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[Johnfalcon99977]

The shitty Let's Player will have a better understanding of the game's mechanics and deeper workings than a professional reviewer...

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHA. Your... Joking, right?

Besides, if a Shitty Blind Lets Player is claiming to have better knowledge than most reviewers who have had the game weeks (Possibly Months) before release in less than one week, then hes either extremely arrogant or just plain stupid.

[Kagus]

I haven't seen any Let's Plays of the new X-COM, so I have no idea what claims they're making.  And even if someone had made that claim, I wouldn't believe them, because I very rarely believe anything anyone says directly.

What I'm basing this off of is my own observation of professional reviews versus amateur descriptions and LPs.  Note that these are from older games, so the point of there having been such a short time since release is actually relevant in this particular case.

A professional reviewer gets handed a game, which they are then paid to play for a set amount of time, during which time they have to come up with a way of describing what it is they're seeing.  Due to the time and readership constraints of professional reviews, they have to concentrate on what the blatant first impressions are and what stands out the most.

An amateur player, however, simply has the game to play it.  They have no deadlines to meet, no goals to reach, and instead are playing the game for its own sake.  They also almost by definition have an interest in the game, since they have to go out and get it themselves.  This interest means they'll be paying more attention to the finer workings and how to get the most out of their purchase.  An amateur player may have played a game for weeks, months, or even years (in some cases) before finally deciding to make their own LP.  So by the time you can see their playthrough, they already have a far deeper comprehension and experience with the game's mechanics and quirks than the first-impression reviews that are demanded by the professional market, and are also not bound by the guidelines imposed to make the professional reviews actually comprehensible and available to a larger public.

It's a matter of how the individual groups approach the matter, and what restrictions and conditions are placed on both.  A gamer will get good at gaming, and a reviewer will get good at reviewing.

[Johnfalcon99977]

-snip-

Excuse me, what? I would love to continue a discussion, but quite frankly your post is a logic mindfuck, and simply cannot understand it.

You seem to be saying that you do not think that the lets player that you are basing your opinion off of is not professional and does not have experience. You then go on to say that the reason you trust Lets players is that... they have played the game for longer and have a better understanding of game mechanics? Da fuq? Not sure at this point if Troll or actually serious.

[Leesin]

Played for a little while and so far my first impressions are that it's fun and the progression is enjoyable, however I do personally feel like it has been dumbed down, some things wouldn't bother me but things like the inventory and having more control over what your characters are carrying is something I enjoyed.

Yeah, I feel it added alot more to the game when you were able to equip multiple off hands like grenades, medkits etc, every character could be vastly different in terms of equipment, I don't feel the same can be said about this. I also don't get why they cut a massive part of the game out where bases, skyranger etc are concerned, I enjoyed building HQs over the world, apparently this isn't possible at all ( so far in my time playing I've not seen this, however I did read that you are not able to ever ). That aside, I am enjoying it, it may be missing some things that would have made me enjoy it alot more but oh well, that seems to be the nature of remakes nowadays.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

I started playing this morning at 7am.

Suddenly it's 1am the next day.

Those aliens must have mind-controlled me. Dirty scums!

[Kilroy the Grand]

The shitty Let's Player will have a better understanding of the game's mechanics and deeper workings than a professional reviewer...

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHA. Your... Joking, right?

Besides, if a Shitty Blind Lets Player is claiming to have better knowledge than most reviewers who have had the game weeks (Possibly Months) before release in less than one week, then hes either extremely arrogant or just plain stupid.

I don't trust professional reviewers, I doubt any of them are not corrupt.

[Alkhemia]

Yeah the only "professional reviewer" I even pay attention to is zero punctuation and that just for that laughs the people on this board are far more trust worthy and not being payed to say it good.

[LoSboccacc]

damn you unskippable intro

[Kagus]

Excuse me, what? I would love to continue a discussion, but quite frankly your post is a logic mindfuck, and simply cannot understand it.

Sorry for making myself unclear.

Again, I have not listened to or been told anything by any XCOM Let's Player, as I haven't watched any XCOM LPs (yet).  I have never said anything about any individual Let's Player, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.  I'm talking about the general relation between amateur Let's Plays and professional reviews.

As a clarification, I'm saying that in this specific instance, in regards to the new release of XCOM, the game hasn't been out long enough for most players to really dig into the meaty bits of the gameplay, so we can't expect a majority of experienced players doing LPs.

However, in general, people who set up Let's Plays will do so after having been familiar with the game for some time, and in a number of cases after having become quite experienced and knowledgeable about it (unless they prefer doing blind LPs).  But experience aside, they'll still be playing with different motives and different perspectives than a professional reviewer would, and it's been my experience that the actual gamers will learn a lot more about a particular game than the reviewers would, because the reviewers are specifically given titles to review whether they want to or not, and are paid to write something interesting about it; not to plumb the depths of the gameplay mechanics and actually figure out what all works and what doesn't (something gamers will do of their own accord, because they're independently interested in doing so).

I'm not entirely sure how else to explain my position.  If you could detail a little more what exactly it is that I'm not communicating properly, I might be able to find a better way of presenting it.


Kilroy and Alkhemia also brought up the somewhat important point of reviewer bias.  Again, since they're getting paid to write these reviews, that money has to come from somewhere.  If that money happens to come from a company that wants a favorable review of their product published, then that's what you do.  I somehow doubt there are a lot of professional reviewers out there who would rather uphold the lofty moral code involved in writing a few paragraphs on a video game, than earn a paycheck that will actually let them cover the rent this month.

[JanusTwoface]

damn you unskippable intro

Is it really unskippable or did they do the same thing as Civ V where it's actually loading the game assets while the video plays and you can actually skip it once the game is loaded? (You can actually turn off the loading video in Civ V, but then it just sits there at a black screen until it loads anyways.)

[GlyphGryph]

I think the point is good - the reason he thinks Lets Players are more likely to understand more about the underlying mechanics is because they /care/ about that part more than reviewers (who often have limited time to play, rush through things, and try to go for breadth rather than depth so they can deliver an accurate summary of as much of the game as possible).

Of course, this can vary by reviewer, but some amateur reviewers in my experience churn out better reviews for this reason (more time, different focus), and Let's Players are likely to have more of a depth focus.

This isn't neccesarrily true, of course. Some Let's Players are honestly just terrible at video games - but then, you get the same problems with many reviewers whenever they review out of your niche.

In the end - yeah, there are certain Lets Players I'd expect to be more knowledgeable about the game after a day or two than your average reviewer that's had it for weeks.

[Grakelin]

It's irrelevant, however, to the actual discussion on the game.

I disagree with most of the points laid out, but I think that it would be better for somebody to play it and see for themselves why the complaints aren't well-founded. I could spend hours discussing why they only affect somebody who hasn't put thought into what they're doing on the missions. But I won't. It's not hard to find ways to try video games before actually paying for them. For instance, you might go to a friend's house and try it out.

The unskippable intro has apparently been modded. If you google "XCOM Mods" it was, as of yesterday, the only one available!

[JanusTwoface]

The unskippable intro has apparently been modded. If you google "XCOM Mods" it was, as of yesterday, the only one available!

Are people actually modding the game or just straight out hacking it? I guess it doesn't make much of a difference in the end, but I've always though of modding as through official or at least semi-official channels and hacking as through memory or binary modifications. And with everyone talking about mods, I still haven't nailed down exactly what will be / is modable officially.

[GlyphGryph]

Are people actually modding the game or just straight out hacking it? I guess it doesn't make much of a difference in the end, but I've always though of modding as through official or at least semi-official channels and hacking as through memory or binary modifications. And with everyone talking about mods, I still haven't nailed down exactly what will be / is modable officially.

You've thought wrong. All modding involved hacking the binary file or resources. Some developers will release mod tools with their game, but those always boil down to an interface for altering the binary or resource files, just the same as third party "hacking" tools.

I don't see what the difference is between the developer releasing that tool or a fan, so I'm a bit confused. Would you say that CounterStrike, Team Fortress, Civilization: Rise of Mankind, all the major morrowind alterations, etc. aren't mods?

[lordcooper]

The shitty Let's Player will have a better understanding of the game's mechanics and deeper workings than a professional reviewer...

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... HAHAHAHA. Your... Joking, right?

Besides, if a Shitty Blind Lets Player is claiming to have better knowledge than most reviewers who have had the game weeks (Possibly Months) before release in less than one week, then hes either extremely arrogant or just plain stupid.

I don't trust professional reviewers, I doubt any of them are not corrupt.

Even RPS?  It's not unheard of them to completely rip into a game that's currently advertising on their site.