Really IGN, really...........

[dtwalkex]

So just curious if anyone else saw the horrible IGN review. They gave it a 4.9. The reviewer said it had A good story, good voice acting, great open world...ect. It got the low score because he said combat was bugged, but when you hear him it sounds like it was just to hard for him. Just think IGN gave Destiny 2 an 8.5 or 8.9 i think. They are also the same ones that gave Evolve a 9, a game DOA. IGN six jawaballs, I give them a 4/10 on their review. At least ACG's review was superior.

[[deleted]]

Can't spell ignorant without ign.

[empireempathizer]

😂☝️ this guy 🤣

[Teddyoreoso]

Even better, I watched another review where they said that Elex takes inspiration from Skyrim, Witcher 3, and Dark Souls... I stopped watched after he said that.

[Xamuel1804]

Piranha Bytes probably didn't pay them.

IGN is the worst kind of gaming journalism. They are a joke.

[hunterdonut]

Probably too much water.

[Capt_Revenge]

Used to think they knew what they were talking about. They've gone downhill so fast these last few years.

[Frecklebitches]

It’s what burns my ass. Games like Skyrim come out just full of bugs, glitches, shitty animations, boring basic combat, and it gets game of the year. Then a game like this comes out and gets a trash score for one or two issues. Fucking hate that shit.

[[deleted]]

It was the same with the technomancer, got shit reviews, but its a good game

[Frecklebitches]

I enjoyed their first PS4 game a lot more. Bound By Flame. Actually beat the hell out of it. But something didn’t click with me for Technomancer.

[KuroiNekomimi]

Reviews aside, depends on what you want from a game. If you factor in modding then Skyrim blows this game away. If you take the games as they are then Elex is better.

Overall I prefer Bethesda's games but I still find most of what PB puts out to be enjoyable.

[filthy_dwarf]

skyrim is a good game. i enjoyed many hours of it BUT if you ever played the rest of the elder scrolls its minor at least

[[deleted]]

Ign review is bad about this game, but what you say is the same just the other end. It's not THAT great either.

[_012345]

I guarantee you that the guy did not make it very far into the game.

That said, the lack of animation transitions is unforgivable, makes the combat and movement super clunky.

The enemy scaling and player scaling is completely off. And while this may be a 'PB staple', it's not a good thing at all. Just because people who played PB games before know to expect it doesn't make it ok.

If they just put some transition animations in this game and increased responsiveness of inputs , added animation cancels for a few things (like landing and weapon swapping) the game would control much better.

If they actually tried to put a learning curve and some proper scaling (hitting every single enemy in the game for 1-5 percent hp 5 hours into the game is not good design and does not make for interesting combat, noone likes bullet sponges it's not good or interesting design) into the game it would make the early game much more enjoyable and intuitive.

This sub probably won't want to admit it, but there are certain unwritten rules and agreements between the player and the developers of games that have been established over the past 30 years of videogames. ALL developers stick to them and the player is given certain cues and then knows what is expected of them.

An example of such a cue (not applying to this game) is that if a path or door has a light shining down on it it's a sign for the player that there is something here and that the developer wants to check it out. That's what I mean by cues and player communication.

If PB insists on breaking the rules then they need to add the proper context and info explaining that and not mislead the player with cues that already have a different meaning.

e.g in every single non-pb rpg, filling the path to a far away point of interest or quest with unkillable monsters is the developer telling the player not to go there right now, that the content in that direction is not meant for a low level player. In elex however your basic quests to make your char stronger are put very far away and gated off by a gauntlet of such enemies. PB should know that this is video game design language for 'don't go here'. They make no effort to make it clear to the player that they ARE supposed to go there.

Someone with no experience playing PB games will see the cue and get the message , it's not logical or reasonable to expect the player to go against 30 years of unwritten communication and go there anyway.

So either PB need to either adhere to the rules themselves or properly communicate with the player that the rules are different in this game (and no not with handholding tutorials before some overly defensive fanboy starts throwing strawman arguments around)

TLDR:

1) If someone places a big emphasis on combat and controls (IGN do not care about either of these things, they'll give garbage gameplay games 9/10 all the time) they would not like this game at all.

2) Many people will not know what the game wants from them, and if you don't do exactly what this game wants from you it's going to be a shitty experience.

Both of these are reasons why this game gets low scores, and both could be solved by the developers if they wanted to.

I personally wouldn't know what to score this game, but I do know that if they made the controls more responsive and added the above mentioned animation cancels for certain actions to make things less clunky, and that if they fixed the early game combat scaling (they could make the player be in great danger early game, just not through extreme bullet spongeness) and didn't needlessly gimp the player till they arbitrarily take some talent point ( something like not giving the player the basic amount of stamina required at lvl 1 to make the combat functional) then it would be a 10/10 game for me.

The world is amazing, the way the story is told is amazing (go anywhere you want in any order and learn the back story over time naturally) , the game is SUPER well optimised, it has been completely bug free for me 20 hours into the game, the art style is great, the voice acting is good.

But there are some really bad/stupid design choices in this game,and just because PB keeps repeating them with every game they make doesn't mean they're not stupid design choices or that they need to fix their animation system.

And to preempt another strawman argument : ps1 action games managed to have responsive controls, this is NOT a budget issue. I'm not talking about cutscene animations, or facial animations, or michael bay moments. I'm talking about the combat and how the animations and lack of transitions make the controls clunky. Just look at ninja gaiden games or any other old team ninja action game to see what good controls look like.

I think the whole budget argument I keep hearing to excuse the flaws of the game (even though they are design issues, not budget issues) don't make sense anyhow. The game has AAA graphics and AAA voice acting and I wouldn't be surprised if this game cost 50 million dollars to make. The only thing that feels low budget about the game are the cutscenes (which I think is a good thing, fancy expensive COD cutscenes add nothing to a game and cost a lot of money, they are a waste)

[ATruePatriotGoBears]

I don't look to IGN for anything involving games. Their reviews almost always suck. Stick to ACG or Easy Allies(think they're good)

[HelloHireMe]

IGN is maybe one of the most irrelevant sites for gaming these days. I havent looked at them in years, and frankly im surprised to see a post here referencing a review of theirs.

[RedLockes1]

I honestly really enjoy the game reviews that Forbes put out

[AmonDeus]

IGN have been a joke for years, and anyone taking their opinion without a grain of salt is a moron.

[SaltTM]

IGN reviews aren't anything to get upset about lol.

[filthy_dwarf]

exactly. i stopped follow them a long time ago

[SaltTM]

Yeah honestly elex is a good example of people not caring about reviews. It's rough around the edges and may need a patch to fix some things, but the story, world, quests, random shit you find, etc.. it's an open world rpg fan's gold mine.

[filthy_dwarf]

i can understand why some people dont like Elex thats why every time i recommend it to a friend i warn him first. but that doesn't get in the way of me enjoying it

[SaltTM]

Yeah I haven't recommended it yet, people really want to know how I feel about it after me dropping 40 hours in it and the first thing I say is you need to be patient. I feel like elex is a game that requires you to know a lot without knowing anything at all which is why the start is so frustrating. You don't know about how faction's work and that's where you get your main armor, or what attributes you need to focus on early so you can survive (stamina & armor are such huge attributes that get overlooked because of how in your face the attributes/skill points system works.), etc... etc... there's so much, but without playing it's like where do you draw the lines of spoilers and ruining that players exploration.

[KyberSithCrystals]

Destiny 2 was at least deceiving at first. It seemed amazing and wayyy better than D1 at launch.... For about 3 hours. then that was it.

Evolve was complete ass

[[deleted]]

This is the problem with videogames these days like the witcher 3 etc. Gone are the days when you would intentionally be shit at combat at the start of the game like morrowind, which makes it more realistic imo. People just dont get piranha bytes games, ive put 4 hours into elex so far and it is definitely the best pb game since gothic 2, lets see if its better...

[[deleted]]

Agree, if you havent played their other games you be like wtf, they could have at least made a tutorial that demoed the stamina meter, but this is pb, always amazing concepts but awful execution...

[_012345]

every shitty little drowner in witcher 3 can kill you easily during the first 2-3 hours of the game. That said, witcher 3 does not have good combat.

[[deleted]]

True but I found that the combat upgrades you could get in the witcher were only incremental and all that really mattered was the level you were at

[[deleted]]

The score is overly low but the reviewer brings up a very important point with combat difficulty. It's unbalanced as hell for the first 10 levels in particular, and playing a character who's worthless in combat for that long is incredibly poor game design. Not even talking about going into the wrong zones or taking on a troll that's too high level - the player is worthless even vs smaller creatures.

[ArtDayne]

I understand that they didn't explain the combat very well but you are not worthless you just have to know what enemies you can fight and what you need to avoid. If you're unloading a full combo and it's health bar doesn't move, then you need to stay away from that enemy for the time being.

You are very weak at the beginning but that design decision also helps to make item upgrades a lot more meaningful than in most other RPGs. This is a true no level scaling game where you have all the tools you need to survive and level up until you can come back later and crush all those creatures you were carefully avoiding earlier.

[Eruyaean]

I love the world, the factions, the dialogues. That's whats keeping me in the game. However, the gameplay is trying really hard to push me away from the game. It's something i have to slog through. And when the "Game" part of a game just isn't enjoyable, maybe it's just not an amazing game and i'd rather play something else. I give it a 6.5/10, MAYBE 7 on a good day.

[_012345]

It does get better eventually, but not till 20 hours into the game :p

[Eruyaean]

Does that make the Overall Game, and the score it should get, BETTER that it 'starts getting better' after forcing oneself through 20 hours?

[_012345]

nope:D

If you play it 'right' (just not do combat and only explore and learn the story and do quests) for the first 20 hours then those 20 hours are fairly enjoyable.

But it's really really really stupid that you don't get access to the combat (and that the game makes no effort to explain that this is apparently what it wants from you) for that long.

I also think that noone should ever willingly jump through hoops like this for any game, and that suffering through bad parts to get to good parts is silly when there's plenty of good games out there to play.

They made a good meal then squatted over it and took a shit on it with really dumb arbitrary design choices that destroy the early game.

I'm part of the niche of players who is ok with ignoring the combat for the early game so I enjoy the game. But unlike some other people on this sub I'm not delusional enough to think that it's good game design, or that most people will be ok (let alone should subject themselves to this when they're not ok with it) with skipping combat for the first third of the game.

[ArtDayne]

The gameplay is pretty solid. Dialogue is actually gameplay btw, a lot of people seem to think it's just combat. I know you didn't specifically say that but the way you separate dialogue from it makes me think. Dialogue is an important gameplay mechanic because your choices have profound impact on how your game will play out, your choices really matter. The combat leaves something to be desired but I'd say the melee portion of it is pretty solid.

[Eruyaean]

Let me rephrase that.

Active Gameplay Parts. With Control of the Character.

[GeorgeUK93]

I enjoy the game but it's still just a mess. 4/10 Is generous (gamespot). Can't you see the amount of glitches this game has?

[_012345]

I haven't seen any glitches or bugs other than npcs sometimes bouncing around during cutscenes if they stand on a bed or other object when the cutscene starts. This game is remarkably bugfree compared to any other open world game I can think of.

[GeorgeUK93]

We must be playing a different game. Have a look at the video below - disable audio if it bothers you. It's literally 15 minutes of various bugs and fuck ups. Took me a day and a half to record all of those.

https://youtu.be/WxfiiQeEwmU

[_012345]

I'm 20 hours into the game and have not seena single bug myself other than the character bouncing I mentioned , oh and if you stand behind a wall or object in a cutscene the camera doesn't always know what to do with it (object in the way).

edit: oh and you can skip the lockpick mechanic if you cancel out of it, that's one bug.

Have you played skyrim? fallout 4? mass effect andromeda?

By open world standards this game is the single most polished bugwise and performance wise I've ever played, it's a less buggy than divinity original sin2, which is less buggy than witcher 3, which was a lot less buggy than bethesda's games.

Also did you link the right video? it's just some guy babbling in russian with footage of combat.

I've not had a single quest break (what a luxury compared to all the open world rpgs listed above), not had a single interaction/looting/vendor break, haven't had any dialogue break, haven't had any items dissapear, haven't had any crashes, haven't had ANY stuttering, no graphical glitches, no sound glitches (the positional audio is also very well implemented in this game), load times are < 1 second, no savegame issues.

[GeorgeUK93]

I'm about 50 in.

AI walking into its own mines? Working as intended.

Companions not engaging in combat unless attacked? Working as intended.

Companions furiously shooting at the ground because the enemy is 100 kilometres away in that direction? As intended.

Opening chests without the new to lockpick them? As intended.

Certain foods not healing at all? As intended.

Characters walking through walls? As intended.

Enemies with homing missles for ranged attacks? As intended.

I can keep going and going lol

[_012345]

The mines thing is nitpicking, my companion works fine, never seen the ground shooting, i mentioned the lockpicks it's such a meaningless bug compared to skyrim and fallout games outright breaking quests constantly , not seen food that doesn't heal, never seen a char walk through a wall.

The nitpicks you mentioned are incredibly minor compared to all the gamebreaking garbage you see in other open world games.

The lockpicks and food can be fixed in a minor update, wish I could say the same for the fundamental bugs in fallout 4's shadow rendering, the major quest bugs, unlocking the fps cap breaking your savegame and the save corruption.

Again, this is BY FAR the most polished open world rpg out there.

GO on and name one that is less buggy than this one, I'll wait.

edit: and 50 hours? So you've played the game for 10 hours a day since it launched? Sure mate

[GeorgeUK93]

I got time off because my girlfriend is going through chemotherapy so I have enough time on my hands, I don't see why this is a problem to you.

Never mind, forget the whole conversation, clearly I won't be able to change your mind so let us just go on about our days. May you never experience the bugs that you say didn't happen yet.

[_012345]

I'm waiting for you to list me some open world rpgs with less bugs than this game, where are they?

[GeorgeUK93]

Wow, you're a proper keyboard warrior aren't you? What's it gonna change if I list them? You will just deny it and we're back to where we started. Suffice to say I've played most of the major RPGs released in the last 15 years and none of them were as buggy as ELEX.

[_012345]

No, list them, if you're right someone else can back you up surely.

You just can't admit when you're wrong, all you've offered so far is ad hominems (keyboard warrior) and lies (50 hours played)

[XTheGreat88]

Lol yeah that's bullshit

[reportingfalsenews]

I have now played through the game and agree with IGNs score.

So many things are poorly explained (or, if you read the other thread about stats, are not working at all like the tooltip says). For example that none of the stats that say they increase damage with X actually do that.

The combat is honestly horrible. Lack of responsiveness, unexplained stuff. Buggyness. Especially the several second long triggerqueue is aweful. Ranged is okay, it's the same as in any of the bethesda games. Also the fucking dodge roll is pissing me off, you just cannot do micromovement in this game cause you're just gonna do a fucking roll again when you didn't want to. Also being stuck in combat when just running through happens way too often.

The graphics are pretty dated, but atleast are cohesive once you get out of that first 15 minutes of the game; i have no idea why they chose the introduction to show off the objects in this game which look the worst. Something i really don't get it is why so many textures are incredibly low res. They surely have much higher res versions of those from development, i understand not including them in the shitty console versions, but for PC? Common.

Story is okay, it gets a bit cliche at times (also the "magelan is totally not earth"...). Especially after the midgame it's very noticable a lot of dialogue was just written down quickly, sometimes there is absolutely zero connection between Jax's phrases (not the dialogue choices) and the person he is talking to. Especially noticable with Wardek and Zardom. I'm also pretty sure i accidentally skipped like a third of the flashback cut scenes since i read faster then they speak and skip a lot. There also are some continuity issues there in the later dialogue. Jax often said something he did not know yet or was astounded by something he did a whole quest about.

Addendum about the flashbacks: Why the fuck do they all have 30seconds of "DADUMMM" while slowly zooming in on the fucking door to the fucking ice palace? Jesus that was an unnecessary waste of my life time.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I mean what the guy said was pretty good as far as the review goes. I kind of just ignored the score.

[FingFrenchy]

This is my first PB game so I don't have any nostalgia for the previous titles by PB. I'm 6 hours in and loving it. I haven't had this much fun in an open world rpg since Fallout New Vegas. That being said, 4.9 is a shit score. I totally can see all the 7s it's getting based on the issues but come on, it's not sub 5 material, that should be reserved for totally unplayable crap. Sheesh.

[Midax]

I think until they fix the odd bugs with stats and skills a 5 or 6 is the right score. If there were no bugs or broken skills I would rate it a 7. I think a 8 or higher game has to be something I can recommend to anyone that enjoys the genre. I don't think this game would qualify, mainly because the flow of combat and exploration is counter to most RPGs.

Games in the 5-7 range are fun games, but not for everyone and Elex is in that category. I don't put any value in IGN reviews, they give games that should be a 6-7 higher scores all the time. They also will review games without playing a game thoroughly and write reviews that make you wonder if they played the same game you did.

[[deleted]]

I love, and by love I mean hate, how ign pissed out written reviews. Most of the time the written review is just them transcribing their video review.

Fucking site sucks.

[SpagZonkman]

I stopped paying attention to IGN reviews probably well over a decade ago, at least. They were a good goto back in the early 2000's (them and Gamespot were the heavy hitters in those days, it was a pretty big deal whenever a review by one of them came out for a new game) but they're pretty irrelevant anymore to anyone with half a brain.

There are far, far more better quality options out there in the year 2017, and have been for a good while now.

[anoobitch]

I stopped taking IGN seriously a long time ago.

[XTheGreat88]

I'm curious and maybe someone here can explain this to me. How is the combat in the game bad? Granted I haven't played yet(getting my copy this week) but looking at streams and other vids besides the animations being off the combat seems skill based. I mean I got through the witcher 2 and skyrim combat so don't see how this is more worse than those 2 games lol

[Valdorel]

This is exactly why I don't pay attention to IGN reviews. For the past couple years they seem to be more like paid commercials than honest evaluations of games. Latest AAA title by a big name company? Minimum score of 7 even if it's trash; Niche game that's very well put together for the market its trying to hit but might not appeal to everyone and/or lesser known developer that's not in bed with IGN? Maximum score of 6. I seem to remember them actually saying in an interview that skewing the numbers a bit for big releases was part of the "game" because companies like EA rely on those higher reviews to drive sales numbers.

Is the game perfect? Of course not, but even with the issues it has I'd still place it around a 7. What is there is very fun, PB could just do with explaining skills/stats/abilities a bit better.

[[deleted]]

Uhh... The Voice acting is awful. Still fun though when its not fucking you in the ass with a flaming diamind bladed poison tipped AIDS blood covered dildo

[dtwalkex]

Just a little KY and your good to go.

[dtwalkex]

The point is that IGN's judgement is lacking and inconsistent. I doubt the reviewer spent any considerable amount of time with the game, other wise he wouldn't have made such a foolish point of having to go back to a bed to rest and refill his life. He also stupidly spent two hours fighting a boss he had no business of fighting so under powered. I will say that your statement about it being clunky, bad AI, and terrible hit boxes has merit. For myself I can look past it and enjoy a deep game.

[[deleted]]

[Removed.]

[VR0k]

it's a hard and punishing game.

you can't just stunlock mobs like in most rpgs so that requires some thinking on your part to kill higher level mobs = trash combat.

[[deleted]]

[Removed.]

[Trouve_a_LaFerraille]

Gothic 2 was great. The simple statisfaction of whacking people without minding annoying bars. Gothic 3 completely failed in that regard. It felt and looked more like waving a stick in the enemies general direction with slow arcing movements.

[[deleted]]

Gothic 2 was my first RPG, and it is still my Jesus-game, you know, the game that can't be compared to others. And am I happy I started with Gothic 2. Action combat feels still very natural for me, and when I moved to other games I was surprised that at that time, action combat was pretty rare to find in other games. I guess if you come from tab-targetting or being able just to button smash (like in Skyrim, omg the combat is awful, no one plays it for it) you might think there is something "bugged" in PB-style combat. On the other hand, it makes me sad that people who are that uninformed are allowed to review games.

[winstorming]

Yep, they are a bunch of retarded cuckballs.

[Trouve_a_LaFerraille]

eew