Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Sniperwoof]

Zanzibart my beloved is preferable to a bad or woke story.

 

[Calandrino]

What's the opposite of hidden gem? Conspicuous turd?

That, or "Dark Souls"

 

[Judge Dredd]

I've played plenty of n64 in my life because its what I was stuck with at the time, and you never get used to that stupid fucking controller. A Dualshock 2 or a modern Xbox controller just feels "right" when you pick it up, theres never a way to hold this fucking thing that feels "right".

Expanding on what @SSj_Ness said, the controller also gets a pass for being one of the first to do what it was doing. Obviously there are things like the Atari 5200 that had analogue, but those were arguably worse.

But if the lack of a modern layout is your concern, these days you can things like the Hori controller that have a modern form factor.

Ultimately it's unchecked nostalgia and an inability to grow the fuck up and admit the shit from your childhood isn't as mystical and infallible as your rosy-eyed memories want you to believe. Theres a lot of good stuff from that generation, but theres also a lot of absolute garbage that had no idea how to adapt to advancing tech. This blanket "nuh uh, it was just soooooooo much better back then" shit is getting old.

I'd normally be with you, but it really depends on the person.

I remember when people like Moviebob were complaining that gaming was shit because Halo and Call of Duty were popular, and (in his mind) killed off pixel art platform games. But the Xbox 360 was a golden age compared to the PS4 and PS5, which have 3 games between them.

There was a lot of junk back then, but I also think a lot of zoomers and alphas are too hard on those early 3D consoles. I can see the arguments that Goldeneye has aged poorly, but I can't agree with the idea that almost all games back then are unplayable.

 

[Scarthew]

Broken how? Combat functions, even if it isn't as satisfying as DMC1. It's been a long time since I've played it, but I got through it just fine. The most egregious thing I remember is some shitty helicopter monster, you couldn't hit the damn thing.

The enemies dont attack, they cant find you half the time, dante misses his sword swings constantly, inputs drop constantly, the tanks literally shoot right over you if you stand in front of em, the wolves bounce around like crackheads but never target where youre standing with their bounce, the bats and birds circle aimlessly waiting to be shot out of the sky. most bosses can be completely avoided by just standing at the back of their arena shooting them, most enemies including some bosses get launched and juggled after just a few pistol shots, no melee needed. The entire enemy roster is an unfinished tech demo that isnt playing the game you're trying to have with it.

edit: searching "DMC2 funny" found me the perfect video.

 

[The Last Stand]

Also the Wii. I don't even think I need to go into any kind of a screed about that. It was the most normie friendly gimmicky trash ever with an infinite library of games but almost nothing worth actually playing. The Virtual Console is a cope, every system had some equivelent and if you want to get to the brass tacks, you can probably do it better with a bit if modding on the PS3 and 360

Correct me if I'm wrong, but once you download Virtual Console games onto your Wii, they STAY there as long as you don't delete them. No DRM, at least compared to PSN/XBL/Steam. In that respect, Nintendo was better at preservation with the Wii VC compared to MS/Sony's storefronts.

The N64 was not a good console, in fact its a legitimately awful console. Very VERY few of the games hold up, playing most of them is a sluggish and frankly miserable experience (even if you grew up with them, but ESPECIALLY if you didn't, this can be applied to all consoles at the time but the Playstation has this issue much less than the others imo) and a good deal of them are also available on other platforms with better hardware and superior versions of the game.

I found the fifth generation of home consoles revolutionary, but not good. The N64 had limited processing power which resulted in poor draw distance, muddy textures, and horrible sound compression. Meanwhile, the PlayStation suffered from 3D pixelation, lack of analog support until late in its lifespan, load loading times and disc storage limits with CDs.

Of course, I'm exposing my age.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Meanwhile, the PlayStation suffered from ... disc storage limits with CDs.

I don't get what you mean. The N64's biggest cartridge had a max capacity of (oddly enough) 64MB, but PS1 discs had 700MB of space.

 

[The Last Stand]

I don't get what you mean. The N64's biggest cartridge had a max capacity of (oddly enough) 64MB, but PS1 discs had 700MB of space.

Final Fantasy VIII required four disks on a PS1. The cartridge did not require swapping.

 

[The Ugly One]

I don't think any NES RPGs are really palatable to anyone without strong nostalgia for them.

I really liked Final Fantasy I. I played it for the first time in the 2000s. Something about its absolute simplicity made it fun...and maybe because I was reading 8-bit Theater at the time.

 

[Super Hans v2]

Final Fantasy VIII required four disks on a PS1. The cartridge did not require swapping.

And? If Square decided to hamstring themselves to the N64's objectively worse graphical and especially sound specs it, along with every other multi-disc PS1 game, would all fit on one.

 

[The Last Stand]

And? If Square decided to hamstring themselves to the N64's objectively worse graphical and especially sound specs it, along with every other multi-disc PS1 game, would all fit on one.

CDs are more fragile than cartridges. I don't like the original PlayStation. Actually, you're right. Both suffered from media size limitations.

 

[Dysnomia]

Nah, controls maybe bad and Japans output was not great but there are a ton of good Wii games, certainly a lot more good games than the N64. Capcom and Nintendo were in top form on the Wii.

I didn't play much Wii. I didn't buy it for myself and was still using my Gamecube a lot. But I thought that Skyward Sword worked well with the wiimote. Whereas my nephew told me that Twilight Princess' motion controls felt tacked on. Makes sense considering that it wasn't initially being developed for the Wii to begin with. Not a ig motion control fan. But little kids (who I bought it for) seemed to really enjoy it.

Library looked interesting. I just never bothered to buy any Wii games for myself.

 

[Georgio Cocklord]

I didn't play much Wii. I didn't buy it for myself and was still using my Gamecube a lot. But I thought that Skyward Sword worked well with the wiimote. Whereas my nephew told me that Twilight Princess' motion controls felt tacked on. Makes sense considering that it wasn't initially being developed for the Wii to begin with. Not a ig motion control fan. But little kids (who I bought it for) seemed to really enjoy it.

Library looked interesting. I just never bothered to buy any Wii games for myself.

People tend to forget that the Wii was host to the Mario galaxys, bayonetta 1, the okami port, madworld, no more heroes, bayonetta, xenoblade chronicles and a lot of the crazy shit at the time. Even the whole suite of non generation definers like twilight princess, skyward sword, new super mario bros, mario kart and the rest were also very good. Sure motion controls are a bad idea in general unless it's a sports game but the wiis library cements it as a great console. The n64 though is only a few steps above a Gameboy advance in how good it is. Both the gba and the ds had great games but ultimately were relegated to forgotten shovelware cause they were underpowered handhelds with no generation definers. N64 defined the 5th generation but only out of sheer luck cause stuff like mario 64 and the zeldas were released. Never to forget that Nintendo fumbled the n64 so hard that they enabled the creation of the ps1 cause third parties were more amicable with Sony than them. If it hadn't done any of those things, it would've been on par with the virtual boy or the satellaview, in the realm of forgotten trash.

 

[The Ugly One]

Final Fantasy VIII required four disks on a PS1. The cartridge did not require swapping.

It's not that cartridges didn't "require" swapping, it's that they didn't "allow" swapping. Plus each cart had a base cost of around $35, so a multi-cart game would have been hundreds of dollars and still had inferior assets to a Playstation game.

 

[ZipDisk]

N64 controller does not get a pass. People act like the NES controller hurting your hands was some sort of nostalgic "feature" but the N64 controller took skin off people.

Nintendo offered special gloves with padded palms to those with proof of purchase of Mario Party.

 

[D.Angus]

There were already MMORPGs that did paid lootboxes like that before TF2. I'm not an MMO man, so I don't know which ones, but I remember hearing about them being in every Korean and Chinese one at the time. I think Ragnarok Online had them at least as far back as 2006? I don't remember.

Just remember kids.. Gaia Online did lootboxes the hardest with literal currency generators and completely killed their economy with the most extreme hyper inflation of currency there ever was.

They did this to a fucking dressup game.

 

[Thiletonomics]

There were already MMORPGs that did paid lootboxes like that before TF2. I'm not an MMO man, so I don't know which ones, but I remember hearing about them being in every Korean and Chinese one at the time. I think Ragnarok Online had them at least as far back as 2006? I don't remember.

MapleStory also was one of the first games to implement lootboxes, in the Gachapon system, and was also one of the first games to really go all-in on the Pay-2-Win model with things such as Cubes.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

Speaking of nostalgia and muh rose-colored glasses, I just don't get the meme. It could just be me though. I've replayed a lot of games from my childhood and for half of them I thought "Wow, how the fuck did I think this piece of shit was a good game?" A perfect example was when me and my brother played a bunch of old fighting games from our childhood. Tekken 2 we shut off after half an hour because it's really rough and slow but Tekken 3 still holds up today. SoulCalibur 2, VF4Evo, Bloody Roar 2, Tekken 5 and Tag were some that we still liked but on the other hand Battle Arena Toshinden, Bloody Roar 1, Dead or Alive 1 felt likeshit. Yugioh Forbidden Memories and Reshef of Destruction are 2 games that I fucking hate now, but I like Duelist of the Roses and the Tag Force games even today.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Speaking of nostalgia and muh rose-colored glasses, I just don't get the meme. It could just be me though. I've replayed a lot of games from my childhood and for half of them I thought "Wow, how the fuck did I think this piece of shit was a good game?" A perfect example was when me and my brother played a bunch of old fighting games from our childhood. Tekken 2 we shut off after half an hour because it's really rough and slow but Tekken 3 still holds up today. SoulCalibur 2, VF4Evo, Bloody Roar 2, Tekken 5 and Tag were some that we still liked but on the other hand Battle Arena Toshinden, Bloody Roar 1, Dead or Alive 1 felt likeshit. Yugioh Forbidden Memories and Reshef of Destruction are 2 games that I fucking hate now, but I like Duelist of the Roses and the Tag Force games even today.

That's the feeling that I have, when I realized that I played Streets of SimCity, which turned out to be one of the worst racing/driving games ever made, but I somehow liked it back then. To be fair, despite the game being a very ugly, and extremely buggy mess with awful driving physics, being able to drive around in your own SimCity 2000 cities was amazing, and the music and commercials were also great.

 

[The Last Stand]

N64 controller does not get a pass. People act like the NES controller hurting your hands was some sort of nostalgic "feature" but the N64 controller took skin off people.

That's why they add padding to analog sticks now. They haven't learned analog sticks from the Nunchuck or the Nintendo Switch.

 

[The Hardest R]

Nintendo made nothing but bad bets for the Nintendo 64. We’ve discussed cartridges but even things like their “Dream Team,” the 64DD, the controller, their sluggish output of games, etc. Rare wound up carrying the Nintendo 64 meanwhile Nintendo would release a couple major titles a year. Lots of canceled games too. While a few of their games are still considered some of the best games of all time, it seemed like they were at a low point throughout that entire generation. Meanwhile there were shitloads of great and interesting games getting released on PlayStation.