padib said:
Perhaps in that case, we should just let Pem and CGI have a discussion on vgchartz and everyone should sit and listen in with fluttering eyes. But the purpose of a forum is for everyone to share their opinions, and nobody is always right. They're not God, after all. To promote that mentality goes against the community spirit of the forum, where everyone has a chance to join the discussion even if they are not experts. And we don't know who is an expert in what truly, since Pem has been open about the fact that he's not a professional in hardware, but is a firefighter, and CGI is open about being a professional computer artist. In the end, neither career nor hobby can determine who is an expert. All we see is what we post, and that's all that matters here anyways. CGI & Pem deserve much more than that everyone just listen to them in wonder. They are excellent moderators and make great posts, it doesn't mean everyone should just bow down to them and shut up either. Rather, I'm pretty sure they enjoy the challenge, though I can't read their minds.
Regarding campy behavior and the SSD, you need to understand that corporations are not guilt-free of promoting campy behavior. Sony promoted the PS5 as the FUTURE OF GAMING after all, and does everything for the gamer, right? Well, don't Microsoft and Nintendo also make games for the gamer, and seek to push gaming to the next level in their own individual ways? So how is that not campy? Also, the focus on the SSD was Sony's work, it was the only advantage their design had over the XsX. So if everyone is talking about it, it's because Sony made a 1 hour presentation explaining it, and let's admit that the advantage of the I/O was not obvious at first viewing, even to Pem [post 1][reply].
I'll now get back to the OP after having expressed myself on that part of your post. The OP, like you said, is not actually describing the situation properly at all. I just spent the past 2 hours going over user reviews and reviewing the reactions on TLOU2, and many reviews are by TLOU fans and it's undeniable. To show that all review-bombing was of the nature of "TLOU2 suckss loll!" is biased. If anyone needs proof, they just need to read the user reviews here (BEWARE OF SPOILERS):
https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-last-of-us-part-ii/user-reviews
I will put the next section in a spoiler tag to explain why I think the negative reviews are legitimate.
Spoiler!
The Last of Us Part II looks like a game that can't be described with "Beautiful". To be perfectly honest the graphics are mind-blowing. The expressions, the environments, the subtleties of the dialogue of the bits I've seen, the horse-riding and scenery is fantastic. The game has the pedigree of a AAA game, and perhaps a touch above. What happened that ruined the experience for some users is the disrespect the game had for Joel, a beloved character for those who played the first game, as well as a link with other media of shaming white male leads while pushing feminist agendas, and pushing progressive views into the game with forcing transexuality into a character in a world where that wouldn't make much sense. The game also suffers from this pacing disease that hit The Rise of Skywalker, where we're being pushed around into our media to face so many things that we are struggling to ask ourselves if things still make sense. Though I did not play the first game, I can understand their anger, as I felt when Han Solo was uselessly killed in SW E7. To give you an example of a review that was clearly made by a fan of the series, a guy who gave Death Stranding a full 10. He also gave Garfield Kart a 10, hah but I won't judge his tastes. I will just quote his review on TLOU2 because it's what matters most to the thread:
"The Last of Us 2 is a true testament to how not to make a sequel for a game. While gameplay received better animations and such, it mostly remained the exact same and becomes monotonous and predictable over the 25+ hour story. While it’s not bad, you'd hope for a much bigger upgrade or overhaul of crafting and other gameplay mechanics, but many remained completely untouched. But the gameplay isn’t what causes this game to be a failure in my opinion, because that’s not what people really play TLOU for anyways. People play for the characters and story, which is nothing short of disappointing and misguided in this game. The utter lack of respect toward previous or even new characters prevents the player from getting invested in them, and the game fails to utilize the one relationship the player was already invested in going into the game. Instead they demolish that relationship, and never really show it getting back to anything of what it used to be. Most other characters in this game are stagnant and replaceable, and while they have good performances, fail to make me care about them in a meaningful way. That is, until they get brutally murdered on a quest for revenge. By the end of the game I was so numb to violence nothing shocked me anymore, and I’m not sure what the game was even trying to say through all this violence and misery. What I do know is that I feel devastated for Ellie and deep hatred for another character. I truly hope Naughty Dog lets this franchise die in the pit they dug for it. I absolutely loved the first game, but this train wreck wants me to feel depressed for nothing. Some of the lessons it tries to teach seem so stupidly simple I asked myself if I was even hearing it right. All I can hear now is the ringing in my ears after listening to one of my favorite games get pillaged and massacred in the name of “Subverted Expectations”. Do not recommend. "
The reason it may seem that the factions band against the Sony gang is because, in the past, they often put themselves and their console on a pedestal like you said, a bit like you just did with CGI and Pemalite right now ironically. This superiority complex formed over the years due to Sony's prior success over Nintendo the Nintendo 64, but their success is not eternal and people realized that with the PS3 and Vita. Now that most Sony fans have put water into their wine, most of them in my view have become much more friendly and I personally have enjoyed talking with many of them.
But what I believe will unite gamers is our love of gaming, and this latest case of the progressive movement forcing their views into games we love is something we can all rally around. I am not saying let's boycott LTOU2, that would be a pity because the game is beautiful. Rather, I suggest that people wake up to what is happening, read about it, listen to angry fans expressing their frustration at what greedy corporations are doing with franchises they grew up loving, and to understand the deeper issue here. And it goes beyond the companies making the content, "journalists" have also sided with this agenda and will call incels or idiots anyone who voices their disapproval of it. Also, the opposite happened with JOKER, where the critics gave it horrible scores because it didn't fit the narrative they want to push. That's politics, not art! But the people knew better, they loved it and they gave it a proper score. As you can see, it is creeping into games. Almost all the main journalists have given TLOU2 a 100 score, despite the core of the discontentment explained in the spoiler tag.
Then, if we don't like campy behavior, let's congregate on a few things:
- Our love for games: graphics, gameplay, story, dialogue, performance
- Our interest in technology: let's talk specs, why not? It has a direct impact on graphics
- Our curiousity in business: it's vgchartz after all
- Our desire for honest journalism
- Our desire to have conversations and discussions which enrich our lives, either by knowledge-sharing or humor.
The only way to fight campy behavior is by getting real about all this, giving each other the benefit of the doubt, being responsible in how we talk to each other respectfully and being respectful of each others tastes even if they don't always match ours. And being respectful of each other's level of knowledge as well. To tie everything together, not everyone is an expert, and forums of course will have people of all levels of knowledge and intelligence, which is perfectly normal. The most important is that we appreciate each other as gamers irrespective of whatever might divide us.
That's why what happened to this game matters, because it takes us away from our game into something it's not meant to be. I just hope that we'll all learn to identify when that happens and push companies towards higher integrity.
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Well yes, the first part would make more sense, just like how people like to sit and watch Cerny, with fluttering eyes, only to then spew marketing lines and words, as if they know what's going on, and yes we've been seeing that since the X1X and Series X and now PS5, and going by CGI and pem's thought out viewpoints, yes, there has been a clear line of less intellectual folk spewing garbled words and marketing, vs those that actually know how this all works.
If you think that's fine, then hell, bring on the flat earthers into school curriculum, and while we're at it, the inclusion of everyone not having to use jabs to prevent diseases immunisation and the like too, because those "opinions" are just as valuable as the ones that actually contain well thought out knowledge and input, especially from scientific backgrounds.
I just thought I'd entertain you on that thought of yours, because I honestly think it's stupid to toss your hat in the ring, in a subject you'd know little about, in thinking it would hold weight, vs someone who is well versed in said subject you tossed your hat into. We all know that hardly plays out well and Pem/CGI just prove that.
I'm sure they do, but I see it as white noise, and what's worse is, I hate it when I'll talk about something, and that same white noise will flash into my eyes/ears, to which I'd have to ring up Pem, to cancel out said white noise, I shouldn't have to do that if the white noise knew where it was wrong and learned to stop carrying on with it.
Of course corps aren't guilt free. I knew this from the start, but some folk here either agree with their marketing and camp like goading, and some don't and really need to wake up to it, but either is bad, and both need to be changed, and it starts with realising that it's shit. Like, as much as I do buy Nvidia cards, I think their marketing is dogshit, typical, and obnoxious, and I wish they'd do a 180 and cut it out, but they won't, because they know they've got some die hard Nv fanboys, who will just make a twitter account, simply to spam mass retweets of their marketing (yes, I've seen this, simply by clicking on users who spam NV tags on t witter, only to discover their profile just consists of Nvidia product placement tweet marketing).
Yes, the other two (and even PC) do make games that push things in different ways, but again, on here we don't always see that shared universal praise, because there's always something wrong with said company or game, or it's their meta score (which shouldn't even matter to begin with).
Do you want to know why I did for CGI and pem?, it's because they know their stuff. Am I to put more stock into your thoughts over theirs?, for what reason, logical at that, and why would I?. You must ask yourself this and come to a scientific and well rounded conclusion as to why I should follow your logic over two that work in different, but experienced fields. It'd also be stupid of me to follow someone like that Scottish AMD fanboy, over say, Stephen Hawking, because of course I'd put more stock into a scientist, over a buy obsessed with AMD having "won" the GPU war, because he knows a few clever words and knows how to put them together, in order to come off as knowledgeable.
Until the day those two stop being intelligent in their own fields, I don't think I'll stop looking at what they do and say as anything less. You can call that what you will, but if we get a Skynet, and it's all knowing, you can certainly call me putting that on a pedestal too, but I know deep down that humans dislike being cited as lesser than something else, like what Iw as citing before, which I feel had you needing to say that about me, in regards to placing CGi/Pem up high (like this is just a human trait, an undeniable one, because no one likes being told they are more of an idiot than others).
Personally, I'm friends with about 5-6 Sony fans, and one of them even designed a badass, sexy looking PS5 gamepad poster (which I don't feel I can post here, despite it being somewhat SFW), but even he's been looking into PC stuff very recently, due to GeForce Now. What Iw as reffing to, was the hardcore fanboys, the ones that parrot the marketing and think the SSD is above anything else, the absolute devout.
I wouldn't even boycott TLOU2, I just think it's another movie based game, with bad writing, and I've noticed Hiku avoided saying that for some reason, and some others on different sites as well. Like, video game directors and writers, can actually produce garbage writing, I dunno why anyone else would think it's impossible to do so. Bellular also brought up a good point in regards to why some official review sites are just giving straight 10's, and I'd suggest giving him a watch if you want to look at that side of the fence:
Youu know it'd be nice if we could all come together, but for that to happen, we'd all have to share common interests in many things, and well, *cough* PC ain't one of them as much on here. Yeah I hail from that camp, as well as the Ninty one (in part, but more in social media), but I see that getting less attention in numerous ways (like my threads, that die within a day, or articles posted by VGC announcing PC titles getting next to no comments etc). Also, whenever a game like Star Citizen comes up, a game made for PC, it's shut down and nothing they do will matter, because "scam", so that's virtually impossible to have everyone "lovingly" come together, all roses and flowers, because ppl here just don't care, or care enough to shut it down, so I'm sorry if I don't share your sentiment on this, but that's just how it is on here, how it always will be.
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