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Edge won't be releasing a review of Death Stranding

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Not surprising.

Don't even they know how to review a game... what did you expect them?
Even though everyone can tell he bailed ship on the review, but got to give the guy credit for publicly saying it and being honest about it. So a brownie point for at least not BS'ing an excuse for not reviewing it.

He hated it, so he bailed.
 

Enjay

Banned
How the fuck can you respect a reviewer not finishing a game he's reviewing?
So should someone finish pacman before reviewing it? if a game needs to be finished before it can be critiqued (as asked by it's apparent sole developer) then it not being good enough to be finished is a good enough critique for me.

"And the Dumbest Analogy goes to....."
you're right i forgot this is probably more an interactive movie and less a game.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
Some games u can't finish. If this game has like 100 hours of run this ladder around, i would bail on it also and basically say bye.

Anyway anything they showcased on this game looked like a total bore fest to me.
 
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D

Deleted member 740922

Unconfirmed Member
Kojima and Death Stranding exposed people's IQ these past 48 hours, to be honest.

Yes, that's certainly true MiyazakiHatesKojima MiyazakiHatesKojima

j7cM66g.png
 

Kagey K

Banned
How the fuck can you respect a reviewer not finishing a game he's reviewing?
It happens more often then you would think, just like how can you expect a reviewer to review a game they played on super easy and were given unlimited cheat codes and loot boxes to do it?

The fact is that most reviewers get to run through the story as quickly as possible, while also taking advantages that other players would have to buy in order to progress their story quicker.

They do the bare minimum to say they played a game and can’t relate to the average player in any way, yet so many people trust them for various reasons.
 
It happens more often then you would think, just like how can you expect a reviewer to review a game they played on super easy and were given unlimited cheat codes and loot boxes to do it?

The fact is that most reviewers get to run through the story as quickly as possible, while also taking advantages that other players would have to buy in order to progress their story quicker.

They do the bare minimum to say they played a game and can’t relate to the average player in any way, yet so many people trust them for various reasons.
That's true.

However, Sony gave Edge a review copy two weeks in advance and the game has a story mode difficulty. I think the reviewer should've passed it on to another editor or just admitted that it's not his type of game.

I just can't respect him anymore because of the way he treated the whole situation.
 

Kagey K

Banned
That's true.

However, Sony gave Edge a review copy two weeks in advance and the game has a story mode difficulty. I think the reviewer should've passed it on to another editor or just admitted that it's not his type of game.

I just can't respect him anymore because of the way he treated the whole situation.
Or perhaps they passed it among many freelancers and they all came to the same conclusion..... We would need some clarification there.
 

Nitty_Grimes

Made a crappy phPBB forum once ... once.
How do we know all the other reviews that have come out that they’ve all finished the game too?

The 10 out of 10s and 100/100 scores have they just watched the opening cut scene and first level and the 7 out of 10s and lower scores have finished it 100%

Or maybe it is the other way round?
 

Kagey K

Banned
How do we know all the other reviews that have come out that they’ve all finished the game too?

The 10 out of 10s and 100/100 scores have they just watched the opening cut scene and first level and the 7 out of 10s and lower scores have finished it 100%

Or maybe it is the other way round?
They all signed NDAs promising they would finish the game before they reviewed it and they likely all have IDs to make sure certain trophies were unlocked, just to be sure.
 

Kagey K

Banned
I don't use Twitter, but I would boycott them if they did the same to Gears 5, that's for sure!
I actually think it’s a reviewers responsibility to play a game as thoroughly as they can before issuing a review, but I don’t think I would ever mandate it.

Crackdown took some hits because they ran from boss to boss and got upset it was hard, but I don’t think MS would have been right by mandating they get all the skills up before they beat it.

You just have to remember that your experience can be much different then theirs.

If I built a combat only character on The Outer Worlds, it would be much different then where my character is going now, how do you equate that in review scores?
 
D

Deleted member 740922

Unconfirmed Member
They all signed NDAs promising they would finish the game before they reviewed it and they likely all have IDs to make sure certain trophies were unlocked, just to be sure.

Good theory. I wonder how strict they'd be regarding that though when when a 90+ score was given 🤔
 

mcjmetroid

Member
So after 40 hours of gameplay, according to the Edge guy, the game suddenly gets good?
He didn't like it so he didn't finish it. There's your review.

I don't remember people burning an effigy dedicated to Jeff Gerstmann for refusing to review Fallout 76.
But put Kojima's name on the front of the box and suddenly they should finish the game even if they hate it.

I'm not really sure why people are having trouble understanding this.

It's his job to finish the game.
What about all those games that shit the bed in their endings and ruin the game for a lot of people? You almost never hear about those in reviews and now I know why..

Also that comparison to a food critic is utter shite. A more apt comparison would be comparing it to a movie critic or a book critic where I can assure you they are required to finish the damn thing before reviewing it.

You want games to be taken seriously as art.. complete it before you comment on it.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
I'm not really sure why people are having trouble understanding this.

It's his job to finish the game.
What about all those games that shit the bed in their endings and ruin the game for a lot of people? You almost never hear about those in reviews and now I know why..

Also that comparison to a food critic is utter shite. A more apt comparison would be comparing it to a movie critic or a book critic where I can assure you they are required to finish the damn thing before reviewing it.

You want games to be taken seriously as art.. complete it before you comment on it.
What movie or book requires you to get to hour 10 before it gets a bit interesting?
Many movie, food and book critics would give up before the 10 hour mark in thier respective fields.

What makes games different?

In fact even in the gaming field wasn’t this a huge levy thrown at FF13?
How is it good now? But unacceptable when FF13 happened?
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
What movie or book requires you to get to hour 10 before it gets a bit interesting?
Many movie, food and book critics would give up before the 10 hour mark in thier respective fields.

What makes games different?

In fact even in the gaming field wasn’t this a huge levy thrown at FF13?
How is it good now? But unacceptable when FF13 happened?

Just so we're clear I'm only refereeing to narrative driven single player games here but

There are no 10 hour movies, movies are easier to watch and review for sure compared to books and games but movies can still be a chore to watch and are taken a lot more seriously than videogames because the ending is one of the most important parts of a movie. It must be completed to get the full picture.

I believe in a narrative driven single player game this is JUST as important, it doesn't matter how 'boring" or long it is. I think it speaks volumes about how seriously videogames are taken when reviews are treated like they're reviewing an arcade game.

Like to be honest the modern videogame review isn't fit for purpose anymore anyway.
With day 1 patches, microtransactions being thrown into games after reviews and plenty of online games where you can't complete the game.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Just so we're clear I'm only refereeing to narrative driven single player games here but

There are no 10 hour movies, movies are easier to watch and review for sure compared to books and games but movies can still be a chore to watch and are taken a lot more seriously than videogames because the ending is one of the most important parts of a movie. It must be completed to get the full picture.

I believe in a narrative driven single player game this is JUST as important, it doesn't matter how 'boring" or long it is. I think it speaks volumes about how seriously videogames are taken when reviews are treated like they're reviewing an arcade game.

Like to be honest the modern videogame review isn't fit for purpose anymore anyway.
With day 1 patches, microtransactions being thrown into games after reviews and plenty of online games where you can't complete the game.

No there are movies that are more then 10 hours. They might not be one in a single go, but they are built to have you watch them and then go see the rest.

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight are the first that come to mind. You can pretend they are 3 hour movies, or accept them for what they are.

I’m not going to wait for Breaking Dawn for it to finally be good.
 

mcjmetroid

Member
No there are movies that are more then 10 hours. They might not be one in a single go, but they are built to have you watch them and then go see the rest.

Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight are the first that come to mind. You can pretend they are 3 hour movies, or accept them for what they are.

I’m not going to wait for Breaking Dawn for it to finally be good.

Eh?

They're different movies part of the same story yes but reviews would be seperate because the audience would be paying for tickets to each movie seperately.

At the end of the day a review is to help a person decide if the product if for them..if the person hired to try out the product couldn't be bothered then they shouldn't be doing the job.
 

Ar¢tos

Member
I managed to finish Uncharted 4, and it was the most boring painful gaming experience of my life. I wanted to beat every single character to a bloody pulp. I had to force myself to play each long chapter and I only paid 10$ for it.
Can DS be that bad that someone can't even try to speed run it at the easiest difficulty just to publish a negative review?
 

Kagey K

Banned
Eh?

They're different movies part of the same story yes but reviews would be seperate because the audience would be paying for tickets to each movie seperately.

At the end of the day a review is to help a person decide if the product if for them..if the person hired to try out the product couldn't be bothered then they shouldn't be doing the job.

There are obviously things that make games and movies different, but I don’t think it’s the giant divide you want it to be.
 

Kagey K

Banned
I managed to finish Uncharted 4, and it was the most boring painful gaming experience of my life. I wanted to beat every single character to a bloody pulp. I had to force myself to play each long chapter and I only paid 10$ for it.
Can DS be that bad that someone can't even try to speed run it at the easiest difficulty just to publish a negative review?
It seems so, and why did you bother pushing through if you hated it that bad?
 

Ar¢tos

Member
It seems so, and why did you bother pushing through if you hated it that bad?
To feel less ashamed of spending money on it and to force me to keep playing (anything) , I'm very picky with games, and although I don't spend much money on them, since the max I'll pay for a game now is 20$ (the exception might be Elden Ring, depending on how close to "souls" it is) I tend to not go past the first hours of each game, because I get bored, and I need to force myself to play them to the end.
I'm the kind of person that when I stop gaming, I stop for months and it's hard to go back.
I haven't played anything in 5 months, I'm waiting for Elden Ring to wake up the gaming desire (or for RDR2 to go on sale for 20$ or less).
I paid 30$ for Horizon the first time it was on sale at that price and couldn't cope with the robotic frigid dialogues of the game, still need to gather patience and energy for that game (maybe changing the language to a language I don't know with EN subtitles will do the trick).
The last game I enjoyed was Dks3, and it feels like it was 10 years ago!
 

Kagey K

Banned
To feel less ashamed of spending money on it and to force me to keep playing (anything) , I'm very picky with games, and although I don't spend much money on them, since the max I'll pay for a game now is 20$ (the exception might be Elden Ring, depending on how close to "souls" it is) I tend to not go past the first hours of each game, because I get bored, and I need to force myself to play them to the end.
I'm the kind of person that when I stop gaming, I stop for months and it's hard to go back.
I haven't played anything in 5 months, I'm waiting for Elden Ring to wake up the gaming desire (or for RDR2 to go on sale for 20$ or less).
I paid 30$ for Horizon the first time it was on sale at that price and couldn't cope with the robotic frigid dialogues of the game, still need to gather patience and energy for that game (maybe changing the language to a language I don't know with EN subtitles will do the trick).
The last game I enjoyed was Dks3, and it feels like it was 10 years ago!
If this is he Sony mantra, I’m glad im. not a part of it.
shame people into playing gAmes they hate.
 

burningheart

Neo Member
Sigh.

If the first floor is structurally so unsound as to be life-threatening, it is his duty not to proceed further, and not risk his very life.

It is a very simple concept.

Even OSHA would call you pedantic in your being objectively wrong on this.
You’re continuing to compare what Edge implied is a boring game with a situation that endangers life; you’re exaggerating so much to make a point that the point itself is meaningless.

IF Death Stranding had technical issues that threatened the safety of the console- burning out the graphics card, bricking the console, data corruption etc- then your comparison would be valid.

They made no mention of that however.
 

Ar¢tos

Member
If this is he Sony mantra, I’m glad im. not a part of it.
shame people into playing gAmes they hate.
It's not about Sony games, God of War was ok, for example. And I have the same issues with games of other publishers and indies.
No matter how many reviews you read, you only know what games you like by experiencing them yourself.
 

Kadayi

Banned
A lot depends on the nature of the game in terms of length, but ultimately I'm of the view that you've got to at least have given a title a fair crack of the whip before drawing any sort of a conclusion as to its value proposition. Still, EDGE despite its high regard should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt when it comes to the sanctity of their reviews. As fairly well-respected game Journo pointed out to me back in the day, when your reviewers are essentially anonymous freelancers there's no personal comeback for them if they don't do a thorough job, and when you're getting paid by the word and have a finite count, how much time are you going to truly spend on that all-encompassing RPG you've been asked to cover? Infamously EDGE gave the original Witcher game a 5/10 which might not sound that harsh (there was some jank for sure), but what stood out at the time when reading it was that it was clear that the reviewer never went past the starting area and so had no comprehension about the narrative payoffs that lay further in, which really elevated the game in many peoples eyes from an RPG perspective and was beyond what even Bioware was doing in terms of choice & consequence.
 
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The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Thanks good there is a mandatory finish the game before give a review.

That just shows how bad Edge is reviewing games without finish them.

Or that this game is too bad to finish in a reasonable time to throw a review out. Can go both ways.
 

HeresJohnny

Member
Why would someone need to finish a game before reviewing. If some one put some hours in a title and get the main idea than it’s fine imo. So Games out there are really bad and barely playable. You want someone to torture themselves to finish it? Nah
That’s called a preview.
 

ROMhack

Member
Death stranding and football manager are completely different games. One has an end point with a story and the other doesn't.

That's not quite correct. The end of football manager tends to come in your first season when you haven't worked out how to get the results you need, get sacked and face the prospect of managing Bury or starting a new game. That's when the ending credits roll in my head.
 
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HeresJohnny

Member
Or that this game is too bad to finish in a reasonable time to throw a review out. Can go both ways.
I wish I could tell my boss I wasn’t going to do my job any time it became unreasonably fun. This is not a hobby, these people are paid to review games. I’m sure when they were hired they weren’t promised that they’d only have to play games they liked.
 

HeresJohnny

Member

FranXico

Member
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brian0057

Banned
Giant Bomb fucking sucks too. Your point?
Of course they suck. Both of them do.
But people are applying standards to Edge that they didn't apply to Giant Bomb just because Kojima's name is on the box.
Games journalists suck but If you're gonna get pissed about something they do, make sure it's about something worth getting angry about.
The same GiantBomb that refused to cover Kingdom Come?

Ok, then.
And people called them out for it. Not reviewing a game because of some perceived racism is BS.
But them refusing to review a game they played for tens of hours because it sucks is completely reasonable.
 
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HeresJohnny

Member
Of course they suck. Both of them do.
But people are applying standards to Edge that they didn't apply to Giant Bomb just because Kojima's name is on the box.
Games journalists suck but If you're gonna get pissed about something they do, make sure it's about something worth getting angry about.
Agreed that the standards should apply to everyone. I’m not familiar with GB’s refusal to review Fallout. Was it because it was fundamentally broken, or was it because they just didn’t think they’d like it?
 

yoyo67

Member
Seriously? He threw a tantrum because he had to finish the game before reviewing it? I'd just assume a reviewer would do that in the first place, especially for a story driven game with an ending.

Sounds like he was planning to play a couple of hours and then post a full review of a game he hadn't fully seen. Imagine writing a review for the sixth sense but you didn't watch the whole film and missed the twist.
He played it for forty hours...he was also bored as hell, so forcing yourself through a slog takes a while. I can see his point.
 

brian0057

Banned
Agreed that the standards should apply to everyone. I’m not familiar with GB’s refusal to review Fallout. Was it because it was fundamentally broken, or was it because they just didn’t think they’d like it?
They played over 20 hours of Fallout 76 and stated outright on video that they will not review the game.
So I find myself bemused when people blowtorch Edge magazine for basically the same thing with the only difference being that Kojima's name is on the credits.
 
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BlackTron

Member
To feel less ashamed of spending money on it and to force me to keep playing (anything)

Eh, I get what you mean, but don't force yourself to play anything that you don't enjoy. And don't think of ten bucks as more valuable than thirty hours of your time!
 
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