I hate puzzle games, mostly because I'm retarded. Catherine made me want to kill something and I almost googled Portal 2 puzzles.
...Should I buy this game? It looks pretty damn good.
I can't speak for Catherine, but if you had Portal 2 troubles, I'd stay away from The Witness. Probably the best way to try though is to buy on PC, if you can, and utilize the Steam Refund if you hit an early wall.
See, here's the problem - this is a 5 star game for someone like Brad but not everyone is like Brad. I decided on a whim to pick up this game between bouts of Blade n Soul, Everquest 2, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Subnautica, Dirt Rally, Dragon's Dogma ... and all I discovered is this is not the type of game for me. I got incredibly frustrated when I found no way to progress and it seems like readinga walk through would absolutely ruin this game for me.
Do not be fooled by the 5 star review, it is incredibly VERY subjective. I would much rather round house kick bears and power bomb goats like I can in blade n soul -= why play this? There is NO reason whatsoever to play this game. It is beautiful, and if you like puzzles, but there are far better games. I do not consider this after 2-3 hours a 5 star game, I consider it a 3 star game for its graphics and its "attempt" to be a beautiful game, but it did not pull me in. Back to blade n soul those bears aren't going to round house kick themselves!
If your take away from this review was "5 stars! Wow I must buy!" then your wasting $40 is entirely your own fault. It's made abundantly clear from both the review and the Quick Look that this is 100% entirely a puzzle game. You are Exhibit A for why game scores are becoming more and more outdated.
I'm really surprised that Brad didn't at least mention the fact that Jeff and Dan are extremely visible personalities so they have an experience of Mario Maker that 99.9% of the audience won't be able to relate to.
If someone has never played Mario Maker and see it has received a 'Game of the Year' title by a professional outlet they are more likely to buy it. Keep in mind, Jeff has stated on numerous occasions that they provide purchasing advice to consumers and that local multiplayer is 'dumb' because of the internet. The glowing praise of Mario Maker is hardly representative of those ideas and its sad to see it reach number one because Jeff and Dan are fortunate enough to be in a position to ACTUALLY GET OTHERS TO PLAY WHAT THEY CREATE.
As a final point in the same vein: Do you really think Dan would spend 'all night' creating levels if people and Patrick weren't going to play/stream it?
Jeff addresses this multiple times in the podcast by saying that the majority of his time spent with the game is actually playing levels in 100 Mario Challenge. He states that basically every single night he plays through a Normal mode series of levels. You don't need to be a visible internet personality to enjoy the game by playing levels. You just have to like Mario games.
Finally, I absolutely believe Dan would spend a ridiculous amount of time creating levels even if he didn't have the audience he does now simply by virtue of him stating he's dreamed of having the ability to do so since he was a kid. You do not need a huge audience to enjoy making and playing your own levels. This argument is incredibly presumptuous, as if nobody but internet streamers have fun making levels in Mario Maker.
Whoa, didn't see all this coming. Now I just feel out of place that no part of the GotY discussion really bothered me. Well, there were quite a few times throughout the week where I felt like Brad of Jeff would say something or cut someone off and it kinda killed the mood so to speak, but nothing I would call serious. Just sorta made me go "oof..." and that was that.
You're not out of place. I wasn't bothered by the discussions - in fact I found them the most entertaining they've ever been. This year had some of the most diversity of any year I can remember. It was filled with wildly innovative games that had the highest of highs but also were flawed in significant ways. Seeing what each person fought for gave me a lot of insight into what each crew member finds interesting about the games they enjoy. I've followed this site since it's inception and every year there are users like Nexnecis who voice loudly their displeasure at the process or the result. I personally wouldn't care if Time Clickers won Best Game. These lists don't matter and are for entertainment.
Keep in mind though that your saying this about... a 2d Mario game. Nostagia's one thing, but come on.... It's the most basic platformer you can make. You and your buddies are only going to go so far with it. The 100 mario challenge is a randomly assey way of hopefully serving you up something better, but to count on that being a worthwhile experience is like expecting you'll find a gold nugget on you way to work everyday.
Expecting better levels on the google is like expecting better Skyrim quests on the mod site you've visited 200 times.
Yeah, still just 'Cleaner Faces".
I'm not saying Mario Maker is the best game of the year, or the most important game of the year. But you're selling it way short by characterizing it as just a 2d Mario game. And nobody enters 100 Mario Challenge expecting to find a gold nugget. I enter 100 Mario Challenge expecting to be amused but the creativity of the level makers. I think the other side to this coin is if you don't enjoy making your own levels, then you may not care about the amusing things people put into their bad levels. But I've gotten just as many fun ideas for levels from bad ones as good. Even in the bad levels, there's usually something to enjoy even if I immediately skip it after the first death. The fact that the game serves up the levels quickly and they're easily skippable makes this a hassle-free endeavor.
Yes, your mileage varies but again, if you don't enjoy Mario games (which are still in the upper echelon of platformers to this day), then this isn't the game for you and you have every right to disagree with the list. However, what you can't argue is that it's by far the best implementation of a level creator that the average person of nearly any age or skill can use. I've put it into the hands of my 6 year old niece to my 60 year old parents. That alone is quite an achievement.
There is fun to be had in SMM, but much of their specific brand of fun is one that only comes from having an Internet platform. Without that the creation is much less enjoyable, especially given the borked curation tools that exist in there in terms of sifting through random content. Not necessarily a reason to bar the game from the top spot, but a glaring fault they didn't discuss given how big the disconnect is between them and almost everyone else playing the game. I'd be curious how high SMM is going to be on the GB community list for example.
I've seen this argument come up against SMM as game of the year several times. As if you need some sort of internet audience to get maximum enjoyment out of the game. Jeff said on the podcast several times that he spends the majority of his time in the game actually just playing 100 Mario Challenge.
If the idea of playing an infinite number of Mario levels - some good, some bad - doesn't sound appealing to you, then this isn't your game. But if you have an open mind and let yourself be surprised by the levels the game serves up to you, no other game can offer anything like it. Would it be nice to have more curation tools for finding exactly the type of levels you want? Sure, but I agree with Jeff that it's not 100% necessary as I would still find myself just telling the game to give me my random levels so that I can have that sense of surprise and discovery.
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