Topic: Unpopular Gaming Opinions

@Pizzamorg I enjoy watching bigger streams occasionally, but I never usually donate my cash. I just put it on when I need some noise while doing other stuff, like grinding out a game or something.

When I've watched some streaming, I looked for the channels that didn't have many viewers & it was games I was familiar with .... I've checked bits of games I was curious about on YouTube to see more gameplay as well

@Pizzamorg @chapu2006 Yeah, I feel the exact same way about these YouTubers and streamers as I do about microtransactions and NFTs and such. I don't blame the content creators or the game companies or whoever at all. I blame the idiots who are willing to put so much money into them. Of course if you can make not just a living but a better one than most people by doing the bare minimum work and frequently being a complete idiot, or if you can make more money by charging a fortune for cosmetics rather than giving everything in the base game, you are going to do it. The problem is not with them but with the people who actually give them money.

Yeah, it is true, of all the shady things in gaming, it is sort of funny how people - some may say intentionally - don't report on the very real, very scary, reality of the very unhealthy followings a lot of larger streamers have. Like people are happy to report on people doing ***** like hot tub streams, but I wouldn't say one type of stream is more harmful than the other - they all have the same potential to do harm.

People pouring their life's savings into fake friendships, without the education - emotional, finance, or otherwise - to truly know what they are doing or the consequences of their actions. There are no affordability or vulnerability checks for this. If your bank sees you pouring hundreds or thousands into gambling for example, they might reach out. There is no protection here.

Like, there is about a millimetre of separation between the parasocial relationship with a streamer and a romance scam.

And you're right, don't hate the player, hate the game etc but it's just sad this racket even exists.

@Pizzamorg Yeah, I agree. It's a bit weird how not many places really cover the darker side to streaming, or the darker sides to things with people who are actually addicted to things.

@Pizzamorg I agree with this.

@Fizza @Snatcher Agreed you two, most of those "is this game dead" videos always feel like they're based off Twitch viewership, make for clickbait. AFAIK, someone watching a game on Twitch is just watching it, not playing it.

Looking up World of Tanks Blitz for example, as I play that on PC and Switch, it has 117 viewers on Twitch. Looking up the Steam stats for the game, there's 34,696 players in the actual game, possibly more due to crossplay with PC, Switch, and mobile.

Player counts in the actual game say more than viewer counts. I really dislike this trend of using Twitch to figure out whether a game is dead or not. Nice to see others feel the same way.

@Sunsy Like really! why don't they base it off of steam player states at least, the good videos that at least say "What happened to" such and such, use the steam player count, and if its that low, they might call it dead, but not twitch viewer count, some games just aren't the watching type.

@Snatcher Agreed. Sometimes, I wish games would display player counts in the actual games. I remember the Wii U versions of Call of Duty even mentioned player count in real time when in the multiplayer menu.

Also, take into account that people watching on Twitch might not even play the game.

I remember trying Hyper Scape on PC, a battle royale game a few years back. Not once did I ever get into a match with more than 20 players, despite being up to 99 players. Something like that is more concerning than Twitch viewership.

@Sunsy That's just proof, that twitch viewer count, means jack to what players actually play, because some how players watching twitch somehow tell you its dead or not... because they are.. playing the game wile watching? LOL, it really makes no sense.

I don't know how 'controversial' this is in today's day and age but I adore Super Mario Sunshine. It is far and away the objectively worst main Mario game: wonky camera, wonky controls, wonky collectables, just generally wonky in all aspects. It has some of the worst levels put in a video game (pachinko, sand bird, etc.) and half the time the game just says 'no' when you try to do something.
And yet, it's this sheer lack of polish that makes me love it. To this day, Isle Delfino is the most inspired setting for a Mario game, the Piantas and all the characters exude life and personality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h7tdYyFuV4[).
AND THEN THE MOVEMENT, OH LORD THE MOVEMENT. Triple jumps, spin jumps, dives, sideflips, backflips, you name it, it feels great in Sunshine (I still get giddy every time I do a jumping dive, the arch is just MUAH). All of these are also augmented by the beauty that is FLUDD. Being able to perform a variety of otherwise impossible feats thanks to FLUDD's capabilties on land, water and air is breathtaking honestly.
Again, I feel like a bloody hipster when I say that 'Sunshine is good, actually' but I honestly believe it. I wholeheartedly prefer Galaxy, let's make that abundantly clear, but Sunshine will always take me back to a time where I didn't care about reception or reviews or any of that rubbish: I'd just play the gosh darned game.

I don't know if it's unpopular or not, but I prefer drifting in the later Mario Kart games over the older ones. Mainly because it feels easier on my thumb, I no longer had to continually rock the control pad/stick left and right to get mini-turbos. I remember playing Mario Kart Wii and thinking "oh, the drifting feels so much better." I do understand why people would prefer the older way to drift, though, I acknowledge that you could do mini-turbos faster in games like Mario Kart DS, for example.

@Fizza Super Mario Sunshine does have some genuinely awful levels (wouldn't wish the lily pad or chuckster ones on anyone), and it's probably the worst game in the series to 100% because of the blue coins, but I also really like the game quite a bit. More than SM64, certainly. It's not a masterpiece like Galaxy, but I really like its unique theme, bosses, level designs, etc. And yes, the FLUDD is a lot of fun to manipulate.

@Ralizah You've literally encapsulated my entire thoughts into one post. Also, Gooper Blooper is up there with Bouldergeist and Odyssey Bowser as one of the best fights in the series.

@Fizza Mario Sunshine is one of those games, where its trash, but its good trash, like spider man 3, I love that movie!

@Fizza I really like Mario Sunshine too and yeah it does have it's fair share of problems. I wouldn't say that it's "objectively" the worse one in that regard as Mario 64 plays and feels like crap for me and that's pretty much the core of any game and can make it or break it alone. I'd also say that the camera is more limited. Design-wise, as in levels I do think that Sunshine has too many frustrating and tedious one in comparison to other games but many of them are quite enjoyable too.

As for Galaxy, I see how it's a more solid title in many ways but it is... Boring to me. Maybe it's the smaller worlds or the fact that I just feel the gravity and other "space mechanics" as a gimmick that got old fast but I really didn't like most of it it's levels in comparison to other games. Having said that I didn't finish the game, I played it for about 5 hours but it didn't click with me.

As for Odyssey, I loved it! I finally played it recently and it was fantastic. My favourite 3D platformer is A Hat in Time but I can see how many people would prefer this one. It's easily my favourite 3D Mario game.

I admire Mario Sunshine for its creativity; it comes from a time when Nintendo was experimenting with their games in some really interesting ways, and there are some great concepts in Sunshine that make it feel totally different to any other Mario game. Just don't make me play the darn thing again.

I wouldn't even say that Sunshine is a bad game, it's just that the other 3D Mario games are just executed that much better. It's only "bad" in comparison to the likes of Galaxy, Odyssey World etc.
For the most part it's a perfectly enjoyable experience for most people and some flaws don't deter them away.

@Fizza
I voted Ratchet & Clank games over Super Mario Sunshine despite I have Mario Sunshine on Switch as I stopped playing Mario Sunshine after around 20 minutes once I found the FLUDD control was a mess.
Weapon aiming in Ratchet & Clank games are way easier than Mario Sunshine.

While we are on the topic of 3d Mario…

Mario 64 really isn't that good of a game guys.