What? That is not why I said Nintendo is creatively bankrupt. They make the same games over and over with the same characters. That is why. Also they seem to be unable to create any piece of hardware without a gimmick of some sort. That says to me they know they don't have the talent to compete so they are forced to do the only thing they can to differentiate themselves.
Kinect games are shit but that has nothing to do with creativity.
It's a way to punish misbehaving. Assume some one is hacking/cheating on PS3 or Wii, they get a ban, the user can create a new account at no cost. They can continue doing that until PSN or whatever bans the console itself, at which point the jerk sells the used console to someone, who can no longer take it online.
Now, assume the same happened on XBL. The jerk can't just create additional free accounts, and get back to jerking it up. Do I think it should cost $60 a year? Nah... but I'm okay with some fee to present a financial deterrent to jerk-hood.
Analog stick for movement as this huge advantage in FPS is about as ridiculous as comfy couch being an advantage. Movement in an FPS isn't solely keyboard or left analog stick. It's a combination of two analog sticks or mouse and keyboard. Turning quickly and precisely factors more heavily into movement than being able to saunter and amble. The only time left analog for movement is superior is for games where movement is strictly mapped to one stick (3rd person platformers and TPS where camera doesn't strictly change the direction of movement)
And the dual analog is more visceral crap needs to stop as well. Neither feel remotely close to firing a real gun. Given that, I'd rather have the control that is more efficient at translating how I want to manipulate the game world properly rather than one that is merely serviceable.
How is being able to sit on a couch not an advantage? I though the "comfy couch" meme was based on the very conceit that it's the only real advantage of playing with a pad.
And pulling the trigger on the pad "doesn't feel remotely close" to pulling the trigger on a gun? How's that? Come on man, it rumbles violently and everything!
I really dislike Bethesda rpgs, I feel that they are like single player mmo with really horrible writing (especially regarding exposition) and sub-par combat. Some people have been telling that even tho the main quest is not the best some the side quests are brilliant. I played the games I didn't find them to be that way, but even if it was true it be like watching all the Two and Half Men seasons just so I could get to the few brilliant jokes sprinkled through out the show (full disclosure: by no means am I claiming there are any brilliant jokes in the show, this is just used a hypothetical example ). The problem is I would have to get through a lot of crap to get to those brilliant bits.
I really dislike Bethesda rpgs, I feel that they are like single player mmo with really horrible writing (especially regarding exposition) and sub-par combat. Some people have been telling that even tho the main quest is not the best some the side quests are brilliant. I played the games I didn't find them to be that way, but even if it was true it be like watching all the Two and Half Men seasons just so I could get to the few brilliant jokes sprinkled through out the show (full disclosure: by no means am I claiming there are any brilliant jokes in the show, this is just used a hypothetical example ). The problem is I would have to get through a lot of crap to get to those brilliant bits.
Agreeing for the most part. I enjoy the games because of exploration, but the actual quest themselves are pretty boring. Combat system is pretty boring too. But the environments I always love. Not to mention that there's a 20% chance the quest your own will somehow break (disappearing NPC, borked conversation, missing item, etc)
p.s. Speaking of Two and a Half Men, I can't believe people actually like crap like Big Bang Theory. Hipster Geek show I guess? I don't find it to be the 'smart funny' every thinks it is. I don't even find it to be dumb funny.
With the 360, Microsoft should have been punished harder for the things they have done this generation from releasing a system with very low build quality to being a big cause of customers getting abused by DLC to overcharging for a service that should at least half the price of what it currently is than even if they are not fully responsible for the EA FIFA thing, they should take some of the responsibility.
I wish Microsoft would have been punished harder for these things but if anything I hope that next gen this will all affect them.
No company is innocent but I feel Microsoft has done alot wrong this generation and basically got away with it.
I'd honestly love to agree with you, but, for example, I didn't play SotC until the HD remake because the framerate made me physically ill.
Sure, everything we're playing now will look dated and clunky in 10 years. But our initial impressions don't necessarily reflect what will definitely stand the test of time anyway. The problem here is that it's hard to appreciate something at any point in its existence when you physically can't stand to experience it.
We don't neccessarily disagree, its just that in my opinion there's a big difference between calling out SOTC for having a borderline acceptable level of performance on PS2, than putting two versions of your average game on PS3/360 in some kind of retarded contest and calling out a "winner" because one has a borderline advantage visually.
There's only a "winner" because the context demands it, not because a minor difference in frame-rate/framebuffer-size is/should be considered to be of any consequence to the actual experience.
Sure, when there's an egregious difference in performance, its worth calling it out as a matter of consumer awareness. But most of the time that's simply not the case, and especially when you can't differentiate between hard and soft vsync-ing (slow-down versus tearing) as being better/worse in an empirical manner, its just an exercise in redundant point-scoring.
And then of course, there's the subjective omission of other comparatives (like sound, controller suitability/preference) which undermine the value of these contest further.
Its more about justification of preference/existing bias than anything else.
MGS4 is a piece of fecal cunt with terrible, blurry, downgraded lie graphics and I hate it. The combat was its only somewhat saving grace.
Crono Cross is a gaudy disaster with terrible characters defined by their retarded, obnoxious accents. The music is good, that's it.
Dreamcast is obscenely overrated and has aged horribly and its constant fanboy nostalgic fellating makes me vomit. The only thing that redeems it for me is JSR.
I think fans of JRPG's are a stubborn lot and adopted a Japan only/centric taste out of an adolescent need for being "different". They still haven't grown out of this stage, and I think deep down in their hearts they know the genre is stale but they refuse to admit it, or else they risk their entire identity crumbling into pieces.
To piggy back on this: I wish Nintendo would go third party in the home console arena. I am sick and tired of buying their consoles only to play Nintendo games on them and nothing else. It's been three generations now where they've promised better third party support and outside of a few token games I'm never interested in, it never comes to fruition. Give me your 3DS, put cool shit on there, but take Zelda, Mario, Pikmin, F-Zero, DKC, etc., and throw it on PS3 or something.
Everyone who wants Nintendo to go 3rd party always seems to forget that Nintendo builds their games around hardware. They'll do everything in their power to maintain their own platform because they can control the design of it.
And as for the other complaint it's hard to take the "creatively bankrupt" thing seriously in this industry, where everybody "rebuys the same game every 2 years" for just about every franchise. I'm apt to think it's more that some people don't want to admit they just dislike X Nintendo franchise, because the games are usually very high quality. It's a troublesome state of cognitive dissonance to wrestle with the fact that your opinions aren't objective fact. Yes kids, it's okay to not personally care for a game that is objectively good. Games don't have to be horrible and creatively bankrupt to justify your dislike of them.
Talking about games with gamers is like standing in a Baskin Robins and listening to a crowd argue which of the 31 flavors is good, because each member of the group only likes one flavor... and everyone has to reassure themselves by "proving" that the other 30 flavors taste like crap.
You're forgetting that they still have children. The first console most parents are going to get their 6-8 YO is going to be a Nintendo one b/c of Mario, Zelda, and DK.. and that is still a huge demographic.
Nintendo provides a good foundation for gaming with children because they're concerned about their games having real, fundamental values rather than being brief distractions to give the kids a lollipop to suck on while mommy is busy. Nintendo games (and games that follow Nintendo principles) tend to create adult gamers who have a grasp of good design principles, and who also don't see games as disposable.
Sadly, the ironic twist is that when Nintendo gamers grow up, they do tend to suffer nostalgia for the one romantic game they played as a kid, which tends to produce gripey fans who are never happy with anything else Nintendo makes. Or adult fans who believe they've "outgrown" Nintendo, and because of this, Nintendo must change for them, rather than continue to make games for all ages so the cycle can continue.
Everyone who wants Nintendo to go 3rd party always seems to forget that Nintendo builds their games around hardware. They'll do everything in their power to maintain their own platform because they can control the design of it.
What might be good for Nintendo is not good for me personally. If they went third party last gen we could have had Donkey Kong Country Returns and Mario Galaxy without motion controls and in HD; it would have been glorious.
What might be good for Nintendo is not good for me personally. If they went third party last gen we could have had Donkey Kong Country Returns and Mario Galaxy without motion controls and in HD; it would have been glorious.
I think fans of JRPG's are a stubborn lot and adopted a Japan only/centric taste out of an adolescent need for being "different". They still haven't grown out of this stage, and I think deep down in their hearts they know the genre is stale but they refuse to admit it, or else they risk their entire identity crumbling into pieces.
lol, so fans of Japanese games are now what you might call "hipsters"? Pretty ignorant thing to say here. I had a pretty ignorant friend (we no longer talk) who said something similar to me once... about how I don't like a lot of mainstream games (aka to him, Call of Duty and Bioshock) out of a need to be "different". No, it's just because those things don't interest me, I'm an adult and I don't have anything to prove to anyone. Nor am I a hipster.
The only people who think the Japanese RPG genre is stale are those who haven't been paying attention to the genre. How the fuck is Resonance of Fate stale?
Sonic 06 is the best 3D Sonic ever.
Bubsy 3D is under-appreciated.
Superman 64 is the best N64 game of all time.
Pit Fighter SNES is better than Street Fighter II and any other well known fighters!
JUST KIDDING
Sadly there's likely crazy people who actually agrees with any of THAT :|
Anyways, on to serious controversial (or not) opinions:
-Pokemon Red/Blue are fucking overrated. No, they aren't the best Pokemon games unless you love blind nostalgia. They haven't aged well and their GBA remakes are much much superior outside of music.
-Pokemon Gen 5 has the best Pokemon since Gen 2 or possibly even 1.
-Pokemon should NEVER be a MMO. It is one of the worst ideas for the franchise.
-Sonic 3D Blast is underrated. It isn't a great game but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. Same to Sonic Advance 3, it is far superior to Shitty Advance 2.
-Sonic Adventures 2, outside of the Chao Garden, isn't a great game and is far from being the best Sonic game ever. Seriously.
-Green Hill Zone is one of my favorite Brawl levels. (Wait, is this even controversial?)
-Mega Man Star Force is not a bad series outside of the 2nd game.
-Mega Man X3 is overrated. It's a good game but X1, X2 and X4 are better games.
-Mega Man X2 is the best Mega Man X game.
Yeah I guess some of them might seem logical, but everyone and their grandmother praises the latter games - especially TF2 and SOTC. Well maybe not everyone...but most definitely the vast majority.
Disagree with everything except the Trauma games, but that's easily a trade-off I'd be willing to take. Those games can live on just fine on handheld systems.
Witch fox lady are you talking about ? i seem to recall one of them being a MALE. ( and it's not the one most think according to a survey i've done with my friends )
What might be good for Nintendo is not good for me personally. If they went third party last gen we could have had Donkey Kong Country Returns and Mario Galaxy without motion controls and in HD; it would have been glorious.
lol, so fans of Japanese games are now what you might call "hipsters"? Pretty ignorant thing to say here. I had a pretty ignorant friend (we no longer talk) who said something similar to me once... about how I don't like a lot of mainstream games (aka to him, Call of Duty and Bioshock) out of a need to be "different". No, it's just because those things don't interest me, I'm an adult and I don't have anything to prove to anyone. Nor am I a hipster.
Nothing is black and white, and everyone has a little bit of everything in them, when it comes to taste. You're right. However, I have met a few fans of JRPG's who really think everything that is western gaming is a bane on the medium and that the Japan gaming industry can do no wrong and is a bastion of originality. JRPG fans can be somewhat insular at times, but they are probably more balanced in their tastes than what I have given them credit for on this thread.
What? That is not why I said Nintendo is creatively bankrupt. They make the same games over and over with the same characters. That is why. Also they seem to be unable to create any piece of hardware without a gimmick of some sort. That says to me they know they don't have the talent to compete so they are forced to do the only thing they can to differentiate themselves.
I have a suspicion that if Nintendo inserted an arbitrary cartoon character who wasn't Mario into say, Mario Galaxy, gamers think Nintendo is "bankrupt" would be hailing it as an astoundingly "creative" platformer that finally dethrones that moldy on Super Mario. Exact same game, just different character, mind you. To look at Nintendo's best games and say they have no talent because one doesn't like the character involved is kind of absurd. They still tend to walk away with genres they really compete in with their best stuff.
(A hint for the general audience: Zelda is not supposed to compete with Skyrim. It isn't an RPG. Much less a western RPG. It is, essentially, an action adventure game with puzzle dungeons. And such a specific, unique design, that other games that copy the concepts are called Zeldalikes. And they hold Zelda to the gold standard they're competing with.)
Nintendo uses characters over and over because they're iconic. May as well complain that WB keeps using the Loony Tunes cast - shouldn't those old things be left behind in the 1940s? etc.
I think the claim that they have no ability because they try to make unique hardware isn't really a workable idea. It's conflating their demonstrated ability with their desire to make unique hardware so nobody else can equal the exact same experience via software alone.
In point of fact, Nintendo DOES need to apply their considerable ability with character design (there's a reason why they last so long) to create new characters. Nintendo's conservatism is legendary, but it both helps and hinders. It HAS kept them alive, and made them one of the few companies able to actually make money cleanly. It also does make them very hesitant to invest in untested IP.
I think Sazh is the worst (playable) character in FF XIII.
Yes, he's the most likable of the bunch, but he has no arc or growth throughout the game. All the other characters (particularly Lightning and Hope) start out as hugely flawed JRPG stereotypes -- on purpose, I think. But they all transform over the course of the game. Sazh remains pretty static, which makes him less interesting to me.
Witch fox lady are you talking about ? i seem to recall one of them being a MALE. ( and it's not the one most think according to a survey i've done with my friends )
Mario's voice is annoying as fuck. And of course, sound design for 3DLand doesn't take into account that NOBODY's voice is worth hearing every time you press the jump button in a platformer.
I hate repetitive dialogue like that in any game (except fighting games where it's a necessary audio queue.)
Nothing is black and white, and everyone has a little bit of everything in them, when it comes to taste. You're right. However, I have met a few fans of JRPG's who really think everything that is western gaming is a bane on the medium and that the Japan gaming industry can do no wrong and is a bastion of originality. JRPG fans can be somewhat insular at times, but they are probably more balanced in their tastes than what I have given them credit for on this thread.
The problems Japanese games face is that they're stuck with an image problem. The Japanomania fad of the late 90s / early 2000s did create an anime-hipster fanboy hybrid that glommed onto everything Japanese for identity. Unfortunately, this has lead to a very popular and highly flammable strawman: if you like Japanese games, you're an anime fanboy who thinks they're good because they're "exotic".
The cloud from the burning tends to obscure that Japanese game design has a number of things it's objectively good at; good because it's good, not just the novelty of the foreign confused with quality. It also has led to a huge anti-Japan backlash, where everything Western is considered superior just because it's Western, and west = new and better and Japan = last gen and outdated. Regardless of that being true in each particular case.
I think Ocarina of Time is one of the worst Zelda games, and it defined all the wrong directions the series has been taking.
Didn't like Link to the Past all that much, for that matter. I wish I could slide to an alternate reality where the series built on the first game's open gameplay instead.
i think most western gamers who play video games aren't actually looking to play a video game, they're trying to relabel their countless hours they would usually spend watching TV in a more socially acceptable manner (its not cool to spend all day watching TV anymore, but its sick if you can put in 100 hours in skyrim over the weekend)
hence all games need to be either open-world sandboxes (don't need to think about what you need to do), or a straight linear design (don't need to think about where to go), complete voice-acting (no imagination required), and filled to the brim with instant gratification.
I wouldn't say there's something wrong with their brains, it's just that they are capable of using their imagination to enjoy a sense of adventure. Which could be seen as a positive, from a certain perspective.
i think most western gamers who play video games aren't actually looking to play a video game, they're trying to relabel their countless hours they would usually spend watching TV in a more socially acceptable manner (its not cool to spend all day watching TV anymore, but its sick if you can put in 100 hours in skyrim over the weekend)
Doesn't the same go for pretty much every gaming demographic worldwide. Heck, every other week there is an article on how the Japanese look down on Otaku for their game playing habits.
i think most western gamers who play video games aren't actually looking to play a video game, they're trying to relabel their countless hours they would usually spend watching TV in a more socially acceptable manner (its not cool to spend all day watching TV anymore, but its sick if you can put in 100 hours in skyrim over the weekend)
hence all games need to be either open-world sandboxes (don't need to think about what you need to do), or a straight linear design (don't need to think about where to go), complete voice-acting (no imagination required), and filled to the brim with instant gratification.
How is being able to sit on a couch not an advantage? I though the "comfy couch" meme was based on the very conceit that it's the only real advantage of playing with a pad.
And pulling the trigger on the pad "doesn't feel remotely close" to pulling the trigger on a gun? How's that? Come on man, it rumbles violently and everything!
