Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Love Thug's Hate]

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is the only good HOMM game.

 

[Raging Capybara]

I'm astounded by how awful the writing in Mass Effect is, legit Tommy Wiseau territory.

The game begins with an ugly alien committing first-degree murder in broad daylight leaving behind every material proof you can imagine. But his victim isn't just some asshole out there, it's literally the James Bond of milk way, some of the most important individuals that could ever exist in the universe.

So what happens with him? Nothing, of course. The next day, a mere few hours after the crime took place, when the body of the murdered guy is still warm, the galactic dictatorship or whatever already concluded the investigation, and the result is that the poor guy apparently shot himself in the back of the head.

There's no security footage analysis, no ballistics, no fingerprint or DNA samples, no reconstruction of the timeline of the murder, no interrogation of witnesses, and no list of suspects. In this universe, that takes place in 10,000 or whatever, I'm supposed to believe these bastards don't have basic technology to investigate an obvious crime with a shitton of evidence, they don't even consider video footage when during the briefing of the mission we see that - shockingly - in the future we'll have the technology to record video. All of that is disregarded in a kangaroo court without prosecution or defense.

I uninstalled the game immediately after that. It's just too much bullshit to shrug it off. Retarded writing even if it was done by a 13-year-old. Just unacceptable.

 

[capitalBBustard]

@Raging Capybara 1/10 bait

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Gabe should skip HL:3 and make HL:4. In the HL:4 universe it should loosely reference events that could have possible occurred in HL:3.

The idea being that no matter what HL:3 is, everyone will hate it because it's not their idea of HL:3, so make HL:3 a "choose your own adventure" type of story and start fresh with HL:4.

Make the whole skipping of a game part of the lore of 4; no-one really knows what happened between the events of 2 and 4. It would be the best way to avoid all of the problems with making a HL:3

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

I'm astounded by how awful the writing in Mass Effect is, legit Tommy Wiseau territory.

It certainly has problems.

The game begins with an ugly alien committing first-degree murder in broad daylight leaving behind every material proof you can imagine. But his victim isn't just some asshole out there, it's literally the James Bond of milk way, some of the most important individuals that could ever exist in the universe.

Nihlus was not particularly important, in the grand scheme of things. He's one spectre among several. Same as Saren. And spectres, as you would learn if you kept playing the game for more than five minutes, are considered expendable. They have wide latitude and broad legal authority, but the tradeoff is that the council will literally just wash their hands of them if they become a problem... They will not back them up.

There's no security footage analysis, no ballistics, no fingerprint or DNA samples, no reconstruction of the timeline of the murder, no interrogation of witnesses, and no list of suspects. In this universe, that takes place in 10,000 or whatever, I'm supposed to believe these bastards don't have basic technology to investigate an obvious crime with a shitton of evidence, they don't even consider video footage when during the briefing of the mission we see that - shockingly - in the future we'll have the technology to record video. All of that is disregarded in a kangaroo court without prosecution or defense.

It was a tiny farming colony on the frontier of settled space. It's quite likely there wasn't any omnipresent CCTV from every angle type recording to be had.

You know that whole... I forget what it's called, the Narcissist's Prayer, I think it is? The council has one like that with specters. And you're seeing it again.

• Specters never go rogue, they are the best of the best
• But if they do go rogue, they probably have a good reason, so we won't question it
• But if they don't have a good reason, well, it's Spectre Business, it doesn't concern us
• But if it gets pointed out Spectres operate with council blessing, we wash our hands of them.
• In any case, it's never our fault and we don't care.

It helps to understand - again, this is something that is made more explicit as time goes on - that the council is basically a UN stand-in... In that they have very little actual power, they're largely useless, most of the galaxy doesn't care all that much about them, and the ones that aren't outright corrupt are still self-serving and lazy.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

They're called role-playing games because you role dice to play them. If outcomes aren't randomly determined, it's not a true RPG.

If that were true, wouldn't they be called roll-playing games?

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

everquest gave me an unhealthy fear of obese iranians
View attachment 5588104

This looks like the type of nigga that will commit charity fraud.

 

[TVB]

I'm astounded by how awful the writing in Mass Effect is, legit Tommy Wiseau territory.

The game begins with an ugly alien committing first-degree murder in broad daylight leaving behind every material proof you can imagine. But his victim isn't just some asshole out there, it's literally the James Bond of milk way, some of the most important individuals that could ever exist in the universe.

How long are you gonna keep sperging out you literal fucking spastic?

 

[Calandrino]

Gabe should skip HL:3 and make HL:4.

HL was only meant to be a duology from the beginning. It's called Half Life, not Third-of-a-Life. The two existing games add up to one full life.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I'm astounded by how awful the writing in Mass Effect is, legit Tommy Wiseau territory.

The game begins with an ugly alien committing first-degree murder in broad daylight leaving behind every material proof you can imagine. But his victim isn't just some asshole out there, it's literally the James Bond of milk way, some of the most important individuals that could ever exist in the universe.

So what happens with him? Nothing, of course. The next day, a mere few hours after the crime took place, when the body of the murdered guy is still warm, the galactic dictatorship or whatever already concluded the investigation, and the result is that the poor guy apparently shot himself in the back of the head.

There's no security footage analysis, no ballistics, no fingerprint or DNA samples, no reconstruction of the timeline of the murder, no interrogation of witnesses, and no list of suspects. In this universe, that takes place in 10,000 or whatever, I'm supposed to believe these bastards don't have basic technology to investigate an obvious crime with a shitton of evidence, they don't even consider video footage when during the briefing of the mission we see that - shockingly - in the future we'll have the technology to record video. All of that is disregarded in a kangaroo court without prosecution or defense.

I uninstalled the game immediately after that. It's just too much bullshit to shrug it off. Retarded writing even if it was done by a 13-year-old. Just unacceptable.

That's because Saren is a Spectre, and he's done a lot of shady shit for the sake of the galactic government. They're willing to cover up shit and tell the cops to beat it because Saren was their puppet for so long, and he's important to their vision of galactic peace. He's the kind of asshole who commits war crimes in secret, but said ''crimes'' usually help preserve galactic order and peace, so the Council government looks the other way when people bitch and complain about Saren being a homicidal maniac who doesn't care about innocent lives being lost in his operations. You even hear the politicians in the Council Chamber speak of it, of how the Council was protecting him. There were no cameras in the crime scene; Eden Prime was a hillbilly colony that nobody cared about before the Geth showed up in force.

Basically, imagine if Batman or Superman committed a crime-they destroyed some random no-name hillbilly town and killed a minor superhero. But prior to that, they've done so much for Uncle Sam in preserving global peace, to the point where the government looks the other way and refuses to prosecute them, they just have a formal ''investigation'' that's just there for the sake of appearances, and they clear the suspects of guilt because they're too important to prosecute.

The whole point of the intro is that the Council IS acting like a kangaroo court when they were protecting Saren, and they only budged when confronted with irrefutable proof taken from the corpse of a Geth that Saren was there and was with the Geth at the time. It was like an old boys' club and Saren was one of the boys; they only turned on him when proof of his guilt surfaced. The Alliance had zero evidence he was there outside of one traumatized dockworker who could've made the story up as far as the Council was concerned.

Next time, actually take into consideration the context with which the game presents the story. The very same cop who's angry that the investigation got closed later recommends to you that Saren be killed on sight, since the Council might protect him again.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I'm astounded by how awful the writing in Mass Effect is, legit Tommy Wiseau territory.

The game begins with an ugly alien committing first-degree murder in broad daylight leaving behind every material proof you can imagine. But his victim isn't just some asshole out there, it's literally the James Bond of milk way, some of the most important individuals that could ever exist in the universe.

So what happens with him? Nothing, of course. The next day, a mere few hours after the crime took place, when the body of the murdered guy is still warm, the galactic dictatorship or whatever already concluded the investigation, and the result is that the poor guy apparently shot himself in the back of the head.

There's no security footage analysis, no ballistics, no fingerprint or DNA samples, no reconstruction of the timeline of the murder, no interrogation of witnesses, and no list of suspects. In this universe, that takes place in 10,000 or whatever, I'm supposed to believe these bastards don't have basic technology to investigate an obvious crime with a shitton of evidence, they don't even consider video footage when during the briefing of the mission we see that - shockingly - in the future we'll have the technology to record video. All of that is disregarded in a kangaroo court without prosecution or defense.

I uninstalled the game immediately after that. It's just too much bullshit to shrug it off. Retarded writing even if it was done by a 13-year-old. Just unacceptable.

You guys read the dialogue and descriptions? I don't think any games have good dialogue per say, at best they have good lines. I've heard baldurs gate ii has good lines, especially the villain does. Personally the best "dialogue" and voice acting I've seen is in blood and captain claw, which coincidentally are my personal favourites when it comes to voice acting, doesn't matter if blood and Duke 3d is just full of rehashed army of darkness lines. Stephen weyte is a literal god king, get out of here with that Jon St John shit. Duke 3d and God hand English dub come second. Special mention to Rondo of blood for so bad it's good dialogue/voice acting. Another special mention to dungeon keeper for amazing voice acting.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Some of the most well-loved western RPG titles like KOTOR, Mass Effect 2, and Fallout 3

You lost me ME2 and F3. Both are terrible games in their respective series'

HL was only meant to be a duology from the beginning. It's called Half Life, not Third-of-a-Life. The two existing games add up to one full life.

For a guy who seems to pride himself on coming across as a fat, autistic, fart-sniffing, reddit-tier, fedora-tipping faux intellectual, you're really phoning in the intellectual part.

Half-life is how long it takes for half of the radioactive material to be exhausted. Half-life, the series, can have as many games as it wants and still have an accurate name.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

You lost me ME2 and F3. Both are terrible games in their respective series'

I, and many others, disagree. Fallout 3 made Game of the Year back then when that title mattered in 2008, and it laid the foundation for Fallout New Vegas, arguably the best Fallout game in existence. Mass Effect 2 was seen as the high point of the franchise by most of the fanbase, not because of its mechanics, but because of its party member-focused storytelling. ME1 was great RPG-wise and exploration-wise, and ME3 had the most flexible combat system, but ME2 took the cake with its main campaign that was focused on you getting to know your crew and help them with their problems.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

I, and many others, disagree. Fallout 3 made Game of the Year back then when that title mattered in 2008, while Mass Effect 2 was seen as the high point of the franchise by most of the fans, not because of its mechanics, but because of its party member-focused storytelling. ME1 was great RPG-wise and exploration-wise, and ME3 had the most flexible combat system, but ME2 took the cake with its main campaign that was focused on you getting to know your crew and help them with their problems.

I won't turn this into an autistic slap-fight but the only time I see people favouring F3 are those who haven't played the originals, or think Fallout is only 3, 4 and 76. Though to be fair, I have only played F3 once when it first came out and while I loved seeing my favourite franchise up-close-and-personal in 3D, the story was shit.

M2 was terrible at everything. You can cut that game out from the trilogy and the story would make more sense. It felt like extra padding to make ME a trilogy and the capeshit level story telling of "main char has died, but wait, we can bring him to life but only once, ever and then never again because reasons" was 10/10 retarded. Why kill him to bring him back? Made 0 sense.

 

[The Last Stand]

HL was only meant to be a duology from the beginning. It's called Half Life, not Third-of-a-Life. The two existing games add up to one full life.

Explain the episodes and Half Life 3 (Apex.)

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I won't turn this into an autistic slap-fight but the only time I see people favouring F3 are those who haven't played the originals, or think Fallout is only 3, 4 and 76. Though to be fair, I have only played F3 once when it first came out and while I loved seeing my favourite franchise up-close-and-personal in 3D, the story was shit.

Actually, I have seen people who have played the originals like Fallout 3 better. Granted, you won't hear that from the echo-chamber of modern Fallout fans who idolize the originals, but when FO3 came out, I knew more than a few players who loved it. Also, Fallout's story was always kind of shit. FO2 forces you to fight the Enclave no matter what, and they're just basically American Nazis with a shallow Nixon stand-in for a villain. The Master in FO1 kills himself when he finds out his mutants are sterile, despite the fact that he has a cult of humans on standby who can easily serve as breeding stock to turn into more mutants.

New Vegas was the exception to the rule, giving you several factions that had both good and bad elements, and letting you choose which side was best. I remember how nuanced House was as a character, how he was a ruthless capitalist who still used logic and reason to come to his conclusions, yet he was still a tyrant in every sense of the word. The same could be said for Edward ''Caesar'' Sallow, whose road to hell was also paved with good intentions. Then I looked at the heroes and villains of the first two Fallout games, and I was sorely disappointed.

Spoiler: OLD FALLOUT IS OVERRATED

The Enclave was just the game-makers being butthurt towards Cold War America, so they made American Nazis who whine about Commies and Muties, as if their army wasn't being led by a mutant with a fist for a brain. The Master just came off as s fucking idiot when he kills himself after finding out his mutants were sterile, despite the fact that he has a human cult he could use as breeding stock to turn into more mutants down the line.

Hell, I wanted to join him and play as a Super Mutant, but the game just gives you a nonstandard game over when you join him. The way he argued about how the mutants were the most suited for the world after the bombs dropped, it made sense, just as how serving House or Caesar made sense in the context of the Fallout world. It would've also been fun to play as a mutant and storm the Brotherhood bunker as someone who could pop open those armored paladins as if they were soda cans. Imagine playing as a mutant, ripping off a Brotherhood Paladin's head, and gulping down his blood like it was Mountain Dew. Now that's the classic image of what an evil player character would do.

But no, the game just wants to hit you over the head about how joining the mutants is wrong and you can't play as the bad guys, and the same went for Fallout 2 where they refused to let you join the Enclave even though you could already infiltrate their ranks at will and even inoculate yourself against the FEV. That's kinda funny, since Starcraft, which also came out in the late 90s, allowed you to butcher humans and Protoss as the Zerg, who were unapologetic about their evil. The Zerg were basically the Scourge of God in Starcraft, and yet the game still let you play as them, as they butchered human colonists and desecrated the Protoss Empire's most sacred temples. Meanwhile, Fallout 1 chickens out of letting you be a part of the Unity, even though they offer you the choice. That's some real pussy shit right there. It would've made more sense if they DIDN'T give you the choice of being a mutant and just told you to shove a grenade up your ass and die.

M2 was terrible at everything. You can cut that game out from the trilogy and the story would make more sense. It felt like extra padding to make ME a trilogy and the capeshit level story telling of "main char has died, but wait, we can bring him to life but only once, ever and then never again because reasons" was 10/10 retarded. Why kill him to bring him back? Made 0 sense.

False. ME2 was basically the high point of the franchise. Especially considering the fact that most people considered ME1 clunky and ME3 disappointing. ME2 was the game that people universally loved during the heyday of the Mass Effect franchise. Most fans who played through the franchise, and I'm not just talking about RPG nuts but the average gamer who played all three games, they mostly prefer ME2 over the other two games because of the storytelling aspects. They didn't much care about Shepard dying and being revived, they cared more about the party member stories which stuck with them as the best parts of Mass Effect's story.

 

[Judge Dredd]

HL was only meant to be a duology from the beginning. It's called Half Life, not Third-of-a-Life. The two existing games add up to one full life.

Everybody missing the joke makes this funny.

You lost me ME2 and F3. Both are terrible games in their respective series'

ME2 was quite good. It was ME3 that killed the series. Lair of the Shadowbroker is the one bit of DLC people seem to care about from Mass Effect and that was a DLC for 2. Even if you just count the main three, ME1 was janky mechanically, and ME3 shit the bed with the ending.

the only time I see people favouring F3 are those who haven't played the originals, or think Fallout is only 3, 4 and 76.

To expand on what @LORD IMPERATOR said. I came to the old games later and hated them. Could barely get past the tutorial as they're those kind of old PC games like Daggerfall and System Shock 2 where you can fuck yourself over in character creation despite making sane choices.

Not only that, as someone who owned Fallout Brotherhood of Steel back in the day I was told how that was some travesty.

I enjoyed FO3 at the time, but it's hard to come back to, but I forgive it because Point Lookout is amazing.

 

[TheHarbinger]

ME2 was quite good. It was ME3 that killed the series. Lair of the Shadowbroker is the one bit of DLC people seem to care about from Mass Effect and that was a DLC for 2. Even if you just count the main three, ME1 was janky mechanically, and ME3 shit the bed with the ending.

The ending of Mass Effect 2 is hysterically terrible. The giant human shaped reaper was beyond silly and nonthreatening. Like something out of a Galaxy Quest style Mass Effect parody game. What were the Reapers thinking exactly? "Let's build some big loud T-800 knockoff looking skyscraper sized robot for a boss battle with some random humans?". It was such a huge waste of time and resources for them.

The most hilarious part is that nearly all of Mass Effect 2 including the 'Human Reaper' were entire retconned. You can play Mass Effect 1 into Mass Effect 3 and miss essentially zero important plot points. And the entire Mass Effect 2 plot of 'Reapers take on other forms of life' was removed from the canon and the writers reverted the Reapers back into the giant squid shaped aliens.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

ME2 was quite good. It was ME3 that killed the series. Lair of the Shadowbroker is the one bit of DLC people seem to care about from Mass Effect and that was a DLC for 2. Even if you just count the main three, ME1 was janky mechanically, and ME3 shit the bed with the ending.

That was the opinion of most Mass Effect fans. When they talk of the Mass Effect franchise in its heyday, it was Mass Effect 2. ME3 had great combat, but the story was an afterthought. ME1 had a good story, great RPG mechanics, and OK exploration mechanics, but a lot of people found it clunky. I enjoyed them all in their own way, and I loved ME1 more than the average ME fan, but let's not kid ourselves, most Mass Effect fans got their dopamine high point with the series from the party member missions and the suicide mission of ME2, as well as the Shadow Broker DLC.

To expand on what @LORD IMPERATOR said. I came to the old games later and hated them. Could barely get past the tutorial as they're those kind of old PC games like Daggerfall and System Shock 2 where you can fuck yourself over in character creation despite making sane choices.

Exactly. It's one of those games that a lot of old, DnD-RPG fans salivate over, but unless you know what you're doing, and by know, I mean you know the game inside out and how to break it, you won't make it far. A lot of old Fallout fans who love to shit on Bethesda hype up the first two Fallout games, but I came into the franchise through Obsidian and Fallout New Vegas, and speaking as a New Vegas fan, that game set a standard that the first two Fallouts fall short of, just as much as FO3 does. The only difference is that FO3 is easier for the average noob to get into, hence why it became GOTY in 2008 after Halo 3 won the award in 2007.

I enjoyed FO3 at the time, but it's hard to come back to, but I forgive it because Point Lookout is amazing.

I usually play FO3 if I just wanted to blow shit up. It's not a cerebral game like KOTOR 2 or New Vegas, but it gets the blood pumping when you go into an area and kill all the Enclave troops/Mutants there.

The ending of Mass Effect 2 is hysterically terrible. The giant human shaped reaper was beyond silly and nonthreatening. Like something out of a Galaxy Quest style Mass Effect parody game. What were the Reapers thinking exactly? "Let's build some big loud T-800 knockoff looking skyscraper sized robot for a boss battle with some random humans?". It was such a huge waste of time and resources for them.

It was a fun boss fight; most Mass Effect fans loved it and saw the final mission as the highlight of the series as a whole.

The most hilarious part is that nearly all of Mass Effect 2 including the 'Human Reaper' were entire retconned. You can play Mass Effect 1 into Mass Effect 3 and miss essentially zero important plot points. And the entire Mass Effect 2 plot of 'Reapers take on other forms of life' was removed from the canon and the writers reverted the Reapers back into the giant squid shaped aliens.

Uh, no. There were no retcons. They kept that shit in ME3. Prior to the final battle, after the Reapers moved the Citadel to Earth, the Citadel was transformed into a place similar to the Collector Base, and the Reapers were trying to assimilate the Earthlings into another Reaper. Anderson says as much when you get up into the Citadel in ME3's ending.

The original ending by Drew Karpyshyn actually had the human Reaper as THE central plot point; apparently there was Dark Energy poisoning that was causing the stars of the galaxy to age rapidly and go supernova; Tali's recruitment mission in ME2 featured a star aging prematurely. The Reapers were trying to clean that pollution up, and a human Reaper was supposed to have the right qualities that would allow the Reapers to clean it up for good. The original choice, before Casey Hudson and crew fucked over ME3's ending, was that Shepard would either have to choose between letting the Reapers harvest humanity into a new Human Reaper and solve the Dark Energy pollution for good, or you'd forgo the Reapers' solution and try to find another way. Either you'd have to sacrifice humanity to save the galaxy via a Human-Reaper, or you'd try to find another way to save the galaxy on your own.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

My problem with NuFallout isn't mechanical. It's what happened to the setting.

Between Fallout 1 and 2, the world evolved. Humanity was starting to rebuild. Yeah, most of the world was still wrecked, but there was change. Progress. The NCR was building cities, infrastructure. A stable government (after a fashion).

Fallout 3 and 4 are still people fighting over goddamned 200 year old twinkies and bottles of soda in ruined gas stations and living in un-repaired ruins and cobbled together shacks made out of busses and pieces of crashed airplanes.

New Vegas sort of straddled the line, and it mostly worked because New Vegas was supposed to be a frontier area that hadn't had as much rebuilding happen... But even then, look at New Vegas. House and the gangs had done a fair job restoring at least a chunk of Vegas, there was trade between them and the NCR, diplomatic relations, signs of progress. The world felt like it was growing and evolving.

Bethsda-Fallout is a stagnant world replaying the same meme gifs for eternity.