Do Your Research, QL Crews

@TwoLines said:

It's a quick look man, you don't research a game before playing it, why should they? They want to show it from the consumer's perspective, not the reviewer's perspective.

The problem with that is that QLing 'blind' requires multitasking, whereas the typical consumer doesn't need to multitask, and the typical QLer apparently can't multitask. So instead of seeing the game from the consumer's perspective, it's often more like seeing it from the perspective of a consumer with ADD. When they end up fumbling around trying to figure out where to go or what to do, it reflects badly on the game, but it's usually caused by a lack of attention on their part rather than any particular fault with the game. If some familiarity with the game can offset that, then I think it's worth it.

I tend to agree. I'm not saying be an expert on the game but know the general facts and controls before you play. I don't really think people want to see you fumble around the tutorial because you weren't paying attention and talking to your quick look partner. The only unbearable quick look in which I had to pause and come back to was the Shadow of the Colossus quick look.

I think the problem is that the QLs are inconsistent. Half the time it's their first time playing the game, the other half, they've already finished the game thoroughly and know most of what they need to know. Then there's that small percentage with Brad playing where he just likes to be clueless, i have a feeling he pretends to do it and actually knows what he's doing.

You lost me at Kessler.

@Jimbo: Good point. They've said it themselves: it can be hard to play a game and talk about it at the same time. Learning to play a game and talking about it must be even harder still.

Let's just agree that Brad should never be the one that plays during the QLs, hm?

@BeachThunder said:

I feel that the main problem is they try to entertain more than they try to inform. This is not always the case, but I would rather finish watching a quick look with an understanding of what the game is rather than having a few chuckles.

Same here, and i kind of get annoyed they get their facts wrong.

@CH3BURASHKA: But the fact that you not satisfied with the quality informative gameplay of the Quick Looks means, that You know more about the game than them (I assume that is what You're saying), which means that they don't need to be more informative, cause You already know enough about the game. And there are the comments, there's always someone with mighty knowledge.

No. You know what I like... I like when they go into the game essentially cold. Do you know why? Because it shows you what the learning curve for a game early on is going to be like... If they play expertly it's 1) boring and 2) not very informative (for me).
 
So there.

I like facts and Critique. When things just get stupid (brad or drew at the controls) I literally want to reach through my monitor and strangle them.

I was tempted to come in here and say, "Naw man, it's better when they are unprepared and casual!", but then I remembered the SOTC Quick Look.

My god, was that a piece of shit.

I haven't read through the pages, so I'm sure it's already been said..

But quick looks aren't meant as previews or reviews of a game, they're meant to be quick looks. I like the videos where the staff go into a game knowing as little about it as we do. Just look at something like Monster Hunter, people complained that they had no idea what they were doing, but that's exactly the experience most people have when they first play Monster Hunter and it really helps showcase how badly much of that game is designed, and lets people know what kind of experience they're in for. That's exactly what I want from a QL, not an indepth examination.

I don't want them to do extensive research or anything but getting a few infos or getting accustomed to the controls before starting the QL shouldn't be too much to ask - watching them figuring out the basic controls isn't particularly fun. I mean, after all these guys play videogames and talk about them for a living, right? I just expect them to know their stuff.

It just affects a very small number of QLs, though. Most QLs are great!

No, if I wanted canned gameplay of videogames i'd go to any one of a dozen other videogame sites. They mix fun with facts, and in the end, it's just videogames, you don't need to know everything.

I like it when one person is familiar with the game and one person is looking at it fresh.

I think maybe the issue is sometimes they've played a good chunk of the game and sometimes theyre going in cold. So maybe the solution is splitting it into 2 separate features and arbitrarily making one premium content to be dicks that way people know what they're in for.

Its called "Quick Look" for a reason. I watch them to see what a game looks like and to get a feel for what it may be about. You seem to want them to function as reviews. Although I don't usually feel like watching two people bumble through a game and accomplish nothing. I haven't had that experience with the QLs I've seen thus far, so I'm satisfied with them.

Just accept it is a flawed proccess,ppl. are going in blind and will make mistakes. HEY, better with than without, right...NO??? Oh yeah, the prissy internet....

I don't really mind if they don't know much about the game, I'm watching to see the game and if i'm curious about mechanics i'll read about it in the wiki or somewhere else. Plus i would  rather have more Quicklooks than them making sure they knew everything about a game before making a few.

I disagree with your definition of the purpose of a QL. You are talking about Reviews, not Quick Looks. Quick Looks are exactly what they sound like, a quick look at a game that the players may have not ever even played or really heard of. If you want to be educated about a game, read the review, don't look for in depth information in a Quick Look.

Disagree with you my friend, if so called 'research' was done it would lose a degree of adventurism to the QL's. Usually the one leading the QL will have played through the game or specific level already so I count that as research.

Now the F1 2011 Quick Look was a prime example, to some hardcore F1 fans they would have been furious at that Quick Look. Yet I understand why Drew and Vinny knew little about F1 or the game, and the fact itself should teach them better in truth. I'm an hardcore F1 fan, have been since a small child, know it in great detail yet still enjoyed that quick look a great deal. So doing research will not always make a better QL.

If you are complaining about they way Quick Looks are, then you should probably consider finding another site to frequent. They are the bedrock of GiantBomb and have always been the way they are.

They're fucking video games and nowhere does a paragraph exist that details how quicklooks should be or what they aim to teach you about the game. If they were so terrible they wouldn't be so popular, so they should keep doing what they're doing.

@Vortextk said:

They're fucking video games and nowhere does a paragraph exist that details how quicklooks should be or what they aim to teach you about the game. If they were so terrible they wouldn't be so popular, so they should keep doing what they're doing.

This is a perfectly reasonable and sane argument. People already like it, why bother trying to improve?

You are absolutely right. Jeff is good at this too. Please please please don't have the first statement in the QL be: "Now I haven't played much of this, but..." (facepalm)

Nah. This isn't something that's always been present. Jeff rarely goes into a game cold. Ryan does sometimes, but he usually picks it up pretty quickly. Brad is the one who usually has no idea what he's doing, unless it's a game he's reviewing, and then he shows nothing about it at all because of 'spoilers'.

Also, I don't give a shit about a game's learning curve, and even if the point of these videos were to show that, you can't show a learning curve when you refuse to learn anything about the game. Check out those Game Room Quick Looks. How many of those incomprehensible Atari 2600 and Intellivision games did Jeff try to find out how to play? Sure, he gave up on some of them, but he devoted quite a lot of time to games that literally no one cared about. And Brad doesn't have enough time to look up the controls for one game? Puh-lease.

@Aishan said:

@Vortextk said:

They're fucking video games and nowhere does a paragraph exist that details how quicklooks should be or what they aim to teach you about the game. If they were so terrible they wouldn't be so popular, so they should keep doing what they're doing.

This is a perfectly reasonable and sane argument. People already like it, why bother trying to improve?

I have one counter argument.

Popularity does not equal quality.

Look at the adolescent singer (Not going to mention his name) with a female voice for proof of this.

@Still_I_Cry: Wooooooosh.

That's seflish bullshit, not an argument. If that guy wants to be popular that way, and if these guys want to be popular this way, they can be happy and most likely are considering the years of doing it this way.

"Brad isn't perfect in how I want him to portray this game!"

Then make your own site and do it yourself?

Giantbomb isn't a massive corporation. It's a group of (at most) 7 guys. They aren't experts on every game out there. Hell, some games take months to fully comprehend. Give them a break.

In either case, I'd rather have a genuine first-exposer opinion than some pseudo-know-it-all explanation of all the game modes/mechanics. You can find all that dumb info online. Genuine opinions with 30+ minutes of solid gameplay? Rare finds.

They would definitely do fewer QLs if they had to research every one first. I'll take my greater quantity of uninformed QLs instead of a lesser amount of well informed QLs.

@Vortextk said:

That's seflish bullshit, not an argument. If that guy wants to be popular that way, and if these guys want to be popular this way, they can be happy and most likely are considering the years of doing it this way.

"Brad isn't perfect in how I want him to portray this game!"

Then make your own site and do it yourself?

Don't like a video game? Go make one yourself. Oh, wait... Jeff Gerstmann hasn't made a video game... Hmmm... You should probably rethink that argument.

Yes its all Brad's fault, Long live Kessler.

Quick Looks are meant to be entertaining. If you want an informative look at a video game, a written review might be your best bet.

@CH3BURASHKA said:

First things first: a Quick Look is meant to show off a game to people, with the intent to educate them on whether or not they want to buy the game or not. That assumes that the game is played competently. And herein lies the problem. Lately there's been a significant decrease in QL quality in terms of informative gameplay and accurate discussion of the game at hand. I believe I speak for most of the GB community when I say, please do your research - at the very least, play through the section you plan on showing off.

PS For an example of how QL's should be made, watch some of the Kessler-directed QLs. Love him or hate him, he definitely did the games he showed off justice. Despite the fact that one was a mediocre JRPG and the other was a complex map-making dungeon crawler, he clearly did his research and understood the underlying mechanics before showing them.

For the crew, Quick Looks are the easiest thing to do, they don't have any structure and just shoot the video. That's why it looks like they're not putting as much effort, and it really depends on the type of person if the QL will be informative or not. They're just making jokes and having fun, the QLs might only be informative if they're before the review.

I thought quick-looks was about the staff just hoping into a game with little to no game time and figuring stuff out on the go.

Nah, it's about entertainment. It's just that seeing someone fall of a colossus for half an hour isn't all that entertaining.

@Vortextk said:

That's seflish bullshit, not an argument. If that guy wants to be popular that way, and if these guys want to be popular this way, they can be happy and most likely are considering the years of doing it this way.

"Brad isn't perfect in how I want him to portray this game!"

Then make your own site and do it yourself?

Don't like a video game? Go make one yourself. Oh, wait... Jeff Gerstmann hasn't made a video game... Hmmm... You should probably rethink that argument.

Totally agree. Especially infuriating in Brad/Ryan Quick Looks where they don't know what they're doing and start blaming the game for their faults instead of trying to figure out what's happening, or claiming misinformation as fact. Like, I don't give a fuck if you have to sit there for another 5 or 10 seconds of dead air while you read the tutorial tooltip. It's only frustrating and aggravating when they're sitting there shittalking the game about being bad at telling them what to do when the tooltip that they didn't see/skipped through told them exactly what to do.

I think it's good that SOMEONE gives the crew constructive criticism. Too many people recklessly defend every action the guys make on this forum.

I agree with the OP - for god's sake, do some investigating. I don't watch QLs very often anymore because I have to watch 10 minutes of lollygagging through the menus before I see the actual gameplay - cry me a river, it's my opinion. No journalist would walk into an office for an interview knowing nothing about the person they're interviewing - for these game "journalists" this should be the equivelant. It takes 10 minutes to go online and do some digging.

I was going to post a long reply but I can't be bothered thinking about it any more.

I like the quick looks. I watch them all the time. Not everyone is great. I normally get all the info that I would like out of them and if not I know where to look.

I don't think they should necessarily play through the section of the game they plan to show, but they should write down all the features that they think people would like to know about and then research these. Like, for instance, in the Gears of War 3 quick look, they never said a word about the "Event Calendar". A pretty cool feature of the game that I was longing to know more about. Granted, they may have jumped over it because they deemed it a minor feature.

I like QLs the way they are. I don't mind the ignorance. If the game catches my attention and I want to know more and more in-depth about it, I'll go somewhere else.

@CH3BURASHKA said:

@gunslingerNZ: You're right - there should be a member knowledgeable in the game, and one uninitiated member that's being shown and taught the game. That, however, doesn't work well when both members aren't sure what to do.

Thats the best way actually. The uninitiated member takes the role of the audience and asks the questions from a perspective of 'hey whats this about' and then the informed player fields the questions back with 'this is whats up.' A nice call and response method.

I don't think they should have already played through the part they're going to play through on the QL though because you would probably sense their boredom of replaying the same part.

Eh i dont mind it, i usually look at quick looks for the GB personalties and just overall gameplay of a game.

Given that Quick Looks are pseudo-LPs, I completely agree. Still, fucking up horribly can be just as good, in some situations.

I'm pretty sure, GB went on record saying that they do it on purpose.

I don't think research is necessary at all. Quicklooks are just meant to show off a game. Generally, you can get a pretty good understanding of what a game is regardless of how good the presenter is. They're just showing off the game as a whole, and in very, very few instances does leaving out a gameplay feature or two really change the experience. You see what the game is, you'll know if you like it. For the most part, people will make up their mind about a game within the first few minutes ("Oh it's an RPG, I don't want it" or "Oh, it's a brown shooter, I'll pass").

I thought quick-looks was about the staff just hoping into a game with little to no game time and figuring stuff out on the go.