Games you're embarrassed by

[Girth Certificate]

31 minutes ago, Spacehost said:

It's the combination of the fact someone's going to walk in on the worst part of the game, and that non-gamers assume the entire game is the bit they've seen, right?

 

So you're not playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, you're playing Pripyat Dog Stabber 3000.

 

Also known as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[ScouserInExile]

18 hours ago, deerokus said:

Train Sim World. Love those things.

Oh yeah, Transport Tycoon. I don't tell anyone I play that...

[dug]

I've played many games in front of my wife, with never a comment from her. Unless a raised eyebrow and shake of the head can be considered a comment. But I've been playing The Last of Us 2 over the last couple of weeks, and she asked me to turn it off.

 

My favoured style of playing is stealth, so there was lots of sneaking up on enemies and cutting their throats from behind, rather than open firefights. She said it was "too intense" for her to listen to and basically a "murder simulator". As I watched Ellie stab some poor fuck through the throat and listened to them gargle and drown in their own blood, I couldn't really disagree. So I've only played it while my wife is out since then.

[Down by Law]

If you grab them first then execute , it's a couple of quick stabs rather than the throat slitting. Which don't get me wrong is still grim as fuck but it's preferable to hearing the death gargle/ same animation over and over again 

[sir stiff_one]

On 20/01/2022 at 14:27, ox1973 said:

 

Likewise. My wife has zero interest in games but is always fascinated by the fact that I play Japanese games (with Japanese voiceovers) - I make sure that Yakuza is a laptop only job - no big TV Yakuza for me 😄

 

 

I justify this to my wife (and myself I guess) by saying 'it's only zombies right?' but Days Gone is a violent game, no doubt about it. Is it any different to watching a horror movie though? It's escapist entertainment - who would really want to be stuck in a post-apocalyptic zombie nightmare?

 

Why no big screen Yakuza? Am I missing something?

[sir stiff_one]

On 20/01/2022 at 14:50, Dark Soldier said:

Yep.

 

Absolute wankfantasy shite glossed over by fan boys screaming 'combat depth'. Actually hate that series.

Weird flex and so wrong

[freezycold]

Yep totally wrong, cos all the gay gamers I know (myself included) absolutely love it. It's high camp nonsense and the game underneath all that is fantastic. And we're definitely not wanking over it.

[sir stiff_one]

Can’t fathom someone getting that game SO wrong. It’s pantomime opera on a grand scale. Pick on literally loads of other games but sooooo out, soooo out with that one.

[Thor]

19 minutes ago, sir stiff_one said:

Weird flex and so wrong

Damn, I was just going to post that it's telling that no-one is defending the game in this thread, and then you pop along to do just that. 

 

Bayonetta is an absolute tragic example of sexism and objectification. It's puerile and pathetic. An absolute embarrassment of the medium.  

[Thor]

22 minutes ago, freezycold said:

Yep totally wrong, cos all the gay gamers I know (myself included) absolutely love it. It's high camp nonsense and the game underneath all that is fantastic. And we're definitely not wanking over it.

So that fact that you're (I'm assuming here) a gay man who enjoys the game, renders the objectification of women in the game irrelevant?

[sir stiff_one]

Absolutely you are the wrongest of wrongs. I mean come on now, *looks at you, pause, looks at me, looks back at you* who is more likely to have got this right here? 
 

 

[Qazimod]

Playing Neo TWEWY last year made me feel a little awkward, but not for any boobs or violence. Instead the street lingo and internet speak made me feel like an old man. I've seen people point fingers and say that the dialogue is "cringey", but it's so close to your typical Twitter and SMS vomit that the criticisms feel like a self-own.  I was absolutely fine with how "current" the dialogue was, but sometimes I felt like I wasn't hip enough to appreciate the game. I was the embarrassment. Meanwhile, I can easily identify with Yakuza 7's washed-up geezers.  

[choduk]

Judgment could be tricky. My girlfriend is into a lot of Japanese stuff and was occasionally glancing over my shoulder with interest as I was playing this. However, it's more serious tone in the main missions is not reflected in the side missions. So I felt I had to explain that I'd taken on a case from a teenage girl to track down whoever it was that was stealing her knickers from the washing line, as y'know.. this sort of stuff can happen. It became somewhat more problematic when a fist fight with the culprit culminated with him sniffing the stolen knickers in order to power-up for the fight.

[HarryBizzle]

24 minutes ago, Thor said:

Damn, I was just going to post that it's telling that no-one is defending the game in this thread, and then you pop along to do just that. 

 

Bayonetta is an absolute tragic example of sexism and objectification. It's puerile and pathetic. An absolute embarrassment of the medium.  

The character designer on Bayonetta is female, interestingly. 
 

The game is so OTT that I just rolled with it. And the combat depth is genuinely bonkers. 

 

That kid’s English accent in the sequel is seriously embarrassing, though. 

[Thor]

12 hours ago, sir stiff_one said:

Absolutely you are the wrongest of wrongs. I mean come on now, *looks at you, pause, looks at me, looks back at you* who is more likely to have got this right here?

 

12 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

The character designer on Bayonetta is female, interestingly. 

This equates to:

 

[HarryBizzle]

It doesn’t equate to that at all. And I didn’t say it makes it ok. Just not what you might expect from a character design you’d expect to have been dreamt up by a horny teenage boy.

 

Bayonetta never really bothered me.  Apart from the silly clothes thing, she’s never actually sexualised by any of the characters in the game, and the fact that when she uses those attacks her clothes effectively disappear isn’t commented on. She’s just super powerful and doesn’t take crap from anyone. 
 

I feel more embarrassed by stuff like Halo Infinite where you have this AI waifu stroking your male ego and going “you’ll save us, won’t you chief?” and similar, like a damsel in distress. 

[sir stiff_one]

It does not at all equate to that and I’m afraid to tell you that you’ve been labouring under a misapprehension all this time. 
 

Plus, Hideki Kamiya 💪🏻😎

[Thor]

5 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

It doesn’t equate to that at all. And I didn’t say it makes it ok. Just not what you might expect from a character design you’d expect to have been dreamt up by a horny teenage boy.

Yet you and, clearly, thousands of other gamers are happy to gloss over that because ... 

16 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

the combat depth is genuinely bonkers

Does having good gameplay excuse the sexism and objectification? What if there was a game that had genuinely amazing gameplay, but put you in control of a KKK member hunting down black people? Or @freezycold, what if there was a game that had the absolute best gameplay in the world ever, but it was about hunting down gay people, with a "genius and intuitive" conversion therapy mini-game? 

 

Now don't get me wrong, games have been objectifying women for fucking decades, but Bayonetta took it further to the point I was genuinely embarrassed to play it. Just because a game has good gameplay (and Bayonetta does, in fairness, that was never in question) does not excuse it from its other glaring faults.

 

Take Mass Effect 2. The original game (released the same time as Bayonetta) had gratuitous shots of Miranda's arse in almost every cut scene she was in. It was fucking tragic. Bioware rightly addressed this with the recent Legendary Edition Remaster. When I'm talking to Miranda about her employer, or her past, or just something run-of-the-mill, I don't need to see a close up of her arse cheeks every time.

[Qazimod]

Bayo is kind of knowing in its sexiness, but be real - if you were browsing at work (uh, in 2010) and someone had posted a gif of the pole dance or Joy’s unique torture attack, would you turn to your boss and say “but it’s empowerment tho”?

[JamesC]

I really like Bayonetta, I think it's an excellent game and I'm looking forward to no. 3. As well as great combat depth it has really amazing character design when it comes to the baddies. When you're mid-flight against some 20 story high dragon you can pause it at any point and it just looks incredible. 

Despite all that it is embarrassing and it's a shame because with all the talent involved, I'm sure they could have come up with a cool heroine who wasn't some sort of adolescent wank fantasy. 

Actually, the black guy who runs the night club/shop is embarrassing too. He's like a character from a 70s blaxploitation flick with terrible, terrible dialogue. 

[Thor]

10 hours ago, HarryBizzle said:

It doesn’t equate to that at all.

 

10 hours ago, sir stiff_one said:

It does not at all equate to that

 

You're both right there. I read Harry's post as "character design" rather than "designer." I was rather drunk last night. 

 

Bayonetta is still embarrassing though.

[Strafe]

10 hours ago, Thor said:

What if there was a game that had genuinely amazing gameplay, but put you in control of a KKK member hunting down black people?

 

[bear]

For me it's Madworld. I've mentioned it before on here but whenever the Baron showed up I always felt uncomfortable. The tone of the game is a bit naff in general but even then the Baron bits felt like something that fell out of a different era. 

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Madworld is a weird one where I vowed never to buy it but when I did an audit of my physical games last year it was just there in my collection. God knows how. Maybe a prank by my ex?

 

I was a bit put off by the first Bayonetta until it was reveal that the main character was designed....for the female gaze, not the male gaze. Piqued my interest enough to play the intro where I discovered that her silky satin bodysuit is made from her hair.

 

Which just grossed me out. It's a weird thing to be grossed out about but every time I think of that suit it gives me the same itchy feeling I had when I woke up one night choking on my then partner's long mane of hair. It's a very specific thing to be grossed out about. Pity, I do love over the top games.

 

Back on topic I do remember playing Kane and Lynch 2 a few years back when is came out on Games with Gold because I was just fascinated by the VHS style rendering that they used but it was gross enough that I would never ever play it in front of company.

[b00dles]

Treasure of nadia 

 

 

 

P.s. this is a joke post, don't look it up at work...

[Nick R]

Comic Jumper, specifically the allegedly-"'"ironic"'" racism in the 1960s level:

 

 

 

 

[Sumire]

Well, I think the only thing I get slightly embarrassed by is when you have a your stereo typical young female character in a Japanese RPG game and they have that bloody annoying high pitched voice. I always have to turn the sound down.

[Festoon]

All games are embarrassing. Pure cringe.

[Thor]

Speak for yourself.

[Festoon]

I can't imagine a non-gamer watching The Passion mission in Cyberpunk 2077 without asking serious questions.