Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

I didn't like Bastion. I didn't think the art style or voice work was particularly interesting, but the gameplay was downright bad. I gave up maybe halfway through and never looked back.

MilkmanDanimal is a bad person who is wrong about things.

I convinced myself I was playing Avatar because I totally loved the cartoon, not because you could get 1000 gamerscore in 5 minutes of playing. What a terrible game.

detroit20 wrote:

My own confessions and blasphemies?

I think Achievements and/or Trophies are stupid. Doing exactly what the game expects you to do in the normal course of play is not reason enough to award a notional prize.

+1

Halo is the most overrated series of all time. Impenetrable, pretentious story, flat, boring characters, stupid enemy design, ugly art style, bad sound design (why does a guy in a massive power armour suit talk like he's speaking into a high-end studio mic?) and the movement feels like the game's on downers. I always rent the new Halo to co-op with friends and then return it. I bought Halo 3 and it was one of the only games this generation I traded in. It's still an OK series compared to something like Call of Duty for me but doesn't deserve the pedestal it lives on.

I've never gotten Zelda either. They're well made games but they all take way too long and just feel like retreading the same concept over and over again. There's always a twist to them but they never feel to me like they have the levels of variance some of the different Mario games have. Ironically, the only Zelda game I've completely finished is Twilight Princess which many don't hold in high regard.

Call of Duty is ruining the FPS genre. They're actually well crafted games but their insistence on the "Bro, f*ck yeah military!" mentality is awful and the insane success of this series has turned almost every FPS into another bland, generic military bravado simulator that's devoid of any creative soul. I think the series should exist but I wish it was just a subset of a wider selection of FPS games. I love FPS games but am so sick to death of modern military junk.

Most JRPGs are dumb. This is a simplistic, reductive statement I know but it's how I feel. I actually think a lot of the gameplay mechanics are cool and innovative but I can't stand the JRPG method of storytelling. Speaking 10 paragraphs when 1 sentence will do, whiny characters that look like they got hit with an 80s fashion cannon and stories that branch into a bunch of different directions and are impossible to keep track of. I would love to see some kind of mashup game with a more western story and characters but JRPG gameplay mechanics. I think that would be cool.

Most mobile games are garbage and people should worry about them becoming the norm. They can be much more than they are but no one's doing that. Everything I've played (and I've played lots, mostly on recommendations) is shallow, bland, usually relies on one incredibly simple mechanic and now, mostly full of skinner box microtransaction junk. There are exceptions of course but largely, there's no art here, no soul. It's just games designed like arcade titles of old, the attract screen is the free or $0.99 download and then it's all about getting you to feed quarters (i.e. microtransactions) into the machine until you get to the end, if it even ends. I don't care that these types of games exist or even that they're popular. But rather than try to fix what's wrong with AAA game development, everyone's just heading to the bubble driven gold rush of mobile and they're holding back its potential. If this type of gaming experience becomes the dominant one going forward, I'm going to have a lot less to play which sucks.

The PlayStation 3 is the best console right now. I was right on the hate bandwagon when it came out but Microsoft has systematically ruined what made the Xbox superior. You pay for an online service that's choked with ads for stuff not related to games, the dashboard is slow, laggy and unintuitive, all the hardware is proprietary and you have to pay for Xbox Live gold just to get access to media software. The PS3 is fast, the UI is clean and easy to navigate, their online service is free (including all media access) and for the most part, PS3 versions of games are no longer inferior to the 360 version. And oh yeah, if you want more storage, you can buy a cheap off the shelf hard drive, not a proprietary one that costs 4x as much for no reason. Sony always gets crapped on for their proprietary standards but it's the 360 that rips you off on storage. I've had several co-workers who want to buy consoles for Christmas and unless they plan to heavily play online games, I always recommend PS3.

I haven't enjoyed pvp in mmo's since Ultima Online. Despite many attempts at pvp raiding in Dark Age of Camelot, Anarchy Online, WoW, and City of Heroes, it just hasn't grabbed me the way the 2 D combat system in UO did. In group pvp I was always stressed out during the battles because I didn't want to screw up. It was a relief to get it over with, and had no desire to go back to it.

I still love Unreal Tournament though, because you can just jump in and out whenever you feel like it.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Aaron D. wrote:
stryk187 wrote:

2. Chrono Trigger

Best soundtrack ever, bar none, this is a non-debatable fact.

Hey look everyone...someone hasn't played No One Lives Forever. :p

Nor Brutal Legend.

Nor either of the first two Suikoden games. I still have those CDs I burned in like high school in my car to listen to occasionally (which should really make Bastion's and the movie Away We Go's soundtracks feel good about themselves).

I'm a fan of JRPGs, but I think Final Fantasy games are awful. They have absolutely glorious character and art design, but I generally don't find them to be very engaging. VIII is my favorite, VII is okay, and I find VI and IV to be unplayably dull.

Aaron D. wrote:

Nintendo Fanboys have turned me off to the the company far more than company itself.
Maybe I just look at the internets too much. Perhaps my interest in Nintendo IPs have been waning since the glory days of SNES. Either way, the defensive and petty justification of every misstep the Big N has made in the modern era of gaming from the NDF cult has completely soured me to the whole scene...Thanks, NeoGaf.

I have the same issue with PC gamers. Those "glorious PC gaming master race" and "dirty console gaming peasant" jokes aren't funny; they're offensive.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Call of Duty is ruining the FPS genre. They're actually well crafted games but their insistence on the "Bro, f*ck yeah military!" mentality is awful and the insane success of this series has turned almost every FPS into another bland, generic military bravado simulator that's devoid of any creative soul. I think the series should exist but I wish it was just a subset of a wider selection of FPS games. I love FPS games but am so sick to death of modern military junk.

To take another angle on that, it's not CoD, it's the other developers looking enviously at Activision/CoD and wanting some of their pie. One game is not a genre, and one company is not an industry. I think it would be shaky ground to say one game series has a responsibility for other companies copying it.

I'm sure there's a correct amount of hype for Halo. It does have merit. Blame marketing.

ccesarano wrote:

Oh, I have a couple more.

I still believe the campaign for the original Modern Warfare was an important step in video game narrative.

It was still mostly a Michael Bay action set piece, but the important thing about video games is how they involve the player and what a difference that action makes. From playing the politician in the beginning who has to watch the city fall into chaos before he is executed, right up to saving some fellow soldiers from a helicopter crash in one of the more difficult, adrenaline fueled set-pieces right before a nuke blows up and makes it all for nothing, and you experience this soldier's final moments (and also surprises everyone by killing off the American soldier and having the Brits save the day). The final moments of the game, where you are on your back and have to headshot the guy in slow motion, are also elevated by the high adrenaline of the level leading up to that point (being chased by a helicopter), getting in a crash, watching a main character get shot in the head right next to you...and then finishing up the post-credits with a quick, time sensitive level where you gotta blow through and then slow-mo headshot another terrorist, giving not only a nice quick little "here's some extra fun" present, but a sort of full-circle "your character has grown from this experience" as well.

The writing may not be the best, the political conflict may mostly be bullsh*t, but for a video game Modern Warfare had a lot of excellent beats that were lost in Activision's push to rush sequels to the market. Sadly, a lot of imitators have missed a lot of the point, including the fact that Infinity Ward's Call of Duty (2 and MW at least) always focused on other countries and not just chest-thumping " 'MURICA IS AWESOME" Michael Bay bullsh*t. Instead what we had is "how can we apply spectacle more impressive than the nuke" without understanding why that nuke made such an impact in the first place.

I agree with this. I think of the mission to rescue the downed Cobra pilots particularly. The feelings of sacrifice and courage were strongly felt for the characters involved. I made me appreciate the sense of brotherhood that our Soldiers and Marines must feel; the sense of no one gets left behind.

I have another as well...

While I love the AAA blockbusters like Dishonored and XCOM, part of me still misses the simplicity of games like Ancient Art of War.

I have such fond memories of that game, of building my own levels and formations. The fondness extends to Ancient Art of War at Sea.

One I've just though of:

Game developers/publishers should allow commercial exploitation of derivative works of their games by default. Modders should be able to charge for their works.

Obviously there would be some serious legalities involved, and some people would take liberties with it, but I think modding more often than not is a mutually beneficial activity and everyone gains from it. Allowing modders to make money, even if it's donations (some mod teams already do take donations, but I think you can't do anything directly related to the mods) means there's more incentive for modders to make content, and more people playing those games.

Companies could even do what Valve has been doing for years and do the storefront themselves and take a slice. Blizzard said they were going to do it for SC2, but I don't think it's appeared yet.

Scratched wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Call of Duty is ruining the FPS genre. They're actually well crafted games but their insistence on the "Bro, f*ck yeah military!" mentality is awful and the insane success of this series has turned almost every FPS into another bland, generic military bravado simulator that's devoid of any creative soul. I think the series should exist but I wish it was just a subset of a wider selection of FPS games. I love FPS games but am so sick to death of modern military junk.

To take another angle on that, it's not CoD, it's the other developers looking enviously at Activision/CoD and wanting some of their pie. One game is not a genre, and one company is not an industry. I think it would be shaky ground to say one game series has a responsibility for other companies copying it.

I'm sure there's a correct amount of hype for Halo. It does have merit. Blame marketing.

You are correct, this is the underlying problem. Call of Duty started the trend but it alone is not to blame for the trend. Similar to how Apple is not to blame for mobile games and the problems with those I mentioned. Apple made mobile gaming popular but they aren't the ones designing them to be the way they are.

Also, for as obnoxious as Nintendo fans and PC gaming zealots can be, Apple fanboys trump them both combined a dozen fold. But that's a whole other thing.

If this thread is an indication of the culture here in general, then I guess this is a confession:

1. I don't really care what other people play or what's going on in the industry. There are more great games than ever and I enjoy that.

The control scheme in Resident Evil 4 and 5 was so awful as to make the games unplayable. Listen, I can understand where the control scheme came from. Back when the first Resident Evil came out, we had these two new-fangled sticks and we were all figuring out how to best use them to control a character in the game. Those old RE games had painfully slow, stilted movement, and they get a pass because of their age. RE4 does not get a pass. Hey, here's a thought, maybe I should be able to MOVE AND SHOOT AT THE SAME TIME. Seriously, I'm supposed to be fighting zombies or monsters or bad guys, not fighting the fact that I am some super-agent dude who is apparently forced to move around the world with a giant stick shoved up his butt. If part of the challenge of the game is having to succeed while playing with a substandard control scheme, that's not "part of the experience"; it's crappy design. Also, see "Dead Space".

CptGlanton wrote:

MilkmanDanimal is a bad person who is wrong about things.

THERE IS NO LINK BETWEEN THE TWO ABOVE STATEMENTS AT ALL.

I actually prefer that you can't move and shoot at the same time in Resident Evil games and wish more shooters had the balls to do it, too. I think it makes the games more fun and more tense.

trueheart78 wrote:

Rating Chronotrigger (or any other SNES game, for that matter) as being better than Final Fantasy 3 (SNES) is an offense punishable by a 1000 RROD's.

To this point, I remember beating FF3 back at launch and feeling a twinge of regret in that it wasn't as satisfying as FF2. Mechanically, FF3 was leaps and bounds better than FF2*, but the story was just far better in FF2.

* Beyond the better graphics in FF3, I was blown away that item descriptions were suddenly in-game. No more cross-referencing what every little item did via the game manual!

** adjusts hipster glasses **

Side note: Putting FF2, FF3, Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger together as a whole package of awesome from a single generation makes me weep for what has become of Square in the following decades.

** adjusts hipster glasses X 2 **

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

Gaming's been around for thirty years and I still have to carefully explain to people why the tiny number of female protagonists (and even then, mostly bimbo bikini models) is not okay. Whenever I hear someone say "Well men won't buy games that have female protagonists, so this is the way it has to be!" I want to beat them with my Wiimote.

I must say, this thread is really delivering! I find myself nodding in agreement to a surprising number of these, but just as many seem completely ludicrous. Some of you are insane.

Thread mission accomplished.

Demyx wrote:

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

I really like hidden object games unless they're timed. Those just stress me out.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

I really like hidden object games unless they're timed. Those just stress me out.

Agreed. I always pick "casual" mode. I also won't play ones that don't have hints (or charge for hints) because sometimes you've looked at the picture for ten minutes and just can't find that last widget.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

I really like hidden object games unless they're timed. Those just stress me out.

I played the crap out of those on my old iPhone; Android doesn't seem to have as many/as good.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

I really like hidden object games unless they're timed. Those just stress me out.

Yeah, I got hooked on the Agatha Christie hidden object games, and while they're ace, the timer does bumm me out. The Hercule Poirot stories within the titles are actually really well written (as well as the comic-book style presentation of the story elements).

A lot of items have already been stated, so I won't elaborate on those.

I agree that Halo is over-rated.

I never played Ocarina of Time either (and don't care to). Nor have I played Psychonauts, any of the Final Fantasy games past the first one, Master of Magic, Dungeon Master, any Ultima, System Shock, or many, many, MANY other seminal and classic titles.

I though Bioshock was mediocre.

Achievements and the way many gamers chase them annoys me to no end.

Civ IV was better than Civ II.

One more:
I can't stand the Xbox platform and everything its bloated, achievement-driven, ad-filled, multifunction, Kinect enabled, "lifestyle hub" existence stands for.

I even had one for a time. Now even seeing a screenshot of the dashboard makes me vomit a little. I just want to play a game, Xbox. And for my 60 bucks a year I have the privilege of seeing ads for movie trailers? Fie, I say.

Demyx wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Demyx wrote:

I'm the person who plays those hidden object and time management games Ever wonder who buys from Big Fish and Playfirst? It's me. I love them.

I really like hidden object games unless they're timed. Those just stress me out.

Agreed. I always pick "casual" mode. I also won't play ones that don't have hints (or charge for hints) because sometimes you've looked at the picture for ten minutes and just can't find that last widget.

Oh jeez... Clue: Soccer. Fifteen frigging minutes scouring the scene pixel by pixel and clicking on anything round, roundish, person-like... until I finally surrender and click the hint button.
In the shadow of a file-cabinet drawer is a shadow-colored bathroom-sign silhouette of a stick-man and a round thing. The difference in shade was utterly indistinguishable on my monitor unless you looked at it from a wide enough angle to skew the colors. Without the hint button I would have uninstalled the game (and still haven't started it up again... I blame the ability to listen to podcasts while playing Torchlight).

S0LIDARITY wrote:

My Zelda confessions.

I think A Link to the Past is the best Zelda Game.
I thought it had the best gameplay, the most fun puzzles, and a great sense of discovery. The secret tunnels may play a huge part in my love for LTTP.

I think Skyward Sword is the worst Zelda Game.
The user interface is awful. The control scheme is unchangeable and everything felt so counter-intuitive. Every time I reboot, I get the same terrible cut-aways that let me know that I'm collecting a rhinoceros beetle even though I have 75 of them in my inventory. I thought that most of the weapons/tools found in dungeons were awkward to use and was sorely disappointed at how little they brought to combat. 5 pieces of heart per heart slot is blasphemous. I did not enjoy flying on the bird. The plot was particularly bad, even for a Zelda game. I thought the world map was too small and too reused.

I liked Majora's Mask better than Ocarina of Time.
I thought it was fun to shape-shift with the masks and enjoyed the challenge of being stuck as a deku-thing. I thought that the groundhog's day 3-day cycle was fun; I liked how most npc's had a story and schedule to them. I thought Ocarina of Time was too easy, I wasn't challenged by the Water Temple. I didn't enjoy anything about Epona.
(I will admit that Ocarina of Time was probably a better game, but I still liked Majora's Mask better).

Oh my god. So much truth in one post. I didn't ever play Skyward Sword, but everything online made it sound like a Fisher Price "My First Zelda" game. It's good to see that there are people out there that can recreate that old zelda magic: http://www.tigsource.com/2012/02/04/zelda-classic-quests/#more-24459

It amazes me that Sony still has a fanbase at all.
As a non-PS1, non-PS2, PS3-owning, 360-playing gamer that came over from the Nintendo side, I can't for the life of me fathom why people are loyal to them. Their exclusives aren't worth the system purchase, the update system in place currently is laughably bad (unless you pay them monies), the online capabilities of PSN are so far behind everyone else, except maybe Nintendo. PSN+ feels like them trying to say, "We're sorry our system sucks, but if you give us money, we'll turn on auto-updating and give you free games that you wouldn't normally purchase"

I have never played World of Warcraft.

Or Halo.

I hate collecting and managing loot. Whatever weird synapse people have in their brain for this, I don't have it, because I can't think of a single thing in video games I enjoy less than constantly going into a menu and staring at numbers and trying to compare weird ratios. It's unenjoyable. And I sure as hell don't care what it looks like. Diablo 2 bored me to tears after a couple hours. Same with Borderlands. Same with every MMO I ever tried. Some RPGs I only have managed to go through because I insert a cheat to give me a ton of gold so that I just buy decent weapons and armor at a shope every few hours and then literally play through the game and don't pick up anything as I go. I thought the fact that you couldn't change armor on your teammates in Dragon Age 2 to be one of the greatest things in my life, and it also had me switch team members constantly instead of feeling stuck to using the same two guys I spent all my money on getting the best armor/weapons.

I have a laundry list of indie games that I just didn't like that the rest of the internet falls over itself to proclaim as the best thing ever or some such. World of Goo, Audiosurf, Braid, Super Meat Boy and some others I can't think of right now all just fell flat with me. Yes, some of those games only got praise from ceratin groups of people, but it was still regarded by them as something that had to be loved by anyone that played it.

I have no interest in Saints Row The Third and the purple dildo bat is a deterrent for me, not a selling point. I'm ashamed I loaded it up during the Steam free weekend. And now my shame is eternally tied to my Steam account, too. Most things that this and GTA games seem to have you doing just do not appeal to me. In fact, I never played any 3D GTA game, but figure watching a few different people play parts of the various versions, and hearing them actively complain about the mechanics I saw them struggle with was more than enough to keep me away and form a good enough opinion on it.

I hate JRPGs. I spent a lot of time in denial, because some of my best friends love them and talk them up all the time. I just don't have 80 hours to dedicate to them, and I don't care enough about them to grind when you hit the point where you have to. Building on that

I've never finished a Final Fantasy game because it seems to me that you always hit a point where you can't beat the monsters in a given region, so you have to back up one area and grind for 5-10 levels to be able to handle yourself. Scaling mob strength (like in ME) was the best invention evar.

I loved everything about Infamous and Infamous 2 and I don't understand why people don't like them.

I never finished Heavy Rain because it was, and remains, the only console game my wife ever enjoyed "driving," and she was so into the story that she continued to play through it when I wasn't home. By now, my impetus and desire was gone.

Finally,

I want Sucker Punch to release roughly fifty new Sly Cooper games. Self-explanatory.