Yooka-Laylee reviews are coming out and thoughts are ...mixed

Wrex Brogan

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Can't say I disagree with Jim on this one - it's... not good. Will probably give people a hell of a nostalgia boner, but for me it misses the mark of capturing the spirit of the ol' Banjo games and just ended up reminding me of all the glaring problems gaming had back in those days. Whoever designed the puzzles and collectables should be elaborately drawn and quartered - there's a difference between 'difficult puzzle' and 'over-complicated mess of shitty design'. Also my god, the Camera. The camera fucks you harder than the one from Dark Souls does, good god.

Music's fantastic though, good to see Grant Kirkhope still does amazing work.
 

JCAll

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Ezekiel said:
A 4 means below average, not awful. Thus, if Jim really didn't like a game, it's at best a 3 then. With that in mind, a 2 isn't THAT low. Just because major sites like IGN and Gamespot use 7 as "average" only makes stuff like 2s or even 5s seem really really bad. You wouldn't feel like a movie critic just "destroyed" a movie by giving it 1 out of 4 stars, right?
...what? A 2 is literally one point higher than the lowest you can get. Even using 5 as "average", 2 is dogshit bad.
 

Mangod

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JCAll said:
Ezekiel said:
A 4 means below average, not awful. Thus, if Jim really didn't like a game, it's at best a 3 then. With that in mind, a 2 isn't THAT low. Just because major sites like IGN and Gamespot use 7 as "average" only makes stuff like 2s or even 5s seem really really bad. You wouldn't feel like a movie critic just "destroyed" a movie by giving it 1 out of 4 stars, right?
...what? A 2 is literally one point higher than the lowest you can get. Even using 5 as "average", 2 is dogshit bad.
Yeah, the very scale that Jim himself made and uses defines a 2 as:

"A 2 represents a straight-up bad game. A thorough disaster, there is no hope of a positive experience ever shining through all the broken features and atrocious ideas. Only the truly desperate will be able to dig through the mire and find something passable."
 

Nazulu

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Drathnoxis said:
Nazulu said:
Holy Fuck a 2! I really can't imagine what would warrant that. God Dammit! I usually agree with his criticisms too :p
Makes sense to me. It's basically a low budget Banjo-Kazooie, and that game was pretty terrible to begin with.
It's been a long time since I've been hyped for anything :-(
I should know better.

Phoenixmgs said:
Nazulu said:
Holy Fuck a 2! I really can't imagine what would warrant that. God Dammit! I usually agree with his criticisms too :p
A 4 means below average, not awful. Thus, if Jim really didn't like a game, it's at best a 3 then. With that in mind, a 2 isn't THAT low. Just because major sites like IGN and Gamespot use 7 as "average" only makes stuff like 2s or even 5s seem really really bad. You wouldn't feel like a movie critic just "destroyed" a movie by giving it 1 out of 4 stars, right?
I honestly have no idea how any of these reviewers make these scores, but I was expecting a 7 at least because even Jim said he found the alpha demo thing a little addicting. It really seemed like something I wouldn't have to be critical about for once, but now I have wait and see.

I don't usually follow scores either, unless I often agree with that reviewer. The only way they can destroy a movie/game is if they point out how little sense it makes and how terrible the execution is with evidence. Obviously I don't believe Jims review has done this.
 

Yoshi178

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Battenberg said:
Yoshi178 said:
like that idiot Jim even matters.


Johnny Novgorod said:
Holy fuck, Sterling is on a roll.

Lisker84 said:
To be fair, Jim Sterling seems to hate just about everything.
He gave Nier: Automata a 9/10 like a week ago.
And Horizon Zero Dawn a 9.5/10 before that.
That's like straight out of his front page. I don't even follow the guy.
thats cause Jims a Sony Fanboy
You're calling him a fanboy for giving a game that got fantastic reviews across the board a similarly fantastic review himself? (I'm not counting Nier since Sony actually had nothing to do with that game but again his review score fell well in line with other critics and players.) Maybe you don't recall the shitstorm he got for giving Uncharted 4 too low a score not far back where people accused him of being a Nintendo fanboy, those people sounded daft too.

Lot of people seem to really go out of their way to drop hate on Jim Sterling for the absolute weirdest shit, often just the fact he has opinions which aren't identical to their own. I always find it hard to fathom how they have the kind of spare time and motivation you need to do that for prolonged periods. Like if the guy irritates you that much surely it's easier to just skip past anything to do with him and move on with your life.


OT: I was super hoping Yooka-Laylee would be good as I have heaps of nostalgia for a lot of PS1 mascot platformers but even the good reviews mention issues with the game I'd find offputting. Pretty disappointing really but given how games are handled these days I guess there's a slim chance some of these things will be altered/ fixed in the future in response to some of these reviews.
i don't think i was actively on the escapist around the time of the Uncharted 4 review let alone paid attention to it
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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altnameJag said:
You know, I was worried 2017 would be less kind to a retro-collect-a-thon than they were to collect-a-thons from 19 years ago.

It's like watching G1 Transformers as a kid, then buying the movie in a fit of nostalgia 20 years later. That was a rough 85 minutes.
For my money its a rough 65 minutes since the first 25 is pretty fucking cool. It all goes downhill after Optimus and Starscream die :p

Ah who am I fucking kidding, I love that movie more than any of its live action cousins.
 

Elijin

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I have a question!

Is the game functionally flawed or heavily broken? Or is this just a case that it turns out that as fond of our memories are of 3D platformers, in actual practice most of us have outgrown them?

That's what sticks out to me, because every piece of footage of this game I have seen has elected a 'Man that looks interesting, I would have been so into that 10 year ago, but I just cant work up the enthusiasm to go back to 3D platformers now.'
 

Mangod

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Elijin said:
I have a question!

Is the game functionally flawed or heavily broken? Or is this just a case that it turns out that as fond of our memories are of 3D platformers, in actual practice most of us have outgrown them?

That's what sticks out to me, because every piece of footage of this game I have seen has elected a 'Man that looks interesting, I would have been so into that 10 year ago, but I just cant work up the enthusiasm to go back to 3D platformers now.'
I haven't played it, but it sounds like it's functionally flawed rather than broken. It's a mascot platforming game, only one that's still suffering the same problems those games suffered during the 90s.

Jim Fucking Sterling Son said:
"If there?s one thing that can be said in Yooka-Laylee?s favor, it?s that Playtonic absolutely nailed the creation of a late 90s 3D mascot platformer.

Unfortunately, I do not mean that as a compliment."
Jim Fucking Sterling Son said:
"With its dated mechanics, horrific camera, and awful platforming controls, Yooka-Laylee is the very embodiment of nostalgia gone wrong ? a faithful recreation of a 1998 experience without any consideration or concessions made for the many advances in gameplay that have occurred since then."
 

TrulyBritish

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Elijin said:
I have a question!

Is the game functionally flawed or heavily broken? Or is this just a case that it turns out that as fond of our memories are of 3D platformers, in actual practice most of us have outgrown them?

That's what sticks out to me, because every piece of footage of this game I have seen has elected a 'Man that looks interesting, I would have been so into that 10 year ago, but I just cant work up the enthusiasm to go back to 3D platformers now.'
According to Jim, the former I guess. Common consensus seems to be it's just like Banjo Kazooie, with Jim saying that that's a bad thing because it has all the flaws of late 90's platforms with none of the improvements made since. It sounds like he doesn't particularly like BK in the first place though.
Some people seem to be having performance issues, but not to the extent that, say, Andromeda seems to be having.
 

hermes

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Yoshi178 said:
Battenberg said:
Yoshi178 said:
like that idiot Jim even matters.


Johnny Novgorod said:
Holy fuck, Sterling is on a roll.

Lisker84 said:
To be fair, Jim Sterling seems to hate just about everything.
He gave Nier: Automata a 9/10 like a week ago.
And Horizon Zero Dawn a 9.5/10 before that.
That's like straight out of his front page. I don't even follow the guy.
thats cause Jims a Sony Fanboy
You're calling him a fanboy for giving a game that got fantastic reviews across the board a similarly fantastic review himself? (I'm not counting Nier since Sony actually had nothing to do with that game but again his review score fell well in line with other critics and players.) Maybe you don't recall the shitstorm he got for giving Uncharted 4 too low a score not far back where people accused him of being a Nintendo fanboy, those people sounded daft too.

Lot of people seem to really go out of their way to drop hate on Jim Sterling for the absolute weirdest shit, often just the fact he has opinions which aren't identical to their own. I always find it hard to fathom how they have the kind of spare time and motivation you need to do that for prolonged periods. Like if the guy irritates you that much surely it's easier to just skip past anything to do with him and move on with your life.


OT: I was super hoping Yooka-Laylee would be good as I have heaps of nostalgia for a lot of PS1 mascot platformers but even the good reviews mention issues with the game I'd find offputting. Pretty disappointing really but given how games are handled these days I guess there's a slim chance some of these things will be altered/ fixed in the future in response to some of these reviews.
i don't think i was actively on the escapist around the time of the Uncharted 4 review let alone paid attention to it
Which just sounds like a handy way of saying "I don't care about past evidence. It didn't happen if I wasn't there! Now let me continue throwing random accusations based on selective past evidence..."
 

lacktheknack

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Phoenixmgs said:
2 isn't THAT low.
Uh -

...hmmmm.

I don't think my Mom would have really cared about the lowness of the grade if I came home with a 20% - an F is an F. And that's a solid F by any reasonable metric, seeing how a "pass" tends to range from 50% to 70%.

Consider that you might be desperate.
 

Elvis Starburst

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Came here for review scores, wasn't disappointed. Left with someone with an angry hateboner for Jim Sterling. Also wasn't disappointed
 

axlryder

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I like how people throw out the "Jim comments bingo card" to try and act like general complaints lobbied against his review style are just oh so trite and ill-conceived, and never once stop to consider that maybe there's something to what people are saying. Jim really does review things purely on the basis of "how much did I enjoy this and how does this align with my personal views on game design". This is a big factor in almost all reviews, but rarely does it make up the entirety of the score. Other reviews often take the more "objective" aspects of a game into account, particularly how well it does what it's trying to do in the eyes of the target audience. It's the reason that you saw a lot of solid, yet antiquated, anime games in the 90's getting 6-7/10 (instead of 2/10) from guys who mostly just wanted to play Quake and openly hated those sorts of games.

Basically, Jim's reviews are a very poor consumer guide for anyone other than people whose feelings about video games align almost identically with Jim Sterling. That's not to say that the value of reviews don't go beyond just being a consumer guide, but the point stands nonetheless.

It's obviously his right to review things that way, it's his personal site and I don't even think it's "wrong", but it's not the sort of review style that lends itself well to a numbered system or inclusion in aggregate review sites, which is what causes most of the controversy. The number system has always been implied to reflect overall quality, not as a "personal fun meter". Maybe he should call it that, and use 10 different words, instead of a numeric score (that's not me being snide, I'm serious). Sure, it might damage his traffic, but at least it would alleviate all of the click-bait accusations.

Also, for the record, I'm not personally invested in this game and I think he was actually being reasonable with Zelda (I think the majority of reviewers were lacking objectivity in the opposite direction in not at least dinging the game's score a little bit on systems that clearly could have been better). That said, based on all of the reviews I've skimmed, giving this a 2/10 goes against the spirit of game journalism scoring as it has existed up to this point. Again, it's fine if he wants to go that route, but I think he should be taking a hard-line stance on that, as other sites have done, rather than acting like he's really "scoring" the game in any conventional sense. If metacritic still wants to include his scores at that point, then that's on them.
 

sageoftruth

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Elijin said:
I have a question!

Is the game functionally flawed or heavily broken? Or is this just a case that it turns out that as fond of our memories are of 3D platformers, in actual practice most of us have outgrown them?

That's what sticks out to me, because every piece of footage of this game I have seen has elected a 'Man that looks interesting, I would have been so into that 10 year ago, but I just cant work up the enthusiasm to go back to 3D platformers now.'
I read the review this morning, thanks to a youtube commenter linking me to it. It sounded like much of his criticism came from the game not addressing lots of the genre's old problems like awkward 3D platforming, simplistic combat, camera problems and clunky controls. From the sound of it, I got the impression that if you can tolerate the 3D collectathons of old, you should be able to tolerate this, but don't expect it to be any better. I guess he just really really did not like those kinds of games, or simply could not forgive this one for having the same problems those games had back when developers were still learning their way around good 3D games.

Unless this game is particularly bad as a 3D collectathon, I may be able to tolerate it, but after retrying Banjo Kazooie last month, I think I'm also done with the genre. When awkward controls make up more than 50% of the challenge, the fun just disappears.
 

CaitSeith

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axlryder said:
Basically, Jim's reviews are a very poor consumer guide for anyone other than people whose feelings about video games align almost identically with Jim Sterling.
That pretty much applies to every reviewer. Not every consumer looks for the same things from games, they like different things from the same games. "Overall quality" isn't measurable in games, as there is no official standard or guideline on how to measure quality.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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JCAll said:
Ezekiel said:
A 4 means below average, not awful. Thus, if Jim really didn't like a game, it's at best a 3 then. With that in mind, a 2 isn't THAT low. Just because major sites like IGN and Gamespot use 7 as "average" only makes stuff like 2s or even 5s seem really really bad. You wouldn't feel like a movie critic just "destroyed" a movie by giving it 1 out of 4 stars, right?
...what? A 2 is literally one point higher than the lowest you can get. Even using 5 as "average", 2 is dogshit bad.
That was my quote. You're literally arguing over a single point. Where 5 is average, 4 means not horrible and merely below par. Thus, a bad game scores at best a 3 then. Even Jim's scoring system states a bad game is a 2. Jim felt Yooka-Laylee was a bad game, thus gave it a 2. What's the point of arguing over 1 point? How is Jim giving it 1 point higher going to change anything? What's the point of arguing over a subjective review? There is no such objectively correct statement saying XYZ game is at worst a 6/10 for example. Gamers are as much a problem with how games are reviewed as reviewers themselves.

lacktheknack said:
Phoenixmgs said:
2 isn't THAT low.
Uh -

...hmmmm.

I don't think my Mom would have really cared about the lowness of the grade if I came home with a 20% - an F is an F. And that's a solid F by any reasonable metric, seeing how a "pass" tends to range from 50% to 70%.

Consider that you might be desperate.
Since when is art rated on a scale similar to the school system? Movies have historically been rated on a 4-star scale where 2 stars is average yet that's failing at any school. When you make something like 7 average, good games are then bunched up altogether and there's barely any spacing between a good game and a great game. The fact that it's an "accomplishment" for a triple-A to get below an 8/10 says it all. Critics are supposed to criticize, not advertise; every game being reviewed as "great" dilutes the meaning of great. There was a 3-year span where I didn't give a single game an 8/10 or higher; between TLoU and Dishonored 2, nothing I played was an 8 or better in my book.

axlryder said:
Basically, Jim's reviews are a very poor consumer guide for anyone other than people whose feelings about video games align almost identically with Jim Sterling. That's not to say that the value of reviews don't go beyond just being a consumer guide, but the point stands nonetheless.

That said, based on all of the reviews I've skimmed, giving this a 2/10 goes against the spirit of game journalism scoring as it has existed up to this point. Again, it's fine if he wants to go that route, but I think he should be taking a hard-line stance on that, as other sites have done, rather than acting like he's really "scoring" the game in any conventional sense. If metacritic still wants to include his scores at that point, then that's on them.
Isn't the point of having a "go-to" reviewer in any medium of art finding a reviewer that matches your tastes decently well enough? If every reviewer was basically giving the same review (which is sorta game reviews now), what's the point in having more than 1 reviewer? Movie reviews have been fine for quite some time doing exactly what Jim does. My tastes don't align with Jim that much, but when he does give a game a really high score, I'll do a double-take if I wasn't initially interested in the game because I'd prefer to try something at least someone genuinely loved. Whereas an 8 or 9 from IGN literally means nothing, it's just par for the course and I have no clue if the reviewer genuinely loved it or not.

Your "spirit of game journalism" isn't very historical and started at the tail-end of the PS2 gen or the start of last-gen. I remember getting EGM during the PS2 gen where each game was reviewed by 3 reviewers and there was more score variance from 3 people than there are from 100+ Metacritic scores. Jim is merely rating games like a movie reviewer rates movies, it's not a problem for movies and it wasn't a problem for games either. 7 has never been "conventionally" average for any rating system for any art.