Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@RogerRoger I don't think my opinion of the games necessarily colors my opinion of its soundtrack in this instance. For instance, I played a lot of Sonic Rush on my DS - the last Sonic game I remember really liking, though I still have to play Mania - but I can without any second thought say that I hate the soundtrack. It's among my least liked.

This is coming from someone who still holds great memories of the Genesis Sonic games. I liked a lot of those games' tracks a lot, but I don't feel the games have reached those heights ever since.

Also, I'm going to disagree with the fact that a soundtrack is better when it does both of these things. Some stuff was written only to be listened in the context of that video game, so it's unfair to judge it on the basis of something it doesn't aspire to be. Music can be terrible to listen to, but that might still be the most perfect music for a certain moment in a game. It wouldn't have been any better if the music was nice to listen to outside of the context it was specifically made for.

It's convenient when it does both, but you shouldn't judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree.

Unpopular gaming opinion - I think Fallout New Vegas was massively overrated (and this from a Fallout fanboy).

Yes the map was good, but the actual interiors tended to be just one room or cave, rather than the sprawling mazes of Fallout 3. And the quests had their moments, but there was nothing to rival Megaton, or the rivalry between Tenpenny Tower and the ghouls. Or the Antagonizer!

New Vegas was a great game, but better than Fallout 3? No way!

@Ralizah @RogerRoger From playing Breath of the Wild it's very clear that they put a lot of thought into the soundtrack. And taking a bird-eye view I can appreciate that too. I won't say it's a "throwaway" soundtrack, because it isn't, but it also didn't manage to move me (aside from a few short moments).

@RogerRoger Also, I really like you, but we don't agree on too much it seems! Still love reading those replies, so never stop keep them coming.

@Ralizah Thing is, when we played Super Mario Odyssey together, that spectacular song-and-dance level had us both grinning from ear to ear, so I know Nintendo can blow folks away when they want to. I guess I was just surprised at how... well, how nervous Breath of the Wild's music seemed to be. It's almost like it was afraid of interrupting anything. But hey, we're talking about one of the biggest, most successful games of all time, so they obviously did something right!

@Kidfried And here I was, about to say how overrated the 2D Sonic soundtracks are!

Apologies, though; I thought the context of this topic was to speak about what we personally look for, prefer and think. If that wasn't clear, then I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

Objectively, I'm in complete agreement with you that music composed for a specific purpose can be incredible, and shouldn't be comparatively judged by how it performs when extricated from its source material; I just have that "Genius!" reaction because I'm personally looking to listen to soundtracks away from my games consoles. It's what elevates the music for me, that's all, and I was just trying to explain that (whoever said conveying personal emotions on a web forum was easy, eh?). I still call the Arkham Knight, Horizon and Shadow of the Tomb Raider soundtracks "absolutely fantastic" when I'm playing those games, even though I may call them "boring" elsewhere, and you bet that counts.

I'd also never attempt to make a fish climb a tree. That's just cruel.

Also also, for the sake of total clarity and my British politeness, none of my comments in that wall of text about "people who think X, Y and Z" were referring to you, or anybody specific.

But no, we don't seem to agree on much, do we?

Good. Everything would be so spectacularly boring if we were all identical. It's finding and respecting the differences between us which makes life worth living.

One final thing: if you enjoyed Sonic Rush, try the DS version of Sonic Colours. It's the same type of gameplay, but adapted around the story and, more importantly, far superior soundtrack of a "main" game (which was on Wii). Rush and Rush Adventure were excellent an' all, but Colours is my favourite of the three, and not even the terrible sound compression of the DS can dampen some of those music tracks.

@RogerRoger Well, the difference is that Nintendo is trying not to overwhelm the environmental ambiance found throughout Hyrule. The feeling of being immersed in the natural world is a big part of the game. The music also reflects the desolation of the setting, and a lot of light tunes you'll hear throughout the world are fragmented renditions of classic themes.

Not everyone is going to like that, and that's cool.

Concerning more traditional Nintendo soundtracks, I've yet to find anything that surpasses Super Mario Galaxy. Although "Jump Up, Super Star!" from SMO is absolutely very catchy. You can actually listen to a Japanese rendition of the theme on certain radios if you throw cappy at them.

Concerning Sonic music, besides the Genesis games, I really liked the songs in the Sonic Adventure games. Particularly the first. They're cheesy, sincere, and charming. I particularly liked the Tails-centric "Believe in Myself."

@Ralizah True. Thinking about it, one of the few musical moments I do remember vividly is the handful of light beats that would signify nearby danger, and would escalate if you chose to initiate combat. I wouldn't exactly call it "music" myself, but it was an effective use of... let's call it "sound design plus", and certainly fed into the atmosphere they were going for.

Mario music is infectious. My partner and I used to work together and he'd often start whistling the Mario theme, so I'd whistle the Sonic invincibility jingle to counter. Invariably, our colleagues recognised his tune more than mine. Didn't know that about the radios in Odyssey, though! Thanks for the tip!

I'm usually allergic to songs with lyrics, but must admit that the Sonic Adventure character tracks were pretty cool. I also like that, starting with Adventure, there was a genuine behind-the-scenes effort to ensure that the title songs, or any other songs with lyrics in, featured at least one really random, bizarre line. It's why we have such classic lines as "But the sphynx was so cute I had to shave it!" in Amy Rose's song. Fizzled out in later games but Sonic Adventure 2's soundtrack is a hotbed of nonsense.

Sorry, after reading the rank list today, I just have to vent and this is the place to express my unpopular opinions —
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag is not a good game! It’s the worst game of the franchise I’ve played!
Granted, I never played all the games that just poured out over the few years that followed BF (Unity, Rogue, Syndicate, etc, etc). But I haven’t played any of these because Black Flag was so disappointing!
I honesty just can’t understand the love for Black Flag. The story, the setting, the combat, the protagonist, the ... everything. There are very few things on which I am extremely far removed from the popular opinion, but this is apparently one of them. I simply cannot fathom why it is so highly praised. I would have personally considered Black Flag to be the Mass Effect Andromeda of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, since it was an enormous let down after having played and adored the previous installments.
So there!

So this is a thing huh. Well, here's a take of mine.
**Ahem**
The new Tomb Raider trilogy is no fun to me. It's like if Uncharted was completely uninspired in it's writing and game play.

@Th3solution If Unity looks interesting, give it a shot. It plays a lot different to previous AC games. I haven’t played Black Flag yet, but I feel say saying they’re very different games.

@Th3solution Which AC did you like the most and why didn't you like Black Flag? I'm pretty sure you can enjoy some of the later games, even if you disliked Black Flag.

@Th3solution Black Flag was the first and only Assassin's Creed I played after the first (which was crap compared to Heavenly Sword).

I really enjoyed it - being on the sea especially, which pretty much derailed the rest of the game for me because I just spent most of my time sailing about and having a lovely time

@Th3solution I gave to agree in part. I can't say Black Flag was the 'worst' AC game but it really isn't one of the best at all. Its not a AC game at all in my opinion - more a Pirate game (perhaps it should be called Skull N Bones) with some AC shoe horned in to sell the game. Its as if UbiSoft had little faith in their Pirate game so added some AC elements, inc the name to sell as making a new IP at a time when the economic crisis was hitting may have been a costly mistake.

As such, it ranks amongst the worst AC games as an AC game - maybe a 'good' game if you enjoy playing pirates etc but as an AC game, its poor. I actually prefer AC, the first game, to this. Unity actually got back to being what an AC game was and its a shame that their ambition was too much for the hardware to handle. I can't say that all aspects of Unity was great and it was buggy but the story was good and was a return to the aspects that we had loved with AC2.

I can't say that Origins is a great Assassins game but it has great game-play and I really enjoyed the changes. Setting it before the 'rules' of the Creed did help them be more liberal with the character and the game-play too.

@CK97 agreed 100%, i just found it dull overall, i didn't even bother with the latest one and actually went back and played Tomb Raider Anniversary instead

@Jaz007 @BAMozzy I have been put off in playing Unity for the mere fact that, not only was it so poorly received and the haphazard release poisoned my mind against it despite the issues being patched, but also it was the first game after Black Flag (and if I recall, it released really quickly after BF and it seemed like AC games were coming out in droves every few months there for a while) so I didn’t want to step back into the franchise again. Honestly the French Revolution is probably one of the most interesting settings to me (...the soundtrack of Les Miserable now starts ringing through my head...), and I was excited when I read previews. But that underlined just how disappointed I was in Black Flag that it completely deflated any interest I was holding for Unity. The timing was probably pretty poor for me too as I seemed somewhat distracted from games in general for a time there.
@Kidfried @KALofKRYPTON As far as more specifics on why Black Flag didn’t sit well with me and which AC games I liked best — I would say the first one was “okay” nothing spectacular, suffering from pacing issues and delving a bit too much into the modern storyline, as I recall. But the Ezio games are all very good imo. Especially AC2. Brotherhood was also very enjoyable. By Revelations it was probably becoming a little worn out in that Renaissance Italian setting, but I still enjoyed every minute. AC3 was a breath of fresh air and mainly because I’m an American I was fascinated by the the setting and the historical figures integrated into the adventure. Historical fiction can be one of my favorite types of fiction, and I grew up learning about Washington, Franklin, Adams, etc so it was fun to play a game with them in it (the same applies to the other games and their inclusion of Da Vinci, Machiavelli, Copernicus, etc). So, despite its lukewarm public reception, I quite liked AC3, but AC2 is still probably my favorite, followed by Brotherhood.
The interesting thing and what I can’t understand is that one of the pleasant surprises of AC3 was the naval battles. I found them a very fun distraction to the usual AC combat and exploration. The wilderness setting of the American frontier along with an occasional ship battle was great variety from the constant city travel of the Ezio games, which for 3 games as I say had grown a bit stale. I assume I’m not the only one who liked the naval battles because Ubisoft went on to make BF, an entire game centered around the mechanic, but for me it was just too much. It wasn’t nearly as fun in that game. It was borderline annoying to be constantly attacked on the open sea. I’m not sure why. Maybe the lack of major historical context was the issue. Maybe I missed the Desmond storyline. I’m not sure, and as @BAMozzy says it was a pretty significant departure from the AC fundamentals that had been established in the earlier games. And I don’t mind that, and I don’t prejudge the game from going a different direction because it was getting a bit mundane, but it just didn’t have the hook to keep me coming back to that world to find out what happens, since AC3 kind of wrapped up a lot of the modern day Desmond storyline.
Sorry for the ramble, but those are my thoughts. I am definitely inclined to play Origins, even though it’s the Black Flag development team. It sounds great. And Odyssey has a setting that excites me as much or more than the Renaissance and French Revolution. And I’m not opposed to playing Unity, Syndicate, and even retrying Black Flag since I still own my copy and also have Freedom Cry in my library from PS Plus. But who has time for all that? I feel like I can only tolerate so much of the franchise at a time and my plan is to play Origins first as soon as I get in the mood and have time.

@Th3solution Unity was a pretty good game, yeah it had issues at launch but they have all been fixed now, it's well worth a play and so is Syndicate, honestly i would have preferred they kept evolving that way they were instead of just dropping everything and starting again like with Origins, the old AC games had a feel of their own, the new ones are just generic action RPG's, good RPG's but bad AC games

@Gremio108

I think the basic premise of FO3 was better (going into the great unknown after leaving the vault) and there are some obviously amazing moments, but FO:NV just built on it so well. The rival factions of NCR of the Legion offered massively different play throughs, they massively improved the companion system (with some excellent hidden quests related to each of them), and then the Strip and the battle for control of it made it even more spectacular.

FO3 was immense as it was pretty much unlike anything I'd played before but the little improvements to NV still makes it more fun for me.

@Th3solution From your post it sounds like you would definitely like Syndicate, given that you'd be interested in an Ezio-style game. It has the historical figures you will recognize, a personally appealing and memorable setting and has the best historical fiction I've seen in the series so far. Oh, and Evie who is super charming.

I know I never shut up about how great I think Syndicate is, sorry!

Haven't played Origins/Odyssey yet, so can't comment on those.

@Kidfried I probably would like Syndicate. And from the sound of it proabably Unity too. Both can be bought for a song so the barrier is more just a backlog of other games in the way and an increasing lack of free time. I have Syndicate and Unity on my list of “possible buys” and they are probably one of my top two or three on that list. The thing is, I’ve already bought Origins, along with GoW, Spider-Man, Detroit, Persona 5.... many others ahead of it compete for my attention.

@Th3solution Hehe, that's right. You already have so many games to play. I'm kind of at the opposite point now, where I've tried to finish every game in my backlog over the last few months. And now I feel... FREE!

@Kidfried Do you fancy a crack at AC Origins then now? Or are you biding your time until RDR2 releases, like many other people are doing?
Another unpopular opinion ... the more I see about Red Dead Redemption 2, the more I feel inclined to just wait and play it next year. I’ve all but decided to wait and not preorder. Don’t get me wrong - the game looks fabulous and I’ve no doubt it will set the world on fire, but I feel inclined to wait to see reviews and early impressions before moving it up to “must play now” status.