I haven't yet read a single impression on the WiiU version. Probably we won't hear about it until next week, sadly. I exoect some graphical improvements on the Switch, but I also expect that both are similarly smooth.

The press gushed about GTA 5 and I found that game to be mediocre.

Hopefully praise for BotW isn't more of the same hot air. Judging by the footage I've seen, I'm reminded of Wind Waker plus more and I love WW.

well, Uncharted got a lot of praise, and I didn't like it much. It was still a good game though.

There's a difference between a game which you just may not like and a bad game. Unfortunately, not too many people realize that

To be fair, a lot of western publishers are guilty of being too friendly with game reviewers.  They give them free stuff that they can sell on eBay, they invite them to parties and make them feel almost obligated to grade their games on some kind of positive curve.  Also, publishers can really screw with a publication's advertising revenue if they don't play ball and really piss them off with a bad review.  That being said, I recall there were a lot of rumors about Rockstar (or Take-Two) essentially leaning on reviewers to give GTA IV great scores so I wouldn't be surprised if they did the same for GTA V.

Actually, "swag" of that nature has decreased *heavily* in recent years, likely due to the influx of lawyers into these companies' workings as the industry has grown larger.  

Also, major publishers being able to bully reviewers has always been a bit of a weak claim as plenty of reviewers have taken a piss on major releases and been none the worse for it, be it a western published game or a Japanese published game.  In fact, one of the most egregious examples of publishers attempting to bully reviewers *has* to be Konami, which black listed all of Destructoid over Jim Sterling's opinion piece on their company.  

So it's not a Western issue nor is it a consistent issue.  

With regards to GTA, I would say the fanbase moreso than Take-Two is are the ones doing the leaning, as seen when a few reviewers dared to give GTA V a 9 or even - GASP! - an 8.5.  In fact, that preorder culture and hype machines are probably the two biggest contributing factors to problemsof this nature.

Why?  The prices won't go down significantly, unless you're going to wait several years.  May as well play it now.  

I dont think Nintendo will send Wii U version of game to reviewers at all, but probably someone will do review.

Less than a week left. Oh boy.

I have exams coming up, that's why :P

Though it isn't actually a preview, I'd add this: https://www.destructoid.com/we-played-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-for-30-hours-have-any-questions--420661.phtml to the list.


It has some interesting commentary, including the following:

«A lot of open world games feel checklisty. This is a big Ubisoft problem, but it also came up again for Horizon Zero Dawn, and was one of my biggest criticisms for that game.

But with Breath of the Wild, it doesn't feel like going through the motions. You can make your own stories by raiding a Bokoblin camp, finding out a new cooking recipe on your own, chopping down some trees, or meet some wacky Nintendo character while you're traveling from point A to point B. The map isn't loaded down with billions of icons to fetch, just the active quest you've chosen at the time.

Take radio towers. Breath of the Wild has them. But they aren't too numerous, and most of them have their own little mini-puzzles to solve, as well as an interesting character to meet at the top that has a unique sidequest. Looking over the massive spires into the open world is actually fun, and you can use a telescope (with its own icon/stamp creator) to scout out new locations. They went above and beyond the typical open world blueprint.»