RocketPunches
2 reviews liked by RocketPunches
Days Gone
2019
This review contains spoilers
I'm going to start this review off by saying there will be spoilers because as a collector of trophies on Playstation I played this around the time it came out and also platinumed the game. I think what spurned this was former director John Garvin's twitter rant about the critical reception of the game which I'll state my opinion here:
"1. it had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate;
2. it had reviewers who couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game
3. And three, it had woke reviewers who couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date’s ass"
Number one was absolutely correct, there were some bugs and glitches in game, but with that in mind it never really bothered me necessarily. If anything it led to some funny moments, like shooting me into the air after riding my bike. Some were annoying like this dialogue repeating on one of the missions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3arCu-hKRQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
Now glitches in mind, yeah I'm sure that did lead to an iffy reception but that can be fixed.
Number Two's point was that reviewers didn't play the game, but truth be told you don't have to play the game all the way through or even for that long before you start to discover the game's problems.
Number three implies that people don't like the main character because he looks at his wife's ass. As a heterosexual myself I can confirm that absolutely no one fucking cares. If anything I wish Deacon would shut the fuck up every now and then but I mean I don't hate him for it. Wherever this came from your blowing smoke guy. Now I'm gonna tell you why from my personal experience this game is a mixed reception.
I'm going to start off with gameplay wise. The gameplay isn't bad, from what I remember you ride your motorcycle around, rescue survivors, take over outposts from either "Freakers" (this games version of zombies), etc. So I'll start by saying this, it's not an awful game loop, it's adequate enough and I can say it plays fine. But it's not something that I haven't seen before, and that's ok because that's every game now so whatever. But it's basically done everything almost every other game has done, which I feel is also the design philosophy that leaks into the story as well. Like you can tell playing the game that it takes A LOT of influence from Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, the zombies from World War Z ESPECIALLY because they basically behave exactly the same which I will say is one thing this game gets right, the hordes are terrifying but besides that for right now I'm gonna get to spoilers so feel free to ignore this part.
My fundamental issue with this game, unoriginality aside is how that unoriginality affects the story. There's this whole build up of how you're trying to go find your wife and you don't know if she's dead or not, and to me this could lead to the at least somewhat unique lesson of "letting go", finding something new. Hell I remember this one mission in the second act where Deacon and his best friend Boozer start beating the shit out of each other because of Deacon's obsession with finding his wife and his inability to let go. And I thought that was at moment that I thought was going to go somewhere. But if I remember correctly the very next mission Deacon calls up his buddy and says "Yo I forgot my wife had top secret clearance and that her lab was down here and I think I'm gonna go find her" and Boozer's all like "You fuckin go champ I believe in you" and it's just a further kick in the crotch of something that I felt could've been interesting only to throw out the "Move on from your trauma" thing into "Oh your wife is miraculously alive and there's a whole third of the game to go". After the second act story wise I'll even admit I kind of clocked out story wise because I felt like it was a complete tonal shift, they had something and they fucked it up. So they just kind of put together this story that I felt was surgically removed from other media and put onto this one carcass and brought back to life as a zombie with a different look. I mean the end of the game itself isn't bad, it's a happy one I suppose with a sort of hint towards a sequel which honestly I still don't mind if it was made. Bend is a smaller studio that I totally believe punched up on their weight (and their games have been mixed results tbh) but I believe with enough dedication and the right moves a sequel to this could be the AAA game that they were looking to make. But as a game itself it's mixed. So far it has:
-Cookie Cutter story with random elements and bungled plot devices
-Gameplay that's satisfying, though not original
-Main character is a dude who constantly talks and never shuts up, which is ok sometimes and other times I wish he'd stop
Other things I wanna throw out there are realistically refilling the gas every five seconds is annoying and that I think there was this weird love triangle between this one chick Rikki, Deacon and her lover who is a woman? Which I'm not sure if I'm right but I felt like that was kind of odd and also dropped real quick when "oh his wife is alive". Also the post credits stinger or what have you has this "Oh the government agents you've been talking to? Sentient freakers who have powers" and that would make for a real interesting sequel. The hordes are terrifying and the studio pulled that off great. The stealth missions with said government agents can blow a fat one too. I mean other than that, and the bugs and also the fact that the antagonists are one note (Skizzo especially reminds me of OG Loc and frankly felt like he would've been better off as a one shot side quest where he gets eaten or something).
Overall, I don't hate this game, I find it average and middle ground which is what most reviewers felt. In a rebuttal to John Garvin, Bend Studio came out and defended their teams work and even the co-director, Jeff Ross, said that they were punching above their weight with a small team.
https://twitter.com/JakeRocket/status/1601246603675041793
And you can tell that it needed more time, more manpower. But even with the mixed review, they did decently with what they had. I've played other Bend Studio games, like Resistance: Retribution which was decent and I want to play through Siphon Filter and soon next year I'm gonna platinum Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Hell I'm even disappointed in a sense (But not surprised) that Sony nixed Days Gone 2 and even more sad that they nixed the idea for an open world Resistance game (though again not surprised). From the studio that made Bubsy 3D, and with such a small team they did ok with what they had and I hope they continue to improve on their work.
I'm glad that even with the critical reception it got that it was successful. I'm happy to see a fanbase love the game for what it is even if I didn't. And I'm glad it got a PC Port, and I'm really thankful that other Playstation Exclusives are getting a PC Port. Now if they could only port the older generation Playstation Exclusives that would be nice too (looking at Bloodborne being my MVP of course).
"1. it had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate;
2. it had reviewers who couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game
3. And three, it had woke reviewers who couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date’s ass"
Number one was absolutely correct, there were some bugs and glitches in game, but with that in mind it never really bothered me necessarily. If anything it led to some funny moments, like shooting me into the air after riding my bike. Some were annoying like this dialogue repeating on one of the missions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3arCu-hKRQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
Now glitches in mind, yeah I'm sure that did lead to an iffy reception but that can be fixed.
Number Two's point was that reviewers didn't play the game, but truth be told you don't have to play the game all the way through or even for that long before you start to discover the game's problems.
Number three implies that people don't like the main character because he looks at his wife's ass. As a heterosexual myself I can confirm that absolutely no one fucking cares. If anything I wish Deacon would shut the fuck up every now and then but I mean I don't hate him for it. Wherever this came from your blowing smoke guy. Now I'm gonna tell you why from my personal experience this game is a mixed reception.
I'm going to start off with gameplay wise. The gameplay isn't bad, from what I remember you ride your motorcycle around, rescue survivors, take over outposts from either "Freakers" (this games version of zombies), etc. So I'll start by saying this, it's not an awful game loop, it's adequate enough and I can say it plays fine. But it's not something that I haven't seen before, and that's ok because that's every game now so whatever. But it's basically done everything almost every other game has done, which I feel is also the design philosophy that leaks into the story as well. Like you can tell playing the game that it takes A LOT of influence from Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, the zombies from World War Z ESPECIALLY because they basically behave exactly the same which I will say is one thing this game gets right, the hordes are terrifying but besides that for right now I'm gonna get to spoilers so feel free to ignore this part.
My fundamental issue with this game, unoriginality aside is how that unoriginality affects the story. There's this whole build up of how you're trying to go find your wife and you don't know if she's dead or not, and to me this could lead to the at least somewhat unique lesson of "letting go", finding something new. Hell I remember this one mission in the second act where Deacon and his best friend Boozer start beating the shit out of each other because of Deacon's obsession with finding his wife and his inability to let go. And I thought that was at moment that I thought was going to go somewhere. But if I remember correctly the very next mission Deacon calls up his buddy and says "Yo I forgot my wife had top secret clearance and that her lab was down here and I think I'm gonna go find her" and Boozer's all like "You fuckin go champ I believe in you" and it's just a further kick in the crotch of something that I felt could've been interesting only to throw out the "Move on from your trauma" thing into "Oh your wife is miraculously alive and there's a whole third of the game to go". After the second act story wise I'll even admit I kind of clocked out story wise because I felt like it was a complete tonal shift, they had something and they fucked it up. So they just kind of put together this story that I felt was surgically removed from other media and put onto this one carcass and brought back to life as a zombie with a different look. I mean the end of the game itself isn't bad, it's a happy one I suppose with a sort of hint towards a sequel which honestly I still don't mind if it was made. Bend is a smaller studio that I totally believe punched up on their weight (and their games have been mixed results tbh) but I believe with enough dedication and the right moves a sequel to this could be the AAA game that they were looking to make. But as a game itself it's mixed. So far it has:
-Cookie Cutter story with random elements and bungled plot devices
-Gameplay that's satisfying, though not original
-Main character is a dude who constantly talks and never shuts up, which is ok sometimes and other times I wish he'd stop
Other things I wanna throw out there are realistically refilling the gas every five seconds is annoying and that I think there was this weird love triangle between this one chick Rikki, Deacon and her lover who is a woman? Which I'm not sure if I'm right but I felt like that was kind of odd and also dropped real quick when "oh his wife is alive". Also the post credits stinger or what have you has this "Oh the government agents you've been talking to? Sentient freakers who have powers" and that would make for a real interesting sequel. The hordes are terrifying and the studio pulled that off great. The stealth missions with said government agents can blow a fat one too. I mean other than that, and the bugs and also the fact that the antagonists are one note (Skizzo especially reminds me of OG Loc and frankly felt like he would've been better off as a one shot side quest where he gets eaten or something).
Overall, I don't hate this game, I find it average and middle ground which is what most reviewers felt. In a rebuttal to John Garvin, Bend Studio came out and defended their teams work and even the co-director, Jeff Ross, said that they were punching above their weight with a small team.
https://twitter.com/JakeRocket/status/1601246603675041793
And you can tell that it needed more time, more manpower. But even with the mixed review, they did decently with what they had. I've played other Bend Studio games, like Resistance: Retribution which was decent and I want to play through Siphon Filter and soon next year I'm gonna platinum Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Hell I'm even disappointed in a sense (But not surprised) that Sony nixed Days Gone 2 and even more sad that they nixed the idea for an open world Resistance game (though again not surprised). From the studio that made Bubsy 3D, and with such a small team they did ok with what they had and I hope they continue to improve on their work.
I'm glad that even with the critical reception it got that it was successful. I'm happy to see a fanbase love the game for what it is even if I didn't. And I'm glad it got a PC Port, and I'm really thankful that other Playstation Exclusives are getting a PC Port. Now if they could only port the older generation Playstation Exclusives that would be nice too (looking at Bloodborne being my MVP of course).
girl