Quick Look: Below

I was yelling at the screen, you have a torch in your inventory and you mentioned a fucking fast travel at the beginning and then forget to use the fast travel!

I love you Dan. Figure a game out first and then talk about it.

After playing hours into this game I found the Dark Souls comparison to be only adjacent and not direct. Below has firepits and you have to collect your stuff, but Dark Souls was really more about leveling up and beating extremely hard enemies with brute force and action, where the enemies in Below are rather easy and more a system to provide one of the main resources for the journey. You don't level up, you just have stuff you collect that helps you, and the experience when you died what not to do next time. Exploration is the foe to defeat in Below.

Please leave Dan alone. He's a simple man. With simple desires. Simple feelings. Leave my boy alone; he's beautiful.

Hmm, Dan is pretty much the last person I would have hoped to lead this quicklook.

I've been having a great time with the game personally.

Really guys?
It would be great if you'd spend more time with the game instead of rushing to get content out there.
I'd rather you wait until the new year and make a good video with people that know how this game works.
Not sure how anyone can trust the opinions in this video.

Fully expected Brad to have handled this QL. Definitely not the sort of game Dan seems to like.

As someone who bought it, put about 7 hours in it seems, made it to floor 15 and has a love hate relationship with it.. this QL seems very unfair to Below. I pretty much rage quit the game last time I died but I it isn't entirely the games fault.

The food/drink meters are the worst thing about the game, but even then, it's not that bad. You just have to be patient and smart.. *ahem* like in any of the Souls games.

I think this Quick Look should be redone after the holidays with Brad. I'm not sure he'll really like it, but if he is intrigued, spends some time alone with it at home, learning things and being patient, maybe even reading the impressions thread on the forum to shine a little light on how much is actually going on in the game that may not seem so obvious at the start.. I think Brad will at least respect and understand what it's going for.

I also expect the staff to say they want to turn the comments section off, that they try to ignore it, and that we're all kinda crazy/unreasonable lol

I really dislike some of the mechanics in this. I just don't see the point of having a hunger/thirst meter for example.

Kinda disappointing, but not as bad as Dan makes it out to be.

wait Dan doesn't know what torches are? lol.

@maxxcanti: does someone need to play a game for 10+ hours to have an opinion?

That's like complaining about their QL for "Nicktoons Racing" and being like "yeah but you haven't played it enough to know for sure"; sometimes you just know whether a game is going to be enjoyable for you.

I think many people will justifiably dislike this game for it's slow pace and poor design choices. I played it for an hour via Xbox Game Pass with a very open mind, and absolutely hated it. GBE saying "hey, we all played this game for a couple hours each and none of us enjoyed it very much" is totally valid.

This game has niche appeal to be sure, but I'd rather someone who has taken the time to understand the fundamentals present the QL — any QL, not just this one. As far as Below is concerned, I suspect someone on the staff will play the game further and develop a more sophisticated take on the game in time, and thus be able to present the game in a more thorough way. Recording this QL so early on in someone's experience is kind of a waste of a video.

I think GB has been rushing some of their QLs lately. I'd rather they give their early impressions on podcasts and livestreams and have the QL represent their mid-game experience, rather than an "I just started playing this yesterday" hot take. Surely it could've waited?

(It does not take 10 hours to develop some mastery of Below, btw!)

Dan isn't enjoying and having a hard time with a game that required patience? Weeeeeird....

It's too dark!

*literally scrolls past a torch in his inventory*

People talk about how Dan was somehow misrepresenting the game, but when it purposefully obfuscates mechanics and doesn't tutorialize at all, I think most of his complaints regarding the game are perfectly valid. It looks simplistic yet punishing, exploring doesn't seem like fun, the survival mechanics seem mostly tacked on and generally unfun, but damn does it look good.

Seems to me all of that was perfectly shown off in only 15 minutes.

Did Dan not know a bunch of mechanics? Yep. Did he have lots of incorrect knowledge? Sure! Welcome to every quick look GB has put out in the last few years. Not sure why people are up in arms over this one.

It has the CVS pharmacy logo on the left!

Dan is still bad at his job...

Because not knowing easy to find out or figure out things about games and giving wrong information SHOULDN'T be the norm in their quick looks.

@wildaggro: @doncabesa: @slowram:
@vinny did an AMAZING job with his Mutant: Year Zero Quicklook- showing off concisely and accurately a complex game with a lot of different systems.
These two Quick looks don't seem to even be from the same site when compared.
This was truly a train wreck- not the first and definitely not the last :(

Yeah, Ben has had some similar Quick Looks where he seemed so disinterested in the game that it was embarrassing as well. It sucks to see and hopefully the Quick Looks have higher overall quality next year. It's sad that I am at the point that I expect them to be devoid of any real deep dives, and the Mutant Year Zero one was a nice surprise even if he never did mention that it's on Gamepass.

'ts truly tragic, that a game will sell 5-10 million copies less when it gets a negative Quick Look.

I jest (mostly). My interest in this dropped as soon as I watched Brad having a go at it in UPF, even though I could've tried it on Game Pass. I just don't have the patience, so would rather spare myself from the frustration. It does still look and sound really neat.

@jarp12: I'm pretty sure he was referring to the blue fire fast travel which is one-time use and he didn't have it available. That being said, he should have had the shortcut unlocked since he was on floor 3, but given his feelings on the game I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't explore enough to find it.

I though this will be a Brad QL

also I've read impressions about this game concerning getting your movie which can be a pain

What's the point of this video?

@teigen: I disagree. Dan and Alex are clearly missing some important mechanics.

A better comparison would be them playing Nicktoons Racing, not knowing how to accelerate, and complaining about it instead of doing research or playing the game more.

It's fine if they don't like it, I'd just like them to be more knowledgeable about the game.

Not an insult to Dan at all but this is the least "Dan" game I've played in a while. Maybe not the best person to drive this quick look.

This Quick Look actually got me interested in the game; I like the lonely, detached feel it has, and how the UI & sound design, even in the menus, appears to support and enhance that. I won't defend the spikes, though.

The game seems interesting, and I like "roguelike"

but this doesn't seem like it should have been a run based game.

I am beginning to think these quick-looks are basically useless. They frequently don't know what the fuck they are talking about. I mean, part of the point is to educate the audience with these, but these are far too frequently full of inaccurate information.

So really, why are you doing these? "I played for a few hours and didn't look anything up on the internet to see if I missed something or whatever" Gee, wow, what a great way to handle content like this.

Also, this problem is worse with East than it is with West.

Please don't let this video turn you off of the game. I've played it for 3 hours yesterday and I'm loving it. Super tense and atmospheric, the sound design is fantastic. If you're patient and careful (and willing to explore) the game can be super cool.

@binarygod: the point is they do a quick take or a hot take. Stop watching if your not here for the personalities. They are entertainers not super serious critics giving you some take on your favorite game. they do reviews for that. If the game is bad like they show then its bad and thats why they dont fell like playing.

@doncabesa: The crew is extremely busy with goty podcast. stop criticising and atleast be thankful they actually give you content. You are ungrateful. This quicklook is great and shows this game is bad.

Buddy, they're done with GOTY stuff. They did this back in NY and no one is saying they have to like the game just that the effort put into this quick look is sub par. "You are ungrateful" and you are over the top with the white knight routine.

I really hoped the combat would be deeper/more engaging.

A rogue-like with survival elements? I’m going to have to pass. A shame, too, since I was semi-curious about the game. I rarely enjoy run-based games, and the gameplay loop here doesn’t seem to justify retreading the same ground.

@hemmelight: Sounds like it's definitely not for everyone. I don't feel this is necessarily a bad quick look; maybe more of a warning to the average joe considering it (maybe warning is too strong a word). No reason for people to force themselves into thinking something's great when it isn't. (to them)

The soundtrack alone has capy-tivated the hell out of me so I'm still willing to give it a shot personally, but I expect to bounce off hard. It probably has raised my expectations a bit high at this point to be honest, lol.

@frostmute: I would have liked to see Brad do this one.

I didn't think it was possible, but I'm with Dan and the rest on this one. The beginning of this game is just boring. Full stop.

Not hard, or confusing. Just Boring. I didn't even die until I got so bored I started to deliberately run into traps and enemies just to see what would happen. So essentially I died of boredom.

This isn't an issue of roguelikes. ADOM, Nethack, Angband were some of my favorite games growing up. Shit happens in those games. This is just dire.

I beat the first Legend of Zelda game pretty recently, and I've got to say I think it holds up very well. Yes, it's challenging, but I also think it is totally fair and still a LOT of fun in my opinion.

This game also looks pretty cool, I think I still might play it sometime in the relatively near future.

Just going to throw this out there but almost every item in Dark Souls has a like 3 paragraph item description that most people choose to not read for some reason.