Man, I'm glad someone said things that are stuck inside me for years, although some of my reasoning differs from yours.
Despite graduating in game design thanks to the first GTA, I agree that most Rockstar games are filled with busy work, so I always get bored in most of them. Even so, I still have Vice City among my favorite games of all time.
I played Elden Ring to completion, spending 130 hours to get the Age of the Stars ending only to discover that I don't have patience for a second playthrough or to tackle the Nightrein DLC. I agree with your perception of some elements being dated, but for me the biggest problem is that this game is too long to its own good. Even with different weapoins, stats and classes, it basically evolves around the same mechanics from start to finish, and after dozens of hours spend on it, it becomes stale. That's why I'm a huge fan of Yakuza games: there's such a huge variety on them that I rarely feel that I wasted my time even if most of it is spent on minigames.
I spent a lot of time in Animal Crossing New Leaf. At first, it was nice to see my city evolve little by little every day and characters like Isabelle and K.K. have an unique charm, but having to log in every single day to make things happen in a sluggish pace is definetely not for me. Needless to say, I didn't give New Horizons a chance. But hey, at least my fiancée enjoys it, so that's something...
And finally, I respect Half Life 2 for its technical achievements, but its most glaring issue for me is that this game is a nightmare to play for those who suffer from 3D camera sickness like me. Games like Bioshock Infinte or Portal have better FOV options that make me enjoy them without making me feel sick every 5 minutes.
I'm glad it was a validating experience for you, a lot of the reason I write this kind of thing is to discover whether I'm alone in my thoughts or not.
A lot of games today are too long, Elden Ring included, I totally agree. I've tried several times now to finish Tears Of The Kingdom but it's such a daunting task; I have 85 hours in that game and quit close to the end, came back again on Switch 2 and I still just can't get it done. I'm missing old Zelda's structure.
I hear fans of the series prefer New Leaf to New Horizons which isn't a great sign. The pace is very sluggish as you say and it falls into that 'not enough structure' zone for me I described in another reply here; I like structure in games, if I have to make my own fun or just potter about I get bored and Animal Crossing feels like that constantly. I don't care how my island looks, I want the game to tell me its story.
I didn't even consider the motion sickness aspect but I can see how that would be bad with Half Life 2, a lot of bobbing, the tight FOV and Gordon has no legs hahaha.
Thanks again for reading, always happy to see you in the comments
I love, or rather, am infatuated with and unhealthily obsessed with Elden Ring... and I think it's way too long. It's absolutely MISERABLE to start a new run, ESPECIALLY with foreknowledge, as you inevitably spend a good two or three hours doing nothing but running around on your horse scooping up dozens of glowing balls which are required before you will deign to even look at one of the bosses... and then you just trivially dispatch most of the ones you'll have to fight in the next four or five hours.
I think I agree with you on Rockstar games. I can only play GTA sandbox style, just mowing down pedestrians and crashing. I am usually a “finish all the side quests” girl but I cannot bring myself to do any of the missions.
I downloaded RDR2 from the playstation catalog, got bored during the introduction and pretty much deleted it straight away.
It’s not that I can’t sit through a story; currently 60+ hours into Ghost of Yotei (so, so good!), I think the story has to be entertaining. The characters also matter. Everyone in a Rockstar game seems to be a flat caricature, especially the female ones, oof.
You've articulated a lot of what I was thinking better than I did. When I'm tying random innocents to train tracks, doing drive-by murders on horseback and slipping dynamite through the saloon door and running off I love it but when I play the game like you're supposed to, man, it's like melatonin.
It feels like the gaming equivalent of slowly dying of tuberculosis, which would be brilliant if I actually thought it was totally intentional but still wouldn't be any goddamn fun anyway.
The two things the RDR2 and Elden Ring have in common is that there’s good games inside but they are bloated. Really, really bloated.
In the case of RDR2, the writing and characters aren’t meant to be immersive, they’re meant to tell a story that doesn’t really fit with the world. Marxist-socialist train robbers in the old west circa 1895. Wait.. what?! It takes so much time to get into interesting storylines and past the moralizing that it feels like there’s nothing interesting at all. Also, hunting should not be in the main storyline of any game. Fuck.
Elden Ring has a different problem. They didn’t see an empty, boring, repeat dungeon with a repeat boss that they didn’t like. Half the fun of these games is finding Crystal Godsmith boss where he doesn’t belong, through a secret door, giving you a hint that something you’ve been told be an NPC is a lie and something about the game world isn’t what it seems. Now we have bosses recycled into boring generic dungeons (or recycled into main dungeons), for no reason at all. Completely outside of the storytelling. There’s no mystery. You need a PhD in mythology to try and sort through all the horseshit and unintentional signaling by the devs to figure out what the hell is going on. I played this game a long time before I realized I kinda hate it.
That's a sentiment I strongly agree with, to be honest, I feel the overwhelming majority of open world games have this problem.
Something that doesn't get brough up enough is how much Rockstar pretty blatantly copies popular films too, tonally, visually and in terms of narrative. RDR2's opening is like The Hateful 8, GTA4 bears a striking resemblance to the classic Russian film Brother 2 and so on. They lack originality and their game design has not fucking changed since San Andreas either.
I feel like Elden Ring is From Soft selling out. They made a palatable, lighter, more pick up and play version of the grungy, gothic, metroidvania-like Dark Souls.
I really enjoy your perspective. As someone who grew up gaming but can't devote the time to it anymore, it's fascinating to me to read about how you evaluate games. I have a joke with my friends that I get to play one video game a year these days if I'm lucky, so I tend to lean towards playing the widely-acclaimed 'games of the year' and yet, most of my choices ended up on this list!! I'm now questioning all my decisions because I trust your judgement so much. Red Dead 2 and Elden Ring are the two biggest examples. I loved RD2 because I only got to play it slowly in 2-4 hour chunks of time each week and it felt like I was participating in a weekly episodic TV program. The climaxes tended to deliver more because of the way I had to consume the game over a long period of time. Growing up as a kid, we just did not have narratives like that in our games. I'll date myself here but Morrowwind was the only thing I can recall that came close for me. I don't have the breadth of experience as someone like yourself so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm well aware that I have knowledge gaps and ignorance when it comes to the bigger picture of evaluating games. Elden Ring I loved because it was the first game I ever played that I couldn't complete. It was so incredibly frustrating trying to solve those boss battles. I eventually got to one I couldn't beat and abandoned the game because I didn't have the time. I loved this though! I am a person who really enjoys solving puzzles and spending mental labor. Elden Ring was the first game I'd ever played that seemed to intentionally make things as difficult as possible for the player which felt so contrarian to the gaming culture at the time it came out (think: Fortnite and the ability to get into a new game almost instantly after dying). I know it wasn't the first game to do this but for me, it felt like a seismic shift and I look back on the game really fondly for that. As always, thank you for sharing your thoughts and putting them out into the world for us to read. I'm really grateful.
This was such a touching comment to read, really made me smile. Thank you, I'm the one who should be grateful to you. It's funny to read about someone trusting my judgement: I have something of a reckless streak in the real world; it makes me happy and somewhat surprised as well to see what I write being valued so much, I never imagine that I'm anyone's favourite Substack or a voice that really guides another person's decisions but I genuinely try my best with these articles and make sure I'm not just parroting others' words.
Don't question what you enjoy. It should go without saying that nothing I say is objective fact and that my critical lens has been shaped by playing too many video games for too long and thinking about them in the terms that I value. If you need any more reason not to take me too seriously then I like Ghost Recon Breakpoint. I want to say that I have some gaps in my knowledge too, especially with RPG's, I've never played Final Fantasy 7 or Chrono Trigger, I've not played a single Baldur's Gate and I've played one Dragon Quest game on the DS.
Excellent taste with Morrowind. I think sometimes, my addictive personality gets in the way. I love Paradox grand strategy games because you can just play them for ages and ages and not get bored since the gameplay evolves and new problems arise; I love Morrowind for similar reasons: there's always a skill I haven't mastered and a new faction quest to do. Most games cannot be gorged on like this. Red Dead with its missions and money gathering is definitely designed to be experienced in more sensible chunks and in a more meditative way, the same as GTA. Fans of Rockstar love to drive about, listen to the radio, fish and so on but I love structure. When a game asks me to make my own fun, I scratch my head and don't know what to do, the subtle details don't land and I just return to the main meat of the experience which in Red Dead's case, is quite repetitive if you're not soaking up the world in between. Perhaps some day I'll give the game another go, I love how my audience just goes with it when I randomly decide to paly nothing but 20 year old games for one month or hop to the latest release after weeks of opinion pieces.
Elden Ring is a complex one for me. I think I can sum up my thoughts on it as too little too late. It doesn't change enough to excite me and after the Souls trilogy the challenge isn't quite as brutal for me as it used to be.
This is a huge comment, I don't want to take up any more of your time, thanks for reading!
There are certain types of games that are definitely best consumed bit by bit, as a way to wind down after a day of work or a weekend, and they tend to have similar design, if you look at them from a wide enough view. JRPGs for Japanese businessmen, Ubisoft map-token-clearers for college kids, big, visually impressive and critically acclaimed cinematic and narrative experiences for people with more money and less time than they had when they first started gaming. And it's the things that make them such a soothing retreat, or satisfying grind, or relaxing wind-down that make them almost intolerable for someone trying to just play THROUGH them in large sittings. Like a television show that you'd turn on at the same time every week happily but burn out on if you try to marathon. But in spite of that I'll still call RDR2 a waste!
Incidentally, if nostalgia ever calls you back, Morrowind is still quite playable, and is certainly something you can just dip into for a few hours at a time - that's how I've been playing it for most of this year, slowly meandering my way through new cities and areas added by the Project Tamriel mod.
Oh man I just started on my second attempt to finish Red Dead 2. Trying to treat it like an interactive movie since that’s clearly what the developers intended. The contextual inputs are brutal though, I never quite trust that a button is going to do what I’m expecting it to do.
Crafting a base is quite fun for me, especially in games where you need to defend it, like in 7 days to die.
Dark souls did feel more connected, but the open world element didn't feel as empty as some, especially when you factor in the horse and mounted enemies.
Geralt certainly didn't come into his element until 3 though, you're right there.
When you say you disliked animal crossing, was that also referencing farm sims in general?
Harvest moon and story of seasons is quite therapeutic!
A long time ago, back in the early 2010's I thought base-building was the coolest thing in the world and I loved seeing different games get crafting systems but as time has gone on I've gotten sick to death of the endless menus, masking the pick-up button on anything that isn't nailed down and having to invest time into building when I actually want to get out in the game world and create some carnage.
Not as empty as some, that's true but it just didn't pull me in that much unfortunately and I think by the time Elden Ring launched I was looking for more innovation than From Soft provided.
Honestly? I'm not sure I've played enough of them to say. I don't mind Stardew Valley and I quite like farming/animal husbandry in Minecraft if you want to count that but otherwise, I've never played it in a context where I enjoyed it.
I consider it seriously overrated but I wouldn't say I dislike it. Hollow Knight is too long and its true ending too arduous to achieve for me to bother finishing it.
New Horizons is exactly that, but for me it was Covid rather than any of those other scenarios. During Covid, me, my wife and my kid used it as a kind of lifeline when we weren't allowed to leave the house.
I'm so glad to see someone else dislike survival craftemups. I hate that stuff and so often it's all my friends desire to play together. They're just so boring and annoying. I started playing No Man's Sky recently and it has some light survival aspects and a bunch of crafting and I manage to not engage with most of that stuff. Honestly the only thing I really disagree with you here is immersive sims but I think that's my film nerd coming out where I love to pay attention to the small details and small changes and stuff. My partner is not a big fan for basically the same reason you listed. Great read and love some hot takes, especially as a fellow haver of hot takes!
I used to play with a group like that too, I remember Valheim almost literally putting me to sleep after a long day, so so boring, I don't know how people can play these things on the regular. Everything is in a shitty menu, everything takes too long and I'm not aesthetically inclined enough to build things of beauty; four stone walls, a few murder holes and a firepit will do me.
A comment from a while ago here recommended System Shock 2 to me to see if it changes my mind on im sims, I'll pick that up and give it a go. Thanks for reading!
As a huge fan of RDR2 and Rockstar games in general, I respect it. It’s interesting to see a different opinion on games that are loved by many. This was a cool read, thanks for sharing!
What I like about you Scanlines is that you have strong opinions and you're not afraid to say them. I don't agree with all you say, but I respect it. I myself have to see the balanced perspective of anything, but you're like "nope!" 😂
I will say that I have tried Animal Crossing and can see why it can be off-putting to keep at it every day. However, that is exactly what my daughter does and likes, to her that is the only game in existence. She plays it every day, she will keep playing it every day, and I don't know what will happen when the Switch physically dies in years to come
Sometimes I'll write something out and think "Should I tone that down?" But then I think to myself "There's no newspaper/publisher paying me, there's no editor to woo, I can say what I damn well want." I think you'll do better in the long term but there is a certain freedom to it haha
It's absolutely the perfect game for kids: especially a young daughter I'd imagine. Maybe if you get a Switch 2 in future you might be able to bring the island forward to that console, it'd be a shame to lose anything, though I suspect we'll see a new Animal Crossing game before the decade is done.
Agree on many of these. I think you know my grievances with Elden Ring, so won't get into that again.
Rockstar I am kind of mixed on: I have a soft spot for RDR2 on a superficial level, and there are elements of the story I appreciate, but the immersion - which is obviously supposed to be key - is not well-implemented. The crazy ragdoll physics and hyper-aggressive NPCs really break the spell, and constant gigantic gunfights in a story that is supposed to be about lying low and the end of the frontier era don't make a huge amount of sense. I hate the lack of player agency during story missions too.
Very much agreed on Half-Life 2. It's more like a tech-demo than a proper story, and while there are moments of great spectacle and a memorable opening, it soon becomes a slog.
On guilt-trips: I find the Dishonored games profoundly frustrating for this reason. Like, what do you mean you made all these gruesome sword animations and lethal gadgets, and then decided to narratively punish the player for using them?! I'm not even convinced that it is morally illegitimate to be offing these brutal police/soldiers/fanatics.
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, just noticing this comment now after Substack failed to notify me.
Couldn't have said that any better myself. You're strung along with zero agency and every problem is solved by shooting someone, stealing something or chasing them on a horse.
The opening is strong for sure and I really love how liminal/eerie a lot of the levels feel; Ravenholm is an iconic FPS level. Other than that I just don't care for it, a shooter's most defining feature is its shooting/arsenal and Half-Life 2's arsenal isn't very fun to use.
Yeah it's bullshit XD Developer makes killing enemies, fun satisfying and required... tries to guilt trip me when I do it. Maybe I'm a cold bastard but it's hard for me to feel bad about gutting NPC467 when he rushes me with a sword just because the devs tell me he had a wife and kids
I immediately feel the urge to write an article like this of my own, but specifically about games recommended directly to me which betrayed that the person in question did not understand my taste or lack of taste as well as they thought. And getting back to YOUR lack of taste, I have a few notes:
I hate RDR2 more than you. I stake my reputation on that claim. I hate it so much I knew I had to finish it, just so I could properly spit on it, every single bit of it, and I still gave up before I could.
You liked Dark Souls before it was popular? Well I liked it back when it was just Demons Souls, kid.
The second Witcher game has little relevance to the third??? Maybe you were too busy, ahem, ~admiring~ the romance cards from Witcher 1 to remember story details or the 90% of characters in W2 who return in the sequel.
And, as a proud member of the PC Gaming Master Race, I must insist that HL2 is obviously nowhere near the best FPS ever. Not even a very good one. Half Life 2 is like the Minecraft movie for kids who grew up playing Half Life. It's quotable, memeable, we were all there for it, and it's embarrassing to look back at.
Do it! The numbers have been insane and this comment section has been extra lively. On that topic take with my brother's game recommendations with a Krakow salt mine level of scrutiny, he's a big Sony fanboy and easily impressed by nice graphics and a good story; to this day, he can't fathom how I didn't enjoy The Last Of Us.
We need a scientific method to quantify Red Dead 2 hate because I stake my reputation on hating it more than you as well, I just write to write in a way that didn't make Gen Alpha break down crying. I hate how every action has a 10 second long animation, I hate how braindead the shooting is, I hate how most of my Wild West game takes place in Appalachia, I hate how Rockstar abandoned the multiplayer: the only reason I loved the first game, I hate Arthur and Dutch's fucking inane nostalgic rambling like 2 SNES-era Nintendo fans, I hate how the game encourages me to be a loveable rogue when I want to be pure evil and look good doing it.
I knew someone was going to say this hahaha, I have no retort: hadn't even heard of Demon Souls until around the time Dark Souls II came out, the PS3 isn't a console I like all that much.
I was a dumb shit back then (still am) maybe if I revisited them I'd see more connections but my desire to do so is very low; The Witcher is a 5/10, The Witcher 2 is maybe a 7/10 but The Witcher 3 is a 1000/10
Would anyone have played it if early YouTube wasn't full of stupid Gmod clips? A lot of people online are convinced that Half Life 3 is a GTA5 sales monster waiting to happen but I don't think Gen Z or Gen Alpha really gives a shit about Half Life.
Everyone would have played HL2, because it and Doom 3 were the two great rivals for the future of all FPS gaming, and both of them sucked in every way compared to Far Cry even though the last two thirds of Far Cry sucked too.
Man, I'm glad someone said things that are stuck inside me for years, although some of my reasoning differs from yours.
Despite graduating in game design thanks to the first GTA, I agree that most Rockstar games are filled with busy work, so I always get bored in most of them. Even so, I still have Vice City among my favorite games of all time.
I played Elden Ring to completion, spending 130 hours to get the Age of the Stars ending only to discover that I don't have patience for a second playthrough or to tackle the Nightrein DLC. I agree with your perception of some elements being dated, but for me the biggest problem is that this game is too long to its own good. Even with different weapoins, stats and classes, it basically evolves around the same mechanics from start to finish, and after dozens of hours spend on it, it becomes stale. That's why I'm a huge fan of Yakuza games: there's such a huge variety on them that I rarely feel that I wasted my time even if most of it is spent on minigames.
I spent a lot of time in Animal Crossing New Leaf. At first, it was nice to see my city evolve little by little every day and characters like Isabelle and K.K. have an unique charm, but having to log in every single day to make things happen in a sluggish pace is definetely not for me. Needless to say, I didn't give New Horizons a chance. But hey, at least my fiancée enjoys it, so that's something...
And finally, I respect Half Life 2 for its technical achievements, but its most glaring issue for me is that this game is a nightmare to play for those who suffer from 3D camera sickness like me. Games like Bioshock Infinte or Portal have better FOV options that make me enjoy them without making me feel sick every 5 minutes.
I'm glad it was a validating experience for you, a lot of the reason I write this kind of thing is to discover whether I'm alone in my thoughts or not.
A lot of games today are too long, Elden Ring included, I totally agree. I've tried several times now to finish Tears Of The Kingdom but it's such a daunting task; I have 85 hours in that game and quit close to the end, came back again on Switch 2 and I still just can't get it done. I'm missing old Zelda's structure.
I hear fans of the series prefer New Leaf to New Horizons which isn't a great sign. The pace is very sluggish as you say and it falls into that 'not enough structure' zone for me I described in another reply here; I like structure in games, if I have to make my own fun or just potter about I get bored and Animal Crossing feels like that constantly. I don't care how my island looks, I want the game to tell me its story.
I didn't even consider the motion sickness aspect but I can see how that would be bad with Half Life 2, a lot of bobbing, the tight FOV and Gordon has no legs hahaha.
Thanks again for reading, always happy to see you in the comments
I love, or rather, am infatuated with and unhealthily obsessed with Elden Ring... and I think it's way too long. It's absolutely MISERABLE to start a new run, ESPECIALLY with foreknowledge, as you inevitably spend a good two or three hours doing nothing but running around on your horse scooping up dozens of glowing balls which are required before you will deign to even look at one of the bosses... and then you just trivially dispatch most of the ones you'll have to fight in the next four or five hours.
I couldn't agree more! You basically summarized my biggest reasons why I don't play Elden Ring anymore.
I think I agree with you on Rockstar games. I can only play GTA sandbox style, just mowing down pedestrians and crashing. I am usually a “finish all the side quests” girl but I cannot bring myself to do any of the missions.
I downloaded RDR2 from the playstation catalog, got bored during the introduction and pretty much deleted it straight away.
It’s not that I can’t sit through a story; currently 60+ hours into Ghost of Yotei (so, so good!), I think the story has to be entertaining. The characters also matter. Everyone in a Rockstar game seems to be a flat caricature, especially the female ones, oof.
You've articulated a lot of what I was thinking better than I did. When I'm tying random innocents to train tracks, doing drive-by murders on horseback and slipping dynamite through the saloon door and running off I love it but when I play the game like you're supposed to, man, it's like melatonin.
It feels like the gaming equivalent of slowly dying of tuberculosis, which would be brilliant if I actually thought it was totally intentional but still wouldn't be any goddamn fun anyway.
The two things the RDR2 and Elden Ring have in common is that there’s good games inside but they are bloated. Really, really bloated.
In the case of RDR2, the writing and characters aren’t meant to be immersive, they’re meant to tell a story that doesn’t really fit with the world. Marxist-socialist train robbers in the old west circa 1895. Wait.. what?! It takes so much time to get into interesting storylines and past the moralizing that it feels like there’s nothing interesting at all. Also, hunting should not be in the main storyline of any game. Fuck.
Elden Ring has a different problem. They didn’t see an empty, boring, repeat dungeon with a repeat boss that they didn’t like. Half the fun of these games is finding Crystal Godsmith boss where he doesn’t belong, through a secret door, giving you a hint that something you’ve been told be an NPC is a lie and something about the game world isn’t what it seems. Now we have bosses recycled into boring generic dungeons (or recycled into main dungeons), for no reason at all. Completely outside of the storytelling. There’s no mystery. You need a PhD in mythology to try and sort through all the horseshit and unintentional signaling by the devs to figure out what the hell is going on. I played this game a long time before I realized I kinda hate it.
That's a sentiment I strongly agree with, to be honest, I feel the overwhelming majority of open world games have this problem.
Something that doesn't get brough up enough is how much Rockstar pretty blatantly copies popular films too, tonally, visually and in terms of narrative. RDR2's opening is like The Hateful 8, GTA4 bears a striking resemblance to the classic Russian film Brother 2 and so on. They lack originality and their game design has not fucking changed since San Andreas either.
I feel like Elden Ring is From Soft selling out. They made a palatable, lighter, more pick up and play version of the grungy, gothic, metroidvania-like Dark Souls.
Completely agree.
I really enjoy your perspective. As someone who grew up gaming but can't devote the time to it anymore, it's fascinating to me to read about how you evaluate games. I have a joke with my friends that I get to play one video game a year these days if I'm lucky, so I tend to lean towards playing the widely-acclaimed 'games of the year' and yet, most of my choices ended up on this list!! I'm now questioning all my decisions because I trust your judgement so much. Red Dead 2 and Elden Ring are the two biggest examples. I loved RD2 because I only got to play it slowly in 2-4 hour chunks of time each week and it felt like I was participating in a weekly episodic TV program. The climaxes tended to deliver more because of the way I had to consume the game over a long period of time. Growing up as a kid, we just did not have narratives like that in our games. I'll date myself here but Morrowwind was the only thing I can recall that came close for me. I don't have the breadth of experience as someone like yourself so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I'm well aware that I have knowledge gaps and ignorance when it comes to the bigger picture of evaluating games. Elden Ring I loved because it was the first game I ever played that I couldn't complete. It was so incredibly frustrating trying to solve those boss battles. I eventually got to one I couldn't beat and abandoned the game because I didn't have the time. I loved this though! I am a person who really enjoys solving puzzles and spending mental labor. Elden Ring was the first game I'd ever played that seemed to intentionally make things as difficult as possible for the player which felt so contrarian to the gaming culture at the time it came out (think: Fortnite and the ability to get into a new game almost instantly after dying). I know it wasn't the first game to do this but for me, it felt like a seismic shift and I look back on the game really fondly for that. As always, thank you for sharing your thoughts and putting them out into the world for us to read. I'm really grateful.
This was such a touching comment to read, really made me smile. Thank you, I'm the one who should be grateful to you. It's funny to read about someone trusting my judgement: I have something of a reckless streak in the real world; it makes me happy and somewhat surprised as well to see what I write being valued so much, I never imagine that I'm anyone's favourite Substack or a voice that really guides another person's decisions but I genuinely try my best with these articles and make sure I'm not just parroting others' words.
Don't question what you enjoy. It should go without saying that nothing I say is objective fact and that my critical lens has been shaped by playing too many video games for too long and thinking about them in the terms that I value. If you need any more reason not to take me too seriously then I like Ghost Recon Breakpoint. I want to say that I have some gaps in my knowledge too, especially with RPG's, I've never played Final Fantasy 7 or Chrono Trigger, I've not played a single Baldur's Gate and I've played one Dragon Quest game on the DS.
Excellent taste with Morrowind. I think sometimes, my addictive personality gets in the way. I love Paradox grand strategy games because you can just play them for ages and ages and not get bored since the gameplay evolves and new problems arise; I love Morrowind for similar reasons: there's always a skill I haven't mastered and a new faction quest to do. Most games cannot be gorged on like this. Red Dead with its missions and money gathering is definitely designed to be experienced in more sensible chunks and in a more meditative way, the same as GTA. Fans of Rockstar love to drive about, listen to the radio, fish and so on but I love structure. When a game asks me to make my own fun, I scratch my head and don't know what to do, the subtle details don't land and I just return to the main meat of the experience which in Red Dead's case, is quite repetitive if you're not soaking up the world in between. Perhaps some day I'll give the game another go, I love how my audience just goes with it when I randomly decide to paly nothing but 20 year old games for one month or hop to the latest release after weeks of opinion pieces.
Elden Ring is a complex one for me. I think I can sum up my thoughts on it as too little too late. It doesn't change enough to excite me and after the Souls trilogy the challenge isn't quite as brutal for me as it used to be.
This is a huge comment, I don't want to take up any more of your time, thanks for reading!
There are certain types of games that are definitely best consumed bit by bit, as a way to wind down after a day of work or a weekend, and they tend to have similar design, if you look at them from a wide enough view. JRPGs for Japanese businessmen, Ubisoft map-token-clearers for college kids, big, visually impressive and critically acclaimed cinematic and narrative experiences for people with more money and less time than they had when they first started gaming. And it's the things that make them such a soothing retreat, or satisfying grind, or relaxing wind-down that make them almost intolerable for someone trying to just play THROUGH them in large sittings. Like a television show that you'd turn on at the same time every week happily but burn out on if you try to marathon. But in spite of that I'll still call RDR2 a waste!
Incidentally, if nostalgia ever calls you back, Morrowind is still quite playable, and is certainly something you can just dip into for a few hours at a time - that's how I've been playing it for most of this year, slowly meandering my way through new cities and areas added by the Project Tamriel mod.
Oh man I just started on my second attempt to finish Red Dead 2. Trying to treat it like an interactive movie since that’s clearly what the developers intended. The contextual inputs are brutal though, I never quite trust that a button is going to do what I’m expecting it to do.
*winces as I am reminded of another thing I detest about RDR2, like an old, calloused wound being torn open afresh*
Other than animal crossing and Elden Ring 10/10 no notes from me. Call out on rockstar resonates a ton.
Interesting read!
I feel you on a few of them...
Elden ring and survival sims not so much.
Crafting a base is quite fun for me, especially in games where you need to defend it, like in 7 days to die.
Dark souls did feel more connected, but the open world element didn't feel as empty as some, especially when you factor in the horse and mounted enemies.
Geralt certainly didn't come into his element until 3 though, you're right there.
When you say you disliked animal crossing, was that also referencing farm sims in general?
Harvest moon and story of seasons is quite therapeutic!
Glad you enjoyed it!
A long time ago, back in the early 2010's I thought base-building was the coolest thing in the world and I loved seeing different games get crafting systems but as time has gone on I've gotten sick to death of the endless menus, masking the pick-up button on anything that isn't nailed down and having to invest time into building when I actually want to get out in the game world and create some carnage.
Not as empty as some, that's true but it just didn't pull me in that much unfortunately and I think by the time Elden Ring launched I was looking for more innovation than From Soft provided.
Honestly? I'm not sure I've played enough of them to say. I don't mind Stardew Valley and I quite like farming/animal husbandry in Minecraft if you want to count that but otherwise, I've never played it in a context where I enjoyed it.
I thought Hollow Knight was rubbish.
I consider it seriously overrated but I wouldn't say I dislike it. Hollow Knight is too long and its true ending too arduous to achieve for me to bother finishing it.
New Horizons is exactly that, but for me it was Covid rather than any of those other scenarios. During Covid, me, my wife and my kid used it as a kind of lifeline when we weren't allowed to leave the house.
Once lockdown ended, I never played it again.
The Yakuza series and Castlevania were those for me: inseparable from my memories of lockdown and never quite feel the same when I go back now.
I'm so glad to see someone else dislike survival craftemups. I hate that stuff and so often it's all my friends desire to play together. They're just so boring and annoying. I started playing No Man's Sky recently and it has some light survival aspects and a bunch of crafting and I manage to not engage with most of that stuff. Honestly the only thing I really disagree with you here is immersive sims but I think that's my film nerd coming out where I love to pay attention to the small details and small changes and stuff. My partner is not a big fan for basically the same reason you listed. Great read and love some hot takes, especially as a fellow haver of hot takes!
I used to play with a group like that too, I remember Valheim almost literally putting me to sleep after a long day, so so boring, I don't know how people can play these things on the regular. Everything is in a shitty menu, everything takes too long and I'm not aesthetically inclined enough to build things of beauty; four stone walls, a few murder holes and a firepit will do me.
A comment from a while ago here recommended System Shock 2 to me to see if it changes my mind on im sims, I'll pick that up and give it a go. Thanks for reading!
As a huge fan of RDR2 and Rockstar games in general, I respect it. It’s interesting to see a different opinion on games that are loved by many. This was a cool read, thanks for sharing!
What I like about you Scanlines is that you have strong opinions and you're not afraid to say them. I don't agree with all you say, but I respect it. I myself have to see the balanced perspective of anything, but you're like "nope!" 😂
I will say that I have tried Animal Crossing and can see why it can be off-putting to keep at it every day. However, that is exactly what my daughter does and likes, to her that is the only game in existence. She plays it every day, she will keep playing it every day, and I don't know what will happen when the Switch physically dies in years to come
Sometimes I'll write something out and think "Should I tone that down?" But then I think to myself "There's no newspaper/publisher paying me, there's no editor to woo, I can say what I damn well want." I think you'll do better in the long term but there is a certain freedom to it haha
It's absolutely the perfect game for kids: especially a young daughter I'd imagine. Maybe if you get a Switch 2 in future you might be able to bring the island forward to that console, it'd be a shame to lose anything, though I suspect we'll see a new Animal Crossing game before the decade is done.
Agree on many of these. I think you know my grievances with Elden Ring, so won't get into that again.
Rockstar I am kind of mixed on: I have a soft spot for RDR2 on a superficial level, and there are elements of the story I appreciate, but the immersion - which is obviously supposed to be key - is not well-implemented. The crazy ragdoll physics and hyper-aggressive NPCs really break the spell, and constant gigantic gunfights in a story that is supposed to be about lying low and the end of the frontier era don't make a huge amount of sense. I hate the lack of player agency during story missions too.
Very much agreed on Half-Life 2. It's more like a tech-demo than a proper story, and while there are moments of great spectacle and a memorable opening, it soon becomes a slog.
On guilt-trips: I find the Dishonored games profoundly frustrating for this reason. Like, what do you mean you made all these gruesome sword animations and lethal gadgets, and then decided to narratively punish the player for using them?! I'm not even convinced that it is morally illegitimate to be offing these brutal police/soldiers/fanatics.
Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, just noticing this comment now after Substack failed to notify me.
Couldn't have said that any better myself. You're strung along with zero agency and every problem is solved by shooting someone, stealing something or chasing them on a horse.
The opening is strong for sure and I really love how liminal/eerie a lot of the levels feel; Ravenholm is an iconic FPS level. Other than that I just don't care for it, a shooter's most defining feature is its shooting/arsenal and Half-Life 2's arsenal isn't very fun to use.
Yeah it's bullshit XD Developer makes killing enemies, fun satisfying and required... tries to guilt trip me when I do it. Maybe I'm a cold bastard but it's hard for me to feel bad about gutting NPC467 when he rushes me with a sword just because the devs tell me he had a wife and kids
I disagree with pretty much all these points but a very well written post. Earned yourself a follow my friend
Glad you enjoyed it, hope to see you back for another post
I immediately feel the urge to write an article like this of my own, but specifically about games recommended directly to me which betrayed that the person in question did not understand my taste or lack of taste as well as they thought. And getting back to YOUR lack of taste, I have a few notes:
I hate RDR2 more than you. I stake my reputation on that claim. I hate it so much I knew I had to finish it, just so I could properly spit on it, every single bit of it, and I still gave up before I could.
You liked Dark Souls before it was popular? Well I liked it back when it was just Demons Souls, kid.
The second Witcher game has little relevance to the third??? Maybe you were too busy, ahem, ~admiring~ the romance cards from Witcher 1 to remember story details or the 90% of characters in W2 who return in the sequel.
And, as a proud member of the PC Gaming Master Race, I must insist that HL2 is obviously nowhere near the best FPS ever. Not even a very good one. Half Life 2 is like the Minecraft movie for kids who grew up playing Half Life. It's quotable, memeable, we were all there for it, and it's embarrassing to look back at.
Do it! The numbers have been insane and this comment section has been extra lively. On that topic take with my brother's game recommendations with a Krakow salt mine level of scrutiny, he's a big Sony fanboy and easily impressed by nice graphics and a good story; to this day, he can't fathom how I didn't enjoy The Last Of Us.
We need a scientific method to quantify Red Dead 2 hate because I stake my reputation on hating it more than you as well, I just write to write in a way that didn't make Gen Alpha break down crying. I hate how every action has a 10 second long animation, I hate how braindead the shooting is, I hate how most of my Wild West game takes place in Appalachia, I hate how Rockstar abandoned the multiplayer: the only reason I loved the first game, I hate Arthur and Dutch's fucking inane nostalgic rambling like 2 SNES-era Nintendo fans, I hate how the game encourages me to be a loveable rogue when I want to be pure evil and look good doing it.
I knew someone was going to say this hahaha, I have no retort: hadn't even heard of Demon Souls until around the time Dark Souls II came out, the PS3 isn't a console I like all that much.
I was a dumb shit back then (still am) maybe if I revisited them I'd see more connections but my desire to do so is very low; The Witcher is a 5/10, The Witcher 2 is maybe a 7/10 but The Witcher 3 is a 1000/10
Would anyone have played it if early YouTube wasn't full of stupid Gmod clips? A lot of people online are convinced that Half Life 3 is a GTA5 sales monster waiting to happen but I don't think Gen Z or Gen Alpha really gives a shit about Half Life.
Everyone would have played HL2, because it and Doom 3 were the two great rivals for the future of all FPS gaming, and both of them sucked in every way compared to Far Cry even though the last two thirds of Far Cry sucked too.
Totally agree on Bloodborne - I just don’t understand while people love it so much. It is punishing without being rewarding