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Games @lemmy.world
Leyla :) @lemmy.fmhy.ml

Gaming hot takes?

Any weird/controversial opinions? I'll start. Before the remake, the best version of Resident Evil 4 was the Wii version. The Wiimote controls old Resi's tank controls better than any other controller at the time. The PC version had a bunch of little bugs and detractors that the Wii version just doesn't have.

I'll extend this by saying that the Wiimote is actually pretty damn good for shooters, and particularly good for accessibility. Not having to cramp up my hands to press buttons is awesome for having arthritis. Aiming with the Wiimote and moving with the nunchuck just feel really natural, you barely have to move your fingers for anything.

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  • Souls-like games aren't difficult, they just show you how impatient the average player is. Very rarely do those games actually challenge your ability or technical skill, and instead they just test your patience with annoyingly-defensive enemy behavior that encourages impatient players into aggressive, risky gameplay.

  • Most AAA games are boring. All the big games from the last few years are just plain boring. They found a formula back in the 2000's that they never expanded upon or really changed in any way shape or form. The focus is on visuals and story (and I gotta say, the stories are pretty fucking cringe a lot of the time unless you're a 13 year old) or skinnerboxes and psycho tricks to keep you addicted and the gameplay remains the same stale shit it's been for over 20 years. I feel like AAA games are games for people who don't play games, because the actual game part is always the worst part about them.

  • @LeylaaLovee When you play a long game (i.e. 60+ hours) all the way through, it's hard to tell how much of it was genuine enjoyment over some kind of weird sunk cost situation.

    Kind of like watching a show that goes on for a ton of seasons. You get into a habit and despite inconsistent quality, you keep going back and you're not sure why, especially after the really bad parts.

    It's why I understand some of the 100+ hour playtime negative reviews, & am skeptical of positive ones.

  • Third-person shooters suck. The character model gets in the way of seeing and I don't need to see the super tacticool costumes. And the more decent third-person shooters switch to first-person for aiming down the sights anyway.

    Cards in video games suck. Unless it's simulating a real card game. Otherwise we don't need powerup cards and such, use some other mechanic. My level 89 death knight doesn't need to be pulling cards out of his pockets.

    Motion blur, vignetting, depth of field, lens flare, none of these should be the default. Show me the game world clearly.

  • We don't need bigger open worlds. I'd rather have a Far Harbor sized Fallout every other year than a FO4 sized game after 8.

  • Nintendo games are great FIRST games.

    If Zelda is the first action RPG you ever played, it will forever hold a warm spot in your heart.

    Same for Smash Brothers and fighting games, Mario Kart and racing games, or Pokemon and turn based RPGs.

    But if you aren't 10 years old or have played literally any other games, they really aren't very good.

  • Most audio in video games is irrelevant at best and irritating at worst (especially for retro games). I listen to podcasts over 95% of the games I play and don't feel like I'm missing much. In fact, the multitasking aspect of it makes it feel like a more efficient use of time than just keeping the game audio on.

    There are exceptions to this when I know there's important audio cues in gameplay. Admittedly, I don't care much at all for narratives in games either, so i know I'm probably in the minority with this take.

    • Super Mario Galaxy has amazing orchestrated soundtrack that must be experienced with the innovative gameplay and beautiful art design.

      I can't imagine playing this game without the music.

      • definitely. i also feel the same way about the Nier games, their soundtracks add so much to the experience.

    • I soooo strongly agree about the audio. I regularly hear people talking about how good a game's soundtrack is, but most games don't stand out at all where soundtrack is concerned. I can list on one hand how many games have had songs so iconic that I can remember them. That's not to say I don't care for the audio. I recognize a lot of the audio is fantastic and feels just so natural that I don't even notice it as a stand alone piece, but an intractable part of a scene. But I certainly am not gonna go listen to most games soundtracks.

      1. Persona 4 - that town/school theme is insanely catchy and burnt into my head. I also can recall the title theme being so good I'd always let it play in full when I started the game.
      2. Persona 5 - tons of absolute bangers. Rivers in the Desert is perhaps my single favourite piece of video game music ever. I also love the city theme (I forget the title, "I'm a shape shifter, at Poe's mascarade").
      3. Weirdly enough, FFXIII-2 - I specifically recall how good Noah's theme is. It's this somber piece that plays in a dead world setting and is just haunting.

      There might be some others I can't remember. But my point is that most game music is not nearly memorable enough that I can even draw it to mind. Let alone have it caught in my head or be able to recognize it later. Even for games I've played a ton of, you could probably play something and I wouldn't recognize it.

      But I was talking about music. Non music? Ugh, that's usually worse. My biggest dislike is menu blips. You know, where every time you move the cursor in a menu, it makes a chime noise. In a lot of older games, I find it's so bad that I refuse to play the game with sound on.

      (Side note: I'm told that Fallout's music is great, but I'm embarrassed to say I've almost never listened to it, in part because IIRC, the radio feature where all the good stuff can be heard is actually audible to enemies, making it incompatible with stealth.)

  • Here's a super hot take. The N64 is not a bad controller. It's especially good for first person shooters.

  • RE 4 on wii is the only reason I could play the game. Played it on playstation 2, couldn't even get pass the first village. But the wiimote control is a game changer. It makes it soo easy to aim.

    • RIGHT? It's so much more intuitive. Last time I played, I played on an OG steam controller and that was better than a regular controller, but Wiimote for RE4 is unbelievably great. I've gotten so much flack for this, but with the game's semi-tank controls, the Wiimote is perfect for it!

  • Knockdowns/stuns/silences/freezes on the player, and immunities that enemies have, are bad game design because they all have the same issue: they remove player choice.

    The issue with knockdowns/stuns/freezes is that they remove the player's ability to do anything, at least how they work in most games. They make you take a timeout, essentially, and that's very unfun for the player. Essentially, it's removing your choice of what to do in the moment. You can't react, you can't flee, you can't fight, you just get to sit and wait or maybe press a button repeatedly just to wait a bit less. It is terrible game design that is wholly uninteresting, and it needs to be telegraphed nearly as hard as an instant-death move to be anything other than completely bad.

    Silences do much the same thing in that they limit the player's ability to react and use their cool tools you just gave them. It's like handing a lumberjack a chainsaw and then saying "cool, now don't use it". It's not as bad as a stun, but it's pretty close.

    Immunities for enemies are similar in that they limit player choice. You wanted to use cool X thing? Too bad, you literally can't win with that method. Resistances are fine (within reason, doing 1 damage is no different from 0 damage in a lot of games) because they allow a sufficiently-skilled player to still use a method they like (ideally), but immunities do nothing but kill build variety.

    • Eh, I think it's fine for fights to have certain requirements to succeed. Many things in games are basically a puzzle, and figuring out the puzzle is the purpose of playing.

      I do agree to a point about the stun thing. I wouldn't say it has zero place in games, but it does general just become a feel-bad moment, leaving the player feeling helpless. That said, I'm not sure what exactly would need to be done to make it appropriate.

    • I totally agree with the immunities thing. It's a common issue in RPGs. Eg, games will have countless status effects but none of them work on tougher enemies, making them basically useless. I think a lot of more modern games have understood this issue and tried to fix it.

      Eg, for all it's flaws, FFXIII did status effects really great. Poison is actually very potent and a legitimate way to kill even the toughest bosses. Similarly, the death spell was useless in a lot of older games (where it was just a chance of instant death), but was extremely useful in FFXIII because it just straight up dealt heavy damage with a chance of instant death. Spamming it was a valid strategy for a lot of moderately difficult enemies that would otherwise be annoying to whittle down.

    • God, bosses that have i-frames drive me up the wall in any game

  • I find Zelda BOTW to be extremely boring. The dungeons are carbon copies and tedious. The art design is boring and kinda ugly.

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