Your video game hot take(s) thread

Specter Von Baren

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I also realise that I appreciate sobriety in games but also that this may not be the word I seek. Uh. Sobriété. Restraint, soberness ?

This is not a stance about how drunk the characters or developpers should be. What I mean is that I like stuff stay a bit boringly grounded or minimalistic at times. To be more "The Terminator" (a "Duel"-like chase with a human truck) than "T2: Judgement Day". I love this sequel, but maybe I appreciate even more the original tight little thriller. Sequels tend to expand a lot, and dilute their matter and its impact. Again, like the Alien franchise starts adding sentient AI, telepathy, DNA memory (or, if you broaden it, other franchise monsters), losing the force of its origins.

We're talking games here. I really liked The Escapists. It was a nifty little "Escape from Alcatraz" simulation, stressfull and annoying and frustrating but the way prison life has to be : the annoying chores were a good hindrance to your schedule, and you had to plan the escape in the cracks of these everyday activities. But the sequel expands with silly customizations and items, scifi stuff, etc. It becomes a whole other wonky universe, which certainly has its public and value (it's a more comedic take?), but I saw it as a "more" that killed the pragmatic tone of the first. I haven't bought the Rimworld DLCs either, because they expand its scifi world to too much fantasy and intrusive aspects (I didn't really want magical telepathic cults in my colony). I haven't bought the DLCs of Surviving Mars either, as I was interested in how a Mars colony would work, and not the star wars fantasy of generic dome city on green terraformed planets. I find the base subject matter more interesting than their everything goes appendices. I loved Jurassic Park Operation Genesis, but I have little interest in the recent Jurassic World Evolution games and their imaginary dinosaurs fabrication labs, which defeat the paleontological interest of Jurassic Park by making it an Impossible Creatures themed park.

I also like the original Far Cry and Assassin Creed a lot. They are derided as empty tech demos, but I find their sequels too bloated (that being said, I also like the fact tat Far Cry's sequels are devoid of mutant monsters - Far Cry's selling point was its open landscaped allowing for various sneaky approaches of the enemy, and the mutant monsters' super senses defeated this to some extent in the second half of the game). So it's not just the theme and universes, that I like to be well defined, but also the gameplay. In that sense, I understand why the fans of Mafia 1 and 2 were disappointed by 3.

And I'm thinking about that, because I follow the release of KSP2. It will eventually include interstellar travel, which gets a bit too scifi for me (what, wormholes? llightspeed travels with no time distorsion? even faster travels to bridge thousands lightyears distant systems?), and the color customizations themselves detract from the (admittedly alien and crazy) nasa transposition feel by going straight to comics flying saucer colors.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is my videogame hot take of the day : fun is awful and should be forbidden.
Add the OG Gungrave versus Overdose to that pile too.
 

hanselthecaretaker

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This might’ve been mentioned already about SP’s but it would seem the best thing about them (maybe this is just because I like MST3K) is allowing the player to fill in the blanks/add lib with their own thoughts. True it’s kinda awkward to do out loud if there’s anyone else around (“Why are you talking to yourself, you fucking psycho?”) but even just thinking internally it can give the protagonist a uniquely personal touch. With some games it’s easy to assume they were going for the immersion factor (like HL2) so maybe that was part of the idea aside from saving time/money.
 
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Absent

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Just as a reminder, here's the absolute totality of tom hardy's lines in fury road :


(to be fair he was a bit tired after dark knight rises)
 

Gordon_4

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Just as a reminder, here's the absolute totality of tom hardy's lines in fury road :


(to be fair he was a bit tired after dark knight rises)
Yeah but Tom Hardy is capable of a level of acting that’s a bit beyond the wit of most video game characters
 
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Drathnoxis

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Rimworld has the worst speedruns I've ever seen. It's basically just sitting there AFK for 25 minutes.
 

Old_Hunter_77

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Inspired by the whole JRPG exchange that came up with the Final Fantasy 16 promotion...

The names of things are fine. JRPGs, metroidvanias, soulslikes, roguelikes, etc. They're fine because we use them and everybody knows what we mean.
It's a recurring thing in streams, we argue about it- Jesse Galina and KC have gone into semantic discussions with chat on what to call things, and it's all in good fun and we like to take the piss. This is the least serious argument lol, but still...

Terms are fine if they're used. Some apparently don't like that it's calling a game style but another game. But it works! It's not like movies or books where you can describe things by narrative approach or mood (comedy, action, drama). Game descriptions have to convey what it's like to actually play the game. When someone tells me it's a roguelike, it means I'll be starting over all the time. If someone says soulslike that means it's hard and I'll be losing my upgrade currency. And it's not perfect, there are a million exceptions and you can nitpick but the point is to get you grounded.. it's a conversation shortcut.
 

BrawlMan

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Inspired by the whole JRPG exchange that came up with the Final Fantasy 16 promotion...

The names of things are fine. JRPGs, metroidvanias, soulslikes, roguelikes, etc. They're fine because we use them and everybody knows what we mean.
It's a recurring thing in streams, we argue about it- Jesse Galina and KC have gone into semantic discussions with chat on what to call things, and it's all in good fun and we like to take the piss. This is the least serious argument lol, but still...

Terms are fine if they're used. Some apparently don't like that it's calling a game style but another game. But it works! It's not like movies or books where you can describe things by narrative approach or mood (comedy, action, drama). Game descriptions have to convey what it's like to actually play the game. When someone tells me it's a roguelike, it means I'll be starting over all the time. If someone says soulslike that means it's hard and I'll be losing my upgrade currency. And it's not perfect, there are a million exceptions and you can nitpick but the point is to get you grounded.. it's a conversation shortcut.
Speaking of which, there was a time and even now where certain people didn't want call Action Games (DMC, Ninja Gaiden, God of War, Bayonetta, etc.) brawlers or beat'em ups, because they're "not button mashers, or due to trying to make them sound more special than what they are. Or because you're doing more than using melee. So? You can have all the platforming, divergent gameplay segments, and weapons all you want, but in their core, that's what they are.

Gaming critics eased off this in the late 2000s, bur certain individuals on YT or streamers won't stop doing that. All of these games were inspired by the beat'em up/hack n slasher genre from the arcade days, and there is no shame in admitting this. Kamiya and Mikami admitted this from the freaking start! I remember when HVGN [Derek] (now Stop Skeleton's From Fighting) said in a podcast with some other guy claiming how the modern Ninja Gaiden games aren't brawlers because you use melee weapons and swords. The other guy disagreed and I don't blame him. This podcast/video discussion happened about a year after Ninja Gaiden II released. The video is long gone and I don't know the other guy's name, so good luck finding it.

  1. Ryu (and the playable Kunoichi or Rachel) can throw people and uses ninja wrestling moves! That's brawler material right there!
  2. When Ryu has the Falcon Talons (Gauntlet Vega Claws on hands and feet) equipped, he uses punches and kicks along with slashing and stabbing.
Gaming Brit had a similar rant/problem and said to call these games "JUST ACTION GAMES!" I get not wanting to split hairs, but these genres have always crossed bred with each other. DMC and Bayonetta are definitely beat'em ups. Dante has punch and kick attacks when equipping a gauntlet style weapon. The same for Vergil. Nero is a grappler character and punches thing when necessary with his demonic arm. Bayonetta punches and kicks high plenty of times. Due note that GB had this "discussion" as damage control for his God of War 4 review biatch fit video. So definitely take what he says smaller than grain of salt.
 

Specter Von Baren

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Inspired by the whole JRPG exchange that came up with the Final Fantasy 16 promotion...

The names of things are fine. JRPGs, metroidvanias, soulslikes, roguelikes, etc. They're fine because we use them and everybody knows what we mean.
It's a recurring thing in streams, we argue about it- Jesse Galina and KC have gone into semantic discussions with chat on what to call things, and it's all in good fun and we like to take the piss. This is the least serious argument lol, but still...

Terms are fine if they're used. Some apparently don't like that it's calling a game style but another game. But it works! It's not like movies or books where you can describe things by narrative approach or mood (comedy, action, drama). Game descriptions have to convey what it's like to actually play the game. When someone tells me it's a roguelike, it means I'll be starting over all the time. If someone says soulslike that means it's hard and I'll be losing my upgrade currency. And it's not perfect, there are a million exceptions and you can nitpick but the point is to get you grounded.. it's a conversation shortcut.
It's interesting how Horror is the one exception here. It doesn't represent what you do but how the game is supposed to make you feel and that leads to horror games being anything and everything under the sun.
 
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XsjadoBlaydette

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Checking out the demo for Wo Lang. Seems alright. Thoooo contrary to what others claim, this game does not have a double jump, it has one jump followed by a timid disagreement with gravity.
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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Cookie Clicker is a fantastic model both for showing the concrete differences in large numbers and that, in order to make truley vast amounts of money, you rely on cheating, luck, and the rampant exploitation of other people and resources. Doing the actual work (clicking) is for suckers and will just ruin your body (mouse) in the end
 

BrawlMan

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Inspired by the whole JRPG exchange that came up with the Final Fantasy 16 promotion...
Another thing about that was: For a good while and for the rest of the 7th generation of gaming, there was xenophobic attitudes towards Japanese gaming. Mainly from the game journalist, their hype people or machine, and gamers who hated anything Japanese to begin with. "Anime is gay! Boss fights are too old fashion! Anything non-Western is too weird or should be a generic shooter!" Not helping matters was that the Japanese video game economy was not doing well for the time. A lot of Japanese companies had trouble transitioning to the HD era (a few Western one as well, but mainly those were mid budget studios), or had a near decade identity crisis. It's no golden age like it was way back then before the HD era, but I will take plenty of what we got now, over nothing or trying to please assholes who never cared/pretended to care in the first place.

What I like about the 8th generation (starting around 2015 when I noticed) of consoles and now, are companies like Capcom and a few others started getting their heads out their asses and just make great and fun games. Not overly obsessed with catering towards "all of the Western market". They stopped being afraid of embracing their Japanese roots and not worry about people who never cared about them to begin with. Now Capcom still does have focus on the Western market, but they're no longer afraid of who they are. They've embraced their history, yet seek to improve their craft and always willing to experiment with new ideas. That is something that has always stuck with Capcom, even during the 7th generation of consoles. As much crap as I gave to DmC (2013), even it has new ideas that started something, but done better in later games released on the market.

Watch this video for more details on what I was taking about in the first paragraph.

 
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Gordon_4

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Okay with the implicit understanding this is (probably) the SFW portion of a porn parody, it occurs to me that I would love just as much, if not in some ways prefer, that Overwatch's fluff was in fact just an absurd, sitcom shenanigan comedy fest and that all these people are in fact friends and the Overwatch matches are just some kind of high end game show ala Takeshi's Magic Castle.
 

The Rogue Wolf

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...it occurs to me that I would love just as much, if not in some ways prefer, that Overwatch's fluff was in fact just an absurd, sitcom shenanigan comedy fest and that all these people are in fact friends and the Overwatch matches are just some kind of high end game show ala Takeshi's Magic Castle.
It'd be a more believable reason for why some of these bitter enemies end up on the same team.
 
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BrawlMan

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Okay with the implicit understanding this is (probably) the SFW portion of a porn parody, it occurs to me that I would love just as much, if not in some ways prefer, that Overwatch's fluff was in fact just an absurd, sitcom shenanigan comedy fest and that all these people are in fact friends and the Overwatch matches are just some kind of high end game show ala Takeshi's Magic Castle.
 
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