Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
I don't think that's what they're getting at, and I don't think there's any value in dismissing negative reviews just because most are positive. This Forbes article, which highlights some of the negative reviews the game has had, explains it in this way:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkai.../#50fd5cde30a4
I find myself on the side of "cautiously optimistic." Even the positive reviews have mentioned things that just don't seem very enjoyable. And while everything is expanded, nothing seems to really be made better. And some things, like the character development and the power and nuance of the message in the first one, have been largely lost.
I loved the first one. But I'm not going to write off negative reviews because they don't agree with what I want to believe about this one. In fact, I haven't really read any reviews (I read this article solely because this discussion encouraged me to go looking for something). But before today, even after hearing the countless 10/10s, my excitement for the game was pretty tepid.
It's a sequel where the things that made the first game work were unique, powerful and something we'd barely seen before. And that included the ending, which (with a sequel) no longer means much. I hope I love it, but I don't see any point in getting dismissive of someone who isn't sure they will too. |
Personally, I'm just the type of person who likes getting a balanced understanding of things and I generally believe completely positive or completely negative aren't good representations of things. I didn't completely discount the totally positive results. I just felt like they obviously needed to be discounted, so I was looking at the alternate opinions to round out my understanding. Purely on the evaluation of like several dozen reviews, I was still cautiously optimistic and excited for the game. But stupid things kept popping up to erode the defense of my decision to stick with the pre-order until I canceled yesterday.
It's not really the game itself that's bugging me, but all the sideshow stuff that's really eating away at me and making me believe I won't be able to fully enjoy the game due to non-game related distractions surrounding this game. This is why I think I need to take a step back and disconnect it with all the side politics and let the criticisms/hype cool down so I can give the game a fair shake on its own, rather than immediately place it in TLOU1's shadow. It really doesn't help when even great reviews say that there were many aspects that were not enjoyable and some of those great reviews even going as far to say it's kinda like pain porn.
Although, I am also starting to wonder why I am suddenly letting so much non-game related stuff bother me so much and I've never experienced a game with this much side show stuff that bothered me so much that I would hesitate. What I've seen so far in the trailers still has many facets that look exciting and I really still want to play TLOU2 ASAP and literally spend zero time looking at anything TLOU2 related outside of my own playthrough, for at least 2 weeks after launch.
It is very possible that I will hop back on the pre-order train within the next 24 hours. I am realizing I am still excited to play the game in a vacuum, but I really am not liking the overall real world atmosphere surrounding this game at all.