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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Review Thread
- Thread starter Savantcore
- Start date
Phoenix RISING
Banned
I watched Jim's video.
I can't tell you the number of times I've run into a bug while playing a game for a review. I'll get in touch with my PR guy who will get in touch with theirs, and 10/10, they send me a hot patch directly if not roll it out to *everyone*.
I've never encountered a problem that a developer outright refused to respond to. In fact, I'll say that the dev is responsive when it comes to these things. It's GOOD that a developer does this.
I also do not think that this game is guilty of the "rush to publish, fix later" philosophy. That is more of an AAA industry problem with games like Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect: Andromeda. Hellblade is an indie game that is drawing comparisons to HZD (female warrior protag with high graphical fidelity). We know the developers care.
This strikes me more of a game journalism problem. Gotta get those reviews out for the clicks before the other publication. 1/10 strikes me as a professor defaulting a your grade to a C because of a capitalization or punctuation error.
ANYWAY, someone else is reviewing this game on my team, but I do look forward to playing myself.
I can't tell you the number of times I've run into a bug while playing a game for a review. I'll get in touch with my PR guy who will get in touch with theirs, and 10/10, they send me a hot patch directly if not roll it out to *everyone*.
I've never encountered a problem that a developer outright refused to respond to. In fact, I'll say that the dev is responsive when it comes to these things. It's GOOD that a developer does this.
I also do not think that this game is guilty of the "rush to publish, fix later" philosophy. That is more of an AAA industry problem with games like Assassin's Creed or Mass Effect: Andromeda. Hellblade is an indie game that is drawing comparisons to HZD (female warrior protag with high graphical fidelity). We know the developers care.
This strikes me more of a game journalism problem. Gotta get those reviews out for the clicks before the other publication. 1/10 strikes me as a professor defaulting a your grade to a C because of a capitalization or punctuation error.
ANYWAY, someone else is reviewing this game on my team, but I do look forward to playing myself.
Mr. PlayStation
Member
Some clarification needed. Did Jim Sterling actually encounter a bug in the game that prevented him from beating it aka similar to what Crysis 3 had which prevented several gamers from beating the finale sequence?
Does the game actually have the permanent death designed into it's narrative, which resets the narrative if you die certain number of times? If yes, did Jim encounter this instead of an actual bug?
Does the game actually have the permanent death designed into it's narrative, which resets the narrative if you die certain number of times? If yes, did Jim encounter this instead of an actual bug?
pixellated_man
Member
PS4 to buy list just keeps on growing. Ps5 will probably be out by the time I get through all the PS4 exclusives / console exclusives released this year not even counting all the great multi platform releases.
KZXcellent
Member
The bug Jim encountered was that he needed a torch to light an area and the game autosaved so he could not go back and get one. This made it impossible to progress.
The permadeath is basically a bluff: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1417152
elshoelace
Member
I haven't been following this game too closely, but I really like when games try to incorporate a game mechanic into the storytelling of the game. I feel that is a strength of the medium and from the reviews I've read and some gameplay videos I am definitely going to have to check this game out.
Exactly. As a reviewer, it's not his job to contact the dev to fix in time for release. He's not a tester.
That's disgusting... but using metacritic as a basis for awarding / denying bonuses is even more disgusting.
A game can be the best game I ever played all the way from the start to the final boss... but if the game crashes when the final boss battle starts, and I can only "fix" it by starting over, guess what score I'm going to give it... And Jim was pretty far into the game when this occurred, wasn't he? Even if it was only an hour in, it's hard to say how he would have reacted... since he wouldn't have 6-7 great hours to base his feelings on. He probably still would have slapped a 1/10 on it and threw it aside... fully justified to do so as well.
That's not Jim's problem at all... and it shouldn't affect people's lives in that way to begin with.
Mr. PlayStation
Member
Is it a bluff on PS4 as well? PlayStation Lifestyle ran an article giving gamers the tactics to follow to not encounter permanent death!
KZXcellent
Member
The way another person in that thread describes it, the permadeath is nearly impossible to trigger normally. You basically have to kill yourself dozens of times across multiple checkpoints since it limits how much your "rot" can progress which enables the permadeath. Unless you're trying to trigger it you will never experience it.
Radical Edward
Member
Game breaking? It wasnt unplayable, it seems he played most of the game which is more than some reviewers probably played. He could restart, his game is still playable. Lots of AAA games get a pass for similar issues because it isn't indicative of everyone's experience. My launch ps3 got a ylod a few years ago and there is no way I'd consider rating it a 1/10. I had to restart Final Fantasy Tactics when one of the last battles bugged out for me and I would have no issue recommending it to others. If something like that happened, I would make note of it in my review and knock it down a few points but a bug doesn't invalidate everything that came before it.
I am not buying this game and I generally like Jim but his score seems like click-bait, in this instance or perhaps he was super mad and was a little irrational.
Soulblighter31
Banned
How in gods name did they manage to make a game over so many years with this level of negative mouse acceleration? How? Did they not play it once on PC, with PC tools? I know i've seen them use the mouse in one of their tech videos at one point.
jim2point0
Banned
Not sure I understand this narrative that Jim Sterling gives controversial reviews for "clickbait." His primary business model does not thrive on "clicks." In fact, quite the opposite. He makes money from loyal viewers who want to come back to his content time after time (via Patreon).
Clickbait works for people who make money with ads. JimSterling does not make (much) money with ads.
Clickbait works for people who make money with ads. JimSterling does not make (much) money with ads.
KZXcellent
Member
It happens all the time whenever a negative review pops up.
"They only gave it this score for clicks!!"
It's only been magnified here because Jim's a madman and went as far as a 1/10. People were going nuts when IGN gave Prey a 4 for glitches earlier in the year.
That's a bad way to evaluate something...
In my industry we call this type of bug a "show-stopper". Our customers would have flat out REFUSED a product with a bug like this. If Sony had discovered it, they would have refused certification. The sale of the game would have been blocked the moment it was discovered.
... Or did the "indy" status of this game mean it didn't need certification? Maybe Sony didn't even need to test it?
lifetimeofnot
Member
Really let's look at it from a different perspective. If you were reviewing a CD and you got shipped a cracked disk would you give the album a 1 because you couldn't play it? If you received a book that had big ink splotches all over the pages would you give the book a 1 because you couldn't read it? If you were reviewing a tv and the screen was broken would you give it a because of it? Or would you contact the publisher/producer and let then know about the issue and ask for a new product.
A responsible reviewer would contact the developers and ask them about the bug. If the devs can fix the issue before launch why dock them points for it? Does he have to do this, obviously not but it's incredibly obvious that he is trolling with his 1/10 review. If he wasn't then he wouldn't have to produce a video explaining it. The review would stand on its own merit.
bender
What time is it?
Can't believe this is the first time something like this has happened to Jim but I can relate to the frustration. I can count two similar experiences with poor check-pointing in the past year. A scripting sequence late in Bulletstorm broke for me, stopped my progress and I walked away from the game. I was replaying Wolfenstein and after scripted sequence of crashing through a window you are given health packs and ammo which were needed as m health situation was at 20 and my ammo situation wasn't much better. There was zero ability to backtrack. I played poorly, died and when I re-spawned in that corner the health pack and ammo did not re-spawn. I banged my head against the game for half an hour before giving up and turning the difficulty level down so I could muscle through that section of the game. Luckily on-the-fly difficulty switching was an option or I would have given up.
SomedayTheFire
Member
None of those analogies is close to a gamebreaking bug.
All those issues apply to one or a few copies of the product.
Jim's bug applies to EVERY copy of the product.
It makes sense entirely, your being dense. It's literally whats equivalent to games in our medium.
semiconscious
Member
SomedayTheFire
Member
No they're not. We've already had the book analogy and it was widely laughed off. It does not equate to a gamebreaking bug.
If you get a smudged book, you return it and get a new copy. You get a gamebreaking bug and you're fucked no matter how many copies you get until the developer fixes it.
then again, it might just be a cheap selling-point...
It was never part of the marketing.
If Sony found this during a certification process, they would have blocked the sale of the game.
This is a show-stopper bug, as we call it.
Papo Swing
Member
See this is why I hate the Sterling review. No one else really complained about it or found the difficulty to be so much that it was a real worry.
Screw that guy big time. I've read so many comments about people not buying the game because of that feature that hasn't really affected anyone in a negative way except that dude an only for attention.
semiconscious
Member
& i can now see why. it's not a cheap selling-point. it's more just a cheap bit of manipulation
: potential spoiler?
SomedayTheFire
Member
Sterling didn't mention that. That was total biscuit, who didn't even play the game.
Papo Swing
Member
Well, all complaining I was seeing around here was around Sterling's review. I thought that was his issue other than the bug. If not then it's my bad, I stand corrected, but still another influential critic shitting on a game for bs reasons that have caused issues for no one.
It's very easy for people to shit on what Jim did when they didn't experience the bug as he has... if you were 7 hours into an 8 hour game and were forced to start over due to what appeared to be a bug (he didn't even know why it was happening, just that it was), many of us would react in the very same way.
"6/10 - Game was a lot of fun for the first 7 hours but the game suddenly stops me from progressing any further... is this how it 'ends'? Is it an artistic choice? I'm not sure... but what I did get to play was fun to that point."
Yah... that would be even more fucked up IMO.
SomedayTheFire
Member
Yeah Sterling got what he thinks is a gamebreaking bug.
WAR recon zero
Banned
What would happen if, for example, his console is faulty and caused the bug. Would he still rate 1/10 taking into account something that is not in the devs control?
Not supporting shitty practices but bugs are hard to find.
Not supporting shitty practices but bugs are hard to find.
Watching a few more videos and reading a few more reviews, I don't think this game is for me. When the knocks seem to be against both the major interactivity aspects (combat + puzzles), then it's...
Also the dialogue looks horrible. Which may be intentional, considering the themes at play. But still cringe.
Also the dialogue looks horrible. Which may be intentional, considering the themes at play. But still cringe.
It is...
"Gamebreaking" doesn't need to be gamebreaking for everyone.
I'm honestly shocked he is the only reviewer to hit it, given the nature of how it happened.
PC gaming lives with this daily. Every PC is different, and you can't catch every bug possible across every possible environment that you can run your software in. But at least here we are limited to a few models of hardware that the game can (and should be) tested on. You still won't catch everything, I agree.
But just because you didn't catch a bug, doesn't mean you should be forgiven for it slipping through. Not often do bugs in games come with a high degree of severity or risk... but this game is a fairly big risk to the player. If they miss that one tourch, they are FUCKED. And it sounds like it is late in the game. If this is a game Certified by Sony, this is the kind of bug they would NEED to fix (a show-stopper) or they could risk having the game pulled from the store. If Sony had found it before release, it would not be sold until fixed.
We product software and ship to customers. We also go through a certification agency in between. We miss bugs, they miss bugs, even customers miss bugs when they do their own testing. But when the software is in use (in our case the software takes and awards money to/from players), if a bug shows up, it could cause the customer to pull the product out of use until we fix it... incurring major costs and revenue losses... even fines get involved given the nature of the business.
It can't be that difficult to spot a bad analogy.
Of course one product wouldn't be faulted for the failings of another product.
AmuroChan
Member
Something similar happened to Prey. Dan from IGN encountered a game-breaking bug and gave the game a 3 or 4. After a patch was released to fix the bug, he changed the score to an 8.
SomedayTheFire
Member
I said "what he thought" because I think he's going back to check it on his game.
We should have given Jim the right to do the same thing here.
If Jim is indeed able to turn around from the auto-save, light the torch, and continue on, that would be great. I would say it is still a bug that needs to be fixed because 99% of the player base will likely not think to do so if it is a linear portion of the game. Edit: or the fact that nobody would ever expect to "need" to turn around from an auto-save respawn, which should generally point you "forward" (depending on the nature of the game).
grosvenor_92
Member
I'm happy the game is getting solid reviews. Will definitely pick it up in the future
Someone in the OT said they had to backtrack because a certain door didn't open at one point and that they were able to backtrack just fine, so maybe Jim will be able to as well.
WonkyPanda
Member
Are there multiple endings?