I hadn't seen that review.
I guess I still think that's the exception that proves the rule, rather than the exception that disproves it.
WEG basically made
the most old-school adventure games out there -- deliberately designed to look like 90s adventures, in an engine explicitly developed to make games like 90s adventures, etc. -- and had a player base that grew organically out of the most devoted old-school adventure game fans. WEG's primary press agents, like Richard Cobbett, are ostentatiously attached to old-school adventure games. So it just seems like if, in fact, Unavowed were an outrageous betrayal of the core values of adventure games, you'd hear a loud hew and cry, the same way you would if
Styg suddenly made a popamole nu-RPG. Instead, the same core fanbase and press agents declare it to be one of the best adventure games of all time. It is hard for me to reconcile the two positions. That one or two players complain isn't
that surprising to me (even the best games always fail to appeal to some percentage of fans); what I don't understand is why you don't see dozens or scores of reviews echoing the Codex's points, if those points are right.
Maybe
fantadomat has the right of it, which is that adventure game fans are basically forgiving, and this game looks great, sounds great, and has a lot of dialogue, and so maybe that gets you to thumbs-up even among people who are annoyed about puzzles. But I dunno.
<3sRichardSimmons I would have more of a chip on my shoulder, for sure, if Primordia had bombed. As it is, it's hard to be
too upset about GameJournPros saying that your game is a monstrosity when players tell you that it made their lives better. Also, a faint hint of struggle in my life lets me feel more like Gattaca's Vincent than Gattaca's Anton.
--EDIT--
Like, is comparison to getting a tweet like this:
it's hard to really care what a game journalist has to say about Primordia.
It would mean a lot to me if someone I really respect in the field -- like, say, Brian Moriarty (who, incidentally, said that Dave Gilbert was one of the only people he'd trust with a LOOM sequel) or Avellone or Emily Short -- said something nice about Primordia. And it might mean something if some kind of legitimately impressive critical organ, like The New Yorker, took a close look at the game. But while I like game journalists and think they are generally hard working, nice people, they average game journalist is probably not as sophisticated as the average Codex troll along any metric (knowledge of games, knowledge of literature/art, educational attainment, professional attainment, intellectual rigor). It may sting a little when a middling community college English minor says that Primordia's themes are shallow, but I'm pretty good at the self-defense mechanism of brushing such criticism off. By contrast, it's always meant a lot to me (maybe irrationally a lot) that the Codex took to the game so much. And it means even more getting stuff like:
Primordia was a game about finding oneself. Going through that experience during a tough time, when one is lost, allows them to think for a bit and go to sleep differently.
After finishing the game, I was haunted by Leobuilt's words, "Know thyself, then return." At random moments I would say those words and it would remind me of a person that I must find again. These words have high meaning to me.
You questioned my ideas, beliefs, religion, humanity, hunger for improvement, what we are willing to sacrifice to achieve and defend ideas, the value of life... so, so many things to say but cannot say! I hope I remember the lessons you taught me.
Just wanted to let you know that I love this game and some of the ideas that this game has given me is starting to improve my life. That is no joke.
Honestly, for as many walls of words as I can and do write, I can't really capture what it means, as a person constantly crippled by self-doubt, to read something like that.
