Your opinion: What kind of solid opinions can you make without playing the game?

[CaitSeith]

Reading articles and reviews, hearing interviews and podcasts, watching analysis and full LPs till their end, anything but playing the game. In which circumstances an opinion about a game without playing has enough solid foundations that actually having played it makes a negligible difference?

Personally I don't think I would have the same opinion about the Mass Effect 3 ending if I hadn't played the entire trilogy (a delicious cake with a cherry made of crap at the top). But people seem eager to completely shut down opinions they disagree with by using this claim.

Maybe they don't have enough time or money to buy the game, but they don't want to be left out of the conversation. Or maybe they already know enough to know they won't enjoy the game. Buying a game you already know you won't like, just so your opinions are seen as legitimate is stupid! You neither enjoyed the game or changed your predisposed opinion; and that wasted time and money could had been spend on games you liked more.

What's your opinion? Let's discuss it.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Art design, soundtrack, HUD (if uncustomisable), voice acting, weebery level, stupidity of plot twists/contrivances.

Or solely narrative games, such as Quantum Dream, Until Dawn, Telltale etc.

That's it as far as I know. Even then, a person could just easily skip most of an LP to see the ending, yet claim they totes know the game now. Whereas if you have it and got through the whole story, one has to assume you doing all that shit yourself is within a far higher probability, so therefore retain far higher knowledges of said gameplay of game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I think you do need to play the game or something very similar to have a legitimate opinion on it. So many AAA games are so homogeneous now, you sorta have played them before a lot of times. For example, if you played one Ubisoft game, you basically played them all because of how similar they play. I knew FarCry 5 wasn't for me; although I am interested in the hopefully standalone DLC because of how over-the-top it is like Blood Dragon and probably shouldn't be overly long and padded out experiences either. Another example is Arkham combat, I remember looking at the skill tree in Shadow of Mordor and most of the skills were pulled straight out of Batman and I knew exactly what to prioritize and everything. I couldn't even feign interest in Shadow of War because I'm just done with Arkham combat except maybe once a generation now. There's too many games that play all too similarly nowadays, Jim Sterling just did a video today about it in fact.

HOWEVER, I feel that you can't always just assume you'd hate or like a game even in the same series as things like how shooting or a melee combat system "feel" come down to a lot of little things and you sorta have to play it to properly experience that. For example, I find Uncharted 1, 3, and 4 to be bad games (under a 5/10 IMO) but I loved Uncharted 2 and it all came down to level design, enemy encounters, ever-so-slight changes to the gunplay to change the "feel", set-pieces, story and character engagement, overall flow, etc. I remember thinking Mirror's Edge was a stupid idea (1st-person platforming) and after 5 minutes of playing the demo I was loving it. Even games that don't really have a feel to the gameplay like turn-based systems akin to XCOM or Divinity. XCOM is literally just DnD combat (move action, attack action) but it can still be done poorly even if you like that type of system going in. Multiplayer games hinge on lots of little things like, of course, feel and stuff like balance issues. Even a minor balance issue can ruin multiplayer games and cause a meta of everyone doing the same thing because it objectively the best.

In conclusion, there are times when one can form a very accurate opinion of a game without playing it but only in very specific circumstances. If you know going in this game has this exact combat system and you just don't like it or are tired of that system, then you most likely won't like that game even if the game has the best and most refined version of that system. Same thing for some formulas like Ubisoft: The Game where you'd need a shakeup in some manner to enjoy it. For example, I was done with classic God of War, both story and gameplay so the fact that the new game was a "fresh" experience got me interested. I also never tried a Battle Royale mode (well, MGO2 sorta had one) but I'm 99.9% sure I wouldn't care for the type of playstyle that mode encourages and rewards in my multiplayer games.

 

[Hazy992]

Technical stuff, you don't need to play a game to know how buggy it is or if it has frame rate issues

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Look to the fanbase and you'll learn a lot about a game. Game's infrastructure supports its community, so there's a good chance the community is a good cross-section of what you'll find in game.

CS:GO is infamous for toxicity, cheating, and harassment. So I'm guessing its the kinda of game that lends itself to those ideas.

Overwatch is all about the pro-leagues and lootboxes, so I'm guessing there's a lot of highly competitive players and lootboxes.

Now of course player actions don't actively reflect the gameplay. There's a lot of overlap in CS:GO behavior and say, online Minecraft behavior, but the games are radically different.
You won't get an idea of what the gameplay is like looking at the community, but you'll get a good idea of what playing the game will be like.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

You can certainly have a real opinion on a story if you watched someone else play it, or a let's play or something. The exception to that being a game like Dark Souls, where the gameplay is the story.

But other than that, I would put little trust in a review by someone who didn't at least play enough of the game to fully grasp the mechanics and feel of it. There's just no substitute for experience.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Articles and reviews only tell you what a single person (bought or not) thought about it. Can't really trust anything there.
Besides, it often leaves out such things as camera perspective and gameplay mechanics.

Interviews and podcasts only tell you what the company/publisher hopes for the game and also hopes you want to hear.
Do I need to bring up No Mans Sky or any of the multitude other games who've promised the world?

LP's and video's on the other hand, can be quite good. Unless doctored or edited by said game company.
The first thing one learns is the importance given to graphics (at the possible cost of other things), followed by camera perspective (which is good, since I hate over-the-Shoulder cams or first person vehicle games).
You can also see the amount of QTE's, cinematics and scripted fights/parkour movement.

---

You can learn quite a bit reading up on a game, whilst remembering that it's all hearsay until proven otherwise.
Video's say even more, as your eyes usually don't lie (well quite often they do, but lets not get in to that).

What's best is do all of the above, then wait until other people have actually bought the game and are discussing it online.
It would require delayed gratification though, and willpower.

 

[sXeth]

You can never definitively say whether or not the game is fun or feels satisfying to play.

Most of the rest of it? Yeah, with a decent spectrum of reviews or LPS or whatever, you can pretymuch comment on. You do need that spectrum though. One clickbaity youtuber yammering about something, a review or two of highly rushed glance-bys to get their review up for the launch day clicks, actual videos editing montages of bugs with no indication of frequencym, and so on dont constitute an informed take.

 

[CaitSeith]

You can never definitively say whether or not the game is fun or feels satisfying to play.

Most of the rest of it? Yeah, with a decent spectrum of reviews or LPS or whatever, you can pretymuch comment on. You do need that spectrum though. One clickbaity youtuber yammering about something, a review or two of highly rushed glance-bys to get their review up for the launch day clicks, actual videos editing montages of bugs with no indication of frequencym, and so on dont constitute an informed take.

But someone who has zero previous gaming experience won't be able to form an informed take either on his own. Without a reference framework (aka, games previously played), he won't be able to tell anything well founded and explained beyond if he liked it or not, because he knows no better.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Everybody knows what they like and don't like, though sometimes a game will surprise you (or disappoint you).
Now consider the following: would you trust a review of a person who hasn't played the game they're criticizing?

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

To a well-trained eye, all one needs is a glance at a brief gameplay clip to know whether a game's worth the bother. Ideally, a gameplay clip that isn't overshadowed by some idiotic-loudmouth Streamer/Let's Play-youtuber screaming in the background.

 

[Abomination]

would you trust a review of a person who hasn't played the game they're criticizing?

Not for a second, a review of a game implies the reviewer has had first hand experience and has other games by which to compare. They have also done their due diligence and have attempted to understand the gameplay as best as the game can present it to them.

 

[Zombie Proof]

To varying degrees with varying games.

For instance I abhor Telltale's The Walking Dead's gameplay but I love the story and characters so I watch no commentary youtube playthroughs. Whenever story/character pop up in a discussion I have the tools required to engage. Conversely the only time I ever hear people talk about it's gameplay is when a glitch is mentioned lol.

In games where gameplay is at the forefront of the experience though I'd say not so much. It's impossible to explain to someone the virtues of Left 4 Dead or Overwatch's co-op gameplay design and how each person playing enriches the experience. The visual style, character design, writing, and overall presentation provide tons of areas for discussion though.

 

[Trunkage]

I'd add that I'd used podcasts for games that I've played but not for a long time as a guide to judgements. I haven't played Morrowind for almost a decade so having that reminder of what it was like helps recall things I did/n't like about it (so much wasted time walking, level system, speech system, Teflon characters, dialogue in general being negatives)

It gets superseded if I replay a game. I replayed System Shock 2 last year and that's recent enough. I replayed Baulder Gate in '12. That's where I need some reminder. IMO, the further you get away from playing the game, the less accurate your judgement would be.

 

[Aerosteam]

You can get pretty much everything from a gameplay video with no commentary. Not official videos, because they can be dishonestly touched-up.

Even gameplay in my opinion. If you've played the genre and know about the game's mechanics and systems, you'll have a pretty good understanding of what the gameplay is like.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Depends on the tastes and capabilities of the reviewer. I like board games more than vidrogames, so it'd easier to tell watching people play that.

Shut Up & Sit Down crew are awesome.

 

[Recusant]

Graphics. Controls, sometimes (a big one for those of us hip with the 1890's). Some degree of buginess. But in any meaningful sense? None at all. The content of a game is not the same as the experience of the person playing it, and it's the experience that any merited opinion should be based on. It's true of all art; what you feel and think upon seeing a painting or sculpture or movie is not (wholly) what I feel and think. Further, what you feel and experience is not going to be consistent under all circumstances: you at fifteen, insulted and feared by the world, are not going to answer "what can change the nature of a man?" in the same way as you at forty, with two kids and a mortgage. Even something as small as how hungry or how cold you are is going to affect your experience.

When I first got a copy of Betrayal in Antara, I got so helplessly absorbed in the game I didn't stop playing it until a bad hit took down a party member, meaning I was going to lose a particularly difficult combat. In frustration, I slammed my first down onto the desk my computer was on, destabilizing a shelf on the wall above me, which caused a can of paint thinner to fall and bounce off of my thigh. The fingers of my other hand reflexively clenched down on the keys they were above, and when I pulled out of the wince, I noticed a black text box at the top of the screen. Thinking back to my Zork days, I figured this was a text parser, and typed in "Man does my leg hurt" because it did. This, it turns out, was the game's code for full party healing, and that's how I won that particular fight. That moment earned the game a permanent place in my heart (twenty years later, and I still find myself singing the tavern songs sometimes), and it wouldn't have happened under any other circumstances- had the can missed, I'd've probably typed "this fight sucks", and nothing would've happened.

Playing my friend's copy of Fallout 3, I encountered a VERY interesting bug. An early scene has you assisting in an arrest, and when the sheriff turns his back on the arrestee, the latter pulls out a gun and shoots him down. In my game, he didn't pull the gun; he simply scowled, and the sheriff collapsed, dead. Thus, the impact wasn't "how did this moron survive until adulthood?", but "what kind of unholy monster have I just angered?".

More universally, some things simply aren't the same watching as doing; I can't tell you how many times, playing Day-Z, I'd be crawling through a zombie-infested area, hoping desperately to find some supplies before I starved or bled out, I'd pause and think "Man, this would be the worst possible game to watch someone else play; all it is is hiding and hoping you don't see anything interesting". Obviously, the player of the game is in no physical danger (and if you are, stop playing), but that doesn't mean they're in no danger at all; an interactive experience can inherently provide you with more immersion that a non-interactive one. This can backfire, of course; more elements of experience means more that can be screwed up- no one ever complains about books having lousy graphics or comics having inadequate controls. LPs and AARs and the like can make your opinion more informed, certainly, but there's ultimately no substitute for actually playing a game.

Even games that don't really have a feel to the gameplay like turn-based systems akin to XCOM or Divinity. XCOM is literally just DnD combat (move action, attack action) but it can still be done poorly even if you like that type of system going in.

Not true; D&D combat let you attack and then move (and eventually came to have swift, immediate, and free actions, too). I'm not being pedantic here; the tactical limitations Solomon and his team imposed funneled you down a much narrower track than Gollop's efforts did. XCOM plays like "Baby's First Tactics Game" in comparison with its older siblings, and the effects show; if you consider turn-based systems as not having their own feel, do you not see a real difference between XCOM and X-Com, or either of them and Fallout, or Jagged Alliance, or even Worms?

 

[Dalisclock]

I've found let's plays good for games I either don't want to replay or play at all, but I'm interested in checking out the story and such.

I watched LP's for Drakengard, Nier and Final Fantasy XIII because I've heard the gameplay is pretty terrible. Just watching I can see there's some truth to that and in the case of FFXIII, it turns out there wasn't much in the way of story or characters there either. Just 10 hours of pretty graphics.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

If any of you like fighting games, I'd like to submit Marvel Vs Capcom infinite.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is still remembered as probably the God Father of Hyper-Fighting Fighting Games. It wasn't the first, but it was the most refined.

It had 56 Playable characters, with in the original arcade game, you only started with 24. The rest had to be unlocked on that cabinet.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 had 36 playable characters from the start, with two downloadable. It received an upgrade to Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom which added 12 new characters, bringing the total to 48.

Captain America, Dr Doom, Hulk, Iron Man, Sentinel, Spiderman, Wolverine, Akuma, Chun-Li, Jill Valentine, Ryu, and Strider Hiryu. 12 characters shared between the two games. That means you need to relearn the majority of the cast. That means the developers put effort in retooling and creating a new move list for each of those characters. A graphics update from drawn 2-d sprites to 3-d computer modeled figures. Capcom made a labor of love.

Now, we go to Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. It has an initial character roster of 30. From that original 30, Captain Marvel, Gamora, Thanos, Ultron, Jedah , and Mega Man X were new characters. Just Six new characters. And if you know anything about the series, you know that 4 of the new characters happened to come from Marvel, and just two from Capcom.

To compound that, Black Panther, Black Widow, Monster Hunter, Sigma, Venom, and Winter Soldier were released as DLC. Venom already being in the series before, so that makes for five new characters. And again, the majority of the characters are from the Marvel universe, and look at that, all in MCU movies...

From Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, we had 24 new characters to learn. With only two dlc characters before the Ultimate Update bringing the number to 26. On the case of Marvel vs Capcom Infinte, we had Six characters to learn. With the update bringing it up to 11 (Venom is largely unchanged and was already in the series).

And I haven't gotten into the graphics downgrade into upgrade. You might have heard of the Chun Li's face [https://cdn.segmentnext.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/marvel-vs-capcom.jpg] debacle. The news got so bad and the buzz around the game was so absurd that capcom rushed to try to update it's graphics. And to be fair, they salvaged what they could [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fBw1-Kn48&].

Now, here's the thing. From all reports, it's a very tight and fun game to play. But I keep looking at this game feeling like I already played it. I have Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. I wanted to wait to see what else they would bring out. What they did was underwhelming. I felt like Capcom wasn't truly committed to this game... And guess what? As of typing this, They aren't.

Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite will not be at Evo. That's not Capcom's choice. But it won't be at Capcom's Cup, their own event. So that's telling. We haven't heard anything about future dlcs. We've heard nothing.

You can make solid opinions without playing the game. You can see how much a company is committed to giving you a quality product by seeing how much of the product is new, and how much is recycled. You can see how much the company is willing to back it, or to rip it apart to bleed your wallet for the dlc money. You can see if they don't even care to model their characters well. And if none of that adds together for a pleasant experience... walk away and find greener pastures.

 

[Kyrian007]

I don't know everyone's situation, but there isn't anything I can't find out about a game without playing it. Enough to make purchase decisions... at the very least. I've never in my life paid more for a game than I thought it was worth, and I owe all that to just basic educating myself about the product before I purchase. So what kind of solid opinion can I make? The most important one, is it good enough to spend money on?