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[Grizzled Ghost]

You know what. I'll grant you that there is a niche fringe population that would celebrate 'Woke' games. The term is diluted and very loaded but here is what I think of when I hear of a game being 'Woke' and what I would find in it:

Hyperfixates on everyone's sexuality, refusal to take mature personal responsibility for own actions, being entitled and hate being productive, thinking that bad manners are a virtue, general sarcastic nihilism and lack of earnestness, very solipsistic morality, pervasive disdain for males.

Don't know about you but most people would find that repulsive.

Hey, hey, don't lump good old fashioned sarcastic nihilism in with the rest of that stuff.

Eh, or do. Whatever.

 

[mathello]

Killzone 2 is still the only graphical masterpiece video game to ever come out.

And I mean a game that only benefited by its graphical ambitions and PR to sell on graphics on a new system.

There is no other console game that reached for the stars on solely graphics and was great since then.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Hey, hey, don't lump good old fashioned sarcastic nihilism in with the rest of that stuff.

Eh, or do. Whatever.

One character being like this is a cool running joke, but when ALL are like this its pathetic and shows the developer'(s) lack of maturity

 

[PurePlatinum]

Most people who are capital-G "Gamers" are complete dipshits. They have bad careers, which leads to being total broke-asses, so nobody can actually charge a decent price for anything in the video game space without these people complaining.

To make matters worse, because of television tropes they think that having a nerdy interest or hobby actually makes them intelligent, so they have this false sense of superiority over people who watch television or have other hobbies.

 

[Grizzled Ghost]

Most people who are capital-G "Gamers" are complete dipshits. They have bad careers, which leads to being total broke-asses, so nobody can actually charge a decent price for anything in the video game space without these people complaining.

To make matters worse, because of television tropes they think that having a nerdy interest or hobby actually makes them intelligent, so they have this false sense of superiority over people who watch television or have other hobbies.

'Games aren't expensive enough' is indeed a hot take

 

[PurePlatinum]

'Games aren't expensive enough' is indeed a hot take

It's absolutely true. Look at the state of the industry if you need proof. Nobody can make enough money because people look at a $30 indie game and say, "that's too expensive" but will spend double that on BattlePass over the course of a year for a game that's "free".

Games need to be more expensive, and shorter. The sonic meme is 1000% true.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

It's absolutely true. Look at the state of the industry if you need proof. Nobody can make enough money because people look at a $30 indie game and say, "that's too expensive" but will spend double that on BattlePass over the course of a year for a game that's "free".

Games need to be more expensive, and shorter. The sonic meme is 1000% true.

I kinda agree and disagree at the same time; I think that in a free market things can work themselves out overtime. If publishers want to price themselves out of gamers' reach then there will always be newcomers that try to trump them with cheaper more enticing games (See: Star Citizen). My problem is that gamers are cockroaches that forget what shit a publisher pulled last Tuesday much less last year. They keep funding bad practices and are not willing to actually properly stick to their words and boycott something when warranted--the most egregious of these are PC elitist graphics whores that need to justify the purchase of their big dick inflated price Graphics Cards, and those cancerous sports games whales.

 

[Liopleurodon]

While FFIX and FFX are my favorites, overall, I think the best setting for Final Fantasy is something more sci-fi / futuristic with Nomura's designs.

 

[12Goblins]

real games died in like 2004 . Now it's formulated slop served for the masses

 

[poppabk]

- Quick Time Events are stupid.

- Timed dialogue choices are stupid.

- Rumble/vibration/etc is gimicks for kids who grew up on consoles.

Wrong thread. This is a thread for hot takes.

 

[L*][*N*K]

Cinematic storytelling is extremely inferior in comparison to games that let you figure out the story on your own throughout the environment, gameplay…etc. a good example for that will be Last of Us Part I which had very interesting environment and gameplay storytelling yet it got overshadowed by the cinematic story which was a lot weaker.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Great list. The hyper fixating on sexuality is something I've noticed with certain people in real life too. It's off-putting there and in games too.

I would add the extremely obvious injection of the developer's politics/world view at the expense of immersion and IP integrity - it's why we got the "so, I'm non-binary" scene in Veilguard, for example. There's a lot of games that simply serve as the developer's vanity project and no one is interested in that besides their like-minded colleagues, friends, and followers on social media.

thats hilarious lol
But I don't think adding your politics necessarily would make you 'woke'. In this example its very obvious and clumsily added by a low-tier writer so its repulsive.
Every developer would have to add some form of politics once they reach a certain threshold in worldbuilding. Its encumbered in the writer to make it as appealing as possible for people globally or not, depending on their priorities and financial goals.

If an orthodox Christian or Mormon or Muslim or Hindu etc developer makes a game from their POV, and the writing is compelling even if I don't agree with the game's politics or whatever, I would hesitate to call it 'Woke'

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Video game journalism has always been advertising. Sometimes earnest, passionate writing presented as unbiased opinion and news, but advertising nonetheless.

FromSoft will one day become an industry villain.

The best Metal Gear Solid game is MGS2 because it's the first one I played on my own console and for its foresight into the modern Internet age.

If consciousness arises from the transfer of information, then video game NPCs are conscious on some level.

Immersive sims will never be popular on the level of Call of Duty & sports games. Until they reach their full potential, which is a near-identical simulation of reality, then they will be the most popular.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Immersive sims will never be popular on the level of Call of Duty & sports games. Until they reach their full potential, which is a near-identical simulation of reality, then they will be the most popular.

I think immersive sims aren't popular because they're less of a genre and more of a game design philosophy. A super popular "immersive sim" won't even be seen as such, in fact, Baldurs Gate 3 is a good example.

 

[Hideous Snake]

Apart from Bloodborne and Sekiro, FromSoftware games are over hyped + your “genius” Miyazaki is nothing but a thief. There’s a difference between getting inspired and by literally stealing from Berserk. Cheers

 

[Grildon Tundy]

I think immersive sims aren't popular because they're less of a genre and more of a game design philosophy. A super popular "immersive sim" won't even be seen as such, in fact, Baldurs Gate 3 is a good example.

Fair point. Come to think of it, the things I like most about Fallout and Elder Scrolls are the immersive sim elements.

In making that point, I had Dishonored, Deus Ex, Hitman, Prey, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance in mind.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Fair point. Come to think of it, the things I like most about Fallout and Elder Scrolls are the immersive sim elements.

In making that point, I had Dishonored, Deus Ex, Hitman, Prey, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance in mind.

And in that point KCD2 was very popular

 

[laynelane]

thats hilarious lol
But I don't think adding your politics necessarily would make you 'woke'. In this example its very obvious and clumsily added by a low-tier writer so its repulsive.
Every developer would have to add some form of politics once they reach a certain threshold in worldbuilding. Its encumbered in the writer to make it as appealing as possible for people globally or not, depending on their priorities and financial goals.

If an orthodox Christian or Mormon or Muslim or Hindu etc developer makes a game from their POV, and the writing is compelling even if I don't agree with the game's politics or whatever, I would hesitate to call it 'Woke'

Adding politics at the expense of immersion and IP integrity is where the problems lie. It's 'woke' when it's DEI related, it's preaching or lecturing in every situation (politics, for example - propaganda works too), though. Most people don't want that in their entertainment. A developer can include whatever they want, but it's also up to them not to be heavy-handed or disinterested in the audience they're making the product for - lately we've seen too many activist devs who have no interest in appealing to people globally or even locally (which is important as you pointed out). It's more like they want to educate us - it's why there's stuff like a character doing push-ups to punish herself for using the wrong pronoun for another character in Veilguard.

To be frank, I rarely use the word 'woke' because it's too easily misinterpreted nowadays. The definition can vary from person to person so it can make it difficult when attempting to discuss things.

 

[gtabro]

If people remove their nostalgia goggles, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is the best Zelda to date bar none.

 

[Killer8]

Nothing sums up the "modern gaming fucking sucks" discourse better.

- Games look better than ever. You're just fucking blind if you can't see it. And they run far better now since almost everything has a 60fps mode. I remember the PS3 gen of sub-HD image quality and 25fps games.
- The quality of peripheral hardware is better. Mice are better, every screen in my house is OLED now, mechanical keyboards feel so good, the DualSense is the best controller Sony have made so far.
- Now that 50+ hour games are the norm, I can't keep up with the number of new AAA releases coming out. There are literally not enough hours in the day to play everything.
- Gaming is more affordable than ever. Game prices haven't risen at the same rate as inflation and they drop fast. Consoles remain dirt cheap and highly capable for what they are. Services like Game Pass can have enormous value if only used for a month or two.
- There are more great looking AA and indie games releasing than ever. My Steam wishlist is out of control.
- With the rise of handhelds like the Switch, I can play games as advanced as Tears of the Kingdom on the train to work now. Journeys no longer mean sacrificing the home experience for a much worse one.
- With digital distro, mature emulation, retro handhelds, Steam Deck, SD loaders on real hardware etc we have more access to old games than ever before. Buy a 20 terabyte hard drive and you can have basically all of gaming history in one place.
- VR has hit the mainstream and there are masses of worthwhile games now. The cost of entry for things like a Quest or a PSVR2 after the price drop is low. Gran Turismo 7 in VR is a borderline religious experience.
- the modding community via sites like Nexus and GameBanana have massively improved the longevity of games. You could probably spend the rest of your life playing modded Skyrim at this point.
- through fan translation efforts we have more access than ever to games from Japan. Never dreamt I could play Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 in English on real hardware. We also don't have to wait 6 months any more for new games, it's all globally released now.


If you ever unironically utter "modern gaming fucking sucks", you've either aged out the hobby, were never really into the hobby, or are too stupid to broaden your horizons beyond the same couple of game you've probably been playing for the last 20 years.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Nothing sums up the "modern gaming fucking sucks" discourse better.

- Games look better than ever. You're just fucking blind if you can't see it. And they run far better now since almost everything has a 60fps mode. I remember the PS3 gen of sub-HD image quality and 25fps games.
- The quality of peripheral hardware is better. Mice are better, every screen in my house is OLED now, mechanical keyboards feel so good, the DualSense is the best controller Sony have made so far.
- Now that 50+ hour games are the norm, I can't keep up with the number of new AAA releases coming out. There are literally not enough hours in the day to play everything.
- Gaming is more affordable than ever. Game prices haven't risen at the same rate as inflation and they drop fast. Consoles remain dirt cheap and highly capable for what they are. Services like Game Pass can have enormous value if only used for a month or two.
- There are more great looking AA and indie games releasing than ever. My Steam wishlist is out of control.
- With the rise of handhelds like the Switch, I can play games as advanced as Tears of the Kingdom on the train to work now. Journeys no longer mean sacrificing the home experience for a much worse one.
- With digital distro, mature emulation, retro handhelds, Steam Deck, SD loaders on real hardware etc we have more access to old games than ever before. Buy a 20 terabyte hard drive and you can have basically all of gaming history in one place.
- VR has hit the mainstream and there are masses of worthwhile games now. The cost of entry for things like a Quest or a PSVR2 after the price drop is low. Gran Turismo 7 in VR is a borderline religious experience.
- the modding community via sites like Nexus and GameBanana have massively improved the longevity of games. You could probably spend the rest of your life playing modded Skyrim at this point.
- through fan translation efforts we have more access than ever to games from Japan. Never dreamt I could play Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 in English on real hardware. We also don't have to wait 6 months any more for new games, it's all globally released now.


If you ever unironically utter "modern gaming fucking sucks", you've either aged out the hobby, were never really into the hobby, or are too stupid to broaden your horizons beyond the same couple of game you've probably been playing for the last 20 years.

The most aggressive positive post I've seen here

 

[Killer8]

The most aggressive positive post I've seen here

 

[San Dan Glokta]

1- What the fuck is the context behind this

2- How long have you been waiting to use this

 

[GooseMan69]

The chronically online outraged gamers have somehow become even worse than the social justice warriors they oppose. Most of them are mindless sheep who just parrot the shitty opinions of YouTube grifters.

 

[Killer8]

1- What the fuck is the context behind this

2- How long have you been waiting to use this

I always think of him when I think of aggressive positivity. It's an inspirational Rocky Balboa speech he dropped before his exit from a reality TV show.

 

[XXL]

Killzone 2 is still the only graphical masterpiece video game to ever come out.

Killzone 2 still looks great.

I want them to make a PSVR 2 version soooooo fucking bad.

 

[MafiaMurderBag]

2. Consoles are the superior way of playing for the simple reason of that it's easily accessible and plug and play.

Man I love my PC but gaming on it is fucking Russian roulette sometimes, especially in today's climate of constant windows updates and patching culture & general random system issues.

I haven't changed on setting on my PC in 3 days, go to boot up the same game I played last night & there's some kind of inexplicable error forcing it to crash that I now have to trawl the Internet trying to trouble shoot & tweak ini.files etc.

Sometimes I wanna just switch on my PS5 & a game can work flawlessly & smoothly out the box.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Man I love my PC but gaming on it is fucking Russian roulette sometimes, especially in today's climate of constant windows updates and patching culture & general random system issues.

I haven't changed on setting on my PC in 3 days, go to boot up the same game I played last night & there's some kind of inexplicable error forcing it to crash that I now have to trawl the Internet trying to trouble shoot & tweak ini.files etc.

Sometimes I wanna just switch on my PS5 & a game can work flawlessly & smoothly out the box.

Bro I feel you. A friend gifted me a copy of Hogwarts Legacy on steam and for the life of me I can't fix the fucking stuttering even on the lowest setting and troubleshooting all over the internet. I have a 4070. The friend in question already owns the game on Xbox and gifted it to specifically for PC so I could play around with mods and show her. Should've stuck with an Xbox copy...

 

[SweetTooth]

Games and consoles is one of the cheapest devices ever, they should have been priced higher, way higher.

 

[Liopleurodon]

Gameplay is only small part of reason why I am into gaming.

 

[Guilty_AI]

2. Consoles are the superior way of playing for the simple reason of that it's easily accessible and plug and play.

I had to play on a series S for a while and that is a fucking lie.
>Games wouldn't download for mysterious reasons
>Entire system would go dark after exiting a game without any explanation, requiring hard resets.
>I actually experienced crashes that also required hard resets
>>These hard resets got the xbox stuck "reseting" for obnoxiously long times before finally initializing again
>A few times games got stuck on initial loading screen

And mind you, this was like through the course of 2 months. I hadn't experience that many issues on my PC for all of the previous year.

 

[geary]

AC:Shadows is a success….
/run

 

[San Dan Glokta]

I had to play on a series S for a while and that is a fucking lie.
>Games wouldn't download for mysterious reasons
>Entire system would go dark after exiting a game without any explanation, requiring hard resets.
>I actually experienced crashes that also required hard resets
>>These hard resets got the xbox stuck "reseting" for obnoxiously long times before finally initializing again
>A few times games got stuck on initial loading screen

I also own a Series S. So do many people I know. None of this is true for us. You had/have a defective console bud. Maybe get after-sales customer service to replace it?

 

[Honey Bunny]

The best video game stories are embarrassingly basic compared to a decent book.

 

[iclash]

1. Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild is boring and unfocused; in my bottom tier of mainline Legend of Zelda games.
2. Xbox Gamepass is unsustainable and has gone as far as it can, but if it had been more successful, it would have ruined the game industry.
3. Sony's 1st party output for the PS5 is mostly underwhelming and it feels like they've lost there way from what made previous generations successful.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

Apart from Bloodborne and Sekiro, FromSoftware games are over hyped + your “genius” Miyazaki is nothing but a thief. There’s a difference between getting inspired and by literally stealing from Berserk. Cheers

I'm curious, what do you mean by calling him a thief? What did he steal and in which game? Demon souls? I've seen bits and pieces of Berserk because of its infamy but haven't actually read/watched it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

I also own a Series S. So do many people I know. None of this is true for us. You had/have a defective console bud. Maybe get after-sales customer service to replace it?

So must i live in worry i'll "get a defective console" whenever i buy one? Not the first time i had problems with consoles either. And i don't really mind these kinds of issue that much, but "plug and play" my ass.

Btw, this can be my newest hot take. Modern consoles aren't plug'n'play, neither they are issue-free, this is just a cope argument people online came up.

 

[San Dan Glokta]

So must i live in worry i'll "get a defective console" whenever i buy one? Not the first time i had problems with consoles either. And i don't really mind these kinds of issue that much, but "plug and play" my ass.

Btw, this can be my newest hot take. Modern consoles aren't plug'n'play, neither they are issue-free, this is just a cope argument people online came up.

Bro relax. Consoles are consumer electronics. And just like any electronic device (including PCs), heck any piece of machinery ever, there is always a tiny chance you'll end up with a defective unit.

You don't like consoles. Fine. But making your exceptional bad experience a hot take and a hill to die on is bizzare.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Bro relax. Consoles are consumer electronics. And just like any electronic device (including PCs), heck any piece of machinery ever, there is always a tiny chance you'll end up with a defective unit.

You don't like consoles. Fine. But making your exceptional bad experience a hot take and a hill to die on is bizzare.

Checking online, this isn't just some "defective console", it's issues multiple people have experienced. Guess the console experience also involves fiddling around with TV settings and cables.

 

[Pimpbaa]

If people remove their nostalgia goggles, Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is the best Zelda to date bar none.

It’s nothing more than $70 DLC for Breath of the Wild…I guess that counts of my hot take.

 

[Blank Space Invader]

real games died in like 2004 . Now it's formulated slop served for the masses

That's not a hot take. That's just simple truth lol

 

[_Blackberry_]

This is all really self evident stuff, but for reason it really needs to be said!

The 5 first principals of open world video game design:

1 = The playable character must be Cool!

(So not a man who spends his time racing around killing innocent people in order to take get the money needed to pay a tennis coach $150 an hour to lounge around his home all day long fucking his wife!)

2 = The setting must be Interesting!

(A typical modern day city isn't interesting! A city effected by some over arching mysterious power (ie corruption) is!)

3 = The missions must be Non-linear!

(Even though we all play open world games for freedom, Rockstar's missions are more closed than the levels in most linear games are!)

4 = The open world must be Dynamic!

(It needs to feel truly alive and contain real gameplay, and the requires something much more complex than a simple honour system that doesn't even account for where your actions took place!)

5 = The "side content" must be of equal value!

(Nobody with any life at all is wasting a single second of their time with any of that other tacked on ("bring me 5 flowers") bullshit! We want a properly themed/detailed world where everything you see and hear is, if you're paying proper attention, another peice of the puzzle in gradually understanding the all mystery around you! Where, if you choose, there's all kinds of leads for you to follow, leading to more specific mysterys to solve, back stories to unfold, secrets to discover, enemies to take down, intel to acquire, and truly unique and useful items to get a hold of!)

 

[Liopleurodon]

Japan always made better games than others.

 

[L*][*N*K]

Most people who are capital-G "Gamers" are complete dipshits. They have bad careers, which leads to being total broke-asses, so nobody can actually charge a decent price for anything in the video game space without these people complaining.

To make matters worse, because of television tropes they think that having a nerdy interest or hobby actually makes them intelligent, so they have this false sense of superiority over people who watch television or have other hobbies.

 

[Juja]

Cinematic storytelling is extremely inferior in comparison to games that let you figure out the story on your own throughout the environment, gameplay…etc. a good example for that will be Last of Us Part I which had very interesting environment and gameplay storytelling yet it got overshadowed by the cinematic story which was a lot weaker.

Cinematic storytelling is 95% terrible. Metal Gear Solid is the only series I give a pass because they're just so crazy that it makes them awesome. Those are the only games that very much are not my kind of gameplay, but I enjoy them anyway.

Also, MGS4 is the end. As for anybody that played the Kiefer games... Good luck thinking those are going anywhere.

I'm excited to finally buy my first actual PS5 game so far when Snake Eater with David Hayter comes out. I skipped PS4, so it's all new to me, but I have yet to let learn of any real PS5 games to come out so far.

 

[DryvBy]

Physical media being the only option would have prevented this era of slop we've experienced. Having unlimited copies of a product has caused publishers to patch later (if at all). The physical gaming eras created a balance for consumer and publisher. The publisher would need to put out a game that was actually good for someone to buy it new. On top of that, if it didn't sell then you lost shelf space from chain stores. This meant part of your risk was just having a product available. The creativity died off when things went to streaming and digital for a reason. There's almost 0 risk to have a game sitting on a digital shelf forever.

 

[SNPlayen]

Jak and Daxter trilogy is one of the best trilogies in gaming

 

[Major Insano]

Tech bros don't really enjoy playing games.
They just analyze and compare them because they have nothing better to do.

'Look at the trees in the background'

'Look at the reflections in that puddle'

Comparison is the death of joy.

 

[Randall365]

Every modern third person game is a GTA3 clone. The graphics may be a bit nicer, the settings different and the missions/dialogue varied, but you are essentially doing the same shit over and over again until the credits roll.

Not that I have played it yet, but I expect that Shadows is the same.

 

[Randall365]

Tech bros don't really enjoy playing games.
They just analyze and compare them because they have nothing better to do.

'Look at the trees in the background'

'Look at the reflections in that puddle'

Comparison is the death of joy.

This is PC Gaming tbf - it’s more rewarding choosing the parts, building the thing, getting the software installed and most importantly getting the game running optimally than it is playing the damn game.

So often it’s a case of ‘hmmm I am enjoying this now, but there’s a big patch due in a month so I will wait for that’. The patch breaks the settings you have and it’s back to tinkering until you get it running smooth and switch off.