week, they have sold significantly more than 100 000 copies. Which would then mean they are selling much faster than SOMA.

Case closed.

[v00d00m4n]

Do you really believe everything that devs says? There is a damage control rule - if things goes bad, pretend they go good. Big companies like Acitivision know to lie about sales figures on public in attempt to boost sales of declining titles such as Call of Duty (if you will look at critic and user score of recent titles and will look at sales figures activision provide and will compare this to steamspy data, you will nottce that every new COD has lower and lower scores and lower and lower number of onwers, however Activision's official data contradicts that and has bigger and bigger sales if you will believe them, which simply cant be truth with decline of rating).

Indie devs also use such tricks sometimes to make their game look more appealing to public, coz typicial hive mind psychology tells stupid people "if so many people buying it, it must be good, ill buy as well"

[PauL]

Originally posted by DigitalFarce:

Seriously. I keep seeing 10s and 9.5s on review sites. Has everyone gone mad? It's the same symmetrical puzzle, over and over again... for $40? Unbelieveable. Games that are at least 3x better than this:

SOMA - $30
Darkest Dungeon - $25
Tomb Raider - $20
Trine 2 - $14
Trine 3 - $22
Any Myst game

Do I need to go on? I am just stunned.

Have you even played it?
No.
Otherwise you wouldn't say:
"It's the same symmetrical puzzle, over and over again"
I mean I have had a great time with it so far. I wouldn't say it's a 10, but I could give it a 9 surely.
Those are also some really strange comparisons, although I wouldn't really know what game to really compare it to. It's a bit like Myst, but, the total package still is something very different.

[Icy1007]

This is a 10/10. It is not the same puzzle over and over. You clearly haven't played much of the game.

[Mars]

Originally posted by DigitalFarce:

Seriously. I keep seeing 10s and 9.5s on review sites. Has everyone gone mad? It's the same symmetrical puzzle, over and over again... for $40? Unbelieveable. Games that are at least 3x better than this:

SOMA - $30
Darkest Dungeon - $25
Tomb Raider - $20
Trine 2 - $14
Trine 3 - $22
Any Myst game

Do I need to go on? I am just stunned.

Let me correct you a bit. Tomb Raider on release was $50. All of the Myst games were like $50-$60 on release. Even their latest remake is still $18.

As a Myst fan, I highly enjoyed The Witness, and would rate it 8/10. As for SOMA, I see that it takes about 12 hours to finish. The Witness will probably take you at least 24 hours, not counting the extra stuff you can find. So the price to content ratio is a lot better on The Witness than SOMA.

And if you don't like line puzzles, you probably shouldn't get this game then, should you?

[PauL]

Originally posted by Mars:

Originally posted by DigitalFarce:

As for SOMA, I see that it takes about 12 hours to finish. The Witness will probably take you at least 24 hours, not counting the extra stuff you can find. So the price to content ratio is a lot better on The Witness than SOMA.

There's a whole lot more hours in the Witness actually, I don't see how it could turn into 100 hours, but I also couldn't see the current 30 hours coming. And there's still a whole lot of things I do not know the purpose of.

[Mars]

Originally posted by PauL:

Originally posted by Mars:

As for SOMA, I see that it takes about 12 hours to finish. The Witness will probably take you at least 24 hours, not counting the extra stuff you can find. So the price to content ratio is a lot better on The Witness than SOMA.

There's a whole lot more hours in the Witness actually, I don't see how it could turn into 100 hours, but I also couldn't see the current 30 hours coming. And there's still a whole lot of things I do not know the purpose of.

I spent about 52 hours in game. I'm pretty sure at least 20 hours was spent walking around looking for hidden stuff, a couple of hours watching vids, and a couple of hours when I left the game on while I went to shower/eat/whatever. So yeah, I can see a very smart person finish it in less than 20 hours. But I think the average puzzle player might clock in at 40 (just solving the line puzzles).

[PauL]

Originally posted by Mars:

Originally posted by PauL:

There's a whole lot more hours in the Witness actually, I don't see how it could turn into 100 hours, but I also couldn't see the current 30 hours coming. And there's still a whole lot of things I do not know the purpose of.

I spent about 52 hours in game. I'm pretty sure at least 20 hours was spent walking around looking for hidden stuff, a couple of hours watching vids, and a couple of hours when I left the game on while I went to shower/eat/whatever. So yeah, I can see a very smart person finish it in less than 20 hours. But I think the average puzzle player might clock in at 40 (just solving the line puzzles).

Hours of watching vids?
But you can get to the ending pretty fast, even without being smart, there's a lot you can skip. If you fully want to complete the game you have to search a lot. I also think this is one of the best ways I've seen an open world. In most open world games you will straight up spend the majority of the time just walking from A to B without really exploring, and in second place fight enemies in a repetitive manner.

[Mars]

Originally posted by PauL:

Originally posted by Mars:

I spent about 52 hours in game. I'm pretty sure at least 20 hours was spent walking around looking for hidden stuff, a couple of hours watching vids, and a couple of hours when I left the game on while I went to shower/eat/whatever. So yeah, I can see a very smart person finish it in less than 20 hours. But I think the average puzzle player might clock in at 40 (just solving the line puzzles).

Hours of watching vids?
But you can get to the ending pretty fast, even without being smart, there's a lot you can skip. If you fully want to complete the game you have to search a lot. I also think this is one of the best ways I've seen an open world. In most open world games you will straight up spend the majority of the time just walking from A to B without really exploring, and in second place flght enemies in a repetitive manner.

Depends which ending you mean.. and you could skip a lot, but then you wouldn't know how to solve the puzzles that would progress your game. As for the videos I mentioned: Watching/listening to all the videos you can find in the game accounts for little over 2 hours as well..

[goodmaki]

let's face it. anybody giving this game a 10 is a fanboy