Things You Like Despite Their Problems

[saluraropicrusa]

I'm sure everyone has something like this. Something you enjoy, are entertained by, what-have-you, despite having (sometimes a myriad) issues with it. You may even be able to say "this sucks" and yet you can't help but enjoy it, for whatever reason.

Before I get into my own example let me preface it by installing this here flame shield, juuuuust in case.

Anyway. For me this thing, right now, is Homestuck. See, I love the characters. I think even the least developed of them is an interesting idea with possible hidden depths. This is certainly helped by some of the fans fleshing them out with their own interpretations.

On the other hand... I don't think Hussie's a good writer of story, I think the pacing of the comic is fairly bad, it can get far too convoluted, I hate the self-inserts, and every joke that's taking a direct (mean-spirited) jab at any part of the fanbase, good or bad, comes off as incredibly immature to me (e.g. I can't bring myself to genuinely like Kankri because of why he's characterized the way he is).

Despite all this, I stick with the comic, and even enjoy it. It's hard to explain. I don't quite understand it myself.

Enough about me, though, let's hear the thoughts of the rest of you guys. Go on, I promise I won't judge you too harshly. :33

 

[shrekfan246]

RAAAARGH KILL THE HOMESTUCK FANBOY!

Spoiler

I don't actually know what Homestuck is, despite having heard its name something like twenty times around here. I just had to do that because you preemptively raised a flame shield.

OT: Sonic the Hedgehog, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Crysis 2 and 3, Bioshock 2, Gravity Rush, Final Fantasy, etc. etc.

I could go on and on about the things I like and why I like them, despite them earning a lot of scorn from the general population of this forum. All the cynicism is making me jaded to being jaded, so I'm looking for reasons to like every new game that comes out, because everyone else has decided they're complete crap before they are even released.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

I really really like Dark Void.
Yes, the NON-jetpack parts are tedious sometimes, but the Jetpack parts?
Oh, the Jetpack parts are just soo damn awesome.

 

[Anachronism]

Pretty much everything ever, to be perfectly frank. Nothing is perfect, and if you dislike something if it has any problems, you're not going to actually enjoy much. Anyway, let's give a couple of examples for the sake of discussion.

For comics, Batman: Hush is probably the big one. The story is honestly pretty crap, with the big villain, whose identity is hilariously obvious, ultimately turning out to be a sidekick. The fact that the story shoehorns in every one of Batman's villains it can doesn't exactly do much for its coherence. And yet, I really like it anyway: the tour through Batman's rogues gallery is still very fun, and the chapter involving the Joker is a legitimately great one-issue story. More to the point, though, the art is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous: Jim Lee drawing Batman is always a good thing, and he does some of his best work here.

In games, we have Planescape: Torment. Probably the most narratively and thematically deep RPG ever made, and a strong contender for best story ever told in a videogame, it's high on my list of favourite games. But this doesn't change the fact that the combat is absolute tripe, and while most of the game is dialogue and most of the combat is avoidable, it does occasionally put you in a sequence where you have no choice but to do lots of fighting (such as Curst). The weird thing is, Black Isle showed that they could do good D&D combat with Icewind Dale, so I've no idea how Planescape's combat got to be so horrible.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Well, Sword Art Online, Guilty Crown, and High School of the Dead comes to mind.

Sword Art Online I hear people either praise or complain about. I lean more towards the "like it" category. I can see the problems, but I just find the show entertaining, regardless.

Guilty Crown people seems to be much more cynical about. I heard some people even call it one of the worst anime ever, which is complete bullshit. While it's not perfect, it's by no means as godawful as people make it out to be. You can say it's mediocre at best, but like Sword Art Online, I get entertainment out of it, and I can watch it more than once and not get bored.

As for High School of the Dead, my biggest complaint isn't the fanservice, but that for a zombie anime, the violence was far to tame. I've seen episodes of Adventure Time and Regular Show that had more brutal zombie action than HotD. Not even one zombie head explodes. Other than that it's a fun watch, and I can get a laugh out of some of the ecchi scenes (Matrix boobies, anyone?), and I tend to hate ecchi. Just like Guilty Crown, I can watch this multiple times.

As for games, the No More Heroes series. Really looking at them, there is a lot of problems, but the game is so charming and fun that it's impossible for me to hate them.

 

[DefunctTheory]

My 8X phone, even if it doesn't support VPN. I still love it.

 

[HardkorSB]

I watch tons of movies and:

- aside from Transformers 2 and Pearl Harbor, I like all of Michael Bay's movies
- I like Uwe Boll's Postal and Rampage
- I like Spiderman 3 (more than the other 2 movies in Raimi's trilogy, in fact)
- I even like Battlefield Earth (and not just on a "so bad it's good" level, although that too)
- Die Hard 4, despite not being a Die Hard movie, is pretty enjoyable

I don't think those movies are masterpieces or anything (for example, the filler in Bay's movies can be annoying, the tone in Spiderman 3 can change drastically within seconds and the acting in Battlefield earth can be terrible at times) but they're still decent entertainment.

 

[uzo]

The Elder Scrolls Adventure: Redguard

I swear I'm the only person who not only played it to completion, but actually enjoyed it. In fact, I enjoyed it more than vanilla Oblivion (Redguard was never modded so it's unfair to compare the wonders of the Nexus). Cyrus was awesome as a hero, and his search for his sister was quite believable (having killed her husband many years ago and run off to become a pirate, before returning to find his sister a significant figure in a rebellion against the Empire). Cyrus is downright Shakespearean in his elocution, and shits upon all voice "actors" (ie people who could talk and were free for an afternoon) in Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim (besides Patrick Stewart of course, who was simply hamstrung by a script written with the panache and literal dexterity of your average 9 yr old).

What's more, next to Lee from Walking Dead, he's probably the best non-stereotypical black men to appear in modern gaming or film who doesn't have 'gangsta style' as one of his combat moves.

So yeah, give it up for Redguard. Best most forgotten episode of the Elder Scrolls !

EDIT: The best voice acting I've found in Elder Scrolls is actually that Vilja in Skyrim mod. Damnit her accent makes me .. umm .. never mind. Let's just say she makes my Thu'um rumble.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

- I even like Battlefield Earth (and not just on a "so bad it's good" level, although that too)

Fun fact, one of my dad's close friends had a bit part as a "supply clerk" in that movie. I have no idea when he appears in it, but I do remember being shown that scene. It's the only part of the film I've seen outside of an internet reviewer's video.

snop

I've seen the trailer for that game. Suffice to say, it was not flattering. Not at all. Which, from what you've said, is too bad.
(Your descriptions of the voice actors in the more recent games are spot on, and did make me laugh)

Fallout: New Vegas, the game is a busted hunk of junk, but I have spent more time in that game than most, it is just too much fun!

I completely agree. It's unfortunate it ran on the engine that caused just about the ugliest possible humans, and conversations to freeze time with a zoom in on the speaker's face (making for some pretty silly moments if you were positioned just so). I liked it a lot more than FO3, and got quite attached to the character I created.

RAAAARGH KILL THE HOMESTUCK FANBOY!

Believe me, unless you plan to lose hours of your life, you do not want to look into Homestuck (unless of course you don't like it, which I didn't the first time I tried to read it). Please feel free to not kill me though. It would be much appreciated.

 

[War Penguin]

I love Fallout 3, despite it's crappy story, plot holes, and horrid treatment of the lore. It makes up for it in fantastic game design.

I love Fallout New Vegas, despite it's pretty crappy game design. It makes up for it in great story, great writing, and proper treatment of the lore.

[sub][sub]I'm gonna be hated for both of those comments. I can feel it! :S[/sub][/sub]

 

[Fluffythepoo]

Diablo 3 so much... love everything about the game, hate everything about what the game makes you do to play it. Its like someone punching you in the stomach before they take you out for ice cream

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Humans.

Between rape, religions, genocide, war, greed, pollution, ignorance, stupidity, oppression, oxymorons, ultra morons, morons in general, corruption, cannabalism, necrophilia and American Idol - I have enough reasons to see the race I'm associated with never to leave their floating little rock home in space.

But I like them for the comedy they give me, pizza they make, and sometimes great video games with which to entertain, enlighten and challenge me.

[sub][sub]And sex is pretty awesome, too![/sub][/sub]

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Armored Core: For Answer probably fits into this category the most. Not great multiplayer, the worst UI I've ever seen, disappointing campaign, the environments and explosions generally looked pretty awful, and the game's story was delivered pretty poorly. Why I like it? It has basically everything I wanted from Custom Robo when I first heard of it. That and more. The level of customization that you can put into a mech in that game is completely astounding. Choosing legs, arms, cores, engines, targeting systems, coloring and what completely blew my mind was how you can even adjust the stabilization. Even if it wasn't fun to pilot the mechs, that alone would have been enough to justify the game for me

 

[Britisheagle]

My girlfriend. AH I'm just messing!

Once game I thoroughly enjoyed despite not looking particularly good and constant glitches was Kingdoms of Amalur. Don't know why but I really enjoyed it.

More recently I remember getting so wound up by Assassins Creed 3 as the stealth mechanics don't seem as sharp as in previous games (e.g. Connor won't do as he is told sometimes) but I still play and love it.

 

[saluraropicrusa]

My girlfriend. AH I'm just messing!

Once game I thoroughly enjoyed despite not looking particularly good and constant glitches was Kingdoms of Amalur. Don't know why but I really enjoyed it.

More recently I remember getting so wound up by Assassins Creed 3 as the stealth mechanics don't seem as sharp as in previous games (e.g. Connor won't do as he is told sometimes) but I still play and love it.

I agree on KoA, I really did enjoy the game, despite never finishing it and acknowledging its problems. Also a very interesting looking game, with fun weapons, and I loved how they used actual Celtic myths for their lore.

On a similar note, I played Bullet Witch, and despite its terrible cheeze story-wise, and just not being stellar in general, I had fun with the time I put into it. The way the main character fought, and the weapon she used, was actually pretty bad-ass, and I liked some of the alternate costumes.

 

[Legion]

Gears of War is a series I like despite it's complete and utter failure to tell the story it was trying to. If you read the books, you will know what I mean, but the flaw is that you shouldn't even have to read them to know.

I love Fallout 3, despite it's crappy story, plot holes, and horrid treatment of the lore. It makes up for it in fantastic game design.

I love Fallout New Vegas, despite it's pretty crappy game design. It makes up for it in great story, great writing, and proper treatment of the lore.

[sub][sub]I'm gonna be hated for both of those comments. I can feel it! :S[/sub][/sub]

As for the first, I never really looked too much into the lore or plot of Fallout 3 so it didn't bother me too much. My enjoyment came from the exploration and creating my own character story. So I guess I am the same as you in that I loved it despite it's flaws.

As for the second, I am more surprised than anything. What was so bad about New Vega's game design? It was almost exactly the same as Fallout 3 except they added things like weapon modding, traits and factions, and proper companions. Or rather, they re-added them in, as they already existed in Fallout 2.

Genuine question, I am curious to know how you can dislike it when you like Fallout 3's.

Personally the only thing I liked less was the map itself. I found the lack of interesting places to explore quite disheartening. Not to mention how poorly created New Vegas itself was.

I agree with these two though. They both have flaws, but if you can ignore them, they are two of the best games of recent years.

 

[Kipiru]

I like a lot of flawed things, but I'll go with Bioware, since I love everything they do, regardless of what anyone says. Sure they have faults and so do their games, but they bring me unfailing joy every single time.