TheExhaustedWalrus
Member
This has my vote.
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The Witness - Reviews Thread
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
This has my vote.
petethepanda
Member
Probably a good thing the Playstation Store updates at random times, if I knew this would be available in the morning or around noon I'd be tempted to call off work (I have an abundance of vacation days that I just need to start using).
Hari Seldon
Member
So if I buy this on PC now is the VR stuff a patch or do I have to buy it separate for Occulus?
Ryo Hazuki
Member
Hahaha, three best I've seen are:
The Witness |OT| Myst Me?
The Witness |OT| Urine for a Mystery
The Witness |OT| Lines of Blow
The Witness |OT| Myst Me?
The Witness |OT| Urine for a Mystery
The Witness |OT| Lines of Blow
I can't imagine Blow charging for VR.
uncleniccius
Member
I like the second of these.
Turin Turambar
Member
And I don't like fighting games but I wouldn't complain of having to kick and punch in SF5. The fact that argument appears from time to time in the puzzle genre speaks volumes of the quality of the site.
More_Badass
Member
Would be really silly to use any OT title related to the urine jar. That's like the movies that have really dated jokes that are only funny when they come out.
Myst Me? is the best. Simple, concise, and has a Myst reference
Lines of Blow is pretty perfect though. Argh.
Palette Swap
Member
Yeah, not going to pretend I'll wait for more word of mouth, I'm totally getting this tomorrow.
That's a deal.
Sephiroth_VII
Member
A lot of the <7/10 reviews sound like the reviewer was pissed off that he/she couldn't solve every puzzle quickly enough to make their deadline...
Lines of Blow rocks.
Combine a few to get:
The Witness |OT| Blow away the Myst
(But Lines of Blow is still the best)
This is my choice.
supermetfreud
Member
The Witness |OT| 400 Blow
They should have just used the Chicken Hat then if they were struggling that much.
ThanksVision
Member
Not sure what time it's going up but...
Good to know. I'll leave my PS4 in rest mode all day so that I can start the download while I'm out of the house.
I was going to buy this game no matter what, as I've been anticipating it for years (wow!). Braid made me put all my faith into Jonathon Blow. However, I will admit that it is reassuring to see such positive reviews--though I won't read anything in-depth. The only things I know about the game so far are my own conclusions, and I'm assuming THE WITNESS itself is referring to the witness variable in mathematics, if Blow's adoration for traditional math/science is anything to go by.
Either way I have my notebook ready, I really hope we get some challenging puzzles!
In Braid, the
puzzle piece platform trick stumped me for a solid day. Let's see more like that!!
Khalifa Jayy
Banned
What'd this dude get banned for?
Anyway, reviews coming in hot! Gonna take a look at a few during lunch. No idea what this game is about...
Make it "You're in" the other is too on the nose.
I like Lines of Blow the best though.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
The whole game really is just maze puzzles? Crikey, I'm out. I'll pick up a puzzle book at the newsies if I ever feel the need for a 20 hour coach journey killer.
The line puzzles are just elegant switches that control the puzzles.
Ryo Hazuki
Member
So didn't read any reviews then?
JetSetRadio
Banned
I wonder if there are good reviews from people who didn't like Braid?
More_Badass
Member
If you consider Myst a game of just pulling levers and pressing buttons, then yes The Witness is really just maze puzzles
The talos principle didn't require fast movements, but I couldn't even finish the demo as I was feeling terrible.
iNvid02
Member
I have my gaming PC plugged into a 1080p TV set, so the best I could do at this point was load some other resolutions into Windows and load the game. The results were a little funky, with the image being stretched slightly weirdly and the line-selection mechanic being off-kilter, so I'm going to wager that The Witness is 1080p optimized. I bet it'll EVENTUALLY work with other resolutions, because Blow is a PC master race kinda guy, but that's probably lower on his priority list in terms of getting the game to ship bug-free. Sorry to report the news.
I can see why people would be turned off by it though.
DeviantBoi
Member
+1 for Lines of Blow
Not surprised. Blow invested everything he learned and earned from Braid into this game... And took as much time as was necessary to get things right.
I would be shocked if it weren't a critical success given how deep of an experience that Braid was. There is still nothing else like that game and the way it all comes together.
I look forward to this one as well.
I would be shocked if it weren't a critical success given how deep of an experience that Braid was. There is still nothing else like that game and the way it all comes together.
I look forward to this one as well.
Ryo Hazuki
Member
Not sure if you tried it since but there's a whole menu dedicated to motion sickness settings in The Talos Principle now.
Did you try the anti-motion sickness settings? Talos has like a billion of them.
No problem, thanks for taking the trouble to try!
My PS4 is hooked up to my big TV so I may just go for the full on console experience this time and pick it up on PC down the road.
I completly agree with you I hate when one of the inherit "flaws" according to a reviewer is that it's in the genre, I wouldn't review a game from a ganre I generally dislike and then call it out for being in that genre as that would be stupid.
I'm sitting here all excited for reviews but I'll be honest, the first paragraph of the PC Gamer review (in which he says don't read the review if you're already interested in the game) actually got me. I stopped reading and realized I didn't want to know a goddamn thing. Knowing that it succeeds in doing what it set out to is enough for me.
Here's a bunch of spoiler-free things to know about The Witness before jumping in, from me, a man that has solved 309 of its panels (and counting):
You will need a paper and pencil. You will.
I played Fez, SpaceChem, and plenty of other games where people claimed to feel compelled to write things down, and I got through them without it. The Witness is different. The later puzzles in a series contain too much data and combine too many concepts for me to hold in my head at once, and it very often had to spill out onto paper, at which point they could be solved (fairly) easily.
If you come across a puzzle and don't understand its rules, move on.
The Witness is a non-linear game, so you can find (and I believe at one point you're deliberately placed in front of) puzzles that you haven't been taught the rules to yet. It'll have strange symbols and shapes on it that have no meaning to you. You will never, ever figure out these puzzles until you understand their rules.
Although they aren't technically locked, they should be treated as a locked door. And the key isn't a physical object - it's knowledge. Puzzles in different areas of the island will teach you each symbol's rules, putting the key in your head. And then you can open the door.
Each puzzle is a language - try to fail tutorial puzzles, to ensure you understand it.
Blow's games, more than anyone else, feel like a conversation between designer and player. He's talking to us, through puzzle panels. Allow me to explain. I recall Blow talking about each panel puzzle essentially having its own "sentence," and eventually one puzzle might have so many sentences that it is multiple paragraphs.
When you see a "bank" of panels all in a row, these are (usually) there to serve as a wordless tutorial - to teach you the "language" of that type of puzzle. 1) "These symbols can't be separated." 2) "They can't be separated, and they have to be in groups of two." 3) "They can't be separated, have to stay in twos, and different colors have to be split up." ...and on and on it builds. In remarkably little time, you can "read" a grid of strange shapes and colors and understand it all.
Most of these banks of tutorial puzzles are very very well done. A couple slightly less so. You may only half-understand something, or may make an assumption that isn't true. So if you aren't 100% sure you understand the rules of a symbol, I suggest going back and trying to break one of the tutorial panels, until you get it.
The Witness will be too hard for some people...
It just will. The puzzles are really hard, and there's no pressure release valve. Other than just walking away for a little while - either to another part of the island, or in the real world. I absolutely adore the game, but if you aren't good at puzzle games, I can say with certainty that you will not have a good time here.
Are all the puzzles "fair," adhering to a standard internal logic? Yes. There's no cat hair moustaches on this island. But that doesn't guarantee that everyone will be able to solve every puzzle, if they just stick with it long enough. Just because they're fair doesn't mean everyone can find the solutions. Some will be too hard. This is not a game for everyone. That being said...
...But you should never give up, and never consult a guide.
Don't look at a guide. Just don't. For a number of reasons.
First, you don't need to clear all of the island's sections to reach the ending. So even if you're hopelessly, hopelessly lost, there's still a lot of hope that you'll be able to progress and uncover The Big Mystery.
Second, the puzzles are the game. Looking up a puzzle solution after it's stumped you for a little bit is like having someone else beat a level in Halo you're stuck on. At that point what's the point?
Third, although what I said above stands (this game WILL be too hard for some), I still solved many, many puzzles after stepping away from them. "Sleeping on" puzzles and problems isn't just an expression - it's real science. Your subconscious mind is working on these problems even when you aren't playing. And the game can be mentally draining - I often lacked the patience to solve some of the trickier puzzles, but coming back to them later with more stamina made it easy.
(This is a very very slight spoiler for how some of the puzzles work... only blacking it out out of respect for people going in totally blind)
You will need a paper and pencil. You will.
I played Fez, SpaceChem, and plenty of other games where people claimed to feel compelled to write things down, and I got through them without it. The Witness is different. The later puzzles in a series contain too much data and combine too many concepts for me to hold in my head at once, and it very often had to spill out onto paper, at which point they could be solved (fairly) easily.
If you come across a puzzle and don't understand its rules, move on.
The Witness is a non-linear game, so you can find (and I believe at one point you're deliberately placed in front of) puzzles that you haven't been taught the rules to yet. It'll have strange symbols and shapes on it that have no meaning to you. You will never, ever figure out these puzzles until you understand their rules.
Although they aren't technically locked, they should be treated as a locked door. And the key isn't a physical object - it's knowledge. Puzzles in different areas of the island will teach you each symbol's rules, putting the key in your head. And then you can open the door.
Each puzzle is a language - try to fail tutorial puzzles, to ensure you understand it.
Blow's games, more than anyone else, feel like a conversation between designer and player. He's talking to us, through puzzle panels. Allow me to explain. I recall Blow talking about each panel puzzle essentially having its own "sentence," and eventually one puzzle might have so many sentences that it is multiple paragraphs.
When you see a "bank" of panels all in a row, these are (usually) there to serve as a wordless tutorial - to teach you the "language" of that type of puzzle. 1) "These symbols can't be separated." 2) "They can't be separated, and they have to be in groups of two." 3) "They can't be separated, have to stay in twos, and different colors have to be split up." ...and on and on it builds. In remarkably little time, you can "read" a grid of strange shapes and colors and understand it all.
Most of these banks of tutorial puzzles are very very well done. A couple slightly less so. You may only half-understand something, or may make an assumption that isn't true. So if you aren't 100% sure you understand the rules of a symbol, I suggest going back and trying to break one of the tutorial panels, until you get it.
The Witness will be too hard for some people...
It just will. The puzzles are really hard, and there's no pressure release valve. Other than just walking away for a little while - either to another part of the island, or in the real world. I absolutely adore the game, but if you aren't good at puzzle games, I can say with certainty that you will not have a good time here.
Are all the puzzles "fair," adhering to a standard internal logic? Yes. There's no cat hair moustaches on this island. But that doesn't guarantee that everyone will be able to solve every puzzle, if they just stick with it long enough. Just because they're fair doesn't mean everyone can find the solutions. Some will be too hard. This is not a game for everyone. That being said...
...But you should never give up, and never consult a guide.
Don't look at a guide. Just don't. For a number of reasons.
First, you don't need to clear all of the island's sections to reach the ending. So even if you're hopelessly, hopelessly lost, there's still a lot of hope that you'll be able to progress and uncover The Big Mystery.
Second, the puzzles are the game. Looking up a puzzle solution after it's stumped you for a little bit is like having someone else beat a level in Halo you're stuck on. At that point what's the point?
Third, although what I said above stands (this game WILL be too hard for some), I still solved many, many puzzles after stepping away from them. "Sleeping on" puzzles and problems isn't just an expression - it's real science. Your subconscious mind is working on these problems even when you aren't playing. And the game can be mentally draining - I often lacked the patience to solve some of the trickier puzzles, but coming back to them later with more stamina made it easy.
(This is a very very slight spoiler for how some of the puzzles work... only blacking it out out of respect for people going in totally blind)
Puzzles can have more than one solution, but only one correct solution
Some panels can be solved multiple ways, and the way you solve it can have an impact on the world. Exiting to the right or left might open up a path to the right or left, as one simple example. So a panel might accept your solution, but you didn't actually solve it in the way you needed to, to accomplish the goal you're working towards. Although (like everything else) this is never explained, it's not as if solving a puzzle one way is changing something halfway across the island - it's not a "gotcha" thing. It all happens right in front of you.
Some panels can be solved multiple ways, and the way you solve it can have an impact on the world. Exiting to the right or left might open up a path to the right or left, as one simple example. So a panel might accept your solution, but you didn't actually solve it in the way you needed to, to accomplish the goal you're working towards. Although (like everything else) this is never explained, it's not as if solving a puzzle one way is changing something halfway across the island - it's not a "gotcha" thing. It all happens right in front of you.
serenewarfare
Banned
Lines of Blow is by far the best pick.
I think I'll still give it a shot. I like puzzle games (and get a little too obsessed with finding out the solutions) so I think I'll enjoy it.
If I get stuck and really can't solve something worst case scenario I can just look it up. As a last resort there's always that.
I'll just have to wait until I'm finished with my exams to jump in (after studying I don't think I could handle The Witness)
You should consider editing out that last bit. That's a spoiler for one really good a-ha moment in the game...
mekes
Member
Wow, so its scored well huh? Curiosity wouldn't have let me skip on this either way, but its nice to see those scores after it seems JB put his all into this game.
Side note. I have friends who mostly play FPS and Fifa and were talking about this game last week. They are very excited. I hope it sells well!
Side note. I have friends who mostly play FPS and Fifa and were talking about this game last week. They are very excited. I hope it sells well!
Huh. Interesting. I should give it a try. I did fiddle with some settings in the original and they did improve over the default but not quite enough.
Thanks for letting me know.
Ryo Hazuki
Member
Looks like it will be getting released at the same time across Humble and Steam:
Not sure about PS4 though.
Not sure about PS4 though.
TheExhaustedWalrus
Member
Thanks very much for this, Justin. Your posts have been building mine and everyone's hype without spoiling things, and now you've made this incredibly helpful post.
Ryo Hazuki
Member
Not sure? Posting Open Critic links may be considered spam / promotion?