Post your unpopular video game opinions
Discussion
To make up for the thread that was deleted the other day (content creation or not, every video game group and forum in the land has one of these threads going). Let's hear your unpopular opinions in video games, the more contentious the better.
I'll start, and I'll go wity a few bits on survival horror since it is such a contentious topic:
1) Resident Evil 4 is totally overrated. All the hard work of building atmosphere in the first third of the game is totally squandered by the time Leon gets to the castle. Things get even worse at the end when you end up on the island military base. Yet another case of the budget running out and the ending being budged, which kind of sounds like...
2) Resident Evil 7 is total s
te. It's heralded as some sort of masterpiece because it runs well. Being a walking simulator with very little environmental interactivity, you would expect that. The family of baddies are just goofy. The biggest sin though is the introduction of that stupid little girl as the main antagonist. It seemed like Capcom were going for a spooky supernatural element with the generic spooky ghost girl. Revealing it later to be yet more genetic modification and viral tampering shatterd any suspension of disbelief. The long section on the cargo ship at the end felt like utter padding, but imagine the run time without it.
5) RE5 is miles better than RE4 and there is no denying that.
6) I much preferred the dark and violent tone of Silent Hill 3 to the grey-toned, subdued atmosphere if Silent Hill 2. They're both great but SH3 was the more horrifying experience, if not the better story.
And on the subject of great RPG's:
7) Final Fantasy 7 is rightly regarded as a masterpiece RPG but Final Fantasy 9 is the better game, with better characters, a more consistent look and feel and a better story.
I'll start, and I'll go wity a few bits on survival horror since it is such a contentious topic:
1) Resident Evil 4 is totally overrated. All the hard work of building atmosphere in the first third of the game is totally squandered by the time Leon gets to the castle. Things get even worse at the end when you end up on the island military base. Yet another case of the budget running out and the ending being budged, which kind of sounds like...
2) Resident Evil 7 is total s
te. It's heralded as some sort of masterpiece because it runs well. Being a walking simulator with very little environmental interactivity, you would expect that. The family of baddies are just goofy. The biggest sin though is the introduction of that stupid little girl as the main antagonist. It seemed like Capcom were going for a spooky supernatural element with the generic spooky ghost girl. Revealing it later to be yet more genetic modification and viral tampering shatterd any suspension of disbelief. The long section on the cargo ship at the end felt like utter padding, but imagine the run time without it. 5) RE5 is miles better than RE4 and there is no denying that.
6) I much preferred the dark and violent tone of Silent Hill 3 to the grey-toned, subdued atmosphere if Silent Hill 2. They're both great but SH3 was the more horrifying experience, if not the better story.
And on the subject of great RPG's:
7) Final Fantasy 7 is rightly regarded as a masterpiece RPG but Final Fantasy 9 is the better game, with better characters, a more consistent look and feel and a better story.
Crafty_ said:
Red Dead Redemption 2 is fantastically detailed graphically, sadly thats where the good news ends. There is no story, its just a collection of repeated "ride your horse to this place, shoot people, ride back to camp" with minor detail variations. There is no link between the missions, no progression in story or characters, they even ran out of ideas for the later bits of the game and resorted to making the player occasionally press a button to advance cut scenes.
There is being reductive and then there is posting something that is just false. Whether or not you like RDR2, there is no denying that it has a story and a developing narrative. It might not be the most high brow of tales, but it's definitely story driven and does tackle some thematic and philosophical concepts by the end. It takes an interesting turn from a rolling-Western into an examination of fatalism and redemption, and whilst it makes no deep inspection of either theme, they're both there.
Even if you're not looking for deep subtext, the entertaining tale of the increasingly disastrous attempts of the gang to get back on an even keel is very entertaining. For a Rockstar open world game, I thought they did a very good job of keeping it on task over what is a really long story.
dai1983 said:
Halo was ruined by the Flood, the Warthog race out of the ship at the end and the second half of the game is the first half but in reverse.
The Flood serve a purpose in the story and are necessary but maybe a bit overdone by the end of Halo: CE. I mean, that run on 'The Library' was easily my least favourite part of a Legendary run on that game. I quite like fighting the Flood for five minutes at a time but some of them have always been too tanky (like the mission inside the Flood infested ship in Halo 3, christ). Another unpopular opinion but one that is utterly right is that FFIX is the best Final Fantasy game. Funnily enough, it's actually the highest rated FF according to Metacritic and has always had a very dedicated following. I actually skipped it when it came out because I didn't like the art style, though I think now that the cartoony take on a middle ages/steampunk European setting was really fresh and exciting.
The locations are amazing (Daguerro and Treno are some of my favourite RPG settings), the enemy design is excellent and the combat mechanics are amazing. The side quests were mostly great and the story was great, but it's really the characters and the journey that they take that makes it special. I waited 18 years to play it and wish I had done it sooner!
Leon R said:
Honestly I think people just didn't want to like it from the off.
It made for a very funny few memes when it was released since it was in such a dreadful state. The facial animations still look bad today. I didn't play it since it looked so poor and I've had no desire to play it since, despite enjoying the original ME trilogy. Plus it had that racist piece of s
t Manveer Heir working on it. Bioware should have sacked him during development but his decision to leave after Andromeda was released was probably a jump before he was pushed. Birdster said:
Interesting thread.
On balance I have a soft spot for the Sega Saturn but it wasn’t a great console.
The Sega Saturn was mint, it had some great niche games, but it beggars belief that Sega developed it when they did. Security at Sony must have been top spec, as I assume the bosses at Sega let out a collective gasp when they realised how powerful the PS1 was going to be. That misstep put Sega out of stride with the competition. The Dreamcast was amazing when it came out but that was soon trumped by Sony and Microsoft and the rest is history. On balance I have a soft spot for the Sega Saturn but it wasn’t a great console.
My dad bought a Saturn when it came out and we loved it. We got a Playstation a couple of years after but I remember my auntie coming round with her PS when they were near enough brand new - I think the only games out were Loaded, Wipeout and MK3. It was absolutely stunning, clearly light years ahead of the Saturn in every respect.
In terms of shelf quality, the Sega Saturn game boxes have never been bettered. Those slim black cases were so smart and the quality and fitting of the printed labels was amazing.
Nice to see FFIX getting a mention in your post too, it is the king of FF games.
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