Reviews on GB in general are pretty scarce these days. This would have been an especially daunting one to get out in any reasonable amount of time because of its length, so I never expected to see one. However, it shouldn't be too hard to get a general sense of how they feel about the game from the quick look as well as the multiple podcasts where they've discussed it.
None of them have finished the game. Jeff got a review copy early but he doesn't like how it controls so dropped it pretty fast. There doesn't need to be a review anyway if you listen to their podcast it pretty much sums it up. Jason, Dan and Brad think its a great game with a few issues. Jeff dislikes how it controls and couldn't get passed it to enjoy what else it has.
There are plenty formal reviews out there if you want them.
@happydevil: They don't need an excuse to review or not review a website. It's their site they can provide the content they wish, if that's not to your liking there are plenty of other websites to go to.
But they didn't really have a "discussion" about it, they said a few things about it and Dan jammed in the GOTY contender while Jeff has been quiet about i
Oh well, I hope they will have a more detailed talk later then.
It is a bummer, but it probably has something to do with giving the game a real shot/finishing it. And then maybe not deciding to do it cause a review gets less and less relevant 2 weeks after release. I mean they pick and choose with tons of other games too.
At the other hand I am pretty sure all their issues have been brought up at one point or another. I am sure we can assume a 4 star review, maybe 5 depending on who reviews it. With movement a negative, some bugs, some other niggling things.
@happydevil: I would say that is actually a good reason not to review a game. If Jeff felt like he wouldn't be able to enjoy the game due to the controls, but still felt like it was likely a good game in general that could easily skew his perspective and make him not the best person to review the game.
Witcher 3 was something everyone expected to be great and turns out it is. Doesn't really need a review from GB when every other site has one up. Witcher also came out in a pretty open release window where it already was the center of attention in the gaming media.
Inquisition on the other hand came out in a much more crowded release window and did not have nearly as high expectations. A review for it served a better purpose for GB to let their audience know the game was pretty good.
As you mentioned they reviewed what are largely considered bad games, but those games had mostly high expectations. Thus a review to let the audience know that they were not good was warranted.
@happydevil: What's to be disappointed about? There are numerous other reviews out there and they don't really worry about reviews anymore because they're kind of pointless.
We have also gotten GBeast's thoughts on it during the double quick look. Alex is into it. Vinny said he likes what he's played but he hasn't played much because he seemingly doesn't play games outside of the office anymore. I tnk the only person whose opinion we haven't gotten at this point is Drew and that probably because he hasn't touched it.
Based on everything I've heard, I think it would be 4/5 unless Dan or Jason reviewed it, then we may get. 5/5.
I've always taken for granted that Alex will review it at some point after E3. They should have a proper review on the site of a game that will be a prominent bullet point in the GOTY discussions.
There's been 3.5 hours of video content and it's been discussed to at least some degree on every episode of the Bombcast and Beastcast since its release. There may not be a written article with a number on it, but there's no shortage of impressions from the staff.
Not only is it amount of content + it has come out at a very busy time for them. Listen to the Giant Beastcast...none of those guys have even had the time to do much. On top of that they are reviewing fewer and fewer games.
Also, you know they all like it (those who played it for a decent amount of time) so I don't see the point in needing a review. Listen to the podcasts and watch the video content; its just as useful, if not more. Like another user said, there's plenty of Witcher 3 content on the site.
There's been 3.5 hours of video content and it's been discussed to at least some degree on every episode of the Bombcast and Beastcast since its release. There may not be a written article with a number on it, but there's no shortage of impressions from the staff.
Not to mention the game is 80 to 100 hours long conservatively. And there's this small thing called E3 coming up that requires quite a bit of planning.
And finally GB has been doing less and less written reviews. As previously stated staff impressions are pretty much everywhere anyways.
A game's length shouldn't be why they didn't review it
Why shouldn't it? Don't get me wrong I'd love to see an official review just to have that out there
But for a review to have value it has to be up reasonably close to release and I think most people would expect the reviewer to at least finish the main quest before passing judgement on a game. Witcher 3 is an absolutely huge game, to finish it would require someone who has 40+hr a week job, with a probable another 5-10 hours of commute a week, let alone groceries and other household things, to somehow find 40 more hours to beat Witcher 3 in a week's time.
As long as they aren't actually playing some during work hours, which we know they don't have time to do, that's not very realistic.
A game's length shouldn't be why they didn't review it
To play Dragon Age was Rories personal project and he reviewed it while he was playing anyway. I dunno if Rorie is playing Witcher but it aint one of his classical PC crpg. None of the others have the time or rather motivation to review Witcher even if they like the game very much. As an example Brad is holding of playing it for a week becouse of a bug and that is a big flag that hes not interested in reviewing it.
Should they review it? Well sure, I certainly would like to see a GB riview of it but i dunno what GBs agenda on reviews is these theys. They just seem to come sporadic for no reason like pretty much all other content. When they feel like it they do some stuff.
They didn't review Bloodborne either, and most of them have played at least a good portion of that game. I think GB is slowly transitioning away from reviews. Let's be real here, not a lot of people read them and most people just focus on the stars anyway. I guess we already have the videos and podcasts if we want to know what they think of the games.
Giant Bomb usually shy away from reviews that they can't get before, or on, release day. They only got one review copy it seems, and Jeff didn't like it in that pre-release time, so he didn't finish it.
I think in one of his Jar Times, he said that the return on a review posted after release is pretty slim for the time they need to invest, so they tend not to do it with the little staff they have.
But they didn't really have a "discussion" about it, they said a few things about it and Dan jammed in the GOTY contender while Jeff has been quiet about i
Oh well, I hope they will have a more detailed talk later then.
It's funny now that I think about it. It might end up being the same as the Red Dead Redemption debacle. Although that was probably a more ridiculous case. He didn't like the horse, you see.
Either way, it doesn't really matter. This isn't the site to come to for reviews FYI. I mean, you could, but that's not really the thing the site focuses on.
I wouldn't expect many RPG reviews on this site in general and at least not from the senior editors of the site. Even the DA inqusition review was by Matt Rorie and that's pretty rare itself on the site.
What gives? None of them have finished it, E3 is around the corner, and this sites focus isn't reviews. No need to take it as a conspiracy against The Witcher 3 which has had enough good press that the series has finally been propelled into the game collections of the mainstream audience, I literally have no idea why you seem so insistent they review it ? Spoiler: Dan Loves it and is one of his GOTY's along with bloodborne, Brad loves it but is waiting for issues to be patched out before getting back into it, Jason loves it, Jeff seemed kinda luke warm on it, Vinny likes it a lot but children, Alex seems incredibly positive to it and I don't remember if Drew has played. So based on that it'll either get 5 stars or 4 stars, most likely 5.
GB doesn't review many games anymore, and especially not games that are this long. They don't care to do the grind of playing through a game that is this long in a few days before release (avoiding that was part of the reason why GB was founded), and the value of reviews diminish every day after a game is released.
I hope some of them finish it at least. It'll be funny if it wins GOTY with like one of them actually finishing it. As I did in another thread, I lament the loss of Vinny as a guy I can count on to play an RPG. Now there's practically no one at Giant Bomb.
Right now I'd have money down on Jason finishing it and maybe Austin? Still probably will win GOTY which is funny but whatever.
I hope some of them finish it at least. It'll be funny if it wins GOTY with like one of them actually finishing it. As I did in another thread, I lament the loss of Vinny as a guy I can count on to play an RPG. Now there's practically no one at Giant Bomb.
Right now I'd have money down on Jason finishing it and maybe Austin? Still probably will win GOTY which is funny but whatever.
It's probably time to do away with GOTY awards if nobody on staff can actually be bothered to finish anything. It's been a running problem since about 2012 or so, and it's only getting worse.
@oldirtybearon: I agree with you. Some of these arguments where it's like one guy has played it and things it's the GOTY and everyone else is like "I guess we go with this?" are really dumb. I stopped investing much in GOTY years ago and getting worked up about it. It's just a dumb thing that they do for the sake of doing it. Most of them hardly finish any games. Not saying they are lazy or anything just the reality so it's a stupid to act like they are being comprehensive in any way.
I hope some of them finish it at least. It'll be funny if it wins GOTY with like one of them actually finishing it. As I did in another thread, I lament the loss of Vinny as a guy I can count on to play an RPG. Now there's practically no one at Giant Bomb.
Right now I'd have money down on Jason finishing it and maybe Austin? Still probably will win GOTY which is funny but whatever.
It's probably time to do away with GOTY awards if nobody on staff can actually be bothered to finish anything. It's been a running problem since about 2012 or so, and it's only getting worse.
Agreed. Personal lists are great, but the site-wide GOTY counteracts the purpose of GB: to showcase the early parts of games in Quick Looks. GB doesn't review games much anymore, but instead plays a bit of everything so that they have time to QL more stuff (which is a good thing sometimes, as it means they can QL Steam gems that could've gotten lost in the mix otherwise)
Then again GOTY means nothing, so there's no problem with them doing it if they want to :).
@artisanbreads: The thing is I miss the kind of nuanced debate that came along with GTA4 vs MGS4, or with Mass Effect versus Red Dead. Skyrim vs Saints Row was the last great debate the site has had, and since that bloodbath the deliberations have been shrouded in apathy. It's clearly boring for them to produce, so why not just do away with it and focus their energies on something they want to pursue?
There's literally hours of video on the site about it, and at least an hour and a half of total recorded discussion about it. Everyone loves it but Jeff, who says it's a game that seems really good but he can't get into it. Austin recently wrote a short thinkpiece on it. There are probably hundreds of reviews floating around the internet. It's fine.
@artisanbreads: The thing is I miss the kind of nuanced debate that came along with GTA4 vs MGS4, or with Mass Effect versus Red Dead. Skyrim vs Saints Row was the last great debate the site has had, and since that bloodbath the deliberations have been shrouded in apathy. It's clearly boring for them to produce, so why not just do away with it and focus their energies on something they want to pursue?
I would so badly want a Witcher 3 spoiler cast but it won't happen. It's funny that the MGS4 spoilercast is one of the very best things on the site (and fans constantly bring it up) and they never did another one (that I can recall at least).
I agree that a lot of that has been lost. Not quite sure why. Maybe the diversity of games now (especially indie games) is a big reason. I think they actually like to make GOTY, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm with you though. I feel the same way about most of their live shows. Wish they'd do other content instead and a lot of that content actually seems like less work for a better product. But I'm a fan of the site and enjoy it and I'll support it as long as that's still the case.
Some of you take GOTY stuff way too seriously. It's just something fun to do at the end of the year to recap how the year went. It's also pretty pointless try try and compare two games that have absolutely nothing in common.
Who cares if everybody didn't play every game? No site has everyone playing every game anyway.
Does it need one? They have talked the game up a lot in the BombCast, BeastCast, and shown over an hour of it in a quicklook.Spoiler alert: GiantBomb really, really, likes the game.
Reviews, as a codified vehicle for attaching a numerically based score to a game, are a thing that I believe will be phasing out. They are certainly already on that path here. I think it is so much more valuable to see a game in action and hear thoughts about it at length than to just quickly glance at a score. Quick Looks essentially replace what I would need out of a review anyway. I get to see 20-60+ minutes of gameplay and hear the opinions of two or more staff members as they go through it.
On the topic of The Witcher 3 specifically, it shouldn't be a secret that it is pretty critically and publicly acclaimed. Plenty of gaming journalism outlets are talking about it being a GOTY contender and that includes many of the guys here at Giant Bomb. Much like others in this thread I would put my money on a score from GB being five stars, maybe four if something particularly annoyed them.
TL;DR: Game is really good duder. You don't need to worry about it.
Do we still need reviews? Honestly I've gotten more insight if I will like the game from the podcast and quick looks.
Also, to the people freaking out about GOTY: stop.
GOTY is a silly thing, and always has been. The point of it is to have something go up between Christmas and new years when no one is working.
I would say that my favorite thing about GB's game of the year is the goofy ass videos that the guys put together rather than the actual awards themselves. (although it is fun to hear them deliberate on the podcasts they put up).
The site might think about retiring reviews altogether. If you're going to be as irregular and haphazard about doing them, it looks shitty when someone clicks 'Reviews' and you haven't bothered to review two of the biggest games of the past several months. I understand why this is the case, but it still looks bad.
As for GOTY, I enjoy it still. I'll be eagerly anticipating which game @brad will hold his breath long enough for to put in the top 10.
I thought if anyone on the site should review it, it should be Vinny.
It seemed like Jeff was going to review it, but the review copy he got was busted up the ass. That seemed to kick the can down the road, and in truth...once the game's been released, and there's so much discussion about the game...what's the importance of the review so much time after it's been released?
I guess it could be reviewed, eventually. But, I highly doubt it. If I had to guess, Jeff might see it as a 2 or 3 out of 5, and everyone else a 5 out of 5. They seem to really love that game, while Jeff seemed to really hate it.
They've primarily become a video focused site, and while they will occasionally do reviews on games (when they feel like it I suppose?) that no longer seems to be their focus because you can get their impressions of a game from all the other content they do.
I am fine with this; for the record. I get more out of a quick look than a review because I can see the game and get their impressions of it that way. The only downside is the vague concept of "getting used to a game" and "maybe it changes later" but that's not something that is a big concern to me.
There's no need for a review from them. I know how they feel about the game, and how I feel about the game (especially at this point). If you need a review in order to make up your mind still there are thousands of other sites at this point that still write them.
Are you new? This is not a site to expect reviews from, even for big games. They review things when they feel like it/if its still opportune to do so. Doubt reviewing it weeks after release is going to be worthwhile anyway.
I like GOTY because it's like 15 hours of audio and video content of them talking about the important trends and games of the past year. It's particularly useful for letting me know what I need to go back and play. Who cares what actually wins?
It's not simply caring about who wins GOTY so much (I don't) it's there isn't in depth coverage of a big game because not enough guys play it some times. Like Witcher 3 is a game that would make for excellent conversation (different quests, choices, outcomes, discussing lore, etc) and those conversations probably will not be had because not enough people will play it. As I mentioned before, MGS4 Spoilercast is a favorite of fans of the site for a reason. They really dig into and celebrate a great game and think that's missing from the site lately.
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