Any weird/controversial opinions? I’ll start. Before the remake, the best version of Resident Evil 4 was the Wii version. The Wiimote controls old Resi’s tank controls better than any other controller at the time. The PC version had a bunch of little bugs and detractors that the Wii version just doesn’t have.
I’ll extend this by saying that the Wiimote is actually pretty damn good for shooters, and particularly good for accessibility. Not having to cramp up my hands to press buttons is awesome for having arthritis. Aiming with the Wiimote and moving with the nunchuck just feel really natural, you barely have to move your fingers for anything.
Red Dead Redemption 2 isn’t a good game. Everything is ridiculously time consuming, buggy, and slow for no reason. Painstaking attention to detail on insane things nobody will ever see or care to look at (like horse balls shrinking in cold weather) is not a good enough reason to be considered a good game.
Great world, terrible game.
This is the perfect take. As soon as I unlocked the open world, I hunted all the legendary animals, got all the cool gear, upgraded my weapons, and that was pretty much the end of it. I played like 3 more missions and they were all boring time consuming garbage.
I feel like modding is sometimes a good answer to situations where a developer has spent a lot of money creating assets, but the gameplay that they made with those assets is limited.
I wonder if there’s potential for ways to try to take commercial advantage of that, like have another developer basically bulk-license the assets from an existing game and then just produce new gameplay. I can’t really think of many examples off the top of my head. Some commercial FPS mods, but usually they make larger changes than to just gameplay.
This is a good one, I salute you! RDR2 is one of my favorite games of all time, I had to clutch my pearls for a minute there!
I feel dirty for upvoting your objectively wrong opinion, but you earned it!
Absolutely hate any game that’s long for the sake of being long. Take AC Valhalla. Halve that game, turn it into a less open/less grindy game, a narrative mode if you will. It would be soo much better. I don’t want to spend hours hacking the same enemy, riding the same horse or travelling. So boring.
There are soooo many games to play, I don’t want to be wasting my time. Insert Hogwarts, God of War, RDR2 etc
Games are designed like this because too many gamers still subscribe to the extremely flawed “dollars per hour = value” assessment. XP systems and bloated open worlds cater exactly to this fallacy, because more is always better…right?
Games like the Tony Hawk 1+2 remaster for example did not need an XP system shoehorned in (not to mention an “achievement” for reaching level 100). Games can have inherent value that isn’t tied to how many hours you have to interact with them.
Agree with you, but I don’t think all achievements should be easily accessible.
Reaching level 100 should be an achievement. And I’ll never get it, and that’s ok.
I posted a comment on Reddit talking about how disappointed I am hearing that the AC set in Japan is going to be made by the Valhalla people and I got destroyed for it. Like I wanted Japan since brotherhood and now I get this? I don’t like the newer games because they just don’t respect your time and that’s a bummer for me.
I agree. I’m also a bit of a completionist by nature so it’s doubly as painful since I can’t just do the main story…
I have gotten a bit better about it in the last few years to be fair. Though sometimes I relapse and realize I’ve wasted 80% of my free time that day doing mediocre side content.
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I always hated complex combo systems in fighting games like Tekken and Street Fighter. Fighting games shouldn’t be about being able to input 50 super precise key combinations in the span of 1.5 seconds. It should be about positioning, timing, improvisation… Guilty gear strive and super smash bros is proof of this. Every game that gatekeeps new players for not memorizing the built-in combo that takes 60% of your opponent’s HP feels like it’s still stuck in the 90’s arcade game era. Most fighting game series refuse to move forward. There, I’ve said it.
This is why Smash Bros is the goat.
Low barrier for entry but super high skill ceiling.
Guilty Gear Strive and smash have these combos though, and just like street fighter they aren’t required to do well at beginner levels(even at higher levels you can get by with basic bnb combos).
The main thing fighting games need to do better is teach new players, as it isn’t clear what you should be learning as a beginner. That’s probably why so many people think its combos they have to learn.
I’ve always wanted to get into fighting games but I never really have because of this exactly. It feels like a chore to learn all the combos and the fighting feels weird and stiff to me because of them.
Fighting games should not be QTE
I loved Final Fantasy Dissidia for this. Every character has the same basic controls, and the abilities are totally customizable. So I’d make general schemes the same across everyone.
I think the combos in Street Fighter are already too much.
How should I twist the stick to make the special attack for this character? Hold on, pause the game so I can look up. Oh, I filled up the ultra attack meter, let me check how to perform it for this character.
They should just adopt the control scheme they implemented for Ryu in Smash Bros. Forward + B for Hadouken, Up + B for Shuriyuken, etc.
They did, SF6 has “modern controls” as the default, that get rid of motion inputs entirely.
Now I’m intrigued!
Instead of being a six button fighter with motion controls (which are available still), you have light, medium, heavy, and special buttons. Specials are essentially just hitting the special button while either in neutral or pushing the stick left right up or down. It also has a system that will let you repeatedly hit one attack to do some preset auto combos. It’s really nice!
Paradox Interactive is eventually going to release so many DLC that they eventually collapse inward from their own gravity and implode, taking the company’s future with them.
They’re basically in an arms race against The Sims
Honestly whenever I see a game on sale for <$20 and I open it only to see 5+ DLCs that increase the price, I just close the page and move on without even bothering to research whether or not I should buy the DLCs. Fuck that mess.
That isn’t a hot take though, everyone and their mother makes jokes about how many DLC there is for Paradox Interactive games.
Here’s the real hot take -> I don’t mind the amount of DLC on Paradox Interactive games. Every game of their I’ve played was really good on its own, and I only buy any DLC after I’ve poured tens of hours into the main game, usually not because I feel like anything was lacking from the main game, but just because I want an excuse to keep playing it. So for all I care, they can keep making all the DLC they want if the base games keep being this good.
That is hotter than mine. You must not mind paying a lot of money.
How’s it any different than buying a new game though?
In the end, is paying $30 for DLC and getting another 50 hours of gameplay really that much worse than paying $60 for a new game?
As long as I actually use the DLC, to me it’s equivalent. I’m paying money to extend the hours of entertainment I’m getting.
I mean all things considered it’s not any more expensive for over a decade of support and content. It does add up sure, but if you’re an active gamer and buy even one AAA game a year you’re spending much more than that anyway. You just don’t see it summed up like that.
It’s a game I like and it gets more and more stuff. The only times games keep adding more things to itself is either a very infrequent constant subscription fee, or more frequent DLCs. There’s only so much you can do off the sales of the base game.
I’m fine with paying money as long as what I’m getting for it is commensurate to what I’m paying. I don’t think that Paradox is a particularly bad actor there (not the best, either). I mean, the DLC model permits funding production of more stuff for a game that one likes in a direction that one would like.
There are a number of games where DLC is sold by publishers at vastly higher prices than the content in the base game, though, and where the base game is kind of indadequate on its own. That is something that I’m not really enthusiastic about.
I e got collective thousands of hours in paradox titles. The good dlcs (and there are trash ones I haven’t bought) adds dozens of hours of playtime. They also keep the mod community active which adds hundreds more.
It seems expensive but 10-20 bucks every few months is reasonable to me.
My gogger issue is some of them are starting to feel very oaybto win with the feature/power creep (compare vanilla Russia/Ottomans in EUIV to dlc versions for an example)
I guess you can spend a lot of money if you buy them on release, but I personally never do. And both their games and the DLCs pack are always on some sale. I’m pretty sure I bought Stellaris for like 10 euros and eventually bought a bunch of its DLC in some DLC pack for another 10 euros. The same for Cities Skylines basically. 20 euros for the amount of fun I took out of those games is hardly a lot.
It probably works out about the same as buying a subscription for a game, which many do for lots of games. I still think it’s egregious, but then again I own all Stellaris DLC, so…
I just bought Stellaris utopia dlc, despite not being able to tell you if the game I’m looking at it galactic civilizations 3, Stellaris or endless space 2 (I own all 3, I will play one of them some day). When I do play one of them I’d like it to be an enjoyable situation, which I’ve heard Stellaris needs utopia to be.
Also I love paradox games.
People who get video game burnout or say gaming is dead or whatever are victims of AAA marketing.
Most of the time I see posts like this they complain that they bought all the newest games with great reviews and aren’t having any fun. Normally it’s Sony games and other cinematic experience kind of games. Or they are games that they put 100’s of hours into. They are doing the same stuff over and over and getting bored.
Unfortunately critics care more about production values and polish than novel game mechanics. Plenty of interesting games get overlooked due to being a little weird or not fitting in modern game conventions. If you only play the big budget AAA stuff you are going to get burnt out because they all copy each other trying to be the next “big game”. If you play games that get bad reviews, have weird mechanics, or do something different you won’t get burnt out. I like to recommend the Gravity Rush games to people who have a playstation and are burnt out on the “cinematic” games. They typically have never heard of it and end up having a blast with them. Makes me sad when I see people still buying games based on metacrtic scores. They miss out on so much.
I know this post is about games specifically, but this is so true about all media. It’s wild how many people bemoan how “bad” movies/tv/music/etc is, when it’s super obvious their only frame of reference is mainstream media that’s mostly doing the same thing all the time. If they took a look just once at indie content creation, they’d see there’s so much cool stuff out there. But their so locked into the “right” media that they don’t consider anything else.
Getting back to games, I rarely ever buy AAA games anymore. There’s so much cool indie stuff being released all the time, it’s simply not worth it to me to deal with all the downsides that come along with AAA games.
I definitely agree it applies to all media. There’s always something good to find but you need to dig sometimes. A great AAA game is normally well made and can be a lot of fun but rarely are they unique or surprising.
Ugh you’re not joking. Many of my friends that game complain about the same thing, yet getting them to try any new game that isn’t League of Legends, Apex, Dead by Daylight or Destiny is like pulling teeth.
The worst part is that most of those games have an endless grind or some sort of FOMO mechanics that encourage people to keep playing even though they’re having an awful time.
Perhaps they’re the kind of people who see anything that doesn’t require at least 100 hours per month to progress as a waste of time. I used to play that often until I found a job. Went from 5+ matches of league daily to maybe 2 per week.
There’s legitimately 0 purpose to playing a bit of a game when it won’t change the status quo of your life.
All we want is a game that’s worth wasting our life on.
I guess that is how people in monogamous relationships see polyamory…
Completely agreed. Seriously, if anyone genuinely feels like gaming has become stale, go play Hi-Fi Rush and Pizza Tower (both having come out this year).
AAA games are more interested in keeping you on a virtual engagement treadmill than simply being fun.
I still don’t know how to go about finding these. I’ve had so many bad experiences I hardly know what I like anymore. All I “know” is I’m not big on FPS games. But at the same time I loves The Last of Us.
It’s hard to find something unique but I’ve found some of my favorite games by taking a gamble and playing a game I don’t know much about. If the box art looks cool or I like the trailer I give it a try. Game critics don’t help much as they only like specific kinds of games so I can’t rely on them too much.
Yeah it’s hard. I might go retro :)
It’s not a super-hot take, but art style >>>>> graphics when it comes to “beautiful” looking games. There are games coming out today that can run on a toaster that look far better than many AAA titles with all the fancy lighting effects and ray tracing that require you to dump 4-digit sums into a monster gaming PC to fully enjoy, all due to how the smaller games masterfully handle their art design.
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Souls-like games aren’t difficult, they just show you how impatient the average player is. Very rarely do those games actually challenge your ability or technical skill, and instead they just test your patience with annoyingly-defensive enemy behavior that encourages impatient players into aggressive, risky gameplay.
Games are for fun. If you’re not having fun, stop playing. Don’t spend effort on griping about the game; just stop playing and do something else. Do not go on the game forum and spend hours arguing about whether the game started sucking with the last release or two years ago. Just stop playing and do something else with your time & energy. Stick a potato in the ground and see what happens.
Software quality varies widely in online games; even for “simple” games such as abstract strategy board games. One of the highest-quality pieces of game software is lichess. Most board-game software, even for other abstract strategy games like Go, absolutely sucks compared to lichess. The best Go client is KGS; it’s pretty good, but it’s no lichess.
Regarding CCGs: Hearthstone is terrible. Magic Arena is okay. Eternal is fine but I stopped playing it when Magic Arena released for Android. Mythgard is pretty neat. Runeterra is probably okay if you’re already into the League/Arcane characters.
Paying for games is fine, but consider your opportunity cost in both money and time. (“Opportunity cost” is an economist’s way of asking, “What else could you be doing with this money and time?”) Maybe you just want to go see a movie instead. Or go stick a potato in the ground and see what happens.
Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection is an astonishingly good collection of puzzle games that runs on pretty much any computer or device you use. You can install it for free on your phone. It’s all open source, no ads, no bullshit, just puzzle games.
If the game you’re paying for is pissing you off, consider whether you’re paying for the service of being pissed off. Maybe just stop doing that?
Bumped for Simon tathams puzzle pack.
Half the games in there I’ve marked as favorite. There’s barely any better way to unwind after a day than a 60 point ‘untangle’ puzzle.
Exactly, the same goes for movies and tv and even books.
Don’t like it? Stop. Move on to something else.
I started playing ac: origins last year, and as soon as I got the “Kill Animal” side missions I knew I wouldn’t like the game. I made it to the second city and haven’t played since
Simon Tatham’s puzzles are goated indeed
The sentence “I lost my gear / They took my gear” has never been followed by a fun part in any videogame, ever
Most AAA games are boring. All the big games from the last few years are just plain boring. They found a formula back in the 2000’s that they never expanded upon or really changed in any way shape or form. The focus is on visuals and story (and I gotta say, the stories are pretty fucking cringe a lot of the time unless you’re a 13 year old) or skinnerboxes and psycho tricks to keep you addicted and the gameplay remains the same stale shit it’s been for over 20 years. I feel like AAA games are games for people who don’t play games, because the actual game part is always the worst part about them.
Yup. As an adult with less time to play, you really notice how much AAA games are just copy and paste with a new area on a map or same mission, but different npc.
I just picked up the 2022 remaster of Pacman World from 1999. The game design in that game is so nice. Each level has new enemies and new platform mechanics. I feel like only indie games bring innovation like that today while AAA is just rinse and repeat. (For the most part anyway…God Of War and Zelda are good examples of companies doing it right)
I think that some of the problem is that AAA games leverage a high budget. That lets them do things that you can only do with a high budget. But in order to pay for the development, they cannot afford to move down the long tail very far. To be a financial success, they must sell many copies. And it’s safer to target a genre that is known to be able to sell to a large playerbase than to do something that has not demonstrated the ability to do so in the past.
What do you mean, AAA games expand upon the formula…
When small indie studios create unique smash hits and then all we see from AAA studios are clones of that game with more monetization. If that’s not capitalism innovation, then I don’t know what is.
Having damage numbers flying off the enemies when you hit them or other frivolous BS isn’t actually innovation, man.
This is facts. I’m a zoomer. AAA games haven’t meant shit to people my age for the most part. The 3 undebatable most important games of my generation are Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and Undertale. Talk to any gamer under the age of 25-30 and they will likely agree with at least 2/3 of those. All those games started with one person dicking around. We’re fully in the era where the formula is starting to stink like piss because it’s so stale. We’re going to see a “crash” of sorts soon, the infinite growth these shitty publishers have seen off games as a service isn’t infinite
To be fair, 2 of those games are legit some of the GOATs. I’ve been gaming since my mom played Mario with me in the early 90s, and those two games are something else.
I remember buying the Minecraft alpha for $10, and there wasn’t that much to do, but it was strangely addicting.
Back then AAA meant the game had budget, scale, graphics, polish… Nowadays all of these qualities are present in AA devs, and plenty of indies as well.
I feel like the only real differences the AAA has is 1) very detailed and realistic graphics (which does not equal good looking or good art direction, mind you), and 2) a lot of overhead management and investors. These investors are all looking to make returns on investment, which is probably why they so strongly discourage taking risks by deviating from the pre established formula, and strongly encourage absurd monetization practices.
Not to say there’s no good AAA games nowadays, Fromsoft is amazing with their souls borne series, and Zelda is pretty solidly designed imo.
AAA also tend to spend a lot on celebrity images and voice acting. Which is weird to me. I don’t think anyone bought Cyberpunk just for Keanu Reeves.
The popularity of skill based matchmaking decimated game design that allows people of different skill levels to play together and progress in a multiplayer setting. Most games actually punish you for playing with better players on your team instead of allowing you to help somehow without being a liability. And when you are, the game is no longer winnable and people get to extremely pissed off ensuing you won’t get to play with them again.
Everyone i play games with gets the “sbmm is one of the worst things to happen to video games” rant every single time i play a game that has it. I dont play them often thankfully
Any way you can clarify the negatives of SBMM or have a good yt vid or something that explains it? In theory I like the idea because I think back to unranked halo 3 and one game I’m a god and the next I’m getting absolutely destroyed and it kinda sucked having such a wide gap lol
Nintendo games are great FIRST games.
If Zelda is the first action RPG you ever played, it will forever hold a warm spot in your heart.
Same for Smash Brothers and fighting games, Mario Kart and racing games, or Pokemon and turn based RPGs.
But if you aren’t 10 years old or have played literally any other games, they really aren’t very good.
People spend way to much time complaining about how games are not perfect in their eyes, instead of taking it at face value. They get literally outraged when a game doesn’t function exactly how they want, instead of finding a game they actually enjoy.
Back in the day we’d just pick whatever looked cool at the store and hoped it was decent. People have the right to complain, but its gotten out of hand and modern gamers are whiney as all hell.
Edit: just want to clarify, I’m mainly refer to post launch and established games. If a game promises somthing and is released half baked, 100% people are in the right to complain.
Every console shooter should come out with well-implemented gyro aiming that is turned on by default. It’s ridiculous how much you gain in precision by using it after only a little bit of practice
I’ve been playing totk and at one point I had to turn off motion control to get more precision (ironic, I know, but gyro induces too much sway for when you need a near pixel perfect positioning) for building a hover bike. I had no idea how much I subconsciously used gyro aiming. For instance I wanted to pick up one of the fans. So I tun the stick to move the camera to target the fan like I always do, but this time I end up just short of actually targeting the fan. Turns out I instinctively also turn the controller to have the gyro assist the aiming, but because gyro was off that last step of targeting was now missing and I kept missing my targeting. It felt super weird to pick them up without the gyro.
I absolutely recommend any skeptic to turn it on, play with it regularly for let’s say 20 hours and turn it off. You will feel the difference. It becomes so natural that you won’t even notice yourself using it.
No gyro on Xbox, so only PS and Switch (and Steam Deck, I guess?) would get to enjoy this.
Developers who lock the FOV of their games have no idea what they’re doing.
Looking at you sea of theives…
who argues in favor of fov locking?
this take is cold
I do. (Hot take incoming) People are absent-mindedly maxing that slider because they heard some pro plays the game like that to see as much of the screen as possible. That Wasn’t even the same game btw.
They are not playing the game competitively so all they do is make it ugly as hell for no gain. It’s like using wrist straps to deadlift. Consider getting better at the game instead.
Same for screen shake actually. Some idiot game dev overdid it 10 years ago and now everyone turns it off even though it is subtle nowadays and makes actions feel a lot more impactful.
You’re not special when you say it makes your head hurt. You just played a game where screen shake was badly implemented.
cringe! that is a hot take.
Look at the entire sea of theives community.
I’ve had my posts deleted from the steam community forums for simply asking who else wanted higher than 90 fov
whaaaaat that’s insane!
fools, the whole lot of them. someday they will understand.
Juat as a wild guess, it might be related to performance tuning on consoles. If you increase the width of the view frustrum, you’re throwing more stuff on the screen.
