[General Discussion] Terrible taste in games? Guilty secrets and you

Compared to the game buying public at large, it seems as though I have pretty terrible taste in games. The things I like are often seen as obscure or unpopular and I often don't see what all the fuss is about more popular titles.

For example, I thought Too Human was an awesome game and spent hundreds of hours playing it whereas popular opinion was that it was a bit rubbish. I'm also a big fan of Frontlines, another game that met with less than stellar commercial success. I thought Blazing Angels was a lot of fun and was for a time ranked about 300th on the global leaderboard but that is perhaps due to only about 3,000 people ever playing it online.

On the flip side, I've never liked any of the Mario games, wasn't much of a Sonic fan back in the day and got bored really quickly of Little Big Planet. I thought Final Fantasy X-2 was a much better game than FFX and FFXII is one of my favourites in the whole series. I tried playing FFVI a few times but got really bored really quickly each time.

So what are your guilty secrets in gaming? What games do you really like which the world thinks are shit and what critically acclaimed masterpieces did you think were rubbish?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I thought Uncharted was kind of bleh, and Infamous was just as bad. Trying to think of a 360 or Wii game to balance out the two PS3 choices, but I can't at the moment. I can assure you, they are there and on myriad consoles.

I recently purchased Army of Two and I kind of like it. Also spent a bit of time seeking out and reacquiring Evergrace and Forever Kingdom.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I liked Call of Duty 3. Not only did I like it, but I possibly liked it more than CoD4.

A critically acclaimed game I dislike is Resident Evil 4. It just wasn't enjoyable on so many levels, but I thought RE5 subsequently fixed every single problem I had with it, despite most people saying it wasn't as good.

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Along with Krel, I'm probably the only person on the internet who disliked Bioshock. It had a gorgeous environment, but pretty much ruined your enjoyment with annoying fetchquests, ambushes and predictable twists. And by twists I don't mean THAT twist in the story, I meant the parts where you're told to go somewhere, and you already know you won't get there because A) someone is in the way and insists you pick up daisies and elbow grease for them, or B) a new obstacle, be it a collapsing roof, a crumbling walkway or exploding cat prevents you from ever reaching said destination, forcing you to move on to a new area you weren't told about. Or C) both, in that order.

Considering how much shooting there was, it was cumbersome and drab. A shotgun blast or machinegun bullets hardly seemed to slow down the enemies whose AI did nothing but run straight for you, or possibly make a zig-zag pattern for you, which to a 360 pad is obviously murder. Your "massive range of combat options" options usually meant you used up whatever special ammo you had and then had to stick with regular ammo, slowly chipping away health even with headshots. Or using the lighting-wrench combination until you ran out of juice. If you could get close to enemies, which of course wasn't much of an option when they had firearms.

And whose genius idea was it to limit your gravity gun with an ammo count? HL2's gravity gun was so much fun because it encouraged you to use it and experiment because there was so much to experiment on, and because you could do it as much as you wanted.
Being told "ok, you tried lifting that up, but you can't, so now you have 9 uses of that left" will only make a person attempt to conserve, which in the end means not using it at all, sticking with the boxes and boxes of bullets you find in trashbins and skirts of dead bodies.


As for my guilty pleasure, I'm fond of Tenchu Fatal Shadows. The controls are not very good, but they become surprisingly transparent once you learn them (something that didn't happen in Shinobido and it suffered greatly for it), and running around as female ninjas never gets old. The music was great too.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

To this day I still don't understand why everyone hates on Valkyrie Profile 2. Maybe it's because I played it before getting beyond chapter 3 in VP1 (though I had a friend who's replayed VP1 a dozen times fill me in as I went along), but I thought it was a fantastic game. The combat was fun, the story was interesting, and the final boss was hilariously insane. What more could I want? Even its low points were amusing, like Hrist's Clark Kent style disguise. "Hey guys, I don't have a helmet. Totally not an evil valkyrie."

I'm also a complete fanboy for the .Hack franchise. I get why those games aren't very popular, though. Both series are flawed in plenty of ways, some fairly serious like the terrible level balance in GU where you slaughter anything 2 levels lower and can barely touch anything a few levels higher. Most people aren't willing to keep buying games in that episodic fashion, and that's reasonable. They're probably my guiltiest pleasure simply because I know most people would probably dislike them, and for good reason, yet I love playing them and have fond memories of drooling over the trailers for each game. I'm hopeful they'll put out another series soon, maybe through something like XBLA where Penny Arcade Adventures has already shown how feasible an episodic RPG can be with digital distribution.

As for games I dislike, the Metal Gear Solid series springs to mind. I played the beginning of the first MGS back when it first came out, and I hated it. Last year I picked up MGS3: Subsistence for $10 to give it another shot, and recognized that it was a good game, but I sucked horribly and still wasn't having any fun playing it.

Also, while I admittedly haven't played very much of it, what I did play of Halo seemed extremely mediocre. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything worth caring about either.


Rockgamer needs to own up and add Super Mario World to his post.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Tritoch

Rockgamer needs to own up and add Super Mario World to his post.

I wasn't trying to hide it, I just didn't think that dead horse needed to be beaten again.

But yeah, I played about the first two worlds or so, and thought the game was garbage. However, since discovering the Koopa Kids are in the game, I'm willing to give it another chance. They can't actually make this game good, but they can at least make wading through this crap somewhat worth it.

I originally played the game via emulator, but for some god forsaken reason I actually own the GBA version, which just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't have played it on an emulator if I already had a physical copy, but I wouldn't have bought a physical copy after knowing how much the game blows after playing it on an emulator. A mystery...

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I love JRPGs, especially ones made by Gust. They all look the same, have the same sounding music, and aren't radically different from one another in battle system. They also have mediocre plots at best.

I still buy every single one of them.

As far as acclaimed games go, I do not like the Mother series. I've tried on multiple occasions to get into Earthbound and never made it farther than a few hours. Mother 3 was alright until I got to the Monkey, and then I either missed some obvious trick against the Cactus Wolf or I need to grind a ton and fuck that.

Now where is Skills to proclaim his love of Xenosaga

FELIPE NO

Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors/Warriors Orochi. Maybe it's jut because with my lack of time I'm getting too lazy to learn how to play new games. But some reason I keep playing these games. Infact a Gamestop employee was baffled when me and a friend were the only people at the store buying something else the day Kingdom Hearts 2 came out. We bought Dynasty Warriors Empires. (Can't remember if it was 4 or 5 now)

Blade Storm. Was kind of a strategy rpg where you did the same things over and over again. A LOT! Many people either never heard of it or couldn't stomach beating the entire game. I did however, I also somehow managed to do it in a little over 50 hours when everyone claimed it takes 80.

Also for some strange reason I don't hate Blue Dragon.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Wait, Blue Dragon is a guilty pleasure game now? Erm, OK, well then put me down for that one as I really liked that game.

Not really sure what other guilty pleasures I have, though I guess you could include the Tomb Raider series, which hasn't been amazing for a while, but since Legend I've picked up each one and rather enjoyed them.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Like Taco, I'm also big into J-RPG's as well since they consist about 80% of my collection of games, but when it comes to my terrible tastes of games there is only one series that really comes to mind that a lot of people can't seem to stand and its actually not a J-RPG, but an anime shoot'em up.

I'm actually a big fan of the Castle of Shikigami series. The thing with this series is despite the not so stellar music, the horrible voice acting, and the insane difficulty there is actually some pretty solid game-play. Even though the games are getting harder to find, and I actually had a hard time getting Castle of Shikigami III for the Wii, in my eyes these games are still worthwhile purchases and I would recommend them especially if you like shoot'em ups. Overall, just ignore everything else about the game and enjoy the solid game-play this game has to offer.

In terms of what critically acclaimed games did I think were not all that great is kind of a tough question for me to answer. There are a lot of critically acclaimed masterpieces that I don't even bother playing, but it isn't fair for me to say that I thought the game was shitty because I never even played it. I usually stick to my favorite genre of games and on the scatter occasion I'll probably buy something outside the norm, but some of masterpieces that I don't even bother playing just simply for the fact that I'm not interested are:

- Halo
- Gears of War
- Bioshock
- Call of Duty
- Grand Theft Auto
- Resident Evil
- Guitar Hero
- Fallout

I'm sure these games are great games, but I have no interest in playing them whatsoever.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

Wait, Blue Dragon is a guilty pleasure game now? Erm, OK, well then put me down for that one as I really liked that game.

Not really sure what other guilty pleasures I have, though I guess you could include the Tomb Raider series, which hasn't been amazing for a while, but since Legend I've picked up each one and rather enjoyed them.

Tomb Raider in it's time was as mainstream popular as you could get mate, I'd hardly call that a divergent taste. Deathtrap Dungeon however, that was an obscure and unpopular title I got bang into. Insanely difficult too, like Tomb Raider with worse controls, swords instead of guns, hardly any savepoints and traps that just killed you with no warning. Fucking loved that game...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Taco

I love JRPGs, especially ones made by Gust. They all look the same, have the same sounding music, and aren't radically different from one another in battle system. They also have mediocre plots at best.

I still buy every single one of them.

This.

More than just buy all of them, every time one of them gets announced, I jump on the preorder bandwagon, ever since I regretted not going for the big box bonus for Mana Khemia 1. Being a big fan of these kinds of games, I've only beaten Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana. I'm currently playing Ar Tonelico: Melodies of Elemia, but as for all of the others, I haven't even touched them yet. Hell, Mana Khemia 2's already preordered for me and I've already started on waiting for Atelier Rorona on the PS3. People often look at me funny when I mention anything in this camp. Atlus games also fall into this camp, most noteably, the Shin Megami Tensei series.

Another genre that I get weird looks from most people on is the Turn Based Strategy RPG, populated by games such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem, or any of the NIS entries like Phantom Brave, Makai Kingdom, Disgaea, etc). While this genre's a bit more open than the aforementioned Gust JRPGs, people still look at me funny when I proclaim that Fire Emblem is tons more fun than Fallout 3.

As for the opposite, it seems that the more a game is hyped, the less I end up liking it, partially due to unreasonable hype creating unreasonable expectations. Most popular games, I couldn't care less about. These include noteable mentions of the duo Prototype and Infamous, Bioshock, Far Cry 2 (while we're on it, most other first person shooters), LittleBigPlanet, the entire Grand Theft Auto series and Call of Duty 5, just to name a few. I don't necessarily hate these games, but I just don't see what's so fun about them. I seem to really hate open-world gameplay because most of the reason I'm playing a game is to have an adventure crafted for me, not making me craft my own adventure. I also dislike games that keep trying to be overly realistic (like Skate) because if I'm going to be playing a game, I'm probably trying to get away from reality.

Also:

Originally Posted by Taco

Now where is Skills to proclaim his love of Xenosaga

I'm waiting for this as well.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Shin

Tomb Raider in it's time was as mainstream popular as you could get mate, I'd hardly call that a divergent taste.

Yeah, but I'm not talking about Tomb Raider in its time (in fact, beyond Tomb Raider 2 I completely abandoned the series until getting back into it with Legend), I'm talking about the Tomb Raider series now, the last few installments. I'm not saying they're not mainstream, just not really to be considered fantastic games. Was just trying to join in. ;_;

I was speaking idiomatically.

I'd say for every two or three games I can make a really good argument for - theres one or two I cannot even fathom why I played them as much as I did.

Example? Superman Returns. My comic nerd child enjoyed this rather broken game for one very simple reason - flying around was fun as hell. You can do it in a billion other games, but this was Superman, so there was something much more "important" about it. I liked the game - it wasn't a lost work of art nor was it the worst thing for the 360 - but it was an entertaining aside for $15. It is also one of the two games I have a complete 1000/1000 gamer score for (the other being CoD2).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by OmagnusPrime

Wait, Blue Dragon is a guilty pleasure game now?

It kind of has to be because that's one of the most boring RPGs in history and it takes a certain sense of masochism to say you enjoyed it.

As for my guilty pleasures, I've always had a thing for cel-shaded games. I don't know what it is about that look but it's like redheads in women for me. I gotta have at least one a week! There's been a handful of games that have pulled off this technology and been genuinely good, but the rest of them are pretty fucking awful and that stylized graphic look has become a gimmick to make anime games look the part. Cel Damage, XIII, Auto Modelista, anything with the words "Bleach" or "Fullmetal Alchemist" in the title are mediocre at best but I have played a ton and actually enjoyed them quite a bit simply because I like the stylized graphics; I even known some of them!

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Rockgamer

I wasn't trying to hide it, I just didn't think that dead horse needed to be beaten again.

But yeah, I played about the first two worlds or so, and thought the game was garbage. However, since discovering the Koopa Kids are in the game, I'm willing to give it another chance. They can't actually make this game good, but they can at least make wading through this crap somewhat worth it.

I originally played the game via emulator, but for some god forsaken reason I actually own the GBA version, which just doesn't make sense. I wouldn't have played it on an emulator if I already had a physical copy, but I wouldn't have bought a physical copy after knowing how much the game blows after playing it on an emulator. A mystery...

Wow, add me to the list of people with bad taste, Super Mario World is one of my favorite games of all time.

Another one is Breath of Fire V/Dragon Quarter. I guess people were expecting something along the lines of BOF 4 and were hugely disappointing by a super-difficult dungeon crawler. I beat the game multiple times and even got to the bottom of the Kokon Horay, which in the end was much more difficult than the game itself.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I have guilty pleasures I can't really explain all that much. Any sane person would say they're horrible games. But on the other hand, I say games like Grandia are |absolute| garbage, so it works both ways. I'm going to limit this to rpgs, since not much else springs to mind at the moment.

I sort of like Alundra 2, Legend of Legaia and Guardian's Crusade.

They're fun little rpg games, with entertaining, if a bit naive stories. The controls are tolerable, and the fighting systems are rather ingenious and intuitive. Even the hardest bosses are beatable if you just don't suck, even on lower than average levels. Those are things most rpgs generally accepted as good lack to some extent, all of them. The games I mentioned of course have their significant flaws, mostly on the front of impersonal enemies, umbalanced variation of difficulty (suddenly you find youself screwed, if you missed some piece of equipment), but things always worked out, at least for me. Plus the music is actually good, which I can't say for most jrpgs.

For example, the esper system in FFVI is complete garbage, and most of the characters are useless, not to mention story-wise completely uninteresting. The same system was basically in FFVIII, with some cosmetic changes, and it worked a bit better, even though it wasn't perfect there either. It's like a concentrated (or should I say compressed, hur hur) version of VI, actually. I'm not going to rant much, since pretty much all popular games have their small or big flaws, and whether or not they have a significant effect on the enjoyment level of playing the games, they still exist and they are noticeable.

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I found Assassin's Creed horrible. Nothing appealing about it, exept perhaps the graphics which were quite nice.

Metroid, Castlevania and similar games? I'm so crap at them and I don't find getting my arse kicked that entertaining.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

People say Mega Man 5 is one of the worst in the original series.

I say they should go fuck themselves right off a cliff.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by sprouticus

People say Mega Man 5 is one of the worst in the original series.

I say they should go fuck themselves right off a cliff.

There's nothing wrong with Mega Man 5. Gravity Man: enough said. MM6 is where the series went downhill.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I like Grandia Xtreme. It's pretty much the pinnacle of RPG gaming for me. Very little storyline, no constantly paving boring towns, and tons of rad battles. I just wish they had put in more savepoints so I had been encouraged to try out different character combinations for my party.

I was also very disappointed by Mother 3. It was fun, but the only reason I think I got through it was due to all of the stuff from Earthbound making an appearance.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol for the PS1:

YouTube Video

This game is shoddy work in every category, but I'll be damned if I haven't played the hell out of it. I had a bunch of fun messing around with all the different weapons and killing 100 identical guys per level. It's fairly challenging, at least--one misstep and you'll die from a mine or sniper, and there are no in-level saves.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Encephalon

Auto Modelista

Ha ha, I played that for hours and barely ever actually did a race. I just pissed around designing wicked looking cel-shaded cars.

I've never seen the appeal in any of the Mega Man games and Assasin's Creed was one of the most boring games I ever played. Was also pretty unimpressed by Bioshock when I watched a mate play it for an afternoon.

I think I've never liked the old school console games like Mario and Mega Man because at the time they started becoming more popular, I was playing Elite on the BBC and all the silly games on the Spectrum and then later Atari and Amiga. I had a SNES but just for Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. Platform games on the Amiga were just so much better than console ones, I never saw the appeal.

How ya doing, buddy?

I guess you could toss me into the jRPG pile because I own all 3 Xenosagas (I don't deny the movie-quality of the first and the shotty battle system of the second though), all four Star Ocean's, Final Fantasy X, X-2 and XII (I had 7 at some point but ive played it more then a couple times so its not a big deal that I can't find it), Blue Dragon, and in a non-rpg example as mentioned above, one of the recent Tomb Raider games (Anniversary).

Having that said, I also have been recently playing a visual novel type game for the DS called "Lux Pain" which apparently has gotten terrible reviews, so I suppose that would count.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Pepsi Man FTW:

YouTube Video
Error; are you sure that's a YouTube link?

Seriously. I loved that game. Played it for countless hours, even though there were only 5 or so levels. It was extremely addicting at the time. I even left Final Fantasy IX (which I love) asside to play this game for more than a month. First time I played it was hilarious. Rest of the time... well, let's call it a mistery.

Jam it back in, in the dark.