Let's hate videogames!

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Spram
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Let's hate videogames!

Postby Spram » Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:41 pm

Played Sonic Mania yesterday. Was it good? Maybe. I don't know anymore. I think the flame is dying out! What do I mean? I mean I am starting to not like games anymore.

This has happened before and it's usually followed by depression and then by playing some neat video games that restore my faith in the hobby (Resident Evil 4, Red Dead Redemption).

But Sonic Mania didn't do anything for me.[SPOILERS MAYBE] It started by being disappointed that the first level was too similar to old sonics. I thought to myself that it was supposed to be like that because act 2 would be better, like the reviews said, and it was. But still not good enough. Then I got to Chemical plant zone, a level some people claim is the best (and they're wrong) and found out they decided to keep the parts of it that were the worst (that vertical tunnel with the water and the spinning blocks). I got to the boss of act 2 and it was cute, I guess this is what every review mentioned when they said something about a cool boss that they didn't want to spoil.. but if I wanted to play [redacted], I would play [redacted].

But it's not just Sonic Mania!

I loved playing Zelda's Breasts of the Wild. But it's such a flawed game. I literally dreamed of playing a Zelda game with a giant overworld like this, but everywhere I went I just saw a terrain with stuff sticking out of it. Weapons broke which made me not want to fight enemies, which were all the same. Climbing mountains sounds like a cool idea and I think it would be if you could only climb things that would be climb-able. The fact that you can climb almost everything in this game flattens what would otherwise be a very vertical world. There are secrets everywhere but the recompenses (forgot simpler English word) are always the same and you can find them else where.. or everywhere. Also, what's the point of getting a cool weapon if it's only going to break so soon. So I (and many others) start hoarding the weapons. Not fun. The nights are too light too, the moon could double as a second sun in this Hyrule. The dark island forest place looks so cool once you light up a few torches, but doing that for the whole game would probably be too much for the WiiU/Switch.. talking about graphics... Nintendo tried their best by giving the game a cell-shaded look but like in Skyward Sword they mixed cartoony with realistic and failed at both. Both Wind Wankers look great, and I admit Zelda's Wild Boobs can look great when you see it's gigantic world from a vantage point, but most of the time you'll be looking at a flat surface with a blurry texture while you slowly climb it. There are a lot of towns and people, but none of them are as memorable as previous games (everyone seems to be dressed with the same beige clothes) and the houses on the towns seem to just sprout from the terrain just like the trees and the plants.

I liked the Divine Breasts but the Shrines were lame. They take you down to a (huge) room that feels completely disconnected from the rest of the world. The graphics are the same for all 120 of them. Some of them are relatively good but most are just a small puzzle a chimp could do. Giving you the equivalent of a heart piece (or a green tear thing) for every shrine you beat takes away from the things you could find in the overworld. Sorry I'm stupid and cannot express myself correctly, let me give you an example: In previous Zelda's you (usually) never knew what you were going to get when you found a secret or solved a puzzle so the prize was a neat surprise (or more rupees). If there were less shrines and they had their own look and feel, it would be much better. If you need places to warp to, you can put something else other than a shrine that you can activate and it creates a warp point.

I'm ranting, it doesn't matter. Zelda's Wild Boobs is the Zelda game I always dreamed of: basically Red Dead Redemption set in Hyrule. But playing it didn't bring the joy I had with RDR.. in fact... before Zelda's Savage Tits came out I bought RDR for 5 dollars and started playing it again and felt nothing. There was a time when even remembering the time I played that game brought nice feelings, but now it's nothing. It's just a big terrain with cacti sticking out of it.

The game was pretty good, but I'm surprised at how much I don't care about the world. What I loved about games was finding new places and things.. like how cool the world of Secret of Mana (and other old rpgs) is... it feels so huge and lived-in.. but then I play a game that actually has a huge world with more lore to it (Zelda's Blubbering Vagina) it just feels empty and small. Maybe it's the 3D? but it's not because Ocarina of Time, while not being huge, had a totally cool world. Maybe it's because it didn't have so much filler like Zelda's Red Hot Cock. Something similar happened with FFXV.. I bet the world in the game is bigger in a way to old FF games like 4, 6 and 7.. but those game felt so much bigger with more going on...

I think the answer is that I've seen everything. Part of the fun of playing games was imagining how much cooler the sequel could be.... When I was younger I couldn't wait until games looked as good as Toy Story.. now they do and I have nothing else to look forward to.

But I did like Breath of the Wild don't get me wrong.

Anyone else not liking games that much lately?

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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Thad » Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:57 pm

Spram wrote:This has happened before and it's usually followed by depression and then by playing some neat video games that restore my faith in the hobby (Resident Evil 4, Red Dead Redemption).


Is it possible that you've got the order backwards -- not that you become depressed because you don't find games enjoyable, but that you don't find games enjoyable because you're becoming depressed?

Anyone else not liking games that much lately?


Well, on some level, the older you get, the rarer it's going to be for new games to make you feel the way you did when you were a kid.

I just got a Wii U; I've been playing New SMB U and SM 3D World with my nephew. He loves them, but I just get a feeling of diminishing returns. Mario Maker is something I would have loved as a kid, but right now it's mostly making me self-conscious that I'm not very good at level design. (A lot of the downloadable levels are great, though!)

On the other hand, Mario Kart 8 and DKC: Tropical Freeze both feel like a grand return to form.

I haven't made up my mind on Zelda yet; I have a lot of the same reservations you do about the repetition. But there was a point where it really started to win me over: I couldn't figure out how to get up Mount Hylia, so I just wandered around awhile, and eventually found the old man's campsite where he gently nudged me toward the answer. I felt like it was perfect: not the overbearing handholding we've had since, oh, Ocarina of Time, but not the total baffling opacity of the first two Zelda games, either. (In other words, about an LttP level of handholding, which is Just Right.)

I don't think you're the only guy who's felt this sense of ennui about modern games. IIRC Zara said he was concerned he didn't enjoy games anymore, until he played Undertale and found that some games still really can blow him away. (I may be misremembering some details here -- maybe it wasn't Zara and maybe it wasn't Undertale --, but I think I got the gist right.)

The games I've enjoyed the most over the past few years have included Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Stardew Valley, A Link Between Worlds, XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Within, and Tomb Raider '13. Make of that what you will.

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Mongrel
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:21 pm

Yeah, a lot of games just seem blah for me too. There's a few that are fun but they're often a very small minority.

I'm sure there's lots of reasons that this will be the case.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby zaratustra » Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:41 am

i'm old too

mostly these days I play pc metroidvanias and stupid cookie clickers and hate both of them

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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:21 am

At this point in my life I'm struggling between the twin forces of "I really shouldn't be dedicating my time to playing through long games anymore" and "I have some sort of mental disease that still makes me dedicate my time to playing long games."

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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 21, 2017 12:11 pm

One thing that's definitely changed happened is that I no longer want to have much to do with games where I wait around for some corporation to do what I want. So I play tabletop wargames or heavily moddable games like Skyrim where I can build and rebuild things as I please.

The main exception are games which I play for the social activity as much as the game itself (Tanks, Blood Bowl, Overwatch, TF2, etc.).

It's a big part of why I no longer really play MTG, despite being massively into it for two decades: All the communities I used to enjoy playing Magic in are long, long gone. Well, that and the fact that I really never was much good at it. :P
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Joxam » Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:27 pm

The problem I've had with video games lately is not one of hate but one of free time and convenience.

I work full time and have for a while but over the last year or so I've slowly kinda stopped going on my computer for longer than an hour or so every day that I work.

I find it a lot easier for me to just lounge on my couch or bed after work and watch netflix or tool around on my PS4 instead of going through all the bullshit that come with sitting down at my computer (checking social media, e-mails and stuff before I even get into any gaming.).

Its gotten to the point where despite my long years of being an avowed PC Gamer who would constantly tell people the PC versions were better almost universally that I've started buying a lot of games, even ones that have demonstrably better version on PC, on my PS4. Its just a lot less bullshit when I get in at 1 - 2 AM from work to lay down in front of my ps4 and veg out for while.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:40 pm

I've started to sour on physical media because, honestly, I'm just tired of getting up to change discs/cartridges.

Maybe the problem is just that we're all getting too damned exhausted and/or lazy to enjoy interactive entertainment.

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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:47 pm

It's funny because instead of giving up games I gave up TV and, to a lesser extent, movies. I find non-interactive visual media (print media, including online print, is fine, because I can read it as fast as I'm comfortable with) bores me.

The occasional movie is fine... it's not like watching something for an hour and half (or even three hours, if we're talking about a classic epic or something) is a problem. But when I think of watching new TV series my first thought is always "I'll have to sit in front of the TV for HOW LONG? uuuuhhhhghghghg fuck that." at most I could do something that's a single season long, but past that, forget it, I don't care if it's the greatest tour-de-force in television history, I just don't want to sit around passively that long. No joke, I just fall asleep.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:05 pm

Television, like games, has the current problem of demanding too damned much from the audience. Both a 200 hour adventure and a 6-season political wankfest is too much work for my entertainment.

I've actually been watching movies in 10-20 minute increments lately, TV-style. Definitely not the way they're supposed to be consumed but it doesn't require so much strategically timed stretching and peeing.

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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:15 pm

Mongrel wrote:It's a big part of why I no longer really play MTG, despite being massively into it for two decades: All the communities I used to enjoy playing Magic in are long, long gone. Well, that and the fact that I really never was much good at it. :P


You should come with me to play with my friends and I!
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:27 pm

I've actually tried to get into new MTG groups before, but it's not the same. All of my favourite memories are of playing with middle-aged guys (and sometimes their families), back when the game's membership skewed a lot older (which was a looonnng time ago).

And yeah, I just got sick of waiting for Wizards to make the environment I wanted to play in, or print the cards I wanted to see (hilariously, they started printing some of those cards after I stopped caring much).


Brentai wrote:Television, like games, has the current problem of demanding too damned much from the audience. Both a 200 hour adventure and a 6-season political wankfest is too much work for my entertainment.

I've actually been watching movies in 10-20 minute increments lately, TV-style. Definitely not the way they're supposed to be consumed but it doesn't require so much strategically timed stretching and peeing.

Oh yeah, movie-watching around here pretty much always includes us imposing a 15-20 min intermission at some point.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:33 pm

Mongrel wrote:I've actually tried to get into new MTG groups before, but it's not the same. All of my favourite memories are of playing with middle-aged guys (and sometimes their families), back when the game's membership skewed a lot older (which was a looonnng time ago).


You should come with me to Face To Face Games one of these times. A lot of people who play there are about our age(s).
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:38 pm

No, I mean, like 50-60.

So I guess older than middle age, actually? Anyway it's not so much age as attitude. Gamers who grew up in the 60's-70's just have a different sort of mindset, which I enjoy. A lot of the tabletop wargamers I talk to are that age and it kind of feels the way the old MTG groups used to.

Come to think of it, even outside of gaming, the majority of my close friends are at least ten or more years older than me. Even Starr's older than me, even if it's not by such a large margin.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Joxam » Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:44 pm

Brentai wrote:I've started to sour on physical media because, honestly, I'm just tired of getting up to change discs/cartridges.

Maybe the problem is just that we're all getting too damned exhausted and/or lazy to enjoy interactive entertainment.


Oh yeah, if I have to switch out one of the three or so actual phyisical games I own I just convince myself to play something else or go to sleep.
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:10 pm

Mongrel wrote:So I guess older than middle age, actually? Anyway it's not so much age as attitude. Gamers who grew up in the 60's-70's just have a different sort of mindset, which I enjoy.


What mindset/attitude is that?
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Niku » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:58 pm

FIRST OF ALL THEY AIN'T ASK SO MANY QUESTIONS, BOY
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Büge » Mon Aug 21, 2017 11:18 pm

Niku wrote:BOY


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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Mongrel » Tue Aug 22, 2017 12:30 am

Büge wrote:
Mongrel wrote:So I guess older than middle age, actually? Anyway it's not so much age as attitude. Gamers who grew up in the 60's-70's just have a different sort of mindset, which I enjoy.


What mindset/attitude is that?

"Old"
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Re: Let's hate videogames!

Postby Thad » Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:31 am

I think there's a hell of a lot more interesting shit going on in TV right now than movies.

While I like the convenience of Steam, my feelings on DRM are pretty well-established. I like physical media because I like to own things (though, as a recent consumer of Blu-Rays, I've begun to learn just how obnoxious DRM can be on physical media). I buy physical media for my PSTV (I haven't actually bought much -- just Celceta and Persona 4 -- but hey, it's a thing that I own, and I'm seriously considering buying the English-language Asian version of Dragon Quest Builders on eBay so I don't have to fuck around with downloading the US version).

Load times on the Wii U version of BotW fucking suck, though. (Though I suspect I wouldn't know half the fucking game mechanics if it weren't for the load screen tips.)

I passed the point where I spend more time setting up games than actually playing them a decade ago. Convenience is clearly not my primary motivator.

(I am looking, right now, at my SNES, which has an SD2SNES plugged into it with a buttload of ROMs on it, two Bluetooth receivers for 8bitdo controllers, plus an old wired controller plugged into a multitap in case I want to play SoM or Bomberman with more than two people, which I never have, plugged into a CRT TV and a 2.1 soundbar I just bought at the local used electronics store. I am very pleased with the setup but have spent a hell of a lot more time setting it up than playing games on it. Current goal is to get a 2-player game of FF6 going with my wife; so far, I have spent hours deciding on which translation patch to play (I decided on the Relocalization Project over the Woolsey Uncensored Edition) and have not yet had a chance to start actually playing it.)

There is something pretty wonderful about playing games with my nephew, though. I already mentioned that I'm not as jazzed about the Wii U Mario offerings as he is, but it sure is nice seeing how happy they make him. And he digs old games, too; we played all the way through Mario 3, no warps. (It's funny; he doesn't really even have a perception of the relative ages of different games, despite graphical differences that are obvious to guys like us. Mario is just Mario. He'll often ask me, about various games, "Did you played it when you was a kid?" and often my answer will be some variation on "No, New Super Mario Bros. came out when I was in my mid-twenties" or "No, I had a college roommate -- do you remember Ben? You've met Ben. Well, you were pretty little. Anyway, Ben was my roommate in college, and Ben had Mario Sunshine and I watched him play it sometimes, but I never really got into it myself. Well, I was more into Metroid Prime then. It's a different game. You can play it when you're older. Yes, it's a shooting game." And so on.

You know something? I do say "well" a lot.)

And while he's pretty gung-ho on always playing Mario platformers, he's gotten to be a pretty good sport about humoring my other suggestions. I convinced him to check out Goat Simulator and he loves it. He's less enthusiastic about DKC: Tropical Freeze, but I'm hoping I can win him over.

I'm enjoying playing Mario Kart 8 with him, too, but it is absolutely the worst game to play if you're experiencing chronic pain in your right thumb. (Nonetheless, it's me convincing him to play it, not the other way around.)

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