Unpopular Video Game Opinions

[Emperoreddy]

dkc games (mainly 2) are arguably the greatest 2D platformers ever made. And Banjo Kazooie/Tooie are god tier 3D platformers.

DKC were good playformers but had flaws.

Banjo games are extremely overrated.

 

[Emperoreddy]

For the Zelda debate, check this video.

Sequelitis - ZELDA: A Link to the Past vs. Ocarina of Time

Language is NSFW.

*Removed the link because I forgot how much swearing was in it.

So I sat and rewatched it and it was as bad as I remembered.

He is constantly contradicting himself about wishing OoT had X feature from LttP but forgot he was complaining about how he didn't like that exact feature five minutes before.

Funny in context though he does complain why z-targeting is important as it adds complexity to the combat system and prevents having to fight with the camera.

I think I need to see examples of 3D action games working properly without it at all. Better camera controls doesn't eliminate the need to quickly pin point focus on an enemy.

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

DKC were good playformers but had flaws.

Banjo games are extremely overrated.

dkc 2 is absolutely flawless

 

[Carolinas Identity*]

Do you mean the pop-up that occurs when you first start the campaign, asking if you want the option to skip a potentially offensive mission somewhere down the line, without going into any specifics? How many gamers, especially the CoD demographic, choose Yes to that? I think that we all know that that option is there not for the sake of gamers, but for the developer's and publisher's sake, so that they can attempt to protect themselves by arguing "but you can skip the mission entirely." It's a bit of a flimsy and transparent excuse when they make it and, to be honest, I don't see how it gets less so just because gamers make it for them.

I can also skip the slow parts of movies and TV shows. It doesn't mean that they're immune to criticism.



Are you suggesting that people have no reason to complain if they simply walk through without firing a bullet? Isn't the mission a walking simulator, then, and isn't that a decent criticism to make? If they do open fire because they don't want to just walk behind, doing nothing, does that really strip them of all entitlement to criticize? If the options are "be bored and unchallenged" or "be evil" and you're not thrilled with either, isn't that, alone, enough reason to raise criticism?

Either way, regardless of what you choose, you're still portraying a CIA agent who's following behind a bunch of terrorists on a rampage and doing nothing about it. You don't see any issue with that? At the very least, it breaks the immersion.

It seems to me that you guys believe that you have to be on one extreme or the other, totally defending it or being totally offended by it. I'm not really "offended" by the mission, since I'll gladly kill innocent people in games, and I don't mind civilian slaughters occurring in games, either, but participating in one in which I'm playing an armed good guy and my two options are doing nothing or contributing to the slaughter is just not good mission design, IMO, and the fact that you have a few bad options shouldn't excuse the developers from criticism. I gave an example idea above for a better way to have designed that mission, but I have the suspicion that the developers did it this way on purpose because they suspected that gamers would secretly enjoy participating in an armed massacre like the ones that they see on the news. I think that that's a bit more disturbing than simply allowing players to run over or gun down pedestrians in GTA, for example, and I think that defending that decision by the developers is cutting them too much slack.

wow, this really seems to have you worked up

why may i ask?

even tho we all know the twist ending to the mission which makes the entire thing moot, it added to the plot and made sense story telling wise

i mean, i kinda get where you are coming from in your analogy

i will never forget the first time i had sex with a "lady of the evening" in GTA 3, then beat her up to get my money back

i mean that is horrible to say, but we all did it, and anyone who says they didn't is lying

i do not pretend to understand what real life undercover spies have to go through, but "No Russian" makes sense for both the story and the plot. i imagine the game designers intentionally wanted us to feel uncomfortable and have our skin crawl a bit

when you do ****ed up **** in GTA or Postal, you laugh it off, cause the games in and of themselves are silly, but CoD takes itself pretty seriously, which is why "No Russian" was probably such a shock to most people

along the same lines as the "White Phosphorus" mission from Spec Ops. literally makes your skin crawl, but is needed to advance the plot.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

DKC were good playformers but had flaws.

Banjo games are extremely overrated.

Every game has "flaws".

 

[Trap Jesus]

- Skyward Sword is the best post-64 Zelda game. Wind Waker is charming and has it's moments but it's too easy, Twilight Princess was ambitious but ultimately drab. For all people hate the motion controls (all I had were sore wrists after Ghirahim battles) and the closed map, it had a great story, nice characters, top music and a slick look.

For me, I never even look at story or difficulty for Zelda games. Essentially every Zelda story is the same and very by-the-numbers, and while there are some varying levels of difficulty for the games, ultimately they're all on the easy scale.

Skyward Sword had the best gameplay and dungeons, but the map killed it for me. The Skyworld was unforgivably barren. How can you have all that space and put nothing but a few mini-games and a pub outside of Skyloft? Even Skyloft felt a bit underwhelming. Also, the way they had the different gameworlds sectioned off and the amount of back-tracking you had to do just made it feel a lot smaller. There were still some very interesting locations, but it just didn't feel like a lot of other Zelda games to me.

 

[X66]

So I sat and rewatched it and it was as bad as I remembered.

He is constantly contradicting himself about wishing OoT had X feature from LttP but forgot he was complaining about how he didn't like that exact feature five minutes before.

Funny in context though he does complain why z-targeting is important as it adds complexity to the combat system and prevents having to fight with the camera.

I think I need to see examples of 3D action games working properly without it at all. Better camera controls doesn't eliminate the need to quickly pin point focus on an enemy.

IMO a lot of what he said does have merit.

I don't agree with everything he said but some points were bang on. Like is it really good game design to have you look up to find a switch to shoot? Is it good game design to let you automatically make jumps taking out any challenge for fear? Is it really good game design to have so many moments where enemies are invulnerable?

I'm not going to rag on OoT too much, I had a great time with it as a kid. Don't think I would now though.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I actually only beat majoras mask and ocarina of time as an adult, hardly made any ground in them as a kid.

And I genuinely liked it more than I did most modern AAA titles. I think people that boil it down to nostalgia are oversimplifying it. They are genuinely good games that are not at all a step down from modern games mechanics wise. No they're not the best games you can play anymore but they're still really good in my opinion.

 

[tmurfin]

I actually only beat majoras mask and ocarina of time as an adult, hardly made any ground in them as a kid.

And I genuinely liked it more than I did most modern AAA titles. I think people that boil it down to nostalgia are oversimplifying it. They are genuinely good games that are not at all a step down from modern games mechanics wise. No they're not the best games you can play anymore but they're still really good in my opinion.

Agree. I recently replayed Bully and loved it, while a few friends said it was all nostalgic based, no, it's just a fun game.

 

[x Tame Impala]

There is a whole PSA/trigger warning at the beginning of the game that will let you completely skip the mission (in some countries, the mission was heavily edited or not even included in the game). There are also no achievements to be earned on 'No Russian' for that reason. There is literally no penalty of any sort and the game completely avoids even mentioning the mission in later missions (although MW3 does mention it IIRC).

The developers did not encourage or discourage anyone to play it, they gave everyone the choice and warned them of the potential issues.

MW2 did have a lot of controversy surrounding it even beyond 'No Russian' too. The Favela painting was a huge mistake.

The Favela painting was a nothing issue that shouldn't have been given an ounce of attention from the game devs.

 

[Kestrel]

Do you mean the pop-up that occurs when you first start the campaign, asking if you want the option to skip a potentially offensive mission somewhere down the line, without going into any specifics? How many gamers, especially the CoD demographic, choose Yes to that? I think that we all know that that option is there not for the sake of gamers, but for the developer's and publisher's sake, so that they can attempt to protect themselves by arguing "but you can skip the mission entirely." It's a bit of a flimsy and transparent excuse when they make it and, to be honest, I don't see how it gets less so just because gamers make it for them.

I can also skip the slow parts of movies and TV shows. It doesn't mean that they're immune to criticism.



Are you suggesting that people have no reason to complain if they simply walk through without firing a bullet? Isn't the mission a walking simulator, then, and isn't that a decent criticism to make? If they do open fire because they don't want to just walk behind, doing nothing, does that really strip them of all entitlement to criticize? If the options are "be bored and unchallenged" or "be evil" and you're not thrilled with either, isn't that, alone, enough reason to raise criticism?

Either way, regardless of what you choose, you're still portraying a CIA agent who's following behind a bunch of terrorists on a rampage and doing nothing about it. You don't see any issue with that? At the very least, it breaks the immersion.

It seems to me that you guys believe that you have to be on one extreme or the other, totally defending it or being totally offended by it. I'm not really "offended" by the mission, since I'll gladly kill innocent people in games, and I don't mind civilian slaughters occurring in games, either, but participating in one in which I'm playing an armed good guy and my two options are doing nothing or contributing to the slaughter is just not good mission design, IMO, and the fact that you have a few bad options shouldn't excuse the developers from criticism. I gave an example idea above for a better way to have designed that mission, but I have the suspicion that the developers did it this way on purpose because they suspected that gamers would secretly enjoy participating in an armed massacre like the ones that they see on the news. I think that that's a bit more disturbing than simply allowing players to run over or gun down pedestrians in GTA, for example, and I think that defending that decision by the developers is cutting them too much slack.

I think they're not saying that you can't have a complaint, rather I believe they are addressing one of the things you said. I'm at work, so I'm not going to reread the thread, but I believe you made the statement that the player is forced into the situation.

They seem to be pointing out that that's not correct. It doesn't necessarily nullify your other points, but it perhaps makes the complaint a less intense one.

 

[Kestrel]

The Favela painting was a nothing issue that shouldn't have been given an ounce of attention from the game devs.

It's a nothing issue to you - that doesn't make it so for other people. Kudos to the dev for being willing to rework something like that, that some people could very legitimately find offensive.

 

[aleshemsky83]

I never even heard about it but going through the comments of some of the articles it sound like one of those things that offended anti pc people. An "I'm offended you're offended" thing.

People should use less energy on that stuff in general

 

[Ceremony]

Am I the only one who didn't even blink when I played "No Russian"?? , I realized it was a video game, and I had done muuuuuch worst things on GTA and any other open world game for that matter. Seeing people say they were "shocked" is what shocks me

Well you seem to be an adult, so that's probably you excluded.

Ed - also, since it was mentioned, the Favela picture was only noticed a few years after the game was actually released

 

[Gardner McKay]

The Favela painting was a nothing issue that shouldn't have been given an ounce of attention from the game devs.

Couldn't agree more.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I never even heard about it but going through the comments of some of the articles it sound like one of those things that offended anti pc people. An "I'm offended you're offended" thing.

People should use less energy on that stuff in general

It's not an outrage that the devs removed it. It just seemed like an unnecessary concession to make to appeal to delicate religious sensibilities. Especially so in a game where you shoot, stab, and blow up soldiers sending their blood everywhere.

The only tangible consequence was they removed the map from circulation temporarily, so again it's not a huge deal, just an eye-roll moment

 

[The Nuge]

I think they're not saying that you can't have a complaint, rather I believe they are addressing one of the things you said. I'm at work, so I'm not going to reread the thread, but I believe you made the statement that the player is forced into the situation.

They seem to be pointing out that that's not correct. It doesn't necessarily nullify your other points, but it perhaps makes the complaint a less intense one.

Ya my point isn't that there can't be any criticism. It's the irony that the criticism comes from someone who decided to kill innocent people. If someone is as just as honourable as they're claiming, the issue shouldn't have arisen

 

[Osprey]

wow, this really seems to have you worked up

why may i ask?

Why, may I ask, are you assuming that I'm worked up? If it's because you're reading my argument in an angry, exasperated tone, then that's you projecting onto me. It's possible to have a firm opinion and make a lengthy argument for it without being "worked up."

I think they're not saying that you can't have a complaint, rather I believe they are addressing one of the things you said. I'm at work, so I'm not going to reread the thread, but I believe you made the statement that the player is forced into the situation.

They seem to be pointing out that that's not correct. It doesn't necessarily nullify your other points, but it perhaps makes the complaint a less intense one.

Yeah, I should've chosen my words more carefully and not said "forced" in the first place, if only because I opened myself up for the responses that I got. Still, the person that the bulk of my reply was directed towards sure did seem to be saying that complaint wasn't warranted because 1) you're not required to fire a bullet, and 2) if you do fire, that's your own doing. That doesn't leave much room for complaint, which is why I replied the way that I did.

Ya my point isn't that there can't be any criticism. It's the irony that the criticism comes from someone who decided to kill innocent people. If someone is as just as honourable as they're claiming, the issue shouldn't have arisen

You're saying that you have no reason to complain if you decided to kill innocent people while also saying that, if you didn't decide to kill innocent people, you have no reason to complain (because the issue wouldn't have arisen). If there's no room left for criticism either way, then that is saying that there can't be any criticism.

BTW, I haven't said what I did during the mission and I certainly have made no claims about being honorable. I'm not sure where you're getting either.

It's a nothing issue to you - that doesn't make it so for other people. Kudos to the dev for being willing to rework something like that, that some people could very legitimately find offensive.

I agree. The developers meant no disrespect and proved it by showing the respect and making the change, which is good. The change may not matter to most of us, but we all have our own religions, races, sexual orientations and whatnot that we'd appreciate similar respect be given to if the situation hit closer to our home.

 

[chicagoskycam]

Not sure if you guys are discussing that mission in COD years ago in the airport where innocents were mowed down.

Yeah it was disturbing.... I just walked through the airport until I had to fight people shooting at me. I was not going to shoot the innocents even though it's a game, too close to reality and some things actually going on today.

 

[Ceremony]

Not sure if you guys are discussing that mission in COD years ago in the airport where innocents were mowed down.

Yeah it was disturbing.... I just walked through the airport until I had to fight people shooting at me. I was not going to shoot the innocents even though it's a game, too close to reality and some things actually going on today.

Do you ever play other games that offer interaction with the general public in a realistic setting?

 

[Carolinas Identity*]

The fact that we are all having this lengthy and civil a discussion about "No Russian" kinda proves my original point.

It was gross and disgusting, but it was handled with enough care that we are able to have a healthy discussion about it. Every one stands somewhere different on it, but the mission itself accomplished what I think the devs wanted, and then some.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

IMO a lot of what he said does have merit.

I don't agree with everything he said but some points were bang on. Like is it really good game design to have you look up to find a switch to shoot? Is it good game design to let you automatically make jumps taking out any challenge for fear? Is it really good game design to have so many moments where enemies are invulnerable?

I'm not going to rag on OoT too much, I had a great time with it as a kid. Don't think I would now though.

All the points made in that video are excellent.

OoT was in the first wave of really big 3D open world games so it has some clunky elements: it was trying new things and game design wasn't a thing back in the 90's, not like how it is now.

I played through OoT on 3DS a few years ago and I was bored to tears.

 

[Oscar Acosta]

Am I the only one who didn't even blink when I played "No Russian"?? , I realized it was a video game, and I had done muuuuuch worst things on GTA and any other open world game for that matter. Seeing people say they were "shocked" is what shocks me

Yeah I didn't even realize it was a big deal until I heard people complain about it much later. I just mowed everyone down and moved on with the game because it's a game and not real...

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I actually only beat majoras mask and ocarina of time as an adult, hardly made any ground in them as a kid.

And I genuinely liked it more than I did most modern AAA titles. I think people that boil it down to nostalgia are oversimplifying it. They are genuinely good games that are not at all a step down from modern games mechanics wise. No they're not the best games you can play anymore but they're still really good in my opinion.

I find it kind of funny that the people who say games don't hold up due to "nostalgia" don't typically play the game either. It's just people trying to strengthen their idea that modern games are better because technology.

Sure, there are plenty of new great games but there are still plenty of old great games. I remember replaying the original Deus Ex before Human Revolution came out in 2010. When I first started replaying it then, I couldn't believe how dated everything looked and even how clunky it felt at times. However, just after an hour or so of playing and getting the feel for the game, it was still the same amazing game and there were a lot of details that I was noticing that modern games (relative at the time) did not have.

I feel like the thing people disregard when it comes to classic games vs modern games is classic games focused more on mechanics while modern games streamline things to make everything look better and move more fluidly. The animations back in the early 2000s were ****, there's no other way to put it. But it wasn't supposed to look good, it was supposed to feel good and react very well. Now it's almost the opposite because if you're going to make something look great and react great, you have to limit the amount of variables from the player making them. It's just a natural downside of coding.

For an example:

Deus Ex could have you walk behind somebody sitting down and if you hit them in the back of the head with the stun prod (or whatever it's called, it's been a while,) they would stand up, shake, and then be knocked out. The animation certainly wasn't good, but it worked.

However, now that I just finished Dishonored 2 (which I loved,) if somebody was sitting down, sometimes you wouldn't even get the prompt to knock out an enemy from behind and you'd have to do something to get them to stand up before you're allowed to knock them out. Sure, the animation is a lot more fluid and looked great, but the feel was all off. I should be able to knock out anybody when I'm behind them and within range without them knowing I'm there.

I'm sure there are plenty of examples of things like that that Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask did that modern games don't do as well. Especially now that the gaming industry is so big and publishers are focused so much on making money, they're tightening schedules and not allowing more detail to go into games because it costs too much for what it's worth.

 

[JS19]

All the points made in that video are excellent.

OoT was in the first wave of really big 3D open world games so it has some clunky elements: it was trying new things and game design wasn't a thing back in the 90's, not like how it is now.

I played through OoT on 3DS a few years ago and I was bored to tears.

I really cannot see how he has made excellent points. He made a lot of stupid ones:

- Starting out with a strawman about "HURR DURR OOT IS DA BES" 'nerds' doesn't help his points at all. So there wasn't a point to do it. He does this even more so by derailing his video into a "**** YOU SKYWARD SWORD" **********. There's no focus or semblance of reasoning in his arguments and if anything, seems to suggest that he's taking his gripes as fact instead of opinion. More on this later.

- He then goes into a comparison about how NES and SNES Zelda experiences differed without actually taking context into account. NES was the beginning of high quality (at the time) 8-bit gaming, so there wasn't any formula to build off of vs. SNES games refining the formula. He ignores a lot of what made NES Zelda frustrating (not knowing where to go next unless you kill a LOT of time) under the pretense of exploration vs. LTTP being too much as if the player was a tourist in the game. I mean, it's one thing to like the NES style of Zelda, but considering he started the video by referencing "fair analysis", this comes off as very disingenuous and hypocritical.

- Makes a point about how Z-targeting and Exploration don't go hand-in-hand because of the dissonance in camera angles. This one is especially strange to me, because I haven't had problems with killing off bats in OOT and ALTTP. The problem is he's assuming you simultaneously explore whilst fighting in OOT, when that's not actually the case. There's a break in a focus for a reason, most dungeon rooms are designed around beating the enemy in order to progress, so exploration isn't necessary while you're fighting. He later refines this argument with the Iron Knuckle, but considering there isn't really much "exploration" (he overrates the pillar smashing).

- In the only point I think he made a compelling argument for is puzzle design, but even he's being biased with it. Instead of focusing on how LTTP and NES Zelda (to an extent) also had these problems, he harps on OOT for following Zelda tradition. Again, so much for "fair" analysis. It starts to sound like a hipster rather than a critic actually analyzing games (this wouldn't be a problem if the beginning wasn't what it was). To make this even worse, he praises NES Zelda's Darknuts + Fireball sequence, which had problems from the RNG fireballs to the tank controls that Link had.

- And now we come to the point where it's the dumbest one I've ever heard, and why I think he has no credibility. He says it's bad design to have spike "pucks" fly around the room when all it takes is literally spatial awareness to understand your location in relation to the rest of the room. Just because you can't see the puck half of the time, doesn't mean you can't take the information you already have and make an assumption about the direction it's going to go to. If I see the puck moving in a half-circle motion, then it's fair to assume that the puck is also making the same half-circle motion in my blindspot.

- The treasure chest is an opinion thing that he treats as fact. He makes the cutscenes seem like a really big deal when at worst its YMMV. This is why I posted the Wind Waker photo, Arin has a bad habit of avoiding text or even visual clues and then gets mad why he didn't have the information that was already given to him. Takes it even farther when he makes the argument about the story getting in the way. I mean we get it, he doesn't like 3D games for their story, and cutscenes, but treating it as if people shouldn't find that fun is odd and disregards that people have different ideas of fun.

I mean, Arin's video reads like a D-student's essay. There are some good points in there somewhere but he never actually addresses them in the way you would expect. One good example, he goes on and on about exploration, and ignores that OOT's exploration was asinine with having a huge world but empty and nothing to do. He doesn't argue how sidequests in OOT were pointless until MM came along.

I would look to Somecallmejohnny and Matthewmatosis's analyses of OOT before ever considering Arin's.

RARE was always an overrated company. Their N64 games are not the pinnacle of 3D platformers like some think.

I can see why people would say that (especially when you hear overwhelming positivity, and people start to ignore the flaws). But, personally I think Rare games were better versions of Nintendo's games. For instance, Diddy Kong Racing was a better kart racer than Mario Kart in terms of skill, tracks, and content. And I like Mario 64 as a 3D platformer, but I always thought Banjo-Kazooie was the better platformer. I wouldn't go as far as to say pinnacle, but they did the genre some justice IMO.

inb4floodofresponsessaying"BLASPHEMOUS"