Favorite Reviews/Let's Plays

[RightClickSaveAs]

I haven't found many reviews yet, I'd imagine those will take some more time to start trickling in, but GameInformer's is up and largely positive (7.75/10): http://www.gameinformer.com/games/never ... ormer.aspx

Giant Bomb did a great Quick Look, they do the first 2 3/4 levels: http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-l ... 2300-9504/

I haven't watched him much but it looks like Markiplier started his so that's great news for game exposure! Part 1 is done so far and ends at level 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shhcO45_b8

[Grabthehoopka]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/ ... m-cst.aspx

Gameinformer also did a feature where two of their editors played some scary games, Neverending Nightmares included. This was originally livestreamed, so they answer questions and such and it's two hours long. I love the content that Gameinformer produces, so you can watch the whole two hour thing, but if you want to skip straight to Neverending Nightmares, they stop playing Outlast at 1:25:21 and they boot it up at 1:27:07. It's kind of interesting since Tim, the one playing, didn't look up the controls, so you can see him intuitively figuring things out (someone in the chat eventually tells him about the run button, thank you to whoever that was), and how they get more and more absorbed by the game and talk less and less about other stuff as it goes on. Tim acts all tough, but watch him start to unravel after the vein tearing cutscene. Overall, they have nice things to say about the game design, they describe the pacing as "a very gradual descent" (I don't know if they realized how much the game was affecting them when they say that) and they even mention Retro/Grade!

EDIT: http://rgz.ca/gaming/neverending-nightm ... -with-you/

Here's one. The only criticism he has is that he feels the price is a bit steep for the amount of content, but otherwise showers praise upon it.

[RightClickSaveAs]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/ ... m-cst.aspx

This was a great one. Watching semi-jaded games journalists slowly get sucked in, even though they're playing with other people in the room and while streaming, is really awesome. The game is so unique I think it's really catching people off guard. I'm so jealous of anyone who is getting to play through for the first time.

The first arm mutilation scene REALLY bothered the Giant Bomb guys too, here it is on Youtube also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... 8blk#t=929


edit: the game is getting LOTS of big name Youtube Let's Plays going for it which is awesome to see. I also find it funny that you can tell which Youtubers cheated and played the game ahead of time, which seems to be very few of them actually even though I always thought it was something they usually did. In this case you can tell though because when they start a new game, the screens about the positional audio and the controls will come up if they are truly playing it for the first time.

[Grabthehoopka]

Alright, so I've seen 4 let's plays/general playthroughs so far, and every single one has pointed out that there's a toy soldier sitting on the toilet in The Coming Storm. I never even noticed that before.

[matt]

It's interesting that the reviewer on rgz.ca complained that it was too short but was too scared to play to all the endings. There is a fair amount of extra content in the branches...

Maybe the streamers are just getting their options set up ahead of time and not cheating? Who knows! Out of the streamers who have played it so far, I think Markiplier "gets" the game most. It is a bummer he is sick though.

[RightClickSaveAs]

Maybe the streamers are just getting their options set up ahead of time and not cheating? Who knows!

Oh very true, that's probably not an accurate way to tell. It might be too much to call it cheating too, but I'd always just assumed that Youtubers run through the game quick before they record so they can adjust their reactions, and was pleasantly surprised most seemed to be doing it fresh. And now that I think of it, that would be really time consuming to do anyway, and they tend to do a lot of videos!

[RightClickSaveAs]

I spent a good chunk of time this weekend watching LPs of the game, it's fascinating to see how people reacted to the game I've been watching develop for almost a year now. I noticed a few things common among most of the players:
1) No one seemed to have any problems with the controls or mechanics, or missed the fact that you can run. Some didn't even get killed by any of the baby monsters at all. These are people who probably play a lot of video games, so I'd imagine that helps. In general though, the ones I watched tended to slow down, pay attention, and not rush through the game, and just in general get the idea of how the game should be experienced.
2) At the beginning you can see a lot of expectations of puzzles, some of them were talking about the dolls and saying stuff like "that one has cracks in a certain pattern I bet I have to remember that" or "I wonder if I have to find the eyes", until they eventually get sucked in and forget about all that.
3) The first arm mutilation scene, the one that still bothers me every time I see it, seemed to really get to everyone.

Here are a few of my favorites so far:
Dashie - this one is hilarious, I'd never watched this guy before, but I loved this video. You should let Joe and Adam know that he thinks the art is totally dope. This is loud and very sweary, so be warned if you're not into that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Seq-LMu7MVE

Darkovika - she got the game pretty well from the start, and didn't die to anything until the Asylum. She didn't seem to realize you had to hold the direction button down for a long time to get him to jump over the edge at the end of Insanity though: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SOovaLbXuj

HarshlyCritical started putting his up. I like this guy's videos, he doesn't overdo it with the reactions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmWGnQB ... 9oQ0xgOFNg

And on the reviews front, a couple horror focused websites have one up:
Bloody Disgusting really liked it, and gave it a 8/10: http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/33149 ... ack-white/

Rely on Horror was a little more critical (6.5/10) but goes in depth about what they liked and didn't like: http://www.relyonhorror.com/reviews/rev ... ightmares/

[matt]

The Rely on Horror one is a bit of a bummer. If you play Amnesia for example, they don't have very many unique art assets. One could say they repeat the same 5 or 6 rooms (maybe less since it's mostly castle walls), but I'm not sure anyone's criticized Amnesia for that. I feel like the main difference is they didn't appreciate the atmosphere, so if you didn't get the atmosphere, of course it's going to not make sense why the game has a playtime of over 30 minutes. It's not supposed to be a tour of different art pieces... Anyway, I should quit grumbling and accept that it's not a game for everyone, but it's hard. haha

I'll have to check out the Let's Plays, and I'm totally fine if people didn't figure out they have to jump off the edge. Someone was arguing on Youtube that they would have liked the game a lot more if the Descent ending was the first one they found - which was honestly my intention - but it turns out gamers are more suicidal than I thought. hahah

In hindsight, it'd probably be better if I had another door there, so you can leave outside and go back in while feel like you are progressing forward, but I really liked the idea of this floating nightmare asylum with no place to go and no right answer.

As much as I like the idea of the branching narrative, I'm not sure I want to do that for the next game because it was hard to do, people ignore the branches, and complain the game is too short. I personally really like the idea and makes the story more interesting and shorter is better for tension, but....

[ranger_lennier]

Hey--just finished playing through all the levels in the final build. I think it turned out well!

I'm a little surprised Rely on Horror scored it as low as it did, because it had a number of positive comments. Some of its complaints are actually the same ones I have, like lack of interactivity and challenge. But I'd have scored it higher nonetheless.

I do think the game would benefit from well-differentiated difficulty settings, more interactivity, and more stages in more environments (assuming all the stages are of good quality of course). I also realize that any of these things would require more time and/or developers. I think there's plenty in the game as is to merit playing it, but it is an unusual game, and it's not going to work for everyone.

[ranger_lennier]

Any thoughts about why sites have or haven't reviewed the game? There are only three reviews listed on Metacritic right now. Even sites that have covered the game, like IGN, don't necessarily have a review.

Retro/Grade for PS3 has 31 reviews on Metacritic. The PC version actually has just 3 reviews as well, but that could be because it was a port.