My dislike of it stems from the marketing ploy aspect. It feels like clickbait; authors trying to get hits from people looking up (or “interested in”) a certain game even if it may not be an accurate description.
I think the Doom-like FPS’s are getting called “Boomer Shooters” now, lol…but we’re ironically in a situation where we need a new term again. Or we would be if that genre were popular in the mainstream.
I think describing the game in the article as a “Management Sim inspired by Theme Hospital/Bullfrog” would get across the same concept, for example. I don’t think it’s difficult. I think it’s just becoming a popular thing for gaming journalists to do
Yeah, Rogue-like is a notable exception. The difference is that it’s an established term for a genre, whereas a single journalist saying something like “Theme Hospital-like” is not a genre.
I saw another article describing something, perhaps this game, as a “Theme Hospital-like”. Theme Hospital-like is not a genre.
Souls-like is likely in a similar situation as Rogue-like or perhaps “Doom Clone” from back in the day, where a new genre is emerging and there isn’t yet an agreed-upon term for it. Rogue-like stuck around probably because it was such a niche game/genre for so long and people had been calling it that for maybe decades before the term went mainstream. Doom Clone died out because the genre branched out so much.
I wouldn’t necessarily want to reduce “Souls-like” to another genre, because it may very well be its own genre. It may end up “growing” a new name like First-Person Shooters did, or it may end up sticking around because “X-like” may be the new thing to do.
I’m just getting annoyed by seeing things like “Stardew Valley-like”, “Dragon Quest-like”, “Theme Hospital-like”…those tell you nothing if you don’t know the game they’re talking about, and if you DO know the game they’re talking about, you might get the wrong idea what the game is about because the author is making a bad comparison.
We call them first-person shooters now. And I think they were usually called Doom-clones. But it makes sense that they’d use a word like that when a word for the genre hadn’t really been codified by that point.
Yes. Players who are invested in winning. Not players who have poor emotional regulation or social behaviour and are invested in being assholes.
It’s called sportsmanship. Yet some online games sound worse than middle school sports games… probably because, for years, nobody got punished for acting like a middle schooler who can’t control their emotions or behaviour.
As for your statement on toxicity preventing you from playing multiplayer doesn’t seem true. There are plenty of games where you will never see toxicity and you still don’t play any of them so that can’t be what’s stopping you.
I’m fascinated by how you know so much about the games I don’t play! Lol
Given the choice between an online community with assholes being moderated away and an online community without asshole moderation, I’m going to choose the one where assholes get warned, muted, and banned.
My favourite subreddit had a rule, “Be Civil”. I much preferred that sub over ones that didn’t have that rule (or one like it). Too many people don’t know how to behave in public forums, and those people make the internet a lot less pleasant. See Facebook and Instagram comments if you’d like some examples.
I don’t play many online games, except with friends exclusively, or where there is no chat (especially voice chat). If there were games that had moderated communities that banned assholes, then I’d be more likely to venture into that world…and maybe I’d even start turning on my mic.
People play games for escapism, not to be reminded of politics. Not every story needs deep political roots, people just want to have fun and forget about real world bullshit.
Do they have to be good? Nope, they never were but let them be a thing anyways.
There were definitely some good licensed games!
TMNT Turtles in Time and The Simpsons are two amazing beat 'em ups.
The licensed games by Capcom on the NES are generally a safe bet for a good (if not great) game. Even into the 16-bit era, too.
The [X] of Illusion games on the Genesis are great kid-friendly platformers (Mickey Mouse games).
Plenty of great licensed games throughout the generations too. For something more “recent”, consider the success of the Lego games…which are often basically doubly-licensed.