Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

I only gave a slow hand clap and poker face when Switch sales surpassed PS2 sales. 😐
Despite I still like my Switch games, but Switch success also followed by the flaws such as code in box, partial download, streaming only, poor optimization, downgraded quality, etc that made me disappointed.
Switch sales is great, but I don't feel happy with the flaws from Switch.

DMC: Devil May Cry (the reboot made by Ninja Theory) was an amazing game that didn't deserve the vitriol it received.

Apparently this is unpopular recently: exclusives are good and necessary for consoles.

I think we lost the “Gaming Pet Peeves” thread, perhaps due to the creator having deleted their account. So I figure I’ll put this here. I’m not sure if it’s an unpopular opinion though —

It didn’t used to bother me, but I’ve become more and more annoyed when games have hidden paths to get to a place that you can clearly see where you want to go. It’s a classic metroidvania type of design choice — you can see a place to go, but can’t get there yet. I’ve never really liked that to begin with, where you have to trek back later when you get a skill like a double jump or a dash or a grappling hook, etc.

But I think it’s even more annoying when you can see where you want (or need) to go and the path to get there is not straightforward. It’s not too bad if it’s a chest behind some rubble that you have to search around to discover a secret way to get there, but if it’s an objective that’s important for a quest it can be maddening. You can see where you need to go, but all paths that would seem to lead in that general direction don’t go there. It’s even more annoying when the map also has what appears to be a straight path to the objective but when you follow it you end up right over it or right under it or maybe there’s an unclimbable wall or something in the way when you get there. What ends up happening is you spend an hour wandering around taking multiple pathways to get there and waste tons of time until you finally see some cryptic area you were supposed to go to, or you realize you’re not intended to go there yet.

There was a time when this form of exploration was fun for me, but now it really bogs down game flow and feels like poor game design to me.

People that say "oooh i'd try it if it wasn't first person" need a good smack upside the head 😤

why is it such a common hangup for people haha. It's seriously like it's the phrase of the day over here

Jesus Christ!!! (be praised) it's like people have an actual mental block and can't even comprehend that their life is in fact lived in first person and it hasn't held us back so far 😅

@Ravix so I will play games with first person viewpoints but I have to admit that I’m not a massive fan of it. I was only chatting on one of the articles the other day about what I’d give for a third person viewpoint for Cyberpunk 2077. I mean it’s not gonna stop me playing it but my excitement for it is dulled quite a bit. Alternatively, I picked up the dlc for Resident Evil Village which adds a third person viewpoint. I’ve just started playing through the series and this option has turned what was ‘just another Resi’ in my mind, to my most anticipated to play in the whole series.

I’m also a big fan of the Ghost Recon games and I’ve heard rumours that the next instalment will involve a shift to first person. And while I’ll still end up playing it… the level of my excitement for it is so much lower.

Not sure if unpopular or just a pet peeve though it could be both.

30fps isn't as big a problem that people make it out to be. Games locked at 30fps are not 'unplayable' and I believe that thinking otherwise is ridiculous.

@Ravix @Kairuuu I agree on both points. I just don't get people that that refuse to play games because of something like the frame rate or that it is in first person. I get that some people get queasy and stuff, but that is not everyone that complains about it and who refuses to play these games. And, yes everyone has their preferences but that is choice an individual has made. There is a difference between 'can't' and 'won't', after all.

I used to be a bit like it with with fps when I first got my PS5, as that was my first experience of playing games at higher frame rates on a consistent basis. However, I've played plenty of games at 30fps (over 100 hours on Horizon Forbidden West) which have been fine.

@JohnnyShoulder Don't get me wrong, I'm always choosing performance mode over quality mode if given the option. Maybe that makes me sound a tad hypocritical. However, if a game is locked at 30fps, I'm not going to just dismiss it right out of the gate.

@Kairuuu Yeah exactly. When I played Horizon Forbidden West it was when I had my old TV which didn't have VRR. My current tv does and most games that I've played since having it are at least 60fps.

@graymamba yeah, that's a lot more balanced than the people who act like devs are stupid for even considering making games in first person though. It's when it's clearly just an extension of the entitled, closed minded outlook that is taking over the world.

It took me a while, beyond old Call of Duty, Battlefield etc, to realise First Person could be good for other games too. I'd not even had much experience with Fallout or Far Cry other than playing casually with people on... Xbox 🤢 so when I knew Cyberpunk was going to be first person (it hadn't even crossed my mind it would be) I made the decision to try some others games to get myself used to it again. A little game called Kingdom Come Deliverance popped up in my search and we all know how that went haha. So in a way it is saddening that people are still restricting themselves from trying great new games based on their stubborn thoughts on the matter, whilst hating on devs for simply making great games 🤦‍♂️

@JohnnyShoulder @Kairuuu

And it kind of ties in with the FPS point to. It's like a go to reflex for the comments section to have x amount of people proclaim that devs are the devil for even thinking about releasing a console game at 30fps. And now for the most part people have a choice, and all of a sudden it's:

"Well, I don't want to have to choose"

Well f*** right off then 😂

And I feel like it is an unpopular opinion now, as the desire to scrutinise performance and development is taking over, and the gamers who just want to enjoy some decent games are falling into the shadows. (On the internet, anyway)

@Ravix There are the last two mainline Resident Evil games which have been from the first perspective. I personally prefer it for some games as I find it more immersive.

And look at us, talking about FPS games and FPS in games. 🤯

@Kairuuu disagree; i literally could not play gotham knights on PS5 because of the motion sickness it would give me & the gameplay was clunky jank on top of that. The gameplay would’ve been much more tolerable if the framerate was improved.

FPS directly affects overall gameplay, and also affects how “you” play the game (reaction times, camera movement, etc).

I think it’s ridiculous to belittle the notion of improved framerate just because you personally don’t have a problem playing a slideshow. 30fps is excellent for film and TV, and can work for some games, but the problem is it doesn’t for all games or even most games of today - especially if you play online multiplayer.

hell, I remember as a kid I couldn’t stomach the battlefield games back on Xbox360 compared to COD because of how they “played” and “felt” - but I couldn’t put my finger as to why & I even thought it was because something was wrong with my console at one point, come to find out it was because it was sub-30fps.

I feel like the only people who say "30 fps is fine actually" are people who have never played a game in 60 fps, or play all their games on a 15 year plus old TV.

Also yeah, I think the notion that first person is somehow more immersive is really weird. Playing Cyberpunk I just felt like a disembodied ghost floating through that city, completely and utterly unanchored from it, maybe this is intentional design, but then that intentional design is deliberately the complete opposite of immersive.

@nomither6 Fair enough. You’re entitled to your opinion; I’m entitled to mine.

I'm definitely in the anti-first-person crowd myself. Personally it takes me out of the experience - sure, we experience real life in "first person" view - but in reality we also have a sense of self, depth perception, peripheral vision, etc., which I don't think is captured in first-person games. With a third-person perspective I get a better sense for my character and how they interact with the world - bonus if they look cool as well. I'm willing to try first-person games but more often that not I find it off-putting - personally I find it only works for games where aiming through a reticle (i.e. first-person shooters).

As for frame rate? I'm primarily a Switch gamer so I'm quite used to 30 fps. That said, when available, I will almost always opt for 60 fps / performance mode over a 30 fps fidelity mode. There are several factors at play for me as to whether 30 fps is acceptable - genre, overall graphical style / fidelity of the game, etc. Always stable 30 fps over dipping 60 fps though.

This is silly if you sit and think about it for five seconds.

Most console games during the seventh and eighth generations ran at 30fps, and they were fine. People still enjoyed them then. And people can still enjoy them now. You're just used to higher framerates now, since it's only recently that consoles have been able to consistently run 3D games at a smoother framerate.

30fps isn't ideal, but sometimes it's necessary, especially on lower-end hardware like portable PCs or hybrid consoles, or even on power consoles for more ambitious games that push the hardware.

Any game released on Xbox or PS5 within the last decade that didn't launch with a 60 fps mode as standard, is unacceptable as far as I am concerned and consumers should demand more if it doesn't deliver that, rather than just accepting subpar performance because it was acceptable 15+ years ago.

@Pizzamorg A decade ago was 2015, when a ton of AAA console games were targeting (and often not consistently hitting) 30fps. Games were still perfectly playable. It's only since 2020 that 60fps became standardized on power consoles.

"Demanding more" doesn't mean anything, really, considering most games only target lower framerates on less performant hardware.

30fps IS fine for the majority of genres. Gaming at 60fps is a better experience. Both can be true. And a decade from now, when most games are hitting 120fps, 60fps won't then suddenly become unplayable, either.

Yeah I suppose really it should be 8 years, since the PS4 Pro came out at the end of 2016 I believe, allowing 60 fps gaming to move away from being trapped entirely on PC. Although ironically in that time, it still seems mostly trapped on PC, at least on launch. With several titles not getting 60 fps modes at launch on console, although weirdly this seems to be more on the Xbox side of things, as Sony does seem to generally try and have their games release with a 60 fps mode at launch.