Gaming Unpopular opinion

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Goldeneye was never good. it was only praised because it was first console FPS. compare to PC FPS it was bad.

Goldeneye wasn't the first console FPS.

That would be Faceball 2000 on the SNES in 1992, a port of MIDI Maze for the Atari ST home computer. It was followed a year later by Wolfenstein 3D. If handhelds count, the original Game Boy beats both with its port of Faceball 2000, released in 1991. And Doom was of course ported to everything under the sun, including the SNES, 32X, Jaguar, Playstation and Saturn, all of which predate Goldeneye.

Goldeneye wasn't even the first fps on the Nintendo 64. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was.

 

[DeliveryGodNoah_v1legacy]

*throws up violently*

 

[Xprimentyl]

- Halo 4 also has an excellent story

I?m with you. I enjoyed Halo 4 a lot and never understood why there was so much hate for it; I chalked it up to hipster ?the book is so much better? smugness from diehard fans who refused to accept that it was possible for their beloved AAA flagship franchise to change development hands without being ruined, and were looking for any reason to be right on that point. Hell, I was a huge Bungie and Halo fan back then and admit I was fairly leery over the prospect myself, but between Halo 4 then the Master Chief Collection which was a Halo fan?s wet dream, any and all doubt in my mind was assuaged.

Then Halo 5 happened?

 

[sXeth]

Ah, well, sweeping generalization time it is, then.

Prettymuch all the iconic turn of the millenium class (Half Life, System Shock, Morrowind, Baldurs Gate, and others) don't hold up by any modern standard, and are at best exhibits of innovative ideas that have aged terribly.

Speaking of BG, Bioware has never been good at writing anything but the most basic story, they're utterly incapable of writing an ending at all, rehash ideas constantly, and their much lauded romance options make Twilight look like a well-characterized documentatio of humans.

I'd agree. For example, BG1 is about a mainly about a Saverak, and in any other game it would be side content. In this, it's the whole main quest. Also, BG1 has very little in side content. The friction of combat in BG1 accentuate this problems.

I also don't think Obisidian are great writers either, relying too much on troupes. Alpha Protocol is, by far, their best game story wise (becuase game play is trash in that game.)

Any the biggest one for me at the moment, temper this with that fact that I'm still in the last section, Divinity Original Sin 2, is flawed. Maybe flawed enough to only be called decent, not good.

That was largely my overview of Baldurs Gate as a series. You had Sarevok in the first one, who only got slightly beyond "Grunty large dude with too many spikes on his armor" as a character. The entire game sort of served as the "Call to action" segment for a broader story. Which wasn't entirely unforgivable, games weren't at the state of huge stories yet, and it was a decent successor onto the gold box era of D&D games, with an updated presentation.

Baldurs Gate 2 had a more interesting (and well acted) villain, but if the first game was the opening chapter to the main Bhaalspawn plot, the second one was a full on sidequest, if not "expanded universe" fiction. It was like they took the idea for another game and stuck it in the BG series because they couldn't write something to fit the actual storyline (or maybe Wizards of the Coast was jerking them around with the details, who knows).

Then Throne of Bhaal dropped as an expansion rather then a culminating entry of the trilogy, which did get back to the main plot, but in what has becomes classic Bioware faction, just sloppily delivered a halfhearted ending.

 

[Kerg3927]

- I absolutely cannot stand anime-style visual design, so much so that it puts me off even trying well-received games that use it. I will never play games like Final Fantasy XV, Nier: Automata, Ni No Kuni, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The overdesigned, inconsistent, throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to most anime styles I've seen annoys me to no end, and keeps me from getting into a game and its story.

I am the same. When I am looking around for a new game to play, and see something that might be interesting, the first thing I do is look it up on google images. If it's anime, I won't play it.

As a kid watching after school cartoons in the 80's, I hated Speed Racer. Stupid, whiny over-animated bulging eyes and mouths... yuck. ALL anime to me looks just like Speed Racer. And I run the other way every time I see it.

It sucks, because my favorite video game genre is RPG, and half of them are done in anime. But I cannot stand the art style. It's really, really ugly and annoying, IMO.

 

[Abomination]

Fallout Tactics is the best Fallout game and the first game is mostly shit.

Completely agree. People were angry because it wasn't as RPGesque as Fallout 1&2 but the gameplay was stellar.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

1. The Tomb Raider reboots are some of the best modern adaptations of 3D platformer/action shooters ever made. Regardless of what you think about the story or the characters, the technical execution of those games is simply stunning. And after looking at some of you previous posts, your opinions can be boiled down to "Female lead = shit" which basically makes you worst than Donald Trump and pretty much invalidates anything you could POSSIBLY have to say.

3. GTA the most over ra...what? What the fuck are you even on about. Where do you come up with that shit? Do you make this up yourself, or do you have some retarded lottery ball wheel on your desk that spits out random trolly nonsense? How about Five Nights at Freddies? Final Fantasy (even though I fucking love some FF)? GTA I don't think is all that over-rated, considering the quality of every single game in the series since 3. The games have one thing that most other series do not, consistancy. They are always top of their game and you can't over rate that.

5. The Witcher 3 is what? The fuck did you just say you little sandbag of dickbutts? The Witcher 3 is a masterpiece of gaming. From technical execution, to graphical style and consistancy, to story-telling, to the attention to detail, all of it is unlike any game ever made before it. This is an RPG where a stupid fucking side quest about a frying pan can be incredibly memorable. Where it falters, if anywhere, is the depth of combat, which is completely forgivable because the combat isn't the point of the game and serves as a mechanic to invest the player through the story itself. The Witcher 3 may very well be one of the BEST games EVER made PERIOD.

9. Bobby you gotta stop letting your Momma put these devils in your head boy. Metro is a pretty, but frankly boring and uninterested series of generic FPS games. Oh but you know what did start in 2011? Dark Souls *****. The game series that started an entire fucking GENRE! Did Metro do that? I don't think so Bobby! Now stop drinking the Kool Aid.

I guess I'll humor you since B-Cell won't or if he does it probably won't even amount to a sentence. I basically cut out the stuff I either agree with (like Max Payne 3 is the worst game I ever played [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.996753-How-did-you-play-Max-Payne-3-and-how-did-you-like-it#24064512]) or really don't care about or just plain haven't played. While I do think Uncharted is overrated as fuck and the 2nd game is the only one I'd rate above a 5/10, B-Cell's complaint is a Gamefaqs-level complaint. You might as well just come back against his like for FPSs with the stupid ass Gamefaqs FPS complaint [https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/927750-playstation-3/65815691] saying all FPSs are just PAAGGs (play as a gun game).

1) The new Tomb Raiders are at best fun romps (I did enjoy playing them more than the last 2 Uncharteds) but I can't rate them anymore than a 6/10 or maybe a 7 on a really good day as I feel they are only slightly above average (5/10). The gameplay is really just bog standard TPS gameplay, even Watch Dogs lets you have more fun. The setpieces are always just running away from stuff instead of integrating all the gameplay onto a moving environment like when Uncharted is at its best. The platforming is better than Uncharted but barely better and the puzzle solving is OK at best. Tomb Raider should be a puzzle-platformer but those don't sell so they just copied Uncharted basically. The story is pretty bad overall and the worse part is that it takes itself too seriously whereas if it had been on the level of a B-movie with fun camp and cheese, the story and characters would've been so much more enjoyable. The worst Uncharted with regards to story is UC3 because 1) it's completely nonsensical and 2) tries to actually be serious that totally doesn't fit with the gameplay while failing horribly at being serious to boot. Tomb Raider tries to have that level of seriousness (especially the 1st one) but it doesn't mesh with the gameplay plus just plain being horribly written and executed if just taken on its own and divorced from the gameplay. Overall, I do like new Lara decently enough though.

3) GTA along with all of Rockstar's games are pretty bad IMO. I'm going to put this out right away, Rockstar has never understood how to make an open world game. Even back when they sorta invented them, they only seemed good because they were the only ones basically and we didn't know what a good open world game was then. The very first Mercenaries game (from the same gen as GTA3) showed me what an open world game is supposed to be like and basically ruined Rockstar's games for me. An open world game should have missions that are based on using the world and the tools provided to complete missions in a variety of ways. Many of the missions in Mercenaries are more akin to solving a puzzle as you're trying to figure out how to complete a mission in a way that doesn't alert the enemy/faction that you did it. So the whole world/building destruction wasn't just there to see shit blow up like a Michael Bay movie but properly using airstrikes was also strategic in nature with the added bonus of seeing shit blow up. Whereas Rockstar's games are just almost always just go to Point-B and kill a bunch of spawned enemies with average at best shooting. What's the point of it even being open world if you could just do the vast majority of the game's missions with linear levels? At least the level design would most likely be better along with more care being taken with regards to enemy placements too making for better shootouts. Lastly, Dan Houser is probably the biggest hack writer in all of video gaming (which is saying a lot considering how bad writing in gaming is) and I just can't stand anything that he's written after Vice City.

5) Witcher 3 for me fails at being a GAME because there's literally nothing fun or enjoyable about PLAYING the game. Even just walking Geralt around town is horrible, CDPR even patched in an "alternate" movement option because of how bad character movement is. The combat is horrid and also pointless because CDPR gave Geralt game-breaking abilities that allow you to fight literally any creature no matter your level, no matter the difficulty and defeat them without taking a scratch. No GM in a pen and paper RPG would let a player have a skill like Quen or Axii. The combat is also a weird mesh of Arkham and Souls combat that just doesn't feel good at all. And the combat is also designed for humanoid combat when the monster fights should be the highlights of the game (witchers are MONSTER hunters after all) but they fall horribly flat due to the combat system not being designed for such fights. Sure the writing and the questing are good, sometimes very good, but that doesn't discount the gameplay being crap. The majority of my time spent playing Witcher 3 was not enjoyable so how can I rate the game as even being average. Witcher 3 would've been a far better game if it was just an adventure game like akin to a Telltale game or a David Cage game or Until Dawn/Life is Strange/etc. Basically any game should just give me the good stuff instead making me trudge through the shit to get to the good and if a dev can't do gameplay like CDPR or Telltale, then just give the story/characters/choices/etc parts then.

9) How did Dark Souls invent a genre when they are just dungeon crawlers with average combat? The whole death mechanic is just a twist on a rogue-like where you restart at the nearest checkpoint (that are spread decently apart) instead of starting the game over again. I will give the Souls games mad props for level design and atmosphere. However, the gameplay is based on average combat that has caused action combat games to devolve much like what happened to the FPS genre because of COD4. Action combat games used to require mastery of advanced mechanics along with requiring amazing timing to "git gud" at. But, now dodging slow ass enemies is considered hard just because the player has less health and dies in a few hits. All that you as a player have to be is careful, anyone can do that. I'd love for a Souls game to be basically a survival horror environmental puzzle game. Take out 90% of the enemies so an enemy around the next corner is actually surprising instead of just being par for the course, make getting through dungeons much much more about defeating the environment via traps and puzzles, and keep the boss battles of course.

And yes, the Metro games so far have been nothing special and I'm not holding my breath on this new one either because until a dev makes a great game, I really can't be excited about whatever upcoming game they are working on. It's pretty bad when you can find reviews that compare a game's "scripted-ness" to being like Disneyland.

90% of open world games are trash
90% of third person shooters are bad

Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap, so...

Haha, beat me to it. The majority of anything being shit is just par for the course.

 

[Bedinsis]

Gaming is mostly a waste of time and money.

 

[Trunkage]

Ah, well, sweeping generalization time it is, then.

Prettymuch all the iconic turn of the millenium class (Half Life, System Shock, Morrowind, Baldurs Gate, and others) don't hold up by any modern standard, and are at best exhibits of innovative ideas that have aged terribly.

Speaking of BG, Bioware has never been good at writing anything but the most basic story, they're utterly incapable of writing an ending at all, rehash ideas constantly, and their much lauded romance options make Twilight look like a well-characterized documentatio of humans.

I'd agree. For example, BG1 is about a mainly about a Saverak, and in any other game it would be side content. In this, it's the whole main quest. Also, BG1 has very little in side content. The friction of combat in BG1 accentuate this problems.

I also don't think Obisidian are great writers either, relying too much on troupes. Alpha Protocol is, by far, their best game story wise (becuase game play is trash in that game.)

Any the biggest one for me at the moment, temper this with that fact that I'm still in the last section, Divinity Original Sin 2, is flawed. Maybe flawed enough to only be called decent, not good.

That was largely my overview of Baldurs Gate as a series. You had Sarevok in the first one, who only got slightly beyond "Grunty large dude with too many spikes on his armor" as a character. The entire game sort of served as the "Call to action" segment for a broader story. Which wasn't entirely unforgivable, games weren't at the state of huge stories yet, and it was a decent successor onto the gold box era of D&D games, with an updated presentation.

Baldurs Gate 2 had a more interesting (and well acted) villain, but if the first game was the opening chapter to the main Bhaalspawn plot, the second one was a full on sidequest, if not "expanded universe" fiction. It was like they took the idea for another game and stuck it in the BG series because they couldn't write something to fit the actual storyline (or maybe Wizards of the Coast was jerking them around with the details, who knows).

Then Throne of Bhaal dropped as an expansion rather then a culminating entry of the trilogy, which did get back to the main plot, but in what has becomes classic Bioware faction, just sloppily delivered a halfhearted ending.

You know what - that makes BG2 sound like ME2. Main mission - bunch of filler - end mission.

I still class BG2 as a goodish game. The friction of combat is much less than BG1, story is better, some worthwhile stuff to see. But I gather it will continue to go done the quality pole for me as time goes on

 

[Cold Shiny]

We've already lost the lootbox war and there is nothing we can do about it.

 

[IamGamer41]

90% of open world games are trash

I agree.

Id like to hear the argument why they are consider trash.

 

[CriticalGaming]

1) The new Tomb Raiders are at best fun romps (I did enjoy playing them more than the last 2 Uncharteds) but I can't rate them anymore than a 6/10 or maybe a 7 on a really good day as I feel they are only slightly above average (5/10). The gameplay is really just bog standard TPS gameplay, even Watch Dogs lets you have more fun. The setpieces are always just running away from stuff instead of integrating all the gameplay onto a moving environment like when Uncharted is at its best. The platforming is better than Uncharted but barely better and the puzzle solving is OK at best. Tomb Raider should be a puzzle-platformer but those don't sell so they just copied Uncharted basically. The story is pretty bad overall and the worse part is that it takes itself too seriously whereas if it had been on the level of a B-movie with fun camp and cheese, the story and characters would've been so much more enjoyable. The worst Uncharted with regards to story is UC3 because 1) it's completely nonsensical and 2) tries to actually be serious that totally doesn't fit with the gameplay while failing horribly at being serious to boot. Tomb Raider tries to have that level of seriousness (especially the 1st one) but it doesn't mesh with the gameplay plus just plain being horribly written and executed if just taken on its own and divorced from the gameplay. Overall, I do like new Lara decently enough though.

3) GTA along with all of Rockstar's games are pretty bad IMO. I'm going to put this out right away, Rockstar has never understood how to make an open world game. Even back when they sorta invented them, they only seemed good because they were the only ones basically and we didn't know what a good open world game was then. The very first Mercenaries game (from the same gen as GTA3) showed me what an open world game is supposed to be like and basically ruined Rockstar's games for me. An open world game should have missions that are based on using the world and the tools provided to complete missions in a variety of ways. Many of the missions in Mercenaries are more akin to solving a puzzle as you're trying to figure out how to complete a mission in a way that doesn't alert the enemy/faction that you did it. So the whole world/building destruction wasn't just there to see shit blow up like a Michael Bay movie but properly using airstrikes was also strategic in nature with the added bonus of seeing shit blow up. Whereas Rockstar's games are just almost always just go to Point-B and kill a bunch of spawned enemies with average at best shooting. What's the point of it even being open world if you could just do the vast majority of the game's missions with linear levels? At least the level design would most likely be better along with more care being taken with regards to enemy placements too making for better shootouts. Lastly, Dan Houser is probably the biggest hack writer in all of video gaming (which is saying a lot considering how bad writing in gaming is) and I just can't stand anything that he's written after Vice City.

5) Witcher 3 for me fails at being a GAME because there's literally nothing fun or enjoyable about PLAYING the game. Even just walking Geralt around town is horrible, CDPR even patched in an "alternate" movement option because of how bad character movement is. The combat is horrid and also pointless because CDPR gave Geralt game-breaking abilities that allow you to fight literally any creature no matter your level, no matter the difficulty and defeat them without taking a scratch. No GM in a pen and paper RPG would let a player have a skill like Quen or Axii. The combat is also a weird mesh of Arkham and Souls combat that just doesn't feel good at all. And the combat is also designed for humanoid combat when the monster fights should be the highlights of the game (witchers are MONSTER hunters after all) but they fall horribly flat due to the combat system not being designed for such fights. Sure the writing and the questing are good, sometimes very good, but that doesn't discount the gameplay being crap. The majority of my time spent playing Witcher 3 was not enjoyable so how can I rate the game as even being average. Witcher 3 would've been a far better game if it was just an adventure game like akin to a Telltale game or a David Cage game or Until Dawn/Life is Strange/etc. Basically any game should just give me the good stuff instead making me trudge through the shit to get to the good and if a dev can't do gameplay like CDPR or Telltale, then just give the story/characters/choices/etc parts then.

9) How did Dark Souls invent a genre when they are just dungeon crawlers with average combat? The whole death mechanic is just a twist on a rogue-like where you restart at the nearest checkpoint (that are spread decently apart) instead of starting the game over again. I will give the Souls games mad props for level design and atmosphere. However, the gameplay is based on average combat that has caused action combat games to devolve much like what happened to the FPS genre because of COD4. Action combat games used to require mastery of advanced mechanics along with requiring amazing timing to "git gud" at. But, now dodging slow ass enemies is considered hard just because the player has less health and dies in a few hits. All that you as a player have to be is careful, anyone can do that. I'd love for a Souls game to be basically a survival horror environmental puzzle game. Take out 90% of the enemies so an enemy around the next corner is actually surprising instead of just being par for the course, make getting through dungeons much much more about defeating the environment via traps and puzzles, and keep the boss battles of course.

And yes, the Metro games so far have been nothing special and I'm not holding my breath on this new one either because until a dev makes a great game, I really can't be excited about whatever upcoming game they are working on. It's pretty bad when you can find reviews that compare a game's "scripted-ness" to being like Disneyland.

Thank you sir. This is fun

1. The point of my counter's to B-Cell's nonsense, isn't really to lock in stone how good a game is. B-Cell said Tomb Raider and the sequel are the worse games ever. Which is just not true. Even you yourself give them 6/10 which is a good game imo. You might not agree with me that they were stellar experiences (obviously) but you don't deny that they are decently good games one their own. So sure you don't enjoy them as much as me, but we agree that they are certainly not as bad as B-Cell suggests.

3. I disagree entirely. GTA games are good games. The open world genre might be a bit oversaturated at this point, but GTA and Rockstar put together incredible huge games that for the most part work. They make bigger games than anything Bethesda does, with far less bugs. The moment to moment gameplay might not be the best thing since sliced bread, but everything they include does work and that's really all that can be asked for. The original point made was they were the most overrated games of all time, which I just don't think is true.

5. Man everyone talking shit on my baby. Look I'm biased. I love everything the Witcher 3 did. I love the combat because I love being op as fuck. Having abilities like Quen and Axii are amazing. Look if you dig into the lore, Witchers are monsters than kill other monsters. A good Witcher properly prepares for every fight to give them as many advantages in battle as possible. They are not fair fighters. They have op potions and magics to go out and kill the monsters to get paid and they move on. They have no emotion, (though Geralt does because it's hard to write a character without any motivations, desires, or personal investment) they don't get a high from fighting fair, or facing challenges, their only go is to go out and kill what they get paid to kill and move on.

The movement was no nearly as big of a deal as people made it out to be, and was more a keyboard input problem than anything else. The combat is fine, it's mind-numbingly easy on easy mode, and can be quite challenging on Death March. One mistake or ill preparation can fuck you on Death March. The difficulties allow players to tailor their experience pretty well imo. Might not be your cup of tea anyway and that's fine. There is no way that the Witcher can be classified as a bad game though. By no means, I'm sorry.

9. Dark Souls invented a whole new way to experience dungeon crawling. Slow methodical combat around a vague and bleak setting. You cannot deny how many games have tried to follow Dark Soul's example. Just like Doom and Wolfenstien created the FPS genre, Dark Souls has created a unique thing. Sure it does have the basics of many other styles, but nothing does it quite like Dark Souls, they evolved it and made it their own thing. Now you have Lords of the Fallen, Nioh, The Surge, Salt and Sanctuary, Dead Cells, etc. When there is no denying that many developers are trying to directly follow suit with a style, means that a genre all it's own has formed from this game. You are free to not like the Souls games, but their impact is hard to ignore.

 

[Kerg3927]

90% of open world games are trash

I agree.

Id like to hear the argument why they are consider trash.

In my experience and in my opinion, the bigger the world, the lower the overall quality of the game, especially its story. And unfortunately, because the technology now exists to efficiently make bigger and bigger worlds, developers seem to be locked in an arms race to see who can make the biggest world and brag about it in their marketing.

I liken it to a movie. Most movies are 1.5 to 3 hours long. During filming, they start out much longer than they end up being, before they get edited down significantly. What is cut is usually the lower quality content. What is kept is the higher quality content. The end result is a shorter, more compact, and overall higher quality movie.

But with the massive open world arms race going on, I think what happens is most content that emerged in development is left in, the good, the bad, and the mediocre. And even then it's often not enough, so they come up with even more filler content of typically very low quality... because their world is so big, and they have to fill all that empty space with something.

What you end up with is a massive game with varying levels of crap filling in the space, and it's a nightmare for a completionist like me to slug through. Admittedly, a lot of that is my fault, because, as an OCD completionist, I have to do all the quests and explore every area, or I'll worry about missing something. But even if you're not a completionist, I think it leads to an unnecessary amount of tedious crap to sift through to find the good parts.

Also, if a game has an urgent main story, more side content necessarily detracts from the urgency. It's simple math. Witcher 3 for example, Geralt is in a race against time to save Ciri, but meh, let's spend weeks playing gwent, participating in horse races, looting bandit camps, and helping every little shithole village on the map solve its little monster problem. Over time the main story gets forgotten about, and feels a lot less urgent and meaningful, because there are no consequences for simply putting it on hold for long stretches of time.

I would rather spend 50-100 hours each playing three high quality more confined and linear games to completion than spend 150-300 hours playing one massive open world game to completion, with all its lower quality side content and filler.

In my opinion, confinement and linearity in games is a good thing. It protects the gamer from wandering around and becoming bored with low quality content, because most of that low quality content never even makes it into the final game, and it keeps the gamer immersed in the highest quality content the game has to offer. And I think this has always been true in games, but somehow that core development concept has been thrown out the window with the massive open world arms race.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Bloodborne has more than enough content. The popular opinion is that it's Souls-lite, and is missing the depth of a proper Souls game. While that may be partially true, I also think Bloodborne excels by distilling the formula to its essence, which likely gave root to some of the highest quality maps, music, weapons, and overall design as a result.

There is still a great deal of content, and the vast majority of it is killer, not filler. There are no half-ass weapons being dropped by every other enemy, or trivial consumables hiding in vulnerable barrels. I've found a good use for probably around 80% of what I've uncovered, whether essential blood vials and bullets, combat assists, runes, etc. About the closest thing to filler has been the various blood gems, but they are never a burden, and can always be sold if you have no further use for them.

While the Chalice Dungeons are repetitive, I think of them mostly as a bonus to the main game. They are a great way to level, and play much like an elaborate training grounds of sorts for the proper game. While I do miss the shield usage occasionally and the added ranged options of Souls, they are simply not a part of how this game is designed; the intent of which is to encourage an aggressive risk/reward system of melee combat.

 

[Myria]

Deus Ex: Invisible War was a pretty good game.

The Tomb Raider reboot games are very good. No great, but very good.

Horizon: Zero Dawn was a good game, but not even remotely close to great, let alone the gaming nerdvana many made it out to be. The characters, especially Alloy, are cardboard at best, and story becomes increasingly tattered the further along things go. By the end there are plot holes even the largest robo-dino could comfortably traverse.

Neir Automata was depressingly boring.

Souls games are more tedious than difficult.

The ideas behind the Darksiders games were better than the games themselves. It seems unlikely that the next iteration will buck this trend.

The tendency of gamers to let devs off the hook and blame monolithic publishers for any and all problems is getting in the way of getting the source of some of those problems acknowledged, let alone addressed.

 

[Trunkage]

The tendency of gamers to let devs off the hook and blame monolithic publishers for any and all problems is getting in the way of getting the source of some of those problems acknowledged, let alone addressed.

I'm not prejudiced, let's blame both.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Souls games are tryhard Monster Hunter.

AAA games should cost more than $60.

 

[Ironman126]

You could say that about most fantasy stories. Tolkien defined the genre, and pretty much everyone else who has written a fantasy story since was influenced by him in some way.

I thought the grey wardens vs. archdemon thing was a fairly original twist. As was the mages vs. demons in the tower thing. Yeah, there were dwarves and elves, but there were original twists there, too. Dwarves living underground fighting an endless war against darkspawn in the Deep Roads. Elves vs. werewolves.

I guess I just don't see humans, elves, and dwarves fighting an ancient big bad and immediately think Tolkien ripoff. I think, oh cool, it's a fantasy story.

I think you hit the nail on the head. Fantasy defaults to LOTR because its all that has ever been popular. Even George R.R. Martin's Wars of the Roses fanfic has a slight aftertaste of Tolkien. There is more to fantasy than Tolkien, just as there is more to Sci-Fi than Lucas or Roddenberry. The curse of popularity, I suppose.

As for the twists you mention, I found they only exasperated the feeling that the story was trying to prove to me that it's not just a lesser quality rehash of Tolkien.

But I don't want it to seem like I hate DA:O, I wouldn't have put 300 hours into it if I did. However, I feel that DA2 told a better story filled with better characters in a better setting, with better mechanics to back it all up.

Sebastian is a DLC character who only becomes a party member in chapter 2 onwards. If you have the DLC you should see him post a notice on the Chantry noticeboard about finding the mercenaries that murdered his family and retainers.

He's not a deep character since he was DLC, but he provides an interesting pro-Chantry voice, and can be romanced by Fem!Hawke but their relationship is chaste because he's umming and ahhing about taking his vows again to the Chantry as what I presume would be a ley-brother.

Dragon Age 2 has DLC? I'm only half serious. I haven't played any of it, I think. Is it worth buying?

 

[Dalisclock]

-Dragon Age: Origins isn't particularly compelling. I've tried to play through it three times and have never actually beaten it. I'm starting to accept the fact I may never actually do so, because every time I contemplate going back to it, I can immediately think of at least 5 other games in the same genre I'd rather play first.

-The first Metal Gear Solid has some of the worst gameplay in the series. It does a lot of other things well but damn if the controls haven't aged poorly. The inability to see what you want to shoot half the time because the camera is zoomed in so far and there's no way to look in the direction you are pointing your weapon is frustrating. It's a step back gameplay-wise from Metal Gear 2, which is bizarre considering it's particularly a remake of that game (which was made 7 years earlier).

-For that matter, Metal Gear Solid 2 is a good game for the most part, but it's pacing is shot all to hell and it's story becomes more and more of a mess the farther in you get. Raiden was actually a better character in this game then he was in MGS4, when he becomes a walking death machine Deus ex Machina and little else.

-Painkiller is an interesting idea that feels more like a series of random maps jammed together with randomish weapons, and occasionally some cutscenes that have very little to do with the game portions. I ended up getting it because Yahtzee gushed over it and it's one of the few times I significantly disagree with him on a game.

The irony is that I really liked Serious Sam and Serious Same:BFE, probably because of just how they didn't take themselves seriously in the least.

-There's nothing inherently wrong with "walking simulators" if they pull off the story, atmosphere and/or characters well. I'd honestly rather have almost no gameplay instead of forced gameplay/puzzles. I can think of numerous adventure games from back in the day where it felt like the puzzles were only there because someone told them they had to be there, so ended up being annoying/tedious and subtracting from the experience.

I recently replayed To The Moon and realized that the only thing I'd change about it would be to remove the tile puzzles, which don't actually add anything to the game and almost feel like they exist solely to argue that the game isn't a "Walking simulator" because it has puzzles.

Hell, Bioshock:Infinite might have been better without the shooty bits if the extra resources had been used to develop Columbia and the characters more.