Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Judge Dredd]

I don't understand why anyone was excited for BG3 at all, even if weren't wokeshit.

I think part of it is having a game that plays by DnD 5e tabletop rules. A guy I know who loves it keeps excitedly telling me about some obscure rule or class feature they included. Like being able to be an oathbreaker paladin, or having the option to case social spells after triggering a conversation.

I've not used high refresh rate monitors, but is it another "I think I can kinda sorta tell a difference if I look really hard and compare side-by-side" thing like 4K was?

There is a noticeable difference, but it's not a 30>60 situation. Flipping from 60 to 120-144 I can notice it and it feels very smooth, but I can go back to 60 no problem, whereas going back to 30 can take a little adjustment.

One way to describe it is like going from 30>40 fps. A noticeable improvement, but not one worth obsessing over.

 

[Matt Damon]

Once you start playing at 144fps, 60 will feel a slow motion for shooters.

"Slow motion"? Low frame rates don't feel like slow motion, they just feel jerky and unpleasant.

 

[Pissmaster]

The kind of people who find 4k 30fps to be perfectly acceptable are the kind of people who would cover a hundred dollar steak with ketchup to the point where they may as well be eating out of a dumpster behind McDonald's

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I've not used high refresh rate monitors, but is it another "I think I can kinda sorta tell a difference if I look really hard and compare side-by-side" thing like 4K was?

Context: I've been using 144 Hz monitors for over 5 years now and I have never looked at a higher refresh rate (240/480 Hz) monitor before, so I cannot speak for them. Also I have used 120 Hz monitors before. There are games which I play on 144 Hz monitors, but locked to 60 or 30 fps because of incompetent developers and for multiplayer balance reasons.
I'm not a doctor or biologist, but from what I know, the human eye does not see "frames" like a monitor displays, but each individual light receptor fires when it fires, and the entire retina doesn't update in lockstep. From some quick Google searches, allegedly the eye can physiologically detect up to 1000 frames per second, and the average human is allegedly capable of accurately telling the difference in frame rates all the way up to 150 fps.
144/120 fps are buttery smooth. Like, even the most basic things you can think about, like using your mouse to move a window a bit to the left, feel super buttery smooth. In first person games, the high refresh rate is really immersive. The amount of visual information your eyes take in because so many different pixels are changing so much is really breathtaking if you've never had that experience. With high fidelity graphics, or even lower fidelity graphics but first person perspectives, it is an absolute joy. When I go from a game I play at 144 fps to one I lock to 60 fps, it takes a few minutes to get used to how choppy everything feels. Playing 30 fps is choppy no matter the circumstances.
Even if you've got subhuman eyes that somehow cannot tell the difference between 60 and >60, a key and usually understated benefit of high refresh rate monitors and gameplay is input lag and reaction time. That is one of the reasons why many pro gamers play on absurdly high refresh rate monitors.

 

[Pissmaster]

even when it's a proven fact the human eyeball can't see the difference between a 60FPS and a 144FPS framerate.

You can see higher framerates because you are a living creature whose vision isn't based on rapidly changing still frames. Try taking your mouse cursor and moving it around quickly in a circular motion - it'll look like a lot of different cursors are on-screen while you're doing that, because your persistence of vision keeps it there briefly. The higher your framerate, the more cursors you'll see, and you haven't topped out what framerate you can see until your cursor's motion is completely indistinguishable from a real fast-moving object.

Higher framerates also reduce input lag, and allows you to see more detail while in motion. That is the utility. There is nothing wrong with using a 60hz screen, of course, and I'd recommend sticking with one if you're happy with what you have, because higher framerate screens are expensive and increase the demand on your GPU considerably.

I'm not a doctor or biologist, but from what I know, the human eye does not see "frames" like a monitor displays, but each individual light receptor fires when it fires, and the entire retina doesn't update in lockstep. From some quick Google searches, allegedly the eye can physiologically detect up to 1000 frames per second, and the average human is allegedly capable of accurately telling the difference in frame rates all the way up to 150 fps.

fuckin beat me to the punch dammit

 

[Raging Capybara]

"Slow motion"? Low frame rates don't feel like slow motion, they just feel jerky and unpleasant.

I agree, my english was pretty bad on this post.

I meant slide show, instead.

As XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG said (wtf is this nick? lmao). even moving the mouse feels better at 144fps.

It's not essential for controller-focused games, but for shooters, I would say it's almost mandatory nowadays.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Until I got Steam Deck I barely even noticed fps stuff unless it was a stuttering mess.

 

[Mr Bunny]

Once you start playing at 144fps, 60 will feel a slow motion for shooters.

I've never got that, I feel it with 30 compared to 60, but 60 to 144 doesn't feel much different to me.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

I used to sometimes make fun of the “mini” consoles being made after famous video game consoles to market towards the nostalgic gamers that know nothing about game emulation, but I’m a sucker for the Commodore 64 and Mini Amiga 500.

They honestly look like good collectibles, and it makes me hope with fingers crossed that the announced Atari 2600+ will be good.

 

[Matt Damon]

I used to sometimes make fun of the “mini” consoles being made after famous video game consoles to market towards the nostalgic gamers that know nothing about game emulation, but I’m a sucker for the Commodore 64 and Mini Amiga 500.

They honestly look like good collectibles, and it makes me hope with fingers crossed that the announced Atari 2600+ will be good.

See, those things I REALLY don't understand. I may think it's silly to try to keep vainly trying to make old hardware run forever, but at least that's actually the old hardware. With those "mini consoles", you're emulating anyway, so you're buying plastic trash to get a typically limited and less convenient version of an emulator that any computer anywhere has already been able to run for years and years now.

I don't know, maybe I just have a tragic lack of sentimentality or something.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

See, those things I REALLY don't understand. I may think it's silly to try to keep vainly trying to make old hardware run forever, but at least that's actually the old hardware. With those "mini consoles", you're emulating anyway, so you're buying plastic trash to get a typically limited and less convenient version of an emulator that any computer anywhere has already been able to run for years and years now.

I don't know, maybe I just have a tragic lack of sentimentality or something.

From what I gathered about the C64 Mini and Mini A500, there are ways where one can actually use USB sticks to get gaming ROMS from those consoles onto the mini console versions.

Then there’s also the tinkering that goes with them:

In my case, I don’t know if I’d be too bold to do these kinds of things, but it still does not make it any less interesting to want to be curious about.

 

[Pissmaster]

See, those things I REALLY don't understand. I may think it's silly to try to keep vainly trying to make old hardware run forever, but at least that's actually the old hardware. With those "mini consoles", you're emulating anyway, so you're buying plastic trash to get a typically limited and less convenient version of an emulator that any computer anywhere has already been able to run for years and years now.

I don't know, maybe I just have a tragic lack of sentimentality or something.

There is an odd thing with how the selling point for a lot of cheap computers tends to be emulation.

• What do you do with a Raspberry Pi? EMULATORS!
• What do you do with an Ouya? EMULATORS!
• What do you do with a NES Classic Edition? EMULATORS!

Except these are all inexpensive SOCs that tend to have trouble with emulating anything past SNES. We're also years and years into the era where any current Android phone can emulate GameCube, and any relatively recent desktop computer can go as far as PS3 and Switch.

I get the fun of being able to take out a novelty miniature console and play games on it, but actually hooking it up to your TV is kind of a hassle, and most old games really do benefit greatly from speedup and save state functions.

I've played a few SNES games on my Windows tablet with an Xbox X|S controller. It is my favorite way to play them. The tablet has a nice screen, the controller has satisfyingly clicky buttons, and I play them in Mesen, so I have access to a memory editor. I can turn the cast of Secret of Mana into virulent racists any time I want.

but I’m a sucker for the Commodore 64 and Mini Amiga 500.

What I would really like to see would be remakes of their keyboards, in full size, but with modern keyboard standards. Nice mechanical switches and smooth actuation to make typing on them a pleasure. That's something you can't exactly get by just plugging in any old keyboard, too, considering those are very old machines designed around their bespoke keyboards with bespoke layouts. It is very nice to not have to remember keymaps that don't match the labels on your own keyboard.

And of course, said keyboards would come with the SOC inside, letting you plug them into a TV and play roms directly from them, but there'd also be a switch to where you could hook them up to a PC and use them as an actual keyboard, or like a controller in an emulator. That's my dream idea for such a thing, anyway. Miniature versions are cute and fun, but I could really get into having just the absolute best version of that system, built with 40 years worth of advancements.

 

[Pissmaster]

People get mad when I say it, but Fallout 4 is the best playing Fallout.

"But muh New Vegas writing!"

Nigga go read a book.

I agree, though the map could have been a lot better. The first doctor you come across before you get access to the one in Diamond City is a ghoul that lives in a cabin atop a heavily radiated pond, and she's the only way to remove your radiation aside from chugging a lot of the ever-scarce Radaway. So you have to make sure to save before you approach her place, and be very careful to take in as little radiation as possible coming and going. Or, you can waste a lot of time waiting and hoping she'll randomly walk to one particular spot out of several that's actually out of the zone of radiation.

There are also lots and lots of nooks and crannies you can find that seem like they were supposed to be secret, but there's nothing there. Hardly anything underwater, too.

Boston's not a bad map, but it sure could have been revised. It feels like a rough draft in places.

 

[Reverse Ideology]

People get mad when I say it, but Fallout 4 is the best playing Fallout.

Fallout 76 is actually better than Fallout 4/Vegas. I did not play it at release, but when I did later, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed the game, considering its reputation. Who cares about the story in a nu-Fallout game anyway? I enjoyed exploring and shooting mutants, that's good enough.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

I don't understand why anyone was excited for BG3 at all, even if it weren't wokeshit.

As a huge fan of the Infinity Engine games, what exactly should have made me excited about it? It's made over 20 years after Throne of Bhaal by a different dev team, a different publisher, an entirely different type of gameplay, and (as far as I've seen) even the few returning cast members have been replaced with new voice actors.

Yet again, the hype that was surrounding this game seems to have been based on nothing more than consoomer brand recognition.

I'm excited to play it because I enjoyed BG and the story/universe from when I was a kid and Larian have made 2 of the best/most fun RPG's in memory. Mixing the playability of Divinity with the universe of BG3 is a win.

I may be an old, jaded, cynical bastard who hates modern gaming, but a diamond in the rough is still a diamond in the rough.

As for the gay wokeness in BG3: I roll my eyes when I see people say "oh, this rpg is woke because [insert rpg trope]". Men and women wizards change into all sorts of weird shit. Women dwarves have beards and shagging shape shifters has been a thing for as long as I can remember. Lister even ended up bumming a weird alien in Red Dwarf because he thought it was his old bird.

Blatant faggotry and infinite niggers like in Starfield is woke. Shagging a bear in an RPG is just part of the universe.

Once I grew up and realized that none of these games had particularly great stories (or hell, even great gameplay or design), they actually become a lot more enjoyable because I'm not expecting the fucking world from them.

Slight disagree. There are some great takes on tropes and stories to be found in gaming. Some plot twists are great and fresh, it's just that they don't need to exist when normies hoover-up goyslop like it's going out of fashion.

Winning the game in Fallout 1, only to be sent back to the wasteland because your hero status would cause people to leave the safety of the vault. A genius little twist.

The ship called Sovereign carrying reapers and sovereign itself turning out to be the ship? Awesome idea.

Teleporting in fallout 4? Stupid as fuck, lazy,corner-cutting, 'hanging-from-a-lampshade' levels of writing. While also ruining canon and the lore around Fallout.

 

[Stasi]

Heretic is more fun and therefore is a better game than Doom.

There, I said it.

 

[Matt Damon]

Mixing the playability of Divinity with the universe of BG3 is a win.

The "universe of Baldur's Gate" was in the imaginations of a handful of Bioware developers 25 years ago. Compelling fictional world are not something you can just put into storage for decades and then transfer ownership of like an old car.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Some plot twists are great and fresh, it's just that they don't need to exist when normies hoover-up goyslop like it's going out of fashion.

You say this, and then literally bring up Mass Effect which is normie goyslop. (don't take offense to this though, 99% of games are normie goyslop.)

 

[Mega Black]

You niggers are whining about 30FPS again? Your fucking heads would explode if you touched Ocarina of Time on N64. Games are perfectly playable at 30, ideal at 60, anything else is a bonus.

As for the gay wokeness in BG3: I roll my eyes when I see people say "oh, this rpg is woke because [insert rpg trope]". Men and women wizards change into all sorts of weird shit. Women dwarves have beards and shagging shape shifters has been a thing for as long as I can remember. Lister even ended up bumming a weird alien in Red Dwarf because he thought it was his old bird.

The wokeness in BG3 is ludicrously overblown. People are still freaking out over the bear sex joke which is a gag romance option you have to go out of your way to trigger by routinely hitting on the druid at camp.

Ten hours in and I haven't seen anything particularly beyond the pale that wasn't standard for RPGs as far back as ten or fifteen years ago. There will be a couple faggots here, you'll be hit on by the party members regardless of gender, outside of that it's all pretty tame.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

The wokeness in BG3 is ludicrously overblown.

Baldurs Gate 3 problem isn't that it's woke, it's that it is cringe.