Zero Punctuation: Quantum Conundrum

[Jennacide]

The assertions by the user Yahtzee mentions are why so many people don't want to play on the PC in the first place. I love PC gaming, but I do realize that far too often developers leave all the best things buried in ini files you can't get to without knowing what you're doing. Case in point, making Skyrim look better and run smoother at launch required you to patch the executable to use Large Address Aware (LAA) and modify the ini's to actually use the RAM most 64bit systems would have available. Or in Metro, the only way to even use it's amazing Global Illumination lighting to was edit the ini files.

 

[Hitchmeister]

Unfortunately, naming and shaming will probably not work in this case. Such an individual will probably take great pride in being insulted by Yahtzee.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I understand that it was kind of childish, but that rhyme at the end was the funniest thing I've heard all week. Then again, I'm probably not going stand up when an idiot who says something like "You shouldn't be PC gaming if you don't have a high-end PC/can't tweak .ini files" get's ridiculed.
Great review, as always.

 

[Skulltaker101]

lol, I like the transition between Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor to Quantum Conundrum! XD It's almost like he was going to give the first game a full review, then switched at the last minute to something else.

Wait, the scientist is voiced by John de Lancie? As in... DISCORD FROM MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC? I MUST GET THIS GA- Oh wait, first-person platforming? I'll pass.

The week after reviewing a game voiced primarily by Twilight Sparkle, incidentally.

 

[EHKOS]

The only thing I disagree:

Platforming in First Person is not hard. At all. It is as easy as everything else. But maybe this is just my expirience of 12y PC gaming talking.

On the game: I like it quite a lot and several things were already patched (settings and such).

I agree, Mirrors Edge was easy and fun too. Maybe it's because I grew up with platformers, but if you're immersed in a game, you can kind of feel your feet anyway.

EDIT: Read the guys post, Yahtzee seemed to leave out a lot. The guy isn't that terrible, and has a point. If you don't have minimum required specs then you really can't play the game. It doesn't matter if you deserve to or not. It's like owning a Lamborghini, it's fast and looks great, but not a lot of people can afford it, and we're (mostly) fine with it. We buy a car in our price range.
And the second part is he says "...if your computer cannot play this title, I cannot see how you can be a PC gamer? I can't imagine what games you can be playing."
And that's true. I've stopped playing on PC because I can't afford a new one, so I buy games for my PS3. Honestly if you can't run modern games then what HAVE you to play? I guess he could have said they aren't "current" PC gamers. But meh, there's my opinion.

 

[Shjade]

Finally! Somebody else on this planet who absolutely hates motion blur in video games. It's always the first thing I turn off in graphics.

Here here! Motion blur sucks!

Wait, there are people who like motion blur? What?

 

[eniac0]

what!?!? guys come on, that ending was really out of place. its like using the good ole line "F-- me", "F-- you"

WTF yathzee, no amount of forum teenagy insult should remotely transpire into the paid work of a professional journalist. especially that you have access to such a wide audience, its like promoting a pissing snotty attitude when someone takes a poke at your ego.

I know it accounts only for a few seconds in there but that "smooth" finish really hurts the review and makes for a lasting impression.

I visit this site for its reviews and gaming news in general. i tend to like your reviews and have been enjoying them for a long time. But with reviews like this one, my opinion is that i worry where you are taking your brand when you equally promote a form of negative elitism similar to what the anonymous guy on steam got fired upon for as i understand. its one thing to take a whack at a product, a game or even a company and its quite another to use your podium to take a whack at an individual which, we know now, can be traced back and identified.

I know that if i don't like it, i can just go elsewhere, but the point of my comment today is to point out how from a reader's perspective, this specific review has, not lacked in quality, but lacked in "edits".

 

[VladG]

Not sure why Yahtzee rags so much first person platformers. I had absolutely no issue with my positioning or jumping. If anything I felt the platforming to be very accurate and easy in QQ.

Same goes for Mirror's Edge.

 

[FEichinger]

If a game - released to the public, not as some kind of beta, demo, preview, mid-development thing etc. - doesn't have a UI to change basic settings, this means the developer did not want them to be changed. Arguing that "you can change them through config files" is bullshit. Yes, it works, but that definitely isn't how it's supposed to be - and that's the issue Yahtzee addressed.

 

[Mydnyght]

All I got out of that video is this:
Yahtzee doesn't give half a fuck that he finally reviewed a game whose title starts with Q and that the Zero Punctuation Alphabet is now complete.

 

[Balkan]

IF I say that Spec ops The line is like a third person shootter Silent hill , will that intrigue you ?

I doubt it. A tird person shooter Silen Hill sound like kind of a terrible idea.

Then you havent played the game
It has some of the subtle elements of sh like envioremental story telling and hints of madness . Its not survival horror .

 

[Flunk]

I think some clarity needs to brought to this "pc games hardware" thing.

Having adequate hardware is very important, to a point. It is only up to the makers of the game to ensure that it plays adequately on the minimum requirements they set out. If it doesn't play adequately on the minimum requirements, then it's the developers fault. That's why those requirements exist.

Not having graphics setting on an Unreal-engined game is just lazy on the developer's part as the engine supports a lot of different settings that they would just have to write menu options for with very little effort.

P.S. I do know how to edit Unreal scripting files but I won't begrudge anyone who can't, there really isn't any reason why we should have to do that.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

Here is the c-- he is poster number .

Prepare the flamethrowers

I'm sorry, but am I the only one that thinks the kid had a perfectly reasonable response and Yahtzee simply made him sound like some elitest PC gaming ****?

Here's a break down of the actual post;

TBH, you're not a long time PC gamer if you can't edit a config file nor if you believe that the 'dawn of the 3d gaming era' used menus to change settings - so please change that to reflect the truth

The OP had a bit of a smarmy attitude and claimed to be a long time PC gamer, the person referenced by Yahtzee responded in kind.

PC games did not always have menu settings. Even those that did had far more hidden setting only accessible via config files. It is a very reasonable assumption that if you've been playing games on a PC for significant portion of time, at one point you've edited a config file (especially if you were gaming in the 90s/early 2ks). It'd be similar to assuming that someone who claims to "have spent a lot of time around cars" would know how to change their own oil; it's not always going to be the case, but it probably should be.

The game uses the unreal 3 engine, most of the things in your list (FOV, Vsync and so on) can be changed by editing the config file for the game.

This is actually helpful, is it not? He has responded to the OP to inform him that the settings he complained about can in fact be changed.

Many of other things really aren't serious are they? This is no graphic and cpu hungry title at all. With the best will in the world, if you don't have a computer that can play this title smoothly on the defaults, you must have a computer from the dawn of 3d gaming

PC gamers need a gaming PC. Not a triple-SLI, nitrogen cooled, plutonium powered Pineapple systems 74, but at the least a reasonably fast dual core and reasonable fast graphics card.

This statement is the opposite of what Yahtzee claimed, 'anyone that doesn't have access to a top-range PC blah blah blah'. It's clearly stated, you don't need a top range PC, but you do need a gaming PC. Any gaming PC bought in the past 5 years or so should be able to handle the Unreal Engine 3 because it's been around even longer...

The game runs fine without needing lowered resolutions and so on on the recommended hardware. There's a bit of level loading and exit / entry doors to each puzzle, but it's nothing gameplay breaking (and it's far less significant than Portal 2's constant level loading interruptions)

That's all this game needs. But, with the best will in the world, if your computer cannot play this title, I cannot see how you can be a PC gamer? I can't imagine what games you can be playing.

As for the fov and vsync and so on, google should help you find details of changing UT3 config settings - generally speaking the defaults are in E:\Steam\steamapps\common\Quantum Conundrum\Engine\Config (where E: is the drive you have steam installed on) although UT3 games install configs in C:\Users\blah\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3 too, where blah is your user account - that said, there are a few of them detailed already in other threads in this forum, perhaps others will appear.

And he ends his post with info the is genuinely helpful.

 

[MarsProbe]

I wanted to quote the post by the user that thought they were first, then go back to make a posthumous edit on finding out they were beaten to the punch, as it made me laugh almost as much as this review.

Good one, Yahtzee!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't know what's funnier. That he called some random Steam guy a **** or that he doesn't know how to edit an ini file of a UT3 engine based game.

 

[girzwald]

Here is the c-- he is poster number
Prepare the flamethrowers

I'm sorry, but am I the only one that thinks the kid had a perfectly reasonable response and Yahtzee simply made him sound like some elitest PC gaming ****?

Here's a break down of the actual post;

TBH, you're not a long time PC gamer if you can't edit a config file nor if you believe that the 'dawn of the 3d gaming era' used menus to change settings - so please change that to reflect the truth

The OP had a bit of a smarmy attitude and claimed to be a long time PC gamer, the person referenced by Yahtzee responded in kind.

PC games did not always have menu settings. Even those that did had far more hidden setting only accessible via config files. It is a very reasonable assumption that if you've been playing games on a PC for significant portion of time, at one point you've edited a config file (especially if you were gaming in the 90s/early 2ks). It'd be similar to assuming that someone who claims to "have spent a lot of time around cars" would know how to change their own oil; it's not always going to be the case, but it probably should be.

The game uses the unreal 3 engine, most of the things in your list (FOV, Vsync and so on) can be changed by editing the config file for the game.

This is actually helpful, is it not? He has responded to the OP to inform him that the settings he complained about can in fact be changed.

Many of other things really aren't serious are they? This is no graphic and cpu hungry title at all. With the best will in the world, if you don't have a computer that can play this title smoothly on the defaults, you must have a computer from the dawn of 3d gaming

PC gamers need a gaming PC. Not a triple-SLI, nitrogen cooled, plutonium powered Pineapple systems 74, but at the least a reasonably fast dual core and reasonable fast graphics card.

This statement is the opposite of what Yahtzee claimed, 'anyone that doesn't have access to a top-range PC blah blah blah'. It's clearly stated, you don't need a top range PC, but you do need a gaming PC. Any gaming PC bought in the past 5 years or so should be able to handle the Unreal Engine 3 because it's been around even longer...

The game runs fine without needing lowered resolutions and so on on the recommended hardware. There's a bit of level loading and exit / entry doors to each puzzle, but it's nothing gameplay breaking (and it's far less significant than Portal 2's constant level loading interruptions)

That's all this game needs. But, with the best will in the world, if your computer cannot play this title, I cannot see how you can be a PC gamer? I can't imagine what games you can be playing.

As for the fov and vsync and so on, google should help you find details of changing UT3 config settings - generally speaking the defaults are in E:\Steam\steamapps\common\Quantum Conundrum\Engine\Config (where E: is the drive you have steam installed on) although UT3 games install configs in C:\Users\blah\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3 too, where blah is your user account - that said, there are a few of them detailed already in other threads in this forum, perhaps others will appear.

And he ends his post with info the is genuinely helpful.

He may end his post with something somewhat helpful, but he doesn't say how to do it he basically says keep looking cause I'm not going to tell you. But even considering that, he was a **** the entire time. The dude must live in his mothers basement if he thinks everyone knows how, or does manually edit files for their games on a regular basis.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

what!?!? guys come on, that ending was really out of place. its like using the good ole line "F-- me", "F-- you"

WTF yathzee, no amount of forum teenagy insult should remotely transpire into the paid work of a professional journalist. especially that you have access to such a wide audience, its like promoting a pissing snotty attitude when someone takes a poke at your ego.

I know it accounts only for a few seconds in there but that "smooth" finish really hurts the review and makes for a lasting impression.

I visit this site for its reviews and gaming news in general. i tend to like your reviews and have been enjoying them for a long time. But with reviews like this one, my opinion is that i worry where you are taking your brand when you equally promote a form of negative elitism similar to what the anonymous guy on steam got fired upon for as i understand. its one thing to take a whack at a product, a game or even a company and its quite another to use your podium to take a whack at an individual which, we know now, can be traced back and identified.

I know that if i don't like it, i can just go elsewhere, but the point of my comment today is to point out how from a reader's perspective, this specific review has, not lacked in quality, but lacked in "edits".

ItÄs a JOKE. He overexaggerated something in order for it to become FUNNY.
If you don''t like the joke, fine, but it's still a joke.

The joke he made, was that it's quite common for PC gamers to display a certain elitism. He chose to convey this by taking a single representative of the PC gaming community, who was not singled out, since he wasn't named, explaining to us, what said individual had done and then calling this representative of all PC-elitists names.

Jesus tapdancing Christ.

 

[Lucem712]

You know, this reminds me of when some Linux users mock newbies for being unable to use the Terminal. Sure, the terminal is a fantastic tool and can make tasks much easier (Especially once you memorize the commands) but it shouldn't be required.

Linux OSes should have a GUI option, and so should PC games. Because you can really damage things if you don't know what the hell you are doin'.