• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Avowed - Digital Foundry Tech Review - PC/Xbox Series X|S Tested!

DirtInUrEye

Member
Wasn't it just their Eurogamer origin site that idiotically ignored one of the biggest and best releases of the that year? I get the impression that, like most players, Richard prefers to keep topical politics out of it; John can have his tantrums, so it's a maybe for him. Alex is insufferable with it; but Oliver couldn't really care less.

People here are always so quick to hit the woke alarm about anything, it's so basic.
 

Zathalus

Member
Of course this pos gets a tech review week before release and Hogwarts took weeks.
Pos? Have you actually played it? No? You’re acting exactly like everyone else that shits on Forspoken and haven’t actually played the game.

As for Hogwarts Legacy, the video came out 9 days after launch because Warner Brothers asked them to delay the video twice, due to patches that came out.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Pos? Have you actually played it? No? You’re acting exactly like everyone else that shits on Forspoken and haven’t actually played the game.

As for Hogwarts Legacy, the video came out 9 days after launch because Warner Brothers asked them to delay the video twice, due to patches that came out.
Not going to play this shit. Looks uninspired and too gay
 

N0S

Al Pachinko, Konami President
Tried playing balanced with VRR on SX but switched to performance. I just cant go below 60
 

Senua

Member
Not going to play this shit. Looks uninspired and too gay
Mn0O6G2.jpeg
 

Fess

Member
Bethesda have the option of either UE5 or Id Tech, both would be a massive improvement over Creation, I reckon.
I hope not. I hate UE5.
I don’t have any problems with Creation Engine in Starfield when maxed out on PC, when it looks good it looks good.
UE5 on other hand almost always come with issues.

id’s Motor impressed me a lot in Indy but have issues with pop in of foliage and I doubt the physics and object placement is as good as in Creation Engine, though that’s not easy to compare when the game don’t let you fiddle with everything.
 

Ev1L AuRoN

Member
I find the game inconsistent visually, it can look amazing in some shots, in others quite bare, the animation and the fights aren't that impressive. But I got to admit, the game turn out way better than I was expecting considering the old gameplay trailers, Obsidian really impressed me with the level of polish in the game, sometimes having low expectations kinda pay off.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
"Guys! Give Forspoken a try! I promise its amazing!" "Fuck Avowed I won't give it a chance"

conan obrien duality GIF by Team Coco


We might be witnessing a pseudo-meltdown. 🤭

This pos gets 8/10 and really good game forspoken gets destroyed for nothing.

Edit: people who laugh at this post are xbots and fake gamers who wouldn’t know a good game if it was handed to them. I can’t believe some of you still believe the awful forspoken smear campaign and prefer this soulless Microsoft dei crap. That’s just dad
 

DanielG165

Member
How about you address the actual points instead of resorting to insults? Having actually played the first few hours the only thing that jumps out as remotely woke or DEI are the optional pronouns, which you can even disable with a simple toggle.
Right. And, the term, “woke” is such a malleable and near impossible to nail down term to define these days, that I question the integrity, ingenuity, and mental fortitude of anyone who uses it unironically.
 

Zathalus

Member
Dei crap is enough for me to skip it.
The game looks disgusting. I don’t care how well it plays
The game looks pretty good actually. Very good use of both Lumen and Nanite. The only negatives are some of the animations and a bit of noise in the lighting. And as I said, very little DEI is to actually be found in the game, no matter the online discussion thinking so. It’s got little in common with Veilguard in that regard. It’s also certainly not as good as the likes of BG3 or KCD2, but it’s a fun little action RPG in the vein of Outer Worlds, just with better combat. The game reminds me of Risen funnily enough, but I think that is just due to the island setting.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
This is one thing I give Kacho Kacho massive credit for. I don't agree with him with everything, but his stance of not partaking in games with consultancy or DEI stuff is staunch.

Rofif here is calling out Avowed specifically for being "DEI crap" while also championing Forspoken, a game that is on all the "Dei detected" website, lists etc.

Fake outrage is worse than consistent or no outrage. 🤷‍♂️
 

dEvAnGeL

Member
What a strange video. John was very positive about the game in general. Calling it “smooth”. And then comes Alex, “stutter, stutter, stutter”. Will play the games once it gets a few patches to sort out issues mentioned on reviews.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
The game looks pretty good actually. Very good use of both Lumen and Nanite. The only negatives are some of the animations and a bit of noise in the lighting. And as I said, very little DEI is to actually be found in the game, no matter the online discussion thinking so. It’s got little in common with Veilguard in that regard. It’s also certainly not as good as the likes of BG3 or KCD2, but it’s a fun little action RPG in the vein of Outer Worlds, just with better combat. The game reminds me of Risen funnily enough, but I think that is just due to the island setting.
Rofif is half right. The game looks disgusting at times with some of the worst art direction ive ever seen.

Ive seen several reviews and my goodness, the level of purple and other odd LGBT colors are prevalent through out the game.

Where you are right and he's wrong is that the game uses Lumen and nanite very well, which is why you are seeing fantastic geometric detail and really good indirect lighting indoors and proper light bounce during the midday scenes John showcased in his review. The game truly shines during mid day and in some of the forest and desert levels. The purple levels and night time stuff looks fugly and im hoping you can forward time so i can just keep playing during the day.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Please tell me again if you plan on playing this or not, because it’s not sinking in…
No
lol still no

I had a good feeling about forspoken despite negative reviews. It was clear to see that it gets review bombed.
While avowed is clear as day woke crap, looks entirely mid and I am not interested in it in the slightest. And I’ve even bought immortals of aveum.
If anything, it looks like avowed gets some points added from xbox shills.
 
Last edited:

Buggy Loop

Member
Rofif is half right. The game looks disgusting at times with some of the worst art direction ive ever seen.

Ive seen several reviews and my goodness, the level of purple and other odd LGBT colors are prevalent through out the game.

Where you are right and he's wrong is that the game uses Lumen and nanite very well, which is why you are seeing fantastic geometric detail and really good indirect lighting indoors and proper light bounce during the midday scenes John showcased in his review. The game truly shines during mid day and in some of the forest and desert levels. The purple levels and night time stuff looks fugly and im hoping you can forward time so i can just keep playing during the day.

Purple was all over Pillars of Eternity & BG3. Its "evil/mysticism" magic in almost all of fantasy since 70's dungeon and dragon art.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Rofif is half right. The game looks disgusting at times with some of the worst art direction ive ever seen.

Ive seen several reviews and my goodness, the level of purple and other odd LGBT colors are prevalent through out the game.

Where you are right and he's wrong is that the game uses Lumen and nanite very well, which is why you are seeing fantastic geometric detail and really good indirect lighting indoors and proper light bounce during the midday scenes John showcased in his review. The game truly shines during mid day and in some of the forest and desert levels. The purple levels and night time stuff looks fugly and im hoping you can forward time so i can just keep playing during the day.
Yeah yeah I am more about art direction, woke and just not being interested in it at all.
I don’t have to feel it. If I did, I would give it a chance. But it looks super safe and colourful.
But ai will not go around attacking anyone. It’s people acting weird to me because Inliked forspoken. Like if I had to give a chance to every game. Even ones I don’t feel
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Purple was all over Pillars of Eternity & BG3. Its "evil/mysticism" magic in almost all of fantasy since 70's dungeon and dragon art.
I am not into D&D so i will take your word for it. But I was hoping for a more darker art style like in the very first teaser and the xbox series x reveal.

I do like me some nanite and lumen and this is the first game thats using VSMs along with the other two UE5 feature so i will be there day one. Or Day 5 because im poor and MS thinks its ok to release games 5 days early for rich people.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
this game looks good and bad at the same time... cant explain it...

lumen and nanite flexing hard too.

but these animations are trash juice
Animations are almost always ignored when it comes to graphics, but they play a huge part in selling the visual fidelity. Also, the art style is kinda cartoony so it looks kinda lame compared to Kingdom Come 2 despite being more technically accomplished in terms of assets, foliage and indirect lighting. But KC2 is going for a somewhat realistic style and looks far more coherent in terms of art design.
 
  • Like
Reactions: N0S

Kacho

Gold Member
Animations are almost always ignored when it comes to graphics, but they play a huge part in selling the visual fidelity. Also, the art style is kinda cartoony so it looks kinda lame compared to Kingdom Come 2 despite being more technically accomplished in terms of assets, foliage and indirect lighting. But KC2 is going for a somewhat realistic style and looks far more coherent in terms of art design.
KCD2 looks miles better and the women NPCs didn't get hit with budget cuts
 

CamHostage

Member
I am not into D&D so i will take your word for it. But I was hoping for a more darker art style like in the very first teaser and the xbox series x reveal.

I think people over-imagined what they thought they saw in that original teaser?

That teaser was "darker" in that the dungeon was ill-lit (intentionally, for the dragon entrance effect) the colors were muted (though it did have the purple, and lots of it, even then,) and the short bit of narration was written more about the legacy of warfare rather than the rise of a hero (or at all about the poison of the land that the story actually centers around.) However, it was not really a grim-dark or artistically realistic fantasy teaser. The skeletons were still Harryhausen boneknockers, the statues and landscapes were still stylized similar to the final, and although dungeons generally add fill light for visibility (I liked what the effect showed in early screenshots of caves lit purely by spitfire and torchlight, but going source-light-only is obviously a tough design decision to adhere to for a large-scale game with hours of grinding in these underground environments, even though it looks cool when it works,) there's still lots of contrasty lighting situations in the final game.

 
Last edited:

Imtjnotu

Member
Animations are almost always ignored when it comes to graphics, but they play a huge part in selling the visual fidelity. Also, the art style is kinda cartoony so it looks kinda lame compared to Kingdom Come 2 despite being more technically accomplished in terms of assets, foliage and indirect lighting. But KC2 is going for a somewhat realistic style and looks far more coherent in terms of art design.
KCD2 reminds me of old Europe

Avowed gives me Middle earth rivendell with color pop.

Are styles aside I still think this takes the cake over KCD2
 
  • Like
Reactions: N0S

SKYF@ll

Member
Performance Mode(60fps) disables Lumen reflections, which reduces image quality, so the 40fps mode seems best for the XSX.
Like the FSR, the TSR also suffers from image distortion when upscaling to 4K from 1080p or lower.
3r5Gkye.jpg

 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Performance Mode(60fps) disables Lumen reflections, which reduces image quality, so the 40fps mode seems best for the XSX.
Like the FSR, the TSR also suffers from image distortion when upscaling to 4K from 1080p or lower.
3r5Gkye.jpg




Yeah there's other comparisons which show mid field comparisons and Performance cuts vegetation as well.

Balanced seems like the best way, especially as you can unlock FPS in it too.
 

Three

Member
The funny part is I didn’t even think Forspoken was that bad. Certainly not amazing, but I think it was unfairly shat upon. The story and characters fell a bit flat in Forspoken, but the combat was quite fun, as well as the magical parkour. But now I’m apparently stupid for liking this?
Not for liking this, for saying Forspoken is more woke than this.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Animations are almost always ignored when it comes to graphics, but they play a huge part in selling the visual fidelity. Also, the art style is kinda cartoony so it looks kinda lame compared to Kingdom Come 2 despite being more technically accomplished in terms of assets, foliage and indirect lighting. But KC2 is going for a somewhat realistic style and looks far more coherent in terms of art design.

I just got done playing KCD 1 so I'm a bit saturated with sim-RPG for a while, will go into KCD 2 later.

But I also am happy to see a full fantasy setting, in fact it reminds me of Torment Tides of Numenera + Pillars of Eternity 2. I want this exactly as a mouth rinse to the full SIM rural experience I had with KCD 1 even though I loved the game. I need a dose of fantasy for now.
 

Zathalus

Member
Some of the comparisons to KCD2 are a bit weird. While I agree that KCD2 is the superior game overall, it’s quite clear that both are very different takes on the RPG genre. Nobody has a problem with Forza Horizon and iRacing both being driving games, but they are very different games in the end. It’s perfectly possible to enjoy both.
 

Ashamam

Member
Balanced seems like the best way, especially as you can unlock FPS in it too.
Only have a 60hz TV so this validates my decision to sell the Series X and play through GFN. The 1080p performance mode looks super rough. If it ports across to PS I'll be interested in how it presents on the Pro for sure. Avowed along with Indi were the only real upcoming titles I was considering keeping the console for.
 
Last edited:

kevboard

Member
Performance Mode(60fps) disables Lumen reflections, which reduces image quality, so the 40fps mode seems best for the XSX.
Like the FSR, the TSR also suffers from image distortion when upscaling to 4K from 1080p or lower.
3r5Gkye.jpg



Lumen and UE5's dithered ass shadow maps are so fucking dogshit it's actually insane...

this is 1080p... a game should not look this awful at 1080p internal resolution.
but all the dithering, all the low resolution passes, the low ray count, the bad denoiser... it all combines into an image that looks like absolute puke.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom