Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[The Ugly One]

The reason why the Nintendo DS and the Wii did so well (they're in the top five ranking of best selling consoles of all time) because their architectures were inexpensive for developers to create games on the systems, which on one hand lead to numerous innovative classics that push the consoles to their limits and on the other crappy shovelware clones.

The PSP sold pretty well too and while it was more powerful than the DS but not so powerful that developers couldn't develop games for it without difficulty and concerns about budget. However, its successor the PS Vita did not do well because it was overpowered and only had a library that Otakus and weeaboos would enjoy.

The DS and Wii succeeded because there were lots of games children and women liked. The PSP failed because its battery life was about eight seconds. Your handheld is DOA if the battery isn't there.

 

[The Foxtrot]

There are good individual writing moments in all three games, but as an overarching story the first game set up a neat premise that both sequels completely failed to deliver on. To this day, people laser-focus on Mass Effect 3's ending as if it were the whole problem, but it was nothing more than the inevitable outcome of a catastrophic failure to move the plot forward.

Shamus Young (may he rest in peace) had a nice 50 article series he called his "Mass Effect Retrospective" from some years ago. The long and the short of it is that ME3's ending wasn't where the problems began. The cracks in the glass started as soon as ME2 began and effectively soft-rebooted the universe. ME3's ending was just when the cracks finally spiderwebbed and busted the entire pane out.

Here's the start of that series, if you want to read it in its entirety. I highly recommend it.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

The original Mass Effect is my favorite game of the series.
A lot of people I know say that Mass Effect 2 is the only good game in the series but I don't agree. I think they are all solid action RPGs with a great story but the first game is my favorite because it makes the galaxy feel huge in a way the other two don't without getting so bogged down in pointless collection side quests that I lose interest(I am looking at you Skyrim as an example of just way too much stuff to do). I think the series lost something when it stopped letting you explore planets and just dropped you into the mission with nothing else to do. Also, I like that in the first game you don't steer the ship yourself and you don't scan planets for hours, you just tell the ship where to go and it goes there and you tell your crew to pick up minor finds on planets, to me that feels more like what a reall space ship captain would do than doing every little thing yourself. I also like the much more open and lived in feel of the Citadel in Mass Effect one compared to the very closed off feeling I get in the sequels.

I love all three Mass Effect games but the first is my favorite and every time I hear people talking about this series it seems new comers are just told to "Skip the first game" and I have no idea why.

I will go even further.

Mass Effect 1 is the only GOOD game in the series.

 

[Gondolindrim]

My siblings and I bought my dad a refurbished cabinet of this one for Christmas a few years back. He'd been telling stories about the hours he'd spent at the arcade with this game for decades. He only played it a few times because he's, well, an old man now rather than a teenager, but opening that and realizing what it was is probably the most excited I've ever seen the guy.

Unpopular opinion: there's quite a few series where the common knowledge is "just skip the first game; it's more of a proof-of-concept and the sequel is a lot bigger and better" and I very often find myself enjoying that first game better. There's a focus and clarity of purpose that can come with an original concept and limited budget and it's frequently diluted by "bigger and better", even if things become more polished and streamlined in the process.

I think Assassin's Creed is the perfect example of that. It's mostly an engine test for the parkour and you can tell by the fact there are next to no minigames or other mechanics. It's also basically noncanon now because most of the modern day lore has been retconned and Altair himself was such an amazing assassin that he pretty much killed all his targets with no hassle.

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

I will go even further.

Mass Effect 1 is the only GOOD game in the series.

Didn't read the article, but I have a feeling it says that ME1 is the only Sci-fi game in the series. ME2 is more like a Sci-fi Noir kind of game where you're dealing with the criminal underworld and spend more time fighting merc gangs than the Collectors. So with that significant tonal change, ME3 just had to fast-forward to the war arc, but never really set up how the war can be won, so giant MacGuffin instead.

 

[ArthuriusMartyrius]

It really depends. I'll skip SimCity (1989) and Metroid (the whole plotline of the first two games are condensed basically in the opening lines of Super Metroid)...and I heard Half-Life really isn't that helpful if you want more explanation on Half-Life 2.

The main issue is when games try to go "bigger and better" and end up screwing up a lot of balance and nuance of the original, especially when it's a rush job. Batman: Arkham City is one such game, but it goes for others too—Yoot Tower (compared with SimTower) is designed to be bigger, better, and deeper than its predecessor but somehow comes up short and just ends up overcomplicated and full of gimmicks.

Half-Life 2 is a pretty good example of the developers completely misunderstanding what made the first game popular. I've noticed that there's very little crossover between major fans of Half-Life and Half-Life 2, people who liked the original tend to be either indifferent or outright disdainful about the sequel.

Batman: Arkham City has a major problem where it's theoretically bigger than Batman: Arkham Asylum but the map design is so crap that it comes across as feeling way smaller and more limited. This becomes an even bigger problem since the story is trying to be all epic as well.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Didn't read the article, but I have a feeling it says that ME1 is the only Sci-fi game in the series. ME2 is more like a Sci-fi Noir kind of game where you're dealing with the criminal underworld and spend more time fighting merc gangs than the Collectors. So with that significant tonal change, ME3 just had to fast-forward to the war arc, but never really set up how the war can be won, so giant MacGuffin instead.

I am reading them now, nothing impressive so far.

But ME 2/3 had Mediocre Gameplay with very bleh stories.

 

[Pissmaster]

The PSP failed because its battery life was about eight seconds. Your handheld is DOA if the battery isn't there.

It was if you were playing games from a disc. Otherwise, the battery life was fine. PSP might be the only console where piracy was always a better experience, no matter what.

 

[FILTH Tourist]

I will go even further.

Mass Effect 1 is the only GOOD game in the series.

Here's my hot take,

Mass Effect 3 is great and my personal favorite, purely based on that it had a coop hoard mode. I loved playing as diffrent builds and races without the 100 hour commitment if I played the story mode.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

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I'll counter that with my experience with the DS.

It's not a perfect 1:1 of course, their horsepower isn't identical and the artists took liberties that wouldn't work on a big screen (2D elements in particular).

But the DS has legions of great games that would have been killer early in the N64 era. I'm not talking gimmick puzzle games (probably the misconception that makes people skip DS emulation) but perfectly "traditional" games where the touchscreen is used rarely enough that it would easily be ported out.

Great 3D games were absolutely possible on the N64, it's just that no one bothered. I realize this might defend your point (devs couldn't afford to learn the ins and outs of the system) but that furthers another unpopular opinion of mine that game genres are cultural and not technological.

Look at C.O.P. The Recruit, Firetop Mountain, Modern Warfare Defiance or Lufia 2 and tell me 1996 kids wouldn't have been all over that shit.

What game is that top image from? It looks cool.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

purely based on that it had a coop hoard mode. I loved playing as diffrent builds and races without the 100 hour commitment if I played the story mode.

But you have Warframe for that now don't you?

 

[FILTH Tourist]

But you have Warframe for that now don't you?

Wareframe didn't really click for me. But I do appreciate it when big RPGs add a mode that let me play diffrent builds without much commitment like pathfinders rouge-like modes.

I still loved the campaign of the Mass Effect trilogy, but ME3 has a special place for me because it let me play with friends and as the weird aliens.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I still loved the campaign of the Mass Effect trilogy, but ME3 has a special place for me because it let me play with friends and as the weird aliens.

To me, each Mass Effect game was good in its own right. ME1 was great with exploration and sci-fi themes, ME2 was great with personal conflicts and cover-based shooting, especially if you play as a soldier. ME3 had the best combat and the most fun part was playing as each alien class in the MP.

Sonic 06 was way too over-hated. It's a decent game with some jank here and there, which is to be expected from a game that's on a new generation of consoles, and the story lets the main villain cook well, to the point where the dude is the only canonical character who kills Sonic.

I feel that what made the 2000s special was that game designers were willing to experiment to see what would work best. Instead of 99 copies of digital DnD like it was back in the 90s, or endless microtransaction shooters like today, game designers were willing to fuck around and see how to make things work. That's how you got games like ME1 which tried to combine KOTOR-style stats with Halo-style combat. Or Sonic 06 which had a character who can literally toss things around in the game sandbox, which was fun for the time, and would be replicated by the highly-successful Force Unleashed.

 

[Gondola Enjoyer]

But you have Warframe for that now don't you?

Can't play as a 2'0" short king Volus bionic punching people in the balls in Warframe, now can you?

 

[Rololowlo]

What game is that top image from? It looks cool.

That's the Lufia 2 "remake" for the DS.

It's such a massive departure from the original SNES release that it's better to see it as a fully independent game.

I covered it on the 'Dex back then.

If you're on a low power system, that's the strength of emulating retro games and OEM handhelds over modern Android and indie shovelware: you no longer have that kind of ambition and production values associated with low horsepower.

 

[Slap47]

Are we heading for a crash in the video game industry?

It's happening right now? Big studios are cutting the fat and canceling games.

The independent market and smaller devs will be untouched. They are not tied to expensive consoles and have direct lines to their audiences.

 

[Franz Joseph]

Shamus Young (may he rest in peace) had a nice 50 article series he called his "Mass Effect Retrospective" from some years ago. The long and the short of it is that ME3's ending wasn't where the problems began. The cracks in the glass started as soon as ME2 began and effectively soft-rebooted the universe. ME3's ending was just when the cracks finally spiderwebbed and busted the entire pane out.

Here's the start of that series, if you want to read it in its entirety. I highly recommend it.

Smudboy also did a great video series on YouTube breaking down how the ME series fell apart after the 1st game.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

And while the addition of the joystick was innovative, how is putting it all the way at the bottom supposed to comfortable to manoeuvre during gameplay?

???
You realize you're supposed to hold it like this, right?

I can only think of a couple of games that used one handle but required pressing buttons on the other for minor functions.

 

[Book Thief]

And while the addition of the joystick was innovative, how is putting it all the way at the bottom supposed to comfortable to manoeuvre during gameplay?

I've discussed this topic in the past, so I'll just link to my comments discussing it. (1 2 3)

TL;DR: The controller isn't uncomfortable in the slightest. I say this as someone who has owned and used them with a real console. The only people who think it's "impossible" or "uncomfortable" have never used it. Think of the Wiimote's Nunchuck and you have a pretty good idea of how the middle prong is used.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

I've discussed this topic in the past, so I'll just link to my comments discussing it. (1 2 3)

TL;DR: The controller isn't uncomfortable in the slightest. I say this as someone who has owned and used them with a real console. The only people who think it's "impossible" or "uncomfortable" have never used it. Think of the Wiimote's Nunchuck and you have a pretty good idea of how the middle prong is used.

Glover used the middle and right handles and assigned the L button to making Glover toggle between holding the ball and walking on it. WCW/NWO Revenge used the left and right handles and assigned flicking the control stick to taunting. Those are the only games I can think of that had inputs on all three handles and, like I said, only for minor functions.

Actually, Didn't Ocarina use the L button to toggle the map? That might be a third but I can't remember for sure.