Quantum Conundrum Review
- Thread starter Mike Kayatta
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I didn't think much of it at first but it's growing on me. And oddly enough I thought very much of de Lancie at the beginning, being a big Q fan, but later realised he was too much of a narrator and not enough of a character, unlike Glados.
I'm okay with the game being similar to Portal I loved portal and I have no problem with a developer sticking to what they know especially sense it's only there second game and first as Airtight studios so they wanted to play it safe, hopefully they be more willing to take risks on there next project or we'll just get a bunch more funny puzzle games which is still a win.
- Apr 1, 2009
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- Whatever, just wash your hands.
It was much more annoying with Darksiders, everyone kept saying it was a partial god of war clone despite them having nothing in common aside from finishers, its how people refer to games, always by the last really popular one that plays similar to it.Andy of Comix Inc said:
I'm really enjoying it. I think that the general feel is very different from Portal. QQ has a much more laid-back, silly vibe instead of the more hectice, outright funny style of Portal (and even more so Portal 2).
For 15 bucks it's impossible not to recommend.
For 15 bucks it's impossible not to recommend.
I thought Darksiders was compared to Legend of Zelda.Worgen said:
It's referred to colloquially as DarkZeldas...
Eh, it's kind of the way reviews have to work I guess. You have one week to review a game that launches in a week, so most reviewers actually don't do any digging and just play on the surface of a game. I mean, how many reviewers actually finish what they review, do you think? It's easy to say "oh yeah um hack and slash game! GOD OF WAR CLONE," and from there stems my distaste for it.Worgen said:
It's easy.
GAME REVIEWING SHOULD NOT BE EASY! Exercising personal, critical evaluation should rack your brain and putting it down in words should be excruciating! If every review reads the same it either means the game plays the same for everybody - and that says something about the game - or everyone is reading each others' reviews, and that says something about the reviewers. If it weren't for reviews as a marketing tool, game reviews could be really in-depth and unique, thus why I like retrospectives so much. But nope, everything has to be to-the-minute and up-to-date, and while certainly it makes a bit of sense, reviews come off as worse for it.
But that's just complaining for the sake of complaining.
Couple of things to note:
1) It's immensely satisfying game in the sense that when, after studying a puzzle for quite a few minutes and being hopelessly lost, you finally have the epiphany moment where it suddenly all becomes clear, quite often with the "I can do that? I can do that!" phrase tossed in.
and
2) For the $15 or $20 price, it's totally worth it.
1) It's immensely satisfying game in the sense that when, after studying a puzzle for quite a few minutes and being hopelessly lost, you finally have the epiphany moment where it suddenly all becomes clear, quite often with the "I can do that? I can do that!" phrase tossed in.
and
2) For the $15 or $20 price, it's totally worth it.
While true, I can't help but feel they could've just ramped up the complexity of the puzzles so that towards the end you will have to constantly juggle all four dimensions to get where you need to be. Kind of like how (especially) in (the original) Portal the latter stages have you applying every lesson you learned on the way there. But that's just my opinion of course.Moonlight Butterfly said:
So, a few points. Firstly, speaking as someone who reviews games, it's not really fair to imply (or otherwise blatantly state) that it's easy. If multiple reviews read the same to you, it's because the reviewers are looking at the same product. Because of that, many of our observations will be shared. If two people look at the same green bird, chances are that both will, at some point, discuss the color green before moving on.Andy of Comix Inc said:
This phenomenon occurs because not everyone reading the eventual review has even heard of the game being addressed, and even fewer have actually played it. For this reason, certain common context needs to be given before analysis. Sometimes this comes through rote explanation, other times by analog. That's not to say, however, that reviews actually stop there. Easily 95% of what's actually written above has nothing to do with direct comparison to another game.
The real reason I felt the need to respond here, though, was this statement: "If it weren't for reviews as a marketing tool, game reviews could be really in-depth and unique ... " I can't disagree that good reviews could have some peripheral benefit for game developers. After all, they're a hyper-focused form of word-of-mouth recommendation, so if a developer made a great game, they get rewarded by people saying so in public forums. Sounds fair to me. Your comment, however, implies we are somehow linked into that process, which we aren't.
The only way that the marketing benefit would somehow prevent any of us from being "in-depth and unique" is if we gained from that consequence ... which we most certainly do not. We do our best to express ourselves with but one solitary concern: communicating, to you, the experience you'll likely have when playing.
Thanks for responding! Always nice to get a reply from someone who knows what they're saying.... cos I feel like I'm learning stuff. Yay!Mike Kayatta said:
I guess my "big" problem is that games are still reviewed like movies are, when they deserve a little more than that. Two-page reviews, a score at the end, recommendation... it's good as a consumer tool but as a "review" it's slightly less than what it could be. It's a shame because a lot of reviewers have a really nice style, it's just shoved through a format I don't think is optimal for the medium they're writing about.
My thing about in-depth reviews is that, well... reviews need to come out before or during or before week of release for a game, when games feel like the sort of thing that would benefit greatly from hindsight and further experience. There was a magazine here in Australia called PC Power Play that reviewed Left 4 Dead twice; one month after another. That, I feel, is the sort of thing games would benefit from, because unlike movies, they do not exist in a vacuum. They constantly warp and change, be it with bug fixes or other game releases. My problem is that most game reviewers are consumer-help should-you-buy-this game kind of stuff, when gaming needs much more retrospective-style reviews on games that are more recent. Yahtzee has been pulling this off for years, and ironically comes off as the better recommendation tool.
As someone who also "writes" "reviews" (though as a hobby, and I can't say I'm any good), I feel like those 0-to-5-star, "this game's nearly out so have some content" sort of reviews don't do either the game or the critic any justice. Just my two cents, and a lot of it is complaining for the sake of wanting a change, as apposed to born out of any inherent problem. Thanks, as I said, for responding, though, and I hope I haven't caused too much offense with my ignorance...
