I'm really scared by the reception I'm seeing, Gamespot and PCGamer have released negative articles, and the youtube comments are full of alarming "This looks generic and boring" "The graphics sucks" and "Where's Saints Row 5?" comments.
Gamespot said the AI is dumb and stands still (!?!?), but literally all of the gameplay I've seen has shown them dodging attacks, communicating, flanking, meleeing, climbing and scaling the environment, using special abilities, backing each other up... what the heck Gamespot!?!
Both Gamespot and PC Gamer said the open world feels lifeless, and also spoke negatively about the car handling and writing which is a worrying prospect, juxtaposing the good things I've seen so far (please don't just be crude jokes and juvenile humour, I love the sharp wit and writing).
I saw one person say the graphics look like they were from the Wii... whu... what? The game visually looks great, it's completely on par with all the games currently, plus the artstyle helps with the problem many current gen games have where texture work and the environment look rough up close. The effects and animation look very slick and it looks like it controls responsively. But then PC Gamer said the civilians move like early XBOX 360 animations.... huh!? I don't recall the GTA 5 characters having good physicality in their movements? They had a bunch of AI problems despite their variety of ambient activities.
Whats especially frustrating me is I can't find any constructive, detailed, or well explained criticism on why some people are disliking this, by not providing any feedback to Volition, I don't get how they expect them to improve and consider their thoughts.
Some people are still comparing it to bloody Overwatch and saying it's multiplayer!
I might report some glitches I noticed in the Eurogamer footage, at 8:16 an NPC in the background glitches about a bit and just after that 2 npcs phase into existence.
There was also clipping issues when Daisy entered the car and was hitting the statue and I'm worried about how few npcs and cars I saw, and some repeating NPC models, I hope there is a good range of ambient activities they do. I hope that the world is dense and feels lived in with the NPCs, the articles ahhh! Why are they attacking a new IP but giving a tonne of generic games a pass? Why are articles complaining that it's a new IP and not Saints Row? That doesn't make sense?
Idol I'm scared, I love what I'm seeing but hate what I'm hearing.