LittleJoeRambler said:
My Steam in-game time clocked at 42 hours for my first run-through of the game, start to finish, with plenty of dying (due to my own personal retardation), random exploring and probably 75% of the side-quests completed. If you cut out the non-essentials (like most of the side quests and exploration), you could probably cut that down to 30 hours (if not further). 10 hours to write a review and make a 5 minute video brings it to a normal 40-hour work week.
And then people would ***** that he didn't bother with the sidequests or exploration, which are big parts of the game, regardless.
However, your concept of "probably" still involves an asspull.
Regardless, game reviewers are asked to take on games and put out the same content as other reviewers. Music CDs top out at 80 minutes and average about 45 these days. Most books can be knocked off in a weekend at worst. Movies are around 90 minutes, with a high of 3-ish hours.
Games? A 4-6 hours is standard for shooter campaigns, much higher for RPGs and the likes.
I'd also add that writing and playing are not discrete elements and can greatly expand the time.
And finally on that note, other reviewers are expected to go through the material multiple times; it's rare to see a movie reviewed by a professional based on one screening. that's pretty much a vlog. The time involvement in games reviewing is already high.
I understand that Yahtzee is a busy guy (Mana Bar and Extra Punctuation obligations as well as everything else he does), and spending 40 hours on a single game in a week is probably unreasonable. But I don't think you should make comments on a story you haven't finished. It's like reading the first two chapters of a 20-chapter book and making your judgment there. I can also understand saying something like "the gameplay was so bad I just couldn't force myself to finish the story quest," but it doesn't really make critiques on the story any more valid. Besides, if that's the case, there should be plenty of material to come up with for a critique without having to reference the story at all.
The "other stuff" is a big element, too. Which is kind of a major problem.
But beyond that, it's surprisingly unlikely that the story will ever evolve in quality from the first few hours. My only real complaint here is the time from beating that boss he cakewalked over to finding out IT'S A TRAP!!! is like two minutes, so there's no excuse for complaining. But while I like the game, the story isn't exactly the stuff of legends, or even casual thought.
I agree with several of his points. After a while, it all started to feel really tedious, many of the guns are only slight upgrades, and hunting through a thousand boxes for ammo and money gets really boring. But while health does the standard regeneration thing as well as there being health drops, Borderlands 2's enemies don't typically drop enough ammo to keep you going. Searching for ammo in this game feels like searching for medkits in other games, it adds a level of urgency to all your actions. The inventory system is still pretty bad, though not as bad as the first one, and going through your stuff to sell it or mark it as trash still feels sticky.
Ammo is pretty plentiful, especially given most areas won't consume resources fast enough between Ammo Dumps. I'm also pretty sure health doesn't regenerate without certain mods or abilities; if I take the mod off my Siren, for example, she (and my teammates) stop gaining health. Your shields do regenerate, but that may not help you out much. Health drops are a non-issue and while I agree box-hunting is a chore, it's kind of a minor niggle. Especially compared to things like the driving and inventory.
The major difference I can see between Borderlands 2 and most other shooters is what you're rewarded with. With other shooters, clearing an area means moving to the next one, i.e. your reward is advancement towards the resolution. But with Borderlands 1 and 2, you're rewarded with loot to pick up, and advancement towards the resolution. You glut on the little rewards until you don't really even want the big one anymore. That's why I think I started getting bored with looting; towards the end of the game I started ignoring everything that wasn't purple or better. Borderlands 2 throws thousands of green and hundreds of blue items at you, to the point that you start seeing them like you would white items, and digging through that mountain of refuse takes FOREVER. One of the game's selling points ultimately became one of the things I didn't really like about it.
Even towards the end game, you can get common items that are better than the rare stuff. I can see why you might not want to do it, but this IS a shoot and loot game.
Personally, I rarely take pleasure in this sort of thing, but an action/shooter RPG with looting elements? It tickles me just right. If it's not for you, it's not for you, but this is what others want. the same sort of people who left-click endlessly to see a marginal improvement in a stat.
The only problem I have with the looting concept in this game, really is the issue of the RNG being a cruel deity. I went for like ten levels without a decent shield and it hampered me (and the team) greatly. In my other game so far, I've had horrible luck with SMGs. Now, thankfully you can share weapons with different characters you use, but that doesn't automatically solve the problem.
However, you're treating loot as optional. I'm not sure why something which has become optional is a liability.
