Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[Kulee Baba]

Yeah, the "yellow paint" meme is kind of stupid.

The Graphics of games means that even the back rounds can look incredible, the downside is if everything looks amazing it can be difficult to tell what is Playspace and Backround.

A really great developer can figure out ways to naturally tell your players where they can and can't go...but that is a great deal of resources to dedicate to something that doesn't REALLY fucking matter.

I remember way back a lot of hardcore gamers would rip on the Batman Arkham games and the detective vision which served a similar purpose as yellow paint. I don’t think they were mad so much as mocking how so many games ripped off Arkham Asylum. But it’s like what do you want from game devs it’s easy to get lost in games if they don’t want to give you a map system? Just remembered the infamous Half-Life Playtester:

Yeah that playtester was dumb but I raged a bit trying to navigate the City17 apartments. It doesn’t help that so much of everything looks the same in HL2.

 

[Scarthew]

Replaying Half-Life 2 again because Valve gave it a 20th Anniversary update. It has been a lot of fun and the graphics still hold up although the player models show their age.

But anyway I do understand why modern devs use Yellow Paint now to tell players where to go. “Anticitizen One” was a major pain in the ass for me to navigate.

I have always have used walkthroughs and guides in games. I think they make the games feel a little more epic if you have to search for the answers.

Im sorry but you're just retarded, you are the reason they make these changes. Like if you died the world would be a better place if only because there'd be less yellow paint. HL2 is so linear I don't know how you could ever be confused.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Im sorry but you're just retarded, you are the reason they make these changes. Like if you died the world would be a better place if only because there'd be less yellow paint. HL2 is so linear I don't know how you could ever be confused.

I’m telling you some of the shit in Follow the Freeman is not easily assumed. Like when you get out of the museum there are two Striders that spawn and can fuck you up but you can’t defeat them because a new one will just spawn in.

 

[Scarthew]

I’m telling you some of the shit in Follow the Freeman is not easily assumed

Are you talking about the shitty game or the HL2 chapter called "Follow Freeman" because I've never played the shitty game but I know I never got lost in HL2 of all fucking games. And I don't spoil games by having guides tell me what to do, I don't even watch trailers.

 

[McMitch]

I remember way back a lot of hardcore gamers would rip on the Batman Arkham games and the detective vision which served a similar purpose as yellow paint.

The problem with Detective Vision, especially in Arkham Asylum, was it was SO useful that it was easier to just leave it on all the time, meaning the well-done atmosphere of the game was replaced with a digital blue filter. Beyond a handful of sections where it was required for story purposes, you could easily play the entire game without it. It was a tool to use as you desired, just like every other item in the game, and even then you were expected to put in a modicum of exploration yourself.

The issue with yellow paint is that it is: 1) lazy, 2) patronizing, and 3) betrays the ludo-narrative dissonance of the player exploring the game world. It's a big, gaudy director that intentionally clashes with the surrounding background design for the sole purpose of making sure the player does not miss out on content. The part most people recognize but fail to articulate is that it clearly comes from a single source that took the wrong lessons from examples such as guiding the player with light sources. It attempts to bypass the requirement of coaching the player towards what is interactable, while also removing the inherent reward of exploration by advertising where every instance of interaction is.

The Graphics of games means that even the back rounds can look incredible, the downside is if everything looks amazing it can be difficult to tell what is Playspace and Backround.

This is retarded, because the following is how your art design should be from the outset:

A really great developer can figure out ways to naturally tell your players where they can and can't go...but that is a great deal of resources to dedicate to something that doesn't REALLY fucking matter.

If your art design is confusing to where your player doesn't know what's interactable then you have bad art direction.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Are you talking about the shitty game or the HL2 chapter called "Follow Freeman" because I've never played the shitty game but I know I never got lost in HL2 of all fucking games. And I don't spoil games by having guides tell me what to do, I don't even watch trailers.

Now you’re being a nitpicking nerd. Yeah the chapter is “Follow Freeman.”

Me being a guide seeking scrub doesn’t mess up games. I grew up playing with my sibling’s retro games I dare anyone to play the original NES Zeldas without getting a guide out. It either requires a guide or insane patience.

I’m happy with games having convoluted bullshit. I like walkthroughs, I like when they tell you of mechanics and details that you might not even notice unless you read a guide. It’s fun.

 

[Scarthew]

Me being a guide seeking scrub doesn’t mess up games. I grew up playing with my sibling’s retro games I dare anyone to play the original NES Zeldas without getting a guide out. It either requires a guide or insane patience.

Well there's only two of those and Zelda 2 ("Link") is very straight forward, you follow roads to towns where npcs tell you what your goals are.

As for the first one it's fundamentally designed with exploration in mind, if you use a guide you rob yourself of the entire point of the game which is to wander the environment and figure out what you're supposed to do. Zelda 1's entire philosophy is to be the antithesis of Mario instead of making it obvious where to go (to the right) Zelda drops you in with 3 possible options of direction (4 if you include the cave) and gives you the completely unique experience of an unguided adventure. To use a guide on the unguided adventure instead of drawing your own maps and making notes would be the most retarded way you could possibly experience that game.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

After playing Shadow Generations, my mind floats back to its original inspiration, the original Shadow the Hedgehog video game. It's kind of sad that a game which handled edginess the right way and a game which had a rather revolutionary idea of having a moral choice system determining which levels you play doesn't get much love. Even some of the most well-loved games like KOTOR and Mass Effect still put you through the same levels no matter how good or evil you were. Sure, those games were still great, but you always had to go back to the Citadel/Collector Base, or the Star Forge/Malachor V, no matter what path you took.

Meanwhile, Shadow's game actually forces you to explore all moral choices to unlock all paths, making replays a necessity to unlock the true final boss fight and experience all the game has to offer in terms of levels and challenges. The game had problems, but if more games implemented the idea of different moral choices leading you to different levels, and even different final bosses, maybe people would've bought into the idea of "your choices matter" which was so common in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

The most I remember someone implementing that outside of Shadow the Hedgehog was the Alliance in Mass Effect sending you to different sidequests depending on your moral alignment; I remember they sent you to deal with a local warlord if you were Renegade, and sent you to rescue some hostages who were high off the kite if you were Paragon.

The problem with Detective Vision, especially in Arkham Asylum, was it was SO useful that it was easier to just leave it on all the time, meaning the well-done atmosphere of the game was replaced with a digital blue filter. Beyond a handful of sections where it was required for story purposes, you could easily play the entire game without it. It was a tool to use as you desired, just like every other item in the game, and even then you were expected to put in a modicum of exploration yourself.

Basically; I remember someone saying that the people who worked on all those textures and atmospheric graphics had their work wasted because most people would just keep Detective Vision on 95% of the time. All that work to create a grimdark atmosphere, with graphical details, and most players just keep the fucking Detective Vision on and never see it.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Well there's only two of those and Zelda 2 ("Link") is very straight forward, you follow roads to towns where npcs tell you what your goals are.

As for the first one it's fundamentally designed with exploration in mind, if you use a guide you rob yourself of the entire point of the game which is to wander the environment and figure out what you're supposed to do. Zelda 1's entire philosophy is to be the antithesis of Mario instead of making it obvious where to go (to the right) Zelda drops you in with 3 possible options of direction (4 if you include the cave) and gives you the completely unique experience of an unguided adventure. To use a guide on the unguided adventure instead of drawing your own maps and making notes would be the most retarded way you could possibly experience that game.

I don't think there's a wrong or right way to enjoy video games, as long as you're being entertained that's the purpose.

Again I like Strategy Guides. I like seeing the maps for old games. I like seeing the Easter Eggs which could be tricky to find. To act like players like me are what dumbed down modern games is silly. Publications like Prima Games and Nintendo Power existed for players who found looking for hidden shit to be tedious.

Back to Half-Life 2 I don't mind that there's shit in it that can annoy a dummy like me. It would have taken me a while to see that I had to go through this narrow walkway to advance. I had to use a guide.

Today in modern gaming they would paint those beams yellow or make the Horse Statue bigger so all players could see it. I think it was superior in the old days. Players like me search guides for answers and players like you figured out what to do. Everyone was happy.

 

[Deus Exica]

As I get older and more busy, with my time to actually play games much shorter, I find my patience for puzzle solving to be much, much, smaller. Replaying Dragon Age Origins and in the quest to recruit Shale there is a sliding floor puzzle, and when I walked in and saw it I audibly groaned and just instantly looked up a guide.

The majority of puzzles these days are so absent minded you might as well just not have them, but even old-school style puzzle design is pretty boring and feels like it is wasting my time more than engaging my brain.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

The majority of puzzles these days are so absent minded you might as well just not have them, but even old-school style puzzle design is pretty boring and feels like it is wasting my time more than engaging my brain.

Try beating Kara no Shoujo without a guide

 

[ReasonablyRetarded]

As I get older and more busy, with my time to actually play games much shorter, I find my patience for puzzle solving to be much, much, smaller. Replaying Dragon Age Origins and in the quest to recruit Shale there is a sliding floor puzzle, and when I walked in and saw it I audibly groaned and just instantly looked up a guide.

The majority of puzzles these days are so absent minded you might as well just not have them, but even old-school style puzzle design is pretty boring and feels like it is wasting my time more than engaging my brain.

I personally absolutely love puzzle games & puzzle elements in games, however, sometimes especially with older titles the puzzles can be so convoluted and illogical that a guide is pretty much needed unless you want to waste an hour+ of your life due to the absolute leaps in logic you have to take.

Also, fuck those "three buttons but they all move multiple things and some buttons share some of the things they move" type puzzles.

 

[Goht]

Me being a guide seeking scrub doesn’t mess up games. I grew up playing with my sibling’s retro games I dare anyone to play the original NES Zeldas without getting a guide out. It either requires a guide or insane patience.

Speaking of Zelda,
As someone who managed to (mostly) go through the 1st quest of 1 unguided...
Yeah, I think Aonuma had the right mind to move the series in the more puzzle/adventure-ish direction... at least until BotW, that is. That said, there's still the LA remake and EoW.

 

[Neodanthril]

on first glance this may seem like a popular opinon, because it is, but that is not the case for fans of the genre since it is a staple of the genre. adventure game moon logic is the dumbest idea i have ever heard of and only ever existed to pad out the games. famously the woman who would become president of sierra absolutely adored moon logic because she once played a text adventure game that took her months to beat because the puzzles were nonsense. i will even be gracious and say that moon logic had a place in the very early days of videogames because the market was just that much smaller it stood to reason someone wouldnt mind banging their head against the wall since there wasnt much competition. but in the age of digital videogame marketplaces, who wants to waste their time on retarded shit when they could play better and other games?

 

[Max Free]

A really great developer can figure out ways to naturally tell your players where they can and can't go...but that is a great deal of resources to dedicate to something that doesn't REALLY fucking matter.

What actually doesn't matter is having graphics fidelity cranked up so high that you can barely read what is on the screen in front of you anymore.

It's not only RE4-like games that suffer from such an unnecessary high intricacy in visuals that they need to give the player aid, but also strategy and 4X games, where everything now just starts to mush together in a way so that they need symbolic bubbles over their units to tell the player what they actually are. And all that for a "wow" effect that maybe lasts 10 minutes before the gamer-brain gets used to it.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

There are and while none of them come to mind I have seen them done. Yellow ledges are just the easiest way to signpost without having a floating waypoint or a line on the ground.

It depends on the game, it's probably hardest in more realistic games, but otherwise with a game like Mario you can guide players with coins or something. Skyrim has spell that leads you to your location, that's a good in-game method.

To use a guide on the unguided adventure instead of drawing your own maps and making notes would be the most retarded way you could possibly experience that game.

Zelda was designed for kids with infinite time, patience, and no other games to play. Now everyone, including kids, have no patience and an endless supply of games. Now everyone would rather just put their infinite or finite time into the many games that don't make you randomly bomb every tile with the expectation that you have no choice but to play it and have no way of just looking up the answers.

Zelda and games like it were the right games, at the right time. Players could share info and rumors, maybe call up/read Nintendo Power for tips, and take their time. It was just different circumstances that are lost now. I guarantee people of the time would've just Googled the answers too. You'd have to intentionally restrict yourself now in an attempt to recreate the original experience and there's just no reason to because bombing random tiles and wandering aimlessly isn't fun.

Tldr; Zelda is too simple today.

 

[Scarthew]

It depends on the game, it's probably hardest in more realistic games, but otherwise with a game like Mario you can guide players with coins or something. Skyrim has spell that leads you to your location, that's a good in-game method.


Zelda was designed for kids with infinite time, patience, and no other games to play. Now everyone, including kids, have no patience and an endless supply of games. Now everyone would rather just put their infinite or finite time into the many games that don't make you randomly bomb every tile with the expectation that you have no choice but to play it and have no way of just looking up the answers.

Zelda and games like it were the right games, at the right time. Players could share info and rumors, maybe call up/read Nintendo Power for tips, and take their time. It was just different circumstances that are lost now. I guarantee people of the time would've just Googled the answers too. You'd have to intentionally restrict yourself now in an attempt to recreate the original experience and there's just no reason to because bombing random tiles and wandering aimlessly isn't fun.

Tldr; Zelda is too simple today.

Baldurs gate 3 and Elden Ring were the most played games of the last couple years and both are 40x longer than the 5 hours or so itd take to beat Zelda blind.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Baldurs gate 3 and Elden Ring were the most played games of the last couple years and both are 40x longer than the 5 hours or so itd take to beat Zelda blind.

It has little to do with length, and it took people way longer than 5 hours back in the day, especially since that level of complexity and size was new at the time. But even if it is 5 hours, it's going to feel like 50.

 

[The Ugly One]

As for the first one it's fundamentally designed with exploration in mind, if you use a guide you rob yourself of the entire point of the game which is to wander the environment and figure out what you're supposed to do.

Burning random bushes with a candle that only works once per screen is bullshit, though.

Baldurs gate 3 and Elden Ring were the most played games of the last couple years and both are 40x longer than the 5 hours or so itd take to beat Zelda blind.

I doubt there's a single person in the world who beat Zelda in 5 hours on the first try without a guide.

 

[Dysnomia]

Me being a guide seeking scrub doesn’t mess up games. I grew up playing with my sibling’s retro games I dare anyone to play the original NES Zeldas without getting a guide out. It either requires a guide or insane patience.

You get dropped into Hyrule with no idea where to go. But it's not like you'll be wandering forever. There's only so many places you can go until you get more items. It was a fun experience for the time. The game felt huge and it was so rewarded when you discovered something on your own.

You can totally play it without a guide. I'd recommend guides as a last resort. I don't use them unless I've been stuck forever or am replaying a game and forgot something important.

As for games without maps, you can draw them. Just like oldschool.