Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[LORD IMPERATOR]

That's a more gracious period than I'd grant, the early 80's doesn't have much at all, but I suppose mid 80's could be argued.

Here's my list of classics before the 90s.
Galaxian: 1979
Gradius: 1985
Star Force: 1984
Super Dimension Fortress Macross: 1985
Dig-Dug: 1982
Pac-Man: 1980
Ice Climber: 1985
Contra: 1988
Legend of Kage: 1985
Ninja Gaiden: 1988
Super Mario Bros: 1985
Super Mario Bros 2: 1988
Super Mario Bros 3: 1988

2010s...well, at least as far as AAA, I'd disagree. There's fleetingly few PS4 gen games I'd consider great, and I'm not sure there's even one masterpiece among them all (Nintendo aside). Plenty of 6/10 stuff.

I was considering up to 2013, when games like Arkham Origins and Metal Gear Rising came out. Those are some really fun games.

Nintendo's on a whole other genre, especially since the way they make games is different. Instead of nickeling and diming, it's more copy and paste, but they're copy-pasting stuff people like, such as Mario.

 

[Calandrino]

Best decade for video games is 1978-1988. The medium was fueled by Star Wars and started to peter out after Return of the Jedi left theaters. There are a few bright spots after that. Decent video games are occasionally made even today.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Best decade for video games is 1978-1988. The medium was fueled by Star Wars and started to peter out after Return of the Jedi left theaters.

Do you not remember how absolutely rotten store shelves were with Star Wars games in the PS1/2 days? There had to have been ten different titles a year at its peak.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Do you not remember how absolutely rotten store shelves were with Star Wars games in the PS1/2 days? There had to have been ten different titles a year at its peak.

Yep. During the Prequel era, they made SW games on just about everything. FPS games, adventure games, action games, racing games, space shooters/flight sims, strategy games, fighting games, you name it, they had it.

Best decade for video games is 1978-1988. The medium was fueled by Star Wars and started to peter out after Return of the Jedi left theaters. There are a few bright spots after that. Decent video games are occasionally made even today.

Space shooters were very popular in the 70s all the way to the early 2000s. Games like Gradius, Galaga, Sol-Feace, and Darius Force were the CoD of their day, and yes, Star Wars' popularity helped fuel that fad. Hell, the Bacterion homeworld in Gradius Galaxies even looks like the fucking Death Star.

 

[anustart76]

I suppose they can work with Microsoft and Obsidian.

Well since we brought up Alpha Protocol a while ago, it looks like GOG managed to get Sega and Obisidian together to release an updated DRM-free version on GOG: https://www.gog.com/en/news/alpha_p...cumentary_video_on_the_process_of_its_revival

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

I didn't play it until years later. I had to switch it to easy mainly because the enemies are such bullet sponges that it gets tedious. The story makes no sense. And character switching is a mechanic that has never really worked for me. I don't like RE0 for that reason. And since the game wasn't good enough to keep me interested to completion, it's one that I can't really recommend.

But on the other hand, I have a really low bar when it comes to game quality. I enjoyed other "bad games" like Legendary or Wolfenstien 2008.

I have beat it on very hard and it's very much a stagger meter (shotguns are so good at that in 90% of cases) kind of game where you're trying to get the triangle to glow to do real damage and you have to spend a lot of time combining DNA strands to get the kind of build you want, which is a lot of RNG to tolerate. Also, it has sniping mechanics that you have to learn to kill some mini bosses, which is nuts considering it's a PSP controller and thus, you do not have even the R stick. Basically, fast move for stick and slow move with D pad and also you can't strafe when using sniper rifles. In a game where you are constantly dodging out of the way. When I say mini-bosses, I mean those three legged Rover guys. Their weak point is one of their legs, which is like aiming at a toothpick. Hard game for sure, which is why I thought it was a Nomura game at first until I looked it up and saw he wasn't involved even though it does all the things he wants in a game.

 

[Kheapathic]

I had no idea Yvonne Strahovski was in it until I looked it up because the ADR direction was so weak, so she had no idea how to play the character.

Different game, but FF 13 came out around the same time; and I feel the same about direction could be said for the actress who voiced Vanille in FF 13. Maybe it's just a burgerland issue; but whoever was telling Vanille to act, told her "Sound European." Because I swear her tone/accent jumps between scenes like she doesn't know these lines are supposed to be the same character.

 

[Night Crawler]

I have been playing a lot of old games lately. Games have always been kind of "woke". Going through KOTOR I reminded me of this. Taris has the racist Boomer. The whole class thing going on with the planet. The "racism" against the aliens in the lower levels. Then you get to Dantooine with the cat girl character and from what I understand it's a lesbian.

It's just not as heavy handed as it is now.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Different game, but FF 13 came out around the same time; and I feel the same about direction could be said for the actress who voiced Vanille in FF 13. Maybe it's just a burgerland issue; but whoever was telling Vanille to act, told her "Sound European." Because I swear her tone/accent jumps between scenes like she doesn't know these lines are supposed to be the same character.

And Third Birthday had cross-promotion with FF 13 too. Dissidia for the PSP had Aya's costume for Lightning and Aya got to wear Lightning's clothes and her weapon. Which is why I kept thinking Nomura was involved.

As a general opinion, ADR direction for dubbed media works best if the ADR director knows the culture on screen. Cowboy Bebop has a fantastic English dub because it's easy for an American to explain to American actors what Noir is. It's not so easy for those same Americans to explain Japanese culture, so a dub for Perfect Blue or something gets sketchy. FF 13 is a whole bunch of weirdness in general, so I don't think any director could do that job right. Third Birthday really feels like no one cared.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

Prototype 2 would legitimately be a pretty great sequel if the story didn't fuck over Alex Mercer's character. If it was him and Heller working together to take down evil conspiracies and shit, I think most people would be fine with it because the gameplay, although simplified, is still fairly fun and the dialogue is outright hilarious with basically every single character being a walking stereotype and the game embracing that wacky shit with a wholehearted enthusiasm that is rare to find in video games in general.

 

[Whoopsie Daisy]

Prototype 2 would legitimately be a pretty great sequel if the story didn't fuck over Alex Mercer's character. If it was him and Heller working together to take down evil conspiracies and shit, I think most people would be fine with it because the gameplay, although simplified, is still fairly fun and the dialogue is outright hilarious with basically every single character being a walking stereotype and the game embracing that wacky shit with a wholehearted enthusiasm that is rare to find in video games in general.

They had a good idea with using Alex as the bad guy; an absolute corrupting super-power leads to him being corrupted. It's just they handled it wrong.
The set-up for 3 would have been cool if it was Alex and Heller in the last fight where both men were knocked out/killed and their bodies ended up combining. Meaning you could switch characters on-the-fly (or depending on your 'karma' became either Heller (good) or Alex (bad) throughout the game).

It's a shame because P2 Engine was insanely advanced for its time. The dev mode had more powers that didn't make it into the final game because they were too powerful, but you could dick around with them in sandbox mode. Throwing a 60ft tall tentacle tornado in the middle of a street at a rock-solid framerate was impressive.

 

[BLACKHAWK_Entropy]

Crash Bandicoot is autistic child and his sister is raped by Cranch dude every day and he masturabtes with his tiny lil pekcar

 

[The Ugly One]

Here's my list of classics before the 90s.
Galaxian: 1979
Gradius: 1985
Star Force: 1984
Super Dimension Fortress Macross: 1985
Dig-Dug: 1982
Pac-Man: 1980
Ice Climber: 1985
Contra: 1988
Legend of Kage: 1985
Ninja Gaiden: 1988
Super Mario Bros: 1985
Super Mario Bros 2: 1988
Super Mario Bros 3: 1988

Some other classics:

Asteroids
Missile Command
Breakout
Missile Command
Donkey Kong
Super Bust-a-Move (aka Puzzle Bobble to weebs)

Do you not remember how absolutely rotten store shelves were with Star Wars games in the PS1/2 days? There had to have been ten different titles a year at its peak.

Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader are nearly perfect, marred only by the fact that losing all your lives in a mission exits your profile and kicks you back to the title screen rather than the mission screen.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I have been playing a lot of old games lately. Games have always been kind of "woke". Going through KOTOR I reminded me of this. Taris has the racist Boomer. The whole class thing going on with the planet. The "racism" against the aliens in the lower levels. Then you get to Dantooine with the cat girl character and from what I understand it's a lesbian.

It's just not as heavy handed as it is now.

Hell, even back in the 80s, tabletop gaming, which gave birth to RPGs, was woke. Warhammer 40K especially, was made to mock religious and military-minded traditionalists. Then you had the DnD fans who became the core of what would later be the devs for WRPGs, being falsely accused of evil things like demon-worship by religious conservatives in the 80s, so no shit, any one among them who weren't woke before became woke after that.

Mass Effect even doubled-down on things by making the tolerant, ''globalist'' option paragon while the renegades go for humanocentrism and human nationalism. But this tradition of leftism and pluralism being the ''good'' option was already ingrained in RPG/DnD spaces long before the term ''woke'' entered the modern lexicon.

 

[TVB]

Mass Effect even doubled-down on things by making the tolerant, ''globalist'' option paragon while the renegades go for humanocentrism and human nationalism. But this tradition of leftism and pluralism being the ''good'' option was already ingrained in RPG/DnD spaces long before the term ''woke'' entered the modern lexicon.

I'd say they became extremely woke by the time they came out with their infamous Andromeda back in early-2017

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I'd say they became extremely woke by the time they came out with their infamous Andromeda back in early-2017

True, but the seeds were there long before.

 

[Book Thief]

I have been playing a lot of old games lately. Games have always been kind of "woke". Going through KOTOR I reminded me of this. Taris has the racist Boomer. The whole class thing going on with the planet. The "racism" against the aliens in the lower levels. Then you get to Dantooine with the cat girl character and from what I understand it's a lesbian.

It's just not as heavy handed as it is now.

I mean, depending on your outlook, The Sims has always been woke:

• The Sims 1, you can be gay, just can't get married.
• The Sims 2, gays can get married, but we're gonna be coy about it and call it a "Joined Union."
• The Sims 3, gay marriage is finally called a marriage.
• The Sims 4, pride flags, top scars for teenagers, customizable pronouns, gender replaced with togglable pregnancy and impregnation settings which are not mutually exclusive, toggles for your Sims to experiment with their sexuality, and some heavy-handed environmentalism to top it all off.

I'd argue some degree of balance is required when it comes to calling something "woke." In an open-ended life simulation like The Sims, the option of being a fag or a dyke is just realistic, and restricting it would impact the player's choices, agency, and story-telling capacity while playing the game. On the other hand, a game aimed towards children where you can give your teenage daughter mastectomy scars represents a very specific fetish by people who want to push their beliefs onto other people, and guilt-trip people into accepting it. That's what makes The Sims 4 "woke," while the other games aren't in my opinion.

 

[whogoesthere]

Crash Bandicoot is autistic child and his sister is raped by Cranch dude every day and he masturabtes with his tiny lil pekcar

Go to bed Ivan.

 

[KingofSomething]

I have been playing a lot of old games lately. Games have always been kind of "woke". Going through KOTOR I reminded me of this. Taris has the racist Boomer. The whole class thing going on with the planet. The "racism" against the aliens in the lower levels. Then you get to Dantooine with the cat girl character and from what I understand it's a lesbian.

It's just not as heavy handed as it is now.

I feel like there's a fine line between woke and just having progressive viewpoints. A lot of media from our childhood suddenly becomes pretty woke if we play too loose with definitions

 

[bango skank]

I’ve never understood the Sims games. At least with stuff like Sim City you’ve got stuff to do, build a city, run utilities, experiment to make things in the city work better. With The Sims it’s build a house and make some people to put in it then ???. It seems like you're just playing with dolls.