How Much Time Played is Enough to get an Impression?

Recently I made a post regarding Amazon’s New World preview event and my experiences there. I got a lot of push back because having only played five and a half hours is apparently not enough time to give a first impression. I didn’t hit max level and do every single piece of content, so how can I have any opinions about the game? Part of me thought that it might be fanboy rage because I dared to say anything critical (despite saying overall that the game looks good), but it still seems worth while to examine the criticism.

In this post, I’m going to discuss the differences between a review and a first impression as well as what is a fair amount of time to experience a game before making some sort of judgement about the game or it’s systems.

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Hearthstone Impressions

I’ve played a little bit of Hearthstone now and I want to drop a little feedback. Keep in mind, it’s still in beta, but it plays like a pretty complete game. For that, I’d say they’re doing a good job with it so far. It’s fun, but it’s far too simple. I have a decent win/loss ratio (I think) but games are nearly always one sided. Either I wreck them or they wreck me – it’s hard to be much fun on either side of that. This is because of the simplicity. Bad draw early on can create a deficit that can never be recovered from. However, it’s the lack of countering that is my real complaint. I played a game where on turn 3 or 4, the opponent played a card to “steal” one of mine, used that to kill my taunt creature and (clearing my side of the board) and dealt 10 damage. Prior to that turn we were equal with full health but I had 2 strong(ish) cards in play and he had one weak one. At the end of the turn I’m down 1/3 of my health and he had 5 minions to my 0. No way to stop it. No way to counter. What I’d love to see is a Magic the Gathering style counter spell mechanic. The ability to cast certain types of spells during the opponents turn would be such a huge improvement. It would at a little complexity. Do I save this burn spell to see what my opponent does or use it now? I’ve seen many games where either side could have stopped a loss by simply being able to stop one spell or one minion during a key fight. It just needs a little more. (more…)