But the rub here is that, the way he was critiquing it and framing the critique just doesn't make a lot of sense. DiRT isn't a Gran Turismo or Forza; it's
never had that type of a budget. So what exactly was he expecting next-gen wise from a cross-gen, 3P middling-budget rally racing game that's also probably been impacted by work-from-home stuff due to COVID?
Expecting a game with all of those factors going on for it, to be a showpiece for a next-gen console...what exactly was he looking for? And Papaveracheeks kept bringing up that he did this because of a community suggestion. That's fine. But I'm pretty sure this wasn't the
only suggestion he got. The Assassin's Creed Valhalla footage went up the day before he posted this video, did it cross his mind to at least do a video on that if he is actually in fact interested in good next-gen like game footage running on a Series X? I still don't particularly understand why he framed it as a "mark of shame" for Series X, either, or felt bad for Xbox gamers. It's a
multi-platform game, so the logical conclusion would be if it looks bad (btw I don't think the game actually looks bad. Maybe not as much flair as other racing games, but it doesn't look "bad") on one system, it would look bad on the other systems and especially the current-gen platforms, no? I don't think that's how he framed the discussion, though. Not absolutely.
Again, there's
no issue if people think the game doesn't look great. Compared to some of the other next-gen game footage we've seen it's not exactly stellar. But people should keep expectations in check. It's not a first-party game. It's not allotted some massive budget, most likely. It was designed with current-gen as the base and adding some features on top for next-gen. And for all we know, it's likely aimed for framerates over visual polish at least in some part, as a creative choice. AND, again, there's the work-from-home stuff due to COVID, maybe they aren't crunching their devs like some other studios are to hit a certain point before deadlines
I just don't think he (Cherno) kept any of those factors in mind. So yeah, he's not impressed with the game and fair enough. And okay, he's busy working on his own stuff along with these reactions. Fair enough. But the insinuations he kept making towards the end...if he was really worried someone was a fanboy sending him intentionally bad footage...why couldn't he have taken time to find better footage? The IGN footage is notorious for being
terribly captured, maybe he didn't catch the memo.
But, that's ultimately still on him. Several times, especially towards the end, he seems to suggest it's a problem with the hardware, yet doesn't speculate any further than that. He probably isn't aware of the Gamecore stuff, but the way he leaves it rather open-ended practically invites people to assume the hardware itself is just bad regardless of anything else. Also, he seems to be mistaken that MS released the DiRT 5 footage themselves. They didn't. That was Codemasters, the developer. Just basic information he either doesn't know, or gets mixed up, and because he doesn't know it or bothers to do a little research before making a video about it, draws assumptions that don't really do much but to (whether through any intent of his own or not) stoke console war nonsense.
At the end of the day, as a gaming content creator, particularly with how the hobby is online these days, knowing he has a platform many impressionable people (including a lot of kids and teens) look at, he's ultimately responsible for what he puts out and how that could influence overall discourse. I don't think that's necessarily
fair on content creators to have to be responsible for, but that's just kinda how it is, because society is just that screwed up now. And when you break it down there isn't too much WRT substantive, constructive criticism in the video that could be gathered to further healthy discussion.
No disrespect to the guy, but that's kind of an L for 'em.