I don't think it's about being edgy. Not to assume his reasoning but I'm sure he, like me, have been burned by overly enthusiastic reviewers before. For me, everything about Breath of the Wild screamed "not my Zelda." However Dan's quicklook won me over with his "I never cry but I cried playing this game because it is so good" shtick. $80 later I was very disappointed, not to say it was the worst game in the world but it was not as fun as I was led to believe and it was certainly not what I'd call a Zelda game. So when I hear such ridiculous statements like those in these reviews I have to be highly sceptical.

Glad it's getting good reviews. Will check this out once I have the money/time for it.

@jesus_phish: Don't think I ever really heard anyone, outside of the usual suspects asking why. The series is still really popular and it was time for a re imagining so it seems like a no brainer, honestly.

@steveurkel said:

Yeah same. I hate being the guy who always complains about there not being a PC version, and I get that making a good PC port is not easy and takes resources, but I'm always bummed out when a big game like this that also seems fantastic is a console exclusive. I could buy a PS4, but I am not really interested in any other PS4 only titles.

@eidderf said:

@jonny_anonymous: As you wish

Okay now, change "God of War" to Giant Bomb with the same fancy font. Also, change the Skill Up quote from "Game" to "Site" of the generation.

Giant Bomb - 10/10

@eidderf: Excelent!

Overhyping something is certainly a thing in this industry, especially in recent times when a lot of reviewers tend to stretch their literary muscles instead of simply writing about the game, but saying something is "perfect reviewer bait" seems weirdly poised as if the entire industry is in on some clever ploy.

I kinda took a deepdive on these reviews and, while i certainly agree that some of those are hopelessly hyperbolic, there seems to be a through line across the board that it is exceptionally crafted.

What interests me more though is what some of the french critics are saying that i haven't seen mentioned much if at all and that is the relation between the game and its director, Cory Barlog. I'm referencing (and paraphrasing) what JeuxActu said about it and that is that from their interviews with him and from playing the game that they are getting an almost autobiographical vibe from it. For instance the thing with Kratos not being able to read runic but his son can appears to be a reference to Cory not really understanding what his wife's relatives are saying when they are over and Cory asking his kid to translate. (I think his wife is from somewhere in scandinavia)

Apparently there is tons of nuance from actual experience infused into the father/son dynamic in this game. Obviously i can't confirm any of that but it gets me excited for the writing in this thing.

@netkitten: Yeah his wife is Swedish and his son is learning to speak Swedish. Certainly an interesting aspect.

@humanity: I see your point with the bait comment. However I took it to mean that certain types of games tend to end up reviewing exceptionally well, typically indie darlings and AAA games with a mature cinematic story. Games that offer an "experience" are often reviewed higher despite the fact that the gameplay isn't really fun. Uncharted 4 when boiled down to pure gameplay is a series of boring rooms for shooting generic bad guys and easy puzzles punctuated by exciting set pieces and cutscenes. Yet it is one of the highest rated Ps4 games. Games like Journey or Gone Home tend to be called "walking simulators" because they don't offer any gameplay other than beautiful visuals and the emotional experience. Game critics are too impressed by games that are too expensive and too short and offer nothing more than a chance to argue that games are art.

So when I saw trailers for God of War and it focused on Kratos having emotional conversations while teaching his kid to hunt or whatever and showing almost no gameplay other than some slow looking over the shoulder combat it looked like the gameplay was taking a backseat to an emotional story. God of War looks like "reviewer bait" because from the first trailer it looked like The Last of Us. It removed the fun combo driven character action gameplay and everyone's favourite one dimensional QTE fuck machine and replaced it with boring looking gameplay and a sombre fatherly Kratos who would be loved by industry game critics. It follows a typical formula to critical success, similar to Oscar bait movies, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to call it reviewer bait.

For the record I don't think there's some conspiracy or ploy to trick people into playing boring games. I just think that most reviewers have lost sight of what makes a game fun and worth your money. I'm also aware that that's all subjective, I'm just stating my opinion.

@omega: I agree with some of that to an extent, but I don't know if it's necessarily losing sight. Uncharted 4 as an example is a really well made game, and when you boil it down to basics then a lot of really great playing games are mere boxes with enemies to shoot or punch to death. It's actually pretty astounding how many games revolve around the simple act of killing enemies from area to area, and that's not a bad thing in of itself. The difference between one game being good and another being bad is how the developer dresses up that simple act of dispatching foes. At it's core The Last of Us and Uncharted are similar games, you go from area to area clearing out enemies and engaging with storytelling, but the tone and cadence of action is different. I'm all for mature storytelling as well as arcade action, and a mature story can be just as engaging as amazing gunplay for example, but there needs to be a good mix of both which from what I gather this new God of War pulls off quite well. Then again a game like Hellblade received great praise that tended to overlook the rather poor gameplay, and at the end of the day you do actually have to play these things to see that amazing story, so thats where I can agree that sometimes reviewers seem to lose themselves a little in the arbitrary scoring process.

All that said, a term like "reviewer bait" hits a little too close to intolerable YouTube comment levels of teen angst for me personally, and this sort of back and forth about reviewer validity and whatnot is something I rather not engage with. As much as Jeff bemoans the old days of GameSpot scoring games based on an excel formula that calculate graphics, sound etc, I do think in some ways that was a decent mix of reviewer personality mixing with a technical assessment. These days reviews while written with more heart, tend to be rather useless for the most part. Dan loved Zelda Breath of the Wild and gave it a glowing score, but that is a review that for the most part is only really useful to Dan. I don't share the same nostalgia or experiences as him, and as such no matter how much praise he heaps on that title I will never appreciate it to the same degree. So if modern reviews are meant to be treated as blog posts, then they have evolved accordingly, but as buying advice they serve little purpose - in my opinion anyway.

@humanity: That was very well said.

Honestly, I just hope this game lives up to the hype.

@omega: A good response. I understand where you are coming from, and I kind of agree, but I'm also getting a tone of bitterness or frustration from you in the general direction of game design these days lol Maybe that isn't your intent. The devils advocate position that came to mind while reading it (and I don't know anything about the gameplay) is that maybe the game is still fun with lots of gore and action and they just decided to lead or show off the narrative side instead? Regardless, just happy to see people on the internet who can articulate their thoughts. When I read the term reviewer bait, I interpreted it roughly how you explained.

I also agree that the Uncharted games are generally boring or, to put it more politely, not for me lol BotW was also my biggest disappointment last year. So yea when reviewers get all antsy in the pants about a game I tend to take the more extreme opinions with a grain of salt.

@humanity And how are you not premium? I see your comments or name everywhere on here lol

@omega:hey man you and me both! I don't gain anything from this game being bad and to be honest the story is what I'm really curious about. That and I just finished playing Persona 5 (a little late to the party I know!) so after 100 hours of turn based combat and buttoning through dialog boxes I'm really ready for some visceral action where reflexes actually play a role in gameplay.

@seikenfreak: I am in fact a premium member!

Everything I see about this game makes it seem like kind of game. Hope it's understandable without playing the others though. I've tried at various points to play through 1-3 but the tone always disagreed with me.

@seikenfreak: Thanks! But I didn't really intend for my response to come off as bitter. Maybe I'm getting to be a cranky old man, turning 31 will do that to you.

Definitely has my attention now, always thought it was gonna be good, but in the range of stuff like the new halo and gears or even star wars where its "good" but never captures the same "spark" the previous trilogy had ,

Never expected to see that it would be able to outdo the previous games, super stoked for next friday then!

@omega: I can look forward to that in a few months. I'm already a miserable old fuck though so.. Lets see how much worse it gets lol

@humanity Ah okay. Must be some super tier without the badge thing. Isn't that what the badge is on the avatar? I also feel like I've said this exact thing to you before. I don't know who or what I am anymore.

See my issue here is the implication that Dan's review should be read in a vacuum. If that's the case the review is only useful to Dan, however, we have so much other content accompanying reviews these days and that changes how reviews are actually consumed. If you take in mind other reviewers, Quick Looks, Podcasts, Lets Plays, Twitch etc. I think Dan's review holds more weight in that shares a certain perspective that not every other source of information is going to have. Reviews if nothing else shares a very particular perspective on the one writing it I think that's valuable (as purchasing advice or what have you) even if you don't share that perspective. I think it's infinitely less useful to have reviews pander to my or anybody's specific way of engagement.

And just to add my two cents about overhyped reviews or whatever, I don't actually think that's a thing. Or I guess to be more clear I don't think it's as big of a thing then anyone says it is. I think there segments of the general gaming audience that will find any and all excuse to delegitimize any reviewers opinion and this just sounds like another attempt at that and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone trying to have a real conversation. But I also don't take reviews seriously enough to think that they are or should be that influential. If they are then I am misjudging a lot here and if that's the case then burn it all down video games were a mistake.

@fatalbanana: Not too mention that it is actually incumbent on the reader to have some understanding of the reviewer and their particular pet peeves, biases, outlooks etc. You track down a reviewer who shares a fairly similar taste in games as you and then you use them as barometer for how likely you are to enjoy the game in question.

This notion of a purely objective formula for reviews is ridiculous.

@fatalbanana: I don’t know I think reviews these days are in a weird spot overall. With streaming being incredibly easy to access and millions upon millions of people showing off games in such a way the written review seems to be, as I mentioned before, more of a blog post than anything. A picture says a thousand words and while a 2000 word article can entice you to try something, more often than not 30 seconds of raw gameplay with no commentary is enough to let you know if this is something for you or not.

As for reading reviews in a vacuum well - I personally think that’s also really tricky. I’ve written some user reviews for the site, not amazing at it or anything, but through that process I’ve often struggled with how much information to give. How basic do you go? When writing about Bloodborne do I gloss over the core mechanics of the game because I assume people who are reading it will be returning players? Or do you explain how Souls games work from the ground up in case a potential series newcomer is reading why you wrote in order to decide whether they want to jump in or not.

I think it’s almost unreasonable to expect someone to acquaint themselves with the author before reading their work in order to better understand the framing of their review. Ultimately shouldn’t the review defend itself? I don’t know man I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer really. Can we draw a line between a review being “what does Dan Ryckert think about God of War” and simply what is God of War by itself in a vacuum?

Anyway this is now going way off topic so yah I’ll just reiterate that I’m still excited for the game and I hope I’ll enjoy it as much as Dan did.

Polygon posted probably the worst article which cements my point earlier that most reviewers don't care or know jack shit about graphics. Giant bomb avoids talking about graphics in detail so I'm not throwing shade at anyone here.

Polygon posted an article saying to not play the 4k resolution mode because it isn't worth the frame loss and you gain no graphical upgrades. Oh they then went on to mention this is on a 1080p display and posted 1080p images to compare the 4k performance and resolution mode.

It was probably the stupidest thing I've seen all month and I follow the news on a daily basis.

Thankfully even their own commenters are pointing out how worthless the article was so maybe they will not ever post dumb information like that again. It's polygon though so I don't see that happening. Place has a serious lack of editors it seems.

Mostly agreed I'll just cap off my point by saying I don't think lines need to be drawn at all and I guess I don't draw that much distinction from all the other types of media and reviews at the end of the day they serve a similar purpose it's just a matter of how you want to ingest it. And one last note about expecting someone to acquaint themselves with the author: This was actually the opposite of what I was trying to say. If the review is well written enough you can tell how the reviewer engages and measure that against yourself I don't think you should have to do more digging then what is already there but I'm getting too deep in the weeds here.

That's just my two cents anyway, the game looks great and I'm excited to dig into it.

@steveurkel said:

@steveurkel: Most people play on the ps4 pro but theres a few people out there that mention the base version of the game. I cant remember who it was that said it but it was mentioned that the base game is a little more stable of a version as it doesnt have to deal with upscaling or keeping a high frame rate. The game doesnt look much better on pro, just more crisp given the higher resolution, I dont believe it has any other effects turned on or higher

The problem with unlocked fps is that without variable V-Sync you will always notice when your frame rate takes a dip. Higher Resolution demand more to render. It would have been neat to see them add a base mode for ps4 pro users where one could experience a solid 30 at all times, but from what I have heard the resolution mode is very close to doing just that, so why bother.

One thing to note is that the PS4 Pro is said to crank the shit out of its fans when you play this, I recently replaced the thermal paste inside my ps4 with liquid metal and cleaned out all dust in anticipation of this, the liquid metal might even fix the frame rate dips (if those are related to any form of thermal throttling due to a heavy workload on the APU)

I think reviews are in a weird spot in part because the audience has put them there. Coming from years of experience writing music reviews professionally and as a hobby, one thing that I've increasingly found odd about gaming reviews and the culture surrounding them is how artless it all used to be. I read a lot of game reviews as a kid, and yes it was often to find out if it was worth my rental allowance that week, but it was also just to learn about what the game was.

As I've grown up, gotten a job and especially in the digital era pretty much gone all-in on pre-ordering games for the pre-load if I know I'm interested in them, though, video game reviews now function a lot like movie and music reviews do for me. That is, I don't really read them at all the day, week or month the game comes out. I play it myself, form my own opinions, and then I will binge through six or seven reviews from writers I enjoy or sources I've seen passed around and see how people have been reacting to what I've been playing, or if they noticed the same things / I missed things that stood out to them. But that's me; I enjoy reading criticism and it's a substantial part of my reading / media diet in general. I think for a lot of people, particularly the primary audience of this website, gameplay and whether a game deserves the score it got based on gameplay is so critical to the experience that a whole lot of other things can fall by the wayside if the gameplay doesn't click with them. And I definitely understand that there's a conversation to be had around that, but I think it's often so couched in our biases that the tone surrounding reactions to reviews - "reviewer bait" - reads angrier than it ought to. I think Grand Theft Auto V is one of the best controlling, most intuitive third person (and first person, to be honest) shooters I've ever played, if not the utmost tippity-top. I know I will not find more than a handful of people who agree with that.

I also think, as a critic, the goal is ultimately to build an audience. The aggregate will inform you of the public's general opinion on a piece of art / entertainment, but the goal from the very beginning is that no matter where Austin Walker goes, for example, you'll be looking for his opinion. Especially in the freelance days, whether it's on Paste, Gamespot or his personal blog, he's hoping someone notices his byline and reads the review just because it's by him. The pool, for me, of writers in the game space I'll read critical thought from on sight is much thinner than music or film, but I often wonder if that's because so many game writers are trapped in an awkward space between appealing to this idea of a review as "buyer's advice" compared to the idea of the literal meaning of a review, "a formal assessment or examination of something with the possibility or intention of instituting change if necessary." I never wrote reviews from the consumer's perspective, for example, even prior to streaming. I always wrote a review under the assumption you'd heard the album in question, in the tone of starting a dialogue over that album rather than trying to convince the reader it was or wasn't worth their time. As such, I'm definitely in the camp that the past five years have been very good for the tone of game reviews, but I think they can push further still.

It seems that after everyone claiming that it was very good it turns out that in fact it is quite good.

I think GOW deserves the praise it is getting. It is a great game.

@jesus_phish: Hm... got to this one ten days late. Oh, well.

This was what I meant and the joke I was (poorly, evidently) trying to tell. I meant that anyone who played the first Nier - and liked its story stuff - would have been on board second 1 with Automata. Then I realised an easy joke would be to say "yeah, like I said: 'everyone'." Implying that literally no-one bought the first Nier and thus were totally surprised by Automata. So, I tried jumping on it preemptively.

Ahh, explaining jokes. The only way to improve them. Sorry, my bad. Worded it poorly.