Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Dishonored's worst crime was punishing combat. They made combat fun, then gave you a bad ending if you did it too much.

Oh no, no no, it's worse than that. They didn't just make combat fun, which they did... They gave you a narrative reason to want to be the bloody hand of vengeance and cut a swath of sanguine retribution throughout the city. They killed your lover in front of you and kidnapped your child. Then they framed you for all of it, possibly had you tortured. The game-universe version of a wiccan's conception of Satan comes to you in your dreams and gives you his dark blessing specifically with the intention that you become an unholy terror to those who wronged you.

... And then the game says, "yeah, but bro, that would be wrong".

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Lot of games arent the step forward people think they are and I certainly dont think Goldeneye was.

Can I ask in what year you first played Goldeneye?

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

Can I ask in what year you first played Goldeneye?

2014, 14 years old, mouse injector program, 1964 emulator. Ive even played the Source and DS versions, DS one I played younger maybe 2012 13, Source 2016 which is probably the best lan game on source (CSSource isnt a good lan game).

 

[The Ugly One]

Oh no, no no, it's worse than that. They didn't just make combat fun, which they did... They gave you a narrative reason to want to be the bloody hand of vengeance and cut a swath of sanguine retribution throughout the city. They killed your lover in front of you and kidnapped your child. Then they framed you for all of it, possibly had you tortured. The game-universe version of a wiccan's conception of Satan comes to you in your dreams and gives you his dark blessing specifically with the intention that you become an unholy terror to those who wronged you.

... And then the game says, "yeah, but bro, that would be wrong".

I had forgotten about that, because I ended up only killing maybe a dozen guys across the entire game. The right way to do combat in a stealth game is like Splinter Cell, where sure, you can kill everyone, and the combat is really cool, but it's also very risky. It's pretty hard to just blast your way through a level, but it can be done.

 

[Yamamura]

"I don't understand why people think the ENIAC was such a big deal when my Ryzen 7 is so much more powerful."
"I don't understand why people think King Kong was such a great movie when it was in black and white, the special effects are bad, and the acting is outdated."
"I don't understand why people think the 1965 Mustang is such a classic car when a brand-new Camry has better handling and doesn't rust."
"I don't understand why people think Pet Sounds is a good album when it was in mono."
"I don't understand why the T-34 has so many fans when an M1A2 can crush it like a tin can."

Etc. It is not just nostalgia. I can pick up an old, outdated game play it, and enjoy it entirely within the context of what it was in the year it came out. I played most of the N64 library on original hardware in the last ten years. True, lots of the games were dogshit, and they were dogshit for the time, but some games, I can really appreciate for what they were, given the time period.

I hate to be pedantic, but you're mischaracterizing my point (read my second post after the first). I'm not comparing the performance metrics of each game. I'm comparing which ones I subjectively enjoy more. Otherwise I would have picked the newest game 007 Legends or one of the awful mobile games as being the best Bond game instead of Nightfire.

It's not about being the most technologically advanced or the newest, but which you think is best representative of the franchise as a whole. If it was a list ranking games based on which was more technologically influential then Goldeneye can be at the top. But I'm ranking them based on which games of the franchise I get more personal enjoyment with. Goldeneye would not be at the bottom of the list, but I just wouldn't put it first just because my own personal feelings toward it.

Something can still hold up even without having to exclusively viewing it thorough the context of when it came out. To use your analogy a 1965 Mustang is still enjoyable enough that you can have fun driving it through modern traffic whereas driving a Ford Model T isn't. The Model T is historically significant, but I have no obligation to say it's one of my favorite cars or that it's a fun car to drive just because of that fact. "but you have to view it through the context of when cars couldn't go over 15 mph".

Again I never said that I personally thought Goldeneye was a shit game (it's good), just that it wasn't my favorite Bond game of all time.

To avoid taking up more pages talking about Goldeneye, I think I've said all my thoughts I've wanted to say on the matter. I'll just respectfully agree to disagree.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Assassin's Creed 4 would have been the best pirate game ever made if only it weren't also an Assassin's Creed game. Remove the conveluted modern day story, the 30 minute walking-around-an-office segments, the shitty trailing missions, the presence of the assassins and templars. Just make it a self contained pirate adventure story with all the same mechanics, more ship options and maybe some moral/reputation system (honorable privateer vs. bloodthirsty pirate).

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Assassin's Creed 4 would have been the best pirate game ever made if only it weren't also an Assassin's Creed game. Remove the conveluted modern day story, the 30 minute walking-around-an-office segments, the shitty trailing missions, the presence of the assassins and templars. Just make it a self contained pirate adventure story with all the same mechanics, more ship options and maybe some moral/reputation system (honorable privateer vs. bloodthirsty pirate).

The fact that Ubisoft has never put this game out is one of the biggest mysteries of gaming history to me. Hell, even if they thought it wouldn't sell because it's not an established IP... Just get the license to Black Sails or something, I dunno.

I mean, fuck, they've literally got half the work done for them. They know how to to do the mechanics, they had an engine that does the mechanics, they could recycle a lot of the assets, and they know they have a player base that would play it.

 

[Nick Obre]

Assassin's Creed 4 would have been the best pirate game ever made if only it weren't also an Assassin's Creed game. Remove the conveluted modern day story, the 30 minute walking-around-an-office segments, the shitty trailing missions, the presence of the assassins and templars. Just make it a self contained pirate adventure story with all the same mechanics, more ship options and maybe some moral/reputation system (honorable privateer vs. bloodthirsty pirate).

Back in the day, as a kid, I played Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons. The SNES port of a game where you'd sail around the world in the 16th century, playing as your choice out of 6 characters, each with a different story and role: pirate, royal navy, explorer, trader, etc. You'd form your fleet, travel the world, discover amazing landmarks from all over the globe, engage in sea battles, board ships, duel enemy captains, fight the pirates, the navies, or the privateers, trade goods from faraway places, use the market fluctuations to make a fortune, steal the cargo from other traders, sell your discoveries to cartographers, etc. All the while, the paths of the 6 characters meet and diverge, with an interlocking narrative that includes wars between countries, the war against piracy, and the search for the legendary city of El Dorado.

I've been ever since looking for something that'll scratch the itch that game gave me, and nothing came close, not even the later Uncharted Waters games (most of which are shit MMOs and now there's a remake of New Horizons which I think is just a fucking gacha cashgrab).

But Black Flag was close, man, really close.
It doesn't have the mechanical depths of trading and exploring, but it does do little bits of most of what I want here and there.
Of course, the Assassin's Creed shit is infuriating every time it rears its ugly head to distract you from the great pirate game you really wanna play.

The fact that Ubisoft has never put this game out is one of the biggest mysteries of gaming history to me.

The fact that nobody has tried to make a proper game like that after seeing the success of BF is what's baffling. Every attempt is some online live service shit or something.
It's not like pirates haven't had surges in popularity, why not leverage that?

It hurts, man.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I think Ubisoft took the wrong message from the fuckwits who said they wanted just the ship and none of the land when they drew up their plans for Skull and Bones. Then it went into development hell for whatever reason.

It's a mystery there aren't more good entries in that genre. Oh, there are entries. They all just suck. Usually you even get a problem where the ones that try for better graphics or more interactivity than Sid Meier just end up falling into that video game uncanny valley of too high-budget to be charming and stylized but too low-budget to be good.

What I'd want out of a pirate game, which is unlikely to ever happen, is a good representation of the world of a pirate ship. Since I was little that was the main thing that interested me about piracy: their self-contained world with politics (ship elections, mutinies, codes) and different offices on the ship in charge of different things. I think a good pirate game would simulate crewmembers as actual, procedurally-generated people (minus, perhaps, a few dedicated offices or special uber-elite officers that are actual characters) and use that to make drama.

Likewise I can't say as I actually want to play a sailing simulator - Darthmod Total War naval battles are already awful - but for wind to actually matter and to have a detailed damage model where you can do things like demast ships, take holes, disable rudders, have ships sink in a slow and realistic fashion (the death of a ship is often drawn out over hours in real life) instead of blowing up/breaking up because a stray cannonball hit them would be good.

 

[Abbadon's Gate]

I've been ever since looking for something that'll scratch the itch that game gave me, and nothing came close, not even the later Uncharted Waters games (most of which are shit MMOs and now there's a remake of New Horizons which I think is just a fucking gacha cashgrab).

There used to be a game kinda like that, whos name I can't remember. In looking for it I found this https://www.piratehorizons.com/#features though, so maybe that'll help?

**Edit** I'm a retard, who didn't finish reading your post. Myb

 

[Nick Obre]

There used to be a game kinda like that, whos name I can't remember. In looking for it I found this https://www.piratehorizons.com/#features though, so maybe that'll help?

**Edit** I'm a retard, who didn't finish reading your post. Myb

Don't worry, I wasn't aware of this.
That looks like mods for a Pirates of the Caribbean game trying to do some of what that UW2:NH did back then. Maybe there's something there.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Again I never said that I personally thought Goldeneye was a shit game (it's good), just that it wasn't my favorite Bond game of all time.

No, you said you didn't understand the reverence it got. And it seems you *still* don't simply because you like Nightfire more.

Which one you enjoy more has nothing to do with how Goldeneye or Nightfire is viewed by others.

 

[11 Herbs and Spices]

Id like to think if NOLF had multiplayer, it would be the best of the Goldeneye subgenre of games

It had multiplayer. It was on GameSpy servers that have long since closed but there was a multiplayer that was less fun than the campaign because the explosive Thompson Contender sniper beat everything along with the briefcase rocket launcher.

 

[Edgy But Dull]

I had forgotten about that, because I ended up only killing maybe a dozen guys across the entire game. The right way to do combat in a stealth game is like Splinter Cell, where sure, you can kill everyone, and the combat is really cool, but it's also very risky. It's pretty hard to just blast your way through a level, but it can be done.

It's a trend I've noticed with a lot more stealth games. The whole "dump body in this dumpster/closet and never worry about the consequences of your actions" has become omnipresent in the medium, allowing players to casually slaughter people with zero repercussions. Then you have something like Assassin's Creed Mirage where their plan to discourage combat and encourage stealth was to make combat absolutely trash. It's a recurring theme in the genre where devs just can't figure out a way to encourage pure stealth where you don't slaughter everyone in your path. The only recent game I've seen that has made a solid attempt was the newer Hitman games by having "kill target only" as a focus but you can still just casually knockout guards non-lethally and stuff them in a closet to open a path. Freelancer mode does provide a fair choice where you definitely can just blast through a level but it's still risky because if you die, you lose all your shit.

 

[Judge Dredd]

It's probably because they played Goldeneye when it came out and have memories associated with it. (or as I love to say, "they played it when they were 12")

There's also something that a lot of people these days miss. Goldeneye was everywhere, and a lot of the appeal was swapping myths, puzzling out the game, and finding stuff years later. You can't replicate that with an emulator.

From Russia with Love did introduce a pretty interesting multi-player mode that doesn't get a lot of recognition.

Everything or Nothing had a great co-op mode that no one knows exists. So did Far Cry 3 iirc.

So far the only Soulslike I've found tolerable was Code Vein.

For me it was The Surge and The Surge 2.

I can pick up an old, outdated game play it, and enjoy it entirely within the context of what it was in the year it came out.

You don't even need that excuse. We can give the haters all points in their favour. The controls, the framerate, the lack of checkpoints, all bad.

Still better than the games released today like the Saints Row Reboot and Redfall.

What's more, some of Goldeneye's worst offenses like the framerate and resolution can be fixed via emulators. Can't do that with bad writing like Last of Us 2 or Mass Effect Andromeda.

 

[The Ugly One]

I hate to be pedantic, but you're mischaracterizing my point (read my second post after the first). I'm not comparing the performance metrics of each game. I'm comparing which ones I subjectively enjoy more.

You said you don't understand the reverence other people have for Goldeneye, specifically. It's been explained now that it's because in 1997, it triggered a massive change in how the FPS genre was approached.

What I'd want out of a pirate game, which is unlikely to ever happen, is a good representation of the world of a pirate ship. Since I was little that was the main thing that interested me about piracy: their self-contained world with politics (ship elections, mutinies, codes) and different offices on the ship in charge of different things. I think a good pirate game would simulate crewmembers as actual, procedurally-generated people (minus, perhaps, a few dedicated offices or special uber-elite officers that are actual characters) and use that to make drama.

I've been ever since looking for something that'll scratch the itch that game gave me, and nothing came close, not even the later Uncharted Waters games (most of which are shit MMOs and now there's a remake of New Horizons which I think is just a fucking gacha cashgrab).

A genre's that all but died is, for lack of a better term, the multi-scale strategy game. There were games BITD like Star Control II that had a bit of strategy, then might shift to a SHMUP, then might have another phase, etc. A pirate game that is a grand strategy game at the high level, but then shifts to a turn-based war game at times, and maybe even becomes a 3rd-person action game when in hand-to-hand combat, could be fun.

 

[Articles and Nudes]

Dead Space 3's focus on action over horror was perfectly acceptable for the third entry in a series. At some point you have to drop the pretense that something you've been fighting and winning against can maintain the same fear factor.

Being able to create a minigun/plasma cannon hybrid gun is more than adequate compensation for losing a bit of resource management.

 

[TheHarbinger]

Dead Space 3's focus on action over horror was perfectly acceptable for the third entry in a series.

That is the trend for a lot of horror themed properties. Like Alien to Aliens. Or even Half Life 1 to 2. Where the protagonists go from barely surviving to fighting back and then in most cases eventually winning. In Alien 3 they had everyone die and be unable to fight back for example, which was met with huge anger from a lot of people. People became accustomed to rooting for the main character to mindlessly defeat hordes of monsters like an arcade game. People wanted to see Ripley and Hicks blazing machine guns on xenomorphs for three hours with some romantic ending. Rather than Hicks and Newt dying like nothing and Ripley being infected with only hope of suicide.

Dead Space 3's ending is far more bleak. Earth is consumed by monsters and humanity is extinct on the planet. Practically every single person is dead outside of a few colonies and spaceships and they have no home anymore and cannot return to Earth. And the necromorphs are slowly taking over more of the universe and just annihilated a planet of billions who could have potentially fought back.

The downer ending is what really gets people in my opinion.

 

[anustart76]

It's a recurring theme in the genre where devs just can't figure out a way to encourage pure stealth where you don't slaughter everyone in your path. The only recent game I've seen that has made a solid attempt was the newer Hitman games

I'd include the Batman Arkham games with their Predator segments, but then those literally don't let you kill anyone. Speaking of which, I actually think Dishonored would have been a lot more fun if it just gave you unlimited Blink, and you had multiple ways to stealth takedown enemies, then you could treat it kind of like Batman's Predator rooms, but with Dishonored you would have the ability to kill or just temporarily take the enemy down. It can actually be pretty fun, especially in Dishonored 2, to take down an enemy, teleport away, and then watch the guards or whatever start panicking like thugs do in Batman.

The game-universe version of a wiccan's conception of Satan comes to you in your dreams and gives you his dark blessing specifically with the intention that you become an unholy terror to those who wronged you.

... And then the game says, "yeah, but bro, that would be wrong".

You make him sound ridiculous but the Outsider was extremely cool in the first game. Just the right air of mystery with his extremely even voice. It's a real shame what they did to him in 2, making him act all silly and edgy.
As for the "that would be wrong" thing, yeah overall that's true, but even the Outsider himself gets bored with you if you just slaughter everyone.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

It's a trend I've noticed with a lot more stealth games. The whole "dump body in this dumpster/closet and never worry about the consequences of your actions" has become omnipresent in the medium, allowing players to casually slaughter people with zero repercussions.

MGS2 was considered revolutionary for its mechanics that allowed players to hide bodies before they were discovered. I don't know how many times I used it because a) the Caution phase that results from a body being discovered is easier to deal with than the Alert phase from getting caught disposing the body and b) 9 times out of 10 you would be long gone before the body is discovered anyway. Point b isn't as much of an issue on higher difficulties where the guards cover each other better. But it's still easier to just leave a dead guard where he falls because of point a.