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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Jim Sterling’s site under attack after Zelda: BotW review

NintendoPie on 13 March 2017
Lafiel said:

personally I can't really comprehend what makes Jim love musou games like Hyrule Warriors (which he gave a 9.0) this much, but if that's his actual level of enjoyment he gets from that then it's fine for him to award these scores

People should simply ignore his scores if he gives games like Hyrule Warriors a 9. Getting mad about a reviewer without a clear state of mind is a bit sad in and of itself.



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Azuren on 13 March 2017

The Motion puzzles alone were enough to justify a knock down from 98.



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Alkibiádēs on 13 March 2017
naruball said:
specialk said:

I don't doubt that Jim simply didn't enjoy the game as much as everyone else did. There is certainly a case to be made that criticism gets exaggerated at times to get more attention.  Again, we're a week out from release and another glowing review will get lost in the shuffle. 

A contrarian, "It's pretty good" review with a lot of (overblown IMO) criticism will engeder backlash and he'll probably get an episode out of it. Jim is a clever guy. 

For a concrete example, I feel like whenever he does this, a tell tale sign is that he makes mountains out of molehills. 

From the Zelda (7/10) review:

"the same old fucking cutscenes every time you open, enter, and complete shrines. Frequent interruptions when monsters respawn during a “blood moon” – "

All of the above is skippable, and charicatrizing the blood moon as "frequent" is a bit of a stretch. So the complaint IMO, reduces to a complaint about load times.

Here is Jim addressing the 30-60 second load times from Bloodborne (10/10)

"Perhaps my one notable criticism of the whole thing is the loading times between deaths – not a huge problem if you don’t intend to die a lot"

You may disagree with what he said, but I sure don't.

First of all let me just say that I'm not a big Souls fan. BUT! The long loading times and the fact that I had to replay an entire level made me enjoy the game more because I was terrified of the enemies and the adrenaline was sky high when I was about to die (or in a dark alley). Not only would I have to play the same level, I'd have to wait for an entire minute to play again.

Then there are Tekken 6 loading times. I hated those. Absolutely hated them. They weren't punishment for losing, just having to wait to fight the next opponent.

As for Zelda and repetitiveness(?), it's one of the things that really bug me. They scream low budget to me which is almost ok when it comes to indie/Japanese games but inexcusable in AAA games. Doesn't matter if it's my favourite or least favourite game. Skippable or not. I just don't like them.

So, in my opinion he's absolutely right and not biased at all. I tend to disagree with him, just not in this case.

Zelda's loading times are nowhere near a minute. Entering a shrine maybe takes 10 seconds max. There are also frequent check points, so you never lose a lot of progress. The point special is trying to make is that he let Bloodborne off the hook for its loading times,  but gives Breath of the Wild harsh criticism despite it having much faster loading times. It's obvious to anyone that he wanted to give the game a lower score than most critics from the get go. Now he can play the victim and make another episode from it. The guy's just a big drama queen. 

The cutscenes are hidden loading times, you expect Nintendo to make 120 different cutscenes for each shrine? Jezus Christ... That doesn't scream low budget, but knowing where your priorities lie. I swear, people complain about everything these days. 



"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - Thoukydides

potato_hamster on 13 March 2017
sc94597 said:
potato_hamster said:

You're assuming that the stamina system in BotW led to a docked point for its score.

I am assuming that if something is in a review it contributes the the final score. He didn't mention anything about movement in his Skyrim review, however. My criticism is for a lack of consistency. In one title he overlooks what are categorically the same (or even a worse) flaw, while in the other he highlights it, by my hypothesis (which is not proven) because he had an intended end result of the review in mind. 

Have you considered that perhaps, like many of the people here who do accept that BotW has many flaws, that perhaps Jim gave Skyrim a 10/10 because he believes it deserves it. Whereas with BotW, he found the flaws hampering his expereince in a way he never found with Skyrim, that overally caused him to dock points and give it a 7/10. Maybe it's because the stamina meter is right next to your face all of the time in BotW and thus it's constantly reminding you of how irritating this feature is

I don't know. I'm not Jim Sterling. I'm not even a fan. This is the first review of his I've ever read. I have no idea how he grades these things. All I do know is that his criticisms are valid. I found many of the same things when I played it for the few hours I did. As far as I'm concerned it's a 7.5-8.5/10 game from my experience, but again, I only played it for a few hours.




specialk on 13 March 2017
naruball said:

You may disagree with what he said, but I sure don't.

First of all let me just say that I'm not a big Souls fan. BUT! The long loading times and the fact that I had to replay an entire level made me enjoy the game more because I was terrified of the enemies and the adrenaline was sky high when I was about to die (or in a dark alley). Not only would I have to play the same level, I'd have to wait for an entire minute to play again.

Then there are Tekken 6 loading times. I hated those. Absolutely hated them. They weren't punishment for losing, just having to wait to fight the next opponent.

As for Zelda and repetitiveness(?), it's one of the things that really bug me. They scream low budget to me which is almost ok when it comes to indie/Japanese games but inexcusable in AAA games. Doesn't matter if it's my favourite or least favourite game. Skippable or not. I just don't like them.

So, in my opinion he's absolutely right and not biased at all. I tend to disagree with him, just not in this case.

Yeah I just think it is interesting how we overblow flaws in things that we didn't like but look past them in thinks that we do like. We all do it.

Personally I overlook having to mash X when entering a shrine in Breath of the Wild because discovering and solving shrines is some of the most fun I've had playing a video game in years.

I don't have the same love for Bloodborne, so the load times and general clunkiness bother me more than they might in a game like Zelda. 



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archer9234 on 13 March 2017
Alkibiádēs said:
naruball said:

You may disagree with what he said, but I sure don't.

First of all let me just say that I'm not a big Souls fan. BUT! The long loading times and the fact that I had to replay an entire level made me enjoy the game more because I was terrified of the enemies and the adrenaline was sky high when I was about to die (or in a dark alley). Not only would I have to play the same level, I'd have to wait for an entire minute to play again.

Then there are Tekken 6 loading times. I hated those. Absolutely hated them. They weren't punishment for losing, just having to wait to fight the next opponent.

As for Zelda and repetitiveness(?), it's one of the things that really bug me. They scream low budget to me which is almost ok when it comes to indie/Japanese games but inexcusable in AAA games. Doesn't matter if it's my favourite or least favourite game. Skippable or not. I just don't like them.

So, in my opinion he's absolutely right and not biased at all. I tend to disagree with him, just not in this case.

Zelda's loading times are nowhere near a minute. Entering a shrine maybe takes 10 seconds max. There are also frequent check points, so you never lose a lot of progress. The point special is trying to make is that he let Bloodborne off the hook for its loading times,  but gives Breath of the Wild harsh criticism despite it having much faster loading times. It's obvious to anyone that he wanted to give the game a lower score than most critics from the get go. Now he can play the victim and make another episode from it. The guy's just a big drama queen. 

The cutscenes are hidden loading times, you expect Nintendo to make 120 different cutscenes for each shrine? Jezus Christ... That doesn't scream low budget, but knowing where your priorities lie. I swear, people complain about everything these days. 

No. If it's for hiding loading times. It just adds to the slow down. By loading the animation cutscene, first. Instead of the simplier text screen. Don't show anything. Just do the loading screen. Because people will treat it as the game being slow paced. If the game did this. Load slate. Cut to loading screen. Walk out of lift. It would shave time off. Just like how the game saves your time. By not needing you, to go back to the lift. You are automatically exited. Once you get the orb. They save your time, one way. But not the other.



Alkibiádēs on 13 March 2017
archer9234 said:
Alkibiádēs said:

Zelda's loading times are nowhere near a minute. Entering a shrine maybe takes 10 seconds max. There are also frequent check points, so you never lose a lot of progress. The point special is trying to make is that he let Bloodborne off the hook for its loading times,  but gives Breath of the Wild harsh criticism despite it having much faster loading times. It's obvious to anyone that he wanted to give the game a lower score than most critics from the get go. Now he can play the victim and make another episode from it. The guy's just a big drama queen. 

The cutscenes are hidden loading times, you expect Nintendo to make 120 different cutscenes for each shrine? Jezus Christ... That doesn't scream low budget, but knowing where your priorities lie. I swear, people complain about everything these days. 

No. If it's for hiding loading times. It just adds to the slow down. By loading the animation cutscene, first. Instead of the simplier text screen. Don't show anything. Just do the loading screen. Because people will treat it as the game being slow paced. If the game did this. Load slate. Cut to loading screen. Walk out of lift. It would shave time off. Just like how the game saves your time. By not needing you, to go back to the lift. You are automatically exited. Once you get the orb. They save your time, one way. But not the other.

What you describe would be a very jarring transition.



"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" - Thoukydides

potato_hamster on 13 March 2017
Slarvax said:
potato_hamster said:


Of course. Because reloading your gun (something that's found in practically all shooters) is totally the same as a tedious, arbitrary stamina system that has plenty of work arounds that renders it more annoying than it does to offer a challnege. Nice false equivalence.

Ah yes. Because stopping the flow of the most action packed, and fast pace genre is perfectly fine because other games do it. But the same completely ruins the experience in a much more slow paced, complex and toned down game. Move out, Dark Souls! Stopping to heal? Annoying and no challenge. Characters should have infinite stamina because it makes perfect sense! Just like in real life: run and dont stop. 

Right, pigeon holing one gameplay mechanic so that it sounds the same as another so you can make more false equivalences is a totally valid way of arguing. Great job.

This is just silly. This is the same as the people that argue that the terrible control scheme in Resident Evil (Ps1) is actually better because it's easier to fumble with the controls while you're scared and thus it creates tension. Well no - sorry, that's just a poor design.



sc94597 on 13 March 2017
archer9234 said:
sc94597 said:

But Skyrim had no points docked despite movement being much more hampered than BotW. It isn't a binary between 10/10 and 7/10. 

Do you know if Jim found the stamina system in Skyrim hampering, in the equal way, that BOTW does it? Could it be, because of other factors, that  compounded onto the stamina system, he ended up hating it more. VS Skyrim, it didn't amplify the issue. You really can't expect people to have the same score, for another game.

Take this. BOTW requires you to use the slate, to see your world markers. Skyrim uses clarvoyance. Both games don't just have the markers visibale, all the time. Which game does it more annoyingly. BOTW.

The question is one of credibility and consistency. I expect both when I adhere to a reviewer's opinions on games I have not played. You can't for one game ignore a fault that is present in another. Skyrim's issues with movement are much more general than in BOTW's. You are slower with respect to the size of the world, and you have fewer means to alleviate this slowness. This never bothered Jim Sterling when he reviewed the game. Alternatively, Jim's gripes about limited stamina early on in BOTW are much more local to a specific point in progression and function. They are much less debalitating overall to the game's experience. He might disagree with my perspective of this, but he then needs to justify it in order to remain credible , otherwise his review is just one of kneejerk feelings, which is okay in so much as he advertises it as such, but when he frames it as if all other reviewers are missing what he sees, yet fails to give a compelling justification for why, it comes off as terribly uncredible and inconsistent to his past values, and I don't respect that in the reviewers I subscribe to. Hence, unsubscribed. 



archer9234 on 13 March 2017
Alkibiádēs said:
archer9234 said:

No. If it's for hiding loading times. It just adds to the slow down. By loading the animation cutscene, first. Instead of the simplier text screen. Don't show anything. Just do the loading screen. Because people will treat it as the game being slow paced. If the game did this. Load slate. Cut to loading screen. Walk out of lift. It would shave time off. Just like how the game saves your time. By not needing you, to go back to the lift. You are automatically exited. Once you get the orb. They save your time, one way. But not the other.

What you describe would be a very jarring transition.

No, it wouldn't be. That's what happens when we exit. Are you complaining about that?