Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@nomither6 Ok, I guess we’re on the same page. It was the “if all games were M-rated they would be a lot better” which threw me off. I follow you now. I understand it now as “if all games weren’t creatively restricted in order to avoid getting M-rated they would be a lot better”, or something like that. Or maybe, what you actually are campaigning for is just to do away with ESRB ratings altogether — a more laissez-faire system with no limits, no oversight, and therefore no restrictions on the content that developers can produce without being labeled by a rating. It’s a fair point, but the parents and law-makers of the world will never go for it.

The movie industry has similar issues, as you are probably aware. If a movie is R-rated it will automatically cut out a large chunk of potential audience, so big budget blockbusters are always shooting for the PG/PG-13 rating. Interestingly, the opposite holds true too — A movie to be rated G is a kiss of death at the box office (if it’s not a children’s show). In one famous example, Spielberg was concerned that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial was going to be given a G-rating so he added the line where Eliot calls his brother “p*nis breath” so as to assure a PG rating to help with marketability. It’s a funny and famous line, but definitely feels out of place.

As far as gaming, I do think developers are more open to making their games M-rated than they used to be. Video games used to be considered “children’s games” and only in the last 10-15 years or so have they really been adopted as adult entertainment also. So you can see how developers have progressed with the times and now aren’t afraid of the M-rating as much. Sucker Punch is a great example. Sly Cooper (E) to Infamous (T, but importantly had the option to play as “evil”) to now Ghost of Tsushima (full M-rating with decapitations, blood spurting everywhere, and more bare buttocks than I’ve seen in a game in a long time. Oh wait… forgot about Death Stranding 😂). Naughty Dog is another classic example. From Jak & Daxster to Uncharted to The Last of Us, with Part II being one of the most visceral and violent games I’ve ever played, with no holds barred on full artistic expression with not only violence, but sex and all the possible socio-political themes imaginable.

Some of the best selling games are M-rated, so I don’t think you need to worry. Elden Ring, GoW, CoD, and GTAV have solidified the viability of developers not having to shy away from getting an M. That said, there’s almost zero chance Spider-Man 2 or Jedi Survior would be M-rated. (Reportedly Wolverine is going to be M though)

yes we exactly are. M rating to me doesnt mean the usual stigmas ppl associate with it , but more so a game with more creative freedom and depth on all fronts with no restrictions or cut-out content. Other ratings just causes limitations.

@NeonPizza Interesting thoughts. Speaking of, and approximately on the eve of the RE4 Remake release, I was underwhelmed with RE4, which I know is a massively unpopular take. I won’t repeat a lot of my issues with it that I’ve talked about prior, but when you mention the drab colors and environments, that sounds a lot like my feelings on RE4. I know that was the whole intended aesthetic, but it didn’t help endear me to the game which I was already struggling with from a gameplay standpoint. I still need to go back and try to finish it but can’t seem to find the motivation.

I hate adult entertainment.
They are all evil.
Showing the extreme inappropriate things is a sin / crime.
I have zero respect with any rated M stuffs.
They must be destroyed.
#keepplayingkidsgames 🤟

@NeonPizza 5, 6 and Revelations 1 are atrocious for me!

The lore in 5 was ok but the environments were dull and boring! I do not think I could replay it ever.

6 was all over the place. The only part I liked was the first 2 chapters of Leon (the city and the Cemetery, church, catacombs areas). Everything else was pure garbage!

Revelations 1 was just ok. The only way I could see myself replaying it is ONLY to experience the 3DS version.

RE3 Remake had too much cut content to be enjoyable for me. Time constraints, I guess.

RE1 and Remake, RE2 and REMAKE, RE3, RE4, RE7 and RE8 I can see myself replaying multiple times!

And soon to add RE4R to that list!

I love the support from games publisher such as Outright Games, Microids and Team 17 for their contributions of kids games on multi consoles especially on PS4 & PS5.
PS5 needs more kids games by those publishers.

@NeonPizza I am jelly of that PSVR2 experience you are having. I've never even dabbled in the first PSVR. I hope they make it somehow revolutionary and the experience is worth it.

And yes, the RE3R is a glorified DLC.

I like the idea of toys come alive on consoles such as Skylanders so I want to see similar games like Skylanders style on PS5.

@NeonPizza Yeah, as far as RE4, I experienced it for the first time on the PS4. My first ever playthrough started last October as part of Halloween themed Game Club, but i fizzled and have never finished. I went back to it a few times over the last couple months but still struggled. I’m roughly 7-8 hours in maybe. I have reached Ashley and I’ve beaten the first couple bosses (that lake monster and the giant troll guy). What did me in was a sequence in a cabin where you reunite with the Spanish Don Quixote character (😅 sorry I don’t remember the names) and it’s like a constant barrage of enemies from all angles for 30 minutes with no end, until it finally stops. I found the entire sequence miserable and not fun at all since I was fighting the controls the whole time. Feeling like I was finally through one of the hardest parts, I kept on and soon had another mob attack sequence.

The awkward tank controls and figgity aiming and weapon swapping fits for the first 3 games when it’s usually just a couple enemies at a time. But when dozens are rushing you and you are also protecting a weak helpless companion, it makes the dated controls really feel out of place (to me).

Having just read the REm4ke review, it seems like I’d enjoy it a lot better. So I just need to decide if I want to push myself to complete the original first, on principle. I’m probably only 1/3 complete…?

A game being shorter is a pro, not a con. We have far too many long games and it should the exception, not the norm.

@RogerRoger It’s a mix of both. I think games are pointlessly long (padded out) and there’s not enough time to play too many long games. RDR2, Eder Scrolls and the like need to be long, but that should be the exception not the rule.I think hear a lot would agree, but I feel like I’m general people have become a bit obsessed with play time and use the word only when talking about game length a lot.

@Jaz007 I think Play Time and 'Value' do play a part in that - not necessarily for the 'better'. If you are expected to pay $70 for something that you finish in one session and can't buy anything for a while or have anything new to play, it can feel very bad 'value' considering you can spend the same money on some games that will last you until your next Pay Day and beyond.

I can't buy 'every' game I want to play the day it releases and so I have to choose which game may represent the 'best' value, a game that I could buy that will last at least until next payday or offers the best cost per hour. I don't mind a great Story lasting around 8hrs or so, but I am not paying $70 for something like that - not unless it comes with additional modes, content etc - like a full Muli-player or Co-op suite - as we came to expect through the 360 era.

I think with Prices going up, people become more concerned about the 'value' proposition - buy something for $70 that will last you a month or more, last you to your next paycheck, last until you can buy another game etc - not pay $70 for something they finish in a day and then feel they didn't get 'value' in a cost per hour from their game. It's not as if games like GTA, RDR, Witcher etc don't have 'Quality' that these 'linear' 8hr games do...

I find shorter games often feel longer than they are, I think because they are generally busier within the playtime. Take Dead Space Remake, I played that at a steady pace, did all of the side quests and enjoyed the environments and it took me about 18-20 hours over 4-5 weeks, but with the tight story beats and stressful gameplay just 45 minutes left you satisfied.

Comparatively, I have put over 30 hours into Octopath Traveller 2 in 2-3 weeks - time just melts away with games like this.

So I guess there is actual effort (time) required to get through a game and subjective effort.

@Jaz007 There’s definitely a middle ground. The problem for me is that when games have sooo much more to do in them, it can easily end up diluting the main story.

From instance, playing Cyberpunk I wanted to try and do everything possible (including slightly esoteric stuff for the platinum) which took ages and I kind of forgot what was going on in the main story (there were so many things I had forgotten which made the story more coherent when I did my immediate second play through).

It also kind of kills any notion of your main story being particularly time sensitive!

So I guess my issue is partly game length and partly open world problems. I just hate “busywork” stuff in games when they feel the need to pad the game length/content out.

Another place where playtime gets skewed is in retries after deaths or failures. Some of us will take much longer to complete a game because we have to replay sections over and over, or we have to grind and level up. For example, I think my Returnal completion time was in the neighborhood of 40-50 hrs, and some people claimed to have completed it in 10-15. Another for instance — I have taken a really long time on Souls games because I prefer over-leveling to repeatedly failing.

An additional place where total playtime is hidden is in games where you spend a lot of time in menus. Strategizing a loadout, poring over a map, tuning a skill tree, or reading volumes of of supplementary lore items — there’s places where games can either drag or enhance itself, depending on your personal preference, with all this hidden time they require.

I’m making my way through Hogwarts Legacy at present and this is a huge game. I could probably mainline it in 20-30 hours but I’ve spent around 50 already and only partially finished with the main story and still have tons of side content to explore. All that is perfectly fine. However, one annoying aspect is the time I’m having to spend switching out gear. My obsessive compulsive urges prompt me to switch to the best gear I have a available and to pick up every single chest and it’s adding so much time (and hassle) to the experience. Especially if one wants to have their character appearance to look a certain way, then each time you switch out your gear, then you have to do a whole separate transmog process afterward. I’ve grown tired of doing that so I just roll with whatever the gear looks like but it makes for some immersion breaking moments in the cutscenes with those ridiculous looking glasses and hats. 😅

But yes, to @BAMozzy ‘s point, there exists this unfortunate justification for pricing that results in developers bloating a game to fit the $70 price tag, whereas it should be the other way around — if the overall artistic vision of the game creates a 6-8 hour experience, then the launch price should probably reflect that, no matter how high quality that 6 hour experience is. It could have saved The Order: 1886 to launch at $30 or $40. The Callisto Protocol is another one that I’ve heard the complaints about more recently; I haven’t played it, but I hear it was a bit lean on content for the price and it’s a better “wait for a sale” type of game.

When my second child was born in November, I was in the mind set of getting stuck into something long form, like say the Witcher 3 and that would be perfect to work around a newborn. What I actually found was the moment to moment gameplay, events or story etc were taking place over a much longer timespan and that I was getting next to no enjoyment because of that. During a window of 40 minutes or an hour if I was lucky, I felt I wasn’t achieving much. Since then I’ve primarily focused on smaller indie titles with runtimes under 20 hours or so, Headlander for example, and I’m having a lot more fun. This isn’t to say I don’t love sinking 100s of hours into one title, just that it really is subjective to the context of your current situation.

@AgentCooper Ha, on the flip side I motored through both of my runs on Cyberpunk during my paternity leave when I had my newborn sleeping on my lap and the wife got a few hours sleep between feeds.

@AgentCooper Although I can’t speak for the newborn parenting aspects, but I am a busy guy, what with work and outside friends, family, hobbies, etc. All the extraneous real life diversions result in those random 45-60 minute openings to spend gaming. I have stretches of 3-4 hour sessions sometimes, but the majority of the week has bite-sized amounts of game time. I’ve found one of the difference makers for determining if I will spend time with a game is whether it lets me save anywhere. If I have just an hour then I’ll spend it in Hogwart’s running around doing a couple exploration and item collecting and do a few puzzles and then save when I shut down. The game even lets one save in the middle of a story quest usually. The Souls games are great for this too, since you can save anywhere and there’s not huge hour-long story cutscenes that you’ll accidentally get in the middle of when you really need to shut the game down for some reason. There is the unfortunate lack of a pause function (if playing online) in the Souls game though, which annoys.

The worst offenders for a busy lifestyle are games where you can randomly wander into an area, trigger a cutscene and story mission without warning, and the game allows for no pausing or saving in the middle. I’ve been held captive by a game when I need to shut down and the game has a really long sequence that I can’t escape from for like an hour sometimes. 😅

I realize that games need their long story sections — I actually love those — but I appreciate it when they telegraph when they’re coming so I have the time to relax and soak it all in.

@Thrillho Mate, that’s impressive, I just couldn’t get myself into that headspace. For the first two months I was awake exclusively during the night whilst my wife was recovering from surgery. I did manage to rewatch the LOTR EEs and a lot of lost so it wasn’t all bad. How are things for you now? How are you finding being back at work and juggling baby commitments?

@Th3solution The situations are not too dissimilar I expect, just with a lot less poo and vomit (I’m just assuming there 😉) and as for gaming the save state is definitely a killer for me, you hit the nail on the head. I’ve actually become a lot more comfortable using rest mode and quick resume on PS4 and XSX respectively, they go some way to alleviating that particular headache, especially when I’m trying in vain to get somewhere with Bloodborne.

Personally, I was waiting for the release of Remnat 2 because the first one was my favorite game, even if it wasn't a popular game.

I got it suddenly how it was released on 25 July. I was attracted by the post-apocalyptic Earth story and the new archetypes they introduced. I picked the Challenger Archetype because Challengers can quickly turn the tide of battle in their favor with their superior strength and resilience. You can read about all Remnat 2 archetypes on Enigma Gamers.

Someone could consider it a strange main story, but I loved it and completed it in 25 hours, and I was engaged in the story. Now I am going for a completionist title and have 50 hours played and around 30% to complete.