too bad, sterling loves to do this. I find his reviews accurate, but to an extreme hyperbole. He tends to focus on a particular fault and overemphasize it because it annoyed him. A valid argument, but you need to review the game holistically, which I feel he tends not to do most of the time.

@Claude said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Claude

Pretty good review. I'm only about 9 hours in and all of Jim's points are valid. I had to turn the game down to easy after dying 10 or 15 times in certain battles. And having to meditate to drink a potion is just a stupid design choice. Also, anyone playing on a 4:3 monitor has to play the game in letterbox. That's weird.

I'm still having fun. We'll see where the game takes me.

It's not a stupid design choice. Geralt is the fantasy equivalent of a Ronin - he meditates and prepares himself before battle. Therefore his alchemical aspects are part of those preparations. From a UI perspective this means that players are taught to be a lot more methodical in this game when approaching difficult missions. You know, RPG.

No, it means you go into battle, die and then hope you're not around any enemies so you can drink a potion out of a bottle. It's poor implementation if you ask me. I haven't tried to drink a beer yet, I wonder if I have to meditate to drink that too.

Haven't played the game yet, but I'm pretty sure the point of these games is to NOT die. It sounds to me like potions are mainly used for healing after battles so you'll be ready for the next one, like SeriouslyNow said.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Claude

Pretty good review. I'm only about 9 hours in and all of Jim's points are valid. I had to turn the game down to easy after dying 10 or 15 times in certain battles. And having to meditate to drink a potion is just a stupid design choice. Also, anyone playing on a 4:3 monitor has to play the game in letterbox. That's weird.

I'm still having fun. We'll see where the game takes me.

It's not a stupid design choice. Geralt is the fantasy equivalent of a Ronin - he meditates and prepares himself before battle. Therefore his alchemical aspects are part of those preparations. From a UI perspective this means that players are taught to be a lot more methodical in this game when approaching difficult missions. You know, RPG.

No, it means you go into battle, die and then hope you're not around any enemies so you can drink a potion out of a bottle. It's poor implementation if you ask me. I haven't tried to drink a beer yet, I wonder if I have to meditate to drink that too.

@xyzygy said:

@Claude said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@Claude

Pretty good review. I'm only about 9 hours in and all of Jim's points are valid. I had to turn the game down to easy after dying 10 or 15 times in certain battles. And having to meditate to drink a potion is just a stupid design choice. Also, anyone playing on a 4:3 monitor has to play the game in letterbox. That's weird.

I'm still having fun. We'll see where the game takes me.

It's not a stupid design choice. Geralt is the fantasy equivalent of a Ronin - he meditates and prepares himself before battle. Therefore his alchemical aspects are part of those preparations. From a UI perspective this means that players are taught to be a lot more methodical in this game when approaching difficult missions. You know, RPG.

No, it means you go into battle, die and then hope you're not around any enemies so you can drink a potion out of a bottle. It's poor implementation if you ask me. I haven't tried to drink a beer yet, I wonder if I have to meditate to drink that too.

Haven't played the game yet, but I'm pretty sure the point of these games is to NOT die. It sounds to me like potions are mainly used for healing after battles so you'll be ready for the next one, like SeriouslyNow said.

There's all kind of potions. Some potions help in battle, some are for healing, some for seeing in the dark and there are other potions for various things. In the original Witcher you could drink a potion at any time, the only fallback was your intoxication level.In the Witcher 2 you can only drink a potion while away from any enemies and while meditating. If you happen upon a random  battle with no forewarning and it's a tough battle, you can not drink a potion to help you.It just doesn't make sense to me. I understand having to meditate to create potions, but I should be able to drink them in real time.

Because of this people feel he has a responsibility to write objectively. His reviews don't read this way and his scores are often made to an extreme out of spite or to draw attention or to just prove his point.

Jim Sterling = Armond White of video games.

But I do have to admit, I MOSTLY agreed with his review of Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII.

@Claude said:

There's all kind of potions. Some potions help in battle, some are for healing, some for seeing in the dark and there are other potions for various things. In the original Witcher you could drink a potion at any time, the only fallback was your intoxication level.In the Witcher 2 you can only drink a potion while away from any enemies and while meditating. If you happen upon a random  battle with no forewarning and it's a tough battle, you can not drink a potion to help you.It just doesn't make sense to me. I understand having to meditate to create potions, but I should be able to drink them in real time.

Dude, not every game is built on shitty MMO style 'drink pots to heal instantly' gameplay.  Some games, like TW 1 and 2 are smarter and a lot more more methodical than that.  MMO gameplay has no place in a deep single player RPG like TW2. 

@MrOldboy said:

Because of this people feel he has a responsibility to write objectively. His reviews don't read this way and his scores are often made to an extreme out of spite or to draw attention or to just prove his point.

What are you talking about? Jim is the most objective and unbiased game reviewer out there,

Good ol' Jimbo be pissing a lot of people off again.

Website dedicated to trolling gives a poor review of a great game. Let's see... scored lower than Dragon Age 2? Disregard. 

Totally agree with his gripes about the combat - goes from stupid hard to stupid easy, which is weird - but I don't agree with his points about the narrative and the quests. It's simply wrong, nothing more. The Witcher 2 is a quite excellent game suffering from poor pacing in terms of difficulty. That's it. If I was reviewing it properly I would easily give it a 9/10. You can't deny that the combat is kind of amazing after a while, it looks better then anything ever released, has choices that matter and give proper consequences, a great narrative in the main as well as sidequests, interesting characters that have both varying (in terms of different actors) and great voice actors and that it is fucking huge. 

SIX!? YOUR JOKING!

Nah, but seriously the game does have flaws. Can't help but love it though.

So gamespot review is up,  Kevin VanOrd gave it a 9.

Gametrailers gave it a 9.4 hmmmmm

Gametrailers gave it a 9.4 hmmmmm

Oh, Jim you!

So gamespot review is up,  Kevin VanOrd gave it a 9.

 Here we go, now other sites give it higher scores and Sterling is called a troll for having a different opinion. Nothing new to see here folks. For the record I have disagreed with Sterling before but he generally justifies his points well.

I usually can't stand Sterling, but I agree that The Witcher 2 is far from perfect. The game starts out rather poorly, throwing the player in with little exploration into the mechanics that will be constantly saving your rawhide. Furthermore, the ending is a disappointment on so many levels. It feels like half the game was cut out, and important characters and threads from the first two chapters are dumped unceremoniously or tied together poorly.

You know what, even though I don't like Sterling because of the fact that he's such an obvious troll sometimes, I completely agree with his assessment that if a game forces you to basically wade through a really shitty experience for the first so many hours then it isn't an exceptional experience regardless of how well it recovers later. In my personal and humble opinion, if a game requires you to endure utter mediocrity (or complete and utter shit) for any longer than the first half hour of the game, then it has fundamentally failed to give you any reason to keep playing and loses any sort of recommendation I would give.

I haven't played the Witcher 2 yet so I don't know if the above applies to it, but I'm going to try it out at a friends house first before I throw cash down for it.

None of that applies, the opening/prologue is perhaps one of the awesome I've played in any game, and then chapter 1 will take your breath away, which is where I'm up to so if it keeps on getting better then I'm in for a treat. Also, it's nowhere near as hard as people are making out. Those complaining about the difficulty are just console playing bandwagon jumpers and can be safely ignored.

Look how much traffic Jim has given his site with that review, the guy is the king of trolls, but hey it brings in the advertising dollars.

Heh, got about 2 paragraphs in before I had to stop reading that BS, the combat is "Ridiculous" seriously sir grow a pair.

Giving it a bad review for page views. Is that fat shit even trying anymore?

Sterling tends to get way too hyperbolic in his reviews, leaving himself open to a lot of valid criticism

http://www.destructoid.com/review-the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings-201752.phtml I have not yet played the game, so I have no opinion on the subject, but Jim has a tendency to rate things low, so how do you feel about the review? Is it a fair representation of the game?

This is the same guy who gave Dynasty Warriors 6 a 8/10 and Assassins Creed 2 a 4.5/10

He is the Master Troll. I can atleast say he usually makes valid points, even if hes a little bit prickish about it.

Jim Sterling, keeping up his title as the industries leading contrarian.

I'd give Okami a 1/10. Scores are a matter of opinion. I don't see the problem here. I like cake.

This is the same guy who gave Dynasty Warriors 6 a 8/10 and Assassins Creed 2 a 4.5/10

@withateethuh said:

He is the Master Troll. I can atleast say he usually makes valid points, even if hes a little bit prickish about it.

More like a third rate troll, definitely not a master. He's small-time.

Does anyone know how he got hired in the first place? Was it for the specific purpose of enraging people and generating traffic? It baffles me that someone would be allowed to be paid to troll so constantly.

 
Jim Sterling is pretty much always desperately trying to be contraveral and contrarian with almost every artile posted. I assume he wants to be a well known character like Ben Yahtzee or that Nintendo guy.

Why this awful website is still on Metacritic? I mean, he is on purpose abusing it just to get more views on his pathetic website.

If you don't like their reviews don't read them. And who gives a fuck about some arbitrary number given by a troll it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) change how you feel about the game.

Why this awful website is still on Metacritic? I mean, he on purpose gives unfair numbers just to get more views.

Good way to spike traffic in your website for a few days.... just saying. 

Uhhh opinions, gotta love em.

Ah Jim.
The proffessional troll who managed to get paid for his trolling.
Pageviews are hard to come by these days I hear.

Ah Jim.The proffessional troll who managed to get paid for his trolling.Pageviews are hard to come by these days I hear.

If another Jim Sterling thread makes it 10 pages, I'm going to post the largest eyeroll.gif Giantbomb has ever seen. Be aware!

who cares? he is not even professional gaming reviewer anyway. no matter what he blah, blah, blah, all about his complaining. he has no idea how to create game. just criticizing any damn game is easy for everybody. if I have a wrod to him, I say 'shut the fuck up, you ruin my dinner'.

No, I can't guess, because I can't name ANY of the personalities at Destructoid.

Meh one mans opinion is anothers nerd rage.

Also, anyone playing on a 4:3 monitor has to play the game in letterbox. That's weird.

@Claude said:

Also, anyone playing on a 4:3 monitor has to play the game in letterbox. That's weird.

That has been the way for high-definition games for a while now, although maybe not on the PC. The first time I set up my playstation on a 19" CRT I was saddened, but not shocked.

Jim's great.

Hard to take Sterling serious. He obviously thrives on attention. 
 
Stop feeding the troll.

It upsets me that it upsets people that some guy has a different opinion than their own about a game. 

 
I fucking hate this guy , I saw his videos the Escapist and I think he is just a dick.