Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[The Ugly One]

No Man's Sky was obviously going to be bad. Anyone who fell for it was a sucker. It was okay after a couple years of updates, but still one of the slowest-moving experiences I ever played. It's barely even a game, really, just sort of a trippy experience to zone out in (I don't have enough years of my life left to spend on that kind of thing, though).

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.

It's not just tools; it's people. Sure, you can't build an animate a professional-quality model using the tools id had to make Quake. But you also can't build and animate a bunch of models up to modern standards without spending far more on artists and animators than id did.

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.

Publishers look at what sells. Below a certain level of investment, you just can't hit a certain tier of sales, and unfortunately, that level of investment keeps going up. There are unicorns like Minecraft, but that's the exception.

 

[Neet Tokusatsu]

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 got Spec Ops: The Line for free a few years ago, and the more i read about the game, especially from people who mindlessly praise it, the less i want to play it, it's been like 6 years since i got Spec Ops and it's been just gathering dust in my backlog, but that's ok, not to play the game is the right choice after all.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

Spec Ops The Line was fun and I enjoyed it as sort of a mid level game.

That being said, the fact game journos had to get every game faggot to heap praise upon it like they did with Bioshock fucking sucks and makes it look super gay now.

 

[The Last Stand]

I got Spec Ops: The Line for free a few years ago, and the more i read about the game, especially from people who mindlessly praise it, the less i want to play it, it's been like 6 years since i got Spec Ops and it's been just gathering dust in my backlog, but that's ok, not to play the game is the right choice after all.

It's not even that. I don't like entertainment shunning their audience with the product THEY created. I think without that meta commentary, it could've been something special.

 

[thejackal]

I played some Rust last weekend. Honestly shocked (but not) how almost every single issue that was in the game a year ago is still there and arguably worse. They ruined the fucking maps and now everything is so cluttered with useless monuments. The random stuttering is as bad as ever and now there seems to be a known disconnect issue as well. I really wanted to try and get back into the game but the map was so gross looking and the stuttering so bad I just got fed up and quit after a few hours. I have over 3K hours in Rust FWIW but haven't played in a year. Maybe if I had a team or something if anybody plays PM me I'll try and get back into it.

 

[L50LasPak]

It's not even that. I don't like entertainment shunning their audience with the product THEY created. I think without that meta commentary, it could've been something special.

The overwhelming majority of that meta-commentary came from after the fact; all the irritating analysis and opinion pieces published by idiots who had no idea what they were talking about. The most infamous example being the Extra Creditz video where they alleged that the game was a secret subversive project marketed as a AAA style game, when infact you can see the game being advertised as having psychological horror elements right in the first trailer and in all subsequent trailers and publicity interviews.

Game journos used it as a springboard to shame their audience for playing FPS games; the game itself was trying to make a more nuanced point about how these stories are written. Whether or not that point was made successfully is up for debate, sure. Personally, I think the shock of the white phosphorous scene overwhelmed the sensitive crybabies that reviewed the game and made all of their content revolve around dealing with that. Its clear from how the game progresses that the while phosphorous scene was supposed to be a turning point, but one the player was meant to move past in order to complete the rest of the game where the real meat is. But the point the game was trying to make definitely wasn't "You are a bad person for playing videogames."

 

[Matt Damon]

Personally, I think the shock of the white phosphorous scene overwhelmed the sensitive crybabies that reviewed the game and made all of their content revolve around dealing with that. Its clear from how the game progresses that the while phosphorous scene was supposed to be a turning point, but one the player was meant to move past in order to complete the rest of the game where the real meat is. But the point the game was trying to make definitely wasn't "You are a bad person for playing videogames."

If that's the case, I think they did a ham-fisted job of it. I quite enjoyed the game and what it was attempting to do overall, but that part really, really felt like they were condemning the player for his actions.

And as I said quite a while back about the game, shitting on the audience for engaging in good faith with your work just makes you an asshole. There's nothing intelligent or subversive or analytical at all in pointing out that an audience's suspension of disbelief lies at the very heart of fiction.

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

Speaking of Halo Infinite, holy shit did that game fall completely off the map after a million years of hype.

 

[JektheDumbass]

as someone who's played and loved Morrowind for many years, I can personally attest to the fact that mods really aren't necessary besides the Code Patch or Expansion Delay to fix the Dark Brotherhood coming after you at Level 1, and some other QoL changes. The game is almost perfect, it just needs an extra push to smooth out some of the jank, unlike say Oblivion or Skyrim, which need complete overhauling to make playable

For those disagreeing with this post, please explain which mods besides patches are required to play the game

Remove the dark brotherhood delay patch, coward. Saying "the second best light armor in the game" is meaningless when the third best is literally leather.

 

[Banana Hammock]

Breath of the Wild was sub-par as a Zelda game, and above-average when viewed independently. I honestly don't get why everyone raves about how amazing it is and puts it at #1 on all of their "best games for the Switch" lists.

 

[Mega Black]

No Man's Sky was obviously going to be bad. Anyone who fell for it was a sucker. It was okay after a couple years of updates, but still one of the slowest-moving experiences I ever played. It's barely even a game, really, just sort of a trippy experience to zone out in (I don't have enough years of my life left to spend on that kind of thing, though).

I will never forgive Internet Historian for tricking me into buying that piece of shit. Even if it was 5 dollars at the time, I could have bought something more valuable, like an 8th of a crack rock or one whole gallon of gas. People can talk about the 'amazing redemption that made the game awesome!' all they want but at the end of the day it's still just a boring ass walking simulator where, if you're exceedingly lucky, you can get in a spaceship and shoot some rocks. It's nowhere near close to the proper space exploration game I wanted and if that's all it takes to get people entertained then I give up.

It's not even that. I don't like entertainment shunning their audience with the product THEY created. I think without that meta commentary, it could've been something special.

I played it recently and really feel like this critique is blown way the fuck out of the water. The game only breaks the 4th wall a little bit to poke fun at the kind of person who would buy a Call of Duty game and unironically enjoy the light propaganda dressed up as a story that they present. The developer's retarded 'turn the game off' comment is to blame for this mentality but really the issues with the game that are actually worth talking about get buried under this 'the game was mean to me so I hate it!' rhetoric.

It's Walker's story, you make some key decisions but even if you're reading every line of dialogue like it's aimed at the player and not at the protagonist then you're allowed to reject the assertion that you should take responsibility for the war crimes and walk away at the end of the game. The entire final chunk of the game is about you either rejecting that idea or playing into it. It's not like the game is sitting you down to tell you how terrible you are specifically, it's not even as emotionally manipulative as TLOU2, which has Abbey's entire portion loaded with ridiculous asides to show you that THE WOLVES ARE PEOPLE TOO!!!

Breath of the Wild was sub-par as a Zelda game, and above-average when viewed independently. I honestly don't get why everyone raves about how amazing it is and puts it at #1 on all of their "best games for the Switch" lists.

I'd go so far as to say it's a sub-par game in general. I think it gets undue praise simply because it's a Nintendo game. It's like, one step above your average Ubisoft tower-climbing schlock. An empty open world with entertaining but altogether too useful navigation mechanics. There's almost nothing of interest to discover outside of main quest locations and it runs like ass unless you emulate it.

 

[L50LasPak]

If that's the case, I think they did a ham-fisted job of it. I quite enjoyed the game and what it was attempting to do overall, but that part really, really felt like they were condemning the player for his actions.

The white phosphorous scene in general is like a deal with the Devil writing wise. Its what brought the most attention to the game but seems to be the biggest sticking point for critics of it. I had the white phosphorous scene spoiled for me long before I ever played the game, but not the rest of the plot with it, which I suppose means I'm always going to be biased towards looking past it.

This is an unpopular opinion for fans of the game, but I would go as far to say the WP scene could have been cut entirely; the point of no return for me was crossed when Delta has to open fire on the 33rd. At that point, shit has already gotten out of control and Walker is obviously nuts for wanting to stick around, and only a handful of soldiers are dead. The story could have survived without the WP, but the game definitely wouldn't have blown up like it did either.

Either way I've always hung on the meta-exchange before the start of the sequence. Where Lugo says there's always a choice and Walker flatly replies "No, there's really not." He's right. You don't have a choice, other than to turn off the game which, let's face it, is not actually a real option any more than "write your own fanfiction" is an option. Walker's not a silent protagonist you're supposed to superimpose your personality on, he has his own lines, his own justifications and his own reactions to the situation. Its in third person too, you're not looking out of his eyes but instead staring at the back of his head or looking at his face in cutscenes. The game is really his story that you are meant to relate to, not literally see yourself as the protagonist of. If it was the latter, it would have been an FPS.

 

[PercyFrancienCaramello]

Off the top of my head:

1. All the Fromsoft Soulsborne games are pretty overrated. They are carried by the interesting setting, graphics and aesthetics it strives to achieve and it masks the shallow gameplay of ''Roll, hit, roll''. Each game, with the exception of Sekiro, have glaring problems that hold them back from being amazing games. I am also getting sick of the Dark Souls formula of storytelling and the ''dystopian apocalyptic world with burdened group of people'' setting they seem to love so much. That being said, I still enjoy playing them but I do not revere them as a lot of the gaming world seems to.
   
   
2. Dark Souls 2 is a pretty fun game. Would never call it great but I find it really fun to go back to.
   
   
3. Dark Souls 3 is the worst out of whole lot. I can understand people hating 2, I can't understand how anyone likes 3. The most boring environments, combined with awful PVE and the fact it takes hours to get a build together. Only highlight are the bosses and they only start getting good about half-way through.
   
   
4. I think Sonic has the most potential out of any video game franchise. It has all the ingredients to be a great series, even greater than the likes of Mario, but it's just so mismanaged that it will never reach it's true potential.

 

[Neet Tokusatsu]

Breath of the Wild was sub-par as a Zelda game, and above-average when viewed independently. I honestly don't get why everyone raves about how amazing it is and puts it at #1 on all of their "best games for the Switch" lists.

Because for a lot of people it was literally their baby's first open-world game.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave]

I'd gladly take a Linear Game that actually has a good story rather than slog through an empty Open World with a shit story

 

[The Ugly One]

I will never forgive Internet Historian for tricking me into buying that piece of shit. Even if it was 5 dollars at the time, I could have bought something more valuable, like an 8th of a crack rock or one whole gallon of gas. People can talk about the 'amazing redemption that made the game awesome!' all they want but at the end of the day it's still just a boring ass walking simulator where, if you're exceedingly lucky, you can get in a spaceship and shoot some rocks. It's nowhere near close to the proper space exploration game I wanted and if that's all it takes to get people entertained then I give up.

To be fair, No Man's Sky isn't as boring as space is.

 

[Milwaukee Macho Man]

"You are a bad person for playing videogames."

This is one of my favorite loading screens in that game, and I never took it as the game trying to tell me I was a bad person. Some gamers are either really big fucking pussies or (more likely and what I've believed for a while) rely way too much on game journos and video essay faggots explaining a game to them.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Because for a lot of people it was literally their baby's first open-world game.

That was pretty apparent from the get go, it felt dated in it's design and objectives. So people who were unfamiliar with open world games treated it like something special, where as people who were already exposed to a large extent didn't care for it.

 

[7th Dweller of Da'at]

It's not even that. I don't like entertainment shunning their audience with the product THEY created. I think without that meta commentary, it could've been something special.

it could've been something special if it discarded the one thing that made it unique? What the Hell are you talking about

 

[Matt Damon]

They are carried by the interesting setting, graphics and aesthetics it strives to achieve and it masks the shallow gameplay of ''Roll, hit, roll''.

You can describe literally any game in reductive terms like that. "What, you just hit buttons in different patterns until the game ends? That's so shallow!"

I'd gladly take a Linear Game that actually has a good story rather than slog through an empty Open World with a shit story

I'd take a game with no story that's fun to play over something that's just busywork between amazing cutscenes.

 

[The Last Stand]

I'd take a game with no story that's fun to play over something that's just busywork between amazing cutscenes.

With rare exceptions, the story IS the pull that keeps the gameplay going.