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The Witness - Reviews Thread

E

Eklesp

Member
Trojan said:
I'm traveling this week for work and will be playing it on my Vita using remote play on Tuesday evening (Eastern time). If you are on the fence about buying it and want to know Impressions from Vita, shoot me a PM then. I have a feeling this will be a great game for remote play.
Click to expand...

Sony needs to get going on that Windows and OS X remote play app.
 
T

Theecliff

Banned
Chi3fster said:
Then give it a 9 or 9.5 with some Editor's Choice Award.

10/10 means perfect no matter the context. I could give Xenoblade X a 10/10 because I've put 200 hours into it - compared to something like The Last of Us which was just as enjoyable but didn't even put in 50 hours, but this would be wrong because both games have their problems.

It needs zero noticeable issues for a 10/10, so there's no such thing as a 10/10 game. These reviews aren't unanimous, so I'm The Witness is great - just not flawless.
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no, the meaning of a 10/10 is entirely up to the reviewer. the number reviewers give games isn't based on a mathematical equation or an entirely objective scorecard, it's based on their personal, subjective feelings for the game. hence why the meaning for a 10/10 carries subjectivity too.
 
A

Afro

Member
Also, don't forget. The creators of Myst and Riven are releasing Obduction this year. what_a_time_to_be_alive.jpg
 
E

EGM1966

Member
Robert at Zeboyd Games said:
A 10/10 means whatever the reviewer wants it to mean. It could mean a perfect game. It could mean a game that they had no major issues with. It could mean a game that's better than another game they gave a 9/10. It could mean they just really liked this game.
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This is why numerical scores are meaningless BTW.
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
Chi3fster said:
Then give it a 9 or 9.5 with some Editor's Choice Award.

10/10 means perfect no matter the context. I could give Xenoblade X a 10/10 because I've put 200 hours into it - compared to something like The Last of Us which was just as enjoyable but didn't even put in 50 hours, but this would be wrong because both games have their problems.

It needs zero noticeable issues for a 10/10, so there's no such thing as a 10/10 game. These reviews aren't unanimous, so I'm The Witness is great - just not flawless.
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This is just pure nonsense. I can't believe people are still throwing fits over 10/10 scores.
 
G

gizio

Member
The Witness |OT| Mindblowing


The Witness |OT| Don't get pissed


Glad the game is getting glowing reviews, day one for me
 
S

sonicmj1

Member
Chi3fster said:
Then give it a 9 or 9.5 with some Editor's Choice Award.

10/10 means perfect no matter the context. I could give Xenoblade X a 10/10 because I've put 200 hours into it - compared to something like The Last of Us which was just as enjoyable but didn't even put in 50 hours, but this would be wrong because both games have their problems.

It needs zero noticeable issues for a 10/10, so there's no such thing as a 10/10 game. These reviews aren't unanimous, so I'm The Witness is great - just not flawless.
Click to expand...
If you can't use a 10, it shouldn't be on your scale.
 
T

thomasmahler

Member
It's a hardcore puzzle game without any DLC nonsense or any other stupid shit Blow asks you to pay for. You buy the game, you're gonna either solve the puzzles or you don't. If you're not into Puzzles, then the 10/10 some people give might not be true for you, but it seems like it succeeds incredibly well in what it's trying to do, based no what people are saying.

I for one can't wait. I liked what I saw in the GiantBomb QuickLook and I expect some marvelous funky puzzle shit that'll wreck my brain.
 
M

malboroking

Banned
Chi3fster said:
Then give it a 9 or 9.5 with some Editor's Choice Award.

10/10 means perfect no matter the context. I could give Xenoblade X a 10/10 because I've put 200 hours into it - compared to something like The Last of Us which was just as enjoyable but didn't even put in 50 hours, but this would be wrong because both games have their problems.

It needs zero noticeable issues for a 10/10, so there's no such thing as a 10/10 game. These reviews aren't unanimous, so I'm The Witness is great - just not flawless.
Click to expand...

Nottodisushittoagin.jpg
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
jiggles said:
He's entitled to his opinion, dude. If he felt the puzzling was too dense or too difficult, that doesn't make him an idiot. That makes him someone who prefers less roadblocks to his exploration of the environment and story. Someone isn't an idiot just because they have a different sweet spot for how these things should be balanced.

It's better to have a spectrum of opinions from people with various levels of enthusiasm for puzzling, rather than everyone saying the exact same thing and chucking perfect scores at a game that clearly isn't for everyone.
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Should someone who doesn't enjoy sports at all be reviewing sports games? I don't know. He's not gonna be scoring them in a way that's representative of or relevant to the people who actually do enjoy playing such games.

And no, of course this game isn't for everyone. If you don't like puzzle games, you're not gonna like this. Do you really need someone else who also doesn't like them to tell you that? I do understand what you're saying, but I just don't really see how such a review is useful to anyone.
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Chi3fster said:
Then give it a 9 or 9.5 with some Editor's Choice Award.

10/10 means perfect no matter the context. I could give Xenoblade X a 10/10 because I've put 200 hours into it - compared to something like The Last of Us which was just as enjoyable but didn't even put in 50 hours, but this would be wrong because both games have their problems.

It needs zero noticeable issues for a 10/10, so there's no such thing as a 10/10 game. These reviews aren't unanimous, so I'm The Witness is great - just not flawless.
Click to expand...
A 10/10 game (or movie or show or whatever) can easily have flaws. Even IGN's Undertale review had some negative comments about the game's art style. A 10/10 or 5/5 doesnt mean flawless, because nothing is flawless. It simply means that reviewer felt the game excelled so highly in its strengths and was so well executed that it's worthy of the highest score, that any weaknesses are vastly overshadowed by what the game does exceedingly well.

Or in other words, a "perfectly" scored game is a flawless execution of what it sets out to do, not that a game is literally flawless.
 
R

randomengine

Banned
RoadHazard said:
Should someone who doesn't enjoy sports at all be reviewing sports games? I don't know. He's not gonna be scoring them in a way that's representative of or relevant to the people who actually do enjoy playing such games.

And no, of course this game isn't for everyone. If you don't like puzzle games, you're not gonna like this. Do you really need someone else who also doesn't like them to tell you that? I do understand what you're saying, but I just don't really see how such a review is useful to anyone.
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It's called breakage (or statistical noise). Every game has a certain level of shitty reviews. Some games more than others. It cannot be helped.
 
G

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
GDJustin said:
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)
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.
Click to expand...

One more thing I forgot to mention - the island has a couple different kinds of collectibles, one of which is so hidden and clever that people might not even get one until they've played for a long time.

Your progress at collecting this second kind is tracked in a specific way on the island, and there's so many more of them than it seems possible. I've criss-crossed the island many times and collected a lot, and the game tells me I've only found about 1/4th of them.

I would be genuinely shocked if any critic or anyone else with early access has found them all, and I'm guessing (total speculation on my part) that something cool happens when you find them all. Or maybe it'll just be a pleasant little bonus like Braid's stars. Regardless, it's a neat extra thing to noodle and discuss with fans after the meat of the game is complete.
 
C

Corpekata

Banned
RoadHazard said:
Should someone who doesn't enjoy sports at all be reviewing sports games? I don't know. He's not gonna be scoring them in a way that's representative of or relevant to the people who actually do enjoy playing such games.

And no, of course this game isn't for everyone. If you don't like puzzle games, you're not gonna like this. Do you really need someone else who also doesn't like them to tell you that? I do understand what you're saying, but I just don't really see how such a review is useful to anyone.
Click to expand...

I mean, yes, they should?

Not every review is meant to cater to the specific audience that is already a big fan of the genre. A view from people that aren't big fans can be valuable to people on the fence. I'm not a huge puzzle game guy and reviews / word of mouth of Talos Principle from people with similar persuasions that it was worth a look is what got me to play the game, and I enjoyed it.
 
B

Bits N Pieces

Member
Congrats to Blow and his team, the game is getting some great scores.

I'm afraid I found Braid to be too much of a head scratcher and I think this would infuriate the life out of me.

Good luck to all who venture onto the Island though :)
 
N

Nixed

Neo Member
I basically forgot this game was even coming out. I'm a sucker for the type of environment design in the game, as well as the general concept. The review scores, and the fact I'm still in the mood after just finishing Talos Principle last week, certainly help too.

I'm most interested to see if this will really be a ~50 hour experience -- that's good bang for the buck.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
bodyofanamerican said:
The Witness |OT| So, is it really just line puzzles?
Click to expand...

This gave me an idea: The Witness |OT| ●───

(It's the door puzzle.)

Visualante2 said:
So er, is this game unlocking in 23 hours everywhere or can I do some VPN trickery to get it early?
Click to expand...

It's unlocking worldwide coincident with tomorrow's store update, but Blow said he'll look into having the time moved forward to midnight (which I think Valve will allow).
 
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