Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Th3solution You're right; whenever underwater sections crop up in games, I usually recoil slightly, but only because it's an excuse to stick on an O2 gauge and force you to speed-run the next section. It makes them far, far too stressful. @DerMeister is right to call out MGS2's Plant 32 (where you not only had Raiden to guide through, but Emma's much smaller lungs to worry about) as one of the worst offenders. They're often the victim of poor controls and immediate disorientation, with look buttons often randomly inverted and maze-like levels designed to trap and panic you.

Think of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, whereby the first time Sonic goes underwater (with that infamous countdown to drowning music and constant need to find air bubbles) is in a place called Labyrinth Zone. I mean, the name speaks for itself.

I think the last time I actually enjoyed an underwater level was, funnily enough, the last Tomb Raider game before the reboots. Tomb Raider Underworld had entire ocean floors to explore, multiple times throughout the story, with vast submerged temples and puzzles to figure out, all whilst fending off sharks. They were the biggest underwater levels in games up to that point, I think (outside of swimming simulators and submarine games). It took the idea of swimming to a spectacular extreme, but the reason they were so awesome was simple for me; Lara wore scuba gear. Air wasn't a problem. You were free to swim around as long as you wanted, figuring everything out, and the environments were large and relatively open. They were the pinnacle of what Tomb Raider had been doing since 1996 (or arguably 1997, when Lara first donned scuba gear in Tomb Raider II).

That's the key to the hype about them in Shadow, I think. The reboots have almost been allergic to underwater sections. Tomb Raider 2013 had none, and Rise had only short, practically on-rails bursts of underwater action that were "mash the swim button before she drowns". When you get a re-breather later in the story, all you realise it's any good for is mashing the swim button a little less urgently; all the underwater paths are still linear, and it helps you get into one Optional Tomb.

I think it's great that they're back, but there had better be a re-breather somewhere down the line, or those upgrades to Lara's breath-holding ability will be the first thing I spend my XP on!

@Shellcore As much as I adored The Frozen Wilds, I found myself nodding along to every word in your post. I think I enjoyed it because I'd taken a break of about a month, between completing the main game and playing the DLC over a long weekend. It hit the sweet spot of recent nostalgia, when you've finished a great game and can just recall all the good bits. I remember telling my best friend at the time, who loved Horizon but hadn't purchased The Frozen Wilds yet and wanted to know whether she should or not, "it's just more Horizon, and Horizon is incredible".

Maybe popular maybe unpopular opinion: I love underwater sections.

As someone who took years of swimming lessons, but stopped, because I was frustrated by not being able to dive well at all (something claustrophobia, I fear), I get excited every time there's a section in a video game. The diving in Uncharted 4 might be my favorite part of the game, but I never heard anyone else rave about it.

@Kidfried Ha, ha! Maybe yours is the unpopular opinion, rather than mine. I’m not sure what most people think of them but they pop up frequently in exploration and platforming games that I thought people liked them. Now I’m not sure.
I will agree with @RogerRoger that my beef is with the breath holding and games where the player gets underwater breathing gear or powers makes it much less intrusive to the game flow. That feeling of holding your breath and dying of suffocation is unsettling to me. And in exploration games I just want to lollygag around and look at all the environment down there. Then the next thing I know my character is convulsing, grunting and flailing. Lol.

@Th3solution underwater segments in games have had me on edge ever since i first played Sonic the Hedgehog and that damn music would play

talk about inducing panic

For me it varies from game to game. The issues poor underwater levels have are always consistent - rubbish controls and camera and the stress of an air meter. An example of a poor underwater level - from a game I just completed - is Wolfenstein the New Order. Absolutely atrocious with very disorientating controls. It didn't help that the submersible vehicle was crap to handle too. I'm not generally keen on underwater levels in 2D games. Particularly Mario and Sonic!

Some water levels or "sections" are great though. Although the controls are certainly dated nowadays I always loved Jolly Roger Bay in Super Mario 64. The music is one of my favourite game tracks of all time. It's so soothing. I also like the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time. That is perhaps an unpopular opinion in and of itself, but I've never quite understood the difficulty people have with it.

@Kidfried The diving section in Uncharted 4 was beautiful, not least for the way it unfolded its narrative and played with your expectations of being in some exotic, far-flung corner of the globe.

But, again as @Th3solution and @FullbringIchigo note, it's a section devoid of an air timer.

@RogerRoger

@RogerRoger I think you raised an important point about the Frozen Wilds. In the context of playing on release, I would have had time between playing the main game and the DLC. Perhaps then, I wouldn't have become bored of the activities and story. Unfortunately, buying the complete edition, I played them back to back.

There was that great side quest involving the dam, but would have liked to have seen more variety. For example, with the Banuk taking the main stage, a side story involving herding whilst riding a machine, or a stampede scenario, or something involving winter migration of machines etc... Just something to make me go "Oooh, this is a small indication of where Horizon can go in the future". Good game though and certainly doesn't take away from the experience.

The underwater levels in the Rayman games were some of the most annoying as the controls felt so much worse than the rest of the game. I think it was at that point that I gave up on Origins (I completed Legends recently though).

Hated any underwater section from the ps1 and ps2 days. The Tomb Raider games I found particularly distressing.

@Thrillo @JohnnyShoulder Underwater sections in absolutely anything, I've hated them since Labyrinth Zone in Sonic 1. Off the top of my head I can't think of an underwater bit I've enjoyed in any game

@Shellcore I think you're spot on. It's why I'm always torn between getting things at launch, or waiting for the complete edition. With episodic games it's not so bad, but sometimes DLC packs for big Triple-A releases can actually benefit from the month or two between the main game's launch and their own release.

Maybe that's an Unpopular Gaming Opinion; season passes with months of staggered DLC post-release can actually be a great thing, depending on the game.

My love of Horizon means I'll always happily play more of it anytime, and I think when I replay the whole thing, I'll do The Frozen Wilds halfway through the main storyline, as a kind of super-mission. It'd fit really well like that, I think. The ideas you suggest, however, would've been excellent (especially since we don't have to worry about execution or implementation; look at the rest of the game, the quality wouldn't have been an issue).

I think stuff like that is being saved for the sequel, if it's gonna be implemented at all. I did appreciate the little extra bit of core story presented in the DLC, though, with hints and nods towards where things will be leading. That was nice.

OK so i decided to play DmC: Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition and i gotta say i..... like it, yeah some of the issues i had are still there but i'm actually enjoying myself quite a bit this time round and Dante isn't anywhere near as insufferable as i remember him being

the turbo mode also makes the game more frantic so my Unpopular Opinion for today is

DmC: Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition is a pretty fun game and a lot better than the original release

@KratosMD the main issue i had was with the PS3 version, it had slowdown, bad textures and long load times plus the lack of a lock on and other gameplay staples soured my opinion of it but i had the Definitive Edition in my backlog for a while so i thought, why not and found it a much better experience that the original release

and again i don't find Dante as annoying this time round but i think that's just me as i age and my tastes change

i DON'T think games like Final Fantasy or God of War need New Game+ modes, for example i played FFXV New Game+ recently and i was level 102, had all the best weapons and armours, had all the Royal Arms and 99 of every battle item and the entire game was a cake walk

yeah a new game+ mode can allow you to re-experience the story but i feel at the detriment of game play

@FullbringIchigo yeah FFXV NG+ is kinda pointless at the moment from a gameplay perspective, but in GOW I think you will be able to choose a new difficulty setting. In TW3 the enemies scaled with you and you gained access yo a new set of levels (35-70) so it was very rewarding...I kinda like to have the feature in RPGs though, in case I missed something.

I blogged about this but I hate any publication or writer that treats indie games as the saviour of the gaming industry. It seems like a trendy opinion but it is ridiculous and I have seen it so many times (practically any time that an indie game goes well - Hollow Knight and Dead Cells being recent examples). There are some amazing indie games, and I play a fair bit of indies but people proudly proclaim these games as their examples. This ignores the thousands of terrible indies games released. Indies, like AAA's and AA's and everything else in between are just games. There are good uns, bad uns and plain average uns. People like what they like.

@Rudy_Manchego 100% agreed.

@Rudy_Manchego @Feena me too, 100% agreed

@Rudy_Manchego Yep, I'm with you there. Agreed indeed.