Rock, Paper, Shotgun critical Preview and Skill Up response

Well, I wouldn't know, since I won't buy a system for a single game. Though I hear that BotW is some kind of miracle. But on hte other hand Zelda games are always hyped up and saying anything critical of them results in death threats.

Well, regarding Zelda, let me put it this way: 

It is nothing new in terms of the Zelda formula, as the entire series started with an open world idea on consoles back in 1986. The adventure-style format has been changed, however, and the semi-linearity of the dungeons and item acquisitions has been revamped to a more immediate weapon/cooking mechanic, and environmental puzzles and style of approach in multiple combat situations instead of large scale, puzzle filled dungeons which became the norm since A Link to the Past.

What makes it really good is the world is chock full of detail and interactivity. You can literally climb almost every mountain you see in the game, interact with random folks who seem to have their own schedules and mini quest lines, and even 20 or so hours in i'm still discovering new stuff hidden all over the place. Hell, one example, I was standing on the edge of a bridge, searching for a treasure chest that was hidden under the water, when an NPC crossing the bridge talked to me and told me not to jump, and come off the ledge, creating a small sequence where he told me we can talk about it if we needed to.

It is what Skryim, as a comparison, should have been, it feels alive and lived in as a world, with a very strong ecology and history to it. So from a game standpoint, it deserves that high praise id say by simultaneously feeling like a classic Zelda title, with a few more modern mechanics thrown in. 

Well that mechanic serves a purpose, it's basically replacing the special item usage often seen in the game. It also ties into mechanics for puzzles and environmental effects, torches and wooden weapons can burn, metal weapons are lightning rods in thunderstorms, and so on.  Even had impromptu weapons like boat oars and skeleton arms that fight off enemies in a pinch. 

You are also not really at a shortage of weapons in my own experience, so it's not that big of an issue as far as I can say. As for the art style...to each their own I guess. Personally I think it has a lot of beauty to the style. 

Well what matters is the context.

That is what is lost in all of this I think. 

It's the 'gotta take out the trash' comment made during combat?

On topic, I think everyone has different opinions and tastes. The game won't be liked by everyone and the previewer has every right to dislike. Howewer, his previous opinions on other games should be used as reference, expecially if you liked or disliked those. His opinion on TW3 (and from what I read, the positive one on ME3's endings) should be considered when deciding to agree or not with his opinion.

In the end, playing the game or seeing it for yourself is the best way to form an opinion on it. Reviewers has their personal opinions that influence the review.

Those previews from a few weeks ago were from a controlled environment and they only had 3 hours with the game. The new previews aren't as overwhelmingly positive as they were before. The problem is we now have 3 Negative impressions from the 10 Hour Early Access, and they sharing the same pattern of complaints. Writing, UI, characters, character models/animation, character customization, and scanning. This isn't the time to be handwaving every negative impression that comes out anymore.

I think one of the things that just pulls me outta my immersion, or one of the things that did was the fact that Cora said something along the lines of, "Feels like it's been centuries since I could say that." Implying that she could sense time was passing in cryo. If that doesn't sound like a writer just phoning it in, having his/her secretary doing the writing, I dunno what does. "Have her make a joke about being on ice for 600 years. Now I'm gonna get another mai thai and bang some more bitches."

Or maybe she's just kidding around, and she's been put into cryo before. Hey, it's not a big deal. Everybody's been put into cryo before. Freeze this, freeze that, freeze everything. Except one thing she doesn't realize, that Shepard was never put into cryo, so we don't know what it's like.

So, the game is missing part of it's evolution. If we are to take Javik, the only person we've ever known to be put into cryo... To quote Liara, "To us it's been 50,000 years. To him it's only been a few moments."

It just sounds like a writer phoning it in. I'm sorry, it does.

You highlighted words like "want" as if that equates "will not buy if it's not exactly what I wanted". Which is far from the truth.

I don't much care about writing myself into a story. I prefer (semi)set characters like Shepard or Geralt to blank slate characters. The latter are boring to me. I understand the appeal, but it's just not really for me. (I play Bethesda games though and enjoy them, doing some mild roleplaying in my head.) Same with silent vs. voiced protagonists. Emotional storytelling (= requires a narrative framework independent of the player's choices) or total player freedom? You can't have it both ways. So yes, there's always going to be an argument between these two camps.

Player freedom is not important to me personally. The narrative is. Which includes the companions. Bioware's storytelling used to be very appealing to me even when the plot wasn't particularly good. I don't see what I loved about Bioware in MEA so far AT ALL. Hence my big disappointment. Others might still see what THEY loved about Bioware. What that is is of course different for everyone. Maybe it's combat. Or romance options. Two things that are not top of my list.

Apologies for my emotional outburtsts. They usually settle again quickly. I should not post online before they do...

... and I understand that and I respect it, totally.  I also totally respect that other players want a lot more player agency and abilities to choose and make their character in any number of different ways.  That's the issue... the fan base is just too diverse and wanting of different things.  As a result, I honestly don't see a way for Bioware to reconcile one story to suit such a diversity of "wants" and still hold any sort of actual plot or story together.  Adding in a lot of range of choice, makes the story get so shallow that it's hardly a story anymore... and as the games have all gotten larger and larger, the problem is getting worse.  Reviews are getting more and more "inconsistent" and it's getting even tough to really decide on a game's worth by even just playing into it a few hours... since a totally different set of choices is likely going to result in a completely different "feel" for the game.

To quote Mordin... there seem to be just "too many variables" to even try to get a decent understanding of what they game may actually offer.  I'm resigned to having to watch a number of different actual playthrough vids before deciding whether or not to purchase... and, unfortunately, probably spoiling much of the "possible" story for me in the process.

I can understand.That is the case for most people whose first Witcher experience ever,was from the Witcher 3. I don't known if it 's like that for you. The reason I emjoy TW3 so much is because I like the universe.I 've read some of the books and also played TW1 and TW2 so I like Geralt. Many people who have criticized TW3 is because the character is fixed. The thing though I loved is that Geralt can be very different , you can play him as a total a-hole or play him as the kindest bloke ypu've ever met.

Anyway, back to topic.

You know you can only play for 10 hours and the story isn't completable, right?

Kotaku's Patricia Hernandez writes like a glorified forum poster. I thought Walker's style was too ranty ranty though, but you can feel Patricia gushing over things she can't even articulate properly. I can't believe they have her as a journalist there but I guess they need those clicks.