Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Unless you want quests that aren't tedious, perfectly by-the-numbers checklists. Oblivion was far, far better at making you feel like events were taking place, rather than an endless string of sterile, perfectly predictable "go here, navigate dungeon, kill guy, retrieve item" busywork.

The game was far from perfect, but at least it made an attempt to keep the player's interest.

All I can say is we have a very different impression of Oblivion's quests. I found them mostly dull, formulaic, and uninteresting. Certainly no better than Skyrim's. "Oh, goody. Another terribly urgent Oblivion Gate to shut down popping up just to annoy me. That the world will not in any way be affected by if I just ignore it, despite the opening questline showing you that oblivion gate should basically wipe out a city."

 

[The Ugly One]

I object to calling Daggerfall "good." It was fun to dicker around in until you'd seen every dungeon building block a dozen times.

Oblivion had some interesting quests that were obliterated by the eye-searing graphics, horrible voice acting and, most importantly, piss-awful leveling system. The Thieves' Guild quest was good, Painted Trolls was off the wall, and others like that. Skyrim, I felt, had more "go get the mcguffin and come back" quests, and I remember none of them, but the Civil War questline is the best side quest in the entire series.

 

[Super Hans v2]

obliterated by the eye-searing graphics

It might have been that I was 14, the perfect age for nostalgia to remember from, but I remember everybody freaking out from how great the graphics were. Sure, the potato faces were an instant meme, but everything else set the standard for what a seventh gen game (that wasn't Crysis) should be.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Outside of the weird character models and bloom, I think Oblivion's graphics aged pretty well.

 

[The Ugly One]

It might have been that I was 14, the perfect age for nostalgia to remember from, but I remember everybody freaking out from how great the graphics were. Sure, the potato faces were an instant meme, but everything else set the standard for what a seventh gen game (that wasn't Crysis) should be.

I was significantly older than that, so at the point where by the time a new console came out, I'd already seen the new graphics ideas in tech demos, industry tech talks, and so on, so what struck me right away was the oppressive bloom, garish colors, and atrocious visual design. Whoever designed the Mountain Dew Warrior should be drowned in Mountain Dew in real life.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

I was significantly older than that, so at the point where by the time a new console came out, I'd already seen the new graphics ideas in tech demos, industry tech talks, and so on, so what struck me right away was the oppressive bloom, garish colors, and atrocious visual design. Whoever designed the Mountain Dew Warrior should be drowned in Mountain Dew in real life.

View attachment 7063820

It wasn't even the engine really, there. It was just bad design. Mods have made perfectly good looking armor... Hell, mods have fixed most of Bethesda's bad armors while keeping the basic style, too, if you would rather.

Which doesn't excuse Bethesda. Bad design is still bad design.

The Knights of the Nine armor still looks pretty good, though.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

So many games made in the last 10-ish years have terrible menus. I've been playing a bit of the modern Hitman trilogy and selecting the mission I want with the optional objectives I want is such a chore of navigating nonsensical clutter that didn't exist when menus were simple, primarily text, and laid out in a sane way.

I can't tell if it's due to plain old incompetence or some kind of slot machine-theory of game design where developers believe making everything as flashy and confusing as possible will increase player retention, but either way it's a miserable experience.

EDIT: I'm honestly surprised people agree with me. The general sentiment I tend to see online is either "WHO CARES THEY'RE JUST MENUS" or "YOU'RE JUST OLD AND DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HIP WITH THE KIDS THESE DAYS".

 

[The Last Stand]

So many games made in the last 10-ish years have terrible menus. I've been playing a bit of the modern Hitman trilogy and selecting the mission I want with the optional objectives I want is such a chore of navigating nonsensical clutter that didn't exist when menus were simple, primarily text, and laid out in a sane way.

I can't tell if it's due to plain old incompetence or some kind of slot machine-theory of game design where developers believe making everything as flashy and confusing as possible will increase player retention, but either way it's a miserable experience.

I blame smartphones for that trend. Tiles work fine when you are using swipes and taps to select and navigate through touch screens. Not so much when you have to use inputs to navigate and memorize which menu within a menu has what you're looking for.

Thread tax: I'm happy that THPS3+4 is "streamlining" its two-minute goals for its Pro Skater 4 levels. Pro Skater 4's levels were too big for their own sake.

 

[BradeRunna]

I remember gamers whining like bitches back in the early and mid 2000's. People didn't know just how horrible the future of video games would be.

 

[ReasonablyRetarded]

Skyrim has a fairly dull and trite story, with a handful of notable exceptions. It was riding the fantasy zeitgeist at the time very hard, took few chances. (Again, with a few notable exceptions). The systems have been simplified almost out of existence. But if you want an open-world, free-roaming action-RPG for a zero-to-hero good time, it has the most polished *combat* mechanics by far of the five.

Skyrim was (in terms of mechanics) already outdated by the time it came out.
Don't get me wrong, it's fine if you play it as "baby's first rpg/rpg-light" but outside of that there's little to no reason to replay it other than if you've never played DLCs or whatever, which is why I've been playing it lately since I've got gifted the anniversary edition.
My experience has been that the DLC stuff is interesting setting-wise for an hour or two but then it just gets boring because of the inherent problem of Skyrim; Across the board dumbed down mechanics.

Skyrim is like a walk through a themepark where all the rides are different kinds of draugr themed merry go rounds & all the food stands offer only bandit flavored anything, where your meal gets interrupted by a guy in a dragon costume flipping your table for the "Immersive Experience ™".
The novelty wears off rather quickly if you've played any RPG worth a shit.
An all too common story is "I played Skyrim, then I played New Vegas, then I played other RPGs and then when I went back to Skyrim it was boring.".

The dumbing down of actual RPG mechanics is great for wide appeal, that's why you'll find the game to be a gateway for many women especially, I personally know loads who started with Skyrim and it's great for that.
But between dumbed down mechanics, needing loads of mods to be mechanically engaging, the slog of a main story, the tedium of the game's main selling point(dragons) & the lack of variety in dungeon crawls it's just really not all that.

Also, this goes for Oblivion too; fuck level scaling.

 

[Asian tech support]

It might have been that I was 14, the perfect age for nostalgia to remember from, but I remember everybody freaking out from how great the graphics were. Sure, the potato faces were an instant meme, but everything else set the standard for what a seventh gen game (that wasn't Crysis) should be.

Oblivion was the first 7th gen game I played. It blew me away how good it looked at the time. I was a little younger and vidya was still very much magic pixels in a magic box.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

Oblivion had still impressive draw distance and lightning effects.
The potato faces are the other thing.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

Skyrim was (in terms of mechanics) already outdated by the time it came out.

I'm not comparing it to other games beyond the Elder Scrolls franchise.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Oblivion had still impressive draw distance and lightning effects.
The potato faces are the other thing.

What's always funny to me about this kind of thing is at release, Oblivions graphics were praised for being so good and so realistic that people complained that it triggered the uncanny valley effect. Back then I thought such people were crazy.

People confusing GT3 replays for real car footage was completely understandable.

 

[Vapor Sauce]

Oblivion is a chore to play and it's only redeeming quality is the quest design. The actual moment to moment gameplay is not fun. Skyrim feels much more polished and if you want you can mod the shit out of it to add interesting quests, mechanics, or just turn it into a different game.

The way I see it is that with each subsequent Bethesda release after Skyrim it only makes it look like a better game. Fallout 4 is mid, Fallout 76 is not a game it's a big shit filled sandbox of nothing, and Starfield is the safest cookie cutter "RPG" I've ever seen with no lore or fun. These releases have elevated Skyrim even more.

 

[Slap47]

Access to games is indeed better than ever. In that sense, gaming has improved.

However, new content is increasingly dreck. That said, due to part 1 that does not really matter unless you let it.

There was alot of slop in the past. We forgot about it because it was slop.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

The way I see it is that with each subsequent Bethesda release after Skyrim it only makes it look like a better game. Fallout 4 is mid, Fallout 76 is not a game it's a big shit filled sandbox of nothing, and Starfield is the safest cookie cutter "RPG" I've ever seen with no lore or fun. These releases have elevated Skyrim even more.

I actually think Starfield is better than Fallout 4. Gameplay isn't shackled by still trying to play lip service to Fallout's mechanics, the actual combat gameplay is more polished, and ambition counts for something to me - at least they were trying to do something new. It wasn't set in the increasingly fuckstupid post apocalyptic themepark parody setting that Fallout has turned into.

Was it ultimately a let down? Yup. Sure was. But at least it tried. And to me that counts for something.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

There was alot of slop in the past. We forgot about it because it was slop.

Slop existed, but the ratio has changed.

The sales model changing from purchasing a single retail product like in the old days to digital downloads and in-game stores and loot boxes and "cosmetics" and season passes and all that crap has financially incentivized making slop.

 

[Lone Wandering Courier]

Oblivion is a chore to play and it's only redeeming quality is the quest design. The actual moment to moment gameplay is not fun. Skyrim feels much more polished and if you want you can mod the shit out of it to add interesting quests, mechanics, or just turn it into a different game.

I feel similarly about morrowind, I completed it and the dlcs once before, but when I recently tried another playthrough it felt like such a slog and I abandoned it.

 

[X Prime]

Slop existed, but the ratio has changed.

The sales model changing from purchasing a single retail product like in the old days to digital downloads and in-game stores and loot boxes and "cosmetics" and season passes and all that crap has changed the incentives for anyone trying to make money in the industry toward making slop.

I am playing the Suikoden remasters and this is my sense.

As @LucasSomething indicated with Tribe Nine, this kind of single-player RPG is actually on mobile featuring gacha character pulls now, with all that entails.