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12 Minutes Review

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Twelve Minutes is a thrill ride through and through, constantly presenting players with new and interesting revelations in the time looping narrative that never fails to keep one guessing.

It veers away from stereotypical point-and-click adventure tropes, and challenges players to bend its densely-detailed environments to achieve their goals. It's not a perfect game by any stretch, but gets so much right that players even vaguely interested in the premise should definitely give this game a go.
 
Reviews are looking good to me 80 average on MC, lots of 9s and 8s, a few 7s and below, but not too many. With a game like this its very possible the the narrative just won't click for them. Also, any adventure game with moderate to challenging puzzles runs to risk of a reviewer getting stuck, feeling dumb, and having their experienced soured because of it. But so far the response is positive enough to let me know that, given my love for adventure games and what I've seen pre-release, I'll most likely enjoy the game.
 
Skimming the positive and negative reviews, it seems to be like I assumed. The good reviews are praising it's clever and varied puzzles, the bad reviews are saying they're confusing and repetitive. Very few have anything bad to say about the narrative itself (from what I skimmed, avoiding certain bits to go in mostly blind). The fact that the reviews are majority positive tells me that it's likely a good difficulty balance was struck, but that seems to be the difference maker for people's enjoyment.

The other issue that comes up is unpolished animations, which is something I noticed in the recent gameplay trailers and not a deal-breaker for me. A bit of a shame for a game with such a sharp aesthetic, though.
 

GametimeUK

Member
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.
 
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M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.
I mean Ascent is really good, not sure what's up with reviews. Probably one of the most enjoyable games this year.
Don't have PS5, so can't really compare to likes of Returnal.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I'm definitely still looking forward to this. I'm glad it's coming to Game Pass.
 

Paradicia

Member
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.

Your opinion fucking stinks! If you want to be an edgelord, go post on /vg/. Xbox Game Pass is the best value for money in gaming in comparison to other offerings. You act like Halo & Forza are 'touch and go'. Fucking dweeb! 😂
 
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.
I wouldn't say the games have been trash but the service still needs killer apps and better exclusive games.

12 minutes still looks interesting. Halo infinite and Forza both look great so things might change when they are released.
 
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.

Just curious, why aren't you quite as hyped now? There's some exception, sure, but the majority of the reviews are really positive.
 
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.
Seems like you don't like games. Maybe try skateboarding or something.
 

arvfab

Banned
This game was one of the very few interesting looking games showed during the MS E3 conference, so will definitely try it out on PC (although it looks like it would be a perfect match for the Switch).

Don't want to spoil anything for me, so I'm not going to watch any reviews.

Does anybody who has watched them know, if you only have limited time for doing stuff? For example, if you don't solve that puzzle within the first 5 minutes, you have to begin the game again.
 
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This game was one of the very few interesting looking games showed during the MS E3 conference, so will definitely try it out on PC (although it looks like it would be a perfect match for the Switch).

Don't want to spoil anything for me, so I'm not going to watch any reviews.

Does anybody who has watched them know, if you only have limited time for doing stuff? For example, if you don't solve that puzzle within the first 5 minutes, you have to begin the game again.
Came here to ask the same things you're asking.

I've been excited for this game to release, and despite some mixed reviews, I still want to experience it.

Has anyone played the game so far? Any first hand impressions?
 

Chukhopops

Member
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.
If you didn’t find anything you like in a month where Hades, Humankind, The Ascent, Twelve Minutes, Starmancer, Boyfriend Dungeon, Library of Ruina and Psychonauts 2 are added day one then I don’t think you should keep the GP sub anyway as I doubt it will be topped anytime soon.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now. I was looking forward to trying this game, but I'm not quite as hyped now. Back 4 Blood looks set to be another disappointment as was The Medium. Outriders was underwhelming for me and as for the games I have enjoyed, I could have bought and owned them all for less than the price of a gamepass sub for one year.

Fingers crossed for Halo and Forza.

lmao, this shit is unreal. I really don’t get this kind of stuff. You need to cancel your sub ASAP and go and find something else to be pissed off about.
 

Roufianos

Member
78 ain't bad at all. I don't think anyone ever saw this scoring a 90 and becoming an instant classic.

I probably wouldn't have bought it but I'll check it out on GP.
 
Im so dissapointed! None of these reviews is 12 minutes long!

N6Cuc9E.jpg
 

GametimeUK

Member
I have a feeling that you will hate those too.
Why do you get that feeling? Because I have one negative post about how underwhelming the recent releases on Gamepass have been? I love the Halo series (when Bungie are developing) and Forza Horizon 4 is my fave racing game of all time. My post history is actually very pro Xbox aside from one joke I cracked in a Hades thread.
 
Playing through the game now and I am enjoying it. The gameplay is the thing I'm liking most about it, trying the different iterations on the time loop to see how I can work my way toward mini objectives like convincing my wife of the time loop, finding out how to get more information, etc. All that stuff is convincingly done and the solutions feel logical and intuitive imo.

The biggest issue I have with it is that the narrative and dialogue have a real "stitched together" quality to them. They're all really short fragments that don't connect to feel like an entirely natural conversation. As a result some of the interactions just feel "off." Like when you introduce the concept of a time loop to your wife she just says a couple lines that don't come off realistically. The game is clearly trying to have its narrative while giving the player as much control as possible but sometimes that just makes for an awkward outcome. At least for the initial loop having a straight up cutscene or two could have helped a lot imo.

Once you get over those hurdles, though, the drama is compelling and Im having a good time working my way through it. Most recently I've just convinced my wife by predicting the weather and unopened gift, and hid in the closet to get the location of the watch.
 

Roberts

Member
Playing through the game now and I am enjoying it. The gameplay is the thing I'm liking most about it, trying the different iterations on the time loop to see how I can work my way toward mini objectives like convincing my wife of the time loop, finding out how to get more information, etc. All that stuff is convincingly done and the solutions feel logical and intuitive imo.

The biggest issue I have with it is that the narrative and dialogue have a real "stitched together" quality to them. They're all really short fragments that don't connect to feel like an entirely natural conversation. As a result some of the interactions just feel "off." Like when you introduce the concept of a time loop to your wife she just says a couple lines that don't come off realistically. The game is clearly trying to have its narrative while giving the player as much control as possible but sometimes that just makes for an awkward outcome. At least for the initial loop having a straight up cutscene or two could have helped a lot imo.

Once you get over those hurdles, though, the drama is compelling and Im having a good time working my way through it. Most recently I've just convinced my wife by predicting the weather and unopened gift, and hid in the closet to get the location of the watch.
Pretty much my thoughts. Also, little glitches like the wife talking about time loop when I never even mentioned it to her. But overall, I think it works well and is unique/original enough.
 

Neil Young

Member
Gamepass games are looking like a load of trash right now.
Are you just talking about the day one's? Flight SIM, The Ascent, The Show are damn fine day 1 games recently....off the top of my head. As a whole, there are TONS of good games.

This looks like a good play with the wife/gf game.
 
Just completed the game and my impressions hold except with greater emphasis on the clever puzzles. A lot of the scenarios were super fun to work out, when you finally take that cop out with the faulty light switch it's just like FUCK YEAH! "That's for every time you knocked me out and killed me, you fuck!" More of the conversations going forward feel more natural, after the basic premise is established, but some still ring false. In particular, I found it weird how quickly Bumblebee would just accept the words of a random stranger and call her dad on their behalf. At the very least, for a scene like that, you've really gatta have an A1 performance where you can think Bumblebee is moved by the protagonists' sheer desperation. Broad strokes, though, the latter half of the game hits some dramatic highs and there's plenty of entertaining twists that are all the more impactful for you sorting them out yourself.

It's definitely a cool game and one that's worth playing, a no brainer if you have gamepass. It didn't rock my world, it wasn't even my favorite adventure game this year (Great Ace Attorney takes that honor) but It's absolutely worth experiencing at least once.
 
Why do you get that feeling? Because I have one negative post about how underwhelming the recent releases on Gamepass have been? I love the Halo series (when Bungie are developing) and Forza Horizon 4 is my fave racing game of all time. My post history is actually very pro Xbox aside from one joke I cracked in a Hades thread.
I don't care about post history, i'm not one of those psycho fanboy stalkers. "like a load of trash right now" is no critic to me, it's just devastating. Calling Flight Simulator, The Ascent, Hades or 12 minutes trash sounds like the usual PS BS to me.
 

Haggard

Banned
In this day and age, and with people pushing their own agendas everywhere, how can we possibly rely on someone's opinion to be unbiased.
In this day and age with a whole industry specialized to make even the turdiest turd look like a filet steak, how can you possibly think it`s a good idea to just spend money without at least scanning across a few tests first.
 
I'm really enjoying this game. Playing it on PC.

Some of the conversations feel stitched together as some people mentioned in the thread. I can also appreciate people being annoyed with the loop

I like:
The voice acting
Unraveling the mystery
The puzzles
The time loop
The tension the game creates because of the time limit

I appreciate the devs trying something interesting with this game. This is a game for me
 
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