Games

Most popular survival games (Minecraft, Valheim, Raft, Ark) are dull, unimaginative experiences that disrespect your time. I truly don't get the appeal, other than if you're a terminally online kid with nothing else going on. They promise this world of near-eternal fun and imagination, and then forget to develop fun mechanics, write a compelling story to give context to what you're doing, give you goals, teach you how to play...

Raft is probably the worst example I can think of. What a crock of shit that game was. Zero tutorial, a terrible grind. Just lazy. You can softlock yourself in the first 30 minutes if you jump onto an island and let your raft drift away, because you can't build a new raft, and all the game's resources spawn around it for no good reason. The game has a Very Positive rating on Steam with over 200,000 reviews...

There are some obvious exceptions. Terraria is still so charming, and does away with the hunger/thirst/durability trappings of other survivals. I didn't get too far into Subnautica, but it's clearly a fresh idea and has an ambitious story. And y'know... I can't be too hard on Minecraft, it's iconic.

But the rest is just hollow and soul-crushing and in most cases unfinished. They're punishing time-sinks disguised as a "world where you can do anything," and the fact that so many go to bat for them really makes me grieve for people's taste in games.

Hot take over... Woof, I need to lie down...

People love to hate on motion controls, but when implemented well, they are actually the best way to play shooters. Also without motion controls VR would have never gotten to where it is now.

New Super Mario Bros U is the best 2D mario game. Even more so if it is including Luigi U (which some shipped with)

Indie is the new AAA. I think some people were saying this even back when most indie games were just 16-bit style sidescrollers. But now small teams and even individual developers are giving us stuff that looks good, plays good, and is more fun than a lot of AAA games out there, and it comes with a lot of variety too. I think that AAA games are going to become micro-transacriom factories. Once Nintendo starts putting loot boxes into their games it's over for AAA.

Here's another one. I do not care about 60fps unless the game looks for input every frame. Not even a little bit. I would not have known how many frames Tears of the Kingdom was running on if no one said it in the reviews, and honestly I don't even really see the difference most of the time.

And a bonus: reamking old games is a good thing. Re-releasing is fine i guess, but enhancing character models, textures, lighting, addressing glitches and stuff that made the original less fun, and maybe giving some bonus content is a great idea. Companies like Nintendo need to stop cracking down on people emulating/modding/making fan enhancements of their old games and start making their own upgraded versions. Most people who play HD mods/remakes of their games would be happy to pay to buy a competent remake/remaster. I play Render96 for Mario 64 and own multiple copies of the game. Would I buy and HD remake anyway? Absolutely.

Interested to see how hot this take actually is but... The Nintendo switch is the best console ever made. As a lifelong Nintendo fan boy (Nes, right the way through) I may be a little biased but I have also owned various PS/Xbox and I don't think I've spent as much time on any console as the Switch. Being locked inside for a few years during the pandemic helped, but even a year or so after that I'm still playing. It helps that Breath of the wild is maybe one of the best games ever made, and Tears of the Kingdom is, so far, an incredible sequel. But also playing Overcooked with my wife and more recently Mario Kart (a personal "couples goal" of mine I never thought would happen) has filled so many lazy Sundays with hours of gaming joy.

I like random encounters in JRPG. Having enemies that I can avoid all the time (DQ11) removes the challenge and fun.

In earlier DQ games I enjoyed exploring new locations, taking the risks of being wiped by stronger enemies. In DQ11 there is no risk and no reward.

When I played RE4 on the Wii, I felt that controllers were a thing of the past and we entered a new era of gaming - the wiimotes were just amazing for RE4 - problem was it was the only game I played that really brought the controls to the next level. Somehow humanity fell back into the controllers - real shame honestly, but I'm glad I got to experience that next level of awesome I have yet to experience since

Silent Hill: The Room is just as good as the first 3 games.

Did you mean hot cakes?!

18 years later and there's absolutely nothing like Killer7 until today. Not even by the same developer suda51.

Killer7 gave me hope that in the future we'd have games even more bizarre and stylish than it. But nothing.