Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Señora Airi]

For me there's another problem--it makes the game feel kinda intimidating.

Like back in the SNES days, I just had eight characters (really four, since the bottom row just clones the top row in terms of speed, handling etc.) so it was no issue at all to try them all out and see which ones I like best.

Then Kart 8 has like fifty characters... plus you can mix them with any cart, which can further be customized with tires and shit.... and immediately I have visions in my head of spending hours just going thru time trial with every possible character/kart/customization just to find the one that is "just right" for me....

..... and it makes me not even wanna play the game.

All this was figured out in Double Dash too. Just have the array of light, medium, heavy characters team up, drive in the appropriate kart, and have the characters have special items only they can use.

I think a lot of people say they don't like multiplayer, but what they actually mean is they don't like the isolating, sterile, frustrating experience of waiting in a queue to spend five minutes getting angry because the retards you've been paired up with won't get on the fucking objective and some horrible little shit from Boston is calling them a fag over the mic when your team inevitably loses.

Honestly outside of streamerbait games, are there any co-op campaigns in games anymore?

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

It upsets me how ubiquitous online multiplayer is at the expense of local multiplayer, and how used to this sort of thing people have gotten, though. I feel like there's a whole generation of people who have never really known anything but online multiplayer games.

My fiancée is younger than I am and it kind of broke my heart having to explain that, no, she didn't need to buy her own copy of Mario Kart and go online to play with me, we can literally just sit down on the couch and play the same game on the same screen.

That's what it all comes down to, basically, isn't it? Local multiplayer games means that you only have to buy one game to play with your friends. Online multiplayer means that you and all your friends have to each buy your own copies of the same game (and then pay an online subscription fee) to play your game, which makes the companies way more money.

It all comes back to nickle and diming the customer.

 

[Squawking Macaw]

Here's an unpopular opinion: Skyrim is a good game.

Once Motoi Sakuraba stopped making music for the Souls games the music went to total shit generic "EPIC" orchestra slop.

Orchestral music is frankly overrated. I've seen far too many remakes/remasters ditch the original's musical style for bland movie-like orchestras. It seems some people can't take games seriously unless they try to be interactive movies and booming orchestral scores are a part of that.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Multiplayer with your friends, in the same room, on the couch or whatever, will always, always, ALWAYS be better than online multiplayer games against some fucks you don't know and are randomly paired up with.

I think a lot of people say they don't like multiplayer, but what they actually mean is they don't like the isolating, sterile, frustrating experience of waiting in a queue to spend five minutes getting angry because the retards you've been paired up with won't get on the fucking objective and some horrible little shit from Boston is calling them a fag over the mic when your team inevitably loses.

I think online multiplayer is fine, but, yes, with friends. Hell, it's what kept me playing World of Warcraft for a long time... I liked logging on and running dungeons and stuff with my friends.

I've only ever seen a handful of games really "work" for me with just rando pickup multiplayer. One of the few, and the only multiplayer game I currently play at all, is Deep Rock Galactic. Something about either the game design, or the community, or both, means it mostly works. You can play the game with minimal communication, most people get how to play it (it's a fairly simple concept), everyone is focused on the same goal since there's really not any point in trying to be a "star"... If anyone wins, everyone wins. Or everyone loses. There's no "other team" except the computer which we can all share a common hatred of. And for whatever reason, the community is largely friendly and positive.

Honestly outside of streamerbait games, are there any co-op campaigns in games anymore?

Deep Rock Galactic, to the extent it has a campaign. Plenty of RPGs - All of the Larian RPGs, for example, most action RPGs like (urg) Diablo, etc.

That's what it all comes down to, basically, isn't it? Local multiplayer games means that you only have to buy one game to play with your friends. Online multiplayer means that you and all your friends have to each buy your own copies of the same game (and then pay an online subscription fee) to play your game, which makes the companies way more money.

It all comes back to nickle and diming the customer.

While I had consoles growing up, I am primarily a PC gamer and have been every since around the 486 era. So "local" multiplayer was only ever at best a novelty, really - other than hot-seat games like HoMM and Civilization, which could be fun. The whole "crowding around a 14 inch CRT" thing didn't really encourage local multiplayer for computers.

Although I remember when it wasn't unheard of for PC games to allow you to install multiplayer clients for free without buying the full game. That was kind of awesome.

Here's an unpopular opinion: Skyrim is a good game.

Honestly, yes, it was. I have complaints about it, but at the end of the day I've played it through several times and enjoyed it. It's a fun time, a zero-to-hero power fantasy in a fairly pretty (Well, it IS a Bethedsa game... They only get so good, particularly their humanoid character models) world with a nice sound track and lots of manly norse beardliness and shouting at dragons. I had fun. I'll probably have fun again in the future.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

If someone were to prefer SMW I'd understand, they're close enough in quality that it can go either way fairly enough, but I don't think it's fair to compare the original NES version to SMW. The remake and SMW are both on the same cartridge on SNES, so a direct comparison between those two makes the most sense.

See, that's unfair. SMB3 getting save states and upgraded graphics while SMW is a straight port means that the comparison is flawed.

 

[KingofSomething]

I don't understand the point of video games where every character on the roster is unlocked immediately from the get-go. I bought Mario Kart 8 recently and was disappointed to discover that there's only one unlockable character, all the rest are playable right from the start.

To be fair, there are unlockables. They just switched it from characters to car parts. Which isn't that bad since all the characters are functionally pallet swaps anyway

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

See, that's unfair. SMB3 getting save states and upgraded graphics while SMW is a straight port means that the comparison is flawed.

You mean All-Stars? That's where SMW originated so it being in that collection isn't a port, just a rerelease.

If you mean the Mario Advance series, all the SNES ports in that series got some enhancements, so that's certainly fair even if you'd think the All-Stars comparison isn't.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I don't understand the point of video games where every character on the roster is unlocked immediately from the get-go.

I missed this, but I think I know the answer.

Star Wars Battlefront 2 was very controversial and kicked off the normie revulsion to micro transactions. Part of the reason being that to play the characters anyone cares about (Luke, Darth Vader, and whoever else was in it) you had to grind an obscene amount of hours of cough up the cash. Everything being unlocked from the start seems to be an over correction to that kind of attitude.

I saw this with racing games. I like starting with an economy shitbox and putting such a big turbo on it that it can outrun a Supra, but most normies just want to drive Ferraris and McLarens. The problem is this completely breaks progression. In the past we'd have different games for these. The sports car fantasy would be handled by Need for Speed and Test Drive, while Gran Turismo and Tokyo Xtreme Racer were your kei car to super car progression games, but now all racing games are an indistinguishable mush.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Star Wars Battlefront 2 was very controversial and kicked off the normie revulsion to micro transactions. Part of the reason being that to play the characters anyone cares about (Luke, Darth Vader, and whoever else was in it) you had to grind an obscene amount of hours of cough up the cash. Everything being unlocked from the start seems to be an over correction to that kind of attitude.

So, yet again, developers took an element that was an established convention in the medium, got fucking greedy, pushed things as far as they would literally go and spoiled it for everybody.

Many such cases, sad.

 

[Pissmaster]

- There are also DLC songs, crossover songs, event songs, limited time unlocks, and so on.

Yeah, seriously, there's DLC for an arcade game. It's already like $1.50-$2 per set, each set being just three songs, but there are songs that are locked because they're tied into DDR Grand Prix, their Japan-only PC version of DDR. In order to buy this DLC, you have to buy it with Paseli, which is Konami's own fun bux they sell in vending machines in Japanese arcades. So you have to import a prepaid Paseli card if you live overseas. Then you can use that to pay for DLC songs, which you can then play in the arcade. There's also a whole song pack exclusive to buying Konami's own home pad, which is also Japan-only.

Also, most of those songs have Japanese names, and really aren't great. You could play them for free on Stepmania. All of the best songs are what's already unlocked by default, anyway.

This makes modern DDR, by far, the most convoluted and perplexing game to deal with. I don't think I'd ever bother with all that Paseli shit even back when I was really into it. A lot of the songs that get added as DLC end up getting released to everyone sooner or later, anyway.

 

[TVB]

Here's an unpopular opinion: Skyrim is a good game.

I may like Skyrim, but Morrowind and Oblivion are still better

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Here's an unpopular opinion: Skyrim is a good game.

View attachment 5695790

That's not an unpopular opinion; it only seems unpopular because Morrowind nostalgia fags who hate Skyrim are the loudest morons in the TES fanbase. Being the loudest doesn't make them the most numerous; otherwise Skyrim wouldn't have sold so many copies.

The Suicide Squad thread has been brainstorming ways the concept could have been done less disrespectfully, as if that weren't the point. Still in the bargaining stage...

Instead of killing the Arkham Batman like a bitch, he should've been the one to commission Amanda Waller to put the Suicide Squad together once Brainiac brainwashes every other hero, but the objective would be to capture each hero so that Bruce and Waller can undo the brainwashing, not kill each hero. Then the final stage would have all the heroes helping the Suicide Squad while Batman plans the final assault on Brainiac's flagship and the Suicide Squad pull it off.

There. I fixed it. Took me less than a minute.

I played Skyrim first, then Morrowind and Oblivion. Skyrim is the worst of the three. The writing gets worse with each part.

The writing was the worst with Morrowind. Skyrim's sidequests had better writing.

The number of player options shrink and become less meaningful. Did you know you could fly in Morrowind?

Yes, but does that actually do anything for the gameplay, or is that just an empty bauble like riding a dragon in Skyrim?

Morrowind quests gave you actual directions you could follow. Skyrim gives you a quest marker. This encapsulates the difference; Skyrim is more streamlined. It's an RPG that allows you to turn your brain off and blaze through. The game will always guide you to the next thing; there is little you have to do for yourself. Everything is convenient, and there is little struggle. It doesn't even matter what you level.

Yes, and a lot of players got lost with Morrowind's directions and got pissy with it. Also, Skyrim was not the first game in TES with quest markers; Oblivion was. People got lost in Morrowind so many times that the next game after it used quest markers. Also, you're wrong about the game being convenient no matter what you level. If you fail to level certain skills as you level up, the game will kill you easily. Fail to level up enchantments as you face a boss that uses fire or ice, and you'll get killed in a single attack even if you're wearing top of the line Daedric or Dragonbone armor.

I guess it's personal preference but I don't see how cape beats Tanooki. It's more fun and controls far better than the weird rocking motion you need for the cape's flight.

You can run, fly, and ground-pound and kill all enemies. I don't seem to remember being able to do that with the Tanooki suit.

And they often don't even hide it, and just try impotently justifying it.

And it always comes down to the same justifications. Something something feminism, something something oppressed minority, something something oppressive patriarchy, blah blah blah.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

You can run, fly, and ground-pound and kill all enemies. I don't seem to remember being able to do that with the Tanooki suit.

Ground pound isn't nearly as useful as temporary invincibility. If anything, Tanooki was too good. I think it even let you kill enemies you usually otherwise couldn't too. Plus it's just more visually interesting than a cape.

And it always comes down to the same justifications. Something something feminism, something something oppressed minority, something something oppressive patriarchy, blah blah blah

Even when they have any point that has a shred of truth they come to the wrong conclusions or exaggerate it.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Ground pound isn't nearly as useful as temporary invincibility. If anything, Tanooki was too good. I think it even let you kill enemies you usually otherwise couldn't too. Plus it's just more visually interesting than a cape.

Not as useful in my opinion. I'd rather take out a whole screen of enemies. Makes Mario seem more powerful that way.

Even when they have any point that has a shred of truth they come to the wrong conclusions or exaggerate it.

Of course they do. Sure, gaming in the 2000s had a lot of women with mammaries bigger than their heads, but they decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater and not only make women uglier, but made them morally absolute, which made them even more unlikeable. I liked it better when female characters, like male ones, are rewarded for their good deeds or punished for their transgressions.

 

[The Last Stand]

I don't understand the point of video games where every character on the roster is unlocked immediately from the get-go.

From my experience, I disagree. I remember when Overwatch would have its DLC characters immediately unlocked for everybody without being locked through progression or payment. Now with the OW2 rework, it took a page from Rainbow Six: Siege where any new characters are locked through "earning" currency or outright buying them with real money. Locking characters behind a paywall or extensive grind for a competitive game is bad as it can create an imbalance between those who pay and those who don't.

Then Kart 8 has like fifty characters... plus you can mix them with any cart, which can further be customized with tires and shit.... and immediately I have visions in my head of spending hours just going thru time trial with every possible character/kart/customization just to find the one that is "just right" for me....

..... and it makes me not even wanna play the game.

I don't mind progression. I mind it when it encourages you to "no-life" the game or just buy what you want. At that point, it's not "progression," it's a second job now. Strangely enough, the older CoD titles perfected the idea of progression through an online environment.

 

[I Know 孤独のせい]

That's not an unpopular opinion; it only seems unpopular because Morrowind nostalgia fags who hate Skyrim are the loudest morons in the TES fanbase. Being the loudest doesn't make them the most numerous; otherwise Skyrim wouldn't have sold so many copies.

Well, I don't think we need to go down the road of sales = quality. I don't hate Skyrim, but despite good things about it also was stripped down mechanically and the world building /writing were a step-down from Morrowind.

The writing was the worst with Morrowind. Skyrim's sidequests had better writing.

Dark Brotherhood was a nice questline, Fightersguild had some subplot about werewolves. But not so sure about the general writing. Could you name a few examples regarding the sidequests in Skyrim? The main narrative in Skyrim was...something. The whole civil war "plot" was paper thin. At least the political landscape in Morrowind was fleshed out.

Yes, but does that actually do anything for the gameplay, or is that just an empty bauble like riding a dragon in Skyrim?

Freedom of travel, expressing oneself through game systems, measure of progress and meta commentary regarding the nerevarine reincarnation.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Not as useful in my opinion. I'd rather take out a whole screen of enemies. Makes Mario seem more powerful that way.

I don't think you can even do that to any bosses, at least not normally.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Well, I don't think we need to go down the road of sales = quality. I don't hate Skyrim, but despite good things about it also was stripped down mechanically and the world building /writing were a step-down from Morrowind.

I disagree. If it wasn't that good, people wouldn't be lining up to buy it in droves. That, and the things they stripped down were usually things that either broke the game like spellcasting, or RPG stats that were there from the days when all RPGs ripped off DnD, which makes no sense since DnD is a cooperative game, and TES, you're mostly alone. As for the world building and writing, they are far superior to Morrowind.

Dark Brotherhood was a nice questline, Fightersguild had some subplot about werewolves. But not so sure about the general writing. Could you name a few examples regarding the sidequests in Skyrim? The main narrative in Skyrim was...something. The whole civil war "plot" was paper thin. At least the political landscape in Morrowind was fleshed out.

Civil War, Potema Septim, Thieves Guild, are all good sidequests. As for worldbuilding, the Morrowind political landscape is just several assholes I could barely give a shit about. If Dagoth Ur killed all the great houses, nothing of value would have been lost. At least Alduin was a threat to EVERYONE, so even if I didn't give a shit about the world, I'd at least have a vested interest in keeping myself alive.

Freedom of travel, expressing oneself through game systems, measure of progress and meta commentary regarding the nerevarine reincarnation.

Which all sounds very good, except it's just sophistry to mask another bauble. You can make it sound good, but it's all just grinding to gain a skill that is useless compared to fast traveling.

You can say the same shit about flying dragons in Skyrim, even though that's just another bauble to highlight your progress. Riding on the back of a creature your forebears saw as a god, expressing oneself through game systems, it's just another gimmick.

Geez, you people go through lengths to justify a janky game that was blown out of the water by its sequel.

I don't think you can even do that to any bosses, at least not normally.

The bosses are few and far between, so I didn't care.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

You mean All-Stars? That's where SMW originated so it being in that collection isn't a port, just a rerelease.

If you mean the Mario Advance series, all the SNES ports in that series got some enhancements, so that's certainly fair even if you'd think the All-Stars comparison isn't.

The GBA ports are even worse because the GBA has a better specs than the NES and worse than the SNES, so while Super Mario Bros. 3 got a great port, SMW is completely butchered with the resolution wrong, the music wrong, being too washed-out, and so on. The only thing SMA2 did was change the Dragon coins into actual collectible items, and while it did give more replayability to the levels, it wasn't exactly a game-changer.

The fact of the matter is that SMB3 greatly benefits from ports and improvements that SMW never got.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

I disagree. If it wasn't that good, people wouldn't be lining up to buy it in droves. That, and the things they stripped down were usually things that either broke the game like spellcasting, or RPG stats that were there from the days when all RPGs ripped off DnD, which makes no sense since DnD is a cooperative game, and TES, you're mostly alone. As for the world building and writing, they are far superior to Morrowind.

Nah, I can't hold to using sales figures as a metric of how good a game is. There are plenty of games that sell like crack to crack addicts that aren't really that great.

I don't hate Skyrim. But "it sold a lot" doesn't mean much to me. It's the 5th mainline game in a series, it's got a built-in audience regardless in an industry that's getting bigger all the time (well... Except maybe recently).

Hard disagree on the world building being superior to Morrowind, though. Hard disagree.

Civil War, Potema Septim, Thieves Guild, are all good sidequests. As for worldbuilding, the Morrowind political landscape is just several assholes I could barely give a shit about. If Dagoth Ur killed all the great houses, nothing of value would have been lost. At least Alduin was a threat to EVERYONE, so even if I didn't give a shit about the world, I'd at least have a vested interest in keeping myself alive.

The thieves' guild quest pissed me off. So did the fighter's guild quest, although to a slightly lesser extent.

It's like... Damnit. Maybe I just wanted to be a thief, or a fighter, not pledge my soul to a daedric prince as part of your secret cult.

At least the fighter's guild questline felt thematically fitting for Skyrim, although I wish it had been a secondary guild, not apparently the only fighter's guild in Skyrim. And the thief's guild basically replaced any other Nocturne content... Hircine you still had a quest for that had nothing to do with the Companions.