{"id":85575,"date":"2016-01-26T11:30:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T09:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=85575"},"modified":"2016-01-26T11:42:51","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T09:42:51","slug":"the-witness-review-roundup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/reviews\/85575-the-witness-review-roundup","title":{"rendered":"The Witness Review Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"

When thinking about potential Game of the Year candidates for 2016, most would immediately jump to the big-name releases like Uncharted 4<\/em>, Doom<\/em> or The Division<\/em>, but you’d be silly to forget The Witness<\/em>.<\/p>\n

From the outside, The Witness <\/em>is an unassuming puzzle game from the mind of Jonathan Blow (the guy behind the incredible Braid<\/em>), but critics who’ve been given a chance to play it are saying that it’s a whole lot more.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n
The Witness<\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Platform<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\nMetacritic Critic Scores<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\nMetacritic User Scores<\/strong><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PS4<\/a><\/td>\n89<\/td>\n*Still to be scored<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC<\/a><\/td>\n90<\/td>\n*Still to be scored<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

With\u00a0The Witness’<\/em> release, after approximately eight years in development, we’ve been given a game that is jam-packed with secrets, clever puzzle mechanics and gorgeous visuals, and the critics can’t get enough of it.<\/p>\n

Let’s see what some of them are saying about The Witness<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Gameinformer<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 9.25\/10<\/h3>\n

“The Witness<\/em> is about a different kind of discovery. It steers your mind in unconventional directions, and makes you feel clever as you build on your knowledge and uncover new layers about the game\u2019s language and logic. Even when I wasn\u2019t playing it, I was thinking about puzzles that had me stumped. Some puzzles are tough, but all of them are fair, and the fun of solving them is only topped by seeing what awaits you on the next series of monitors.”<\/p>\n

Destructoid<\/a> – 10\/10<\/h3>\n

“Truthfully, I wish I didn’t have to score The Witness<\/em>. I don’t want to set people up for that expectation; I don’t want a voice in the back of their head that says ‘Okay, when does this become a ten?’ In a way, that’s unfair and detrimental to how the game should be experienced, which is as open-minded and unassuming as possible. Don’t go to The Witness<\/em>. Let The Witness<\/em> come to you.”<\/p>\n

IGN<\/a> – 10\/10<\/h3>\n

“The Witness<\/em> has a power and pull that carried me throughout the more than 40 hours it took to complete it for the first time, and that, even now, beckons me back to confront the mysteries I left unsolved. Its graceful combination of tangible goals, obscurity, and freedom creates ample opportunity for small victories and grand revelations alike. For the most part, its themes weave themselves beautifully throughout the gorgeous world and wide variety of puzzles, but even when it breaks subtlety in favor of a more heavy-handed approach to exposition, it never detracts from the truly fulfilling moments The Witness<\/em> offers in terms of solving its physical puzzles and unlocking its deepest mysteries.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Video Gamer<\/a> – 10\/10<\/h3>\n

“I’m so caught up inside the world of The Witness<\/em> that it’s hard to think about anything else: like Tetris, this is its true power, and it is one of the best games I’ve ever encountered. Playing The Witness<\/em> is a real emotional rollercoaster, with flashes of anger, despondency, jubilation, awe, smugness and admiration. Who would have thought you could get all that from a game about drawing lines?”<\/p>\n

Game Informer<\/a> – 9.25\/10<\/h3>\n

“The opaque world might be disappointing for some players, but The Witness<\/em> is about a different kind of discovery. It steers your mind in unconventional directions, and makes you feel clever as you build on your knowledge and uncover new layers about the game’s language and logic. Even when I wasn’t playing it, I was thinking about puzzles that had me stumped. Some puzzles are tough, but all of them are fair, and the fun of solving them is only topped by seeing what awaits you on the next series of monitors.”<\/p>\n

GameSpot<\/a> – 9\/10<\/h3>\n

“That’s what The Witness<\/em> is about–gaining knowledge to make sense of the island and its gorgeous but exotic environments. The Witness<\/em> molds its world, puzzles, and themes into such a layered, cohesive whole that, if we look hard enough, we’ll keep finding new ways to perceive it. There are still things about The Witness<\/em> I can’t make sense of–some clues I might never notice, and some puzzles I might never solve. But the hints are there. It might not all be clear at first, but that’s okay, because I’m always learning.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Polygon<\/a> – 8\/10<\/h3>\n

“That said, I doubt I’ll be heading back in for a completionist run. It’s a beautiful game and knowing that I finished it with minimal help actually does make me feel smarter. It also contains some subtle messages about human potential that I found surprisingly uplifting (when I wasn’t pulling my hair out). Despite feeling deeply satisfied by the experience, it’s hard for me to ignore how much time I spent frustrated and bored and angry. Maybe contrasting those two ends of the emotional spectrum is essential to the experience of playing The Witness<\/em>, but an era when they can skip the frustration, I’m not convinced most players will have the patience to obtain it.”<\/p>\n

Venture Beat<\/a> – 7\/10<\/h3>\n

“I admire a lot about The Witness<\/em>. It is a beautiful game. It is a clever game. It is a big game. But all of its elements, mazes, exploration, and philosophy didn’t really come together to express some greater theme. Unless I was meant to question why I hurt my brain to solve a series of difficult mazes for no real award.”<\/p>\n

\n

Article\u00a0originally published on\u00a0MenStuff.co.za<\/a>.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In other news<\/strong><\/h3>\n

R1,000,000 cash prizes for new Telkom DGL Masters<\/a><\/p>\n

European retailers suggest PlayStation VR will cost at least R8,000<\/a><\/p>\n

Video game vacation spots to visit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s only January and we already have a potential candidate for Game of the Year, Jonathan Blow’s The Witness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":85577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_enabled":true,"_sma_x_custom_text":"","_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2622,2484,2624,15397,1239,1283,17041,581,8976,8979],"class_list":["post-85575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-braid","tag-inc","tag-jonathan-blow","tag-pc","tag-playstation-4","tag-puzzle","tag-puzzle-game","tag-review-roundup","tag-the-witness","tag-thekla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85579,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85575\/revisions\/85579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}