God of war Ragnarök - kinda meh, unskippable cutscenes, pseudo cutscenes, mediocre story, worst/laziest difficulty design (enemies are damage sponges at higher difficulties), playable Atreus. Glad I got a used copy for relatively cheap and can regain most of my money.
I couldn’t get into the souls games themselves but fell hard for Bloodborne and Sekiro. Elden Ring has been hard to get into. The open world really detracts from the game which is disappointing because everything else is really polished.
I also hate souls games and Bloodborne didn’t feel much different.
I think the key issue is that Hidetaka Miyazaki is a masochist and I’m very much not. I don’t enjoy fighting the same boss dozens of times being taken down in 3 hits. Even when I win, I feel more tired than satisfied. I’d rather play a more traditional hack’n slash or some other action RPG where if some boss is too much of a pain I grind a little then stomp them.
I enjoyed Dark Souls 1 and 2 a lot, having played through the first one multiple times. I never tried the others with the exception of Elden Ring, and the difficulty just put me off. Something about the first game made it much more tolerable for me. I think it was the overall speed at which enemies move and their combos being more predictable.
They are extremely tedious, needlessly arduous games.
I think that is in part why I loved them all. It brought me into a different mental state where I wasn’t going to be able to rush. I enjoyed that aspect.
My mind can often wander on to various subjects as well, so there was this perverse meditative aspect because of the tension of knowing that I had to constantly focus on the game or it would just kill me in one of its various, unfair ways.
I’ve played it a bit on the Xbox and it’s even laggy on that. It may just be too much for the switch to handle ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
If it’s warning about too many buildings you may have too many things for the switch to track and display, so best bet would be to remove some things. It sucks, but that’s always an issue with open world games like that.
I’ve never been a fan of the direction the Fallout series took after Fallout 2. FO Tactics and BoS aside, Bethesda’s handling of Fallout 3 and onwards really didn’t resonate with me.
As someone who enjoyed the story and RPG aspects of the earlier games, the shift to fast-paced shooter mechanics was off-putting.
Back in the day, getting my ass handed to me in Quake III, Half-Life, and Unreal Tournament wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, just something to endure. Discovering turn-based combat where I could strategize and plan my moves, rather than relying on quick reflexes, made me actually enjoy gaming. The shift away from that gameplay style made the series lose its appeal for me.
I think there are two age groups of Fallout players. Those who started with the original games, and those who started with Fallut 3.
I’m young enough to have started with 3. I did go back and play the original two, and I absolutely see what you mean. New Vegas was somewhat better, despite still being a shooter, probably owing to the fact that it was written and designed by the remnants of the people who worked at Interplay when they made Fallout.
Haven’t played it. I tried 3, and played through 4. But from what I’ve seen anything released from 2004 onwards is purely action role playing.
Researching my original comment (yes, I’m a professional overthinker) I stumbled upon the wasteland series. It seems that the original fallout was based on this series, and that it still has proper turn based combat.
BioShock Infinite. Mostly because I hated all of the characters, with the exception of the Luteces, and even they were on thin ice, mostly because of Rosalind. And Elizabeth as a NPC companion? I would prefer Ashley from Resident Evil 4 over Elizabeth any day. It didn't help that every time I tried to listen to a voxophone, she'd start talking about some bs, so I'd wait for her to finish and start the voxophone over, only to have her start talking again. When it happened 4 times with one vox, I had to take a break from the game. I just wanted to listen to the damn recording.
Gameplay is great though. I'll play the heck out of the Clash in the Clouds dlc. I get the fun action, and none of Booker and Elizabeth's constant whining.
I started the game immersed in the story, but kind of gave up on it after awhile, I think it was when “Akshually the slaves are evil for rebelling against the people who kidnapped them, took them to a floating island, abused the fuck out of them, didn’t even consider them human, and claimed it was doing them a favor because of White Man’s Burden bullshit” that ruined the spell for me
As cool as the idea of fighting through a dying utopia with factions on both sides trying to kill you who are “equal and opposite” evils, it kind of doesn’t work when one side is blatantly more in the right than the other yet the game wants me to believe it’s “Evil Vs. Evil”
“The only difference between Daisy Fitzroy and Zachary Comstock is how you spell their name!” - Booker DeWiit proving he is the dumbest man alive!
The DLC story was slightly better, but it doesn’t make sense for Elizabeth to go around killing all the Bookers because “Even though I love Booker like a father, some of the Bookers are evil!”, when a multiverse traveler should probably realize that in an infinite amount of universes you’re more likely than not going to find one where Adolf Hitler is known as the Rabbi who cured cancer and paints in his spare time… more than one most likely…
Great game tbh, but the story is such bullshit… I agree with you though, this is not a game you replay the main campaign, you boot it up and do Clash in the Clouds to get the same experience without Booker and Elizabeth being methheads… which is a shame because the characters had a lot of potiential in my opinion… Honestly the whole game did…
You can just tell that there was meant to be more going on with this story, but something clearly happened in development
The gameplay can be fun, but the story just isn’t there. It’s connection to Bioshock 1 and 2 feels forced.
As soon as they do the first “dimension switch”, or whatever, I lost any feeling of commitment since everything done up to that point became worthless to the plot.
My friend who loves the game praises the multiverse aspect of the game the most, and to me it just doesn't make sense, exactly for the reasons you gave. And having Elizabeth be there at the beginning of Rapture's downfall (and actively taking part in it, even if she was blackmailed iirc) didn't really sit right for me, but maybe that's just because I didn't like her lol.
I had totally forgot about the slavery aspect of the game. They absolutely could have handled it better. Like there's a million other ways they could have had an opposing faction who's also not 100% in the right, and that's the one you wanted to go with? Come on. Even BioShock 2 did that concept better with Ryan vs Lamb.
“The only difference between Daisy Fitzroy and Zachary Comstock is how you spell their name!” - Booker DeWiit proving he is the dumbest man alive!
I love Metroidvanias, 2D platformers, and generally even games that came before them that were similar in style but don’t meet all the Metroidvanias criteria. But I really really kind of dislike pretty much all of the Mario games. There’s a delay in the control scheme that makes timing difficult for me, and I can’t seem to get over that. I actually gave away Mario Odyssey because I couldn’t really play it well at all after about 10 hours. For me it’s not intuitive despite my like for both 2d and 3d Metroidvanias style games.
I know people who like them exist given the sales. But not only do I not play or like sports games - no one that plays games in my social circle does either.
It’s like the Venn diagram for people who play RPGs and those who play sports games is just two circles.
I do find it kind of odd that some people only play the latest sports games and nothing else. Also NFL Blitz on the Dreamcast is one of the best games and I’ve never watch a game irl.
I hate all online competitive games. Yup, all of em. I can’t relax! I can’t learn at my own pace! I can’t explore! The challenge is unknown! I don’t want to get better than strangers, i don’t care about them!
i like beating systems not people. Watching my BIL play CoD and that car soccer game, I’ve seen and heard some nasty shit. I guess it’s not unusual that people get competitive (ive seen people lose their composure over drunken kickball, i get its not just online) but considering how toxic people can be i just don’t get why people would invite that into their house.
Maybe im just not competitive. Yo, any ranked or generally competitive players, what makes you come back?
I miss server browsers and community servers. Just people playing casually and the teams could shuffle every round. It was competitive, but not sweaty plam bs and being too toxic would get you banned.
thats what turns me off them. you simply can’t play online games without being a tryhard sweat anymore. i just want to smoke a joint and chill in my off hours, not get demolished every match if i dont bring in my friends and tryhard at it.
and no commumity servers because that dont make them money
Ok first of all, online gaming communities especially around the most popular “serious” competitive gaming scenes are usually awful, terribly toxic places dominated by toxic masculinity.
It is a major problem in my opinion, both from the toxic people it breeds but also from the gatekeeping that keeps out a more diverse player base than just insecure men who hurl around insults and call shit “gay” when they don’t like it.
That being said, I do really like competitive multiplayer games like apex, battlebit, rocket league (car soccer game), halo infinite etc. I am not an especially competitive person though, I don’t HAVE to win and I don’t get super angry when I lose.
I enjoy competitive games because of the rich experience of playing a game against another human who is focused and motivated to win. I especially like playing with a team of humans against another team of humans. Humans are just so much more interesting and dynamic to compete against and generally a blast to cooperate with, singleplayer games often feel stale and like they are trying to forcefully induce a fabricated experience in me in comparison. Why do I want to play a singleplayer call of duty campaign that tries to make me “feel” like I am in a big battle when I can just play battlebit and actually be in a virtual battle with 200 other humans?
Another human competing against you for fun brings a great gift to the table from the perspective of game design and it takes an immense amount of effort to create a singleplayer experience anywhere near as engaging and dynamic. Likewise goes for a human teammate vs an AI one. Drive around in a gun truck in a singleplayer game and get an AI to gun for you and you have a slightly interesting experience where the AI just dumbly shoots at targets when you drive up to them… get a HUMAN to gun for you and all of a sudden you and that person are in an action movie together where your collective survival depends on how efficiently you work together and help each other out. Maybe you never talk to your gunner over a mic, it doesn’t matter really, the connection is still there. It never gets old to me because everything I do impacts other humans who then react and adapt which causes me to have to do the same.
Singleplayer games have to do a massive amount of work to make me fee like I am in a living breathing world that responds to me. Multiplayer games “just” have to setup an arena and let players loose. The experience of trying to outsmart another human who wants to win as bad as I do is perennially rewarding. Every moment I play a competitive multiplayer game I am working on integrating knowledge, skill, and emotional regulation and always learning and adapting. It makes my brain feel alive and stimulated in a way most single player games don’t (don’t get me wrong, I love good singleplayer games too).
I hate the toxicity and I always report it when I see it though.
I feel similarly. Playing with/against npc’s just doesn’t do it for me, and I don’t even use the mic in multiplayer games unless I’m playing with friends. Additionally though, I find video games a really tedious way to get a narrative. They’re long, there’s often a lot of grinding, and if I get stuck behind a boss I won’t figure out what happens next. So I don’t even bother with single player games unless they’re famously good and short, like I really enjoyed the portal games and when I find the time I’m going to play outer wilds. But most of the video games I play are closer to sports than narratives, it’s all about figuring out the little tricks and strategies to improve myself, and the occasional wild situations that can only happen with real people
I agree with you to an extent, in my opinion the gunplay and general movement/action parts of Red Dead Redemption 2 just isn’t fun or deep. Rockstar sucks at gunplay for the most part. I respect that the game is hugely admired and people love the story and open world but I just can’t engage with it for very long because the basic gameplay loop is too unsatisfying.
On the other hand I think really well made point and clicks like Strange Horticulture, the Blackwell Series, Machinarium and others and “interactive fiction” esque games like Roadwarden are awesome ways to tell stories. Other ways are cool too like Firewatch, Oxenfree or Papers Please. If the gameplay is fun I like games with good stories, but I don’t enjoy story focused games with mediocre but prominent mechanics.
I like competitive games where I feel like I outplayed my opponent, the feeling I get from winning against an actual human is so much superior to winning against a system that was designed to not be too hard. Here I know I had to surpass myself to win
Plus having ratings and that kind of stuff is always a nice reward for winning. I play a lot of competitive tetris, Trackmania, CS2, The Finals and recently started learning Tekken 8 for this specific reason
Om the other hand, I don’t like souls like because they’re just a single goal I need to spend hours to beat with no progression afterwards. I want my solo games to be challenging sure but not requiring me to learn like my multiplayer games can get
I’m just competitive. Nothing beats absolutely decimating an opponent to the point they quit.
I also get 0 satisfaction from beating a computer. I do that every day as a software developer, so I’d much rather play against other people.
Also competitive games are great because you can play hundreds or thousands of hours and almost always get new experiences. Some team is going to throw something at you that you haven’t seen before, and it keeps the gameplay interesting and dynamic.
I only like competitive games that are just as much cooperative as they are competitive. Team-based shooters like Overwatch or R6 Siege, for example, are always fun with a group of friends.
Shit like CoD or Fortnite though? Nah, I could never get into them. I don’t really hate them or anything, but I always get bored of them very quickly so I don’t bother buying them.
So, like you I don’t enjoy most competitive games. I like to dabble occasionally and enjoy an FPS here or there(I enjoyed the Finals for a bit, and occasionally a CoD, last one was Modern Warfare), but mostly play single player or co-op games because I find them far more enjoyable.
There is one genre that is an exception, fighting games. I fucking love them. I used to enjoy them as a kid, then had a long hiatus, dabbled when Street Fighter 4 launched, but didn’t “git gud”. Then Dragonball Fighter Z and the Arcade Edition for Street Fighter 5 launched and I think they were the gateway drug for me. Street Fighter 5 was tough, I couldn’t find a character I liked, so kinda bounced off it, but DBFZ kept me in. It wasn’t until Blanka in SF5 came out that it all clicked for me.
The genre starts of like a little puddle, you don’t really need to know a lot going in, but you definitely need to want to improve. And the more you improve the more you realise how deep the puddle is, cause it is actually an ocean. When you play against another human, at the lower ranks it is quite random and spammy. But as you get past them, you get to where you can condition people, you can learn their habits and combo choices. Then you take that knowledge and adjust your gameplay and see if they can counter it, and it can be come a big back and forth of trying to get the other person to make a mistake and exploiting their habits.
It is also a genre where nothing else really transfers across. All that time in FPS or RTS games isn’t going to help, so learning to do the technical inputs can be rewarding, or labbing out a combo and how to implement it in your gameplay.
I also really enjoy the ranking climb in most fighting games. SF6 has kinda perfected it, you play 10 games and it gives you a placement from Rookie upto Diamond 1, then you match against someone typically within ±1 rank(Gold 1 would be matched with Silver 5, Gold 1 or Gold 2)and rack up points. At the top of the ranking you hit Master, then it turns into Elo points and a proper distribution of skill, cause the difference between a professional and good player that just hit Master is massive. And for SF6 it is done on a per character basis, which allows you to sink time into every character and be playing with people your skill level.
I am 417 hours into SF6, 3 characters at master rank and a few in diamond/platinum. I still feel like I am bad, and I am definitely not using all the systems effectively in the game. But I sure as hell am excited to sink another several thousand hours into this game over the life of it.
Tekken 8 also just came out, which also seems incredible, but 3D fighters are basically an entire new genre to learn.
i grew up playing street fighter ii turbo and mortal kombat with my friends from the neighborhood. Whenever we get together these days one of us will have a copy ready in case we want to throw down like when we were kids. Getting a big group talking shit and passing the controller around will never not be fun for me, but i know i dont have what it takes to handle people online.
I have read about all that goes into competitive ranked fighting games and it looks (as you say) as deep as the ocean. there is sooooo much to learn and practice that i don’t think i would ever have fun online, but i can still hold out with my favorite characters with my old pals. I agree with you, fighting games are quite fun.
I am going to respectfully disagree, I think if you have a desire to learn and participate everyone can have fun online in fighting games. Don’t get baited by thinking that you need to learn all these combos and moves and be 100% perfect at doing it all the time. Cause you dont.
The difference between someone just starting and a pro is vast, and will seem daunting and like you need to know a bunch of stuff. But honestly competitve starts out similar to you and a bunch of pals just having fun together.
You are playing the other person, getting reliable damage from a combo is more important to begin with than doing optimal damage. For street fighter(it is what I have the most experience with), you need to know how to anti air to stop people from jumping(this is usually a crouching Heavy Punch, but can be different for some characters). Then throw in a simple combo, can be an easy target combo(or using the modern inputs in SF6) or something as simple as HP > Fireball/Tatsu. And then making sure you know basics like blocking and throws, drive impact and drive parry for street fighter 6.
That seems like a lot, but it is less than the mechanics of most single player games that get thrown out in tutorials, and the rest of the knowledge will come with time and practice. Say you come across someone who just cleanly wipes the floor with you, you can look at the replay and see if there is a gap, or learn the timings, or if it is unsafe if you just kept blocking. But that won’t be something you have to worry about for a while. You will spend a lot of time figuring out how to handle people randomly throwing out DP or Drive Impact or who just won’t stop jumping.
I don’t play competitive games unless the community is generally decent or I have the option to just turn off voice and text chat for people I don’t know.
Hunt Showdown is the one arguably competitive game (in that its PvP) that I still play … the community there is generally great. There is the occasional trash talk but mostly it’s just people having fun.
Sometimes people on enemy teams will be willing to negotiate and you both walk away from the fight.
Sometimes they’ll just have fun with it and make sound effects. One guy just the other night I was in a shoot out with was making sound effects “agghhh my leg!!! You got me you got me, it’s over!!” Only to come back a few seconds later with a bomb thrown at me and my buddies.
Occasionally there are toxic people but it’s really fun when you shoot them, take their stuff, and burn their characters bodies … then report them. Taking the extra time to be inflammatory or make noise to trash talk on an extraction shooter can easily get you killed and make you lose a fair amount of stuff.
If being a toxic egomaniac is your jam, extraction shooters are a bad fit.
Cuphead.The art is very beautiful, but I think the gameplay uses just plain repetition to achieve the difficulty, and I’m not a fan of doing the same thing again, again and again.
I don’t actively dislike it, but for me RDR2 is also the main one. Apart from competitive shooters etc which aren’t really my thing either. The thing is, I like the type of game that RDR2 is. But I just have nothing with the setting. I played it right after Cyberpunk, which I loved for multiple reasons. One major thing is that I controlled V, and thus could create my own story. In RDR 2 I was forced to play someone I have nothing in common with, who does exactly the things I wouldn’t do, and who lives in a shitty time period where basically every woman basically has the same rights as cattle. That may not be inaccurate, but it just didn’t vibe with me. I just got so frustrated with the main character talking shit to people who were right, or drinking a lot and getting into trouble in a very predictable way. Despite the beautiful and interesting world I just couldn’t feel anything but frustration.
I do get why people like it though, I don’t think it’s a bad game. Its just not for me.
Not just that but the combat is boring as shit and brings “repetition” to levels I’ve never seen before. The only attraction to this game is that they actually got James Woods.
I kinda liked the Disney crossover thing but nomura just couldn’t stick to the concept and had to dive deep in his own ass and sideline disney in favor of his own convoluted roster of charcaters
I love Japan. I love Samurai, and old times. Fired up the game and found out it has some dark souls mechanic bullshit, that makes it a grinder.
I am an adult. With very limited time for games. I have to have quick saves I can’t be grinding shit. I simply don’t have the time nor the desire waste time grinding.
Really sucks because the game looks gorgeous and I liked the start of the story…
I mean, the no build mode is ok. The concept of building a fort and defending it Left 4 Dead style, if done right, could be endlessly fun with friends. Each wave would require repairs and more sophisticated builds to take on tougher mobs. But yeah, what Fortnite became never drove me to play it unless friends asked me to.
Save the World is very fun. I also got fortnite the day it came out on XBox and loved save the world. When they shut that down, I never played fortnite again… until i saw they brought back save the world and I’ve been playing regularly lately.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne