Unpopular Opinions On Gaming

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

- This gen is fucking great. Each console - the big 3, the handhelds, and the PC - has tons of great exclusives. There are loads of excellent multiplatform games, as well. Sure, there are a few movie shooters out there as well as some worthless "artsy" shitfests like Heavy Rain, but really, there are still hundreds of fun games out there. I think people who hate on this gen are just looking at previous ones through rose-colored glasses, because they weren't any better at all.

While I haven't played nearly enough games this gen to know if I could really call it great or not, I pretty much agree with you that its output has been fantastic. Really, I don't see how this gen could be seen as inferior to last gen or the N64/PS1 era. Also while I'm at it I should mention that I completely agree with Desensitized about the Dreamcast.

- Left 4 Dead 2 is terrible compared to the first one. The level design is godawful, the new characters are lame, and the DLC campaigns are easily some of the most worthless I've ever experienced. The Passing is absolutely the worst level in Valve history. Also, Killing Floor is far superior to L4D in general.

Heh, My opinion is actually the exact opposite. I didn't dislike the first game but I found it to be rather dull for me (the characters were great, though). I found the 2nd game to be more fun, but they are pretty different games, I think we can agree on that, so to each his own.

- Pokemon is extremely boring.

Oddly enough its the most fun I've ever personally had with a JRPG (for sure the only ones I've ever bothered to beat).

Personally I think Pokemon's competitive side is amazing, though. Really underrated multiplayer game, IMO. It takes a lot more skill and strategy than most people would give it credit for, I think. I can definitely see how the main story-line would bore you to sleep, though. If you aren't into the whole raising monsters thing, then it doesn't have much substance to it.

- Sonic Adventure 2 is goddamn great and has aged very well.

Minus the Tails and Eggman/Robotnik mech missions, as well as Rogue's missions (mostly since she always has some stupid gimmick in her levels making them needlessly frustrating), I would agree with you. I liked Sonic and Shadow's levels for the most part, and yes, I even enjoyed playing as Knuckles despite the fact that his missions were entirely comprised of searching for emeralds. You know what? Fuck it. Sometimes I like a good relaxing fetch-quest to collect stuff. It helps pass the time by when you have nothing better to do.

- I love GameStop. Oh, and I work there.

I never got the hate for GameStop myself. For a gamer like me, its one of the best things out there because I can get games at cheap and affordable prices without having to resort to ordering them online and pay for shipping fees and wait for up to a week to actually get the game. I'm glad that the store exists, personally.

- Goldeneye hasn't aged nearly as well as Doom, Quake, or Duke Nukem 3D.

100% agreed. I respect Goldeneye for its place in gaming history and all, but I'd take DOOM over it any day. And personally, I actually like exploring levels on key-hunts to try and progress. Sure, it can be tedious, but usually its always rewarding to discover new areas and try and finally discover the key that you need to progress into the next area.

Oh yeah, and to everyone talking shit about Team Fortress 2... it was far better before it went free-to-play. From 2007-2010 it was basically the greatest online multiplayer FPS ever made, but it got casualized and microtransactioned to shit after awhile.

I'm sure its great for a group of friends who can communicate well with one another and work well together in a team, but IDK, when I tried to play it a few years ago it just didn't suit my play-style very well. Its fine, I guess, but its just not my cup of tea. I guess you could say that I'm a much more casual multiplayer gamer and that's probably why I'm a bit more at home with stuff that's a lot more simplistic, even if they require less skill than a game like TF2 probably does.

Nah, dawg, we good. The only reason I prefer PC shooters to console shooters is because I can't aim with the dual-analog scheme to save my life. It's just too hard for me. I'd rather have terrible graphics on a shitty old PC and be able to actually play with auto-aim turned off on a difficulty above Easy than ever play a shooter on the Xbox (if I can help it). Remember, it wasn't until recently that I actually got a kickass gaming computer. I played F.E.A.R. on Minimum settings the first few times because my rig couldn't handle it and it looked like fucking Hexen... still instantly became my favorite FPS of all time.

Oh yeah, I don't disagree with you one bit there. The control scheme for a PC is better (though I'm used to dual-analogue so I can handle it just fine), and the online is better as well (though, like I said I don't care much for online play, so for me personally its a moot point). Rest assured, if I had a PC that could at least run older games moderately well and newer games at their lowest settings, I'd opt for that over a console shooter easily. My gripes probably have more to do with the onboxious PC gamers that I've encountered who try to give me or other console players an inferiority complex for playing console shooters and calling them good games.

Also, Halo Reach is a pretty kickass game from what I've played. I'm sure it's easily one of the better shooter campaigns this gen.

Yeah, I at least personally got the most mileage out of it than any other shooter that I played from this gen, though I still really liked other ones like F.E.A.R. 2 and BioShock. At the very least, though, I don't see why people wouldn't at least acknowledge it as the best campaign mode of a Halo game in this gen. I haven't played Halo Wars (though I hear its a very derivative RTS that's laughably simplistic for any PC gamer and even console RTS gamers at that), but I can say for sure that Reach has a FAR superior campaign mode to Halo 3 and ODST. What made critics praise those games but say that by the time they got to Reach it was getting old. Yeah, its the same general formula, but this time it actually has effort put into it and if anything feels fresh among the plethora of movie shooters out there. Also, for the record the most popular campaign mode in a Halo game aside from the first one seems to be Halo 2....I can understand its multiplayer being the most popular....but why the fuck is its campaign mode so well-loved? People must really be influenced by nostalgia because IMO Halo 2 has the worst campaign mode in the series by far.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I hate orchestral scores in games. Again, these are not movie these are games. The music is supposed to represent the action and pull you in to the world, orchestral scores are meant to raise tension and atmosphere in movies where you're watching the action, not taking part in it.

Now, I'm not saying violins or pianos can't work as game music. This is proof that it can, I'm saying that the style of music "glorified movie soundtracks" don't work for games because they don't put you into the action, they just accompany the scene.

What I'm saying is that it's important for the music to match the action. Which is why, despite some stupid hate, I think this is perfect. It matches everything going on screen and makes players want to get into the game more. I guess this is just an extension of my "games aren't movies" rants, but I just have to repeat that it is important to not lose sight of the fact that games are meant to be involved and not watched.

[talonmalon333]

1. GBA DKC3 Soundtrack >>>>>>>>>> SNES DKC3 Soundtrack

Many people go "OH THE GBA SOUNDTRACK IS SO LAME!". I mean, what the DUCK?! Have those people really listened to the SNES soundtrack? It honestly sounds like Sega Genesis sound quality. Even the good songs in that game, like Water World, are beaten to a bloody pulp by the GBA counterparts. One of the only things the SNES version did at was the final boss theme.

2. Super Paper Mario is fantastic.

It's not as good as The Thousand-Year Door. But it comes close. The gameplay feels a little unpolished. But storyline and characters are where this game excels! If you follow it closely the whole way through, you get attached to it. People complain that there's too much text? Well then you're playing the wrong game. It's PAPER MARIO, known in Japan as MARIO STORY. It's set up like a STORYBOOK. If people want to complain that all the text isn't their thing, then that's fine. But you can't fault it and say it's objectively a negative, when it's a part of the style of the game.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I hate orchestral scores in games. Again, these are not movie these are games. The music is supposed to represent the action and pull you in to the world, orchestral scores are meant to raise tension and atmosphere in movies where you're watching the action, not taking part in it.

Well, music is a very subjective thing and whether its orchestral or 8-bit, if its good music and fits the tone of the game then it can pull one into the experience. Maybe orchestral music just isn't your thing and I can certainly understand and respect that, but just because music is orchestral doesn't mean it can't be great video-game music as long as its handled well. I get the feeling that stuff like this gets a bad-rep from old-school gaming fans because of how poorly its used in most games, like in God of War or Gears of War in which they just use generic movie-like themes and chanting and shit to make the experience seem epic and grand.

I agree that it sucks when its used to make the game seem more like a movie, because games are meant to be played and not watched, but just being orchestral doesn't mean that its bad and can't be suited to a game. I don't give a fuck what anyone else says, IMO Halo's orchestral music fits the tone of the game on top of just sounding really damn good. When I'm playing it helps immerse me more into the tone of the gameplay, such as the rocking tune playing during ODST when you're shooting down incoming Banshees and Phantoms from the skyline, and the tracks that play during some of battles in Reach really pull you more into the game and feel the intensity of the situation as its presented in the GAMEPLAY, and not just from watching a pointless and boring cut-scene. And I don't give a rats-ass what anyone else thinks of me saying this, but I can listen to Halo's music outside of the game just as much as I can listen to and enjoy the music from Mega Man X outside of the game (which incidentally has my favorite video game track that I have ever heard).

So, really, I think it has more to do with how orchestral tracks are generally used, rather than them just not being suited to games in general.

What I more specifically hate, as I already just stated, is the music in games like God of War where you just have one annoying track with chanting (that the creators probably think makes the game sound more epic when its really just un-creative and completely obnoxious sounding) that plays throughout the entire game. That pisses me off because its a cheap way to make the game seem like its telling some high-caliber tail, while doing absolutely nothing to immerse you into the gameplay itself.

[talonmalon333]

Why do I love orchestrated music in games? Super Mario Galaxy can answer for me.

Good Egg Galaxy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzYBrUl926c

Gusty Garden Galaxy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z2kxFCQ_mQ&feature=related

GOD! Video game music doesn't often blow me away, but that...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

3. All of the classic Resident Evil games (1, 2, 3, CV, and 0) are better than the modern ones (4 and 5).

This is an opinion that not all share. RE5 is typically frowned upon, but RE4 is considered one of the best games ever. Both games are good, mostly equal in my opinion. RE5 has fun coop, and RE4 has great atmosphere. But both games have elements that annoy me. Monsters that are totally over-the-top, making the characters into super heroes, not giving the main storyline of Umbrella a proper payoff, abandoning story elements, and so on. But the original games are still top notch. I also think that REmake and RE0 are going to age better than RE4 and RE5 will.

So far, my only major experience with the series has been RE4 and bits of RE5 that I played with my older brother on co-op, so my experience is strictly grounded to the new-style of gameplay that the series adopted. As for the old-school RE games, I only vaguely remember bits that I played of them with a friend I used to have who owned REmake, RE2, and RE0 for the Gamecube. I only really watched him play portions of those games, though, so I couldn't even judge them for myself back then.

I'm curious as to whether I should get into Code Veronica after I beat RE4? I've been thinking of it but heard very mixed opinions on it.

Also, not that I ever listen to critics' reviews anymore or let them influence my opinions on games at all, but out of curiosity how would you respond to this very negative outlook on Code Veronica by today's standards based on this GT review?

[talonmalon333]

3. All of the classic Resident Evil games (1, 2, 3, CV, and 0) are better than the modern ones (4 and 5).

This is an opinion that not all share. RE5 is typically frowned upon, but RE4 is considered one of the best games ever. Both games are good, mostly equal in my opinion. RE5 has fun coop, and RE4 has great atmosphere. But both games have elements that annoy me. Monsters that are totally over-the-top, making the characters into super heroes, not giving the main storyline of Umbrella a proper payoff, abandoning story elements, and so on. But the original games are still top notch. I also think that REmake and RE0 are going to age better than RE4 and RE5 will.

So far, my only major experience with the series has been RE4 and bits of RE5 that I played with my older brother on co-op, so my experience is strictly grounded to the new-style of gameplay that the series adopted. As for the old-school RE games, I only vaguely remember bits that I played of them with a friend I used to have who owned REmake, RE2, and RE0 for the Gamecube. I only really watched him play portions of those games, though, so I couldn't even judge them for myself back then.

I'm curious as to whether I should get into Code Veronica after I beat RE4? I've been thinking of it but heard very mixed opinions on it.

Also, not that I ever listen to critics' reviews anymore or let them influence my opinions on games at all, but out of curiosity how would you respond to this very negative outlook on Code Veronica by today's standards based on this GT review?

Too negative, I think. Reviews in general are extremely negative when it comes to ports, I've noticed. The tank controls, which they criticize, I find to fit just fine in the style of the game. And Code Veronica is definitely creepy, featuring some of the creepiest locations in the series. And sure, the HD version technically doesn't have massively better graphics. But I find it very appealing to look at. The lighting is just very nice, and I envy anyone who gets to play it. LOL. Just kidding. But I do think it looks good.

The plot, which they criticize, I find to be the best in the series. Not to knock RE4 cause it's great, but it's story wasn't relevant to anything. As for the voicework... haven't we gotten used to this? It's Resident Evil! Even you, who only owns one game (which happens to be the one game without a single bad voice), knows how infamous the voice acting of the series is. Code Veronica does have one voice that's extremely annoying, and you might have even noticed it in that review. But the rest work fine. A few voices are strange, but they fit their characters.

Funny enough, the only big problem I have with the game, they didn't address. And that's some of the enemies in the second half of the game can be a little cheap. But other then that, Code Veronica is great to this day! I do recommend it to you. It's pretty challenging and creepy. And if you ever get a Wii in the future, I also recommend the GameCube Resident Evil. While I personally prefer the original version, the GameCube is arguably the better game.

[Angus]

Pac Man sucks. So what if it's 30 years old and considered a classic. It still sucks.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

-Coming from someone who mostly HATES the current Team Ninja, I have to say that I don't think that Metroid: Other M was a bad game at all from what I got to play of it (its certainly short, though). My friend and I took turns playing through most of it when he rented it for his Wii, and the gameplay itself was actually surprisingly fun and I wasn't bothered by not being able to move when in first person since the game wasn't designed to be in first person like the Metroid Prime games were. Also, maybe its just because I haven't really played any other Metroid games, but I didn't have a problem with its level-design, personally. It may not have been exploration heavy, but at least it was focused and kept things moving. Plus, I think exploration can be extremely overrated in some instances if it just involves getting the player lost searching for some key or item to progress to another area. In some games I can put up with it and even like it, such as DOOM, but in those cases its more because there are tons of monsters or enemies or other stuff there to keep you busy and still having fun. If I were to get lost in a Metroid game which is known for having an isolated atmosphere, I'd probably get bored after a while if I got stuck trying to find something.

-Most RPGs are shit, whether they are JRPGs or WRPGs. With most JRPGs, they can have interesting combat systems but the games themselves usually have nothing else going for them, with many have pretentious stories and characters, and pretty much all of them giving you the illusion of freedom when the games are really as linear as they come (actually, I'll give FF13 some credit for at least not even bothering to hide the fact that it was linear). The combat systems can be entertaining, of course, but the problem is that they usually don't hold up my interest for a full 60-hour quest complete with tons of grinding, and most of the time their sense of customization is pretty shallow. For me, the Pokemon games are really the only JRPGs that I could actually bother to beat, and admittedly it has more to do with the addiction of trying to catch the rarest Pokemon and raise the best team rather than it being a genuinely well-designed and fun game to play (as I've said before, though, the strategic competitive component to the game is excellent).

With WRPGs the opposite problem occurs. They are pretty good at giving you a sense of scale and freedom that you would expect from an RPG, and there is certainly no shortage of customization to be had with those sorts of games, but the focus and emphasis on those aspects comes at the price of the developers usually neglecting actually making the other gameplay elements fun to actually play through. Characters and NPCs are usually shallow and boring and feel as lifeless as dolls. The actual combat and gameplay mechanics feel slow, sluggish, and downright bland and lack the tight focus and controls of an action game that actually focuses on making action experiences feel engaging and exciting. They often involve you doing tasks and side-quests that are just as tedious and boring as grinding to level up in a JRPG (I consider it to be the WRPG equivalent to grinding) and the side-quests are usually pretty repetitive with little reward. Also, WRPGs have a tendency to try and add int too many lame gimmicks, such as how Oblivion tried to add realism to the game by making your weapons break over time and constantly needing to repair them, without giving any thought to whether that feature was any fun or if it would just serve as a major annoyance to the player. Also, while the stories in WRPGs don't necessarily suffer from being pretentious, they instead usually suffer from being bland and mostly uneventful (at least in that regard I'll take a pretentious JRPG story since at least its trying to still remain interesting; whereas WRPG narratives downright put me to sleep).

Really, RPGs in general are just disguised as big games with complex and elaborate worlds, when really they are very simple at their core and mostly involve either a lot of customization and freedom at the cost of actual good gameplay or just an illusion of that, and no matter which country their from, they usually just stretch simplistic gameplay mechanics over a long-winded quest that personally bores the snot out of me before I can even bother to get half-way through most of them.

There are of course exceptions to this rule for me, as I enjoyed the KOTOR games and like the Pokemon games, and I even got through most of Chrono Trigger so in that regard it was actually pretty entertaining to me for a while, but on the whole I just find the genre to be a snooze-fest.

[Commode]

Pac Man sucks. So what if it's 30 years old and considered a classic. It still sucks.

Yep, agreed.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

-I don't find the Super Smash Brothers series to be all that great. They are good games with strong competitive features, but to me they always felt more chaotic to play through than fun. They're still entertaining enough to play with friends, though. Personally I prefer Power Stone 2, though, for my 4-player brawler fix. Yeah, its not a technical competitive fighter, but its a shit-ton of fun, so fuck what anyone else thinks.

-Although I've stated numerous times that I don't care for the series, I do actually enjoy the DOA games to some extent (except for DOA4). Also I'm not ashamed to admit that I'd rather play them than Tekken. Tekken is in every way a more technical and balanced fighter and I don't necessarily dislike the series, but much like MK I just find its combat to be kind of slow and dull compared to other fighting games, personally. I'd honestly rather play DOA no matter how horribly unbalanced it is, and for what its worth I actually like how it has fluid animations and actually allows the fighters to interact with their environments. It may not be balanced, but at least its fast, responsive, and fun, and its final boss fights which suck aren't really any cheaper or worse than the shitty final boss fights from most other fighting games, so to me its at least more entertaining.

- Wacky, cartoony, unrealistic and over-the-top sports games are usually WAY more fun than any realistic sports-sim. I'll take Sega Soccer Slam over even the most up-to-date Fifa game any day, I'll easily play NBA Street before I would even consider touching any NBA 2K game, and as far as I'm concerned any iteration of Mario Tennis puts any iteration of Top Spin to shame (and ironically enough, Top Spin is the only realistic sports sim that I kind of, sort of like, but even then its nothing special on its own). I'll also take Mario Kart over shit like Forza Motorsport (no offense intended to anyone who may enjoy that series).

-I don't necessarily think that EVERYTHING done by Hideki Kamiya is pure gold, like everyone else seems to. I do think he's one of the best game developers in the business when it comes to action games, but that has more to do with games like DMC and Bayonetta, and maybe Viewtiful Joe as well (though I've never played that game before, myself), but games like Okami are pretty boring for me, personally. While I'm at it, I also feel that people overrate the first DMC just a little bit. Its still a great game and one of the best hack n' slash games, but I hate how people think that just because Kamiya didn't make any of the later games that none of them are any good, or at least can't be as good as the first one. I think that DMC3 is a substantially superior game to the original because it vastly improves on the most important aspect of the original: the combat. Sure, the level design isn't as great and the boss fights are hit or miss from what I've played of it, but the combat is just way more exciting, and contrary to what people like to believe, as great as Bayonetta is, its really not THAT much more in-depth than DMC's combat system, but rather its just more over-the-top. It is great, but unlike Kamiya said I don't consider it to be an evolution of action or hack n' slash games, but more so it just comes off as a huge refinement, which is still great but not revolutionary as people claim it to be.

-The 3D Ninja Gaiden games, despite having little in common with the classic series despite sharing the same name, are superior to the classic games in every conceivable way. The arcade game is jut an a mediocre Double Dragon rip-off at best, and the NES classics while great for their time have laughably ridiculous stories and rely on cheap difficulty and memorization of enemy placement rather than genuinely challenging gameplay (and trust me, on a personal level I still love them, so I'm not being biased here when I say this), and this can be seen when people take off their rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. Don't get me wrong, I still love the games and would love to see a "modern" take on the classic style of gameplay (if that makes any sense to anyone else), except with more fairly designed difficulty and more open level design. However, as much as retro gamers out there love to over-glorify the 2D games, they really haven't aged nearly as well as other 2D classics have. The 3D games actually support more fair difficulty (even the 2nd one with its various balance issues and camera problems), have players rely on skill and reflexes for challenge over pure memorization of enemy placements, and actually have the gameplay revolve around more fun stuff like fighting tough and challenging enemies rather than trying to avoid getting knocked off of a platform into a bottomless pit for a quick, cheap death.

[Spark Of Spirit]

- Wacky, cartoony, unrealistic and over-the-top sports games are usually WAY more fun than any realistic sports-sim. I'll take Sega Soccer Slam over even the most up-to-date Fifa game any day, I'll easily play NBA Street before I would even consider touching any NBA 2K game, and as far as I'm concerned any iteration of Mario Tennis puts any iteration of Top Spin to shame (and ironically enough, Top Spin is the only realistic sports sim that I kind of, sort of like, but even then its nothing special on its own). I'll also take Mario Kart over shit like Forza Motorsport (no offense intended to anyone who may enjoy that series).

YES. Totally. Sports games are so boring without something to make them feel more gamey. For instance, why would I want to race on a bike when I can beat the crap out of my competition and run from the cops at the same time in Road Rash? Same thing with stuff like Mutant League and such, I'd rather play stuff like that. And the only basketball game I've ever enjoyed was NBA Jam which is crazy over the top and cartoony.

-I don't necessarily think that EVERYTHING done by Hideki Kamiya is pure gold, like everyone else seems to. I do think he's one of the best game developers in the business when it comes to action games, but that has more to do with games like DMC and Bayonetta, and maybe Viewtiful Joe as well (though I've never played that game before, myself), but games like Okami are pretty boring for me, personally. While I'm at it, I also feel that people overrate the first DMC just a little bit. Its still a great game and one of the best hack n' slash games, but I hate how people think that just because Kamiya didn't make any of the later games that none of them are any good, or at least can't be as good as the first one. I think that DMC3 is a substantially superior game to the original because it vastly improves on the most important aspect of the original: the combat. Sure, the level design isn't as great and the boss fights are hit or miss from what I've played of it, but the combat is just way more exciting, and contrary to what people like to believe, as great as Bayonetta is, its really not THAT much more in-depth than DMC's combat system, but rather its just more over-the-top. It is great, but unlike Kamiya said I don't consider it to be an evolution of action or hack n' slash games, but more so it just comes off as a huge refinement, which is still great but not revolutionary as people claim it to be.

I admit, I'm not actually a huge Kamiya fan. I like DMC1, but most of his games just don't grab me like they probably should. Except for Viewtiful Joe which I think is a masterpiece and worthy of any praise it's given. I actually got bored with Bayonetta pretty fast despite the combat system.

[Daxdiv]

I agree with the sports game analogy as well. I find the Mario Sports game like the Baseball and Soccer ones to be more enjoyable than the ones that center around realism. Hell, I even enjoy Punch-Out!! more than boxing games and PO isn't really a boxing game.

[Angus]

Probably because the unrealistic sports games actually let you PLAY THE GAME instead of interrupting with cut scenes and timeouts every play. Even Wii Sports can be fun.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Probably because the unrealistic sports games actually let you PLAY THE GAME instead of interrupting with cut scenes and timeouts every play. Even Wii Sports can be fun.

Yup. This is basically truth. I couldn't put it better myself.