Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Bush King]

My problem isn't with the size of games themselves. Games like Assassin's Creed and Red Dead are fucking huge worlds, which regardless whether they use the space well or not, it makes sense that they breeze past 100 gigs. But what in the good God damn makes Call of Duty 20XX justify being consistently at the top of install size lists? The graphics aren't particularly good, neither is the sound, and the environments are small.

And I'd like to point out Witcher 3 doesn't even hit 40 gigs, even with the DLC and a high res mod.

I've never found a reason that made sense other than developers just being fucking lazy with file compression. I haven't played Red Dead since it came out, but my memory of that is similar to Assassin's Creed and Witcher 3- a very large world which is largely a time sink to separate the various questing hubs. There is no need for RDR2 to be over 150GB or Call of Duty to be almost 200GB. These huge maps have similar levels of detail to what they had 10-15 years ago but now we have exponential increases due to 4K graphic files. I've found this hard to justify. It seems developers went all-in on making every single texture a 4K file well before it became even a sizable minority of user's screens.

Having recently played Hitman 2016 with upscaling set to 1.3x on a 1070, I think it would have been perfectly acceptable for developers to aim for much smaller files and then increase post-processing options for those with Bitcoin rigs. I'm sick of having to figure out how to install games on a 500GB SSD just because Activision wants to both have the cake and eat it by having 4K textures and presumably allowing those with HDDs a modicum of speed by removing decompression times. The worst part is that it's all wasted. Even for users with the cards and screens to even notice it, it looks worse than games from the mid-2000s. No one gives a shit about actually sorting out their lighting or effects any more. No games take advantage of particles in a meaningful way. You can give Captain Price the most detailed mustache in the world but it means diddly squat when your gunfights look as dry as they did in 2005.

 

[byuu]

I get that huge file sizes exist for a reason.

The reason is that devs are too lazy to reduce the installer size.
Nothing is compressed, voice files of every language on Earth are included instead of providing different versions to different countries, and they also make you download a 4k texture for any tiny pebble in the game even if you don't have a 4k monitor.

 

[bd3rZIKr]

DMC and silent hill is crap. MGS 1998 is the only good one in the series. EY yo wasn't dis nigga byuu dead?

 

[Matt Damon]

But what in the good God damn makes Call of Duty 20XX justify being consistently at the top of install size lists?

Lack of audio compression is the major culprit, from what I understand. It's just absurd how lazy and consumer-unfriendly that is.

The reason is that devs are too lazy to reduce the installer size.
Nothing is compressed, voice files of every language on Earth are included instead of providing different versions to different countries, and they also make you download a 4k texture for any tiny pebble in the game even if you don't have a 4k monitor.

Which is even more ridiculous in an era where games are primarily downloaded.

How hard is it to have download options for the language you want or optional packages for 4k resolutions? Even repackers like Fitgirl provide that and yet the dev/publisher you pay $60 to can't be bothered.

 

[The Last Stand]

Pokémon games - in particular Gold/Silver/Crystal - would have been better off having a ~48 minute day/night cycle á la Skyrim as opposed to the actual real world time/d.o.w..

Games that have that sorta feature should have it as an option. Preferably, have an in-game day/night cycle.

But what in the good God damn makes Call of Duty 20XX justify being consistently at the top of install size lists? The graphics aren't particularly good, neither is the sound, and the environments are small.

Warzone intergration, lack of optimization, high-res video and assets. It's complete bullshit to download uncompressed files that you aren't able to ACCESS.

 

[Bush King]

Lack of audio compression is the major culprit, from what I understand. It's just absurd how lazy and consumer-unfriendly that is.

Which is even more ridiculous in an era where games are primarily downloaded.

How hard is it to have download options for the language you want or optional packages for 4k resolutions? Even repackers like Fitgirl provide that and yet the dev/publisher you pay $60 to can't be bothered.

It's ironic that smaller studios or games devs don't care about will get separate data packages. Most recent for me is the Rome TW Remaster- came with a separate 4K download, which was nice because it's already 65GB on disk for a game that used to be 3GB- and that game got no marketing or care from CA.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Dodging with i-frames is a fucking terrible idea and devolved combat into autistically timing dodges rather than actually positioning yourself in a location where you can easily exploit the terrain.

 

[DavidS877]

Dodging with i-frames is a fucking terrible idea and devolved combat into autistically timing dodges rather than actually positioning yourself in a location where you can easily exploit the terrain.

Then you get good at using terrain and the next boss fight you're stuck dodging anyway because they decided all the terrain in the area is now destructible and you have nowhere to hide. Horizon(both of them+DLC) does this for every single boss. Guess what, no stealth, no place to hide, just dodge, dodge, dodge, shoot(maybe), get clobbered, heal, dodge, dodge, dodge.

 

[Sincere Sinner]

I think Morrowind's combat is superior to it's sequels.

Morrowind's invisible dice rolls and skill checks shifts the agency for success from the player to the character you are playing as (roleplaying). It's fine once the player understands WHY they're missing at point blank range, which the game admittedly poorly conveys.

Oblivion and Skyrim have floaty, one dimensional shitty combat that just makes them bad Action RPGs. Morrowind is really just trying to simulate combat. Not trying to be an action RPG is superior to being a bad one.

 

[Pissmaster]

Lack of audio compression is the major culprit, from what I understand. It's just absurd how lazy and consumer-unfriendly that is.

Which is even more ridiculous in an era where games are primarily downloaded.

How hard is it to have download options for the language you want or optional packages for 4k resolutions? Even repackers like Fitgirl provide that and yet the dev/publisher you pay $60 to can't be bothered.

Remember how idiots back in the 7th gen used to get mad over DLC being on-disc, where you'd have to pay for a 100kb unlock key? Despite that data being better off on-disc, because that's less space you have to use on your hard drive? Seems like there was more complaining about that, than having to harbor gigabytes upon gigabytes of stuff you straight up can't use because of how games will just download all of their DLC and cosmetics, whether or not you bought them.

Man, you know what's fuckin' clown world? Platforms like Xbox Series S having only 512gb of storage when games are cracking 100gb at the beginning of the generation. The 1TB in the PS5 and Series X is like, bare-ass minimum, too. It would have been really nice if Sony & Microsoft had just nipped this shit right in the bud and set it up so when you first boot your console, it asks which languages you want to download audio in (if available), and also auto-detected what screen you're using to download the appropriate texture packs, but noooooooo.

 

[Matt Damon]

Man, you know what's fuckin' clown world? Platforms like Xbox Series S having only 512gb of storage when games are cracking 100gb at the beginning of the generation. The 1TB in the PS5 and Series X is like, bare-ass minimum, too. It would have been really nice if Sony & Microsoft had just nipped this shit right in the bud and set it up so when you first boot your console, it asks which languages you want to download audio in (if available), and also auto-detected what screen you're using to download the appropriate texture packs, but noooooooo.

I wonder if it's all intentional. You decrease production costs per console by using insufficient storage, encourage needlessly large install footprints among developers, and then sell upgrades down the road.

 

[DavidS877]

I wonder if it's all intentional. You decrease production costs per console by using insufficient storage, encourage needlessly large install footprints among developers, and then sell upgrades down the road.

The problem is that Sony gets $0 for the upgrades of the PS4 or PS5, both use off the shelf storage. A little picky on the PS5 SSD but still a standard part.

 

[Pissmaster]

The problem is that Sony gets $0 for the upgrades of the PS4 or PS5, both use off the shelf storage. A little picky on the PS5 SSD but still a standard part.

I think Xboxes can use external HDDs too, though they also sell "storage expansion cards" which are just overpriced proprietary NVMes. 1TB NVMe drives for computers are around $100 right now, and of course the ones for Xbox X|Ses are $220.

 

[Banana Hammock]

I prefer using a controller over a mouse and keyboard.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Morrowind's invisible dice rolls and skill checks shifts the agency for success from the player to the character you are playing as (roleplaying). It's fine once the player understands WHY they're missing at point blank range, which the game admittedly poorly conveys.

This is what makes a rpg a rpg. Not skill trees and progress bars...

 

[Matt Damon]

I prefer using a controller over a mouse and keyboard.

I'd say it's entirely dependent on the game - one is not inherently superior to the other.

I've found that the Splinter Cell games are shockingly good with mouse and keyboard. Changing your movement speed with the mouse scroll wheel sounds awful at first, but it actually works incredibly well and I'd never want to go back to an analog stick.

 

[Overcast]

Felt so weird to play Psychonauts on a keyboard to me that I had to plug to a controller almost immediately.

 

[The Gifted Kid]

Subscription services like xbox game pass and PS now aren't that bad when you consider they're just the modern day equivalent of video game rental stores (which have long since gone the way of the dodo). Admittedly there's a lot of games I just play once and then never touch. Further, maybe I just want to try out a game before I buy it and these services are pretty good for that.

It's just annoying when there's people constantly shilling for them and I could see it become a problem if there were games exclusive to these services. Blockbuster I remember had a few "exclusive" games that you could only rent.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Knockout Kings > Fight Night

 

[GuntPunt]

I'm starting to resent playing Elden Ring. My save got corrupted and I lost 50 hours of progress after fighting 1 boss. The glitches aren't my biggest gripe.

I feel like FROM's other games does its format much better. The exploration is nice, but it gives them an excuse to pull a lot of bullshit in the late game. Also, it kills pacing in my opinion. The whole affair feels bloated as a result.