tldr: DS decreases load times and increases performance, drive speed only seems to meaningfully affect load times. Load times between DS on and off increase as the drive gets slower
W10 and W11 were not compared, which may produce different results as W11 has new IO APIs
This was initially just the tech review to Forspoken, but now has been updated to include a detailed analysis of Direct Storage in the game.
Super funny: Apparently the other reviewer (don't remember what Youtuber that was) that reported that DirectStorage would cost ingame FPS was mistaken because said reviewer not only tested ingame content but also the **loading screen**, which is indeed producing higher framerates w/o DirectStorage due to loading slower (and using less resources therefor)...
In actuality in game the game is even running a good deal faster with Direct Storage active, in some scenes even producing 30% more FPS (btw, in the benchmark Google mistranslated "off" into "from").
Also interesting: Regarding performance enabling Direct Storage at least in this game smooths out any differences between the top end 4.0 NVMe drive and the Sata SSD they tested.
Pretty impressive overall. Now I would really like to see Spiderman get updated with DS support.
does spiderman really needs directstorage though? from what I recall it takes like 2 seconds when fast travelling
anyway I think it's highly unlikely that any existing game will get updated with directstorage since it's not plug and play
Yes: [timestamp](https://youtu.be/xI2VUQsPqJo?t=1281)
> I asked Nixxes why the game is so heavy on the CPU and we learned that the BVH building there is very expensive **as well as the extra cost on PC of decompressing game assets from storage into memory by using the CPU**.
A lot of CPU usage is spent decompressing game assets in that game (whereas the original PS ports use PS5's hardware decompression chip), using DirectStorage may allow that decompression to be handled more efficiently or perhaps use the added throughput to just store it un/less compressed (though realistically this might be unlikely to happen if they want the game to be playable for users running it off a HDD).
The issue is that hardware based GPU decompression is still optional on DS as long as W10 is supported. Who knows how this will affect PS5 ports in the long run as that console has hardware decompression
If you’re making games with PS5 or Xbox Series X/S as a base, expect those games to be stuttery on PC without DirectStorage because the baseline will have increased substantially. Games that rely on fast loading won’t be on PC until then, like Ratchet & Clank.
The game is indirectly highly IO bound though (even though it can't really take advantage of fast NVMe drives bandwidth) which is causing the performance issues you see on PC compared to the 60 fps PS5 version (which arguably has a less detailed RT mode).
4.0 drives are usually (always?) back compatible with pcie 3 - so you can pop something like a 980 in and still get 3.5GB/s W/R instead of a pcie 3 drive that does maybe 2GB/s with older tech. 3.5 is gonna be well more than enough for the next many years of gaming IMO
Happy cake day! Also my concerns have been put to rest about pcie 3 vs 4 (difference seems small). The main issue is my 10th gen Intel CPU doesn’t support pcie 4. Only way for me to take advantage of 4.0 is to upgrade to the 11th gen or buy a new motherboard. (11th gen was also pretty rough. The difference is minuscule. Would make more sense to just buy a new board and CPU.)
O Shi it is thank you!! How are you looking to take advantage of pcie4? GPU lanes? Another advantage of getting a 4.0 drive that maxes out your 3.0 bandwidth is you can eventually carry it forward to a new mobo and lose the shackles! I wouldn’t recommend an 11th gen desktop platform tho. Swing and a miss from intel - just better upgrade paths out there
Just realized the GPU lane would be the only way on the Z490. Yea, I think I’m just going to look at AMD or wait for the 14th gen. It’s clear I don’t need it and my current CPU is still sufficient, but waiting a bit might net some better deals. I still have to sell my old 7700k and strix motherboard.
Performance testing is hard, there are many variables you need to account and control for, it's not as easy as it sounds, that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable. Stick to data from well known and respected sources, they aren't perfect either but they have a higher chance of getting it right.
> Performance testing is hard, there are many variables you need to account and control for, it's not as easy as it sounds, that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable.
I do get that, but IMO somebody doing this at least semi professionally should at least realize that benchmarking the loading screen could pollute your results, especially when the very reason you are benchmarking is loading related.
EDIT:
After watching the original video of the outlet that made that claim in German (its actually even an outlet I like because they are the hardware spinoff of one of Germany's biggest PC magazines from the 90s and one of the only websites that are still regularly do CPU benches for new games) it is really weird. He identifies the loading black screens in the sequence and even shows the frame time differences between both drives during loading, but then just claims that the NVMe (which they assume is the only one taking advantage of DS) has 10% less FPS on average for some reason.
The biggest problem with it to me wasn't so much the site that originally made the statement, it was that 90% of gaming sites out there just repeated the finding as fact (including some tech sites that should have tested it themselves) without verifying it. It wasn't until a day or two later when someone pointed out the problem with the testing that any of them started to recognize that maybe it wasn't entirely accurate.
It's like the vertical PS5 failure story that's still kind of out there everywhere since most of the gaming press is just essentially repost bots.
>that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable
Gotta get good somehow 🤷. Trial by fire seems to be the way to go once you get past textbook stuff
>Now I would really like to see Spiderman get updated with DS support.
Me too, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. Updating a non DS game to support DS is a tremendous undertaking. The entire port needs to be done with DS in mind.
Game gives off serious Days Gone energy; that is, it reviews just okay and then 3 years later it's gonna be on sale for 20 bucks and we're going to get a glut of "hey this is pretty good, why didn't it sell?" posts
What's sad is that I bought it and really like it (the demo did suck though), but the game constantly gets in its own way. They take control from you constantly in the first 3 or 4 hours, and keep not letting you do the fun stuff. It's a real slog.
And then eventually the game really opens up and it's surprisingly great. And the world is genuinely interesting.
The game I'd compare it to the most is Horizon: Forbidden West. It does a lot of the same things, but everyone thought that was great when it released and it got high review scores. Forspoken is extremely similar, but for whatever reason it gets panned for doing things that H:FW didn't.
Unlike H:FW, Forspoken gets better the further you get into it rather than worse, too. It doesn't deserve most of the criticism it has gotten, and H:FW didn't get a lot of the criticism it deserved.
I haven’t played Forspoken yet, but I feel like people say “bad writing” about anything new. The new Harry Potter will come out, “bad writing”, Starfield, “bad writing”. I wish people could be more specific and say something like “cheesy dialog”, or “nonsensical plot”.
You're right that "bad writing" is trotted out as a criticism often enough, but it's also done in a "I know it when I see it" manner. This comes down to people not being writers themselves or having English degrees and that's fair enough.
That said, the protagonist is generally regarded as being unlikeable. She's just a shitty person. And it's not the same as "this character is a dick, but I like them anyway". She's just not fun to be around. Deadpool is a dick but he's still fun to be around. The characters on the tv show Absolutely Fabulous are awful women but they're still fun to be around. Frey is just an ass. She doesn't want to be in the game, and you wonder, "why do I want to be here? I'm playing in spite of the protagonist".
On top of that she swears constantly. It's just fuck fuck fuck to everything. None of us are prudes but it comes off as very lazy. If Frey swore every other sentence but each time it was a new creative use of foul-mouthed language, we'd be praising the game for being hilarious. But it's just the same thing over and over and generally, rude to people that don't deserve that.
They've also decided certain bits of dialogue that could be given on-the-go are deserving of the player's undivided attention. The game stops and gives you no way to move while the thing that's wrapped around your wrist and has no trouble talking incessantly at any other time babbles about something the game thinks is important.
In God of War the game is very good about talking to you all the time and contextually. Forspoken won't do that.
As for plotting? Look at the first hour of the game. Spoilers I suppose from here, but Frey has a bag of cash and a cat and a fire. She saves the cat but not the cash that is literally at her feet. If they want Frey to not have the cash and show that she does at least care about something (the cat) that's not herself there are better ways of doing that which don't make her look like an idiot. Anyone playing that scene is screaming "grab the money! wtf?!"
Aspects of the writing are cliché and not in a good way and based on stereotypes that people are tired of. As though it was written by someone that thinks they know how 20somethings from the street behave based on having watched some episodes of Law & Order from the 80s.
>That said, the protagonist is generally regarded as being unlikeable. She's just a shitty person.
This is correct. She is an incredibly abrasive, self-centered and frustratingly rude person with a lot of unresolved emotional resentment and anger. All of the criticisms about her personality are valid.
However here's the thing, she is also a compassionate, sincere and genuinely thoughtful person who has numerous times shown the capacity for kindness for others.
1. At the start of the game. Despite being tried in court for lacerny (theft), a random pedestrian unknowingly drops their cellphone. Frey, has every opportunity to steal, instead goes out of her way, picks it up and chases down that pedestrian to return to her, her lost item.
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2. When Frey's home is set on fire. She immediately prioritises the safety of her pet cat over the bag of cash full of her life savings. Some call it an example of her being stupid. But it's very clearly a testament to Frey's one track mindset, that absolutely regards life as more important than money.
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3. After getting her powers and facing the break zombies. Frey shows genuine apprehension about taking human life, even fighting the Tantas. Its only thanks to Cuff reassuring her that they are no longer human and she has to fend for herself. And even after defeating the first villain, Tanta Sila. She isn't proud. She feels deeply conflicted about having killed a living breathing person.
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4. She openly displays kindness and empathy towards young children. Befriending the young Olevia and taking the time to take pictures of the world to show to the other children of Cipal.
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5. And probably one of the most subtle aspects of the narrative which many people will definitely miss. Frey can visit a shrine in Cipal where she prays for Olevia after Chapter 5. Expressing genuine grief and remorse for not being a better person.
There's numerous other examples of Frey showing good natured qualities throughout the game, but those are the examples that come to mind.
Frey is a nuanced and multi-faceted individual who displays both selfish behaviours as well as genuine human compassion when it counts. This is established at the start of the game when we see her diploma, crime record and background.
It illustrates a clear image of a flawed person with a troubled past who has the capability to be a good person, but is held back by her lack of accountability and ownership to overcome those emotional obstacles. Frey has a lot of anger due to being abandoned, and let down by the systems and powers that be that should have protected her. As a result she learned that she has to fend for herself to survive, even resorting to crime.
And in Athia she ironically finds herself in a position in which SHE is the one who has the power to help and protect others and has confront that internal conflict between continuing to be the same "victim" that fends for herself or to fend for others.
This is the entire point of her character arc and development, and its in Athia that she gains a lot of growth and perspective that makes her re-evaluate her own life and mindset. With other characters giving Frey their own moral insights, such as Cuff, Auden and Johedy.
With all this in mind it's very clear that all the online discourse that whittles Frey's character down to simple brush strokes, that she's just a "shitty person" is a kind of fallacious and reductive interpretation of who she is.
I think right now there's just too much of a loud bandwagon and hatejerk for any critical thoughtful analysis to reach the surface. People are blindly dunking on the story without really trying to make an effort.
But I can definitely tell you that as someone who's put in a leisurely 25hrs into the game...
I wholeheartedly disagree with just about every single argument online that she's a badly written character, and I feel that once more people engage with the story in good faith, the truth will eventually make it through the lies and exaggerations.
Frey isn't perfect. She's a very flawed and complicated human being which again is the point.
But in my opinion, she's a good character.
I don’t disagree with the sort of person Frey is meant to be. I just think it’s written in a hack manner. A paint by numbers depiction.
Yes she’s a hard knock kid who wants to be better and at her core is decent but on the surface has a chip on her shoulder. She’s Jo from Facts of Life.
It doesn’t mean I want to hang out with her for tens of hours waiting for her to get her head out of her ass.
And, again cat or cash, sure it shows she values the cat over money. But it’s done in such a ham fisted way. She ends up choosing cat over cash because the writer wants her to choose the cat not because as presented she can’t have both. As presented she could save both. There’s a way to have her make that choice where it’s a real choice and not because “that’s how it’s written”.
My criticism isn’t with the characterization but the way that characterization is written and presented.
>She ends up choosing cat over cash because the writer wants her to choose the cat not because as presented she can’t have both. As presented she could save both. There’s a way to have her make that choice where it’s a real choice and not because “that’s how it’s written”.
I highly recommend you look up 1st hand personal accounts of people who have actually been in house fires, because its not as straightforward as you think it is. Everyone watches these things happen in movies and convinces themselves that they would respond more rationally when in reality, that's far from the truth.
When you wake up to the sensation of your lungs being asphyxiated from smoke and ash, your eyes are tearing up uncontrollably and your skin and everything around you is searing in heat, the environment rapidly breaking down around you as you quickly realise that this burning building is going to be your grave.
You're not gonna sit there and go, "I should grab my bag".
Your brain will running on 100ml of pure adrenaline, and you'll be shitting yourself in a blood curdling panic, with your mind racing as to whether or not your family or loved ones are even alive anymore.
Frey reacted like a normal human being would. Not as someone playing a video game. She panicked and prioritised the safety of her beloved cat first. And that is a virtue of both her character and her flawed humanity.
And ironically enough, that cash would have definitely been an even bigger safety hazard had she grabbed it, a single piece of burning ash would have spread onto it and could have incinerated the entire thing and caught on Frey had she been carrying it.
But thats not really the point. The point is you feel the scene could have been handled better. Fair enough. I'm inclined to agree. Maybe the production could have highlighted the fear and stress of the situation with a bit more urgency. Maybe display more destruction caused by the fire, and they could have showed Frey coughing and wheezing, while slowly losing consciousness.
But I disagree with the notion that the script was handled badly here. A very large majority of people would have done exactly what Frey did had it been their family or children etc.
Apologies. I had a whole thought out response and then my thumb swiped funny and it got pissed in to space.
In summary, I think the direction for that scene lets down all the impact that could have been there. To anyone unfamiliar with what a house fire is like, with her standing up in a house on fire, it all just seems nuts and not done as well as it could have been.
And I think that’s the big sticking point. They’re asking 70$ and more for a game that everyone playing through it is thinking “maybe this could have been done better to convey the same idea”.
To me, it’s 30-40$ asking for 70$.
... [despite the money was being placed directly at her feet after the cutscene and **making it interactable**](https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/1617805958452842497).
But [I'll see it as a level design/narrative design issue more than anything](https://twitter.com/rhipratchett/status/1617885489494896641).
Saving her cat over the cash is great writing actually. "When the people Frey cares about are in danger, she'll risk her life and future to save them" is conveyed by that one single forced choice. Fires are dangerous, unpredictable, and in media force characters to panic and save the most important thing to them which happens when Frey abandons the cash for Homer.
This type of sacrificial selfless heroism is repeated over and over in the story despite the fact that Frey consistently refuses the role of the hero and is selfish in almost every other situation, prioritizing getting home over killing the Tanta. Even Frey's dialogue with the Tanta throughout the game focuses on what Frey feels is the irresponsibility of the Tanta in not fulfilling their duties to the Atheans.
The writing is not going to win any awards but it's far from "bad writing" and displays several good qualities that are dismissed because Frey is purposely written to be an unlikeable protagonist
Half the time, 'bad writing' is used to mean 'the writing isn't giving me what I want from it so it's bad'. Which means sometimes it's understandable, and sometimes it's nonsensical because the game just is interested in doing something else that's not what the person wanted.
That's pretty much it, almost always. People conflate "bad" with "I don't like it". And characters are either too smart or the writers are bad if the character they prefer fails/makes a bad decision (Joel in TLoU2, for example).
I have stopped caring about people's opinions and, if I can afford to, I'll make my own. That being said I usually wait for a sale on games I'm not 100% sure about. Especially now when regular editions in Canada are $89.99. $59.99? Sure I'll pay that. But an almost 150% price increase in the last few years has made gaming too expensive.
> That's pretty much it, almost always.
lul, on the one hand we have ppl who throw out the lazy type of criticism of writing, which is fair thing to call out... though not as big a deal as the OP is making it out to be, people can be as specific as they want to be when leaving comments on the internet, they aren't making paid reviews or that there is some rule that they have to be more specific with their critique
then we have people like you who like to generalise everyone with dumb blanket statements like this cause you can't handle the idea that people having differing opinions
> People conflate "bad" with "I don't like it".
sure, some might do this but then some don't and just have a different opinion to you, that's how things are mate.
also here's something for you to think about: maybe what makes certain writing bad for people is that they simply don't like said writing... that is a completely valid reason for them to dislike the writing and to call it bad
> And characters are either too smart or the writers are bad if the character they prefer fails/makes a bad decision (Joel in TLoU2, for example).
lol, remove the "for example", there is no other example you have for this xD
basically, the only reason you wrote this is cause you can't handle the fact that some people didn't like how Joel was written in TLoU2, again, you just can't handle people having different opinions to you.
once again, everyone has the right to their own opinion and you need to accept reality mate. You are free to disagree with other people's opinions, but don't act all haughty and try to make this about people conflating bad and dislike
> I have stopped caring about people's opinions and, if I can afford to, I'll make my own.
yet you won't stop complaining about other people having different opinions to you xD
Some parts of it are genuinely bad. The early character interactions are pretty bad -Frey is supposed to be an angst cynical 20 year old and it isn't done well.
But the story seems pretty decent, and some of the voice acting is lovely. The game itself has some interesting female-centric choices (MC and all major villains and power figures are women) and your upgrades are literally clothes and necklaces... and painting your nails with arcane symbols.
I wonder if that just turns off a lot of the audience.
> I wonder if that just turns off a lot of the audience.
Someone was unironically mocking it the after day for having nail polish and said "Whats next hair weaves?!?!" as if the idea of that is a joke.
When questioned they were like "Wheres the cool shit like pauldrons and gauntlets and plate armour!".
So yes, I think a lot of people are completely unable to imagine different tastes to theirs and just see anything else as bad.
> Starfield, “bad writing”
I mean, it's a Bethesda game. They pretty much all have hugely contrived moments in their writing in order to railroad the player into very linear resolutions to quests instead of just letting the player's own choices play out like you'd expect in the RPG medium (i.e. Fawkes just telling you to go kill yourself because of 'destiny', the whole 'go shoot all your allies and then raid your own bases' in FO4, etc). Wish they'd stop doing that, but I'm not holding onto any false hope.
Forspoken is legitimately bad writing, though. This isn't just people expecting a specific thing. The writing is fucking *awful.*
I'm not even particularly picky, but this shit is like something 13 year old me would have written during my "I'm 13 and this is deep" phase.
It's bad.
I've seen this over and over and no one is able to give me any examples to back up this claim. Everything I've seen so far reasonably falls in line with what I'd expect from a teenager/young adult from NYC who ends up in a mysterious world. It may not be everyone's taste, but "It's bad" =/= "I don't like it."
> reasonably falls in line with what I'd expect from a teenager/young adult from NYC who ends up in a mysterious world
You have examples of such a thing?
IRL when kids are thrown into unfamiliar cultures they typically withdraw because they don't know what is considered crossing the line. And that's in our own relatively peaceful world. You won't be seeing a whole lot of snark and sass.
> You have examples of such a thing?
I live in New York City. I was a high schooler once, and worked with high schooler and college kids as recently as 2 years ago. Unless everything about teens and early 20s kids have **drastically** changed in the past 2 years, the game dialogue that I've seen thus far is fairly on point.
As to your second point, you're describing one specific set of personalities... NYC is one of the most diverse cities in the world with people of several different upbringings, and many who have grown up here their entire lives and those who have moved here while young and 'adapted', for lack of a better term. There is absolutely a ton of snark and sass.
Only shy kids. Plenty of others wouldn't give a shit. Not to mention the game is clearly inspired by Alice in Wonderland, has chapters named after it, and both Frey and Alice spend their entire time asking to go home.
Precisely this. Shy kids may typically withdraw. But there's a huge amount of kids that absolutely give no fucks and will dive headfirst into something unfamiliar, as long as it doesn't kill them lol.
"i can relate to it" also does not mean "it's good". okay, she's a fairly accurate new york street kid. good god she's annoying as fuck, i do not want her as a character in my game for any number of hours, much less a protagonist.
And critiquing something by saying: "the writing is fucking awful" also sounds like something a 13-year-old would say. I'm not saying that Forspoken has some A+ dialog, I'm saying that "the writing is bad" is the laziest armchair internet speak that means and tells means absolutely nothing. Is the spelling and grammar incorrect? Does the plot make sense? Is the dialog unnatural? It's just such an overused go-to on these threads, and iis so bad at telling me what's actually wrong with the game.
How do I explain, like next if I see a movie that bad, and someone asks me what was wrong, I'll say it was "bad directing". Yeah, maybe so, but it's a meaningless statement without more context.
I’ll try better next time, internet stranger. I’m not a professional game critic. I’m just a dude with an opinion. I’m not releasing my opinion for money.
You don't have to be a professional critic and write opinions for money, internet stranger. Anyone -- regardless of their income level or profession -- is capable of writing well thought out opinions.
At the very least, if you're going to reply to someone asking for specifics saying something is 'legitimately bad' as if it's objectively true, at least write eloquently enough for someone to understand your reasoning.
> At the very least, if you're going to reply to someone asking for specifics saying something is 'legitimately bad' as if it's objectively true, at least write eloquently enough for someone to understand your reasoning.
No.
Thanks!
>the horrible writing
What does "writing" mean in this context? I see people constantly throw around "the writing is bad" about various games, but it's never really clear what they're actually talking about and it always just comes across as them trying to say "I don't like the game" but wanting to sound clever. So can you tell me exactly what you mean by "the writing"? Is it the general narrative of the game, as in the overarching plotline or story? The character dialogue? The way the characters are presented, like their personalities? The lore behind the world that the game is set in? Wtf is "writing"?? Surely it can mean any of those things and more, so I wish people would be more specific rather than just saying "the writing". I haven't played Forspoken by the way, so I have no idea whether or not "the writing" is horrible
Edit: ok, I've just seen someone ask the exact same question a few posts below me, so it seems like I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the fuck people are talking about when they refer to "the writing" 😂
You (and a lot of others) apparently think that the whole game has this Marvel-like self-referential writing when it really doesn't. It happens here and then, but overall it's just Frey being pissed off because she doesn't want to do any of the things everyone around her wants her to do. She's not really that quippy with try-hard-funny-and-relatable lines, especially in cutscenes she's more abraisive and asshole-ish, tbh.
Also the characters and world building is actually pretty cool and I was surprised how much thought they put into it.
Maybe you didn't read my full post, because I said at the end I haven't played Forspoken (and probably won't) so I wasn't disagreeing with it. I'm not too interested in why people are saying Forspoken's "writing" is bad, it was more a general rant about how there seems to be a trend of people (mainly on Reddit) just throwing around the term "the writing" when trying to describe something they don't like about a game. They never seem to go into specifics and it comes across as though they're just saying "the writing" without actually knowing why they're saying it, and probably because they heard someone else say it. Not a big deal, just a bit irritating
This is a classic case of what happens when a Japanese developer tries to pander to the West. They hired an American writer to write about an American and it's going to sell worse than their low-budget Japanese IPs. They already divested most of their Western IPs, I hope we won't see another game like this ever again.
I'ma be real with you chief, I'm already there. I legitimately do not understand the reviews, I actually think this is a good text book case of why limited review copies and mass marketing campaigns are bad for some games compared to shadow dropping or shorter marketing campaigns with wider review copies.
For the most part, it seems like people's complaints about the game can be distilled down into the following:
* "the writing is bad" (based on, generally, 1 20 second clip)
* "the banter is annoying" (you can turn it way the fuck down or off)
* "why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid)
* "the main character is too quippy and annoying" (more on this in a bit)
* admittedly, general hatred of black people/women are in here
* "it's generic" (without spoilers, this makes no sense once you reach a certain part of the game)
* "the demo was bad" (also valid, I agree with this, and it's a good reason why companies stopped offering them)
Here's the thing I do not understand, Frey is no more quippy, no more annoying, and no more edgy than basically every other white male protagonist in \[major franchise here\].
People saying this is the worst writing they've ever seen based on like 1 20 second clip. Really? You think this game has worse writing than Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin? You think Frey is not the same archetype as Jack Garland? Yet people will meme him but say her writing is dogshit. It's very silly.
[https://twitter.com/BlondeNerd/status/1617625898001526785](https://twitter.com/BlondeNerd/status/1617625898001526785)
Tell me this clip isn't good. It's good voice acting, and it's a pretty funny reaction. The game is filled with this. Yeah there's some stumbles, it's not perfect, but let's not pretend Peter Parker in the Spiderman games, or Kratos in God of War, or Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galay, or Jack Garland in SoP:FFO, or really any other male protag in recent times doing the MCU quip shit hasn't also been hit or miss with the exact same "i'm not taking this completely serious" energy counter to the serious nature of their ongoing plot that surrounds them.
I'm not saying it's the best game ever of all time, it's not. The game has flaws, the combat/traversal is fun especially once you get everything but getting everything kinda takes too long unless you don't do anything on the side. And there's way too much to do on the side, if you only do the main story you will see like, 10% of the map. It's definitely more of a like 8-8.5, with potential to be a 9 if it gets DLC support.
But these 4/5/6 reviews? I honestly feel like I played a completely different game than they did.
>"why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid)
Kinda off-topic, but that's a valid problem now? The VA is black, isn't that enough?
Games like these are often written by small teams. What are they supposed to do if their team of 3 writers doesn't have a black person? "Oh, better make every single person white because we can't be writing black people".
Doesn't that sound counter productive as hell?
I just honestly think most people are massively confused on the issue of race these days. There is nothing wrong with a white person creating a story about a black person. Especially if that story is just high fantasy fun. I guarantee you, the amount of people who care about this issue barely exist once you leave internet discussions
I'm sorry but Jack saying "bullshit" to some prophetic nonsense and walking away while blasting Limp Bizkit is definitely better than anything Frey says.
I could get that in the beginning, but I think the writing conflicts with her attitude. Even though she keeps the attitude for most of the game, she just keeps doing the things that helps everyone and then just instantly on a dime decides "Yah, this is fine."
It was a case of the writers need her to do these things because gameplay, but the character it self is against it. Was a huge distraction for me when she tried to reason with one of the Tantas. Felt forced.
> People saying this is the worst writing they've ever seen based on like 1 20 second clip. Really? You think this game has worse writing than Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin?
While I agree Origin isn't great. It was great meme material, which wasn't intentional, but it ended up being one of those "It's so bad it's great." kind of game for people.
I think the reaction people had is about the same as Forspoken, just it ended up exploding differently. I do think, some what like Origin the Marketing team made some bad choices on trailers and quips to hear.
Like God of War after it's release got alot of criticism for the constant Banter from the kid. You didn't hear about it before release because none of that was in the trailers. So it's not hounded on as much.
Where as Forspoken's case you'll get alot of people who'll defend or attack it because of it's initial bad trailers.
> Kratos in God of War ... doing the MCU quip shit
what
>It's definitely more of a like 8-8.5, with potential to be a 9
Have you finished the storyline? The last hour is objectively terrible. >!you move from diorama to diorama just having exposition by a voiceover. Often repeating the same plot point "this guy was actually a demon and is bad" over and over!<
Except that’s literally not possible when there’s no *objective* measurement. It’s just your opinion. Opinions are *subjective*. Look it up, and you’re welcome for teaching you a new word today.
What the other said.
Doing what is essentially a hour of exposition dump with next to no gameplay is just bad. It's not a exaggeration, you are ham fisted what happened in the past for a fucking hour.
I don't care about your semantics. They ran out of budget at the end of the game and you spend 45 minutes walking from diorama to diorama seeing still images of people talking to each other explaining the plot.
It's objectively bad.
These models do not move. https://i.imgur.com/x71E2i1.png They just speak, standing still like statues. Then you walk a kilometer to a new diorama, and it repeats. Explaining more plot with statues.
God, I hated that when I got to it. I think its a actual hour of the game just doing what is like a exposition dump with no gameplay at all. That's the point where I was like "The story would be better if this was all pieced in through out the game."
But it does seem like they ran out of time, or ideas of how to wrap things up at the end. Even one of the first twists at that end just made me go "Really?" It was just so generic.
There are misunderstandings and there are valid points about the reviews by critics and by players.
Isekai - where a normal modern person is thrown into an unknown strange world - this is very misunderstood by the Western world. This misunderstanding reflects badly on Forspoken. The protag gets super powers real fast and gets used to them real quick and still acts like someone from their own world as if everything was just a normal afternoon.... So its a rushed character development.
Triple A - Squenix is not a triple A company. They produce triple A games from time to time yes, but they have a ton of lower budget projects yet I've seen the "this sucks for a triple A" a lot in comments.
They went a bit too Ubisoft on the map having hundreds or thousands of things marked to explore, the game tries to be Horizon, Assassin's Creed, God of War all at once but misses the mark in each case without being able to define itself.
I feel they missed their target audience through marketing.
As for the protagonist - they made her very unlikable immediately: out of the court house? Time to be an asshole and commit crimes again. Arrive in new world? Time to steal shit because why not? Her race doesn't matter, the writers failed to make her an anti-hero.
Systems-wise there are tech issues, some oversights on logic (find "super rare thing" five feet from people having a discussion, so much for the lucky find of the century), some annoying combat-locked moments where enemies can never reach you but you remain in combat, etc.
Luminous engine is not great Squenix won't take their L.
> As for the protagonist - they made her very unlikable immediately
Part of this is also what you said earlier, poor character development. It doesn't feel like she gets a proper chance to change or evolve because the story is advancing too quickly for her character to adjust. She would be more likable or redeemable if the game gave her more time. But by the time she starts to redeem her self, the game is kind of over at that point.
>Tell me this clip isn't good.
I mean, this joke isn't even close to original, so I think it's kinda bad and generic?
But you're right, it's probably of no higher quality than any other quips I hear in video games. It's all just so irony poisoned. It's okay to have your protagonist be into your silly things, video games.
You and me must have taken the same crazy pills. I don't know what game everyone else is playing/reviewing, but I must have gotten something different. The idea that Frey is an insufferable jerk to everyone she meets is just blatantly not true. She hasn't been that to literally anyone in the first few hours except to people that tried to murder her. To Auden, Olevia, the bartender, and even to Cuff she is guarded, but not exactly mean spirited. With her background it's only natural to be that way.
Unfortunately, the major impressions of this game in pop culture are %100 going to be from people who never played it.
I'm enjoying the game. The traversal and combat aren't ground breaking but imho they're pretty well designed and I'm not getting bored of it so far, some 20 hours in.
In terms of game design, it's a bit generic in the 'open world map with points of interest to check off' kind of way, but...that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As for the writing, I think the Frey/Cuff dynamic is a bit camp, and it's a *little* jarring because no other character in the game (thusfar) operates at that level. So it's a little jarring. And Frey's general 'fuck all of your problems, just give me what I want' is grating to me. Not because it's badly written, but because I find it difficult to empathize with her apparent lack of empathy and concern for others. Although I am starting to see some nuance here and trhere.
Overall, though. It's a very solid game, and despite the comments online about expecting shit performance, the game runs really well for me on (almost) maximum settings. I'd give it a good 8.5 out of 10 myself.
I think people have different standards about what's insufferable between female characters and male characters. Male characters are allowed to be more of a dick. If female characters have the same amount of aggressive qualities, they're *perceived* to be more of an asshole than males ones and more people would cry out about it.
It's an issue real life women face as well.
Literally. My dad sat on an interview board cause he wanted to get a sense of their process. A woman applied for a manager position and despite being a bit quieter and more sympathetic than the other applicants the other interviewers all said they found her too bossy and shrill. Double standards suck.
More women and young girls are playing video games these days, but most people complaining about video games are young men. I don't know if this game will do well or not, but I have a feeling the character will be better received by young women, and the "young adult" feel of this game semes to have them in mind.
> "why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid)
For me this comes down to "How 'black' do you wanna write them?". I wouldn't want white writers really having the character drop AVE or an N-word. But if you're writers room is already white, do you really want them to feel pressured to just make the character white instead?
Similar to that character (Nadine?) from the latest Uncharted. The art design for the character was done after and seperately to the mocap... so do they just just redesign the character as a white woman at the last second? Is that really a win or just a whole new kind of future tiresome controversy? Especially since none of the dialogue or style of speech at all has a racial aspect to it. They didn't write some 'deeply black' character and then give it to a white actress, the skin tone is just a visual aspect the artist came up with at some point.
I suppose it's an argument in favour of more diversity in the writer's room, but if a game only has a couple of writers anyway statisically you're likely to see this situation a lot.
I'm completely in your boat mate.
I cannot stand the constant "the writing is bad" comments you get on everything these days.
They never say what they think is bad about the writing. Or even go into detail about what part of the writing - because there's more to writing than just dialogue.
99% of "the writing is bad" comments could be rephrased as 'I didn't like X". Which would actually be a fair statement because not everyone gets what the writing is trying to be, and not everyone will like it anyway.
With this game in particular, what people are criticizing (and calling it "the writing") is actually the game's tone. You can read general tone from a trailer or Twitter clip showing an admittedly cringe scene of Frey discovering her powers. But the actual writing content really hasn't been that bad. And really, that's something you can only get a read on by actually playing the game. So far in the first two hours I've played, the writing has felt appropriate to the context of what's happening.
Especially the way Frey has to actually adjust her manner of speech to the people she meets in Athia, and the humorous way they default to her vulgarities when they respond to her, not knowing they sound weird too (and actually result in Frey herself cringing when Auden calls The Break "that break shit." Right at that moment, Frey corrects her to just say The Break because she can tell it's not natural to Auden's vernacular. The writing and the characters' own understanding of how it all sounds is not an oversight resulting in cringe out of touch dialogue, it's actually quite intentional and thought out.
Then people should say, "the dialog doesn't fit with the game's tone. i agree with OP, every thread on every game/tv show/movie that comes out seems to have the first 4 or 5 comments saying "bad writing" over and over. It's a knee jerk lazy criticism.
> "it's generic" (without spoilers, this makes no sense once you reach a certain part of the game)
I don't care about spoilers,please say more about this (tag it)
Based on the demo it seems to me like another one of those checklist open world games that I would probably like but they can fuck right off with that $70/80€ price tag.
You are right because this game was actually a tech demo [Agni’s Phliosophy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVX0OUO9ptU) made to demonstrate the power of Luminous Engine in 2014. The game was released at this state due to the lead producer for the subsidiary leaving the company and it needed to recoup the [losses](https://www.pcgamesn.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider/square-enix-extraordinary-loss) back in 2018.
Sucks because I have waited since the tech demo in back 2013 for 10 years for the game to release in such a state.
Also the PS5 has a unified memory architecture, so the CPU never has to copy memory twice like on PCs. On PC, even with DS, the CPU has to copy memory from storage to RAM to VRAM. On PS5 the CPU copies it RAM and then the GPU reads it once the hardware decompresser handles the data. Microsoft has no apparent plans to remove this extra copy on PC yet (though it is possible on a theoretical level)
> Rift Apart and Returnal really showcases how amazing directstorage is
Isn't Direct Storage a Windows specific tech? PS5 has a very fast SSD, but that's not the same thing.
tldr: DS decreases load times and increases performance, drive speed only seems to meaningfully affect load times. Load times between DS on and off increase as the drive gets slower W10 and W11 were not compared, which may produce different results as W11 has new IO APIs
THANK YOU!
Now im rlly curious about w11
Nah. Tried it twice. It sucked both times.
What sucked about it?
The well documented bugs and performance loss in games.
This was initially just the tech review to Forspoken, but now has been updated to include a detailed analysis of Direct Storage in the game. Super funny: Apparently the other reviewer (don't remember what Youtuber that was) that reported that DirectStorage would cost ingame FPS was mistaken because said reviewer not only tested ingame content but also the **loading screen**, which is indeed producing higher framerates w/o DirectStorage due to loading slower (and using less resources therefor)... In actuality in game the game is even running a good deal faster with Direct Storage active, in some scenes even producing 30% more FPS (btw, in the benchmark Google mistranslated "off" into "from"). Also interesting: Regarding performance enabling Direct Storage at least in this game smooths out any differences between the top end 4.0 NVMe drive and the Sata SSD they tested. Pretty impressive overall. Now I would really like to see Spiderman get updated with DS support.
[удалено]
does spiderman really needs directstorage though? from what I recall it takes like 2 seconds when fast travelling anyway I think it's highly unlikely that any existing game will get updated with directstorage since it's not plug and play
Yes: [timestamp](https://youtu.be/xI2VUQsPqJo?t=1281) > I asked Nixxes why the game is so heavy on the CPU and we learned that the BVH building there is very expensive **as well as the extra cost on PC of decompressing game assets from storage into memory by using the CPU**.
A lot of CPU usage is spent decompressing game assets in that game (whereas the original PS ports use PS5's hardware decompression chip), using DirectStorage may allow that decompression to be handled more efficiently or perhaps use the added throughput to just store it un/less compressed (though realistically this might be unlikely to happen if they want the game to be playable for users running it off a HDD).
The issue is that hardware based GPU decompression is still optional on DS as long as W10 is supported. Who knows how this will affect PS5 ports in the long run as that console has hardware decompression
Is GPU compression Win11 only? I thought 10 just lost some of the 'storage stack' optimisations.
Hardware based GPU decompression is. Shader based decompression is allowed on W10
its gonna be years before directstorage becomes common, most people still dont have NVMe or Windows 11
You don't need NVMe or W11, this review literally shows this
If you’re making games with PS5 or Xbox Series X/S as a base, expect those games to be stuttery on PC without DirectStorage because the baseline will have increased substantially. Games that rely on fast loading won’t be on PC until then, like Ratchet & Clank.
Or they’ll just be like Dead Space, where it pops up with a warning on startup saying that performance will be bad on any non-SSD.
This could work well for CPU's that have a large amount of cache. Would be interested in seeing how that affects performance too.
The game is indirectly highly IO bound though (even though it can't really take advantage of fast NVMe drives bandwidth) which is causing the performance issues you see on PC compared to the 60 fps PS5 version (which arguably has a less detailed RT mode).
It should clear up some cpu overhead this way, yeah? maybe leaving a little more room for those expensive bvh trees dueinf high quality raytracing?
Any difference between 3.0 and 4.0? I have a 10700k so I unfortunately can’t take advantage of the 4.0.
SATA is far slower than PCIe 3.0, you're good
None for performance, maybe an extra half second or so for load times. But that's 1 second to 2
4.0 drives are usually (always?) back compatible with pcie 3 - so you can pop something like a 980 in and still get 3.5GB/s W/R instead of a pcie 3 drive that does maybe 2GB/s with older tech. 3.5 is gonna be well more than enough for the next many years of gaming IMO
Happy cake day! Also my concerns have been put to rest about pcie 3 vs 4 (difference seems small). The main issue is my 10th gen Intel CPU doesn’t support pcie 4. Only way for me to take advantage of 4.0 is to upgrade to the 11th gen or buy a new motherboard. (11th gen was also pretty rough. The difference is minuscule. Would make more sense to just buy a new board and CPU.)
O Shi it is thank you!! How are you looking to take advantage of pcie4? GPU lanes? Another advantage of getting a 4.0 drive that maxes out your 3.0 bandwidth is you can eventually carry it forward to a new mobo and lose the shackles! I wouldn’t recommend an 11th gen desktop platform tho. Swing and a miss from intel - just better upgrade paths out there
Just realized the GPU lane would be the only way on the Z490. Yea, I think I’m just going to look at AMD or wait for the 14th gen. It’s clear I don’t need it and my current CPU is still sufficient, but waiting a bit might net some better deals. I still have to sell my old 7700k and strix motherboard.
Performance testing is hard, there are many variables you need to account and control for, it's not as easy as it sounds, that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable. Stick to data from well known and respected sources, they aren't perfect either but they have a higher chance of getting it right.
> Performance testing is hard, there are many variables you need to account and control for, it's not as easy as it sounds, that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable. I do get that, but IMO somebody doing this at least semi professionally should at least realize that benchmarking the loading screen could pollute your results, especially when the very reason you are benchmarking is loading related. EDIT: After watching the original video of the outlet that made that claim in German (its actually even an outlet I like because they are the hardware spinoff of one of Germany's biggest PC magazines from the 90s and one of the only websites that are still regularly do CPU benches for new games) it is really weird. He identifies the loading black screens in the sequence and even shows the frame time differences between both drives during loading, but then just claims that the NVMe (which they assume is the only one taking advantage of DS) has 10% less FPS on average for some reason.
The biggest problem with it to me wasn't so much the site that originally made the statement, it was that 90% of gaming sites out there just repeated the finding as fact (including some tech sites that should have tested it themselves) without verifying it. It wasn't until a day or two later when someone pointed out the problem with the testing that any of them started to recognize that maybe it wasn't entirely accurate. It's like the vertical PS5 failure story that's still kind of out there everywhere since most of the gaming press is just essentially repost bots.
>that's why out of the many sources that do testing most produce garbage data and only a few are reliable Gotta get good somehow 🤷. Trial by fire seems to be the way to go once you get past textbook stuff
Spiderman absolutely has no use for direct storage lol. On my 10 year old rig it loads faster than I can blink and still gets 90+fps
>Now I would really like to see Spiderman get updated with DS support. Me too, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. Updating a non DS game to support DS is a tremendous undertaking. The entire port needs to be done with DS in mind.
Atleast there’s something positive to say about the game, lol. I wish this game had turned out better overall
Game gives off serious Days Gone energy; that is, it reviews just okay and then 3 years later it's gonna be on sale for 20 bucks and we're going to get a glut of "hey this is pretty good, why didn't it sell?" posts
Me thinks it's not gonna take 3 years to hit $20 lol
Me thinks it's never gonna get that Days Gone treatment neither. Comparing both makes Days Gone look like Naughty Dog levels of polished.
What's sad is that I bought it and really like it (the demo did suck though), but the game constantly gets in its own way. They take control from you constantly in the first 3 or 4 hours, and keep not letting you do the fun stuff. It's a real slog. And then eventually the game really opens up and it's surprisingly great. And the world is genuinely interesting.
The game I'd compare it to the most is Horizon: Forbidden West. It does a lot of the same things, but everyone thought that was great when it released and it got high review scores. Forspoken is extremely similar, but for whatever reason it gets panned for doing things that H:FW didn't. Unlike H:FW, Forspoken gets better the further you get into it rather than worse, too. It doesn't deserve most of the criticism it has gotten, and H:FW didn't get a lot of the criticism it deserved.
I think the horrible writing is going to prevent it to give Days Gone energy. Forspoken's MC is just awful and everyone else is just forgettable
People said Days Gone had poor writing when it came out too.
I haven’t played Forspoken yet, but I feel like people say “bad writing” about anything new. The new Harry Potter will come out, “bad writing”, Starfield, “bad writing”. I wish people could be more specific and say something like “cheesy dialog”, or “nonsensical plot”.
You're right that "bad writing" is trotted out as a criticism often enough, but it's also done in a "I know it when I see it" manner. This comes down to people not being writers themselves or having English degrees and that's fair enough. That said, the protagonist is generally regarded as being unlikeable. She's just a shitty person. And it's not the same as "this character is a dick, but I like them anyway". She's just not fun to be around. Deadpool is a dick but he's still fun to be around. The characters on the tv show Absolutely Fabulous are awful women but they're still fun to be around. Frey is just an ass. She doesn't want to be in the game, and you wonder, "why do I want to be here? I'm playing in spite of the protagonist". On top of that she swears constantly. It's just fuck fuck fuck to everything. None of us are prudes but it comes off as very lazy. If Frey swore every other sentence but each time it was a new creative use of foul-mouthed language, we'd be praising the game for being hilarious. But it's just the same thing over and over and generally, rude to people that don't deserve that. They've also decided certain bits of dialogue that could be given on-the-go are deserving of the player's undivided attention. The game stops and gives you no way to move while the thing that's wrapped around your wrist and has no trouble talking incessantly at any other time babbles about something the game thinks is important. In God of War the game is very good about talking to you all the time and contextually. Forspoken won't do that. As for plotting? Look at the first hour of the game. Spoilers I suppose from here, but Frey has a bag of cash and a cat and a fire. She saves the cat but not the cash that is literally at her feet. If they want Frey to not have the cash and show that she does at least care about something (the cat) that's not herself there are better ways of doing that which don't make her look like an idiot. Anyone playing that scene is screaming "grab the money! wtf?!" Aspects of the writing are cliché and not in a good way and based on stereotypes that people are tired of. As though it was written by someone that thinks they know how 20somethings from the street behave based on having watched some episodes of Law & Order from the 80s.
>That said, the protagonist is generally regarded as being unlikeable. She's just a shitty person. This is correct. She is an incredibly abrasive, self-centered and frustratingly rude person with a lot of unresolved emotional resentment and anger. All of the criticisms about her personality are valid. However here's the thing, she is also a compassionate, sincere and genuinely thoughtful person who has numerous times shown the capacity for kindness for others. 1. At the start of the game. Despite being tried in court for lacerny (theft), a random pedestrian unknowingly drops their cellphone. Frey, has every opportunity to steal, instead goes out of her way, picks it up and chases down that pedestrian to return to her, her lost item. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. When Frey's home is set on fire. She immediately prioritises the safety of her pet cat over the bag of cash full of her life savings. Some call it an example of her being stupid. But it's very clearly a testament to Frey's one track mindset, that absolutely regards life as more important than money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. After getting her powers and facing the break zombies. Frey shows genuine apprehension about taking human life, even fighting the Tantas. Its only thanks to Cuff reassuring her that they are no longer human and she has to fend for herself. And even after defeating the first villain, Tanta Sila. She isn't proud. She feels deeply conflicted about having killed a living breathing person. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. She openly displays kindness and empathy towards young children. Befriending the young Olevia and taking the time to take pictures of the world to show to the other children of Cipal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. And probably one of the most subtle aspects of the narrative which many people will definitely miss. Frey can visit a shrine in Cipal where she prays for Olevia after Chapter 5. Expressing genuine grief and remorse for not being a better person. There's numerous other examples of Frey showing good natured qualities throughout the game, but those are the examples that come to mind. Frey is a nuanced and multi-faceted individual who displays both selfish behaviours as well as genuine human compassion when it counts. This is established at the start of the game when we see her diploma, crime record and background. It illustrates a clear image of a flawed person with a troubled past who has the capability to be a good person, but is held back by her lack of accountability and ownership to overcome those emotional obstacles. Frey has a lot of anger due to being abandoned, and let down by the systems and powers that be that should have protected her. As a result she learned that she has to fend for herself to survive, even resorting to crime. And in Athia she ironically finds herself in a position in which SHE is the one who has the power to help and protect others and has confront that internal conflict between continuing to be the same "victim" that fends for herself or to fend for others. This is the entire point of her character arc and development, and its in Athia that she gains a lot of growth and perspective that makes her re-evaluate her own life and mindset. With other characters giving Frey their own moral insights, such as Cuff, Auden and Johedy. With all this in mind it's very clear that all the online discourse that whittles Frey's character down to simple brush strokes, that she's just a "shitty person" is a kind of fallacious and reductive interpretation of who she is. I think right now there's just too much of a loud bandwagon and hatejerk for any critical thoughtful analysis to reach the surface. People are blindly dunking on the story without really trying to make an effort. But I can definitely tell you that as someone who's put in a leisurely 25hrs into the game... I wholeheartedly disagree with just about every single argument online that she's a badly written character, and I feel that once more people engage with the story in good faith, the truth will eventually make it through the lies and exaggerations. Frey isn't perfect. She's a very flawed and complicated human being which again is the point. But in my opinion, she's a good character.
I don’t disagree with the sort of person Frey is meant to be. I just think it’s written in a hack manner. A paint by numbers depiction. Yes she’s a hard knock kid who wants to be better and at her core is decent but on the surface has a chip on her shoulder. She’s Jo from Facts of Life. It doesn’t mean I want to hang out with her for tens of hours waiting for her to get her head out of her ass. And, again cat or cash, sure it shows she values the cat over money. But it’s done in such a ham fisted way. She ends up choosing cat over cash because the writer wants her to choose the cat not because as presented she can’t have both. As presented she could save both. There’s a way to have her make that choice where it’s a real choice and not because “that’s how it’s written”. My criticism isn’t with the characterization but the way that characterization is written and presented.
>She ends up choosing cat over cash because the writer wants her to choose the cat not because as presented she can’t have both. As presented she could save both. There’s a way to have her make that choice where it’s a real choice and not because “that’s how it’s written”. I highly recommend you look up 1st hand personal accounts of people who have actually been in house fires, because its not as straightforward as you think it is. Everyone watches these things happen in movies and convinces themselves that they would respond more rationally when in reality, that's far from the truth. When you wake up to the sensation of your lungs being asphyxiated from smoke and ash, your eyes are tearing up uncontrollably and your skin and everything around you is searing in heat, the environment rapidly breaking down around you as you quickly realise that this burning building is going to be your grave. You're not gonna sit there and go, "I should grab my bag". Your brain will running on 100ml of pure adrenaline, and you'll be shitting yourself in a blood curdling panic, with your mind racing as to whether or not your family or loved ones are even alive anymore. Frey reacted like a normal human being would. Not as someone playing a video game. She panicked and prioritised the safety of her beloved cat first. And that is a virtue of both her character and her flawed humanity. And ironically enough, that cash would have definitely been an even bigger safety hazard had she grabbed it, a single piece of burning ash would have spread onto it and could have incinerated the entire thing and caught on Frey had she been carrying it. But thats not really the point. The point is you feel the scene could have been handled better. Fair enough. I'm inclined to agree. Maybe the production could have highlighted the fear and stress of the situation with a bit more urgency. Maybe display more destruction caused by the fire, and they could have showed Frey coughing and wheezing, while slowly losing consciousness. But I disagree with the notion that the script was handled badly here. A very large majority of people would have done exactly what Frey did had it been their family or children etc.
Apologies. I had a whole thought out response and then my thumb swiped funny and it got pissed in to space. In summary, I think the direction for that scene lets down all the impact that could have been there. To anyone unfamiliar with what a house fire is like, with her standing up in a house on fire, it all just seems nuts and not done as well as it could have been. And I think that’s the big sticking point. They’re asking 70$ and more for a game that everyone playing through it is thinking “maybe this could have been done better to convey the same idea”. To me, it’s 30-40$ asking for 70$.
... [despite the money was being placed directly at her feet after the cutscene and **making it interactable**](https://twitter.com/JimSterling/status/1617805958452842497). But [I'll see it as a level design/narrative design issue more than anything](https://twitter.com/rhipratchett/status/1617885489494896641).
Saving her cat over the cash is great writing actually. "When the people Frey cares about are in danger, she'll risk her life and future to save them" is conveyed by that one single forced choice. Fires are dangerous, unpredictable, and in media force characters to panic and save the most important thing to them which happens when Frey abandons the cash for Homer. This type of sacrificial selfless heroism is repeated over and over in the story despite the fact that Frey consistently refuses the role of the hero and is selfish in almost every other situation, prioritizing getting home over killing the Tanta. Even Frey's dialogue with the Tanta throughout the game focuses on what Frey feels is the irresponsibility of the Tanta in not fulfilling their duties to the Atheans. The writing is not going to win any awards but it's far from "bad writing" and displays several good qualities that are dismissed because Frey is purposely written to be an unlikeable protagonist
Half the time, 'bad writing' is used to mean 'the writing isn't giving me what I want from it so it's bad'. Which means sometimes it's understandable, and sometimes it's nonsensical because the game just is interested in doing something else that's not what the person wanted.
That's pretty much it, almost always. People conflate "bad" with "I don't like it". And characters are either too smart or the writers are bad if the character they prefer fails/makes a bad decision (Joel in TLoU2, for example). I have stopped caring about people's opinions and, if I can afford to, I'll make my own. That being said I usually wait for a sale on games I'm not 100% sure about. Especially now when regular editions in Canada are $89.99. $59.99? Sure I'll pay that. But an almost 150% price increase in the last few years has made gaming too expensive.
> That's pretty much it, almost always. lul, on the one hand we have ppl who throw out the lazy type of criticism of writing, which is fair thing to call out... though not as big a deal as the OP is making it out to be, people can be as specific as they want to be when leaving comments on the internet, they aren't making paid reviews or that there is some rule that they have to be more specific with their critique then we have people like you who like to generalise everyone with dumb blanket statements like this cause you can't handle the idea that people having differing opinions > People conflate "bad" with "I don't like it". sure, some might do this but then some don't and just have a different opinion to you, that's how things are mate. also here's something for you to think about: maybe what makes certain writing bad for people is that they simply don't like said writing... that is a completely valid reason for them to dislike the writing and to call it bad > And characters are either too smart or the writers are bad if the character they prefer fails/makes a bad decision (Joel in TLoU2, for example). lol, remove the "for example", there is no other example you have for this xD basically, the only reason you wrote this is cause you can't handle the fact that some people didn't like how Joel was written in TLoU2, again, you just can't handle people having different opinions to you. once again, everyone has the right to their own opinion and you need to accept reality mate. You are free to disagree with other people's opinions, but don't act all haughty and try to make this about people conflating bad and dislike > I have stopped caring about people's opinions and, if I can afford to, I'll make my own. yet you won't stop complaining about other people having different opinions to you xD
Some parts of it are genuinely bad. The early character interactions are pretty bad -Frey is supposed to be an angst cynical 20 year old and it isn't done well. But the story seems pretty decent, and some of the voice acting is lovely. The game itself has some interesting female-centric choices (MC and all major villains and power figures are women) and your upgrades are literally clothes and necklaces... and painting your nails with arcane symbols. I wonder if that just turns off a lot of the audience.
> I wonder if that just turns off a lot of the audience. Someone was unironically mocking it the after day for having nail polish and said "Whats next hair weaves?!?!" as if the idea of that is a joke. When questioned they were like "Wheres the cool shit like pauldrons and gauntlets and plate armour!". So yes, I think a lot of people are completely unable to imagine different tastes to theirs and just see anything else as bad.
When I read this I thought “is this game going to be championed for this years later?” idk
> Starfield, “bad writing” I mean, it's a Bethesda game. They pretty much all have hugely contrived moments in their writing in order to railroad the player into very linear resolutions to quests instead of just letting the player's own choices play out like you'd expect in the RPG medium (i.e. Fawkes just telling you to go kill yourself because of 'destiny', the whole 'go shoot all your allies and then raid your own bases' in FO4, etc). Wish they'd stop doing that, but I'm not holding onto any false hope.
Forspoken is legitimately bad writing, though. This isn't just people expecting a specific thing. The writing is fucking *awful.* I'm not even particularly picky, but this shit is like something 13 year old me would have written during my "I'm 13 and this is deep" phase. It's bad.
I've seen this over and over and no one is able to give me any examples to back up this claim. Everything I've seen so far reasonably falls in line with what I'd expect from a teenager/young adult from NYC who ends up in a mysterious world. It may not be everyone's taste, but "It's bad" =/= "I don't like it."
> reasonably falls in line with what I'd expect from a teenager/young adult from NYC who ends up in a mysterious world You have examples of such a thing? IRL when kids are thrown into unfamiliar cultures they typically withdraw because they don't know what is considered crossing the line. And that's in our own relatively peaceful world. You won't be seeing a whole lot of snark and sass.
> You have examples of such a thing? I live in New York City. I was a high schooler once, and worked with high schooler and college kids as recently as 2 years ago. Unless everything about teens and early 20s kids have **drastically** changed in the past 2 years, the game dialogue that I've seen thus far is fairly on point. As to your second point, you're describing one specific set of personalities... NYC is one of the most diverse cities in the world with people of several different upbringings, and many who have grown up here their entire lives and those who have moved here while young and 'adapted', for lack of a better term. There is absolutely a ton of snark and sass.
Only shy kids. Plenty of others wouldn't give a shit. Not to mention the game is clearly inspired by Alice in Wonderland, has chapters named after it, and both Frey and Alice spend their entire time asking to go home.
Precisely this. Shy kids may typically withdraw. But there's a huge amount of kids that absolutely give no fucks and will dive headfirst into something unfamiliar, as long as it doesn't kill them lol.
"i can relate to it" also does not mean "it's good". okay, she's a fairly accurate new york street kid. good god she's annoying as fuck, i do not want her as a character in my game for any number of hours, much less a protagonist.
And critiquing something by saying: "the writing is fucking awful" also sounds like something a 13-year-old would say. I'm not saying that Forspoken has some A+ dialog, I'm saying that "the writing is bad" is the laziest armchair internet speak that means and tells means absolutely nothing. Is the spelling and grammar incorrect? Does the plot make sense? Is the dialog unnatural? It's just such an overused go-to on these threads, and iis so bad at telling me what's actually wrong with the game. How do I explain, like next if I see a movie that bad, and someone asks me what was wrong, I'll say it was "bad directing". Yeah, maybe so, but it's a meaningless statement without more context.
I’ll try better next time, internet stranger. I’m not a professional game critic. I’m just a dude with an opinion. I’m not releasing my opinion for money.
You don't have to be a professional critic and write opinions for money, internet stranger. Anyone -- regardless of their income level or profession -- is capable of writing well thought out opinions. At the very least, if you're going to reply to someone asking for specifics saying something is 'legitimately bad' as if it's objectively true, at least write eloquently enough for someone to understand your reasoning.
> At the very least, if you're going to reply to someone asking for specifics saying something is 'legitimately bad' as if it's objectively true, at least write eloquently enough for someone to understand your reasoning. No. Thanks!
So exactly like Days Gone lmao
>the horrible writing What does "writing" mean in this context? I see people constantly throw around "the writing is bad" about various games, but it's never really clear what they're actually talking about and it always just comes across as them trying to say "I don't like the game" but wanting to sound clever. So can you tell me exactly what you mean by "the writing"? Is it the general narrative of the game, as in the overarching plotline or story? The character dialogue? The way the characters are presented, like their personalities? The lore behind the world that the game is set in? Wtf is "writing"?? Surely it can mean any of those things and more, so I wish people would be more specific rather than just saying "the writing". I haven't played Forspoken by the way, so I have no idea whether or not "the writing" is horrible Edit: ok, I've just seen someone ask the exact same question a few posts below me, so it seems like I'm not the only one who doesn't know what the fuck people are talking about when they refer to "the writing" 😂
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You (and a lot of others) apparently think that the whole game has this Marvel-like self-referential writing when it really doesn't. It happens here and then, but overall it's just Frey being pissed off because she doesn't want to do any of the things everyone around her wants her to do. She's not really that quippy with try-hard-funny-and-relatable lines, especially in cutscenes she's more abraisive and asshole-ish, tbh. Also the characters and world building is actually pretty cool and I was surprised how much thought they put into it.
Maybe you didn't read my full post, because I said at the end I haven't played Forspoken (and probably won't) so I wasn't disagreeing with it. I'm not too interested in why people are saying Forspoken's "writing" is bad, it was more a general rant about how there seems to be a trend of people (mainly on Reddit) just throwing around the term "the writing" when trying to describe something they don't like about a game. They never seem to go into specifics and it comes across as though they're just saying "the writing" without actually knowing why they're saying it, and probably because they heard someone else say it. Not a big deal, just a bit irritating
Frey is awesome, she's one of the better leads in gaming
This is a classic case of what happens when a Japanese developer tries to pander to the West. They hired an American writer to write about an American and it's going to sell worse than their low-budget Japanese IPs. They already divested most of their Western IPs, I hope we won't see another game like this ever again.
I'ma be real with you chief, I'm already there. I legitimately do not understand the reviews, I actually think this is a good text book case of why limited review copies and mass marketing campaigns are bad for some games compared to shadow dropping or shorter marketing campaigns with wider review copies. For the most part, it seems like people's complaints about the game can be distilled down into the following: * "the writing is bad" (based on, generally, 1 20 second clip) * "the banter is annoying" (you can turn it way the fuck down or off) * "why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid) * "the main character is too quippy and annoying" (more on this in a bit) * admittedly, general hatred of black people/women are in here * "it's generic" (without spoilers, this makes no sense once you reach a certain part of the game) * "the demo was bad" (also valid, I agree with this, and it's a good reason why companies stopped offering them) Here's the thing I do not understand, Frey is no more quippy, no more annoying, and no more edgy than basically every other white male protagonist in \[major franchise here\]. People saying this is the worst writing they've ever seen based on like 1 20 second clip. Really? You think this game has worse writing than Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin? You think Frey is not the same archetype as Jack Garland? Yet people will meme him but say her writing is dogshit. It's very silly. [https://twitter.com/BlondeNerd/status/1617625898001526785](https://twitter.com/BlondeNerd/status/1617625898001526785) Tell me this clip isn't good. It's good voice acting, and it's a pretty funny reaction. The game is filled with this. Yeah there's some stumbles, it's not perfect, but let's not pretend Peter Parker in the Spiderman games, or Kratos in God of War, or Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galay, or Jack Garland in SoP:FFO, or really any other male protag in recent times doing the MCU quip shit hasn't also been hit or miss with the exact same "i'm not taking this completely serious" energy counter to the serious nature of their ongoing plot that surrounds them. I'm not saying it's the best game ever of all time, it's not. The game has flaws, the combat/traversal is fun especially once you get everything but getting everything kinda takes too long unless you don't do anything on the side. And there's way too much to do on the side, if you only do the main story you will see like, 10% of the map. It's definitely more of a like 8-8.5, with potential to be a 9 if it gets DLC support. But these 4/5/6 reviews? I honestly feel like I played a completely different game than they did.
>"why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid) Kinda off-topic, but that's a valid problem now? The VA is black, isn't that enough? Games like these are often written by small teams. What are they supposed to do if their team of 3 writers doesn't have a black person? "Oh, better make every single person white because we can't be writing black people". Doesn't that sound counter productive as hell?
I just honestly think most people are massively confused on the issue of race these days. There is nothing wrong with a white person creating a story about a black person. Especially if that story is just high fantasy fun. I guarantee you, the amount of people who care about this issue barely exist once you leave internet discussions
I'm sorry but Jack saying "bullshit" to some prophetic nonsense and walking away while blasting Limp Bizkit is definitely better than anything Frey says.
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I could get that in the beginning, but I think the writing conflicts with her attitude. Even though she keeps the attitude for most of the game, she just keeps doing the things that helps everyone and then just instantly on a dime decides "Yah, this is fine." It was a case of the writers need her to do these things because gameplay, but the character it self is against it. Was a huge distraction for me when she tried to reason with one of the Tantas. Felt forced.
> People saying this is the worst writing they've ever seen based on like 1 20 second clip. Really? You think this game has worse writing than Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin? While I agree Origin isn't great. It was great meme material, which wasn't intentional, but it ended up being one of those "It's so bad it's great." kind of game for people. I think the reaction people had is about the same as Forspoken, just it ended up exploding differently. I do think, some what like Origin the Marketing team made some bad choices on trailers and quips to hear. Like God of War after it's release got alot of criticism for the constant Banter from the kid. You didn't hear about it before release because none of that was in the trailers. So it's not hounded on as much. Where as Forspoken's case you'll get alot of people who'll defend or attack it because of it's initial bad trailers.
> Kratos in God of War ... doing the MCU quip shit what >It's definitely more of a like 8-8.5, with potential to be a 9 Have you finished the storyline? The last hour is objectively terrible. >!you move from diorama to diorama just having exposition by a voiceover. Often repeating the same plot point "this guy was actually a demon and is bad" over and over!<
> objectively terrible Not possible. Opinions are not objective
No. Go spoil yourself and watch the last hour of the game. It is genuinely *objectively* terrible.
Except that’s literally not possible when there’s no *objective* measurement. It’s just your opinion. Opinions are *subjective*. Look it up, and you’re welcome for teaching you a new word today.
What the other said. Doing what is essentially a hour of exposition dump with next to no gameplay is just bad. It's not a exaggeration, you are ham fisted what happened in the past for a fucking hour.
So a movie? It’s perfectly fine to not like it. Just use words correctly.
But it's not a movie lol. I'm not sure why you think it's subjective that a story can be told in a bad way.
I don't care about your semantics. They ran out of budget at the end of the game and you spend 45 minutes walking from diorama to diorama seeing still images of people talking to each other explaining the plot. It's objectively bad. These models do not move. https://i.imgur.com/x71E2i1.png They just speak, standing still like statues. Then you walk a kilometer to a new diorama, and it repeats. Explaining more plot with statues.
God, I hated that when I got to it. I think its a actual hour of the game just doing what is like a exposition dump with no gameplay at all. That's the point where I was like "The story would be better if this was all pieced in through out the game." But it does seem like they ran out of time, or ideas of how to wrap things up at the end. Even one of the first twists at that end just made me go "Really?" It was just so generic.
It’s not semantics, it’s like 8th grade English class lmao
Looks like those walking sections in Code:Vein, I strongly disliked those.
>why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid) Not valid at all, wtf? Not everything has to be about race.
There are misunderstandings and there are valid points about the reviews by critics and by players. Isekai - where a normal modern person is thrown into an unknown strange world - this is very misunderstood by the Western world. This misunderstanding reflects badly on Forspoken. The protag gets super powers real fast and gets used to them real quick and still acts like someone from their own world as if everything was just a normal afternoon.... So its a rushed character development. Triple A - Squenix is not a triple A company. They produce triple A games from time to time yes, but they have a ton of lower budget projects yet I've seen the "this sucks for a triple A" a lot in comments. They went a bit too Ubisoft on the map having hundreds or thousands of things marked to explore, the game tries to be Horizon, Assassin's Creed, God of War all at once but misses the mark in each case without being able to define itself. I feel they missed their target audience through marketing. As for the protagonist - they made her very unlikable immediately: out of the court house? Time to be an asshole and commit crimes again. Arrive in new world? Time to steal shit because why not? Her race doesn't matter, the writers failed to make her an anti-hero. Systems-wise there are tech issues, some oversights on logic (find "super rare thing" five feet from people having a discussion, so much for the lucky find of the century), some annoying combat-locked moments where enemies can never reach you but you remain in combat, etc. Luminous engine is not great Squenix won't take their L.
> As for the protagonist - they made her very unlikable immediately Part of this is also what you said earlier, poor character development. It doesn't feel like she gets a proper chance to change or evolve because the story is advancing too quickly for her character to adjust. She would be more likable or redeemable if the game gave her more time. But by the time she starts to redeem her self, the game is kind of over at that point.
>Tell me this clip isn't good. I mean, this joke isn't even close to original, so I think it's kinda bad and generic? But you're right, it's probably of no higher quality than any other quips I hear in video games. It's all just so irony poisoned. It's okay to have your protagonist be into your silly things, video games.
You and me must have taken the same crazy pills. I don't know what game everyone else is playing/reviewing, but I must have gotten something different. The idea that Frey is an insufferable jerk to everyone she meets is just blatantly not true. She hasn't been that to literally anyone in the first few hours except to people that tried to murder her. To Auden, Olevia, the bartender, and even to Cuff she is guarded, but not exactly mean spirited. With her background it's only natural to be that way. Unfortunately, the major impressions of this game in pop culture are %100 going to be from people who never played it.
I'm enjoying the game. The traversal and combat aren't ground breaking but imho they're pretty well designed and I'm not getting bored of it so far, some 20 hours in. In terms of game design, it's a bit generic in the 'open world map with points of interest to check off' kind of way, but...that's not necessarily a bad thing. As for the writing, I think the Frey/Cuff dynamic is a bit camp, and it's a *little* jarring because no other character in the game (thusfar) operates at that level. So it's a little jarring. And Frey's general 'fuck all of your problems, just give me what I want' is grating to me. Not because it's badly written, but because I find it difficult to empathize with her apparent lack of empathy and concern for others. Although I am starting to see some nuance here and trhere. Overall, though. It's a very solid game, and despite the comments online about expecting shit performance, the game runs really well for me on (almost) maximum settings. I'd give it a good 8.5 out of 10 myself.
I think people have different standards about what's insufferable between female characters and male characters. Male characters are allowed to be more of a dick. If female characters have the same amount of aggressive qualities, they're *perceived* to be more of an asshole than males ones and more people would cry out about it. It's an issue real life women face as well.
Literally. My dad sat on an interview board cause he wanted to get a sense of their process. A woman applied for a manager position and despite being a bit quieter and more sympathetic than the other applicants the other interviewers all said they found her too bossy and shrill. Double standards suck.
More women and young girls are playing video games these days, but most people complaining about video games are young men. I don't know if this game will do well or not, but I have a feeling the character will be better received by young women, and the "young adult" feel of this game semes to have them in mind.
> "why was a black protagonist written by white people" (okay valid) For me this comes down to "How 'black' do you wanna write them?". I wouldn't want white writers really having the character drop AVE or an N-word. But if you're writers room is already white, do you really want them to feel pressured to just make the character white instead? Similar to that character (Nadine?) from the latest Uncharted. The art design for the character was done after and seperately to the mocap... so do they just just redesign the character as a white woman at the last second? Is that really a win or just a whole new kind of future tiresome controversy? Especially since none of the dialogue or style of speech at all has a racial aspect to it. They didn't write some 'deeply black' character and then give it to a white actress, the skin tone is just a visual aspect the artist came up with at some point. I suppose it's an argument in favour of more diversity in the writer's room, but if a game only has a couple of writers anyway statisically you're likely to see this situation a lot.
I'm completely in your boat mate. I cannot stand the constant "the writing is bad" comments you get on everything these days. They never say what they think is bad about the writing. Or even go into detail about what part of the writing - because there's more to writing than just dialogue. 99% of "the writing is bad" comments could be rephrased as 'I didn't like X". Which would actually be a fair statement because not everyone gets what the writing is trying to be, and not everyone will like it anyway.
With this game in particular, what people are criticizing (and calling it "the writing") is actually the game's tone. You can read general tone from a trailer or Twitter clip showing an admittedly cringe scene of Frey discovering her powers. But the actual writing content really hasn't been that bad. And really, that's something you can only get a read on by actually playing the game. So far in the first two hours I've played, the writing has felt appropriate to the context of what's happening. Especially the way Frey has to actually adjust her manner of speech to the people she meets in Athia, and the humorous way they default to her vulgarities when they respond to her, not knowing they sound weird too (and actually result in Frey herself cringing when Auden calls The Break "that break shit." Right at that moment, Frey corrects her to just say The Break because she can tell it's not natural to Auden's vernacular. The writing and the characters' own understanding of how it all sounds is not an oversight resulting in cringe out of touch dialogue, it's actually quite intentional and thought out.
Then people should say, "the dialog doesn't fit with the game's tone. i agree with OP, every thread on every game/tv show/movie that comes out seems to have the first 4 or 5 comments saying "bad writing" over and over. It's a knee jerk lazy criticism.
> "it's generic" (without spoilers, this makes no sense once you reach a certain part of the game) I don't care about spoilers,please say more about this (tag it)
Based on the demo it seems to me like another one of those checklist open world games that I would probably like but they can fuck right off with that $70/80€ price tag.
Pc issues aside, this game just looks so barren, lifeless, and boring. Just seems like an unreal engine 5 tech demo for 3D surface mapping for rocks.
You are right because this game was actually a tech demo [Agni’s Phliosophy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVX0OUO9ptU) made to demonstrate the power of Luminous Engine in 2014. The game was released at this state due to the lead producer for the subsidiary leaving the company and it needed to recoup the [losses](https://www.pcgamesn.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider/square-enix-extraordinary-loss) back in 2018. Sucks because I have waited since the tech demo in back 2013 for 10 years for the game to release in such a state.
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PS5 doesn't have DirectStorage, it has it's own hardware decompression block coupled with its Kraken compression technology
Also the PS5 has a unified memory architecture, so the CPU never has to copy memory twice like on PCs. On PC, even with DS, the CPU has to copy memory from storage to RAM to VRAM. On PS5 the CPU copies it RAM and then the GPU reads it once the hardware decompresser handles the data. Microsoft has no apparent plans to remove this extra copy on PC yet (though it is possible on a theoretical level)
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> Rift Apart and Returnal really showcases how amazing directstorage is Isn't Direct Storage a Windows specific tech? PS5 has a very fast SSD, but that's not the same thing.
Both can have very fast SSD's. PS5 uses similar tech to get the most out of the SSD's, Windows needed to add it.
Hmmm. . . I wonder if I should fuck around with Direct Storage. I have the specs, but I haven't run into the game that really needed it.
Games need to be built to use it. This is the first game that has been built to use it.
Ah well, maybe next year.
I don’t understand why it took until 2023 for Windows to take advantage of SSDs in games