Your video game hot take(s) thread

[BrawlMan]

I understand that, but there have been a tonne of good CoD clones, GTA clones, Mario clones

PFFFFTTTTTHAHAHAH! Sorry, but I disagree heavily; especially with the first one on the list. Most COD clones were mediocre to average at best, and bad, pale imitations at worst. It's what sucked about 7th gen the most, and the fact most of these clones have yet to be ported to 8th or 9th gen consoles says otherwise. No off beaten paths to explore (forced to go in to a straight single line), two or three weapon limit, get behind cover to heal with the blood red screen, real is brown in full effect to most of the games involved, and grim and gritty for the sake of it and no nuance and boring. Insert most Gears of War clones too. Sturgeon's Law is in to effect as always. The same applies to GTA clones; most of them are not even in the "good" category. Now there are some GTA style/sandbox games better than GTA (especially IV & V), but that is few and far between.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

And so on, and on, a long string of bandwagons.

Gaming history holds a trail of broken bandwagons scattered across its landscape that would make Oregon Trail weep.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Am always confused when people claim resident evil 4 is supposed to be intentionally silly and/or humourous. Having played all the resident evils (mostly), it is no less stupid than the worst of them. And Capcom in general have a terrible track record of writing. It just so happens to be slightly more fun to play. Also I don't think there's any non-negligable difference between "campy" and "awful" in this and other series' neither. (Quadruple negative, yeah!)

 

[Casual Shinji]

Am always confused when people claim resident evil 4 is supposed to be intentionally silly and/or humourous. Having played all the resident evils (mostly), it is no less stupid than the worst of them. And Capcom in general have a terrible track record of writing. It just so happens to be slightly more fun to play. Also I don't think there's any non-negligable difference between "campy" and "awful" in this and other series' neither. (Quadruple negative, yeah!)

Well, one reason it could be seen as intentional is because the (dubbed) voice acting has a lot more effort put into it than previous games, yet the tone is far from serious. Meaning they put in the effort to make the characters come across as silly as they do. The previous games on the otherhand felt so silly due to the voice acting just kinda falling flat on its face. Not that I'm saying RE4 has masterful voice acting, but very few if any moments in that game felt like the voice actors wanted me to take their performance too serious, whereas RE2 and 3 gave me the opposite impression.

 

[BrawlMan]

Am always confused when people claim resident evil 4 is supposed to be intentionally silly and/or humourous. Having played all the resident evils (mostly), it is no less stupid than the worst of them. And Capcom in general have a terrible track record of writing. It just so happens to be slightly more fun to play. Also I don't think there's any non-negligable difference between "campy" and "awful" in this and other series' neither. (Quadruple negative, yeah!)

There's always people who pushed that idea, but when Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, Two Best Friends, and Movie Bob started pushing the whole it's intentionally funny mindset, everybody latched on it, because they felt officially "legitimized" when professionals spoke out. RE4 has some intentional funny/goofy moments, but they don't hit as much as the unintentionally funny/goofy moments.

 

[McElroy]

Interesting, I had no idea that was a thing. How does that work for online games?

Online games usually have online DRM.

 

[Dalisclock]

-All Cutscenes should be skippable. NO EXCEPTIONS! I don't care how much you really think people need to see your work. I probably won't care after the 1st time and I'll actively resent you if I have to watch the same unskippable cutscenes over and over again because it comes before a particularly difficult boss fight or gameplay section.

-All Cutscenes > 1-3 min need to be pausible. I need to go to the bathroom sometime and sometimes I don't get a lot of warning. Not to mention there's only so long I'm willing to risk my bladder for your glorious cutscene you decided needed to keep going for a while.

-Save points need to be in the game at regular intervals. I shouldn't have to play 3 missions or stages or whatever in a row before I can turn the game off and hope to keep my progress. If I need to finish a game session of Dark Souls, I can either find a safe spot and quit, or finish the boss fight I'm in and THEN log out. I literally shouldn't have to go for an hour before I can safely quite my game session and avoid losing progress(Unless it's a roguelike or something with a special save system like that).

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

-All Cutscenes should be skippable. NO EXCEPTIONS! I don't care how much you really think people need to see your work. I probably won't care after the 1st time and I'll actively resent you if I have to watch the same unskippable cutscenes over and over again because it comes before a particularly difficult boss fight or gameplay section.

-All Cutscenes > 1-3 min need to be plausible. I need to go to the bathroom sometime and sometimes I don't get a lot of warning. Not to mention there's only so long I'm willing to risk my bladder for your glorious cutscene you decided needed to keep going for a while.

-Save points need to be in the game at regular intervals. I shouldn't have to play 3 missions or stages or whatever in a row before I can turn the game off and hope to keep my progress. If I need to finish a game session of Dark Souls, I can either find a safe spot and quit, or finish the boss fight I'm in and THEN log out. I literally shouldn't have to go for an hour before I can safely quite my game session and avoid losing progress(Unless it's a roguelike or something with a special save system like that).

I’ll amend that last one and say all rogue likes should use a persistent save system like SoulsBorne. Same probably for online progress as well, where even if you get disconnected it’ll bring you back to roughly the moment before it happened or you did something significant like use an item or reload a weapon.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

-All Cutscenes should be skippable. NO EXCEPTIONS! I don't care how much you really think people need to see your work. I probably won't care after the 1st time and I'll actively resent you if I have to watch the same unskippable cutscenes over and over again because it comes before a particularly difficult boss fight or gameplay section.

Also, I don't want to sit through a whole minute of whiz-bang animated studio/publisher logos before I can even play the game. Make them skippable or give me some sort of method to automatically bypass them.

 

[Hawki]

-Borderlands is perhaps the most influential game of all time.

Um, how? It's not as if there's been a great looter-shooter explosion since it was released.

 

[Gyrobot]

Um, how? It's not as if there's been a great looter-shooter explosion since it was released.

It was not just the looter shooter but the narrative mindset that influence the writers with it's ironic humor and self depreciation that a lot of newer writers use for their cast.

 

[emanuela]

Black Cat in the PS4 Spidey game is a real horrible person for what she did to Peter. She lied to him about having a child, let him believe it was his, just so she could string him along to steal stuff, for profit. And when she's found out, her response is just "teehee, oh silly Spider, I was just playing with you. No hard feelings! Buhbye!"

 

[Xprimentyl]

It was not just the looter shooter but the narrative mindset that influence the writers with it's ironic humor and self depreciation that a lot of newer writers use for their cast.

Can that be contributed to Borderlands alone, though? Self-awareness had existed in gaming long before Borderlands.

 

[BrawlMan]

Can that be contributed to Borderlands alone, though? Self-awareness had existed in gaming long before Borderlands.

Yeah I don't know the point Gyrobot is trying to make. Self-awareness humor in gaming has always been there. Borderlands did not add anything new. The only thing it paved away for is being more obvious and obnoxious about it and less subtle. That's about it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Yeah I don't know the point Gyrobot is trying to make. Self-awareness humor in gaming has always been there. Borderlands did not add anything new. The only thing it paved away for is being more obvious and obnoxious about it unless subtle. That's about it.

Exactly. I honestly can't think of any significant impact Borderlands made on the industry outside of being a [then] unique and silly FPS with intriguing loot mechanics, i.e.: are there any overt Borderlands clones? Serious question; I could be wrong, but I can't think of any, let alone enough to merit crowning Borderlands as the "most influential game of all time."

 

[BrawlMan]

Exactly. I honestly can't think of any significant impact Borderlands made on the industry outside of being a [then] unique and silly FPS with intriguing loot mechanics, i.e.: are there any overt Borderlands clones? Serious question; I could be wrong, but I can't think of any, let alone enough to merit crowning Borderlands as the "most influential game of all time."

the only other influence I can think of is some of the loot mechanics, but that's nothing new to gaming either. I do know there was a slight upsurge in games using them but most didn't much new or different with them. Darksiders II has loot mechanics, but that was just copying Diablo's loot system. Transformers Devastation has a loot drop system, for better or worse. It was all right, but you had a limited amount of weapons you could store. Eventually, you would have to constantly keep selling weapons, otherwise you're inventory would get full in the menu. You could hold up 200 weapons total in your inventory. After that you would have to sell it if there is over that amount. It was either that or fused the weapons with other weapons to level them up a la Dynasty Warriors.

 

[MrCalavera]

Can that be contributed to Borderlands alone, though? Self-awareness had existed in gaming long before Borderlands.

Add to that, the Borderlands started around the same time as MCU. So seems like it was simply a time for cheeky, self-aware humor to become hip in the mainstream again.

 

[happyninja42]

Exactly. I honestly can't think of any significant impact Borderlands made on the industry outside of being a [then] unique and silly FPS with intriguing loot mechanics, i.e.: are there any overt Borderlands clones? Serious question; I could be wrong, but I can't think of any, let alone enough to merit crowning Borderlands as the "most influential game of all time."

Borderlands 2 made Ashley Burch a main stream voice actress, and got her a TON of public visibility, and she was in a lot of things after that game blew up. Not going to say she was totally unknown before that game, but it's definitely when I remember starting to see her name/face pop up all over the nerdosphere and gaming stuff.

It popularized that cell shading style of animation, that I don't really recall seeing very much prior to that game, but saw a lot more after.
It made the looter shooter a lot more marketable, as I've seen a lot of people compare CP2077 to Borderlands as far as the actual mechanics of the game, and what "progression" boils down to.

You started getting more "Charismatic Asshole" villains after Handsome Jack, to varying degrees of success, but they were there.

 

[BrawlMan]

It popularized that cell shading style of animation, that I don't really recall seeing very much prior to that game, but saw a lot more after.

Jet Set Radio, Viewtifull Joe, Mad World, Okami, No More Heroes, Killer 7, Sly Cooper, Wild Arms 3, Cel Damage, Prince of Persia 2008, Red Steel 2, and many others that came out before Borderlands wish to have words with you.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Borderlands 2 made Ashley Burch a main stream voice actress, and got her a TON of public visibility, and she was in a lot of things after that game blew up. Not going to say she was totally unknown before that game, but it's definitely when I remember starting to see her name/face pop up all over the nerdosphere and gaming stuff.

It popularized that cell shading style of animation, that I don't really recall seeing very much prior to that game, but saw a lot more after.
It made the looter shooter a lot more marketable, as I've seen a lot of people compare CP2077 to Borderlands as far as the actual mechanics of the game, and what "progression" boils down to.

You started getting more "Charismatic Asshole" villains after Handsome Jack, to varying degrees of success, but they were there.

And none of those things (if true) are tantamount to Borderlands being "the most influential game of all time." "All time" is a lot of time; it's ALL of it, to be more precise. That it might have influenced a few games riding on its unexpectedly successful coattails in a few aspects, fine; but did it widely change the industry as a whole in any appreciable way? Not at all. Cel shading, for example, is an aesthetic aspect, and I didn't see it widely adopted after Borderlands in which it, arguably, wasn't the biggest selling point of the game. They chose to do cel shade The Darkness 2, and it was completely dissonant compared to its predecessor and tone of the "franchise" ("franchise in quotes because I'm not sure if two games and a death sentence constitute a "franchise.")