Raise the flame shield: Your "controversial" gaming opinion.

These sorts of opinions always puzzle me. So; what about all the people who play Zelda and have fun? The millions of them? They don't exist? They're deluded and only think they're having fun, when they're really crying inside?

It's okay to not have fun with a game. But extrapolating that to "this game is intrinsically no fun" seems a huge overreach, when speaking about a game or series that plenty of people play and like.

Millions of people watch and enjoy Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory and those are also awful.

This thread is specifically for unpopular opinions, the 'millions of people' argument doesn't work when you're specifically being asked for unpopular opinions.
 
nintendo is the most forward thinking company and has the greatest long-term strategy in the entire gaming industry.
Forward thinking how? Like their last console that was abandoned 2-3 years ago because it ran out of games? Or the one they just launched in a beta state with heaps of features missing? Conceptually, no doubt, they are daring but I'd actually Nintendo are one of the least forward-thinking - they always release peripherals that end up being abandoned, their account system still hasn't been updated to a current standard, and they've just released a system for the next 5-7 that's close to obsolete tech-wise already.
 
JRPG's beyond the 16 bit era are a little sad and dated.

Fighting games had their place in the arcade, but not in this day and age.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
 
JRPG's beyond the 16 bit era are a little sad and dated.

Fighting games had their place in the arcade, but not in this day and age.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I really hate it when people say shit like this. Outside of Pokemon/Smash Bros I was never into either genre and yet I've recently enjoyed games like Dragon Quest and Tekken.
 
JRPG's beyond the 16 bit era are a little sad and dated.

Fighting games had their place in the arcade, but not in this day and age.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I guess that's why more people are playing fighting games competitively than ever. Nostalgia. For things they never had.
 
Gaming didn't start with Nintendo, son

You Don't tell me. But you have to agree that, Is very unusual for people of certain age not EVER have played a single Nintendo game. I mean, not even Super Mario Bros? ( NES )

I'm not saying It's impossible but, at least very rare.
 
Hmm I have a few, I'm not usually vocal about these because each to their own, but I'll share for the topic.

1. I hate Street Fighter IV and all it's versions. I think it's flashy convoluted trash. I liked it at first and then woke up. I do, however, love Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter Alpha 2, and Darkstalkers. The rest of the Capcom fighting stable? Fuck it.
2. Final Fantasy XIII is awesome, from my mouth, a fan of this series from the beginning. FFIV is still my fav all time game though. FFXIII-2 has a dumb story? Well so did FFX-2...and FFV...and FFVIII....and okay...even FFIV has some hokey bits and constant self sacrificies. Like I mentioned to my hipster cousin once in rebuttal: "When were these Shakespearean, high brow, intellectual efforts? I missed that period and I started with FF1. Whoosh."
3. I don't need a damn arcade stick to play a fighting game. When they started coming out on the SNES I was so happy to just finally use a pad to play them. I don't care about the claims from "the experts." I will concede that original 360 dpad is rubbish for them though.
4. The most recent Mortal Kombat is an awesome game. I hate the rest of the series minus the second. Street Fighter IV can once again kiss my ass.
5. The Atlus love. Hate it. Yeah they got a couple of games I like. I still think Working Designs (though gone) and Xseed are better.
6. Pokemon bores me aside from the first one I played (Red), and Diamond was pretty good. The rest? I just can't stick with it.
7. Every Zelda game since A Link to the Past, I compare them to it, and deem them lesser entities. Link's Awakening was a close shot though.
8. Super Mario World is the best Mario game ever. I think Mario 64 sucks, was ugly, and boring. If Mario 64 had been like Super Mario 3D Land, I would have been happy. I like 2D Mario best.
9. The competitive nature....people acting like how you play games, how good you are or are not at them, what games you play....like it's a measurement of yourself as a person or your self worth...I think that is some ludicrous garbage there. I hate how my chosen hobby of over 20 years has things like this infesting it. I mean, I'm pretty good at CoD, but some kid who kills me and talks shit, likely can't play some classic game, like say the original Mega Man or Contra, and beat it without dying like I can. Does it make either of us a better person? No....it's just a damn good hobby; stop poisoning it.
10. Super Smash Brothers is wonky, not fun, corny trash.
11. Code of Princess was funny but boring.
12. I think the Playstation Vita is the ultimate evolution of the handheld gaming console. I like the 3DS, sure, but the Vita is awesome. Drop that price shackle Sony and let this baby fly.
13. Sony needs to step into a phone booth, tear off it's suit, and walk out as 90's Sony.
14. I want Nintendo to embrace cutting edge specs again.
15. I like the Metal Gear games, but aside from MGS4 and PW, they all have crappy, obtuse controls. I also think the original overhead camera on MGS2 and 3 was trash...but it seemed to work okay for MGS1; maybe because the viewpoint was a bit higher or something, or the game was less complex.



Geez I'm gonna stop here, if I list everything I'll be typing all week.
 
Western games are 80% shitty and I don't understand the love for Uncharted, Ratchet, LA Noire, GTA, RDR, Elder Scrolls, and any other games like them.

I do like CoD because its super fast and jittery.

I do like Gears because it feels like an American RE4.

I like all of Nintendo's games.

I like all of Platinum Games's games EXCEPT I haven't played Bayonetta.

I like most of the good Capcom games EXCEPT I don't understand DMC. Any of them. They're all mediocre and boring compared to a game like God Hand.

I don't like God of War.

PSP was a shitty fucking system.

Nintendo DS was the best.

SNES is overrated, same with PS1. You guys are just nostalgic.

PS2 was really good.

Wii had more fun games than 360 and PS3, pound for pound.

3DS is boring as fuck and has no niche crazy Japanese games in english.

Monster Hunter is shitty.

Pokemon is good.
 
Nintendo will never fail. They are ultra conservative but despite their recent failures they are still incredibly successful in a pretty niche market. I think the other two will bow out and leave Nintendo to be the sole dedicated game console manufacturer and make a ton of money in a smaller than ever market, but they will always be around.

Nintendo will not expand to mobile platforms EVER.
 
People who enter Competitive fighters are insane. I try to sting a combo and I get all these infinites, juggles, counters, blocks, holds, special combo strings, one hit kills that it's not even funny.

I don't think I'm bad at fighting games. But they take it to a whole notha' level. Just makes competitive play unfun. For me.

Ah, and also Assassins Creed 1 sucked. It was horrible. I'm not sure why its so loved by the community because it's a completely broken game.

I actually enjoyed Sonic Heroes when it came out. Don't jump down my throat. I found that if I ignored the majority of the plot points and major dialogue sections of Tales of Symphonia: DotNW, I had an immensely good time while playing. Maybe because it was kind of bad, but also good in a way that emphasized its cheesiness.
 
Most JRPG's don't have a lot of depth and are too dramatic. If you're really into JRPGs, I begin to question your social skills.
 
Microsoft will win in next-gen if Sony can't get act together. WiiU will be completely irrelevant as MS and Sony will gave true next-gen games as Nintendo's console sits in the back of yester-year.
 
29.

only owned a Saturn, a Dreamcast and a 360.

played mostly arcades.

Nintendo had some really good arcade games in the 80's.

Donkey Kong ruled. Yeah it might seem shitty today, but that passed for a AAA game thirty years ago. Punch-Out! was amazing when it first debuted. I actually first played super mario bros in a pizza place's arcade.

I guess you're a bit young to remember Nintendo's arcade heyday.



I don't think this is that controversial but I think Bethesda's RPGs have really become crappy.
I hated FO3 and have never played Skyrim.
 
You Don't tell me. But you have to agree that, Is very unusual for people of certain age not EVER have played a single Nintendo game. I mean, not even Super Mario Bros? ( NES )

I'm not saying It's impossible but, at least very rare.
I imagine there are some PC gamers out there who grew up on atari, commodore, or early PC games and never really bothered with Nintendo, but I wouldn't immediately question their age.
 
Happy to see this thread rebirthed, as I've always wanted to contribute. It's a slow day at work, so here we go!

  1. The only reason we have Kinect, XboxLive, 360s and soon the 8/720/someothershit is because Microsoft bought Bungie and Halo at the beginning. No Halo 1; no Xbox360. No Master Chief; no Kinect. No Warthogs; no Forza. No Carbine Rifle; no Gears of War. The original Xbox would have crashed and burned had Microsoft not robbed PC gamers of Bungie.
  2. With that said, Halo’s success relies largely on cult of personality.
  3. Bethesda haven’t made a good game since Morrowind, and Morrowind has aged terribly. That Skyrim won any GOTY awards is the biggest travesty of the last few years. People talk about how 2012 was a lean year for gaming, but man, if Skyrim won GOTY awards then how fucking bad of a year for games was 2011? Jesus. (cue in-depth discussion of story delivery methods; emergent gaming stories VS player-agency narratives VS interactive novels and so forth. That’s for another thread though).
  4. XboxLive Gold is the second biggest scam of this generation after Skyrim, and, coincidentally is perhaps the second greatest example of successfully marketing a garbage product to untold success (after Red Bull and other similar energy drinks).

    Sure, there might be ‘value’ there in XBL for you guys in the US, with your Netflix’s, HBO’s, ESPN and similar plugins, but here in Australia, it’s fucking piped-in rubbish that you pay money for, whereas the normal setup is that I pay rates to my local council to take rubbish away from me.
  5. People who defend paying for XBL are the greatest living sufferers of Stockholm syndrome around.
  6. There hasn’t been a good Zelda game since the SNES. Furthermore, all post-16bit Zelda’s have been borderline trash, with atleast hour-long tutorials that are implemented horribly (popups ‘press something to jump, derp’ and silly 1st town based mini game, things), underwhelming technical capabilities, hacked on motion controls, extraneous stories (even sillier than the Mario universe), yawn-inducing antagonists, insipid ‘level’ design and more generally, gameplay that barely had reason to exist in 1998, never mind 20XX. Add to this that Zelda fans are probably the worst franchise fans in existence and you have a maelstrom of everything I don’t like in gaming.

    Jeff’s 8.8 was 2 whole points generous.
  7. The best games for the Wii, WiiSports aside, were made by 3rd parties. Little King’s Story, Sin and Punishment, Muramasa, Shattered Memories and Anno >>>>>> SMG1 and 2. Every shitty 3rd party minigame collection > Zelda: TP (wii version
    seriously, fuck that game
    ).
  8. FFXII is the best mainline, numbered Final Fantasy, pipping IX by the slimmest of margins. FF stories are as abhorent as nearly every other story told in video games, but atleast FFXII had a wonderful world to trundle around in, and I loved the gambit system.
  9. Tim Rogers and his crew at ActionButton.net are probably the best ‘reviewers’ , or ‘critics’, of video games around, perhaps on the other side of the same coin that Giantbomb inhabits. Seriously, ABDN’s Diablo III and Borderlands 2 reviews are astounding. And they were bang on about fucking Fez. Rogers' dissemination of The Sims Social economy was glorious.

    Oh man, what I would give for several thousand word dissections and breakdowns of game mechanics at a review level, all the time. Jaffe should kickstart a game criticism site, where he lets his stream of conscience about mechanics and the way they interact, flow.
 
I'm old now (31)

every game should have an unlock everything feature...or let you pay something to unlock everything.

I have GT5 and I don't have time to try to unlock all the cars.... WHY CAN'T I DRIVE ALL THE CARS!


DAMN Achievements, DAMN THEM TO HELL!
 
I don't think this is that controversial but I think Bethesda's RPGs have really become crappy.
I hated FO3 and have never played Skyrim.

On a related note...

I think Bethesda still makes the funnest and/or best RPG's around. Dark/Demon Souls, Witcher, Neverwinter, whatever, none of them are as entertaining as any Bethesda Dev Studio game. People bitch and moan about the bugs, lack of variety, w/e, but at the end of the day even haters like my roommate sink in ~50 hours before they're ready to declare it "trash" or unsophisticated or too mainstream or whatever other cringeworthy quip of the month the hardcore RPGers are trotting out this time. You can keep your shitty terrible-design-disguised-as-intentionally-difficult Souls game and your JRPG trope-fests. You can keep your outdated inventories and ancient, clunky mechanics and continue to complain that any sort of progress or streamlining or fat-cutting is somehow ruining the entire genre. I'm going to sit right here and continue having fun, bugs and all.
 
Happy to see this thread rebirthed, as I've always wanted to contribute. It's a slow day at work, so here we go!


  1. Add to this that Zelda fans are probably the worst franchise fans in existence and you have a maelstrom of everythingI don’t like in gaming.
Sean, is that you?!


On a related note...

I think Bethesda still makes the funnest and/or best RPG's around. Dark/Demon Souls, Witcher, Neverwinter, whatever, none of them are as entertaining as any Bethesda Dev Studio game. People bitch and moan about the bugs, lack of variety, w/e, but at the end of the day even haters like my roommate sink in ~50 hours before they're ready to declare it "trash" or unsophisticated or too mainstream orwork whatever other cringeworthy quip of the month the hardcore RPGers are trotting out this time. You can keep your shitty terrible-design-disguised-as-intentionally-difficult Souls game and your JRPG trope-fests. You can keep your outdated inventories and ancient, clunky mechanics and continue to complain that any sort of progress or streamlining or fat-cutting is somehow ruining the entire genre. I'm going to sit right here and continue having fun, bugs and all.

My not-so-controversial opinion is that if you think Dark Souls is just difficult for the sake of it, you're taking your frustration out on the game and not your meaty, clumsy fingers. Dark Souls is really not that hard- you just have to be patient, understand your limitations and actually pay attention to the enemy's tells. You can still dislike it, but saying it's poorly designed is falso mi amigo.
 
Nintendo had some really good arcade games in the 80's.

Donkey Kong ruled. Yeah it might seem shitty today, but that passed for a AAA game thirty years ago. Punch-Out! was amazing when it first debuted. I actually first played super mario bros in a pizza place's arcade.

I guess you're a bit young to remember Nintendo's arcade heyday.

yeah, in "my day" arcades were the Sega, Capcom, SNK, Namco and Konami fest. i glanced over Mario 64 at a kiosk once when it came out in EU but i had Virtua Fighter 3 and Scud Race near me, Mario was not that impressive by comparision.

my biggest gaming achievement to this day was finishing Final Fight using 1 credit only when i was 9.
 
Nintendo will never fail. They are ultra conservative but despite their recent failures they are still incredibly successful in a pretty niche market. I think the other two will bow out and leave Nintendo to be the sole dedicated game console manufacturer and make a ton of money in a smaller than ever market, but they will always be around.

Nintendo will not expand to mobile platforms EVER.

I like you.
 
but at the end of the day even haters like my roommate sink in ~50 hours before they're ready to declare it "trash" or unsophisticated or too mainstream or whatever other cringeworthy quip of the month the hardcore RPGers are trotting out this time.

I got smart and never even rolled up a character. I just wasn't that tempted to play it. All I had to do was read between the lines and read the early forum reviews from RPG Codex to realize Bethesda has gone even further down the wrong game design path. I didn't have to play it to know it would be an empty experience.

You can keep your outdated inventories and ancient, clunky mechanics and continue to complain that any sort of progress or streamlining or fat-cutting is somehow ruining the entire genre. I'm going to sit right here and continue having fun, bugs and all.

Clunky mechanics, are you joking ? Souls games combat is like a hot knife through butter compared to Bethesda's broken joke of a game engine. Really the only thing their RPGs have going for them is the size and scope of the game world. Too bad the content is mostly garbage. But I am a graphics whore, so I will still buy the first next gen Bethesda RPG.

What you call progress, I call dumbing down.
 
Half Life 2 isn't a very fun game.

I don't like the shooting mechanics, I feel like it's unnecessarily long winded and full of padding (thus why I've never been able to progress further than halfway), and I believe it's massively over-rated because of the legacy left by its predecessor.

Edit: I also think that people are way too quick to express distate towards the games press. For all their wrongs, there is a lot of good/entertaining stuff out there, but it just seems like people expect it to be similar in tone to hard political reporting, rather than the entertainment/enthusiast related journalism that it is.
 
  • Valve is an overrated developer. The only good game they've released, they bought. People only love them because they can buy games cheap through a piece of their software, and direct the praise at Valve rather than the companies that agreed to go that low.
  • Contrary to popular belief, PC gaming isn't an alternative to console gaming, especially if you like fighting games and Japanese RPGs. It's only great if you like the torrents of Western-made dross and have an obsession with pixel counts.
  • Most of the games worth playing this generation have had graphics you could pull off on an Amiga.
  • Most gamers are actually just people with shopping addictions. The thrill is the hype, the build-up, and the purchase. After that, it's threads everywhere about let-downs and backlogs. Basically a bunch of magpies.
  • Notch's attitude towards the gaming industry is more dangerous than Bobby Kottick's.
  • Most of the people who love to analyse games and their artistic worth are likely liberal arts majors trying to justify their existence as worthwhile. Most of them tolerate bad gameplay in the name of narrative.

Is avatar quoting a bannable offense?

I love video games, but they are largely worthless timesinks that offer little to no positive impact to your life: they are distractions from the real world/your life. You spend hundreds and hundreds of hours pouring your time into something that outputs nothing of real value to yourself or society. Take me for instance: if I had been drawing more, learning programming, and exercising more instead of playing battlefield for 300 hours I could be a fitter, brighter, more successful person. I shudder to think at the literal YEARS OF LIFE TIME wasted by the people who play MMO's and criminally drawn out JRPG's over and over.

I agree with you, but this is the way I see it. We all have our time-wasters that we use to unwind and enjoy ourselves. I've spent my fair share of time on video games (I certainly could find more productive uses of my time), but those that say that video games are a complete waste and that we should find something better to do (I know you aren't necessarily saying this) have sunk plenty of time into television and movies that mean ultimately nothing. Nobody is productive all the time.

I could collect stamps instead. I could dissect celebrity news and fashion trends instead. I could devote every Sunday to the worship of burly men throwing an oddly-shaped ball and countless hours to the analysis of said burly men instead. It would certainly be considered more socially acceptable. But in my opinion, its no better or worse use of time than games. Both are just fun activities that one enjoys.

I think Bethesda still makes the funnest and/or best RPG's around... I'm going to sit right here and continue having fun, bugs and all.

What constitutes having fun is relative I suppose.

Half Life 2 isn't a very fun game.

See above

As for another controversial opinion, Stalker:Shadow of Chernobyl is way more enjoyable than Call of Pripyat. I couldn't get into CoP though I wanted to (I love SoC).
 
Heh, to be fair I actually changed it to Metroid a while back during an XBLA code giveaway but can't think of anything worthy of change right now.

I will also say that Steam is massively overrated. I will not dispute that it's a good service, but it seems to get treated like it's an infallible service that can do no wrong - while other stores are criticised for virtually no reason.
 
never owned a Nintendo console, never played a Nintendo game, no desire to do so.

I came here to post something close to what you said.

The difference is that i have played some of their games and

Mario was to slow for my liking, i always preferred the pace of the Sonic 16 bit games.

Mario Kart was useless for me, i don't like cartoony arcade racers

Zelda is an RPG, so i'm out.

Wii sport was stupid, ugly and childish.

So yeah, i never liked them and probably never will, considering the types of games they make.

I think GAF will kill me for this, but that how i always felt about them.
 
I came here to post something close to what you said.

The difference is that i have played some of their games and

Mario was to slow for my liking, i always preferred the pace of the Sonic 16 bit games.

Mario Kart was useless for me, i don't like cartoony arcade racers

Zelda is an RPG, so i'm out.

Wii sport was stupid, ugly and childish.

So yeah, i never liked them and probably never will, considering the types of games they make.

I think GAF will kill me for this, but that how i always felt about them.

I think the problem with this is that people say "Nintendo games" like there's some sort of magical underlying thing that makes them all comparable to each other. Certainly you can say that you're not a fan of the holy trinity of Mario, Zelda and Metroid, but the idea that you don't like any game Nintendo has made, when they've been responsible for top notch games in almost every genre is strange.

I'm curious as to what kind of games that people who don't like "Nintendo games" like.
 
I think the problem with this is that people say "Nintendo games" like there's some sort of magical underlying thing that makes them all comparable to each other. Certainly you can say that you're not a fan of the holy trinity of Mario, Zelda and Metroid, but the idea that you don't like any game Nintendo has made, when they've been responsible for top notch games in almost every genre is strange.

I'm curious as to what kind of games that people who don't like "Nintendo games" like.

I might have missed on some gens, but ever since i started gaming (1988) i don't remember saying "I wish i had this Nintendo Console to play this _______ game".

I really can't remember a single occasion. I think i'm just the total opposite of their core audience.
 
Got a few...

I believe the Dreamcast was a better console than the Gamecube.

I don't think the Uncharted series' gameplay is so great, and I have doubts that The Last of Us' gameplay will be all that compelling.

I enjoyed Haze more than Killzone 2.

The Sega Master System was better than the NES.

Wrath of the Lich King was the final nail in the coffin for World of Warcraft.

I always prefer physical media over digital downloads, and I think that if the entire gaming industry goes completely digital without any forms of physical media, there will be severe consequences (on top of not actually owning any of your games).

I think (for the most part) that DLC is a complete scam and I very rarely have anything to do with it.

EDIT: One more. The N64 controller is just bad, enough said.
 
Got a few more:

  • The best thing the Legend of Zelda could do would be a New Legend of Zelda (think NSMB) on a console.
  • Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal are the most overrated games Nintendo has ever published that don't start with "Metroid"
  • Mobile gaming is where console gaming was in 1982, and there's no first party with the software chops to save it.
  • Windows 8 has proven Gabe Newell's point, now can he stop puttering around with hardware and get his damn Half Life 3 out.
 
-Kingdom Hearts Final Mix > Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix

-Final Fantasy X is one of the worst Final Fantasy games

-Final Fantasy XII is one of the best Final Fantasy games

-Metal Gear Solid 4 was a great game
 
This feels like fun. No hold bars?

- I hold majority of FPS games to be average titles. This includes all of COD and Halo.

- I didn't see why everyone enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy as much as reviews said. The 2nd one was better, but not by much.

- I did not see Metroid Prime 3 as a good sequel and I actually didn't see the issues with Other M.

- I never saw the appeal of: Fallout 3, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, or The Sims. I have played all but Skyrim and still don't see myself ever playing through them.

- I also bought RE4 on the Wii due to all the reviews saying controls were awesome. I hated the controls and wound up not finishing the game.

- I hate online play with strangers because of gap in skill levels more so than anything else. I don't have time to play 1000 hours of a game to get good at it.

And my most controversial opinion that I haven't said in awhile that used to rage so many people...

- Wavedashing in Smash Bros. Melee is a glitch. It was never intended to be in the game.
 
Clunky mechanics, are you joking ? Souls games combat is like a hot knife through butter compared to Bethesda's broken joke of a game engine. Really the only thing their RPGs have going for them is the size and scope of the game world. Too bad the content is mostly garbage. But I am a graphics whore, so I will still buy the first next gen Bethesda RPG.

What you call progress, I call dumbing down.

I would agree that earlier bethesda games (most notably Morrowind, the greatest RPG of all time) were much more interesting because they were more involved and retained more elements. But there were also a good deal of things that were, in fact, useless garbage, like athletics and acrobatics and fucking repairing and other nonsense. Shit aint fun, it's superfluous. The later games like Skyrim did a decent enough job at streamlining the experience while maintaining that which defines elder scrolls: the world. You can keep your hot buttery combat, I play RPGs to explore a cool world with a crazy character. Plus I always roll archer anyways, and archery in ES is perfectly fine.
 
Wii Music is one of the greatest things to ever come out of Nintendo. Tragically misunderstood, mainly due to a much greater misunderstanding of music itself. This coming from a lifelong music theory addict.
 
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