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Transistor Review Thread

A

Adam Blue

Member
It further dilutes the meaning of a 'score'. It has no meaning other than to confuse people. Even in the Polygon comments, users are being very well-behaved. Perfect time to consider criticism rather than write it off.

I can understand being hesitant if your career relies on scores, but every state in the US will eventually allow gay marriage (if you get that analogy).
 
F

Fushichou187

Member
LegendofDragoonLives said:
Slightly off topic, but I can't be the one that thinks the Escapist is the crappiest review website?
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g1GTW3v.gif
 
T

Trey

Member
This eurogamer review, yall boys:

Traditional ideas delivered from an unusual perspective? That was the ethos of Supergiant's debut, Bastion, and it's changed very little here. Bastion buried an old-fashioned hack-and-slash under hand-painted visuals and a lattice of narration delivered in whiskyish, conspiratorial tones. It offered, in the process, a carefully controlled action game that somehow felt like it was running to catch up with you. Compared to such rough-housing, Transistor is a self-conscious study in elegance, yet it still works within an established genre while laying on supplementary ideas. We're deep in action RPG territory, with all the skill bars and cooldowns you might expect, but the story's daringly elliptical in its telling, and the combat dances between real-time and a clever spin on turn-based battling, always flirting, never settling, and drawing its restless energy from an underlying system that encourages tinkering.
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gimme.
 
J

Jim Sterling

Member
Authority said:
When did I assume that? Show me. Please quote me exactly on me saying that scores start from 10 and drop. Seriously drop it.

So -2 or -1.5 scores do not have worthy negatives but -1 does. How is that possible?

"I had a great experience playing Transistor and that is why I am giving it a 8.5 out of 10!"

"I must say Wolfestein story line was not as good as I expected it (i.e) but still deserves 9!"

What.
Click to expand...
Didn't two different reviewers handle the Transistor and Wolfenstein reviews?

You're trying to find scientific objectivity in something based upon subjective opinion. That will only continue to frustrate you.

Slightly off topic, but I can't be the one that thinks the Escapist is the crappiest review website?
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Totally with you there. I can't fucking stand it.
 
D

drak_dreamer

Member
Picking this up, the game looks rad.

On a side note, I'm liking the no score attitude. Not sure if this is a new trend the reviewers are starting, or a protest against metacritic of sorts? Anyways ... Looks great :)
 
C

culafia

Member
The biggest fallacy here is that people look at an 8.5 as a game that got 1.5 points knocked off. Reviews don't work that way. Like school grading (a main reason why people look at anything below a 7 as instant shit), it's about what you earn starting from 0 -- not what you lose starting from 10. In the case of Polygon, there were no clear negatives stated as opposed to minor ones in Wolfenstein, but, by their standards, the positives in Wolfenstein outweigh the positives in Transistor. Not all positives and negatives are weighed equally, nor should they be.

Also, holy shit. Reviewers don't have a responsibility to worry about the Metacritic, usually don't give a shit about the Metacritic, and usually don't have such a personal investment in a website that they would worry about click bait. Sometimes that outlier 7 can be -- wait for it -- an actual valid opinion. If you think a reviewer does that for attention, just think about how short-sighted it would be for their individual business and reputation to blindly score games based on who it will rile up the most. Click bait does exist, but it often seems like this is a term used as a way to dismantle someone's opinion without any constructive thought.
 
A

Amir0x

Banned
This game is fucking astonishingly good. I can't believe this is from the same team that made Bastion. Not that that was a bad game, but this is just a whole 'nother level.
 
D

DNAbro

Member
Ugh I was going to try and wait till a sale but these review scores are too damn good. Don't say that reviews don't matter people, cause they do. Downloading now.
 
L

Larsen B

Member
Remember when Tom Chick gave BioShock Infinite 3 stars and everyone went mad at him because it was getting 10/10 everywhere else and now the majority opinion is that it's a 6/10 game?
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Einbroch said:
Because the core gameplay is more enjoyable to you?

Tomb Raider has a bunch of issues but I'd give it a 9/10. Uncharted has fewer issues but I'd give it a 7/10. Why? Fun. Fun is hard to put into words. Reviews are opinions by individuals. Sure, they may come together at the end for some debate, but it's still one person's work.
Click to expand...

This is actually pretty easy to figure out. A messy, provocative, but flawed success can easily do better than a safe success with no obvious failures. If you take the principle that a score less than 10 must reflect notable failures, or that the lower the score the more obvious the failures, then it must also stand to reason that any game, through a series of patches, could get to a 10. When in reality, some games conceptually were never going to be 10s, because their basic idea is fine but not spectacular.

iOS games are proving this; many iOS games have no particular flaws, look good, give good feedback, are interesting... but they're small and little and designed to be played 5 minutes a day for a few months. And that's okay. But not many people would give those games a 10.
 
B

Blinck

Member
Larsen B said:
Remember when Tom Chick gave BioShock Infinite 3 stars and everyone went mad at him because it was getting 10/10 everywhere else and now the majority opinion is that it's a 6/10 game?
Click to expand...

Majority opinion? Seriously? Where did you get that idea?


EDIT: On topic, glad to see this game reviewing well. I didn't like Bastion's combat/gameplay, but this seems right up my alley :D
 
derExperte

derExperte

Member
Canis lupus said:
This game isn't coming out on PS3. The successor of the PS4 is likely never gonna return to the Cell or PowerPC architecture. It's safe to say that after seeing the benefits it's all x86 from now on. And thus, this game will be backwards compatible on PS5, PS6 etc.
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It's safe to say you don't know how backwards compatibility works. And thus I suggest not making definitive statements.
 
J

Jomjom

Banned
Amir0x said:
This game is fucking astonishingly good. I can't believe this is from the same team that made Bastion. Not that that was a bad game, but this is just a whole 'nother level.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. I'm feeling bad playing for about an hour now because im afraid Im going to finish it all in one sitting. I want to savor it! Bastion was good, but it didnt have anywhere near the depth this game does. The music so far is also a step above Bastion's. I loved Bastion too.
 
U

Uno Venova

Banned
There's always people who hate that games get too highly rated on average, and they want the full scale to be used. But this is as much evidence as any that the majority only wants videogames they anticipate to be reviewed in a very narrow 7-10 scale the same way publishers do, no wonder websites will never use the full scale for the foreseeable future.
 
P

Pimpwerx

Member
culafia said:
The biggest fallacy here is that people look at an 8.5 as a game that got 1.5 points knocked off. Reviews don't work that way. Like school grading (a main reason why people look at anything below a 7 as instant shit), it's about what you earn starting from 0 -- not what you lose starting from 10. In the case of Polygon, there were no clear negatives stated as opposed to minor ones in Wolfenstein, but, by their standards, the positives in Wolfenstein outweigh the positives in Transistor. Not all positives and negatives are weighed equally, nor should they be.

Also, holy shit. Reviewers don't have a responsibility to worry about the Metacritic, usually don't give a shit about the Metacritic, and usually don't have such a personal investment in a website that they would worry about click bait. Sometimes that outlier 7 can be -- wait for it -- an actual valid opinion. If you think a reviewer does that for attention, just think about how short-sighted it would be for their individual business and reputation to blindly score games based on who it will rile up the most. Click bait does exist, but it often seems like this is a term used as a way to dismantle someone's opinion without any constructive thought.
Click to expand...
Critics give grades. A good grader has a rubric that establishes consistent criteria for scoring. The problem is most reviewers don't follow a rubric, resulting in wildly inconsistent scoring that gamers have picked at for decades. The ones that do use a rubric either use a really crude one that allows for large amounts of variance, or at least post ones that fit that description. An example would be Gamespot's lame rubric.

Reviewers have no one to blame but themselves for the constant backlash. I dated a food and hotel critic who scored restaurants on a set rubric. She never published the rubric, but I got to see first hand how careful and consistent she was. Game reviews are hacks. Passionate gamers with good writing skills, but hacks nonetheless. PEACE.
 
N

nbthedude

Member
Macmanus said:
Although I feel this is a valid concern, do you think that your disdain might stem from how poor most game text can be - especially in contrast to having a PhD in literature?

Personally I'd think it would be a shame pigeonhole an entire medium simply because it's ubiquitous name features video in the title, when in reality it's simply interactive entertainment. I dread the thought of potentially missing out on experiences like Kentucky Route Zero or Dear Esther because they feature text, lack game mechanics, etc.
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I would agree that most games are poorly written. But honestly I think I'd take a poorly written game that tells it's story using voice overs and interactive forms (given that the game itself was still good) over one that is very well written and just dumps walls of text on me. I just don't think it's a medium that works well for long form reading while I'm sitting there staring at a screen with a controller in my hand. Playing to an interactive medium's strengths means making presenting the narrative in a way that is blended with the interaction rather than one that puts the rest of the game interaction on pause. Some examples:

-environmental storytelling such as that used by Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Fall Out, Bioshock etc,--letting the environment and the items in it tell what you would otherwise put in a paragraph describing something that happened

-interactive choice based story telling such as that in Mass Effect, Walking Dead, and Witcher 2

-voiced cinematic cut scenes such as that in Enslaved and Uncharted

-audio diaries such as those in Bioshock and Gone Home

All of these are superior ways of telling stories in games as opposed to walls of text, which seem very sloppy and not well integrated into the game as the aforementioned formats. I don't think they are all equal. I for example much prefer the former two to the later two, but I think all of these methods are superior to just a bunch of written text and pull you out of the experience less.

I realize these things cost money. But if a developer doesn't have the budget to tell a complex story in a sophisticated way in a game using cinematics or at least voice overs then I don't think they should be attempting to tell a complex story to begin with.
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
nbthedude said:
I just don't think it's a medium that works well for long form reading. Nor is an Iphone for example. Playing to an interactive medium's strengths means making presenting the narrative in a way that is blended with the interaction rather than one that puts the rest of the game interaction on pause. Some examples:

-environmental storytelling such as that used by Dark Souls, Elder Scrolls, Fall Out, Bioshock etc,--letting the environment and the items in it tell what you would otherwise put in a paragraph describing something that happened

-interactive story telling such as that in Mass Effect, Walking Dead, and Witcher 2

-voiced cinematic cutscences such as that in Enslaved and Uncharted

-audio diaries such as those in Bioshock and Gone Home

All of these are superior ways of telling stories in games as opposed to walls of text, which seem very sloppy and not well integrated into the game as the aforementioned formats. I don't think they are all equal. I for example much prefer the former two to the later two, but I think all of these methods are superior to just a bunch of written text.
Click to expand...

We have examples of games that excel in both environmental storytelling and written text. A non-significant number of games in the adventure genre fall into this category. RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1/2, Baldur's Gate 2, Betrayal at Krondor etc are renown for the quality of their writing and the way they manage to interweave well-written text with the deep player interaction that characterizes video games.

If the writing is strong enough, it can easily support a game regardless of how that writing is delivered. Descriptive prose can have its place in a game in a way that only bolsters the existing environmental storytelling. There have been attempts to novelize Planescape: Torment, for example, and it doesn't have nearly the same effect in a non-visual, non-interactive medium.
 
N

nbthedude

Member
Zeliard said:
We have examples of games that excel in both environmental storytelling and written text. A non-significant number of games in the adventure genre fall into this category. RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1/2, Baldur's Gate 2, Betrayal at Krondor etc are renown for the quality of their writing and the way they manage to interweave well-written text with the deep player interaction that characterizes video games.

If the writing is strong enough, it can easily support a game regardless of how that writing is delivered. Descriptive prose can have its place in a game in a way that only bolsters the existing environmental storytelling. There have been attempts to novelize Planescape: Torment, for example, and it doesn't have nearly the same effect in a non-visual, non-interactive medium.
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And I know those games apparently worked for people at the time of their release. But I doubt many people would find them very appealing today outside of those that have nostalgia for them. I went back and tried to play Planescape last summer and couldn't play it for more than few hours and had no interest in returning. That was actually what solidified for me the fact that I never want to play a game with giant walls of text. I kind of doubt I'm in the minority.

I'm not saying it's impossible to make a good game with giant walls of text. It is probably even possible, for example, to make a good movie that is just really a (really good) narration overlaying and explaining the whole film. Or one that is just all audio with no visual imagery at all. But I don't think that plays the medium's strengths.
 
K

Kodiak

Not an asshole.
Having played the game for two hours now, a lot of Tom Chick's criticisms feel like he didn't try to understand the combat engine at all.

He also lambasts the game a lot for not being Bastion. It's not Bastion. You are going on a revenge quest, not building a hub.
 
N

nib95

Banned
Decided I need to complete Child of Light (which I'm really enjoying) before playing this, but now I'm playing as much of the former as possible just so I can get to Transistor lol.
 
M

Marow

Member
Those are some high scores.

Looking forward to Transistor seeing as I liked Bastion. From the little I've seen, however, it seems to be rather similar to Bastion for better or worse. Hopefully it will feel unique enough.
 
E

Eusis

Member
nbthedude said:
And I know those games apparently worked for people at the time of their release. But I doubt many people would find them very appealing today outside of those that have nostalgia for them. I went back and tried to play Planescape last summer and couldn't play it for more than few hours and had no interest in returning. That was actually what solidified for me the fact that I never want to play a game with giant walls of text. I kind of doubt I'm in the minority.

I'm not saying it's impossible to make a good game with giant walls of text. It is probably even possible, for example, to make a good movie that is just really a (really good) narration overlaying and explaining the whole film. Or one that is just all audio with no visual imagery at all. But I don't think that plays the medium's strengths.
Click to expand...
While this point is a double edged sword the vast majority of people still read plenty on computer monitors as a necessity to working, or just to use the internet. The double edged sword point is that you this may not apply to TVs, and it CAN be uncomfortable to read from a distance, but we've done plenty of that before or when following subtitles/captions (conveniently matching what you said about narration and movies), and one of the more important points is to not make the text too small (Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on WIi U botched this epically.)

Besides that, frankly "the majority" barely care to read period, certainly not in games or else we'd have a very different gaming landscape. That doesn't mean you have to cater to the majority though, and this game absolutely is not doing that. CoD can worry about having too much text to read and alienating the majority, meanwhile some of us DO prefer to read instead for a variety of reasons (they can fit in more via text than spoken audio, we can read faster than they can speak or show a scene, it saves them money and makes a game more affordable and free to be daring, some of us are just sick of this backlash and are mostly neutral otherwise, etc etc.)

EDIT: And now that I've backtracked through prior posts more: given this game's style and likely budget text was just most practical. If they were making this more like an AAA game then they'd have the luxury to depict more scenes I'd think, but as is this is more practical.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Blinck said:
Majority opinion? Seriously? Where did you get that idea?
Click to expand...

Majority opinion sounds a bit wrong. Fair to say the "majority of good opinions" about Bioshock instead :p

But seriously, the Escapist review was very useful for me. The drama might have been what got me to read it, but coming from a perspective of not liking Bastion, it answered a lot of questions I have about the game.

I'll get it, but not just yet.
 
E

Eusis

Member
Blinck said:
Majority opinion? Seriously? Where did you get that idea?
Click to expand...
While saying it's majority opinion may not be right (not even here, just check the GotY thread) I do think people mellowed out or started to realize that it wasn't the game they had wanted. And I think the GotY results reflect that too: while it ranked 2nd place for GotY it was far further down for games that ranked first place on lists, so even though there were people gushing about it as one of the greatest games ever that seemingly wasn't an opinion held onto for the rest of the year. At best it was one of the best games ever released that had the misfortune of coming out the same year as The Last of Us, another game people thought was one of the best they ever played. Personally I'm in the let down camp: there's a million and one extremely linear corridor shooters but not many like Bioshock, and Bioshock ended up becoming just another one of those.
 
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