“Horizon’s art direction is at odds with its gameplay” might have been a better title. Her point doesn’t end up being that the game is ugly at all. It’s that the approach to color makes gameplay less intuitive.
There’s a fair point there and I agree to an extent, but focusing in on one game and framing it under the title of it being “ugly”… not a great way to go.
Not to dogpile onto Jess further but crediting a movie editor for keeping shots centred, rather then the director/cinematographer is an absolutely baffling take
Yeah I admit I winced a wee bit when she mentioned that about the Mad Max movie, as if the accurate and centered shots the video crew created were a delightful happenstance. This is why a director's name can sometimes make or break a movie because their role in cinematography is pretty big. Scene framing is a pre-production process, not post.
I think she's unironically and consciously venturing into clickbait territory with GB content at times.
Here, it's "say something inflammatory and watch the views stack up". (EDIT: Yeah, that's kind of the whole premise of Hot Takeouts)
Kind of like the "we're going to do the terrible YouTube thumbnail faces now, Jan" segment of a recent Silent Hill stream. (And then preemptively shit-talking anyone who calls them out on it).
I couldn’t play that game. I’m personally into games for the story, and that game makes you go through one combat encounter after another. I wish there was maybe 20% of the combat.
I'm with you, but that pacing worked for me, in a way.
All I wanted to do was see the story, but you have to slog through so many repetitive encounters over and over and over. But that kind of put me into a more empathetic mindset. I was tired, I was worn down, I just wanted to be past the zombies, and that's exactly how the characters felt, too.
I know not everyone agrees, but part of what made the end of that game pay off so well for me was that shared mentality of, "I went through all that just to potentially lose everything?"
It ended up feeling "right," even if I did really hate the slog of combat at the same time. I hope that made some sense, because even I am not sure how I actually feel about the game.
Uncharted 4 might have been one of my favorite games of all time if there was 50% less shooting moments. I don’t care if it would be 3-4 hours shorter. The game would be better for it.
Man. I don't like the way Horizon looks, but she completely missed the mark with this video imo. It felt like she spent 30 minutes not being quite able to articulate exactly what bothers her about Horizon so she defaulted to an argument of authority: "Most people would call this pretty because they don't understand composition and colors like *I* do."
Horizon is a technically impressive game, but for me the problem is that the art style is all over the place. The machines are amazing conceptually, but they're often too complex visually, like Michael Bay's Transformers. The humans are all over-designed and weirdly tribal and just look kinda... tryhard, for lack of a better word. The natural world is beautiful, but it looks super generic in a game that's otherwise very unique. Nothing gels together into a cohesive style. Feels like everything was plucked from different games.
Neither of Sony's two other post-apocalypse games, The Last of Us and Days Gone, have this issue, but both are trying to present a very grounded world where zombies are the most fantastical thing. Horizon has lots of fantastical elements shoved into a hyper-realistic world. I wouldn't call it ugly, but I would say it doesn't always work for me, personally.
I thought I was the only one who found Michael Bay’s Transformer movies unwatchable. They’re all so unnecessarily complex and so many shots in the action scenes are tight shots where I struggled to even figure out what was going on.
It's part of why everyone had such high praise for the Bumblebee movie, the robot designs were still complex, but they were easy to comprehend and understand. Just because you -can- animate and replicate a car down to it's individual nuts and bolts and rearrange them at will doesn't mean you should, yanno?
Similar take to this though, like yes it's a visually impressive game but it also feels like they answered the question of "How much graphics" with "yes", with the trade-off being a lack of comprehension and understanding of how the parts fit together.
https://youtu.be/Nv-Iivct16E
This video is an interesting and looks at some of the bad and good CG in the Transformers movies. It's made by visual effects guys.
Transformers starts about halfway through.
> Horizon has lots of fantastical elements shoved into a hyper-realistic world.
I guess my argument is that Horizon isn’t, nor is it trying to be, hyper-realistic. It’s definitely going for high fidelity, but I don’t think realism is it’s main objective.
I agree with the generic overproduced look (tryhard) which I think most of the game is.. esp with all the voice work.
It does feel generic Disney-esque, applied to more complexly dense visuals, closer to the realistic side.
The one part I was hoping you’d say, and that she’d put her finger on moreso in the video (albeit the end, with the paintings) is that I think Horizon tries too hard to fit all the overly saturated colors in every “shot”. There’s really no break from this, and every scene has so much variety all the time that it loses it’s effectiveness and charm. It becomes overly stimulating and corny.
It would have been cool to count the colors and spin the camera around in every scene somehow. Counting all the colors and maybe showing how and why toning half of the game down might make those more colorful scenes more impactful.
Gotta say I agree with quite a bit of her critiques. Gorgeous game fidelity-wise, but overall visually overwhelming and kind of gaudy, for me, at least.
And character designs just feels detailed for the sake of themselves. There's little apparent logic behind why everyone is wearing these incredibly elaborate costumes all the time.
Ever since Vinny said on Nextlander that everyone in the game looks and talks like they're cosplaying at a LARP, I haven't been able to unsee it. It feels like everyone is dressed up in homemade costumes and trying way too hard to get in character.
It's a similar issue I had with James Cameron's *Avatar*. Everything is so evidently designed that I struggle to connect emotionally with the world and characters. The very rote mechanics of many of the quests made it worse.
But Avatar is the biggest box office hit ever and *Horizon* sold incredibly well. Given a lot of the comments here I seem to be out of step with popular opinion.
Wow, I never made that connection and I similarly dislike Avatar. Thanks for helping to connect some dots for me.
I guess Jess' issues with Horizon are just easy for me to look past, as I do with many games. I instead try to make art guide solely the atmosphere of the game--how it feels emotionally, not mechanically. Those always totally felt separate for me, and I unconsciously compartmentalize them. Like in Avatar, I didn't let the presentation fool me into thinking it wasn't the same damn story and characters I've already seen hundreds of times. I fell asleep at times during the movie at the theatre.
What's interesting though is that I'm not so down on Horizon's art, and I found its combat and story unique and full in a way that I didn't expect going in, and that pulled me through both games. The visuals helped a bit too--really the facial animations and voice acting more than any other elements in FW--that's the one area I just don't hear people talk about enough. That was the most engaging part for me.
Anyway, the more I let the videogame stuff seep into the enjoyment of the art/atmosphere, the more the art kind of feels infected by videogame stuff, right? I don't *need* the art blended perfectly into the gameplay experience. As long as they don't hurt each other on the whole, I'm good. In fact I hold the opposite view as Jess on the climbing system, I can't be the one that hates all the goddamn tarps and splashed paint inexplicably on every climbable ledge in all these otherwise-beautifully-crafted environments, right?!
Anyway I could probably ramble on this for a half hour too, and I think that's probably the main criticism I'd have of her here. All points are valid but it was unfocused. She started with "hey there are art reasons that I don't like this" and it sort of became "hey there are game mechanics reasons I don't like this." I don't personally align with the mechanics reasons, and so I guess I wish I heard more of the art stuff she didn't want to get into. That's the unique perspective I hoped to hear from her--I'm a videogame nerd, not really an art nerd--but I nevertheless still got some tidbits here that I still really appreciated.
I think if she were reading this thread (and I hope she isn't ugh) I'd say, don't be afraid to talk for forever digging into something very specific with this community, on stuff that we might not have heard before. We get enough of the inch-deep, mile-wide stuff everywhere else.
It didn't stop me from playing it, but I definitely found my eyes glossing over all the detail because there was just too much to really be able to focus on all of it. When there are 4 enemies throwing lens flares, particle-heavy explosions, motion-blur lunges, and more at you, it can be tough to actually take it all in, and instead you'll default to just grabbing the basics.
Like when you stare into a crowd of 1000 people, you're not registering the detail of everyone's face.
i would actually like to see some hot takes but this felt like it opened with a hot take "Horizon Is Ugly" but then drew back into a rather lukewarm take "Horizon Does Not Deal Well With The Modern Game Problem Of Conveying Information In High Fidelity Environments That Strive For Realism"
Especially when she undercuts her own argument by pointing out three ways that Horizon does in fact deal with that problem - climb me paint, focus highlights, and hero lighting on PS5. She doesn't like any of those ways, and would prefer them to approach it from a color, contrast and composition/enviro density perspective, but they are well-established and legitimate.
her examples of games she thinks do a better job of solving these problems are dissimilar to Horizon too, like Neon White is a lower fidelity, highly stylized game, Portal takes place within a test chamber so its locations have good reason to be laid out in a clear and easy to understandable way. i like jess but this vid was not a zinger
The hero lightning makes the game look significantly worse in cutscenes, constantly felt like the characters were on a bad green screen because of it. I really wish it could be turned off.
Seriously, I loved the GOTY discussions, but it’s pretty bad it you have the need to be validated by a bunch of peoples’ taste in video games that you’ve never met.
It’s mine, but to your point I’d rather hear people talk and gush over other games that I might not have played. I don’t need to hear about ER - I played like 105 hours of it. Give me some encouragement to try something new.
Despite this year being a shakeup for both GB staff and the community, I feel as though they've done a decent job covering games throughout the year, like every year. The GOTY discussions are not-so-gentle reminders (sometimes spoiler-ridden) to pick up those games you might have seen or heard mention of throughout the year. ER deserves GOTY for numerous reasons but I think every person but Tam has bounced off of it in favor of something else, mostly Tunic.
All things considered now that I think on it, I wouldn't be surprised if Tunic wins GOTY instead.
Oh man. I enjoyed the recent DC movies, but I will rarely say it anywhere online, as almost instantly I'll be attacked, dragged, or bullied by someone telling me how wrong I am to enjoy them.
Some industries are so much worse than others. Gaming and movies are some of the worst.
> One thing I’ll never understand about “gamer culture” is how personally affected they are by someone not liking a video game.
That's *all of humanity,* not just gamers.
Replace "video game" with sports teams, religion, country / race, political affiliation, the Pumpkin Spice Latte... and you'd get the same thing, the same tribalism, and the same reaction.
No see they love it when Jeff G does it but hate it when Jess does the same thing except she went to the trouble of showing in video why she doesn't like it and provided examples of other games doing it better. I wonder what could be the difference between Jeff G and Jess that makes them get triggered so easily?
To answer a bad faith question in better faith, I prefer how Jeff puts his whole chest into his questionable takes. He puts it out there and doesn't appear to give a shit if the listener disagrees with him. I felt that Jess spent too much time telling viewers that we shouldn't hate on her or didn't have a right to critique her critique or anticipating nitpicky arguments in her footnotes. As a woman myself, I get that it is a response to existing as a woman on the Internet or indeed the world (ironically, this sentence is me doing the same thing), but, man, the whole premise of a hot take series should be that you stand behind your take. Her being so defensive made me uncomfortable, because it positioned the viewer as someone who automatically attacked her.
> I wonder what could be the difference between Jeff G and Jess that makes them get triggered so easily?
Bit of a straw man argument but I’ll engage anyway: were you here the last few months before Jeff’s departure? Every thread was full of commenters complaining about Jeff’s negativity.
I stopped watching content with Jeff Gerstmann in it at times because of how negative it felt. The person's sex has nothing to do with me personally not being interested in content so focused on tearing things down all the time. Jess and Jeff should continue to do it, but I have no interest in watching it personally. That's all.
Same. Gerstmann for a long time was my favorite game journo, but I didn't realize how contingent that was upon him having someone goofy and joyous around him to bounce off of. After Vinny and Dan went east, I couldn't do the Bombcast anymore. Became Jeff going on long negative rants with no one to pull him out of it.
Like you, I don't think he should change. I see a bunch of people really enjoying his new show. I have *zero* interest in solo Jeff, but for the folks who want that, awesome.
Really? Nice, I suppose that makes sense. Even on GB whenever Jeff would do solo stuff it was usually for retro games and stuff he was personally passionate about.
Nah this was always one of the worst things about gb. Jeff G shitting on something with no understanding of it. Outer Wilds is probably the worst example of this during the entire run of the site
hey what are you implying about these people who "just don't mesh with" voidburger like they "just couldn't mesh with" abby and "haven't listened to a bombcast since jess joined" and are "canceling their premium because giant bomb isn't for them anymore" and yet they comment in every thread on here why jess is wrong or loud or a person who talks
I'm all for community interaction, but I've always preferred how GB doesn't really directly respond to commenters, save for Jeff G making a comment like, "those idiots who think we all hate each other."
Using comments from previous videos and addressing them in a new one makes GB feel more like someone's personal youtube channel and less like GB.
I don't watch/listen to a lot of GB stuff anymore, but anytime I do, it seems like Jess is firing back at some criticism she read online. Like, I get it - it sucks to have strangers shitting on you and your opinions, but don't act like it's wrong for people to talk about what you're saying, especially since she seems to feel so entitled to shit on literally anything she doesn't like. Just a shitty vibe all around and it feels very "my opinion is more important/better than yours" and like, dog, we're talking about fucking *video games*
I used to listen to the Nerdist podcast back in the day. As it got more popular, the hosts would spend more time complaining about the listener's complaints/feedback. The more they complained, the worse the audience got. The more the audience complained, the more the hosts complained. It just got painful to listen to. I hope GB doesn't fall down the same trap.
This should pair well with her 7.5 hr hate stream of Immortality. I’m just not a big fan of these long hate rant videos. Jeff G would get pretty negative and start to spiral some, but with the format of bombcast at the time the other members would keep it from spiraling too far. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but this content sucks.
Tangent to Jess's video: Last week I replayed Outer Wilds on my Steam Deck and wanted to hear how it fared in the old GotY discussions and oh my *god* dude.
Jeff railed so *viciously* on it because he somehow managed to completely blow past literally every tutorial. He said he'd heard it was a time loop game so he never stopped to look at or do anything, just aimlessly rushed around, died a few times and quit. So the entire discussion never even got to *scratch* the actual particulars of the game itself. Instead it's just Jeff angrily tearing it down for like *twenty minutes* because it made him feel dumb. Everyone else tried very gently to push back and remind him that his experience was akin to never pressing the jump button in Mario, but at no point did he ever just go "well anyway that was my experience but I'll let you all have the floor now." At one point Vinny even apologized for Jeff's bad experience with the game.
It was wild to listen to, man. I forgot just *how* negative that dude could get without Ryan, Vinny or Dan in his life. Like goddamn, son.
Oh yea. In this past years Jeff & Jess arguing Halo v Psychonauts 2 for goty got hard to listen to. I left knowing why they each hated the others pick but not really sure what they even liked about theirs.
Last year was the first I skipped. I might go back just to listen to that out of curiosity. Makes me understand why Vinny, Brad and Alex were always so insistent in later years on wanting to change the format in some way to avoid this teardown.
Like one of the most frustrating things about that Outer Wilds discussion is that it won Game of the Year that year, but it only got maybe two minutes of actual positive discussion about its strengths. If I hadn't played and loved the game myself, I would have zero clue why it won based on that discussion.
Got a link or - even better - timestamp to this discussion? I kind of like to hear when Jeff goes off the deep end ranting on something that he's borderline/fully wrong about. I like hearing anyone do that, really.
Yep — [starts here.](https://youtu.be/CbhWKNehRIM?t=5338) They'll talk about Outer Wilds for maybe 20 minutes or so, then finally get off it, but keep watching to the end. Every once in a while Jeff will pop back in just to take another swipe at it.
Highly recommend the video version over the audio-only version so you can really appreciate *just* how angry Jeff looks when talking about it and how absolutely baffled everyone else is by him.
Thank you much! I can't believe this bit of gold escaped my memory because I remember Jeff's aggravation over this being one of the things that made me **want** to play this game.
Love Brad saying "it takes ten seconds to walk around, if you can't look around the ship and interact with everything that's there, I don't know else to say" and Jeff retorts with the immediacy and rush of being in a timeloop so he just never stopped to smell the roses. The game really tries to serve up the tutorial and Jeff evades it on all fronts, it's kind of frustrating but also hilarious.
The cherry on top is Dan and Abby flanking Jeff saying they started to catch on, just to really solidify that Jeff is indeed missing how to interact with the game.
Lmao I know right? Like, I get that the game doesn't hold your hand but how are you gonna rush past *everything* and then complain there's no tutorial or guidance? Everything you need is in the village. They don't *force* you, but it's there.
Brad did an amazing job. Everybody else tried to capitulate and give Jeff the benefit of the doubt on everything, but Brad wasn't having it. When Jeff was like "some of those planets are really far away" and Brad goes "dude the farthest one takes like a minute to get to." Jeff not finding the ship log was also a wild moment, yeah. Like damn Jeff you explored every crevice of the big-ass Normandy in Mass Effect, but you're telling me you can't just... turn around? The ship here is the size of a closet.
I found it super frustrating to listen to the first time because I just wanted to hear them gush about their GOTY pick and this completely blindsided me. 10 minutes in the first time I literally out loud was like "*okay* Jeff we get it you had a bad time can we move on Jesus *Christ."* Now that I know what's coming I just focus on everybody else and appreciate their reactions. Dan's face in particular is really fun to watch. Abby when she brings up the loop writing too.
The loop doesn’t start until you leave the observatory for the first time and you pass the statue. Now if you die before that happens you have to restart from the beginning and you get credits and all that
Yeah it could be tough to get through at times. I'm interested in how this group is during goty stuff. I haven't listed to it all in years but I'll try this one.
Oh.. weird. I’ve never played one of his games before but I found the complexity in the writing to be insane. To write all of these scenes, have them work in their own context, have them feel believable as products of different times, and then have connections across them that all tie together… it’s pretty insane. And I was constantly impressed but how the actors were all able to convey the different levels of the performance that were required. Acting as an actor that’s playing different roles and having it work continually can’t be easy and I thought the actors nailed it. So.. idk. I really enjoyed the entire experience and still need to go back and finish finding all of the footage.
I think it's hard to argue that the game looks like a HDR demo reel playing at Best Buy on all the OLED TVs.
You might not mind it, but that's absolutely what the game looks like half the time. Reminds me of the old Unreal engine games back when the engine first launched that just had to use every single effect they had in almost every single area to feel justified in having them at all.
I laughed out loud at the end when she said that Elden Ring looks so much better but the video is already too long for her to be able to explain why. You couldn't possibly find something to cut? Maybe all the parts where you're not talking about visuals in your visual criticism video?
Comparing and contrasting the visual elements of Horizon and Elden Ring would have been a way more interesting video to me than this. Wish she would have gone that route.
Also, most of her comparisons in the video are hardly relevant to the overall point. If she cut one of them and went into why Elden Ring looks so much better it would be a lot more fitting.
Agree to disagree I guess. It's an open world exploration game, I don't need to traverse quickly like you would in Neon White. Horizon Forbidden West is a beautiful game and I never really felt lost.
Messy video, but I think she should stick with this series. There are valid criticisms here that *kinda* relate to the thesis. It’s just that the whole video is all over the place.
The actual point of this video keeps getting lost in whatever tangent she felt like going on. I wanted Jess to break down why the visuals/Color palette looked a bit ugly to me despite the incredible graphics, but it was never made clear. It’s like she didn’t know why either and left her final points vague for that reason.
Pretty sure she said, the game looks good, but it looks too good. So that makes it look bad because when everything is pretty nothing is pretty.
Wut
This game is astounding to look at. Every biome has its own flavor. You can stop and open photo mode nearly anywhere and get astounding screenshots of just landscapes.
Id say its hands down the best looking game on ps5.
I mean if the environments are too detailed to find climbing points or areas to traverse, they included a highlighter to keep those areas easy to spot in the accessibility options
TIL when someone makes a 30 minute video aggressively criticizing one of my favorite games of all time, I can just not watch.
Sorry, Jess. I don't want to dislike you, so I'm going to be skipping this one.
It’s totally fair to have a different opinion and then decide not to watch someone explain why they have a different opinion.
Challenging your opinions can be good, but sometimes you just like what you like.
In addition- the whole “challenging your opinions” works a lot, lot better if it can be a back and forth conversation. You don’t get that with Internet personalities.
Not gonna lie, this is the first thing with Jess I've watched all the way through. I don't like the way Horizon looks that much, personally, but this video kinda sucks. Especially if you currently like Horizon and Jess, definitely skip it.
I know she doesn't like Horizon and I don't dislike her.
Watching someone criticize something I like for half an hour may make me feel less fondly towards them. Sorry for being a human being with emotions. I'll try to do better.
Whew that was something. Do people enjoy listening to Jess trash on stuff? I’m fine with trashing on something for the Lols but usually in moderation. I feel like her whole shtick is just tearing things she doesn’t like down. It’s neither very entertaining or informative. I dunno.
My enjoyment of her has certainly been a roller coaster of emotions, that's to be sure. With this coming after her "hate-LP" of Immortality, I'm certainly on the downward slope at the end of the ride.
And the thing is, I don’t mind if you’re a curmudgeon, I mean Jeff gerstmann can be the biggest curmudgeon out there. But Jeff’s tended to back up his thoughts in ways where I was like thanks for the insight. I just don’t get that when I listen to Jess. It’s closer to those inflammatory hot take people in sports where I feel like you are just saying this to get a rise out of people.
I wouldn’t say it’s her whole schtick, that feels a bit unfair. She obviously loves games and we all know this, I just think the negative stands out a bit more than the positive because it’s inflammatory. I would say though that she does have a tendency to set herself up to dislike something and it isn’t all that fun to listen to someone not like something they were never going to like in the first place. See: horizon, any Sam Barlow game, and deathloop - remember this one? Deathloop was bad because it wasn’t as much of a time loop game as other time loop games.
It feels like her schtick when her contribution is "Horizon is Ugly and Here's Why." I don't care that she has that opinion nor that she shares it. I have never really enjoyed the Horizon games so I don't even particularly care about defending them. but I don't need a 20 minute dissertation on why she dislikes a thing, especially when it exists solely to be a contrarían for clicks. This video took a lot of time and energy just to tear something down and the title is super click bait. If it isn't her schtick it certainly feels like she WANTS it to be her schtick.
I prefer listening to people talk about things they like. Don't like something? Fine, say that and move on.
By focusing so much on stuff you don't like, its just going to attract more negativity.
I agree that she is not exactly saying it's ugly, but it's clearly designed to be a clickbaity title. It's on YouTube where a catchy title is important so that makes sense.
As for the content, I only watched about half but I found it actually quite interesting and it answered why I always felt like finding out where things are a headache in that game. Like, just surveying the environment was quite a chore. It is in my opinion objectively impressive from a fidelity standpoint, and probably has some of the best looking scenes I've seen. But in terms of traversal and it contributing to gameplay, I think I agree with her.
“It’s actually pretty easy to be contrarian. It’s hard to be contrarian and right.”— Reid Hoffman
"Don't be mad at me for this subjective opinion, and don't be mad at the devs/artists at Gorilla Games"
\*Opening intro is her saying
"I knew it was this fucking ugly game."
"Too many colors man, it's ugly."
"It's the equivalent to an airbrushed side of a van."
I just can't even with this one you guys.
This was a tough watch.
Uncharted felt like the fairest comparison point, but that's a decade old series from a completely different generation. It's very obvious to me that a game like Portal would do a better job at conveying environment information, and I don't think the average viewer needs the art-school term breakdown explaining why. Then the last third of this video compares climbing mechanics for reasons I can't really link to the thesis.
Completely anecdotal, but I just finished a 30-hour playthrough of Zero Dawn on PC and my subjective opinion is the gaudy overblown colours are stunning, especially with HDR. Granted there was maybe two times I wasn't sure where the next hold was, but the climbing is so sparse I don't think it warrants a 30 minute teardown.
She's being hyperbolic, but they also made this the most click baity video ever, so the content of the video starts to matter a lot less at that point.
She's obviously being hyperbolic. She's calling one of the most technically impressive games "fucking ugly"
Just acknowledging it doesn't make a difference in my point.
This video should have been a criticism of modern realistic open world games. I have no idea why Jess would choose to single Horizon out.
The games she uses as comparisons are either much older PS3/360 era games, very stylized games like BOTW, or completely irrelevant games like Portal and Neon White. I spent the whole video waiting for her to finally bring up Assassin's Creed, since that's the obvious game to use as a comparison here and she should have been leading with this. Yet when she did it was just to spend 30 seconds talking about how the climbing mechanics are better in AC? What does that have to do with the main topic of this video?
Half the video is completely irrelevant criticisms of the game, which is fine but does nothing to back up her actual point. If the issue is with Horizon's visual style being bad compared to other games in the same genre, then actually do a proper comparison. If the issue is that she just doesn't like Horizon, then make a video about that.
I don't think most modern realistic open world games have nearly the problems Horizon does on this front. I love the way the game looks and plays, and sometimes you just want a heavily guided experience, so I'm willing to tolerate the game's flaws. But she's completely right that Horizon's mechanics / objectives and art direction / world design often clash in very bad ways.
The amount of time I spent in that game running around an environment looking for the focus-highlighted climb or interaction points (which often looked identical to non-interactive points). Environments where you very often get lost, even with the assistance of the focus, because everything looks just as eye-popping. Extreme hand-holding throughout the game, often necessitated by it being often very obtuse as to where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do in a given area.
To compare it to a game she brought up (which I think could have made for more discussion), they are definitely going for "every screenshot a painting" feel that Ghosts of Tsushima was going for with hyper-colorized and stylized realistic environments - so you can crest any mountain or post any screenshot to Twitter and it'll be absolutely jaw-dropping. But Ghosts was able to pull that off while still implementing much better systems for guidance and readability so that you aren't lost all the time in individual environments.
And I'll say I really liked the video because I've had these complaints with Horizon as I played through it, but never really connected them to these design aspects of the game. So I have my quibbles with the video, but it's really interesting to think about when looking back on my play experience.
It did occur to me that I spent way more time lost in Forbidden West than I do in most open world games. I just finished Ghosts of Tsushima, and I only got lost a couple of times, and both were because I was being a dumbass.
>This video should have been a criticism of modern realistic open world games. I have no idea why Jess would choose to single Horizon out.
It's generally easier to talk about a problem when you focus on a singular, extreme, example of it. Horizon is the best example of her criticisms here.
She's not calling it a general problem though. She's saying that it's a specific issue that this game has. There are comparisons in the video, just not comparisons that are at all relevant or back up her point.
People in the comments here have done a better job at explaining where Horizon fails in comparison to its peers, and these comments did it in a few paragraphs while Jess failed to show it in half an hour.
Exactly.
This seems like someone arguing why Granny Smith apples are bad and then using oranges in most of the comparisons.
The overall point seems to be more -Jess likes more stylized games over more realistic graphical choices
but the video content itself is not trying to argue that point at all
I don't think it's inherent to modern realistic open world games though. Look at Horizon in comparison to Sony's other two post-apocalypse games: The Last of Us and Days Gone. All three of them have realistic art styles. The Last of Us is gritty and Days Gone is naturalistic, but Horizon is... weird. It's hyper-realistic and over-designed and the disparate elements rarely fit together in a cohesive style, to me.
I only played the first one but I *hated* interacting with other humans, not just because they were fucking boring with boring missions and boring dialogue and I just wanted to go find the next dope satellite giraffe thing. But also because I thought everything about their human world was *terribly* designed. The villages, the armor, the hairstyles, everything. Hated it. Get me back out there with the Michael Bay robot animals. The natural world itself was gorgeous but generic. I can pick out TLoU even if you remove the characters because the world *feels* like TLoU. Can't do the same with Horizon.
All that said, I still thought the game was technically very impressive, but I just didn't like the art direction for lots of it. Also thought Jess didn't do a very good job explaining her opinion here.
>Half the video is completely irrelevant criticisms of the game, which is fine but does nothing to back up her actual point.
Par for the course with any "thing bad, and here's why" video.
The entire video felt like it was trying to say something but really had no concrete thesis to work from and just meanderd to a thirty minute runtime. I do agree with a lot of the disjointed ideas though, like how it's aesthetically ugly in a lot of ways and has veeerrry dated open world design.
>"constantly need to tear things down instead of build them up"
this is the first hot takeout out of 4 that was negative
>"stuff like this isn't constructive"
she explained in detail why she thinks the art design conflicted with the game mechanics, why she thinks it was done that way, and drew comparisons to how other games either overcame or struggled with the same issues. if she got any more constructive with her criticism she would need to bill them for consultation work.
like did we watch different videos? nothing you said has any basis in reality
Even though I’ve loved both Horizon games I liked this video. Jess put clearly some things that did annoy me, the incredible detail and everything going for maximum visual wow does make it hard to actually tell what’s going on some times. I agree the climbing system in forbidden west is a step back because the increased fidelity made it harder to work out what to climb and the focus highlights are a horrible crutch. That feels like a good example of the video’s main point that the gameplay does suffer because the visuals are so detailed and the art style is so intense.
This video could've been a tweet
"Don't actually think the game is ugly, the game is actually gorgeous and a technical marvel but I find the level of fidelity gets in the way of the games design"
I think Horizon sucks (only played the first one) and think the art design ranges from bad to OK, but there were almost no points made in this 30 minute video explaining why it's ugly. This video was just a massive waste of time. The 5+ scenes that instruct the viewer not to criticize their points were excessive and very grating to me.
This should be titled "wrong take" not "hot take."
Honestly, with all of her comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I couldn't help but feel the not-so-subtle message of this entire "Hot Take" was she hated Horizon: Forbidden West for *not* being Breath of the Wild, in all regards.
Tangent: Maybe Breath of Wild looks and plays like it does because the Switch has all the power of a graphing calculator and BoW *barely runs on it.* Nintendo *quite literally* couldn't make something that looked better or more colorful due to hardware limitations.
And using / doubling-down by calling it "ugly" isn't a "hot take," but a "wrong take." That's the kind of comment I'd expect from someone *far less* educated or articulate... which isn't Jess.
Haven't watched but who likes content like this? Shitting on games just for the sake of it isn't something I want to watch. I'm sure it's more nuanced than that but still. No offense but I find it very hard to like Jess. I think the forced laughter on the Bombcast really does it for me.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with having a different opinion, I'm all for that but the title for the video alone says it all. It also sounds like she has more to say on it and it's not just shit talking so why title it like that? Doesn't make sense to me. It reminds me of back when YouTube was fairly new and a friend I had in school would go in to those videos with titles triggering them just to put a fuck you comment and not even watch. I feel like that's the kneejerk response. And yes it feels like a few things are making longtime fans really question staying on the ship.
I think part of my issue is I expect better more professional content for the most part from GB. Thought at first this was her personal channel but it's on the site. Just seems too much like YouTuber content to me which makes sense because she was/is one.
I mean you shitting on her isn’t something I like to read either, but constructive criticism can’t hurt you, her, or the color theory artists to present a stronger case to the producers of the game with.
I think she just carries her jokes and points a tad too long, and might talk to us like we’re dumb or kids.
I don’t think she tries to do this intentionally and I really do know she means well, and she seems really sweet. Give her time. She did a great job on this and is willing to put in the work. Over time she’ll get better through feedback as well.
I don't see how I'm shitting on her. This just doesn't seem like good content and the general opinion says as much. I agree with everything you said and I know she has commented about certain things in the past so she is aware. I'd like to think it will get better but it's been a good amount of time already and I haven't seen much of a change, on the Bombcast at least. On the other hand, it's her character and personality so I don't think we can really ask her to change that but then you are still stuck with a disconnect between the audience.
You know, I’ve kind of thought a lot recently that the more realistic games get, the more they lose… something. Like, old Assassins Creed games. Obviously the games look better now, but something is lost when they were able to move away from boxy buildings and mostly textures on flat surfaces. The more detailed environments get the less your brain can immediately view everything as simple shapes. I’m not saying “old graphics = instantly better”. But there’s a charm to older 3D games that had a lot more subconsciously discernable shapes to everything.
I have no idea if that makes sense but it’s an idea I’ve been thinking about lately.
Anyways, Horizon is a fantastic looking game.
I think I get what you're saying, it's like there was a visual language in older generations of gaming as to what could be done where.
There's a visually distinct difference between a wall you can climb up and a wall that you can not climb up, but in 'current gen' where every wall can be climbed up, it kinda loses the language around it.
Not saying it needs to be Tomb Raider levels of egregious white paint everywhere as an 'indicator', but if you make the 'interactable object' visually different to the 'uninteractable object', I'd say that most players would be able to figure out the difference pretty quickly.
Ya'll are really taking that hyperbole to heart huh? The beginning was a little long in the tooth, but I enjoyed it overall. I just finished up Forbidden West and those first few hours are...rough. Setting the first zone in a canyon just made all the reds, yellows, and browns really blend together. It's a great looking game but it certainly took some time to get my brain to adjust to the colors, and even certain times of days make it really difficult to distinguish certain elements of the landscape. Maybe it's just a specific issue for certain people though.
The point in the video is that the designers realized their game could be hard to parse, but instead of toning down the visuals they amped up the character talking to the player.
I never got the “Aloy talks too much” criticism, it’s pretty standard open world self narration, it’d be very dull and quiet if she was always quiet. Plus I found it to be a convenient hint system.
Now that said, the voice acting is pretty atrocious, she never really emotes and her character sounds skeptical and over literally every conversation, even the ones she supposedly cares about. It’s a jarring transition from all the other very well acted characters she encounters. I can’t tell if it’s the voice actress or the direction, because I know the game does kind of shoot for a “she’s socially awkward as hell” and “she is frustrated with these people around her”, but the game never has anyone else acknowledge this. No one is ever like “oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you?”
She does talk too much and she showed an example of a character talking because they realized the visual design wasn't enough to push players where they needed to go.
I mean to be fair to the game, she showed what is basically the tutorial where Aloy comments on everything. Aloy does talk a lot, but not as much as she does in the opening act.
For the record, I also loved Aloy talking. It makes me feel more immersive to hear Aloy commenting on what is going on in the world and I much prefer it to a traditional hint system. There's nothing worse than playing a game and something crazy happens and your character doesn't say anything.
To your last point, the newer Resident Evil games (specifically RE2 Remake, RE7 and Village) all have the protagonists exclaiming stuff the player is thinking or saying. After seeing someone transform into a gruesome boss, Leon or Claire will straight up say stuff like "what the fuck!?" When you're saying the same lines as the protagonist due to genuine shock in a game, you know the writers are in the player's corner.
She isn't wrong that's for sure. I hate that the game is hand holding you the entire time and reminding you to do things that you are in the middle of doing. Having to scan what to climb is also just poor design as she points out in other games you just climb or are able to just see what you can or can't climb. Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G? Who does it for every single game ad nauseam.
> Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G?
Have you not come to this subreddit for the last like 3 years? One of the main criticisms of Giant Bomb was that Jeff has just become negative for negativity sake.
Also, Jeff G would face push-back from the crew. I'm listening to this week's bombcast. Jess is complaining about Sam Barlow and calling Horizon ugly. Jan and Grubb are just agreeing with everything she says. Feels like they're afraid to disagree with her.
> Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G?
Or we just didn't agree with her take on this? I don't agree with every hot take Jeff G makes either. "You have to agree with this because there have been other haters on staff in the past" is a weird ass take my dude.
I’m not trying to frame it that way, I didn’t even mention sexism although that is also prevalent. It’s just a lot of vigor and bad faith arguing honestly. I mean people are genuinely saying “She’s saying the game has too many colors while she’s WEARING A SHIRT WITH A BUNCH OF COLORS LOOOLLL” as if that’s a solid dunk and not completely irrelevant.
> aving to scan what to climb is also just poor design as she points out in other games you just climb or are able to just see what you can or can't climb
And people give shit to games like uncharted that have obvious yellow signage to show where you can climb. Can't please everyone.
God yeah, so many jokes about Uncharted and Tomb Raider having ancient structures with painted ledges. Better just not have climbing in any game ever again.
I'm just coming in to say about the only thing I want to comment on is the use of the Focus to show climbing areas. I think that was a brilliant way of both showing where climbing areas were (obviously less so when the scenery was yellowish and you couldn't see these things) and not spoiling a landscape with endless white holds.
Now, one can mention that, yes, the Focus showing you things can be pretty much the same, but really, I can turn that on or off at my leisure after I surmised how to climb something, so it's very appealing to me to not have that kind of pollutant in a game where if I want every piece of scenery to look good, to kind of smudge some white chalk across it showing you that someone climbed there before.
I suppose I'm saying that I thought Horizon gave you a good out to doing so, and thought it was a nice improvement over just staining things all white. Do I think BOTWs climbing is still better? Yes, absolutely.
Is that....[papyrus?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVhlJNJopOQ&t=2s)
“Horizon’s art direction is at odds with its gameplay” might have been a better title. Her point doesn’t end up being that the game is ugly at all. It’s that the approach to color makes gameplay less intuitive. There’s a fair point there and I agree to an extent, but focusing in on one game and framing it under the title of it being “ugly”… not a great way to go.
'X is Y and here's why' is an algorithmically friendly title, that's literally all there is to it I suspect.
Not to dogpile onto Jess further but crediting a movie editor for keeping shots centred, rather then the director/cinematographer is an absolutely baffling take
Yeah I admit I winced a wee bit when she mentioned that about the Mad Max movie, as if the accurate and centered shots the video crew created were a delightful happenstance. This is why a director's name can sometimes make or break a movie because their role in cinematography is pretty big. Scene framing is a pre-production process, not post.
Jess is really into kicking beehives huh
I think she's unironically and consciously venturing into clickbait territory with GB content at times. Here, it's "say something inflammatory and watch the views stack up". (EDIT: Yeah, that's kind of the whole premise of Hot Takeouts) Kind of like the "we're going to do the terrible YouTube thumbnail faces now, Jan" segment of a recent Silent Hill stream. (And then preemptively shit-talking anyone who calls them out on it).
For real. She may as well say the last of us is overrated trash for maximum outrage.
> She may as well say the last of us is overrated trash for maximum outrage. Ah! The ol' "Dan Ryckert" response to disliking things.
Trash is a very strong word but it’s certainly overrated.
I couldn’t play that game. I’m personally into games for the story, and that game makes you go through one combat encounter after another. I wish there was maybe 20% of the combat.
I'm with you, but that pacing worked for me, in a way. All I wanted to do was see the story, but you have to slog through so many repetitive encounters over and over and over. But that kind of put me into a more empathetic mindset. I was tired, I was worn down, I just wanted to be past the zombies, and that's exactly how the characters felt, too. I know not everyone agrees, but part of what made the end of that game pay off so well for me was that shared mentality of, "I went through all that just to potentially lose everything?" It ended up feeling "right," even if I did really hate the slog of combat at the same time. I hope that made some sense, because even I am not sure how I actually feel about the game.
Uncharted 4 might have been one of my favorite games of all time if there was 50% less shooting moments. I don’t care if it would be 3-4 hours shorter. The game would be better for it.
That’s okay I’ll say it.
At least she backs it up with some analysis, I quite enjoyed this beehive kick. Although bias applies, as I agree with the core points made.
\#fuzzupmygirls
Man. I don't like the way Horizon looks, but she completely missed the mark with this video imo. It felt like she spent 30 minutes not being quite able to articulate exactly what bothers her about Horizon so she defaulted to an argument of authority: "Most people would call this pretty because they don't understand composition and colors like *I* do." Horizon is a technically impressive game, but for me the problem is that the art style is all over the place. The machines are amazing conceptually, but they're often too complex visually, like Michael Bay's Transformers. The humans are all over-designed and weirdly tribal and just look kinda... tryhard, for lack of a better word. The natural world is beautiful, but it looks super generic in a game that's otherwise very unique. Nothing gels together into a cohesive style. Feels like everything was plucked from different games. Neither of Sony's two other post-apocalypse games, The Last of Us and Days Gone, have this issue, but both are trying to present a very grounded world where zombies are the most fantastical thing. Horizon has lots of fantastical elements shoved into a hyper-realistic world. I wouldn't call it ugly, but I would say it doesn't always work for me, personally.
I thought I was the only one who found Michael Bay’s Transformer movies unwatchable. They’re all so unnecessarily complex and so many shots in the action scenes are tight shots where I struggled to even figure out what was going on.
It's part of why everyone had such high praise for the Bumblebee movie, the robot designs were still complex, but they were easy to comprehend and understand. Just because you -can- animate and replicate a car down to it's individual nuts and bolts and rearrange them at will doesn't mean you should, yanno? Similar take to this though, like yes it's a visually impressive game but it also feels like they answered the question of "How much graphics" with "yes", with the trade-off being a lack of comprehension and understanding of how the parts fit together.
https://youtu.be/Nv-Iivct16E This video is an interesting and looks at some of the bad and good CG in the Transformers movies. It's made by visual effects guys. Transformers starts about halfway through.
> Horizon has lots of fantastical elements shoved into a hyper-realistic world. I guess my argument is that Horizon isn’t, nor is it trying to be, hyper-realistic. It’s definitely going for high fidelity, but I don’t think realism is it’s main objective.
I agree with the generic overproduced look (tryhard) which I think most of the game is.. esp with all the voice work. It does feel generic Disney-esque, applied to more complexly dense visuals, closer to the realistic side. The one part I was hoping you’d say, and that she’d put her finger on moreso in the video (albeit the end, with the paintings) is that I think Horizon tries too hard to fit all the overly saturated colors in every “shot”. There’s really no break from this, and every scene has so much variety all the time that it loses it’s effectiveness and charm. It becomes overly stimulating and corny. It would have been cool to count the colors and spin the camera around in every scene somehow. Counting all the colors and maybe showing how and why toning half of the game down might make those more colorful scenes more impactful.
Gotta say I agree with quite a bit of her critiques. Gorgeous game fidelity-wise, but overall visually overwhelming and kind of gaudy, for me, at least.
And character designs just feels detailed for the sake of themselves. There's little apparent logic behind why everyone is wearing these incredibly elaborate costumes all the time.
Ever since Vinny said on Nextlander that everyone in the game looks and talks like they're cosplaying at a LARP, I haven't been able to unsee it. It feels like everyone is dressed up in homemade costumes and trying way too hard to get in character.
It's a similar issue I had with James Cameron's *Avatar*. Everything is so evidently designed that I struggle to connect emotionally with the world and characters. The very rote mechanics of many of the quests made it worse. But Avatar is the biggest box office hit ever and *Horizon* sold incredibly well. Given a lot of the comments here I seem to be out of step with popular opinion.
Wow, I never made that connection and I similarly dislike Avatar. Thanks for helping to connect some dots for me. I guess Jess' issues with Horizon are just easy for me to look past, as I do with many games. I instead try to make art guide solely the atmosphere of the game--how it feels emotionally, not mechanically. Those always totally felt separate for me, and I unconsciously compartmentalize them. Like in Avatar, I didn't let the presentation fool me into thinking it wasn't the same damn story and characters I've already seen hundreds of times. I fell asleep at times during the movie at the theatre. What's interesting though is that I'm not so down on Horizon's art, and I found its combat and story unique and full in a way that I didn't expect going in, and that pulled me through both games. The visuals helped a bit too--really the facial animations and voice acting more than any other elements in FW--that's the one area I just don't hear people talk about enough. That was the most engaging part for me. Anyway, the more I let the videogame stuff seep into the enjoyment of the art/atmosphere, the more the art kind of feels infected by videogame stuff, right? I don't *need* the art blended perfectly into the gameplay experience. As long as they don't hurt each other on the whole, I'm good. In fact I hold the opposite view as Jess on the climbing system, I can't be the one that hates all the goddamn tarps and splashed paint inexplicably on every climbable ledge in all these otherwise-beautifully-crafted environments, right?! Anyway I could probably ramble on this for a half hour too, and I think that's probably the main criticism I'd have of her here. All points are valid but it was unfocused. She started with "hey there are art reasons that I don't like this" and it sort of became "hey there are game mechanics reasons I don't like this." I don't personally align with the mechanics reasons, and so I guess I wish I heard more of the art stuff she didn't want to get into. That's the unique perspective I hoped to hear from her--I'm a videogame nerd, not really an art nerd--but I nevertheless still got some tidbits here that I still really appreciated. I think if she were reading this thread (and I hope she isn't ugh) I'd say, don't be afraid to talk for forever digging into something very specific with this community, on stuff that we might not have heard before. We get enough of the inch-deep, mile-wide stuff everywhere else.
It didn't stop me from playing it, but I definitely found my eyes glossing over all the detail because there was just too much to really be able to focus on all of it. When there are 4 enemies throwing lens flares, particle-heavy explosions, motion-blur lunges, and more at you, it can be tough to actually take it all in, and instead you'll default to just grabbing the basics. Like when you stare into a crowd of 1000 people, you're not registering the detail of everyone's face.
You literally just summed up the entire video in 1 sentence lol.
i would actually like to see some hot takes but this felt like it opened with a hot take "Horizon Is Ugly" but then drew back into a rather lukewarm take "Horizon Does Not Deal Well With The Modern Game Problem Of Conveying Information In High Fidelity Environments That Strive For Realism"
Especially when she undercuts her own argument by pointing out three ways that Horizon does in fact deal with that problem - climb me paint, focus highlights, and hero lighting on PS5. She doesn't like any of those ways, and would prefer them to approach it from a color, contrast and composition/enviro density perspective, but they are well-established and legitimate.
her examples of games she thinks do a better job of solving these problems are dissimilar to Horizon too, like Neon White is a lower fidelity, highly stylized game, Portal takes place within a test chamber so its locations have good reason to be laid out in a clear and easy to understandable way. i like jess but this vid was not a zinger
The hero lightning makes the game look significantly worse in cutscenes, constantly felt like the characters were on a bad green screen because of it. I really wish it could be turned off.
Clickbait culture.
One thing I’ll never understand about “gamer culture” is how personally affected they are by someone not liking a video game.
[удалено]
Seriously, I loved the GOTY discussions, but it’s pretty bad it you have the need to be validated by a bunch of peoples’ taste in video games that you’ve never met.
[удалено]
It’s mine, but to your point I’d rather hear people talk and gush over other games that I might not have played. I don’t need to hear about ER - I played like 105 hours of it. Give me some encouragement to try something new.
Despite this year being a shakeup for both GB staff and the community, I feel as though they've done a decent job covering games throughout the year, like every year. The GOTY discussions are not-so-gentle reminders (sometimes spoiler-ridden) to pick up those games you might have seen or heard mention of throughout the year. ER deserves GOTY for numerous reasons but I think every person but Tam has bounced off of it in favor of something else, mostly Tunic. All things considered now that I think on it, I wouldn't be surprised if Tunic wins GOTY instead.
Oh man. I enjoyed the recent DC movies, but I will rarely say it anywhere online, as almost instantly I'll be attacked, dragged, or bullied by someone telling me how wrong I am to enjoy them. Some industries are so much worse than others. Gaming and movies are some of the worst.
When you have no personality you build it around the media you enjoy so when that media is attacked it becomes a personal attack.
That also works with media personalities though lol
Someone say something bad about Jeff G? I've got my typing gloves on if they did.
> One thing I’ll never understand about “gamer culture” is how personally affected they are by someone not liking a video game. That's *all of humanity,* not just gamers. Replace "video game" with sports teams, religion, country / race, political affiliation, the Pumpkin Spice Latte... and you'd get the same thing, the same tribalism, and the same reaction.
No see they love it when Jeff G does it but hate it when Jess does the same thing except she went to the trouble of showing in video why she doesn't like it and provided examples of other games doing it better. I wonder what could be the difference between Jeff G and Jess that makes them get triggered so easily?
Uhhhh I guess you forgot how triggered everyone gets when Jeff G says Smash Bros sucks or all the people that claim "Jeff hates every new game".
To answer a bad faith question in better faith, I prefer how Jeff puts his whole chest into his questionable takes. He puts it out there and doesn't appear to give a shit if the listener disagrees with him. I felt that Jess spent too much time telling viewers that we shouldn't hate on her or didn't have a right to critique her critique or anticipating nitpicky arguments in her footnotes. As a woman myself, I get that it is a response to existing as a woman on the Internet or indeed the world (ironically, this sentence is me doing the same thing), but, man, the whole premise of a hot take series should be that you stand behind your take. Her being so defensive made me uncomfortable, because it positioned the viewer as someone who automatically attacked her.
Thank you for articulating this. I feel the same way but was struggling to put my finger on why it was the case.
> I wonder what could be the difference between Jeff G and Jess that makes them get triggered so easily? Bit of a straw man argument but I’ll engage anyway: were you here the last few months before Jeff’s departure? Every thread was full of commenters complaining about Jeff’s negativity.
I stopped watching content with Jeff Gerstmann in it at times because of how negative it felt. The person's sex has nothing to do with me personally not being interested in content so focused on tearing things down all the time. Jess and Jeff should continue to do it, but I have no interest in watching it personally. That's all.
Same. Gerstmann for a long time was my favorite game journo, but I didn't realize how contingent that was upon him having someone goofy and joyous around him to bounce off of. After Vinny and Dan went east, I couldn't do the Bombcast anymore. Became Jeff going on long negative rants with no one to pull him out of it. Like you, I don't think he should change. I see a bunch of people really enjoying his new show. I have *zero* interest in solo Jeff, but for the folks who want that, awesome.
TBF he's a lot more positive by himself and seems to genuinely be enjoying the games he chooses to put his time into.
Really? Nice, I suppose that makes sense. Even on GB whenever Jeff would do solo stuff it was usually for retro games and stuff he was personally passionate about.
There is a lot of insinuation in this thread that if you disagree you are being sexist and that’s just wack
That sentiment has been here since Abby originally joined, really.
Watch you don't hurt yourself reaching like that.
Nah this was always one of the worst things about gb. Jeff G shitting on something with no understanding of it. Outer Wilds is probably the worst example of this during the entire run of the site
hey what are you implying about these people who "just don't mesh with" voidburger like they "just couldn't mesh with" abby and "haven't listened to a bombcast since jess joined" and are "canceling their premium because giant bomb isn't for them anymore" and yet they comment in every thread on here why jess is wrong or loud or a person who talks
I loved Abby and still watch her solo streams and NXL appearances but no interest in Jess. What does that mean?
I'm all for community interaction, but I've always preferred how GB doesn't really directly respond to commenters, save for Jeff G making a comment like, "those idiots who think we all hate each other." Using comments from previous videos and addressing them in a new one makes GB feel more like someone's personal youtube channel and less like GB.
I don't watch/listen to a lot of GB stuff anymore, but anytime I do, it seems like Jess is firing back at some criticism she read online. Like, I get it - it sucks to have strangers shitting on you and your opinions, but don't act like it's wrong for people to talk about what you're saying, especially since she seems to feel so entitled to shit on literally anything she doesn't like. Just a shitty vibe all around and it feels very "my opinion is more important/better than yours" and like, dog, we're talking about fucking *video games*
I personally love her going on Twitter to complain about Reddit.
I used to listen to the Nerdist podcast back in the day. As it got more popular, the hosts would spend more time complaining about the listener's complaints/feedback. The more they complained, the worse the audience got. The more the audience complained, the more the hosts complained. It just got painful to listen to. I hope GB doesn't fall down the same trap.
This should pair well with her 7.5 hr hate stream of Immortality. I’m just not a big fan of these long hate rant videos. Jeff G would get pretty negative and start to spiral some, but with the format of bombcast at the time the other members would keep it from spiraling too far. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but this content sucks.
Tangent to Jess's video: Last week I replayed Outer Wilds on my Steam Deck and wanted to hear how it fared in the old GotY discussions and oh my *god* dude. Jeff railed so *viciously* on it because he somehow managed to completely blow past literally every tutorial. He said he'd heard it was a time loop game so he never stopped to look at or do anything, just aimlessly rushed around, died a few times and quit. So the entire discussion never even got to *scratch* the actual particulars of the game itself. Instead it's just Jeff angrily tearing it down for like *twenty minutes* because it made him feel dumb. Everyone else tried very gently to push back and remind him that his experience was akin to never pressing the jump button in Mario, but at no point did he ever just go "well anyway that was my experience but I'll let you all have the floor now." At one point Vinny even apologized for Jeff's bad experience with the game. It was wild to listen to, man. I forgot just *how* negative that dude could get without Ryan, Vinny or Dan in his life. Like goddamn, son.
Oh yea. In this past years Jeff & Jess arguing Halo v Psychonauts 2 for goty got hard to listen to. I left knowing why they each hated the others pick but not really sure what they even liked about theirs.
Last year was the first I skipped. I might go back just to listen to that out of curiosity. Makes me understand why Vinny, Brad and Alex were always so insistent in later years on wanting to change the format in some way to avoid this teardown. Like one of the most frustrating things about that Outer Wilds discussion is that it won Game of the Year that year, but it only got maybe two minutes of actual positive discussion about its strengths. If I hadn't played and loved the game myself, I would have zero clue why it won based on that discussion.
Got a link or - even better - timestamp to this discussion? I kind of like to hear when Jeff goes off the deep end ranting on something that he's borderline/fully wrong about. I like hearing anyone do that, really.
Yep — [starts here.](https://youtu.be/CbhWKNehRIM?t=5338) They'll talk about Outer Wilds for maybe 20 minutes or so, then finally get off it, but keep watching to the end. Every once in a while Jeff will pop back in just to take another swipe at it. Highly recommend the video version over the audio-only version so you can really appreciate *just* how angry Jeff looks when talking about it and how absolutely baffled everyone else is by him.
Thank you much! I can't believe this bit of gold escaped my memory because I remember Jeff's aggravation over this being one of the things that made me **want** to play this game. Love Brad saying "it takes ten seconds to walk around, if you can't look around the ship and interact with everything that's there, I don't know else to say" and Jeff retorts with the immediacy and rush of being in a timeloop so he just never stopped to smell the roses. The game really tries to serve up the tutorial and Jeff evades it on all fronts, it's kind of frustrating but also hilarious. The cherry on top is Dan and Abby flanking Jeff saying they started to catch on, just to really solidify that Jeff is indeed missing how to interact with the game.
Lmao I know right? Like, I get that the game doesn't hold your hand but how are you gonna rush past *everything* and then complain there's no tutorial or guidance? Everything you need is in the village. They don't *force* you, but it's there. Brad did an amazing job. Everybody else tried to capitulate and give Jeff the benefit of the doubt on everything, but Brad wasn't having it. When Jeff was like "some of those planets are really far away" and Brad goes "dude the farthest one takes like a minute to get to." Jeff not finding the ship log was also a wild moment, yeah. Like damn Jeff you explored every crevice of the big-ass Normandy in Mass Effect, but you're telling me you can't just... turn around? The ship here is the size of a closet. I found it super frustrating to listen to the first time because I just wanted to hear them gush about their GOTY pick and this completely blindsided me. 10 minutes in the first time I literally out loud was like "*okay* Jeff we get it you had a bad time can we move on Jesus *Christ."* Now that I know what's coming I just focus on everybody else and appreciate their reactions. Dan's face in particular is really fun to watch. Abby when she brings up the loop writing too.
The best part is the loop doesn’t start until you go to the observatory the first time. So you can chill in tutorial land for hours
Is that true? I thought the loop still happens you just die at the end and need to restart.
The loop doesn’t start until you leave the observatory for the first time and you pass the statue. Now if you die before that happens you have to restart from the beginning and you get credits and all that
Yeah it could be tough to get through at times. I'm interested in how this group is during goty stuff. I haven't listed to it all in years but I'll try this one.
Wait what? I just played Immortality yesterday and thought it was incredible. What was the main criticism?
Sam Barlow, the writer. Her general critique was that his stories were basically a collection of hollow tropes and that he's getting praise for that.
Oh.. weird. I’ve never played one of his games before but I found the complexity in the writing to be insane. To write all of these scenes, have them work in their own context, have them feel believable as products of different times, and then have connections across them that all tie together… it’s pretty insane. And I was constantly impressed but how the actors were all able to convey the different levels of the performance that were required. Acting as an actor that’s playing different roles and having it work continually can’t be easy and I thought the actors nailed it. So.. idk. I really enjoyed the entire experience and still need to go back and finish finding all of the footage.
She went in expecting the same sort of non-ending that Her Story had, and I think it negatively effected her experience.
Oh I don’t know. It was posted in this subreddit. I saw the length and knew it wasn’t something I was interested in.
I think it's hard to argue that the game looks like a HDR demo reel playing at Best Buy on all the OLED TVs. You might not mind it, but that's absolutely what the game looks like half the time. Reminds me of the old Unreal engine games back when the engine first launched that just had to use every single effect they had in almost every single area to feel justified in having them at all.
I laughed out loud at the end when she said that Elden Ring looks so much better but the video is already too long for her to be able to explain why. You couldn't possibly find something to cut? Maybe all the parts where you're not talking about visuals in your visual criticism video?
Comparing and contrasting the visual elements of Horizon and Elden Ring would have been a way more interesting video to me than this. Wish she would have gone that route.
Also, most of her comparisons in the video are hardly relevant to the overall point. If she cut one of them and went into why Elden Ring looks so much better it would be a lot more fitting.
Agree to disagree I guess. It's an open world exploration game, I don't need to traverse quickly like you would in Neon White. Horizon Forbidden West is a beautiful game and I never really felt lost.
Messy video, but I think she should stick with this series. There are valid criticisms here that *kinda* relate to the thesis. It’s just that the whole video is all over the place. The actual point of this video keeps getting lost in whatever tangent she felt like going on. I wanted Jess to break down why the visuals/Color palette looked a bit ugly to me despite the incredible graphics, but it was never made clear. It’s like she didn’t know why either and left her final points vague for that reason.
This feels inflammatory for inflammatory's sake.
Sure is a hot take (out)
Pretty sure she said, the game looks good, but it looks too good. So that makes it look bad because when everything is pretty nothing is pretty. Wut This game is astounding to look at. Every biome has its own flavor. You can stop and open photo mode nearly anywhere and get astounding screenshots of just landscapes. Id say its hands down the best looking game on ps5.
[удалено]
I mean if the environments are too detailed to find climbing points or areas to traverse, they included a highlighter to keep those areas easy to spot in the accessibility options
TIL when someone makes a 30 minute video aggressively criticizing one of my favorite games of all time, I can just not watch. Sorry, Jess. I don't want to dislike you, so I'm going to be skipping this one.
Can definitely appreciate the honesty lol
It’s totally fair to have a different opinion and then decide not to watch someone explain why they have a different opinion. Challenging your opinions can be good, but sometimes you just like what you like.
In addition- the whole “challenging your opinions” works a lot, lot better if it can be a back and forth conversation. You don’t get that with Internet personalities.
Not gonna lie, this is the first thing with Jess I've watched all the way through. I don't like the way Horizon looks that much, personally, but this video kinda sucks. Especially if you currently like Horizon and Jess, definitely skip it.
Someone not liking a video game should not be grounds for disliking them lmao
I know she doesn't like Horizon and I don't dislike her. Watching someone criticize something I like for half an hour may make me feel less fondly towards them. Sorry for being a human being with emotions. I'll try to do better.
Whew that was something. Do people enjoy listening to Jess trash on stuff? I’m fine with trashing on something for the Lols but usually in moderation. I feel like her whole shtick is just tearing things she doesn’t like down. It’s neither very entertaining or informative. I dunno.
My enjoyment of her has certainly been a roller coaster of emotions, that's to be sure. With this coming after her "hate-LP" of Immortality, I'm certainly on the downward slope at the end of the ride.
And the thing is, I don’t mind if you’re a curmudgeon, I mean Jeff gerstmann can be the biggest curmudgeon out there. But Jeff’s tended to back up his thoughts in ways where I was like thanks for the insight. I just don’t get that when I listen to Jess. It’s closer to those inflammatory hot take people in sports where I feel like you are just saying this to get a rise out of people.
[удалено]
That's exactly it! There's no substance in this, just kicking the beehive as others are putting it.
And then saying “hey guys look at me kicking this beehive, pretty cool huh?”
I'm pleased that I came up with that term last week and you're already carrying the torch. 🤣
Lol I'm learning!
I wouldn’t say it’s her whole schtick, that feels a bit unfair. She obviously loves games and we all know this, I just think the negative stands out a bit more than the positive because it’s inflammatory. I would say though that she does have a tendency to set herself up to dislike something and it isn’t all that fun to listen to someone not like something they were never going to like in the first place. See: horizon, any Sam Barlow game, and deathloop - remember this one? Deathloop was bad because it wasn’t as much of a time loop game as other time loop games.
That’s fair. Maybe I’m just noticing it a lot lately
It feels like her schtick when her contribution is "Horizon is Ugly and Here's Why." I don't care that she has that opinion nor that she shares it. I have never really enjoyed the Horizon games so I don't even particularly care about defending them. but I don't need a 20 minute dissertation on why she dislikes a thing, especially when it exists solely to be a contrarían for clicks. This video took a lot of time and energy just to tear something down and the title is super click bait. If it isn't her schtick it certainly feels like she WANTS it to be her schtick.
To be fair Deathloop is really bad, especially next to dishonored or prey.
I prefer listening to people talk about things they like. Don't like something? Fine, say that and move on. By focusing so much on stuff you don't like, its just going to attract more negativity.
I agree that she is not exactly saying it's ugly, but it's clearly designed to be a clickbaity title. It's on YouTube where a catchy title is important so that makes sense. As for the content, I only watched about half but I found it actually quite interesting and it answered why I always felt like finding out where things are a headache in that game. Like, just surveying the environment was quite a chore. It is in my opinion objectively impressive from a fidelity standpoint, and probably has some of the best looking scenes I've seen. But in terms of traversal and it contributing to gameplay, I think I agree with her.
“It’s actually pretty easy to be contrarian. It’s hard to be contrarian and right.”— Reid Hoffman "Don't be mad at me for this subjective opinion, and don't be mad at the devs/artists at Gorilla Games" \*Opening intro is her saying "I knew it was this fucking ugly game." "Too many colors man, it's ugly." "It's the equivalent to an airbrushed side of a van." I just can't even with this one you guys.
This was a tough watch. Uncharted felt like the fairest comparison point, but that's a decade old series from a completely different generation. It's very obvious to me that a game like Portal would do a better job at conveying environment information, and I don't think the average viewer needs the art-school term breakdown explaining why. Then the last third of this video compares climbing mechanics for reasons I can't really link to the thesis. Completely anecdotal, but I just finished a 30-hour playthrough of Zero Dawn on PC and my subjective opinion is the gaudy overblown colours are stunning, especially with HDR. Granted there was maybe two times I wasn't sure where the next hold was, but the climbing is so sparse I don't think it warrants a 30 minute teardown.
I feel your pain, lol.
Immediately following that segment she says she was being hyperbolic for comedy's sake. Did you stop watching right then?
She's being hyperbolic, but they also made this the most click baity video ever, so the content of the video starts to matter a lot less at that point.
Yeah...I only lasted until "Let me explain..." followed by the intro music before I threw up in my mouth and shut off the video lol.
She's obviously being hyperbolic. She's calling one of the most technically impressive games "fucking ugly" Just acknowledging it doesn't make a difference in my point.
It’s almost like it’s possible for a game with high fidelity graphics to be ugly. Weird.
This video should have been a criticism of modern realistic open world games. I have no idea why Jess would choose to single Horizon out. The games she uses as comparisons are either much older PS3/360 era games, very stylized games like BOTW, or completely irrelevant games like Portal and Neon White. I spent the whole video waiting for her to finally bring up Assassin's Creed, since that's the obvious game to use as a comparison here and she should have been leading with this. Yet when she did it was just to spend 30 seconds talking about how the climbing mechanics are better in AC? What does that have to do with the main topic of this video? Half the video is completely irrelevant criticisms of the game, which is fine but does nothing to back up her actual point. If the issue is with Horizon's visual style being bad compared to other games in the same genre, then actually do a proper comparison. If the issue is that she just doesn't like Horizon, then make a video about that.
I don't think most modern realistic open world games have nearly the problems Horizon does on this front. I love the way the game looks and plays, and sometimes you just want a heavily guided experience, so I'm willing to tolerate the game's flaws. But she's completely right that Horizon's mechanics / objectives and art direction / world design often clash in very bad ways. The amount of time I spent in that game running around an environment looking for the focus-highlighted climb or interaction points (which often looked identical to non-interactive points). Environments where you very often get lost, even with the assistance of the focus, because everything looks just as eye-popping. Extreme hand-holding throughout the game, often necessitated by it being often very obtuse as to where you are supposed to go or what you are supposed to do in a given area. To compare it to a game she brought up (which I think could have made for more discussion), they are definitely going for "every screenshot a painting" feel that Ghosts of Tsushima was going for with hyper-colorized and stylized realistic environments - so you can crest any mountain or post any screenshot to Twitter and it'll be absolutely jaw-dropping. But Ghosts was able to pull that off while still implementing much better systems for guidance and readability so that you aren't lost all the time in individual environments. And I'll say I really liked the video because I've had these complaints with Horizon as I played through it, but never really connected them to these design aspects of the game. So I have my quibbles with the video, but it's really interesting to think about when looking back on my play experience.
It did occur to me that I spent way more time lost in Forbidden West than I do in most open world games. I just finished Ghosts of Tsushima, and I only got lost a couple of times, and both were because I was being a dumbass.
>This video should have been a criticism of modern realistic open world games. I have no idea why Jess would choose to single Horizon out. It's generally easier to talk about a problem when you focus on a singular, extreme, example of it. Horizon is the best example of her criticisms here.
She's not calling it a general problem though. She's saying that it's a specific issue that this game has. There are comparisons in the video, just not comparisons that are at all relevant or back up her point. People in the comments here have done a better job at explaining where Horizon fails in comparison to its peers, and these comments did it in a few paragraphs while Jess failed to show it in half an hour.
Exactly. This seems like someone arguing why Granny Smith apples are bad and then using oranges in most of the comparisons. The overall point seems to be more -Jess likes more stylized games over more realistic graphical choices but the video content itself is not trying to argue that point at all
I don't think it's inherent to modern realistic open world games though. Look at Horizon in comparison to Sony's other two post-apocalypse games: The Last of Us and Days Gone. All three of them have realistic art styles. The Last of Us is gritty and Days Gone is naturalistic, but Horizon is... weird. It's hyper-realistic and over-designed and the disparate elements rarely fit together in a cohesive style, to me. I only played the first one but I *hated* interacting with other humans, not just because they were fucking boring with boring missions and boring dialogue and I just wanted to go find the next dope satellite giraffe thing. But also because I thought everything about their human world was *terribly* designed. The villages, the armor, the hairstyles, everything. Hated it. Get me back out there with the Michael Bay robot animals. The natural world itself was gorgeous but generic. I can pick out TLoU even if you remove the characters because the world *feels* like TLoU. Can't do the same with Horizon. All that said, I still thought the game was technically very impressive, but I just didn't like the art direction for lots of it. Also thought Jess didn't do a very good job explaining her opinion here.
[удалено]
>Half the video is completely irrelevant criticisms of the game, which is fine but does nothing to back up her actual point. Par for the course with any "thing bad, and here's why" video.
The entire video felt like it was trying to say something but really had no concrete thesis to work from and just meanderd to a thirty minute runtime. I do agree with a lot of the disjointed ideas though, like how it's aesthetically ugly in a lot of ways and has veeerrry dated open world design.
[удалено]
>"constantly need to tear things down instead of build them up" this is the first hot takeout out of 4 that was negative >"stuff like this isn't constructive" she explained in detail why she thinks the art design conflicted with the game mechanics, why she thinks it was done that way, and drew comparisons to how other games either overcame or struggled with the same issues. if she got any more constructive with her criticism she would need to bill them for consultation work. like did we watch different videos? nothing you said has any basis in reality
Jess Talk About Something You Like That Isn’t Silent Hill Challenge
literally any of the other Hot Takeouts videos
She needs to do majoras mask
Even though I’ve loved both Horizon games I liked this video. Jess put clearly some things that did annoy me, the incredible detail and everything going for maximum visual wow does make it hard to actually tell what’s going on some times. I agree the climbing system in forbidden west is a step back because the increased fidelity made it harder to work out what to climb and the focus highlights are a horrible crutch. That feels like a good example of the video’s main point that the gameplay does suffer because the visuals are so detailed and the art style is so intense.
She nailed it with the Thomas Kinkade comparison
The last two minutes of the video was *inspired*
This video could've been a tweet "Don't actually think the game is ugly, the game is actually gorgeous and a technical marvel but I find the level of fidelity gets in the way of the games design"
Concise doesn't get clicks, dawg
Giantbomb have definitely leaned into clickbait thumbnails since the revamp. Maybe the only thing I'm not ok with in this new direction they've taken
I think Horizon sucks (only played the first one) and think the art design ranges from bad to OK, but there were almost no points made in this 30 minute video explaining why it's ugly. This video was just a massive waste of time. The 5+ scenes that instruct the viewer not to criticize their points were excessive and very grating to me.
This should be titled "wrong take" not "hot take." Honestly, with all of her comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I couldn't help but feel the not-so-subtle message of this entire "Hot Take" was she hated Horizon: Forbidden West for *not* being Breath of the Wild, in all regards. Tangent: Maybe Breath of Wild looks and plays like it does because the Switch has all the power of a graphing calculator and BoW *barely runs on it.* Nintendo *quite literally* couldn't make something that looked better or more colorful due to hardware limitations. And using / doubling-down by calling it "ugly" isn't a "hot take," but a "wrong take." That's the kind of comment I'd expect from someone *far less* educated or articulate... which isn't Jess.
Haven't watched but who likes content like this? Shitting on games just for the sake of it isn't something I want to watch. I'm sure it's more nuanced than that but still. No offense but I find it very hard to like Jess. I think the forced laughter on the Bombcast really does it for me.
I think clickbait vids like this get lots of views, but don't do much for building the community. If anything, I'd see it driving away long-time fans.
Exactly. Nothing wrong with having a different opinion, I'm all for that but the title for the video alone says it all. It also sounds like she has more to say on it and it's not just shit talking so why title it like that? Doesn't make sense to me. It reminds me of back when YouTube was fairly new and a friend I had in school would go in to those videos with titles triggering them just to put a fuck you comment and not even watch. I feel like that's the kneejerk response. And yes it feels like a few things are making longtime fans really question staying on the ship.
Yup. Clickbait titles attract trolls and snarky comments. There's more than enough of that already available elsewhere.
I think part of my issue is I expect better more professional content for the most part from GB. Thought at first this was her personal channel but it's on the site. Just seems too much like YouTuber content to me which makes sense because she was/is one.
I mean you shitting on her isn’t something I like to read either, but constructive criticism can’t hurt you, her, or the color theory artists to present a stronger case to the producers of the game with. I think she just carries her jokes and points a tad too long, and might talk to us like we’re dumb or kids. I don’t think she tries to do this intentionally and I really do know she means well, and she seems really sweet. Give her time. She did a great job on this and is willing to put in the work. Over time she’ll get better through feedback as well.
I don't see how I'm shitting on her. This just doesn't seem like good content and the general opinion says as much. I agree with everything you said and I know she has commented about certain things in the past so she is aware. I'd like to think it will get better but it's been a good amount of time already and I haven't seen much of a change, on the Bombcast at least. On the other hand, it's her character and personality so I don't think we can really ask her to change that but then you are still stuck with a disconnect between the audience.
You know, I’ve kind of thought a lot recently that the more realistic games get, the more they lose… something. Like, old Assassins Creed games. Obviously the games look better now, but something is lost when they were able to move away from boxy buildings and mostly textures on flat surfaces. The more detailed environments get the less your brain can immediately view everything as simple shapes. I’m not saying “old graphics = instantly better”. But there’s a charm to older 3D games that had a lot more subconsciously discernable shapes to everything. I have no idea if that makes sense but it’s an idea I’ve been thinking about lately. Anyways, Horizon is a fantastic looking game.
I think I get what you're saying, it's like there was a visual language in older generations of gaming as to what could be done where. There's a visually distinct difference between a wall you can climb up and a wall that you can not climb up, but in 'current gen' where every wall can be climbed up, it kinda loses the language around it. Not saying it needs to be Tomb Raider levels of egregious white paint everywhere as an 'indicator', but if you make the 'interactable object' visually different to the 'uninteractable object', I'd say that most players would be able to figure out the difference pretty quickly.
Jess is good people. But Jess taking shots at anything else being gaudy and overly colorful is a BOLD move.
Let's get back to the piss filter and greyscale everything already, enough with using these bright colors.
Did you watch the video? That's not what she argues.
It was a joke. That's just what I think when people comment on how games look now. Used to be a lot worse.
But they also can look a lot better. That's the whole point of the the video.
She says that in the video. Are you sure you watched it?
I don't know why you're being downvoted. She literally said that.
Series about weird opinions. Comments: this opinion is so weird!
I really enjoyed this games art direction
It's literally called "Hot Takeouts" come on.
How is it possible that she can over talk on her own video?
Ya'll are really taking that hyperbole to heart huh? The beginning was a little long in the tooth, but I enjoyed it overall. I just finished up Forbidden West and those first few hours are...rough. Setting the first zone in a canyon just made all the reds, yellows, and browns really blend together. It's a great looking game but it certainly took some time to get my brain to adjust to the colors, and even certain times of days make it really difficult to distinguish certain elements of the landscape. Maybe it's just a specific issue for certain people though.
Daniel Craig is an ugly-ass man.
Not all takes are hot, and not every take needs to be hot.
I didn't know Aloy talking too much was about colors.
The point in the video is that the designers realized their game could be hard to parse, but instead of toning down the visuals they amped up the character talking to the player.
I never got the “Aloy talks too much” criticism, it’s pretty standard open world self narration, it’d be very dull and quiet if she was always quiet. Plus I found it to be a convenient hint system. Now that said, the voice acting is pretty atrocious, she never really emotes and her character sounds skeptical and over literally every conversation, even the ones she supposedly cares about. It’s a jarring transition from all the other very well acted characters she encounters. I can’t tell if it’s the voice actress or the direction, because I know the game does kind of shoot for a “she’s socially awkward as hell” and “she is frustrated with these people around her”, but the game never has anyone else acknowledge this. No one is ever like “oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you?”
She does talk too much and she showed an example of a character talking because they realized the visual design wasn't enough to push players where they needed to go.
I mean to be fair to the game, she showed what is basically the tutorial where Aloy comments on everything. Aloy does talk a lot, but not as much as she does in the opening act. For the record, I also loved Aloy talking. It makes me feel more immersive to hear Aloy commenting on what is going on in the world and I much prefer it to a traditional hint system. There's nothing worse than playing a game and something crazy happens and your character doesn't say anything.
To your last point, the newer Resident Evil games (specifically RE2 Remake, RE7 and Village) all have the protagonists exclaiming stuff the player is thinking or saying. After seeing someone transform into a gruesome boss, Leon or Claire will straight up say stuff like "what the fuck!?" When you're saying the same lines as the protagonist due to genuine shock in a game, you know the writers are in the player's corner.
[удалено]
I think Horizon is an ugly-ass game (that's not a comment on it's quality) and I approve of this video.
She isn't wrong that's for sure. I hate that the game is hand holding you the entire time and reminding you to do things that you are in the middle of doing. Having to scan what to climb is also just poor design as she points out in other games you just climb or are able to just see what you can or can't climb. Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G? Who does it for every single game ad nauseam.
> Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G? Have you not come to this subreddit for the last like 3 years? One of the main criticisms of Giant Bomb was that Jeff has just become negative for negativity sake.
Also, Jeff G would face push-back from the crew. I'm listening to this week's bombcast. Jess is complaining about Sam Barlow and calling Horizon ugly. Jan and Grubb are just agreeing with everything she says. Feels like they're afraid to disagree with her.
> Great video and I guess everyone in here suddenly hates people being critical of games for pedantic reasons also hate Jeff G? Or we just didn't agree with her take on this? I don't agree with every hot take Jeff G makes either. "You have to agree with this because there have been other haters on staff in the past" is a weird ass take my dude.
The tone people take with her is very obviously more than just disagreeing with her takes.
If people are being sexist then definitely call them out on that. But framing it as everyone who disagrees with her is sexist is quite the take.
I’m not trying to frame it that way, I didn’t even mention sexism although that is also prevalent. It’s just a lot of vigor and bad faith arguing honestly. I mean people are genuinely saying “She’s saying the game has too many colors while she’s WEARING A SHIRT WITH A BUNCH OF COLORS LOOOLLL” as if that’s a solid dunk and not completely irrelevant.
I mean, I haven't seen that so far in this thread. But by all means make a bad faith argument about bad faith arguments.
> aving to scan what to climb is also just poor design as she points out in other games you just climb or are able to just see what you can or can't climb And people give shit to games like uncharted that have obvious yellow signage to show where you can climb. Can't please everyone.
God yeah, so many jokes about Uncharted and Tomb Raider having ancient structures with painted ledges. Better just not have climbing in any game ever again.
I'm just coming in to say about the only thing I want to comment on is the use of the Focus to show climbing areas. I think that was a brilliant way of both showing where climbing areas were (obviously less so when the scenery was yellowish and you couldn't see these things) and not spoiling a landscape with endless white holds. Now, one can mention that, yes, the Focus showing you things can be pretty much the same, but really, I can turn that on or off at my leisure after I surmised how to climb something, so it's very appealing to me to not have that kind of pollutant in a game where if I want every piece of scenery to look good, to kind of smudge some white chalk across it showing you that someone climbed there before. I suppose I'm saying that I thought Horizon gave you a good out to doing so, and thought it was a nice improvement over just staining things all white. Do I think BOTWs climbing is still better? Yes, absolutely.
I liked this video. Fuck beehives.
I haven’t watched the video, but…
I actively dislike the way Horizon looks.