Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@FullbringIchigo haha. Next up you'll be ruining my lunch by posting pics from Final Fantasy or something!

@tomassi

@FullbringIchigo ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Get it away from me!!!!!

@tomassi

@JohnnyShoulder isn't that what matters, after all? Fifa is just too slow and that's not fun. This leads me to another unpopular opinion:

Realism in games is overrated! People don't realize that realism doesn't equal fun. In some games realism works but in most it doesn't.

@NecuVise Yeah that is why i went back to pes few years back as they messed around with the player movement in Fifa too much one year and it felt totally wrong.

I think originality can be seen as the holy grail by some when really it is not. Sure it is important to have new stuff but that doesn't always mean the game will be good. Sequels have a place in the industry too and as long as they are fun that is what generally should matter.

@JohnnyShoulder I played a demo of FIFA18 today, so I went to what's new section and realized it's the same old stuff they market every few years, like all new dribbling system, improved player movement so Ronaldo Messi etc will be lifelike, improved control on passing etc. I think I've seen this in at least two other fifa games in the last five years have you or anyone else realized this?

@FullbringIchigo makes me feel sick. Look at them. I mean, how can anyone be on board with THAT?!!

@NecuVise They just use the same advertising tactics as the washing powder commercials, my whites have been getting whiter for a very long time now going on that, and I probably shouldn't look at them for fear of my eyes melting from the brilliant whiteness...

@Dichotomy hahaha good comparison

Impopular opinion: GTAV is nothing too special. It's GTAIV with a new lick of paint.

Another one: Sony's press conference this year was really well structured, even the break.

I have a new unpopular opinion....wait for it...Horizon: Zero Dawn isn't very good.

I don't think it's a bad game, but I am confused about all the praise it has received, although I have an inkling as to why that may be in the current climate. I like the idea of robots and tribal humans (new and old) and the combat. The rest I have seen again and again. My typical play session entails opening the map, putting down a marker, running there picking up herbs on the way, fighting a machine or two, saving at nearest bonfire. Rinse and repeat. Some of it, you can replace "fighting a machine" with "finding a thingy". Again, not bad, but nothing we haven't seen many many times before. If Aloy was instead Alan, I doubt this would be as big as it is.

@Shellcore That's true of almost all 3rd person action/adventure games though.

I was fairly hyped by God of War, until I watched a good chunk of gameplay footage. It's beautiful, and well scripted, acted and directed - but the gameplay is much the same as anything else. That's just inescapable.

I'm glad that a good, pretty - solid game from a first party studio has a strong female lead. While those gamers of a certain age grew up with likes of the early Tomb Raider games and had no issue with playing as a woman - at the same time, the internet (as it was) was more concerned with the 'nude Raider' nonsense. I mean, she would've been a collection of a few flesh coloured polygons... but still - it overshadowed the game in some circles.

The rebooted Tomb raider has changed that depiction for the better. But for every Nariko, (new) Lara Croft, Aloy, Faith Connors, Heather Mason, Aveline de Grandpre - there's the entire female cast of Street Fighter et al...

Gaming is not new to strong female leads - but as the industry so completely pushes in to the mainstream of entertainment, it's nice that there is a banner title to hold up to show that gamers aren't just masturbating cave trolls addicted to pornography and Warcraft.

@KALofKRYPTON I agree with all of your points. This is part of why I believe HZD has been hyped to high heaven. My original post points out elements that you rightly attributed to many other games in that genre. The game just doesn't stand out apart from the combat and the protagonist. I disagree that gamers/game developers have something to prove, but that's just me. Creators will create and consumers will consume. Popularity wins out. My post had a hint of the political in it, but I would prefer to keep to the main thrust of my opinion that as a game, HZD was a let down to me due to familiarity and repetitiveness. I came late to the party (last week in fact) and I don't get it.

Edit: I haven't played GOW, but suspect I will agree with your feeling on that also.

@Shellcore I'd sort of agree with some elements, in terms of map markers, repetative actions. For me, the elements that I enjoyed was the character and story (which is entirely subjective) but also the combat. For me, I found I had some really memorable encounters with the robo dinosaurs that I can still recall them now, and I loved the amount of different tactics I could bring to them.

I don't think it is groundbreaking but I thought it had some originality. That said, I can see your points!

@Shellcore I would have loved Horizon regardless of the character's gender. For me it's not about the open world even, but mostly because I like fighting the robots a lot. I think the fighting is super smooth and awesome and grants you a lot of options on how to tackle battles.

You don't need to bring up gender in such a way, it's quite demeaning actually. Aloy is not a strong character because she's a female, but because she is a strong character.

Unpopular opinion: Horizon is underrated.

@Kidfried Thanks for the your viewpoints on the game. I thought the combat was the highlight. The way you could take out some enemies by stealth, thinning the herd, setting traps and focusing on weaknesses. That was the positive for me.
I think you misunderstood what I was getting at regarding the characters gender. Aloy is a strong character because of her traits and the story (especially the prologue before the more open world). The fact that she is a women is irrelevant. However, as has been leaned into in the posts above, Aloy has been elevated as a character because of this fact. Deserved or not, Aloy is the current banner bearer for female characters in games. This is very on trend and a clever (and probably well-meaning) decision on the part of the developer. I'm sorry you feel the that way you do.

Edit: Reading back, it looks like we share the same view. However, as a game, I don't believe the hype was justified. Gender, Race, Religion or Political slant should not colour the subjective review of gameplay.

@Shellcore Sorry if I came accross a bit brash, by the way. Not being a native speaker of English I often come accross as more blunt than I want to by the way!

To me it sounds like you expected something more groundbreaking, and I can understand you coming out disappointed as a result. It's a very well crafted open world game. To me it's the type of game that all Ubisoft games wish they were, and thus exactly what I want. But aside from the combat I find it difficult to really asses whether this is an instant classic.

@Kidfried No, I think you did the right thing. You sensed bigotry and called it out. I still think this is a good game, however like you said, just not as ground-breaking as I expected (which is completely my bad). Still looking forward to the inevitable sequel.

@Shellcore I enjoyed HZD a lot to the point that I did 100% trophies for it, including beating it the second time on ultra hard, and I think that's the first game since half-life 2 that I've beaten two times.

In spite of this, I agree with you. It really feels like a ubisoft game, but the setting, graphics and combat is what I liked really much. I'm also glad that Aloy was portrayed as a normal girl not some super sexy female, as we often get in games.

I've noticed that Sony exclusive games usually get high praise both from critics and community, and that's why I think you have such high scores for GoW, even though it's a game of corridors and repetition.