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The Witness - Reviews Thread

F

Fat4all

Banned
Se_7_eN said:
Damn...

The Witness
XCOM 2
Firewatch

Funny how I always feel there is a few months where I won't buy any games and can catch up on my backlog... But it never turns out that way.
Click to expand...

I'm buying more PSN money than ever these days.

Oh man, can't wait for Firewatch as well!
 
PapaEmeritus

PapaEmeritus

Member
Kenzodielocke said:
IGN - 10/10

Venture Beat - 70/100

PlayStation Lifestyle - 9/10

Gamespot - 9/10

PlayStation Universe - 6.5/10

PCGamer - 89

Escapist - 4/5

Videogamer - 10/10

Game Revolution - 5/5

Game Informer - 9.25/10

Hardcoregamer - 4/5

PC World - 4.5/5

We Got This Covered - 5/5

Destructoid - 10/10

Daily Dot - 4/5

GamePro (German) - 85/100

Gamesradar - 3/5

GameRevolution - 5/5

Metro.co.uk - 7/10

Examiner - 5/5

Spaziogames.it 9/10

Multiplayer.it 9/10

Meristation (Spanish) 8.7/10

Eurogamer - Recommended

Thanks Ekim for posting the reviews.
Click to expand...



Very Love hate reviews and opinions huh.
 
R

Ryo Hazuki

Member
He's going to check to see if Steam can push up release to midnight.

cglZtzY.png
 
M

mattp

Member
samred said:
Ars Technica's spoiler-free review (meaning, my review): http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...nd-where-knowledge-mystery-are-the-treasures/



I have been playing a nearly final version of this game since September. I fell in love with it early, and I'm still in love with it. To answer a question I saw earlier in the thread, this game's first-person movement/speed is adjusted VERY well for sickness, compared to The Talos Principle causing more whiplash. I can answer other questions if you have 'em.
Click to expand...

can you adjust the FOV
is there head bob
how fast is the movement speed, and does it ever require you to react to things quickly or swing the camera around to see stuff?
 
Q

QaaQer

Member
Se_7_eN said:
Damn...

The Witness
XCOM 2
Firewatch

Funny how I always feel there is a few months where I won't buy any games and can catch up on my backlog... But it never turns out that way.
Click to expand...

My thinking:

-Witness: wait for VR, so this time next year, possible summer 2017

-Xcom2: will need patching and additional content will be released, wait for goty this time next year, possible summer 2017.

-Firewatch: story based, shit gameplay<--just my guess; so possibly youtube the cutscenes if I'm really really bored and people are raving about it. Hated The Walking Dead 1, so not really high on this one.

BACKLOG SORTED!

btw, looking forward to finally playing the fully patched complete witcher 3 once the final dlc drops. Patience pays off.
 
Y

ymgve

Member
Ryo Hazuki said:
He's going to check to see if Steam can push up release to midnight.

cglZtzY.png
Click to expand...

I wonder what exactly Valve's stance is. Sure, most games are pushed out with the store updates but I see indie games released at odd hours on Steam all the time.

mattp said:
can you adjust the FOV
is there head bob
how fast is the movement speed, and does it ever require you to react to things quickly or swing the camera around to see stuff?
Click to expand...

Quick look gave a quick peek at the settings screen:
TjWqraQ.png
 
D

Dominator

Member
I'm really glad I've seen absolutely nothing about this game. Not a trailer, not a gameplay video, nothing.

Going in fresh and clean, cannot wait!
 
S

Spizz

Banned
I started paying more attention to this game as the release date was announced. I was debating on picking it up but wasn't 100% sure. Now, hell yeah I'm in.
 
M

mattp

Member
man...if i can't play this game without getting motion sickness(most first person stuff does for me) it's going to be soul crushingly disappointing
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
ymgve said:
I wonder what exactly Valve's stance is. Sure, most games are pushed out with the store updates but I see indie games released at odd hours on Steam all the time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Dog Fight released seven hours ago and previously had a "Early 2016" date with no countdown. As far as I'm aware, it's just staggered region-specific unlocks that Valve limits to big hitters like AssCreed and CoD.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
mattp said:
man...if i can't play this game without getting motion sickness(most first person stuff does for me) it's going to be soul crushingly disappointing
Click to expand...
This game is coming to iPad and is going to be playable on touch screen. I really doubt it's going to require fast movements and moving the camera quick or all that
 
S

samred

Member
mattp said:
can you adjust the FOV
is there head bob
how fast is the movement speed, and does it ever require you to react to things quickly or swing the camera around to see stuff?
Click to expand...

No. In fact, the game offers very little visual customization. When starting the game up each time, you're given the option of the normal EXE or a "low-end computers" version. There are reasons for this.

No.

You can fully adjust your movement speed, both for looking around and moving around. You get a "run" button, which is mighty useful. I cannot answer your final question.
 
C

cilonen

Member
ymgve said:
I wonder what exactly Valve's stance is. Sure, most games are pushed out with the store updates but I see indie games released at odd hours on Steam all the time.



Quick look gave a quick peek at the settings screen:
TjWqraQ.png
Click to expand...

So I guess that's a "no" on 21:9 support.

PS4 it is.
 
S

samred

Member
mattp said:
i should add, i'm asking about the ps4 version
Click to expand...

Oh, I only have the PC version. Not sure if Giant Bomb is playing PS4 version, but whatever they're playing has menus that are slightly different than those on PC. PC gamers get more options, but not a ton.
 
M

mclem

Member
tuxfool said:
But it sounds like the game expects to internalize the context and to learn lessons cumulatively. Somebody who doesn't do that will of course consider things obtuse.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's the catch-22 of adventure game design, and it's something I really hate. It all comes down to trust:

mclem said:
I think the *big* problem is that, for the player, it's impossible to distinguish between "Stuck because you've missed/haven't figured out what to do next" and "Stuck because the game has failed to give you adequate information on what to do next". Both are frustrating, but the first is a challenge for the player to solve, wheras the latter requires either a guide or luck.

The risk, though - and it's a trap I've fallen into - is that if you can't tell between the two of them, the average player will assume it's the latter. You need to have a lot of trust in a game to consider the possibility that the problem lies with you, and many games simply fail to earn that faith. And as soon as a player looks at a guide once, the path's open for them to keep looking, potentially ruining later puzzles even before they've given them proper consideration.

From a game design point of view... do you *assume* that a player will trust you? It's a brave move; it might produce better games, but it also produces *riskier* games. Not least because, of course, you as the designer may have judged your clues wrong, they might be much harder than intended (it's very difficult to step back and judge a problem you've created objectively, since you'll inherently already know the solution). It's a much safer option to err on the side of caution and be a bit too obvious.
Click to expand...

I'm going to start out trusting Blow. Hopefully he won't lose that through no fault of his own!
 
T

TheExhaustedWalrus

Member
Looks like I'm picking it up on PS4 seeing as the performance looks a perfect 1080/60. Really wanted to be able to play it from my bed. Really, really hope by some miracle it goes up at midnight on PSN.
 
M

mattp

Member
More_Badass said:
This game is coming to iPad and is going to be playable on touch screen. I really doubt it's going to require fast movements and moving the camera quick or all that
Click to expand...

unfortunately its never that simple. it doesnt necessarily have to be fast paced to make me feel off or give me a headache. i've always assumed it has more to do with the FOV. but i pretty much never play first person games, and also only play on console, so it's not like i have tons of opportunities to tweak FOV values and figure it out
 
S

Sylas

Member
sollos said:
The words are semantically primitive, you're not going to define them in some other times. It might seem difficult to believe, but if you have any experience with this sort of activity it's pretty clear how it is generally easy to come to a consensus on what belongs on each category.

I sometimes deal with this with university students when they come ask me about my grades. I don't go into these details, but the truth is, I could give their papers to any other professor, and they'd get the same letter grade. It's not difficult when you're only dealing with a few categories: A, B, C, D, F. Two less than what I proposed earlier for games. An 'A' paper is quite clear to anyone in my field (philosophy). It's well written, well argued, no fallacious arguments, and it presents a novel position. A 'B' paper may not have any issues, but it could stand a number of improvements in either exposition, exploring objections, and so forth. A 'C' paper has some problems. It may contain some fallacious arguments, or may display misunderstandings. But it was a well intended attempt. A 'D' paper was probably not well intended, or if it was, it displays serious issues. An 'F' paper is just atrocious and has no redeeming qualities.

This is a common activity that happens in so many different fields, including creative ones, such as fiction writing: being able to analyze the objective factors of a work. I'm not saying the result is going to look anything like a mathematical deduction in terms of the extent and specificity of the consensus, but you can quite clearly talk in broad terms about how well or poorly written some piece of fiction is, some piece of academic scholarship is, or how well or poorly written some piece of game design is and find large consensus.

To suggest that all there is are subjective attitudes and ultimately sales numbers is incredibly pessimistic.
Click to expand...

I will fundamentally disagree that you can grade a game in the same way you can grade a piece of academic work--simply because, especially a university student's essay, has a clear and stated goal as mandated by a higher power. You're setting a bar by establishing the assignment and in many cases the grade is a measure of how close to/how well they exceeded that bar. Your difficulty in doing this may vary, but there's always a goal to the assignment that's stated by the person that will be grading it.

We, as consumers, can looking at a game developer and say: "This is what we want from your game and we hold the authority on how well you met these wants," because ultimately you can vote with your wallet. That's still incredibly subjective, though. Are there objective factors? Absolutely. Things like framerate, stability, controls, sound quality. There are a ton of objective factors, but the design simply isn't one of them--not from a critical standpoint, at least.

The vast majority of the fiction analysis I've done on an academic and professional level boils down to, "This is my opinion. I can back that opinion up, but it's still an opinion." Unless we're speaking about the construction of a literary work, it's grammatical structure, spelling et al.

I understand what you're looking for, and I agree that some large amount of good can come out of trying to speak about games in a more academic and thoughtful light, but it's still far from "objective." It's not cynical to say it's a subjective view, but rather being inclusive of viewpoints that can be rationed out. Again, consensus does not become objective fact--it's simply a consensus.
 
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