Unpopular Opinions about Video Games

I believe that sports gamers who are fans of the UFC/Fight Night series should not be lumped in with the same types of gamers that like NBA 2K and Madden. There’s a lot of skill that goes into playing Fight Night and UFC, but I fear that the latter version is falling victim to the same kinds of things that most gamers disliked with Madden — microtransactions and slight game bugs/glitches and all.
 
Spec Ops: The Line is probably the most overrated circlejerked game I can think of. The plot of the game feels like something an edgy 13 year old would come up with after reading Heart of Darkness for his school literature class. It's fucking comical how edgy the game tries to be with the whole "WAR BAD" thing while simultaneously getting a lot of basic shit about war wrong, and it basically plagiarizes every notable piece of anti-war media that's ever been made but with the pretentiousness dialed the fuck up. It's nearing Haze levels of goofiness. (UAE goes into complete societal collapse and anarchy because of a bad sand storm? And some us squad goes there and does shit because..? Oh wait we need to show the US Military in the Middle East because it's topical so we'll just stick them in a situation that makes absolutely no sense)
I always feel that it's hypocritical of this type of media to shine the words ''WAR BAD'' when in reality, they profit off that shit and make money off it. And Spec Ops: The Line is even worse because it's castigating the player who spent sixty bucks on it. Oh, I'm the bad guy for picking up the controller and enjoying killing bad guys, yeah sure, how evil it is for people to enjoy simulated violence. As if society doesn't have things like gladiator games, melees, jousting tournaments, boxing and martial arts tournaments, and a whole boat-load of war movies where people jerk themselves off to completion with simulated violence. But no, it's the guy who's sitting on his ass playing CoD or Halo, they're the real bad guys here.

If I want to be the bad guy in a video game, I'd pop in a game where I am legitimately playing as the bad guys. I can play Halo Wars as the Covenant and glass the humans for the unforgivable crime of simply living. I can play the SW Episode III game and go full massacre against the Jedi as Anakin. I can play as Bayonetta, and smother whatever force of good or light in their world for the sake of the dark and evil forces that witch serves. I can play as Megatron in the War for Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron games, and war-crime my way through a robot paradise and turn it into a purple crystal hell while we execute Autobots who are on the ground, asking for mercy.

Gameplay wise it's a completely by-the-numbers third person cover shooter but people praised it for being an anti-war shooter in an era when hating on modern military shooters, especially for being "pro-war", became fashionable. (Call of Duty is always pointed out as such despite being by no means pro-war, but people who don't even play those games claim they are because le propaganda/America Bad or something). World at War did "war is hell" far better and doesn't beat you over the head with THE MESSAGE like Spec Ops does.
The best way to teach a message is to not beat someone over the head with it. There's a reason why something like the Batman or Superman Animated Series manages to get across messages about things like age awareness or responsibility, whereas Captain Planet is so hated for being such blatant environmentalist propaganda, even though most of its viewers would agree that pollution IS BAD. Something like Halo shows the dark side of religious fanaticism, Star Wars shows how weak and easy democracy is to subvert. Gundam shows the dark side of war, but still accepts it as a necessity to fight evil. Dragon Ball shows how hard work and patience is rewarded with success.

But the way Spec Ops pushes the message, it just feels misplaced. Making the player firebomb civilians with white phosphorous just to grandstand about how bad it is that video games have made war entertainment makes little sense when nobody dies from such ''entertainment'', and such ''entertainment'' has already been going on before 9/11 with games like Counterstrike or SWAT having realistic combat with guns be played out in a video game. It doesn't cheapen or commodify real wars that go on in the real world, it just allows a player to experience something close to it in a virtual format. Nobody who plays CoD comes off thinking that war is good, they probably think more about how they'll get back at some dork who sniped them in the head in multiplayer.
 
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I always feel that it's hypocritical of this type of media to shine the words ''WAR BAD'' when in reality, they profit off that shit and make money off it. <snip>
Metal Gear handled this topic very well. While you might say 1 is hypocritical calling out the player for enjoying the killing without offering a non-lethal alternative, for me it gets a pass being so early to the punch as well as being a general critique of all games at the time. The rest of the series also holds a lot of reverence for the topic, it's clear Kojima holds a passionate fascination towards war and guns and violence and the motivations for wars but also portrays the tragedy of them. While the word "scene" used for 3's theme is a terrible choice for what it is the theme itself is pretty strong in a setting where the alliances and trusts changed month to month.
 
Metal Gear handled this topic very well. While you might say 1 is hypocritical calling out the player for enjoying the killing without offering a non-lethal alternative, for me it gets a pass being so early to the punch as well as being a general critique of all games at the time. The rest of the series also holds a lot of reverence for the topic, it's clear Kojima holds a passionate fascination towards war and guns and violence and the motivations for wars but also portrays the tragedy of them. While the word "scene" used for 3's theme is a terrible choice for what it is the theme itself is pretty strong in a setting where the alliances and trusts changed month to month.
MGS 1 always reminds me of that one line from Miller - "Don't feel guilty for the soldiers that died from your bullets. They knew the risks they were taking, just like you." It still had plenty of critiques on war and killing, but the moments that displayed the opposite sentiment stood out potently.

However, considering that Miller in MGS 1 was later revealed to be killed with Liquid feigning his identity, it was most likely the words of Liquid himself rather than Kazuhira.
 
Metal Gear handled this topic very well. While you might say 1 is hypocritical calling out the player for enjoying the killing without offering a non-lethal alternative, for me it gets a pass being so early to the punch as well as being a general critique of all games at the time. The rest of the series also holds a lot of reverence for the topic, it's clear Kojima holds a passionate fascination towards war and guns and violence and the motivations for wars but also portrays the tragedy of them. While the word "scene" used for 3's theme is a terrible choice for what it is the theme itself is pretty strong in a setting where the alliances and trusts changed month to month.
In the same vein, I give Gundam a pass for the so-called ''anti-war'' message in it. They don't castigate the customer for watching a robot war cartoon. They just show the dark reality of war, but they still accept it as a necessity to defeat evil. You're not going to stop Gihren Zabi or the fucking Devil Gundam with demonstrations or peaceful protests, you need to kill the son of a bitch in order to set things right. It's not going to be a pretty sight, it's going to be a mess, and people are going to die, but fighting is still necessary to end the madness.

MGS 1 always reminds me of that one line from Miller - "Don't feel guilty for the soldiers that died from your bullets. They knew the risks they were taking, just like you." It still had plenty of critiques on war and killing, but the moments that displayed the opposite sentiment stood out potently.
MGS is more critical of the alliances and political bullshit that lead to war, not necessarily war itself, but rather, the extent to which governments and people will go to preserve their power and the current political order, even if it means getting people killed.

MGS4's opening cutscene for example, it doesn't criticize war per se, but rather, it criticizes the fact that world governments have turned it into a business that their economies need to survive.
 
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I really think this is the crux of your problem. Souls fans are the worst people in the entire world and they craft their personality around and derive their self-worth from being "gud" at these games.

I liked playing the games (others may not and that's okay!), but literally every single interaction with the community is miserable. It's one of the reasons I've been gunshy about playing Elden Ring - by all accounts, the game is design to be a challenge for the entire autistic masochist playerbase rather than the individual player and if you don't have a plan for a "build" and a wiki open while playing, you're going to get rolled.

That's so antithetical to the core of what I enjoyed about Dark Souls.
I've seen that with other genres. The kind of people who do that judge others fundamentally by their scores at said games. That's, I believe, how those kinds of communities wind up with actual pedophiles, and others that cover for them.

You're just doing the same thing as the Souls faggots in reverse. DAS FUCKIN EASY NOOB YOU WANNA KNOW WHAT'S REALLY HARD?
Notice all the games he mentioned were of the same genre? Yyyyyyup. Competitive gaming is a blight. Imagine getting into the mindset where someone famous in the character action community got busted raping a 13 year-old, but the community looks the other way because he's just got the highest number of combos in the PlayStation 2™ Home Computer Entertainment System Video Game, God Hand.
 
Notice all the games he mentioned were of the same genre? Yyyyyyup. Competitive gaming is a blight. Imagine getting into the mindset where someone famous in the character action community got busted raping a 13 year-old, but the community looks the other way because he's just got the highest number of combos in the PlayStation 2™ Home Computer Entertainment System Video Game, God Hand.
What the fuck are you smoking? What community? They're all single player games.
 
What the fuck are you smoking? What community? They're all single player games.
I never said they weren't. But you said:
But if you want a difficult game show me your bayonetta ranks, or your god hand combos or your ninja gaiden black runs.
You are comparing scores and applying competitiveness, in the fashion of communities where horrible malcontents flourish.
 
I never said they weren't. But you said:

You are comparing scores and applying competitiveness, in the fashion of communities where horrible malcontents flourish.
I have no clue who you're talking about nor do I care, it has nothing to do with the discussion of a game. Are you actually fucking retarded? That's like saying a pedophile watched the matrix so you anyone who watches the matrix is a pedophile. Actually kill yourself.
 
I'm every day so fucking glad that I don't follow gaming news or forum bandwagons.

Spec Ops The Line is a competent cover shooter about a team going through shit in an interesting setting. It's 4-5 hours before the credits roll, no point wasting time overanalyzing some pretentious shit the writers said.
 
I'm every day so fucking glad that I don't follow gaming news or forum bandwagons.

Spec Ops The Line is a competent cover shooter about a team going through shit in an interesting setting. It's 4-5 hours before the credits roll, no point wasting time overanalyzing some pretentious shit the writers said.
Gameplay-wise, yes.

Story-wise, it's a fucking mess that's only good for memes.

Welcome to Dubai.
 
Spec Ops The Line is a competent cover shooter about a team going through shit in an interesting setting. It's 4-5 hours before the credits roll, no point wasting time overanalyzing some pretentious shit the writers said.
That's my take, too. If the writers were trying to write some high art work of fiction and the final word on the horrors of war, LMAO.

But in terms of being an inoffensive, functional game that did something moderately interesting with the third-person cover shooter genre? Yeah, I liked it.
 
That's my take, too. If the writers were trying to write some high art work of fiction and the final word on the horrors of war, LMAO.
The problem is, so much of the writing and the story is focused on that. To the point where it feels preachy and annoying, especially the white phosphorous scene and the fact that you hallucinated the colonel. It really doesn't do any payback and the only thing it did was make me a bit better with cover-shooters, to the point where I went back to ME2 and ME3 and I was tearing through whole legions of foes as a soldier-class Shepard because of what I learned in SOTL.

Again, if they wanted to make me feel like the bad guy, it didn't work, because I have a ton of games where I legitimately am the bad guy, and I enjoy being the bad guy, executing prisoners of war and slaughtering cheesy do-gooders who talk like cliche heroes.
 
thats not the original spiderman 2. The ps1 game was. Also the movie tie in for 3 sucks skip that one.
Wrong. The PS1 game was called "Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro" not just "Spider-Man 2"
Also the movie tie-in for 3 is just fine. It looks a little weird graphically, but it's fun to play nonetheless. Hell, even the PSP version is impressive, considering they managed to squeeze an entire open world Spider-Man game onto a handheld from 2006, although it's not as good as the PC/PS3/X360 version.

Shattered Dimensions is also a good one.
If you like the linear beat-em-up type of Spider-Man game, Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time are both nice. The voice acting is really good. My favorite part of SD was Noir, partly because Chris Barnes (from Spider-Man 1994) is perfect for it, and because they did a really good job with the overall feel of those levels. The stealth was a cool experience for the time too; it was a really different sort of Spider-Man experience. An entire Spider-Man Noir game based on that experience back then would have been a welcome thing. Sadly, later Spider-Man games decided to take that and combine the idea with the Arkham games' Predator environments and do it all very badly with more typical Spider-Man versions instead. Also SD's head writer was that colossal faggot Dan Slott, who wrote some awful Spider-Man issues for like a decade, after all the retcons, and was also involved in the newer Insoyniac games' writing.

Edge of Time, at least story-wise, is an even cooler experience, with just the original and 2099 Spider-Men working together. Barnes voices 2099 in this one, and is pretty great in it too. It's a sci-fi time travel thing that can get a little confusing, but it's pretty cool, and the game's writer was Peter David, the creator of Spider-Man 2099.

I forgot all about Web of Shadows. Wolverine's in it, too. I'll look for it sometime, I think.
The swinging feels a lot more "floaty" than other games, but once you get used to it, it's a really satisfying web-swinging experience. Also swapping between using and not using the symbiote at will is pretty fun. That said, I wish the writing were better. Spider-Man is written really whiny, and the voice actor doesn't help things. Also I'll never understand why the hell they made Black Widow so ugly in that game.
 
Also the movie tie-in for 3 is just fine. It looks a little weird graphically, but it's fun to play nonetheless. Hell, even the PSP version is impressive, considering they managed to squeeze an entire open world Spider-Man game onto a handheld from 2006, although it's not as good as the PC/PS3/X360 version.
Theres a lot of weird stuff about 3 you get the ability to just cartwheel up buildings right away, theres no option to control your web swinging and the physics of swinging are a bit weird, the character models are VERY ugly and the symbiote suit doesnt add much. Its a very uncanny game after how good the one before was.
 
you get the ability to just cartwheel up buildings right away
Not sure if you mean improved wall-running or the thing where you can hold the crawl button to jump up when you're on a ledge, but I found both of those pretty handy.

theres no option to control your web swinging and the physics of swinging are a bit weird
I believe this was something to do with the guy who set up the swinging mechanism in the previous game leaving. He made his own game later, called Energy Hook, reusing the original swinging mechanic.
 
The problem is, so much of the writing and the story is focused on that. To the point where it feels preachy and annoying, especially the white phosphorous scene and the fact that you hallucinated the colonel.
[...]
if they wanted to make me feel like the bad guy, it didn't work
That's my point, in broad strokes.

It's clear the writers had an initial pitch in the vein of "what if there were realistic(ish) consequences to bro shooter tropes?" but starting from there they made a good story and overmarketed how much of it is meta commentary. With no foreknowledge, you're simply watching a decent military drama about a gloryseeking asshole in full breakdown.

Same for Jade Empire where supposedly the twist was intended as a jab against the player's ego ("everybody tells you you're awesome, ha ha got you") but that plot point had no problem standing on its own.
 
I believe this was something to do with the guy who set up the swinging mechanism in the previous game leaving. He made his own game later, called Energy Hook, reusing the original swinging mechanic.
Ive never heard of this game but its on steam with 19 reviews. Im interested.
 
@anustart76 Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man Noir was my favourite thing about the game. Close behind it was exploring 2099 New York. There's a lot I forget about Web of Shadows, but, to be honest, I've never actually played it. I think I checked out some clips on YouTube years ago. I mostly remember Wolverine, and, I think Venom sacrificing himself to get rid of that city-sized Symbiote... or something.
 
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