Okay, is Deadlight of the Worst Games Ever?

Me and my friend played it, thought it sucked. We looked up some reviews, they're mostly REALLY positive, so I got two more friends, we did an LP of it, unanimously decided the game was UTTERLY abysmal
So seriously, what's the deal? Is there any special REASON why this has an 86 average on Game Rankings?

 

>lots of good ratings
>is this the worst game ever?!?!?

There's no logical thread to connect these thoughts... The only thing I see is that you don't like it... Which...Um...

TAAAAAAAAASTE

 

I wouldn' t call it a platformer per se, clearly this isn' t Mario. Looks more like a Prince Of Persia like. A genre which, although it never got its own name, pushed cinematic aesthetics, animations, cutscenes and naration long before the Playstation and its shiny CG and 3D even came around (Another World, Flashback) and survived it (Abe' s Odyssey, Heart of Darkness which had ****ing Spielberg' s name slapped on it).

Sure, by today standards it' s a retro genre. Doesn' t mean it can' t be fun anymore. It certainly looks way more interesting than The Walking Dead to me. Whether they' re up your alley or not the art style seems decent and the gameplay functional, so when you call it "of the worst games ever" I' m having a hard time following.

 

Here's the thing, it's not just the choices for atmosphere, the game is also really buggy, and really poorly designed. There's issues with the areas not loading, there are tonnes of places in levels where you can just get stuck and have no way to proceed because they didn't think about basic things (For example, there's a part where you climb into a tree house and the ladder falls down, if you fall out of the tree house you can't get back in, but you need to be in the tree house to make the jump in order to proceed) the AI is also incredibly exploitable, there's one part where we didn't know how to solve a puzzle, so I opened and closed a door over and over again, and slowly the zombies clipped through the door one by one so I could take them out one at a time.
The aesthetic choice to make everything pitch black hurts the gameplay too, since platforms blend into the background, your character looks exactly like the enemies, and it's often hard to see ANYTHING because so much stuff is the exact same shade of black.
Then you throw in the SUPER PRETENTIOUS story, like, here's a line of dialog "There is no darkness. What we call darkness is just light we can't see" yand he just says this in a random room, unprovoked, for no reason, and sure, the plot just looks a little generic right now, but it goes INSANE halfway through. You haven't seen the random Rat Man with a gigantic underground death trap chamber he sends the character through to 'test if he's worthy' which ends with him going to rescue his son who is "in the house that grows from a tree" (aka a treehouse) where you are suddenly being chased by a helicopter run by the military, who want to kill the survivors of the apocalypse for LITERALLY no reason, and this chase scene goes on for so long that the reason it ends isn't because they lose track of you, or run out of ammo, or something, no, it ends because they ran out of FUEL.
The platforming is also pretty weak, a lot of the time you just die because it didn't work properly. Collision detection is awful, too.

So seriously, this is one of the worst games I've ever seen, in terms of gameplay, presentation AND story... and yet it has an 86. People called it an intense fight for survival... but you can jump over nearly every zombie. People praise the story, yet it's literally a mash of unironic cliches (the black guy even dies first) people praise the voice acting, but it legitimately gets into bad 90s translation territory (we actually have a theory that the game was badly translated, because it looks like it might have originally been in Spanish) for example, at one point some military guys are beating up a survivor, and the guy headbutts him. The guy then angrily says "That poor old man hit me!"

And here's the thing... there's more. But this post is already getting too long.
It's a pretty short LP, might be worth watching to see the descent into... just awful

 

To answer the thread question, no. To say that would probably be an exaggeration.

To address what you're complaining about, some games are just buggy. Some games just aren't. Sometimes the story is great, and sometimes it's not very well thought out. You take the good with the bad.

 

You mispelled Daylight.

 

WHAT good though? The only positive that doesn't have a worse negative attached to it is the music. The graphics look nice, but ultimately hurt the actual gameplay, and the rest is just garbage

Dunno what that is, but you'd have to convince me it's somehow WORSE than Deadlight

 

Basically, every horror trope stuck together with pretty much zero originality. The perfect example of how the survival horror genre has been exploited in attempts to cash in on the success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Outlast and Slender: The Arrival.

 

Honestly sounds like Deadlight. The zombie origin is hinted it, something to do with nuclear war? Or maybe a virus? The military turns evil, but they forgot to actually give a reason (it's literally described in plot synopses as "They want to rape female survivors and kill male ones") The man has constant hallucinations where his daughter plays with generic toys and asks the main character if he wants to play, but nobody but the main character actually acknowledges his family's existence.

Spoiler

Because it turns out he killed them and it was so traumatic he forced himself to forget. Despite this incredibly simple concept, they spend the ENTIRE ending explaining this.
In the end, the main character sacrifices himself to save some random girl who hardly gets any screen time. Sacrifice isn't really the right word though, since she escapes in a boat and he just stays behind to monologue about how he forgot about his family.

This is pretty much just a bland mish mash of boring zombie/horror cliches

 

Listen, what you're honestly missing is that these aren't objective thoughts. They're your thoughts. Which are fine, but the words you're using are like "worst game ever!" and it's clear no one else thinks that by your own first post where you said it had good scores.

So no matter how many paragraphs you write in a state of over-exaggeration, it's impossible to agree with something comparing to E.T like that. Your entire complaints stem from a general lack of polish. Now you know your taste doesn't like up with things without polish.

PS: This is why reviewers don't review games with friends. They'll rib on it and exaggerate hate for things in conversation. Think of all the complaints you've had saying "this is crap!" and it was just average

EDIT: I don't know who in the LP said, "this doesn't deserve a full release, but it should've been a mobile app," needs to rethink what they say. Everything deserves to be a full release if that's how the devs want people to experience their product. Also, you really need to work on overall sound balancing and quality.

 

How is "the game didn't load the level" not an objective complaint. The story stuff, sure, but the gameplay has OBJECTIVE faults, the graphics OBJECTIVELY glitch out. The game OBJECTIVELY made a bad design choice by making your background, main character AND enemies all pitch black.

And seriously, you're trying to discredit this with the 'objectivity' line? All reviews are subjective, the unbiased opinion is a myth. Reviews are JUST opinions, and this topic is just about my opinion, I posed it as a question because I was thinking maybe somebody who ahd played the game would explain why this game doesn't suck. Or why it gets the praise it does.
This is NOT an average game. Average implies a level of competency in all respects, but this game suffers from very poor design, really bad polish, tonnes of trial and error gameplay, as well as the more subjective flaws like the abysmal story and voice acting.
If you REALLY want, I'll structure my thoughts more and make a review about it at a later date

 

I really don't want that.

For the record, the reason reviews are all awful is because they don't stick to objective things and leave the rest to buyer interest. This has basically created a consumption trend where if something doesn't have a 9/10, it doesn't get bought because $60 is too much a risk for some people. This is because opinions have skewed the market so people actually have no idea what they want, they want what they're told is quality. Reviews need to be overviews of the product, otherwise you sell out of your own pocket and become a pretentious shmuck.

That said, it's clear these aren't things that happened to everybody. So they're not objective. Maybe you should check for version differences- as most reviews are for Xbox 360 editions of a game. Maybe you should do some googling to see what factors line up to cause these technical issues. I played this back when it was on sale and didn't encounter any of these issues.[DOUBLEPOST=1400707697][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and as for the art I couldn't agree less- I can see my outlines fine. So again, not objective. Meanwhile "one of the worst games ever" is very objective wording

Further more, I'm going back to your long list while replaying some of this Zombie Oddworld now, and I think you misused the word design for programmed. What you complained about were bugs, and bugs aren't a design choice except in rare cases like Goat Simulator. This game's design is smart and uses a lot of conveyance in the camera angles to overcome the 2D and keep the art direction. (Which used a lot of bright lights and outlines... How you didn't see is perplexing... You're sure you just couldn't see and this isn't a reaction to missing jumps? Because I would check your tvs brightness. I'm playing on an LCD TV as well, so if you're on a Plasma screen this will explain a lot)

 

There is nearly NOTHING objective about quality, it's delusional to say reviews should 'stick to objective facts" because there's pretty much NOTHING that can be said.
"Deadlight is a video game released on the Xbox Live Arcade, the game uses pixels to present graphics in a variety of colours. Your character has the ability to jump, climb and shoot, as well as break through doors and run and attack with an axe. There is music involved. The game can be beaten in a variety of lengths of times. There are multiple characters in this game
They have voices.

criticism without opinion is utterly WORTHLESS, describing what's in a game doesn't mean a damn thing, and doesn't make buying a game any easier.
"The worst" anything is one of the most bloody subjective things anybody can say, it's absolutely insane you think that there's an objective 'best' or 'worst' of something

 

I put like 15 hours into Deadlight and I really enjoyed it. Never had an issue with levels loading. Might just be an isolated incident with your computer. As for the tree house area, since when has it been a flaw in a game to have to redo a small portion of an area if you don't do it correctly the first time? I remember becoming frustrated a few times with the collision models when it came to making certain jumps or something, but all it would take was a little patience and timing to get it right. Basically your entire post sounds like you're just whining because the game didn't hold your hand and guide you flawlessly through every obstacle. Dialogue was awful and the story was weak, yeah, but at a certain point you obviously just decided you were going to **** all over every aspect of the game because something about it got you buttmad, since it's honestly comical that you'd say with any seriousness that this game is the 'worst' game ever.

 

If you think a point of a review is to criticize, then you've missed the point already.

I could say a lot about Deadlight pertaining to just objective facts like it's use of shadows and use of light to convey where you need to go, or like it's about survival, I can talk about how the health system works, I can add personal flare and say how I felt I always knew where to go, I could say there are cinematic moments like running from a car, I could say the subtitles block half the screen so turn them off. But as you said, a world about conveying information over opinions is absolutely insane. Conveying information means people buy what interests them, conveying an opinion is possibly robbing someone of finding something they really like and could even be inspired by because your taste and their tastes don't line up.

Best and worst are very objective words as they appeal to the overall and long term, while favorite and least favorite apply to the individual. Let's ask @Ars Nova

 

We played the Xbox version for one, but you should jsut count yourself lucky, it's a pretty common occurrence, from what google searches have told me.
The issue isn't that you have to redo something, it's that they put you in a situation where you have to either let yourself die, or if there's nothing around to kill yourself with reload the game. That's TERRIBLE design. If you fall down, but manage to survive, you should be able to jump back up, not be forced to let the zombies kill you because you weren't supposed to fall there
It's not about the game not holding your hand, the game is plenty easy enough. the slippery jumping, glitchy collision, and awful design are what hurts it. Like the puzzle around the end where you have to break a glass window, and you can't use your slingshot, even though you used your slingshot to break a window earlier on. No, you have to go outside the house, shoot the window with you gun, go back inside THEN jump out of it. It's silly.
The story and stuff being awful is just icing on the cake, and made all the more painful because the plot and voice acting gets TONNES of praise. I went into the game with a level of optimism, and I even set up this LP because I wanted to get some fresh opinions, because clearly there's SOMETHING about this game people like, because people like you and a lot of others seem to like it, but more often than not they just give the same 'defense' that you do, saying that we don't like it because we're bad at the game.
It's not THE worst game I've ever played, but it's up there. It's one of the worst experiences I've had playing a game, and I've played stuff like Sonic 06. If you liked it, more power to you, but I'd much rather hear about WHY you liked it, rather than you insult my opinion

How is any of THAT information even SLIGHTLY valuable. It's about survival? How? Sure, you try not to die, but that's every game. You don't need to scrounge for food or anything. How the health system works? You mean how sometimes you'll die instantly for no reason, and you increase your health but that means nothing?
And what am I supposed to get, as a consumer from 'there's a moment where you run from a car'? Objective descriptions are completely and utterly worthless. A person didn't play it because even though they would ahve liked it? Then that's THEIR problem. THEY don't know themselves well enough to actually get a game they want, or decide the thing I hate wouldn't bother them much. The idea that people should withhold their opinions because it might influence someone else's... what? No seriously, what?
You know how a review works?
A person states their opinion on the game.
The person, as an informed customer, decides whether the things the person talked about match up with their own beliefs. For example, Totalbiscuit dislikes games that are sub-60 fps, but if that's not an issue for you then you IGNORE it.

Now please, do tell me more about how a review isn't meant to offer criticism

 

So you dislike a game?



Also, you seem to be confusing critique ( a review) with criticism (negative statements), so you might want to check on that bro.

 

yeah its pretty easy to tell everyone to let everything go isnt it

 

I'll let you go in a minute.

 

check'd

Also I'm stealing that gif because it's great