Gaming admissions...

[mechanix]

What is it about your gaming preferences/history that you whisper when in polite company?

Me?

I don't like Super Metroid

I don't like Ico

[darthmix]

I didn't buy Goldeneye because I thought it looked like a crappy licensed N64 fog-fest.

:(

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

I didn't buy Goldeneye because I thought it looked like a crappy licensed N64 fog-fest.

:(

I still don't like GoldenEye...

[darthmix]

But at least you've played it, which is more than I can claim. I loved Perfect Dark so I'm betting I would've loved Goldeneye too, had I been smart enough to pick it up.

[pdRydia]

I died on the first level of Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa. Five times.

[mechanix]

I've also never finished Mario 64.

Never beat Bowser, let alone got all 120 stars...

[Flamin Skull]

shh!! Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game ever!!

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

shh!! Final Fantasy VIII is my favorite game ever!!

There's nothing shameful in that. It's well established that it's one of the best in the series.

[mechanix]

Yeah, only 6, 7 & 12 are better, and all for different reasons.

[Joxe]

Been saying this a lot, I don't like Mario games.

I completed the original Half-Life 10 years after release.

I think Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the most overrated games of all time.

Probably some more, but I can't think of something right now.

[mechanix]

Been saying this a lot, I don't like Mario games.



Any Mario games? Cos I don't like the 2D ones, but love the 3D ones. I played New Super Mario for about ten minutes and turned it off, took it back and swapped it for Pro Evo on Wii.

And I'm not a football fan.

[Joxe]

None of them, I just end up dead in any way I do. Although platformers aren't really my kinds of games.

The real story is that Sonic 2 was the first game I ever played so it was some rivality. The Mario games are good, but I don't like them.

[Phantom]

I've only been able to complete one of the many sonic games I've played....

I think the SNES version of Harvest Moon is boring....

[Shortay]

I have a strong dislike for the Sonic games, both 2D and 3D.

[SegaFan]

The most recent one is Super Mario RPG. Got it on VC last week, really looking forward to playing it because I liked Paper Mario so much. I deleted it after a few hours. Maybe I didn't give it a fair chance, but the game does nothing in the first 4 hours, the battle system is overly simplified and there's hardly any story or humour and I wasn't prepared to waste my time anymore. Very disappointing.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

The most recent one is Super Mario RPG. Got it on VC last week, really looking forward to playing it because I liked Paper Mario so much. I deleted it after a few hours. Maybe I didn't give it a fair chance, but the game does nothing in the first 4 hours, the battle system is overly simplified and there's hardly any story or humour and I wasn't prepared to waste my time anymore. Very disappointing.

You're not the only one. I predicted a wave of mass disappointment with this game long before it came out, partly because of hype and overheated expectations (Paper Mario comparisons, etc.) and the fact that the game just generally isn't all that good. 'Net folks get themselves whipped into a frenzy about interesting things.

My next gaming admission is that I've only ever played half of a Pokémon game. I found it to be a sub-par RPG and I wasn't all that into monster collecting or online competition. But that's not the admission... the admission is that I'm still thinking of getting Platinum for some reason...

[Tull]

I generally dont like Sega games except when the logo is on arcade style games.

[Jiggy37]

Admission 1

I don't like it when a game has me always playing in an open, 3D world. Restricted 3D worlds like in arcade racers or rail shooters are great with me, and so are RPGs with a 3D overworld that escorts me to 2D battles or menu-based battles.

But if we're talking about stuff like 3D Mario, 3D Grand Theft Auto, or Jak and Daxter, then... Let's just say that if I had to do it all over again, I think the only games in that category which I would still have bought at full price are Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.

I just don't "get" the appeal of 3D game worlds, honestly and truly, no matter how many games I play that people claim are at the top of their class.



Admission 2

My next gaming admission is that I've only ever played half of a Pokémon game. I found it to be a sub-par RPG and I wasn't all that into monster collecting or online competition. But that's not the admission... the admission is that I'm still thinking of getting Platinum for some reason...If you're not interested in multiplayer, then yeah, even I'd say you might as well not bother with Pokemon--and this is my favorite game series. For me, personally, the single-player is just something I put up with for 15-20 hours so I can get around to the real stuff that lasts me another couple hundred. (And by "15-20" I really mean "30-40," because I always buy and complete every version. D: )



Might have many more admissions to come in here if I feel like it later. I do love the concept of this thread. :)

[Iam Canadian]

Admission 1

I don't like first-person shooters.

Actually, that statement requires a bit of clarification. Perhaps I should say that I don't like the vast majority of modern first-person shooters. I actually have a bit of a soft spot for the genre's classic, sprite-based forefathers; the early Dooms, Duke Nukem 3D (although the side-scrolling Duke Nukem games were superior. :D)...but mostly because of their faster-paced action and equal focus on exploration and collecting secrets. I've also had some multiplayer fun with some console FPS games, especially GoldenEye 007 and the occasional multiplayer game of Halo.

But modern FPS games as a whole don't appeal to me in the slightest. Far too often, they seem to be little more than linear groups of enemies strung from one end to the other with little variation aside from the occasional poorly-controlling vehicle section. Add that to the fact that the majority of FPS games skew for realism and as a whole, I dislike realism in video games, that's also a strike against it. Also, the pacing of modern FPS games seems to be designed around taking cover only to emerge to take a couple of pot-shots at the enemy. I preferred the more run-and-gun style of the classic FPS games, almost like a 3D version of Contra or Metal Slug.

And while this doesn't warrant its own admission, I will say that the Half-Life games are boring, overrated, not nearly as immersive as they claim to be, and put me to sleep within twenty minutes or so. There, that's probably the most provocative sentence that will be in this entire post. :D

Actually, that point about realism is as good a transition as any into my next admission.

Admission 2

Realism is overrated.

In pretty much any instance, I prefer game designers to develop new and appealing art styles for their games, instead of pushing for gritty realism. Part of this is most likely because a good art style ages a lot more gracefully than a realistic one. Good art is good art regardless of age; games from the eight and sixteen bit machines still look good today. On the other hand, N64/PS1 era games that tried to look realistic just look laughable today. Okami, a PS2 game, still looks fantastic when put next to games on the new generation consoles.

Realism is one of those things I just don't "get". When I play a game, I want to experience fantastic, otherworldly things that could never exist or occur in real life, not try to recreate a real-life experience. Video games should take me to their own world, not try to simulate my own world. I especially emphasize this point when relating to war games. I don't find anything appealing about playing through a replica of a real-life conflict where real people died.

Besides, when you get right down to it, I just like my games to be colourful and imaginative.

Admission 3

Sandbox gaming sucks.

Actually, there probably are some merits to sandbox games, just none that manifest themselves to me. I'm not saying a game needs to be strictly linear; heck, I feel that Super Metroid boasts some of the finest level design ever seen in a video game; but I prefer there to be at least some sense of progression as I go through the game's world. Sandbox games boast large, open, and free-roaming environments, but I find these environments to be largely stale and uninteresting to explore. There just isn't much in any given sandbox world to interest me; be they puzzles, platforming challenges, or anything along those lines. Most sandbox games seem to be about the vehicular gameplay, but there are only so many street races I can do before I lose interest.

Give me somewhat linear, but well-thought out levels over wide-open sprawling worlds of emptiness any day.

Admission 4

Story doesn't matter.

Now keep in mind that I'm not bashing storytelling as a whole, or anything like that. Storytelling is a wonderful thing; my major is in English, for goodness' sake. I'm just saying that for me, story in games means no more to me now than it did when story was just a blurb in a manual trying to come up with an explanation for why your futuristic starfighter is shooting bugs from space.

If a game is going to have a story, that's fine, but I'd better be able to ignore it. Throw in cut-scenes by all means, but let me skip them. (This is one of the things that Half-Life did wrong; sacrificing the ability to skip the story sequences for the sake of "immersion") All I ask from a story is to explain who my enemies are and why I have to slay them with my sword, gun, jump attacks, or baseball bat; anything else is just filler. The gameplay matters infinitely more to me than the story does and all I ask from a story is that it stays out of my way. When I play a video game, I just want to play; and story distracts me from the enemies that need defeating, the puzzles that need solving, and the platforms that need jumping on.

The one exception to this rule is Earthbound, but that's a wall of text for another time.

You know, at the rate I'm going at here and going off of the fact that I have several more I want to add onto later, I should maybe just turn this into a blog post. >_>

[SegaFan]

Your thoughts are very similar to mine, Iam Canadian. Admissions 1-3 sum up my views exactly. I don't like modern FPS's or games where there is too much realism. Playing a simulation of a war doesn't appeal to me at all, I always think these games are in bad taste and apart from that where's the fun? I also like games with a clear objective, some free-roaming is good but I like to know what I'm supposed to do next rather than guess. I can think of one or two exceptions, like Animal Crossing where there is no objective at all but that's the whole point. I'd be interested in hearing your other admissions because you seem to have similar dislikes as I do.

I don't agree with your admission 4, it depends on the game but some games have great stories. Some games I like mostly because of the story.

[Jiggy37]

Admission 3, 4, and 5 all at once

After loving Final Fantasy VI, I bought a PS1 almost exclusively for Final Fantasy VII--and then I didn't like it at all (3). In fact, I so very much didn't like it that when the snowboarding minigame in the Gold Saucer opened up, I actually played that thing for five hours straight (4) because I liked it a lot more than the actual game, even though I didn't think the snowboarding was particularly good either.

And yet despite all this, as soon as I beat FFVII, I immediately started over again (5) because everybody else seemed to love it so much that I thought maybe I'd just missed whatever it was that made it click with others.

(Naturally, I hated it the second time too. :()



I'll try to never do this again with any game ever. Really!

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

The only game I ever purchased without researching it in advance was Xenogears, and I hated it with a passion.

[Jiggy37]

I don't know that was a reply to me, but I did research FFVII. It's just that every review was amazingly positive, so I had no way of finding out I wouldn't like it in advance.

[Jogurt the Yogurt]

I don't know that was a reply to me, but I did research FFVII. It's just that every review was amazingly positive, so I had no way of finding out I wouldn't like it in advance.

No, it's just another admission you reminded me of.

[Joxe]

Jiggy, seems like your admission is about the same as mine, just that for me it occured for Final Fantasy XII. I didn't like that at all, haven't finished it yet though :/

[Iam Canadian]

I also hated Final Fantasy VII, but it didn't take me two full playthroughs - or even one - to convince me of that fact. I was really rather puzzled myself, as I had so thoroughly enjoyed FFVI prior to this one.

But I'm no better than Jiggy; I despised Mega Man X6 with a passion, as its level design varies from sloppy to sloppy and sadistic. Yet I played through it three times. The first time drove the point home that I had played the first truly wretched mainstream Mega Man game. Yet I played it again so I could get through the game without finding Zero and get a different ending. And then I did a minimal items run (no using weapons and no collecting Heart Tanks, Sub Tanks, or armour upgrades) just to say that I did.

I'm never doing that again. I must have been certifiably insane.

[mechanix]

I played through Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death about 5 times, despite its lack of quality.

I'm a massive Dredd fan, but that's no excuse.

[Yossarian]

I spent a weekend playing the Golden Compass on the Wii. It wasn't as bad as most would have you believe but after completing it we decided never to speak of it again.

I also spent two hours fighting an impossible battle in Final Fantasy VIII because of the dim hope that it might be possible to wear down Ultimecia 23 hit points at a time. With one character. With no item facility. Or magic.

[Kanti 3000]

I have to come clean...I've never beaten a Mario game. I always get close to beating them, then quit near the end...I blame my ADD.


Also I think gun star heroes is over rated.

[Joxe]

Same here Kanti, never beaten one...ever.

[Jiggy37]

Admission 6

I adore the post-game modes of Metroidvania games, but never complete them. Ever. Not Dawn of Sorrow, not Portrait of Ruin, not Symphony of the Night--not ever. I don't have the skill for it. :P


Admission 7

I don't understand the appeal of Sonic games. I really wish I did since I love the 2D platformer genre, but I just don't "get" Sonic and always end up feeling like I'm making a lot of blind jumps and hoping I'm moving in the right direction (or just a safe direction, for that matter).

[pdRydia]

I really want to buy My SAT Coach (http://www.amazon.com/SAT-Coach-Princeton-Review-Nintendo-DS/dp/B001D5DQJ8) that's coming out for the DS this month. I'm 25 and will never need to take a college entrance exam again, but I always enjoyed taking the ACT and SAT.

[Eltigro]

Although I own eight Zelda games, on six different consoles, I have only completed one.

Something I'm not afraid to say is that I don't thing Halo is the greatest thing ever. I'm not the least bit interested in playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I don't really care to play Gears of War.

[Sektor]

I am addicted to guitar hero/rockband.

Halo is the most overrated thing ever.

Wiiware sucks.

[Kanti 3000]

I actually like the 3D Sonic games (although I've only played the two Sonic Adventures).