Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Matt Damon]

Consumers gotta consoom.

I suppose you're ultimately consooming either way, but I don't buy a game with the implication that I'm buying a lifestyle change.

If I have to log in regularly for weekly gameplay changes (like the aforementioned seasons) or "daily challenges" and other faggy shit that I hear about in modern AAA games, I'm suddenly operating on the game's time rather than my own, which defeats the whole damn purpose. I just want something fun to do while I have free time.

If I wanted to take on a long-term responsibility that regularly demands my time and attention, I'd get a pet or something.

 

[Mega Black]

I think the video game world has left me behind in that regard - the whole concept of casually re-visiting a game on a regular basis over months or years to check for "new content" doesn't appeal to me at all, but it seems to be pretty standard now.

This is true to me as well, it's a result of live-service games and zoomers becoming the core demographic. Destiny and Fortnite ruined the future of gaming, more or less. I come from an age where you'd only revisit a game six months to a year after the fact when a whole expansion pack dropped to experience substantial new content, not one raid and five new skins that were already in the game but locked behind a timer so that the devs could keep faggots crawling back week after week. DLC was bad enough.

 

[Marissa Moira]

This is true to me as well, it's a result of live-service games and zoomers becoming the core demographic. Destiny and Fortnite ruined the future of gaming, more or less. I come from an age where you'd only revisit a game six months to a year after the fact when a whole expansion pack dropped to experience substantial new content, not one raid and five new skins that were already in the game but locked behind a timer so that the devs could keep faggots crawling back week after week. DLC was bad enough.

This has been a thing since Counter Strike.

 

[Calandrino]

I think the video game world has left me behind in that regard - the whole concept of casually re-visiting a game on a regular basis over months or years to check for "new content" doesn't appeal to me at all, but it seems to be pretty standard now.

I've developed a real aversion to the word CONTENT. It sounds like the #1 ingredient on a package of prison rations or something.

I suppose you're ultimately consooming either way, but I don't buy a game with the implication that I'm buying a lifestyle change.

The biggest innovation in video games since the dual shock style controller is to completely destroy people's lives, as a primary business model. Like credit card companies, or mafia loan sharks.

This has been a thing since Counter Strike.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 had timed character unlocks in arcades. It's not quite the same thing and might not have been the first, but I still wanted to write something.

 

[Sincere Sinner]

Melee instakill is kind of a balance factor in games with fast TTK.

You're right, but fast TTK and melee instakill's have just become an unthinking, unexamined industry standard when SOME games could benefit from a slower TTK and removal of melee instakills.

 

[The Ugly One]

This is true to me as well, it's a result of live-service games and zoomers becoming the core demographic. Destiny and Fortnite ruined the future of gaming, more or less. I come from an age where you'd only revisit a game six months to a year after the fact when a whole expansion pack dropped to experience substantial new content, not one raid and five new skins that were already in the game but locked behind a timer so that the devs could keep faggots crawling back week after week. DLC was bad enough.

It's actually a result of game budgets exploding. You can't make money without MTX anymore. 10 million sales used to be a blockbuster, and still is, but that can't sustain a $100m+ budget.

 

[Matt Damon]

It's actually a result of game budgets exploding. You can't make money without MTX anymore. 10 million sales used to be a blockbuster, and still is, but that can't sustain a $100m+ budget.

But that in turn has been largely caused by the needless and often counterproductive explosion in the scope of games from big publishers.

Everything has to be a moonshot, everything has to be the next big thing, everything has to be all things to all people, everything has to cost $100 million and gross $1 billion.

Medium-sized niche games with medium budgets that are allowed to find an audience are all but dead.

 

[The Last Stand]

I understand where Spec Ops: The Line was going by trying to deconstruct the modern military hero trope with showing actual consequences that war can bring. That said, fuck that game. It's one thing to analyze the drastic consequences from war, it's another to outright shame your audience with your entertainment.

 

[L50LasPak]

The 2010 Aliens Vs Predator is actually pretty good. Don't get me wrong, its not high art. The characters suck, and the story is the bare minimum you would expect out of the franchises.Lance Henrikssen does gives a good performance as Karl Bishop Weyland; he's pretty much the only notable character in the game but his presence really elevates things. The collectable pickups do nothing, the audio diaries are uninteresting, and the gameplay is a little squishy. But once you look past that its a perfectly serviceable game. All of the weapons handle pretty well, and interestingly enough the game tends more towards fewer, overpowered weapons rather than giving you bog standard starter guns.

For instance, the Alien claws can rip apart just about anything in a few swipes, even on hard difficulty. The Predator's weapons are hilariously overpowered, but are limited by a painfully small pool of energy pickups. The Marine has a pretty good pistol, a shotgun that can one-shot xenos if they get in close, and the standard Pulse Rifle can shred just about anything and holds 99 rounds just like in the movies. There's no SMGs or anything, and ammo is very abundant. It makes the game easy, but its consistent with the technology you'd expect to see in a futuristic setting and the stuff detailed in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual.

I can see why fans of the original hate it, but if you're not as familiar with the oldschool one and you're a fan of Aliens you'll probably enjoy the 2010 game. I haven't played the PS2 one or Extinction though so I'm not sure how it holds up against more modern AVP games. I can also see why people were so dismayed with it back when it was still $60, but its now well over 14 years old, pick it up in a sale or something. Compared to Aliens: Colonial Marines its a god damn masterpiece too. It felt like Rebellion actually gave a shit and wanted to deliver a serviceable product even if it is kind of underwhelming.

I understand where Spec Ops: The Line was going by trying to deconstruct the modern military hero trope with showing actual consequences that war can bring. That said, fuck that game. It's one thing to analyze the drastic consequences from war, it's another to outright shame your audience with your entertainment.

People take that "turn the game off" quote far too literally, its more of a thought experiment than an actual suggestion. Even the faggot who wrote an entire book about how the game made him feel admitted that he doesn't think the game ever intended for the player to stop playing at any given part. A solid two thirds of the game and all of its more interesting sections and dialogue happen after the white phosphorous scene anyway, its pretty fucking obvious the developers intended the audience to play past it and to the end of the game.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Games that think making fun of the dumb shit they make you do excuses it. In The Bard's Tale he says shit like "now I gotta fight rats, how fun". Like, yeah, so don't make me do it.

It's okay here and there but that whole game relies on that one joke type too much. It also played like shit and needed multiplayer, but I'd like a remake or something. Not enough comedic games out there.

 

[Urbanmech]

The 2010 Aliens Vs Predator is actually pretty good. Don't get me wrong, its not high art. The characters suck, and the story is the bare minimum you would expect out of the franchises.Lance Henrikssen does gives a good performance as Karl Bishop Weyland; he's pretty much the only notable character in the game but his presence really elevates things. The collectable pickups do nothing, the audio diaries are uninteresting, and the gameplay is a little squishy. But once you look past that its a perfectly serviceable game. All of the weapons handle pretty well, and interestingly enough the game tends more towards fewer, overpowered weapons rather than giving you bog standard starter guns.

For instance, the Alien claws can rip apart just about anything in a few swipes, even on hard difficulty. The Predator's weapons are hilariously overpowered, but are limited by a painfully small pool of energy pickups. The Marine has a pretty good pistol, a shotgun that can one-shot xenos if they get in close, and the standard Pulse Rifle can shred just about anything and holds 99 rounds just like in the movies. There's no SMGs or anything, and ammo is very abundant. It makes the game easy, but its consistent with the technology you'd expect to see in a futuristic setting and the stuff detailed in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual.

I can see why fans of the original hate it, but if you're not as familiar with the oldschool one and you're a fan of Aliens you'll probably enjoy the 2010 game. I haven't played the PS2 one or Extinction though so I'm not sure how it holds up against more modern AVP games. I can also see why people were so dismayed with it back when it was still $60, but its now well over 14 years old, pick it up in a sale or something. Compared to Aliens: Colonial Marines its a god damn masterpiece too. It felt like Rebellion actually gave a shit and wanted to deliver a serviceable product even if it is kind of underwhelming.

The problem with AvP 2010 was the multiplayer felt like a severe downgrade to the originals. The maps weren't claustrophobic enough, the executions were stupid, and the lighting was too bright. It was just a barely mediocre multiplayer game at a really bad time to be a mediocre MP game.

 

[The Ugly One]

But that in turn has been largely caused by the needless and often counterproductive explosion in the scope of games from big publishers.

Everything has to be a moonshot, everything has to be the next big thing, everything has to be all things to all people, everything has to cost $100 million and gross $1 billion.

Medium-sized niche games with medium budgets that are allowed to find an audience are all but dead.

No, it's caused by the way more powerful hardware has affected people's expectations. You can't meet minimum consumer expectations for a game with what used to be a mid-tier budget. In today's dollars, Goldeneye had a budget of around $4m. If you developed a first-person shooter with that budget today, it wouldn't look much better, and it wouldn't sell 8m units. It wouldn't even sell 500K units. It would be regarded as a laughable pile of dog shit and derided as one of the worst games of all time.

 

[The handsome tard]

I think the video game world has left me behind in that regard - the whole concept of casually re-visiting a game on a regular basis over months or years to check for "new content" doesn't appeal to me at all, but it seems to be pretty standard now.

A problem with doing that is that, when Im done playing a game, I want to delete it off of my hardware so I got fucking memory space for something else.
I dont want to have to reinstall it so I can check out "new content" that barely justifies it.

I understand where Spec Ops: The Line was going by trying to deconstruct the modern military hero trope with showing actual consequences that war can bring. That said, fuck that game. It's one thing to analyze the drastic consequences from war, it's another to outright shame your audience with your entertainment.

I think thats where Spec Ops stands out from something like TLOU Part 2, its the execution. Now, yeah, you may say it "shames" you but Spec Ops had more than just "war is bad". It was far more subtle and less preachy than others like it. It did show that things arent so simple in war also, there are no "heroes" or "villains" in true war and anyone that tells you otherwise (including IRL) are warmongering idiots.

Again I could go on but I dont want to possibly spoil it to anyone that hasnt played it yet.

The 2010 Aliens Vs Predator is actually pretty good. Don't get me wrong, its not high art. The characters suck, and the story is the bare minimum you would expect out of the franchises.Lance Henrikssen does gives a good performance as Karl Bishop Weyland; he's pretty much the only notable character in the game but his presence really elevates things. The collectable pickups do nothing, the audio diaries are uninteresting, and the gameplay is a little squishy. But once you look past that its a perfectly serviceable game. All of the weapons handle pretty well, and interestingly enough the game tends more towards fewer, overpowered weapons rather than giving you bog standard starter guns.

For instance, the Alien claws can rip apart just about anything in a few swipes, even on hard difficulty. The Predator's weapons are hilariously overpowered, but are limited by a painfully small pool of energy pickups. The Marine has a pretty good pistol, a shotgun that can one-shot xenos if they get in close, and the standard Pulse Rifle can shred just about anything and holds 99 rounds just like in the movies. There's no SMGs or anything, and ammo is very abundant. It makes the game easy, but its consistent with the technology you'd expect to see in a futuristic setting and the stuff detailed in the Colonial Marines Technical Manual.

I can see why fans of the original hate it, but if you're not as familiar with the oldschool one and you're a fan of Aliens you'll probably enjoy the 2010 game. I haven't played the PS2 one or Extinction though so I'm not sure how it holds up against more modern AVP games. I can also see why people were so dismayed with it back when it was still $60, but its now well over 14 years old, pick it up in a sale or something. Compared to Aliens: Colonial Marines its a god damn masterpiece too. It felt like Rebellion actually gave a shit and wanted to deliver a serviceable product even if it is kind of underwhelming.

I legit hope we get another Alien vs Predator game that can reach to its true potential. Especially since we got the tech to do it really fucking easily.

People take that "turn the game off" quote far too literally, its more of a thought experiment than an actual suggestion. Even the faggot who wrote an entire book about how the game made him feel admitted that he doesn't think the game ever intended for the player to stop playing at any given part. A solid two thirds of the game and all of its more interesting sections and dialogue happen after the white phosphorous scene anyway, its pretty fucking obvious the developers intended the audience to play past it and to the end of the game.

Funny thing is, Metal Gear 1 was the first time I have ever seen the "Player! Turn the game off! The mission is a bust!". This is a gaming trope meant to break the fourth wall. Its nothing unique from Spec Ops.

Hell they bring it back in MGS 2, a game is that is blending the lines between reality and fiction at that point. To the point you dont even know if the codex calls are meant for Raiden...or you.

Man, MGS 2 might as well the be best entry of the series at this point for the sheer surrealness and prophetic predictions of the future.

Games that think making fun of the dumb shit they make you do excuses it. In The Bard's Tale he says shit like "now I gotta fight rats, how fun". Like, yeah, so don't make me do it.

Just a harmless stabs how RPGs (and DnD for that matter) always uses rats, slimes and any shit like that for basic bitch enemies. I do agree that it can be an overused joke tho.

Just because you are pointing out that you are doing it, doesnt mean you are still not doing it.

 

[Matt Damon]

If you developed a first-person shooter with that budget today, it wouldn't look much better, and it wouldn't sell 8m units. It wouldn't even sell 500K units. It would be regarded as a laughable pile of dog shit and derided as one of the worst games of all time.

I think that's a pretty extreme exaggeration. Development costs have certainly gone up, but so has the efficiency of the development tools available. You couldn't develop an in-house engine and 100 hours of sprawling open-ended gameplay on a moderate budget, but the fact that not every game needs to be that is exactly my point.

And I don't think players know what they want from developers until it's presented to them - that's been clearly demonstrated time and time again.

A problem with doing that is that, when Im done playing a game, I want to delete it off of my hardware so I got fucking memory space for something else.
I dont want to have to reinstall it so I can check out "new content" that barely justifies it.

For me, it's really more a matter of brain space than hard drive space.

Almost every game requires the player to develop a specialized skill or increasing capacity to understand and play the game - that's practically what defines it as a game. I "git gud" at a game, finish it, and forget that now-useless skill.

The idea that I'd regularly maintain a high level of competency at multiple game just in case NEW KHANTENT comes down the pipe months or years from now is laughable.

 

[The handsome tard]

I refuse to play No Man's Sky to this day, even after everyone says its "good now".

oh so now I gotta WAIT for a game to be good now before playing it? You are aware that its only "good" now because they had YEARS worth of updates, right? What does that tell you of the cookie cutter state this game came out?

Im sorry, I legit preferred if the game took one or two more years of time in the oven instead of slower updates after it came out a mess.

So I dont play it for the simple fact I refuse to support this game and devs after what they had pulled. I would be supporting this current culture of releasing unfinished/broken games but its kay cuz they will "fix it" eventually.

Fuck that noise

 

[Matt Damon]

I refuse to play No Man's Sky to this day, even after everyone says its "good now".

I find that once you've played one of those survival-crafting games, you've basically played them all.

I played Subnautica and it was neat, but not good enough to justify playing "Subnautica In Space!" or "Subnautica In A Jungle!"

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

I refuse to play No Man's Sky to this day, even after everyone says its "good now".

oh so now I gotta WAIT for a game to be good now before playing it? You are aware that its only "good" now because they had YEARS worth of updates, right? What does that tell you of the cookie cutter state this game came out?

Im sorry, I legit preferred if the game took one or two more years of time in the oven instead of slower updates after it came out a mess.

So I dont play it for the simple fact I refuse to support this game and devs after what they had pulled. I would be supporting this current culture of releasing unfinished/broken games but its kay cuz they will "fix it" eventually.

Fuck that noise

I agree, but I get more pissed at retards who point to No Man's Sky whenever a piece of shit comes out as some sort of blueprint on how to "do it right", completely forgetting it took over a year for the game to just get the bare basics of what it promised out, let alone multiple years before it hit anywhere near "decent".

The modern gamer is a fucking retard who is too happy to throw their money away.

 

[L50LasPak]

The difference between No Man's Sky and every other unfinished piece of shit the game industry drops out is that it has a face and a possibly relatable protagonist attached to it. People seem to have missed the point though, even if we agree No Man's Sky is an exception to the rule that an unfinished game is always shit, which is already an uphill battle for many, it forgets the fact that its the exception because of extraordinarily rare circumstances. No Man's Sky can't be a blueprint for "how to do it right" because the way its "redemption" happened relied on a number of independent factors that are highly unlikely to ever be duplicated.

The modern gamer is a fucking retard who is too happy to throw their money away.

Its even worse than that I'm afraid. The game industry is so shit right now that people want more than anything to believe in a redemption story, regardless of how well founded it is. Its a symptom of intense putrefaction.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

No Man's Sky can't be a blueprint for "how to do it right" because the way its "redemption" happened relied on a number of independent factors that are highly unlikely to ever be duplicated.

I'd argue the "redemption" relied entirely on the fact that Hello Games had nothing to really fall back on and had to keep working on it, where as AAA Publishers can just keep fucking up and trying again until Microsoft or Sony buys them out.

It also helps that it was apparently a passion project, where as shit like Halo: Infinite and Destiny feel like chores for the developers.

 

[Meat Target]

I refuse to play No Man's Sky to this day, even after everyone says its "good now".

oh so now I gotta WAIT for a game to be good now before playing it? You are aware that its only "good" now because they had YEARS worth of updates, right? What does that tell you of the cookie cutter state this game came out?

Im sorry, I legit preferred if the game took one or two more years of time in the oven instead of slower updates after it came out a mess.

So I dont play it for the simple fact I refuse to support this game and devs after what they had pulled. I would be supporting this current culture of releasing unfinished/broken games but its kay cuz they will "fix it" eventually.

Fuck that noise

I almost forgot No Man's Sky even existed.