Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@FishyS honestly I wouldn’t say there is a bias it’s just those games are really well designed, sekiro and elden ring are great, and while last of us was surrounded by controversy it was a good series. God of war and ghost of tushima is the same honestly the gameplay fun and the story is great.

I think it’s also important to see which games are nominated, im not sure if those aren’t all just rated M too, but I think the fact a game gets nominated to be the potential game of the year shows you it’s promise.

@Snatcher I wouldn't say rated M is the main thing. The games which actually win tend to be overly graphic-focused, often 'gritty', often overly action-focused, often open world or otherwise 'big'. Basically what I would call Hollywood type games. Obviously not every year, but a good half the winners are like that and some of the others have similarities. You can say they are good, and although that isn't a genre I tend to like personally I do agree with you, but the main thing is they aren't very diverse genre-wise. There are a lot of games out there. For example, there is the joke that a Nintendo game, no matter how good, is automatically slotted for 'best family game' rather than GotY unless it happens to be an overly grandiose open-world action game. And nominations don't count if we know they won't win. Again, there are ( a couple) exceptions, but personally the process definitely seems genre-biased to me.

Dave the Diver is higher on metacritic than Spiderman 2 and although it could get nominated to insert diversity into the nomination list no one actually thinks a game like that would ever win GotY. Suika Game currently has a higher user-rating than TotK but thinking about even nominating a game like that would be a joke, even though there is a decent chance that game (including the different versions on other platforms) will be played for more total hours than the GotY nominees.

@JONOFTHEJONS I believe its terrible because the game is primarily a reskin of other Bethesda games from the past, and the content really seems to be quantity over quality. The game feels about as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle.

I've not played a huge amount of Starfield but what I did was far from awful.

It's just not GotY standard in what's otherwise been an exceptional year. I could see it picking up a few nominations and maybe an award in one of the technical categories though.

service based games are bad
Season based games are just there to make micro transactions
DLC has gotton bad like gone are the days of full add ons(simulators still do and some games get ok add ons but small dlcs are the norm)
Cloud gaming is a step back
Console is better than pc but i'll use pc for older stuff and non console stuff but i always end up back on console
Wii was not full of shovelware but eshop on switch is

@D20Nat20 Yeah, I don't think forever-games (service based games, season based games) are good for kids. I mean, it's nice to have something the play for a while, but the service & season based games seem to just foster fear of missing out.

Tangent to that issue, my niece wanted Tears of the Kingdom, but I couldn't recommend it to my brother or sister in-law. I think it's too big of a game for a kid in school that has a life.

Thats correct thats why mmos are poor relatives of crpgs

I think MMOs are the only types of game that can pull off the live service element well. Esoecially games like XIV.

As always, I don't want to speak too much about the games I haven't played, which is nearly anything this year, but I do kinda question people's hype for this year as some amazing year for gaming. There was a lot of great stuff, and more big budget games actually living up to the hype than I've seen in a bit. But I dunno, there were quite a few giant failures and a lot of focus on remakes and remasters. I think if the best year in ages is because they brought back old games, that doesn't say great things about modern AAA games.

But it is also way better than last year I admit, because for like half of 2022, AAA games might as well have been a myth. That's the bar now I guess.

I dunno I think every year is a great year for gaming, AAA's waning relevance except for this year barely even matters.

This year wasn’t that impressive to me. I don’t really have a game of the year, and it kind of sucks. Last year I had xenoblade 3, but this year nothing really called out towards me in the same way. TotK was kind of an underwhelming mess, Mario Wonder was decent but not GotY material for me. I forget Pikmin 4 existed, mainly due it it feeling like an inferior Pikmin 2.

I have yet to play Baldur’s gate 3, so I’ll probably wind up enjoying that whenever I end up getting to it.

@kkslider5552000 I agree that there were some failures this year (huh ... huh ...Starfield) but it delivered some of the best gaming experiences universally praised:

1. Lies of P
2. Zelda TotK
3. Spider-Man 2
4. Blasphemous 2

Yes, RE4R is a remake but ... what a remake! So good

This is the year of amazing sequels that beat their predecessors (Lies of P excluded as it is original).

For as flawed as they can be at times, SEGA is genuinely one of the best 3rd-party devs in the industry....when they don't focus solely on Sonic.

@VoidofLight While I do think this was an objectively strong year for releases in a mass market sense, I sort of agree insofar as nothing I played truly wowed me. Xenoblade 3 and Triangle Strategy, on the other hand, are both top five Switch games for me. Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak was up there for me as well.

This year... lol I'm leaning toward my GOTY being either Fire Emblem Engage of Advance Wars 1 + 2.

2022 vs 2023 is a really interesting debate.

For me personally, last year heralded 2 of my favorite gaming experiences of all time - Elden Ring and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. These games both blew me away to a capacity that nothing this year has quite matched. 2022 also brought Return to Monkey Island, which was a breath of fresh air and got me really into Adventure/P&C titles.

2023 though... I've had a great quantity of wonderful experiences, albeit less 'impactful' (vs Elden Ring for instance). TOTK was great... until I burned out after 30ish hours, just felt I'd seen it all before. I really enjoyed Blasphemous 2 and Lies of P though. Also, a couple of weeks ago I played an indie P&C "The Will of Arthur Flabbington".... amazing, and very reminiscent of Monkey Island.

I am just about to start BG3, and this might change things. For now though, I think Lies of P is my personal GOTY...delighted it has been received so well by the 'Souls community' and can't wait for the impending DLC

@Ralizah My personal GotY is probably going to end up being NieR Reincarnation or something.

@CJD87 While I think ER is massively overhyped, I'll give it this: it finally got me to stop avoiding the Souls games after my less than positive experience with Bloodborne.

I also finished it, which is more than I can say for TotK. Although I think I spent an about equal amount of time with them. There's just way more to do in TotK, IMO.

People say there is way to much to do in TOFTK , but I honestly think that was the case in the first game as well, and honestly what worried me about two, there just so much to do but way to much to do, which is fine I guess you don’t have to do it but it’s honestly vary over whelming for me and it makes exploring just, I don’t know but my brain just wants to tune to a whole separate channel when playing it.

@Ralizah Elden Ring is a divisive one I guess.... I like how FromSoft made it (arguably) their most accessible Souls-y offering to date, and I had a great time with it personally. I'd argue more that Bloodborne is a tad overrated - and that Sekiro (my personal favorite) is underrated!

I really don't understand the criticism about there being "too much to do" given how open-ended the games are. You can play as much or as little of the "story" as you like, and once you've had enough, you can just go straight to the final boss (and I found BOTW Ganon to be easy enough to defeat in my second or third attempt tops, even without conquering all four Divine Beasts).