Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Matt Damon]

The worst part was how predictable the plot was. And it was retreading old ground since RDR1 already did the whole 'death of the west' shit already.

Why can't we have a more fun cowboy game? They already built a cool world with lots of great elements. Why's the story gotta be such a fucking downer?

As @xXx: State of the Union alluded to, the Housers seem to have decided they were Real Serious Writers around 2007 and Real Serious Writers write Real Serious Drama.

But even most movies that are consistently dour get fatiguing after a couple hours and GTA/RDR games are more like 30-40 hours.

 

[Raging Capybara]

The only depressing thing about RDR2 is its controls.

 

[skykiii]

Why can't we have a more fun cowboy game?

I have two ideas I'd like to see made real:

One, a sequel to Sunset Riders.

Two, a Lucky Luke game. Maybe even one where you play as the Daltons.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Counterpoint: RDR2 has plenty of side content outside of the main story to do that was fun

I don't get why GTA games get a pass for shit/boring main campaigns because you can fuck around outside of them, but people treat RDR2 as if you couldn't also fuck around outside of the main narrative.

This isn't to say that RDR2 is great or anything. The greatness it could have is ruined by the over use of animations for every god damn action in the game. But these problems are not exclusive to it.

RDR2 and RDR1 is the best for fucking around outside missions, you can hunt, fish, break horses, play cards/dice, steal wagons and fence them. I do think that while RDR2 had better bounty missions, RDR1 was better in that it had infinite bounty missions and town watch, so you could always find a reason to shoot something without having to attack the same damn outlaw camp or go pick a fight. And RDR2's wanted system was awful. But it's a million times better than what more modern GTA games have to offer (not just in terms of my enjoyment, but in terms of providing a good experience for what it's trying to portray).

The worst part was how predictable the plot was. And it was retreading old ground since RDR1 already did the whole 'death of the west' shit already.

Why can't we have a more fun cowboy game? They already built a cool world with lots of great elements. Why's the story gotta be such a fucking downer?

I liked that it had proto-Mafia in the game, but otherwise I thought the death of the West theme was very boring and not even handled well at all compared to RDR1. (Actually a lot of the plot was kind of bad, RDR2 has what I think of as "good video game" plot syndrome where just having acceptable dialogue and writing at all means people think it's great even if its narrative is a meandering, pointless mess.)

I think a lot of smoothbrains - I mean, I've seen people say as much - think that a game can't be entertaining unless it has automatic weapons (like Mausers) in it. Which shows a big misunderstanding of how combat works in gunpowder era settings. Soldiers fighting in formations shoot a musket every twenty seconds, in one-on-one engagements you'd shoot your gun off and then close in for melee combat, brutal nasty melee combat with tomahawks, bowie knives, swords, clubs, bayonets, on top of things like bows and arrows. Basically, like Assassin's Creed games already do. And that's assuming you ONLY have muzzleloading weapons, even in the Civil War era people already had lever-actions and revolvers and such.

But people just don't think about the potential of having a game based around really bloody melee combat, so they write off the idea of a game set earlier in the 1800s. I think it's foolish.

My favorite RDR setting would be a Mississippi River one set around the Civil War and its aftermath, with a San Andreas like approach of essentially spanning between New Orleans, Saint Louis, and Chicago with huge variation in climate and topography.

 

[skykiii]

But people just don't think about the potential of having a game based around really bloody melee combat, so they write off the idea of a game set earlier in the 1800s. I think it's foolish.

So these people absolutely could not be convinced to play Mortal Kombat?

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

(Actually a lot of the plot was kind of bad, RDR2 has what I think of as "good video game" plot syndrome where just having acceptable dialogue and writing at all means people think it's great even if its narrative is a meandering, pointless mess.)

Nah, what gets people to think that a game has a "great story" has everything to do with decent to good acting, cinematic camera angles and music. It's why so many games with a mediocre story but extremely high production budgets get called "masterpieces" by average normal retards. It's basically all a matter of hitting someone "in the feels", which is why Sony and Rockstar (and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment) have taken such a strong push into games with daddy/family issue themes.

 

[Ser Prize]

I liked that it had proto-Mafia in the game, but otherwise I thought the death of the West theme was very boring and not even handled well at all compared to RDR1. (Actually a lot of the plot was kind of bad, RDR2 has what I think of as "good video game" plot syndrome where just having acceptable dialogue and writing at all means people think it's great even if its narrative is a meandering, pointless mess.)

I think a lot of smoothbrains - I mean, I've seen people say as much - think that a game can't be entertaining unless it has automatic weapons (like Mausers) in it. Which shows a big misunderstanding of how combat works in gunpowder era settings. Soldiers fighting in formations shoot a musket every twenty seconds, in one-on-one engagements you'd shoot your gun off and then close in for melee combat, brutal nasty melee combat with tomahawks, bowie knives, swords, clubs, bayonets, on top of things like bows and arrows. Basically, like Assassin's Creed games already do. And that's assuming you ONLY have muzzleloading weapons, even in the Civil War era people already had lever-actions and revolvers and such.

But people just don't think about the potential of having a game based around really bloody melee combat, so they write off the idea of a game set earlier in the 1800s. I think it's foolish.

My favorite RDR setting would be a Mississippi River one set around the Civil War and its aftermath, with a San Andreas like approach of essentially spanning between New Orleans, Saint Louis, and Chicago with huge variation in climate and topography.

With how politically charged RDR2 was I'd hate to see their handling of a Civil War era game. Ain't actually as knowledgeable as the Call of Juarez devs and would probably end up really racially charged.

I just want a good 'ole fashioned wild west game set at the height of the west. Actually put the big dynamic world to good use and have multiple storylines you could pursue.

Wanna settle down and start a homestead? Storyline for that.
Wanna be a ruthless bounty hunter out for revenge? Storyline for that.
Wanna LARP dances with wolves and join a tribe of injuns? Storyline for that.

 

[anustart76]

Always, though? Thousands and thousands of games made over decades and you want all of them to be a "rip-roaring action-fest"?

I just don't get that. It's like people who listen exclusively to one genre of music - it seems so needlessly self-limiting.

Most of what I play, yes. I'll give something like Mario & Luigi or Persona a playthrough in spite of the mechanics because I like the game for other reasons, but yeah I prefer fast-paced action. My free time is limited, I like to get the most out of my entertainment.
It's not self-limiting, I'm not artificially locking myself out of something. I'm just not going out of my way for slower types of gameplay because I generally don't enjoy it.

As @xXx: State of the Union alluded to, the Housers seem to have decided they were Real Serious Writers around 2007 and Real Serious Writers write Real Serious Drama.

But even most movies that are consistently dour get fatiguing after a couple hours and GTA/RDR games are more like 30-40 hours.

I think part of what's happened with entertainment in general is they've decided to go all "arthouse hipster" and decided everything has to be grim and dark and "realistic" because "real life doesn't have happy endings" and so now our entertainment is oversaturated with "realistic" bleak depressing bullshit. I'm sick of it, give me a happy ending, I want some fun escapism, not more crap to bring me down.

 

[DaBigBopper]

Okay. It's just a video game.

Obsidian has set the standard for RPGs in modern gaming. Turn based RPGs defeat the purpose of control and impact.

Turn-based RPGs are mostly so that I can spend my day off catching up on a podcast or something I can put down when I get bored and then come back to.

More combat focused RPG's require me to dedicate and hour to them.

 

[Matt Damon]

I think part of what's happened with entertainment in general is they've decided to go all "arthouse hipster" and decided everything has to be grim and dark and "realistic" because "real life doesn't have happy endings" and so now our entertainment is oversaturated with "realistic" bleak depressing bullshit. I'm sick of it, give me a happy ending, I want some fun escapism, not more crap to bring me down.

It reminds me a lot of the "auteur director" Hollywood trend of the 1970s and the endless bleak, depressing films that came out of it.

Hopefully there will be a similar watershed moment in games that there was in 1980s films (I suppose the surprise success of Star Wars really started the trend) where everybody remembers that it's not a crime for media to be fun and make you smile sometimes.

 

[Creep3r]

While I think a lot of the grimdark storytelling these days can be blamed on Hollywood influence, I also think that many studios go this route because they think that just because a game has overly realistic graphics it has to be as "real" as possible and be as miserable as they think life should be for everyone.

As for RDR2, I really dislike that they brought back John Marston. I was really hoping the game would feel like a true standalone story like most GTA games do, that and I just never liked the guy as a protagonist, him and his bipolar scruples. I honestly wish these games had tried to be more like a slightly campy but obviously dangerous spaghetti western set during the height of the west with Jimmy Stewart or John Wayne parodies mixed in among the historical western parodies, or at least add some really insane and eccentric character designs like they did with Red Dead Revolver. They take themselves so seriously now that I doubt we'll ever see outlandish looking characters in the games again unless its for "non-canon aka no fun allowed in the main story" DLCs, easter eggs or short random encounters, like that Nosferatu expy (who was honestly my favorite part of RDR2) or that robot that we never really fight in RDR2 or Death in RDR1. I might be missing a few more but those are just the most notable ones I can name off the top of my head.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Nah, what gets people to think that a game has a "great story" has everything to do with decent to good acting, cinematic camera angles and music. It's why so many games with a mediocre story but extremely high production budgets get called "masterpieces" by average normal retards. It's basically all a matter of hitting someone "in the feels", which is why Sony and Rockstar (and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment) have taken such a strong push into games with daddy/family issue themes.

You're right, I didn't really know how to express it but those things (acting, cinematography, music) - basically, having sleek presentation - makes people think games have good writing, when their writing is dogshit by even low Hollywood standards.

With how politically charged RDR2 was I'd hate to see their handling of a Civil War era game. Ain't actually as knowledgeable as the Call of Juarez devs and would probably end up really racially charged.

I just want a good 'ole fashioned wild west game set at the height of the west. Actually put the big dynamic world to good use and have multiple storylines you could pursue.

Wanna settle down and start a homestead? Storyline for that.
Wanna be a ruthless bounty hunter out for revenge? Storyline for that.
Wanna LARP dances with wolves and join a tribe of injuns? Storyline for that.

Rockstar definitely would not do the Civil War in a decent way.

I find the stereotypical Western setting to be far and away the most boring Western setting (which is also why I dislike New Austin the most out of RDR's three major regions), but some other settings that I'd consider are:

Arizona campaign of the Civil War (Apaches, Navajos, Comanches, Union, and Confederates all engaged in a classic desert setting which has some remarkable scenery)

California of the transition from Mexico to USA and Gold Rush (Zorro era, or just straight up make it a Zorro game)

The setting of Hell on Wheels, maybe even having a very massive map (not everything needs to be lovingly crafted, it can be fine and even better support the feeling of a game to have vast areas of empty wilderness in between interesting terrain features and settlement, make that stuff special and give a sense of scale to the world) on which the railroad camps move forward slowly over time. Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, Shanghai Noon Chinese, horse nomad Indians, Mormons.

I thought it was really lame that RDR2 had the Skinners be Whites instead of (AMerican Krogan pointed this out) a hostile Indian tribe, they were obviously up to Indian-like shenanigans but RDR2 wouldn't even let you shoot up the reservation because of muh heckin aborigininos.

You might be interested in This Land is My Land and the upcoming Cowboy Life Simulator. The first one is specifically an Indian game (live off the land and kill Whites, lead a warband), the second one just ranching life. I haven't played TLIML so I have no idea if it's worthwhile, it seems to be one of those jank things that people who specifically like that setting are willing to put up with.

 

[Ser Prize]

You're right, I didn't really know how to express it but those things (acting, cinematography, music) - basically, having sleek presentation - makes people think games have good writing, when their writing is dogshit by even low Hollywood standards.

Rockstar definitely would not do the Civil War in a decent way.

I find the stereotypical Western setting to be far and away the most boring Western setting (which is also why I dislike New Austin the most out of RDR's three major regions), but some other settings that I'd consider are:

Arizona campaign of the Civil War (Apaches, Navajos, Comanches, Union, and Confederates all engaged in a classic desert setting which has some remarkable scenery)

California of the transition from Mexico to USA and Gold Rush (Zorro era, or just straight up make it a Zorro game)

The setting of Hell on Wheels, maybe even having a very massive map (not everything needs to be lovingly crafted, it can be fine and even better support the feeling of a game to have vast areas of empty wilderness in between interesting terrain features and settlement, make that stuff special and give a sense of scale to the world) on which the railroad camps move forward slowly over time. Construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, Shanghai Noon Chinese, horse nomad Indians, Mormons.

I thought it was really lame that RDR2 had the Skinners be Whites instead of (AMerican Krogan pointed this out) a hostile Indian tribe, they were obviously up to Indian-like shenanigans but RDR2 wouldn't even let you shoot up the reservation because of muh heckin aborigininos.

You might be interested in This Land is My Land and the upcoming Cowboy Life Simulator. The first one is specifically an Indian game (live off the land and kill Whites, lead a warband), the second one just ranching life. I haven't played TLIML so I have no idea if it's worthwhile, it seems to be one of those jank things that people who specifically like that setting are willing to put up with.

I love the stereotypical western setting. New Austin is my favourite place in the games. The term for that whole style is Sagebrush Western, and I wish you had more games set in it.

I like the idea of TLIML but it's not very well made imho. There's no melee system or melee weapons and that's a big miss in a game where you play as a native american.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I don't know what people have against turn-based systems. They can be really interesting and make for tense and compelling gameplay - just because the Nips use it to make their archaic cookie-cutter waifu simulators doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

When you say RTWP I think of Freedom Force and Frozen Synspse, two team/squad games where the RTWP combat works really well.

Games needto have shittier graphics, like ps2/ps3 era. Playing new AAA games gives me a headache.

3D graphics peaked in the 2000s. I don't care how many polys your model has, or that it has super duper realistic textures (that fire my GPU up to 100), your model looks like glossy plastic and your humans look like blowup dolls.

I'd take Sacrifice or WC3 or Silent Hill graphics over super ultra realistic renders. They are more stylized and colorful and you can tell what it's meant to be.

Thread tax: poor graphics make games more accessible to people with poor vision.

 

[X Prime]

I think part of what's happened with entertainment in general is they've decided to go all "arthouse hipster" and decided everything has to be grim and dark and "realistic" because "real life doesn't have happy endings" and so now our entertainment is oversaturated with "realistic" bleak depressing bullshit. I'm sick of it, give me a happy ending, I want some fun escapism, not more crap to bring me down.

This is the thing I don't get. Who wants to be depressed all the time?

One of the most significant disagreements I have with people I personally know over media is that they like depressing endings (exemplified by, say, the ending to the Mist), and I do not. I don't grasp it. Why wouldn't you want to be happy?

 

[Cloaca Rimjob]

There werent enough mascots with attitude back in the 90s. More should have been made and more would have caught on.

3D graphics peaked in the 2000s. I don't care how many polys your model has, or that it has super duper realistic textures (that fire my GPU up to 100), your model looks like glossy plastic and your humans look like blowup dolls.

I'd take Sacrifice or WC3 or Silent Hill graphics over super ultra realistic renders. They are more stylized and colorful and you can tell what it's meant to be.

They'd be able to churn so much more games out too. Imagine getting two
Resident evil REMAKE style games a year as opposed to one every couple of years.

 

[X Prime]

3D graphics peaked in the 2000s. I don't care how many polys your model has, or that it has super duper realistic textures (that fire my GPU up to 100), your model looks like glossy plastic and your humans look like blowup dolls.

I'd take Sacrifice or WC3 or Silent Hill graphics over super ultra realistic renders. They are more stylized and colorful and you can tell what it's meant to be.

This is why many good games are made by indies nowadays.

Just one problem: to do it you have to have high functioning autism. And we here at the Farms know exactly what often happens to people with high functioning autism nowadays.

 

[The Feline Solution]

It reminds me a lot of the "auteur director" Hollywood trend of the 1970s and the endless bleak, depressing films that came out of it.

With the difference that a lot of these films were still pretty good. Modern vidya writers wouldn't even get hired for Telenovelas but picture themselves as the next Buñuel or Truffaut, simply because their no-standards-having audience (and paid critics) laps up anything they shit out. Druckmann is the prime example of this.

 

[X Prime]

To be perfectly fair, it's not like TV writers are any better nowadays.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I love the stereotypical western setting. New Austin is my favourite place in the games. The term for that whole style is Sagebrush Western, and I wish you had more games set in it.

I like the idea of TLIML but it's not very well made imho. There's no melee system or melee weapons and that's a big miss in a game where you play as a native american.

Well, I guess I know not to get it now.

This is the thing I don't get. Who wants to be depressed all the time?

One of the most significant disagreements I have with people I personally know over media is that they like depressing endings (exemplified by, say, the ending to the Mist), and I do not. I don't grasp it. Why wouldn't you want to be happy?

I believe that people don't have a drive to be happy so much as to just be emotionally aroused. Emotions are like flavors, and some of them are more immediately and reliably gratifying, and some people have strong tastes for specific ones, but most people have a broad palette and get bored with one thing and some people have a refined palette and like a complex dish.

If you view it as "emotionally arousing," fear is definitely arousing, so is sadness, so is anger. People are drawn to happiness/fun, but also to all of those things. It's the only way to explain people voluntarily watching tragedies and horror movies (or riding amusement park rides), people who wallow in self-pity, people who are rageaholics. Basically, fun is not the same as happiness, and for many people being angry, scared, or sad is its own form of fun.

I have a taste for melancholy, I enjoy crying and I like listening to sad music, and especially combining the two activities together. Don't actually like sad endings so much, I think there's too much investment in those compared to just music. But one thing I find is that the taste for melancholy drops off dramatically when I'm actually sad. Then I specifically avoid unpleasant things, they feel painful, not fun. I also tend to like sad endings more as an armchair writer, but as an actual reader/movie watcher I don't. I feel like the ending to the movie Plague Dogs (TLDR dogs die) is a better ending from an artistic point of view, but I know full well I preferred it when I read the book and they lived.