Things you used to love that you now hate

[Trunkage]

I generally prefer War Battles over Action Hero fights. But combine them both and you get 300, and I still watch 300 for the action from time to time

Personally, I think action movies peaked in the 1980s: none of that ultra fast-cutting and CGI bullshit to save the directors the effort of creating proper thrills the hard way.

Strongly disagree. I remember things like Commando and Missing in Action. Die Hard and Robocop have aged but are still okay. As bad as action movies are now, they were nowhere near as bad as the former.

I think this comes with distance from that time too. We forget about all those awful movies and just remember the good ones. It seems like it was a good decade if you don't remember the crap

I gotta agree with Agema to some extent. In my case, actions films peeked in 80s and 90s. The early 2000s is where the genre starts to falter. First, you had everyone and their grandmother copying or doing a "parody" of the Matrix. Even the franchise itself was chasing its own tail with the crappy sequels. Bullet time became old hat by the time 2006 rolled around, unless you're playing video games (that came with its own problems too later). Second, the biggest issue was The Bourne Supremacy, anything Michael Bay did, and Saving Private Ryan to a lesser extent. Everyone was copying Bourne and doing the whole shaky cam to an even worse degree. With more quick cutting and hap hazard editing than Bay admitted himself that we wouldn't fucking do. I was never a hardcore Bourne fan, but I think the trilogy as a whole is just okay; with the Identity being the best one. Legacy should have been its own movie, and the newest entry just flat out sucked. I don't know how a friend of mine or my family enjoyed that piece of trash.

Not only standard action films suffered from this, but spy thrillers or action thrillers as a whole: Salt, Bond'a Quantum of Solace, Taken (the shaky cam gets worse in each installment), Crank 2, and Transporter 3. Oh my God, American action movies suffered so much from this after Bourne originally finished up. It took until like 2013/2014 for non-superhero action films to stop doing this, but even some recent superhero films suffer from quick cut editing too. See some scenes in Civil War if you don't know what I am talking about. Movies like Skyfall, John Wick, The Kingsman, and Ninja 2: Shadow of Tear Showed you don't need any of that stupid bullshit for "realism" or to hide to fact you don't know how to do an action scene. With this, and stuff like Atomic Blonde and the recent Mission Impossible, Hollywood will hire more competent action directors and stunt coordinators. And if you are going to di shaky cam do it fucking right like the Raid movies.

See my points:






Watch this guys stuff, if you're into action films.

I'm not denying there aren't bad movies. I'm just saying that we don't remember the bad ones from decades ago.

Also, I felt Skyfall and John Wick were pretty uninteresting. So I probably have no taste or whatever. I stopped watching James Bond after that movie. But then the Cainso Royale from last decade is the only James Bond worth watching. QoS was pretty lacklustre and Skyfall being legit bad. I don't know why John Widk is held up as good. Watching it once for me. That was enough. I prefer to see Bright again. (Another lacklustre movie that had far more intersesting things going on the John Wick. But that's a low bar, tbh.)

 

[BrawlMan]

Also, I felt Skyfall and John Wick were pretty uninteresting. So I probably have no taste or whatever. I stopped watching James Bond after that movie. But then the Cainso Royale from last decade is the only James Bond worth watching. QoS was pretty lacklustre and Skyfall being legit bad. I don't know why John Widk is held up as good. Watching it once for me. That was enough. I prefer to see Bright again. (Another lacklustre movie that had far more intersesting things going on the John Wick. But that's a low bar, tbh.)

I do remember the bad ones from the 90s at least. Basically, anything that was a straight-video sequel that had nothing to do with the stars of the original film, any Seagal film post Glimmer Man (with Exit Wounds being an okay exception), some of Van Damme's output in the mid to late 90s when he started losing steam, and the sequels to Aliens are very lackluster. With many more I can't think of at the moment. But even the worse ones usually knew to keep the camera fucking still, compared to average action movies that came out in the naughties where many film makers and producers had trouble figuring out.

 

[Agema]

Strongly disagree. I remember things like Commando and Missing in Action. Die Hard and Robocop have aged but are still okay. As bad as action movies are now, they were nowhere near as bad as the former.

I think this comes with distance from that time too. We forget about all those awful movies and just remember the good ones. It seems like it was a good decade if you don't remember the crap

I loved a lot of the crap.

The 80s was full of cheap and cheerful action and horror movies. Some may have been B-movies or only a small step up, and in many ways they can be as hokey as hell - but they're fun. Perhaps also in the 80s there was less reliance on mind-numbing sequels of generally diminishing returns, and thus perhaps more inventiveness.

I liked that the 80s had stuff (usually more in the horror domain) that was absolutely barking mad. Videodrome, From Beyond, Galaxy of Terror, Ice Pirates. Some of this stuff is really good, some it's junk, but even the junk tends to be fun.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

-Online play. Mainly because a lot of developers like to use the fact that you can fight others remove the need for them to actually make compelling game play. I like a game that I can enjoy on my own. A game that can always sate me without the need of an internet connection and other people's focus.

Because simply put, save for a few gems, a game that relies on other people's interaction is a game with a Shelf Life by design. It doesn't even matter how popular the game is.

Anyway, Real-Time Strategy used to be one of my fave genres. Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Total Annihilation. Tried replaying some a while back, and couldn't stand them, I got bored so quickly. Much prefer good Turn-Based Strategy now.

Actually, I'm the absolute opposite of this. I'm the type of guy who thought Civilization and XCom was the second coming. Until I had my own experience with this (this isn't me, but the only other guy I've see who has had this happen to him)


Not to mention the aliens just happening to know where I am at all times even though I CRAWLED to my destination. I don't find games that go "No. You're just going to lose now" fun.

I like actually controlling what happens to me instead of a dice roll I have no say. But as a man of contradictions, I'm a loot whore and I love hack and slash games. I just might not know what I want.

-Warhammer 40,000 (while I can't say I dislike it per se, I'm far less enamored than I once was. A lot of it comes off as juvenile to me now)

I've started with the games rather than the tabletop. I remember having some time to kill after classes were done, so I went to McGill station and into the underground city. I went to my favorite games store and there was this... cover. Of this green terminator Endoskeleton. And I asked the guy behind the desk about it. He asked me about my RTS pedigree. I listed Warcraft to up to Age of Empires II. He smiled, and told me I should get this game called Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.

It ran like shit on my old laptop, but I was never so focused on a game since I moved to Montreal. I was hooked. Hooked. My girlfriend at the time hated it. She was like "Lolz, I have girl parts" and I was like "Nah, dude. Space Marines". I beat the campaign and I literally restarted the campaign again after the credits.

I was in love with the series, is what I'm trying to share here.

And then, Dawn of War III.

I just... I've tried to sum up how disappointed I was with the game many times. But to me, it was the very zeitgeist of the moment: Ship out a bare bones unit that makes people want more so we can sell them more later. Everything was less from the previous games.

Dawn of War had four playable races up to NINE with all the add ons. Space Marines had four different weapons they could choose from and you could mix and match it anyway you wanted. Maps, we got them. The add ons had integrated mod support.

Dawn of War 2 went back to four playable races, and a modest 7 at the end of it. But the emphasis on heroes meant you can play the same race a multitude of ways.

Dawn of War 3 had... what, three races? No dlc because it was abandoned. Two power ups for the once versatile marine. The graphics were hideous, it took out the visceral sync kills, the animations were laughable...

It was like a slap in the face.

It felt like someone took a box and put on 'DaWN of WaR 40k' on it and said "I know you love this shit. So just pay for the box. Don't think about it. Hey, don't worry about what you're getting. You're a fan, right? A fan will take whatever Games Workshop allows."

I was so let down that I was actually insulted. I waited seven years for this game. And when they gave us a disappointing product, instead of fixing it, Relic was like "Shit, you guys didn't buy enough of this crap product. Too bad you failed us, we could have given you something great", took their shit and went home.

At that moment, their treatment of the fans hit a level where I just matched my level of caring to their level of caring of us. Hence me mentioning them on this 'things you used to love that now hate' thread.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Video games?

I haven't picked up a title that I was able to play for more than a few hours. I don't hate them, and I still follow the news, but I don't seem to have the energy to keep playing them.