The QTE finishing itself is just insulting.
I do not recommend: Marvel's Wolverine (Review) - Skill up
Submitted 2 weeks ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to games@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhUiptupV7A
Comments
iamthetot@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
_Lory98_@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
This looks like a parody of the modern AAA single player game.
terranoid@lemmy.cafe 2 weeks ago
everyone seems so shocked that it keeps insulting the players intelligence with nav and gps and constant reminders, but do people not realize this is the direction AAA has been going since forever?
I’ve always fucking hated this shit… But people seem to fucking love not having to think or explore in games, and they want to basically watch a movie but feel like they’re in it.
You take it to the obvious next step and reveal how little faith you have in people’s smooth brains, and while it was basically a step in the same direction, I guess people finally felt insulted.
Games used to be really fucking hard, and “iron man” was just the fucking default lol. You die, you die. Maybe that was shitty but they used to make games where beating it was way crazier.
deeeron@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I think there’s a fine line that you can teeter on as a AAA dev nowadays. I absolutely got more enjoyment out of morrowind than I did Skyrim as a young player because Morrowind gave you less directive and kinda let you get in over your shoulders into places that a low level had no right being in. As an older gamer now though, I do appreciate games that let you do that as well as highlighting zones to let you know it’ll be max difficulty when you enter them, rather than cordoning them off until you achieve a certain level.
I have way less time to play games than I did when I was in my late teens/early 20s playing Morrowind, so games like Dying Light 2 that give you the option and caution of entering certain areas/quests helps me not my waste time with impossible areas.
I get it though, the whole setting a marker for the next quest is pretty mind numbing and the fetch quests are boring as hell.
Wolverine having QTEs that don’t matter if you get them correct is just pure laziness from whoever the director of the game is. Insomniac made some very good spider man games, but seems like they dialed this one in.
Sadly, I think AAA games are mostly dead… studios are gonna use AI for voice acting, coding, etc more and more if it means they don’t have to pay a salary to an actual person.
justdaveisfine@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Oof that does look very hand-holdy.
Definitely not a game for me.
user_6282638282@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Inside Games speculated this may be a result of Sony burning billions on failed live service starting to cut budgets on other projects. The Kojima news sort of correlates.
But basically all these annoying systems make sense in an open-world Spiderman game, where getting lost is even more annoying, but not here and so that possibly speaks to a scope change in the middle of development.
mursejoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I was surprised that it wasn’t open world after they basically perfected it with the Spider-Man games.
I don’t think it needed to be open world, but just surprised Insomniac pivoted to liner and couldn’t pull it off.
I do wonder if there was a scope change mid-development and were just seeing that in the end result.
LostWanderer@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
Honestly, that feels like a shame...Those Insomniac bubs dropped the ball BIG time with this game. It's going to be the best example of what not to do in game design for years to come. How cute, cursed, and fun. If they were going to make a watered down and dismal game, they should've just let Ubisoft handle it and take more hits to their already harmed reputation.
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
They thought they could just copy and paste whatever they did in Spiderman, an open world game, into a linear action game… and it’ll “just work”
I think this arrogance is born out of the misconceived belief that linear games are inherently inferior and easier to design than open world games. I’m glad it backfired; they earned it.
LostWanderer@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
That feels like a very clear read to me as well, they were woefully unprepared to design a compelling linear game. I wouldn't call making linear games easy, because they can get just as repetitive as an open world title faster. So many careful decisions are required to make a linear game come alive, fun, well timed diversions...Thematic cohesion that breathes live into the world and makes it feel lived in. Also, it shouldn't have been too difficult to not insult the gamer's intelligence with all the markers and guidance, the weird and unjustified breakable placement. The "hidden" chests is so crazy, like it wasn't even that difficult to find some of them. Even the Logan that they crafted, felt incredibly wrong as he was more of an asshole with a heart of gold. The under utilization of cool characters like Mystique just screams mistake to me. The initial impression I got from watching this review is: Insomniac thought they could make an uninspired, borderline slop game and have their praises sung.
Insomniac better pay for this incredible misstep, they better get fuck all in terms of sales, and low ass ratings. Critically torn the fuck apart for the right reasons (not stupid culture war bullshit from stupid hate mongering tourists in gaming spaces).
mursejoy@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
As a long time X-men fan that lived through the Fox movies era, I am convinced that the franchise is cursed.
Now they are bringing X-men into the MCU when it’s on life support. I would say people are generally apathetic on the MCU with some outright hostile to it. Unlikely that X-men will change that.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s a little strange Insomniac would have this much trouble with a linear game when they made Ratchet and Clank.
inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Maybe that’s the problem? I’m thinking about it and R&C can be kind of hand holdy, those golden bolts shine like nobody’s business, and they had a lot of travel challenges. That worked for that game because cartoony and as built against different gadgets and geared toward younger audience but shoehorning that into wolverine doesn’t quite fit.
Just a thought.
captcha_incorrect@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Agreed. Ratchet & Clank were great games, loved them.
steelplatedmech@piefed.ca 2 weeks ago
Surprising review, since expected it to be good after how much I enjoyed the Spiderman games.
caseofthematts@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think a lot of people expected it to be good (pre-late marketing) since Insomniac generally makes pretty good games.
OrgunDonor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think I am biased as I don’t have a ps5, and Sony is definitely on a crusade at the moment. But I really like Spiderman and Miles Morales, and enjoy Spiderman 2 albeit not as much.
However, Wolverine just never stood out from what I had seen briefly, then I saw the sentinel fight. That looked beyond shit, like gameplay had regressed 20 years or more.
I think that was the point I expected it to be bad, even if it is not completely terrible on the combat side.
binarytobis@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve been savoring playing the last Spider-Man game for a while now. The first two are so good.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Wow, I did not expect that verdict (still need to watch the video). I respect Skill Up and think he is well articulating himself and his reasoning are often valid.
Satellaview@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Excellent video.
atro_city@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
A marvel game just like a marvel movie: crap
HeyJoe@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
My friend was preaching for weeks now that he absolutely has to buy this game, but already knew it was going to be booty and hated that he was going to waste money on this. Guess he was right.
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Called it. Insomniac aren’t qualified to make this. In fact, very few western developers are.
Most just suck at making linear action games.
Insomniac’s combat is fine in an open world game, but strip everything else and put all focus on it, and it becomes obvious it’s mid at best.
Flying Wild Hog could’ve killed it going the Evil West route.
RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
We all do realize Insomniac made Ratchet and Clank for years before Spiderman, yeah?
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Please go ahead and walk me through how making Ratchet and Clank qualifies Insomaniac to make a good linear action game… you know, like Ninja Gaiden II or Bayonetta. Blow my mind, please.
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
In case anyone is unfamiliar with Evil West, here’s Skill Up’s review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cMczlbmBFw
FluidBeef@quokk.au 2 weeks ago
Is this a real review or one of the mentals who decided months ago that this game is “woke” because they don’t like Insomniac’s face designs, who have been feverishly seeking confirmation bias ever since?
uncooked24@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Skill Up is not a culture war grifter
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
ACG, gameranx, and even IGN all reported it’s mid.
LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I didn’t think games generally were quite this handholdy but then realised I haven’t really played any AAA from the past 10 years. I wasn’t ever likely to buy a PS5 anyway but Wolverine is another exclusive on the “meh” pile for me.
ieightpi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oddly I can’t quite figure out why this feels too gory, but this game just goes a step to far me. I’ll be passing on that alone. And this form a person who loves blowing up bodies in Fallout.
caut_R@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I‘m curious how this game will do commercially. If it does make Sony money after all this, maybe the studio‘s right in their target group assumptions…
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I ran into a lot of “AAA disease” when playing through 007 First Light recently, where the game has a lot of walk-and-talk and doesn’t respect your intelligence, but it’s a criticism that doesn’t permeate the entire runtime of the game. I didn’t realize how much worse it could be, but Ralph makes his case quite clearly in this video.
mohab@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Action game fans and critics have been complaining about this for like a decade and a half.
See TGBS talking about this 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmxQG6Cfyr4
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah, it’s not new, but it’s gotten more egregious, and everyone keeps pulling from the same bag of tricks regardless of how much sense it makes. Uncharted has a lot of climbing bits because it’s riffing on Indiana Jones, but why is James Bond doing the same climbing bits as Nathan Drake? And why are they so simple that my inputs hardly matter because the only path through the level is so telegraphed that it’s visible from space? Games need downtime between action sequences for pacing reasons, and while I could tolerate it in Gears of War because of their brevity, our answer to this problem needs to be more sophisticated than just holding up on the analog stick.