Your video game hot take(s) thread

[thebobmaster]

The problem with someone getting the status of being an unassailable genius is that you can't criticize their bad ideas. It is nice that their good ideas don't get thrown into the blender of needing approval from everyone and their aunt, but it also means that any bad ideas get the same leeway straight into the finished product. Everyone, even really smart and great people, needs someone to call them on their bullshit from time to time.

That really reminded me of a story I heard when A New Hope was being made. Apparently, Harrison Ford read through the script after accepting the role of Han Solo, walked up to George Lucas, and said "George, you may be able to write this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it." He proceeded to not only re-write some of his lines, but encouraged Mark Hamill to do the same.

My point being that having Big Ideas (TM) is all well and good, but the best of creations have that person saying "No, honey, we need to do it this way." The best Star Wars movies were made by George Lucas...but when he had someone to shoot down the ideas that didn't work and run with the ones that did. When left to his own devices completely, we got the prequels. When he was removed entirely, we got the sequels.

 

[laggyteabag]

James Vega from Mass Effect 3 isn't bad.

James (like most of the human squad mates from the franchise) gets a lot of shit, and frequently lands at/near the bottom of pretty much every Mass Effect companion ranked list, which I think is unfair.

I mean, sure, he isn't Garrus, or Liara, or Tali - but I played through all of ME3 once, with James in my squad, and I actually like him a lot.

I just don't think that he deserves to be compared to Jacob, Kaiden, or Ashley.

 

[thebobmaster]

I feel like the issue with James Vega (keep in mind, I agree with you that he's not a bad companion) is that he's essentially your standard soldier at first glance, and it can take some effort to look past that and see the depths of his character. Which would be more understandable if he were introduced in the first game, but by game 3, when you had all the development from Garrus, Tali, and Liara over the last 3 games, and the development of even party members from 2 that were glorified cameos in 3 like Grunt, it could be easy to just assume James Vega is nothing more than the hunky soldier.

Also, to be honest, it's a little creepy how quickly/readily he flirts with FemShep. Chain of command, dude.

 

[laggyteabag]

Also, to be honest, it's a little creepy how quickly/readily he flirts with FemShep. Chain of command, dude.

The interesting thing with James is that you cannot actually romance him.

Femshep and James just have flirty banter, but James actually gets progressively more awkward about it as the game goes on.

If you are really persistent in the Citadel DLC, you can have a drunken one-night-stand with him, but he tries really hard to shoot you down throughout the whole party, on account of the whole Commander Shepard thing. Its actually quite creepy on Femshep's part.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Silent Hill 4 is better than it gets credit for. One of those, “the whole is greater than…” entries IMO, marred by some design choices that made it feel more frustrating on the back half than it should have been. The escort section having to safeguard Eileen’s health for a particular ending, and the finickiness of the room’s hauntings were my biggest gripes, but I adjusted to the other differences. It has IMO one of the best premises and stories in the survival horror genre. When all elements were working it was amazing. When not, it proved to be divisive as these couple videos demonstrate over what the main issues were with the game -

 

[meiam]

James Vega from Mass Effect 3 isn't bad.

James (like most of the human squad mates from the franchise) gets a lot of shit, and frequently lands at/near the bottom of pretty much every Mass Effect companion ranked list, which I think is unfair.

I mean, sure, he isn't Garrus, or Liara, or Tali - but I played through all of ME3 once, with James in my squad, and I actually like him a lot.

I just don't think that he deserves to be compared to Jacob, Kaiden, or Ashley.

Mostly agree but I think the problem with James is that he feel like he's taking the place of some other character. ME2 build this giant roster of squad mate and then ME3 immediately discard all of them and instead give you this new guy.

But yeah he's miles better than Jacob "I make vanilla pudding seem interesting" and Kaiden "I have no personality". I actually quite liked him and his banter with the shuttle pilot.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

The escort section having to safeguard Eileen’s health

I was somewhat enjoying SH4 up until that point. I slammed into the "I just can't" wall hard enough to leave an imprint of my face.

 

[Gordon_4]

James Vega from Mass Effect 3 isn't bad.

James (like most of the human squad mates from the franchise) gets a lot of shit, and frequently lands at/near the bottom of pretty much every Mass Effect companion ranked list, which I think is unfair.

I mean, sure, he isn't Garrus, or Liara, or Tali - but I played through all of ME3 once, with James in my squad, and I actually like him a lot.

I just don't think that he deserves to be compared to Jacob, Kaiden, or Ashley.

I was iffy on Vega, but after the first few missions and conversations with him, I came to adore the giant lug and I think he compares and contrasts very favorably with Ash. Kaiden and Jacob.......well Kaiden swings between wallpaper paste and earnest puppy love so hard I'm shocked he hasn't broken his own neck and Jacob was so fucking dull that he would blend in with the Normandy's hull and then the romance with him - for all ten people who did it - was fucking fumbled massively in Mass Effect 3. Like holy shit, who's idea was that because it was awful.

So in short, James is awesome but he was tainted by being announced with Diana Allers.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I was somewhat enjoying SH4 up until that point. I slammed into the "I just can't" wall hard enough to leave an imprint of my face.

I did the same thing my first of two failed attempts at playing it; initially about a couple years after release on Xbox, making it near the end but train-wrecking my play through dealing with Eileen. Then maybe five years later I tried again with the shitty PC port that bugged out on me in the subway thanks to a resolution glitch. It took finding the original Japanese version for PS3 on PS store a few years after that, where I actually created a second account just to download it, to finally see it through.

Maybe the third time was the charm or my prior experiences helped steady my nerve, but somehow I got through it with Eileen literally one step away from death when killing the final boss. Ended up being strangely well worth the previous bouts of suffering.

 

[BrawlMan]

Travis Touchdown is hands down the most developed and consistent video game protagonist ever made. It's amazing to see how much he has changed over the past soon to be four games now. Not just him, but certain supporting characters too.

 

[Gordon_4]

Councillor Udina got a raw deal in Mass Effect as a whole, and Anderson was a terrible pick for the council.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Councillor Udina got a raw deal in Mass Effect as a whole, and Anderson was a terrible pick for the council.

Yeah, but people didn't like Udina anyway, so might as well turn him into a traitorous double agent, right? - Bioware logic

 

[Gordon_4]

Yeah, but people didn't like Udina anyway, so might as well turn him into a traitorous double agent, right? - Bioware logic

It’s not even a unique logic; most games with a military protagonist - that aren’t deconstructionist or whatnot - all sing from the same hymn sheet in regards to their civilian characters in high office. Their either set dressing, boot lickers or deliberately obstructionist and corrupt in ways that defy logic and even ability!

 

[Gyrobot]

Make sense though, aside from the race that they nearly started a galactic war with. Every other council race turned their backs on humanity as they wanted to save their own skin. Udina was suffering from a lot of bad PR as Anderson and Hackett was carrying the weight of leading the resistance on Earth and building the Crucible. Once the crisis was over his career will be in ruins. Remembered only as the opportunist who did nothing useful

Since TIM promise results and being the one who discovered the Reaper crisis and decided to fight it instead of becoming complacent. He decided to throw his lot with Cerberus who he believed was trying to beat the Reapers on their own terms and planned to seize the Citadel to install an all human council to lead the fleet to retake earth without the crucible

 

[09philj]

James Vega from Mass Effect 3 isn't bad.

James (like most of the human squad mates from the franchise) gets a lot of shit, and frequently lands at/near the bottom of pretty much every Mass Effect companion ranked list, which I think is unfair.

I mean, sure, he isn't Garrus, or Liara, or Tali - but I played through all of ME3 once, with James in my squad, and I actually like him a lot.

I just don't think that he deserves to be compared to Jacob, Kaiden, or Ashley.

James just has the unfortunate distinction of being the only new (non Prothean) squad member in the last game of the trilogy. I also think he's the most fun out of the three Alliance soldiers you run with. The human squad members in ME are a serious mixed bag; I like Zaeed, Kasumi, and James but they're also the most limited in terms of content, Miranda and Jack are alright when they're not being arseholes, Jacob is bland, and I would rather have left Ashley and Kaiden to die on Virimire.

 

[Gordon_4]

James just has the unfortunate distinction of being the only new squad member in the last game of the trilogy. I also think he's the most fun out of the three Alliance soldiers you run with. The human squad members in ME are a serious mixed bag; I like Zaeed, Kasumi, and James but they're also the most limited in terms of content, Miranda and Jack are alright when they're not being arseholes, Jacob is bland, and I would rather have left Ashley and Kaiden to die on Virimire.

Ashley I liked, I mean her personality in ME1 was pretty much “God, the Corps, Honour and Tennyson” but it was at least A personality. Kaiden wasn’t as interesting and Jacob had his character full on assassinated if Fem!Shep romanced him. I mean he sucked, but that was the writers doing him dirty.

Zaeed was the fucking best though, loved that cranky old bastard.

 

[Dalisclock]

Ashley I liked, I mean her personality in ME1 was pretty much “God, the Corps, Honour and Tennyson” but it was at least A personality. Kaiden wasn’t as interesting and Jacob had his character full on assassinated if Fem!Shep romanced him. I mean he sucked, but that was the writers doing him dirty.

Zaeed was the fucking best though, loved that cranky old bastard.

Ashley was fine when she wasn't being casually racist. Ironically, I still took her over Kaiden when I played through the trilogy because IIRC her racism isn't nearly as noticable in ME2/ME3 and Kaiden is always bland as fuck, so an occasionally shitty personality is better then none at all.

 

[Gordon_4]

Ashley was fine when she wasn't being casually racist. Ironically, I still took her over Kaiden when I played through the trilogy because IIRC her racism isn't nearly as noticable in ME2/ME3 and Kaiden is always bland as fuck, so an occasionally shitty personality is better then none at all.

I don’t think Ash is a racist, at least not as we would use the term. She has a massive chip on her shoulders with the Turians because of her grandfather’s surrender in the First Contact War. I think what they were trying for with her was someone who succeeds with familiarity breeding understanding. And of course there is the common trope of fire forged friendships which is pretty ubiquitous in genres like this.

But yes; occasionally repellent beats white noise that walks like a man in an RPG.

 

[meiam]

James just has the unfortunate distinction of being the only new squad member in the last game of the trilogy. I also think he's the most fun out of the three Alliance soldiers you run with. The human squad members in ME are a serious mixed bag; I like Zaeed, Kasumi, and James but they're also the most limited in terms of content, Miranda and Jack are alright when they're not being arseholes, Jacob is bland, and I would rather have left Ashley and Kaiden to die on Virimire.

I think Ashley is semi okay so I'd still keep her around, but the problem is that every other character in ME1 is a character+race while the human are just themselves. Tali is her character but also inform you about the Geth V Quarian side of the story. Wrex is his character but also talk about the Genophage and Krogan. Garus is his character and the Turian. Liara is her character but also Asari and background Prothean stuff. Ashley and Kaiden are just themselves and that's not much sadly. Earth/alliance doesn't seem all that different from contemporary human, at least when compared to alien, so none of this is there to make them more interesting.

ME2/ME3 written were better at doing character (sadly much worse at doing plot) so later human character were a bit more fleshed out. Except Jacob, so boring the writer didn't even think that anyone would have romanced him and he just ditch you in ME3, which always make me laugh. My tin foil hat is that early in the concept of ME2 Cerberus was supposed to be more morally ambiguous and it was Jacob job to bring this out so he would be Jacob + good side of Cerberus. Bu then they double down on Cerberus as space racist (which never worked since they seem just as happy to slaughtering innocent human as alien) and that left Jacob with just himself and... there's just nothing there.

 

[BrawlMan]

• Steam is better than Epic Game Store.
• If I had to choose between the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, I would still pick the Genesis every single time.
• The Nintendo 64 controller is the Tommy Wiseau of video game controllers.