How broad is your love

[thesnwmn]

Whilst listening to the Back Page Podcast they were talking about games they respect but don't love. Their take was mostly around genres they just don't click with or enjoy for some reason. For them, you could basically rule out non-arcade racers, 4x, city builders, MMOs. Probably some others I don't remember.

 

It got me thinking... how engaged are you with the full breadth of gaming and do you even accept all of it as part of the same pastime you enjoy?

 

Bit of a rambling idea I know but I wondered if it might help us understand or at least think about where people are coming from when talking about games.

 

-----

 

What percentage of gaming's spectrum do you actually engage with or enjoy playing? Do you play and enjoy a bit of everything? Or do you stick to just one or two genres?

 

Are there any sections of the industry you really look down on? Do you think puzzle games are not really video games? That gun games are for knuckleheads? That Roblox is melting the minds of young people?

 

I'd you only play a narrow selection of games do you still read about those you don't? Do you skip any thread here about games you don't have personal interest in playing? Or do you still find interest in following the opinions of others about these titles.

 

How about hardware? If you're an Xbox guy do you venture into the PlayStation thread(s). If you hate Mario and Zelda because they're for kids do you avoid the Switch thread?

[thesnwmn]

Personally...

 

Broadly I like a cerebral challenge over an input skill one. A considered challenge over a time pressured one.

 

As a result my personal playing preferences are actually pretty narrow. Although I read about anything and everything gaming passionately.

 

I enjoy turn based or strategic games player. Puzzle and point and click are good. Maybe some RTS elements. Love a platformer. Will enjoy a racer of any kind with good handling (but not drifting). I don't mind an adventure game with a little combat if it's not too hard.

 

I love bright and colourful games. I'm confused by anyone who is dismissive of a game for basically being a dull grey/brown.

 

I'm allergic to real time games with guns (or even combat in general). I dislike them, their pervasiveness and actually consider that their players are a bit low brow. I find the fact that people so casually discuss shooting and beating others very tasteless. Of course that's stupid and extreme. My perspective is warped. It's basically me trying to convince myself that I'm right for not enjoying these types of games.

 

I've basically no interest in online games any more. I played thousands of hours of World of Warcraft. I loved Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast. But outside of that I haven't enjoyed the pressure of winning or losing. Or having to interact with other players. I've made exceptions. Fall Guys feels like a joke. Hearthstone Battlegrounds let's me feel like I'm just playing against AI.

 

Having said all of this I read anything and everything about games. I love seeing what other people love that I don't. It can be on hardware platforms I'll never buy or games in genres I despise. Doesn't matter. I love reading about games from the perspective of others and seeing what they love and hate.

[Popo]

Just now, thesnwmn said:

4x,

Christ, I wondered what this was - I thought they were saying forex. 

[Jamie John]

I've tried a number of times over the years to get into some of the less mainstream gaming genres - stuff like fighters, shoot-em-ups and strategy games - as well as force myself to play things I wouldn't normally play. Latterly, however, I've come to the conclusion that I like what I like, and (just as with all forms of other media) there are whole echelons of gaming that are simply never going to be 'for me', for whatever reason, and that's fine. Maybe it's part of getting old.

 

Thankfully, the games that I do tend to enjoy (which is to say, single-player action-adventure games with a definite end point to work towards) are so abundant that, even by limiting my gaming tastes to just this particular genre (if you can call it that, as broad as it is), there's an embarrassment of riches available to me. And, as it happens, the games I typically like are often the most critically acclaimed and sell very well, which means that developers will continue to make them and improve on what's come before, and that suits me just fine.

 

As a matter of fact, I need to shrink my palette even more, if anything, and stop trying games from genres I know I don't gel with in the vain hope that 'This 2D brawler/run-n-gun platformer/top-down bullet hell shooter/deck builder will be the one that suddenly breaks the genre wide open for me.' It's pretty sad that I'm self-consciously limiting myself to the art I'm exposed to in this way, but compared with most other forms of art, videogames can often take ten, twenty, or a hundred times as long to 'consume', and when you work full time, and have children, ain't nobody got time for being eclectic. At the end of a long day, I want to sit down with something that I know I'll enjoy.

[Qazimod]

The broadest descriptor I use for the kind of games I like is that they often give the player a lot of options but challenge the player to make the most of the options that are available to them. Super Mario 64 has some demanding platforming sequences but it can get away with it because you feel so connected to Mario's various movement options. Devil May Cry 5 throws a lot of stuff at the player but it doesn't matter because the characters have such large skill lists. Even something like Persona allows the player to essentially carry twelve "folders" of skills in the eponymous demons they can summon - and outside of dungeons you get a lot of things to do in town. You're not railroaded towards a particular goal aside from the dungeon deadlines.

 

I do tend to try a bit of everything (all of the services like Prime Gaming and Game Pass and PS+ at least invite players to broaden horizons a bit) but I have my favourite genres - JRPGs, fighting games, some of FromSoft's action RPGs. In terms of hardware I tend to stick to one platform each generation and think about the others later on down the line. I don't really have any allegiances though - I went from 360 to PS4 to PS5, but I've casually mentioned ideas about getting a Switch in the future, and I admire what MS is doing with the Game Pass programme.

 

One area I've "looked down on" recently has probably been games that rely on their narrative to drive the player forward without having any supporting gameplay - but my opinion of those can vary depending on the execution, or delivery, or whatever. Gone Home was on PS+ and it merely felt like you were walking around looking for the next interactible to tell you the next bit of the story. Night In The Woods just looks like the blandest shit in the world - choosing which character to have a conversation with in a story that goes nowhere until the final act. (Undertale's storytelling could be guilty of the same thing - but it had the "supporting gameplay" in the battles and the item/gear options.)

[Orion]

I tend to just play single player, open world type stuff now. The Yakuza/Judgement/Cyberpunk 2077/Witcher type games. Games I can get a month or more out off. With the odd good indie game on Game Pass that interests me and gets great reviews such as Vampire Survivors or Power Wash Simulator.

 

I used to rinse online shooters in the 360 era but feel they are either too stupid or too hardcore now.

[Gabe]

My tastes are a lot broader these days but there are quite a few genres/styles that I have absolutely no interest in: any racers/platformers/souls or souls-likes/rogue likes-or-lites/stealth are the main ones that spring to mind. I feel souls-like in particular has ruined what might have otherwise been good ARPGs (one of my favourite genres), but such is life.

 

I will still occasionally read about most things though, regardless, because I like to read, basically.

[Lying Cat]

Stuff wot I dun like so much

 

MOBAs - This is mostly because I'm shit, I think. Doesn't matter what happens when I play them, the best I can ever hope to achieve is chipping off minute amounts of health off of the enemy, whilst they blast my health bar for huge chunks at a time. The apparently overwhelming toxicity of the community is also incredibly off-putting - but I can sort of understand that in games where you're expected to give up 45 minutes to an hour of your life, having somebody like me on your team (essentially forcing you to play with one hand tied behind your back) might generate a rage response.

 

I think this feeling extends further into Team Based PvP Games. I sort of figured that I just wasn't into competition - but then I started to get back into fighters and have been enjoying myself hugely. I concluded that I don't much like being dependant on other people in this sort of thing and find more enjoyment, win or lose on my own. If it's a pure co-op game I tend to be fine though. It's only when there's another team of human players on the other side that I lose interest.

 

But.

 

Co-Op Games with Character Levels - If you've got a group of friends who want to play, schedule conflicts mean you'll never play after the first game and if you do, you and two others will be Level 3 and the last person will be Level 489, and either get aggro that you're doing it wrong, or spend a lot of time passive aggressively sighing because you're not doing the right thing and they understand on some intrinsic level that you're new and can't help it. Either that or they just bark orders and remove any joy of discovery you might eke out. You'll either get carried at your level, or stomped into the dirt at theirs - either way, the experience stops being interactive.

 

JRPGs - I don't see the point in playing them any more after I completed the best one, Chrono Trigger.

[Thor]

51 minutes ago, Popo said:

Christ, I wondered what this was - I thought they were saying forex. 

Yeah, I had to google 4x as I'd never heard that term before. Sign of being old?

 

Anyway, genres I respect because of the numbers they attract, but I stay away from because I don't enjoy them:

 

The Sims, and games like them. Lol-fucking-wut? It's just fake people milling about.

 

City building/Strategy games. Basically anything with resource management writ large - fuck off, that's not fun, that's fucking work.

 

"Gotta catch 'em all" games, like Pokemon - games purely for neckbeards. No.

 

Card games - I like Gwent, but prefer it in W3 to the standalone, otherwise I don't get on with them. I tried Marvel Snap and it's a vile grindy time-sink, specifically engineered to make you spend money, a downright awful game.

 

PUBG/Fortnite, and games like them (MOBAs?) - if there's no story, no point to what you're doing other than chicken fucking dinner, then it's not for me. My nephew and bro both love Fortnite though.

 

JRPG games with scantily clad young girls - just like pokemon, these are also for neckbeards, but neckbeards who are also vagina-drying virgins.

 

Twitch games, usually shoot 'em ups - I find these fun, but too frustrating to stick with.

 

Pixelart games - I respect that a lot of work goes into these, but for me pixel art is backward looking with hubble-grade rose-tinted specs. That graphic style belongs in the past, and should fucking stay there as far as I'm concerned. Only Fez has done this right.

 

Rogue-likes - some games take elements of these and are good (hello Soulsborne games), but pure roguelikes where you do the same levels over and over? Fuck me, boring as fuck. It's the reason I haven't bothered with the DLC for Prey, I know I'll actively hate it.

[Lying Cat]

4 minutes ago, Thor said:

Yeah, I had to google 4x as I'd never heard that term before. Sign of being old?

 

Unlikely, the term is absolutely ancient.

[Thor]

Just now, Lying Cat said:

 

Unlikely, the term is absolutely ancient.

Sign of being young!

 

 

[Darwock]

I think I have pretty wide tastes, so the things I have no interest in are:

 

Football, or any ‘real sport’ game with the exception of Motorsport. I also try to steer clear of things that have a reputation for being addictive time wasters, or things without any challenge or purpose. Never gonna touch minecraft or animal crossing. It’s the same reason I haven’t played slay the spire although I’m sure I would love that. I love endless cycle games like Tetris or Lumines, but for some reason the reputation of STS makes me think it would be more damaging to my free time.

 

edit- bit like what Thor said, but I wouldn’t say all card games as I love Metal gear Acid.

 

Unless I have a blind spot for some other unmentioned genre I think I’ll play anything, although I’m not so keen on FPS. I will play games that are highly recommended though (as long as it’s sci-fi, the last one I played was Titanfall 2).

[MattyP]

Tend to enjoy puzzlers - things like Inside. Racing games now and again but usually games that don't eat too much time.

 

Not a huge fan of RPG games last one I played in any depth was Elite Frontier 2 some years ago now but just don't want to spend so long playing them now.

 

Other than that like games that are quick to pick up and play for quick gaming sessions. 

 

Enjoy the odd story game that I can play in chunks say a chapter at a time.

 

Hardware wise just play on whatever the games I want to play are on. Prefer the layout of the Xbox pads analogue sticks just find the pad more comfortable so generally Xbox is where I'll play most of the time. 

 

Online gaming is something I'm just not in to well not competitive anyway might have a stab at some co-op games now and again. But usually play to get away from things and be well be a bit anti-social

[Monkeyboy]

I play mostly first person shooters, RPGs and open world games. Anything with a decent single player. Multiplayer games do nothing for me.

[Gabe]

Oh yeah, card games, shoot-em-ups, MOBAs/online competitive games are on the no-no list. And whilst RPGs generally are my main love, I really struggle to play JRPGs these days, because I find their treatment (and sexualisation) of girls - not even women - problematic, ridiculous amounts of anime junk/'social' rubbish to get through (including lots of squealing and squawking) and systems overlaid on systems that add very little 'fun' or strategy.

 

I know I'm generalising massively - and western RPGs sure have their problems too, but at least their sexualisation doesn't tend to be of suspiciously young girls.

[Lying Cat]

Things I do like

 

Random Loot Repetitive Frustration Fests - Look, I'm pretty sure the pinnacle of Video Games designs have been reached, and that perihelion is Risk of Rain 2. I love the sheer breadth of stupid random shit that drops and the reaches of the weird and wonderful builds that can come into existence. I love Noita for the same reason, but the music and art in RoR2 puts it ahead.

 

I'm not sure whether it's because the ease at which your can pretend your failures were just the randomness of the games (even if it's clearly a Ring -1 Error), or the fact that the absolute lack of levels and longer term meta-development means I can engage in multiplayer happily. Generally stuff like this is quite low-fi graphically and I enjoy that as well.

 

Limited Rulesets - I dunno what it is about complicated games, but once you reach a certain level of, I dunno - breadth (?) I just can't be arsed any more and turn off. So, I love Civilization... for a while. I love Rimworld... for a while, but eventually I just turn end up turning off, like I get overloaded or things move too slowly to hold my attention. So As you can imagine, I really like Vampire Survivors. It's odd, because I love the idea of running a whole empire and fighting mighty battles, but as evidenced by the number of Total War games in my Steam Library that have been played for for approximately 10 hours and no more suggests the reality is something different.

 

Short Games - If your game is longer than about 10-12 hours, there's an incredibly high chance that I'm never going to play it all the way through. If things go on too long I (in stark contrast to my first comment) begin to get bored of the repetition because the repetition hasn't been designed in the right way. It's even worse if it's repetitive puzzles that ask me to perform the exact same task in ever so slightly different ways. The new God of War games is some tedious shit in this regard. Bounce your axe off another thing another time! Chop through three flesh blobs at once! If you're very lucky you might need to bounce your axe off a thing to chop three flesh blobs.

 

Once is fine. More than that and I start to get restless, especially as you often have to solve these things several times in a short period of time in a single area and then maybe once or twice again later.

 

I actually find it very hard to define what it is I like.

[BadgerFarmer]

My usual scope is anything from puzzle games, turn-based tactics, (J)RPGs, ARPGs and 'story-based' games, through to action adventures, open-world games, character action, various roguelikes and retro/arcade stuff.

 

I almost never bother with anything multiplayer focused these days. Even when I've played some good stuff, like Monster Hunter World with friends, while it was fun for a while I think I just prefer to work through games at my own pace.

 

I've stopped playing football games as well - used to love a bit of PES master league - and barely touch racing games either. Never really got into RTS or city building, although I can occasionally enjoy one that's a little different (quite liked The Wandering Village recently).

 

These days of course you can play plenty of different genres and still restrict yourself to a narrow portion of the full spectrum of gaming. From mobile gaming to online time sinks like LoL or Fortnite, and all the stuff in between, nobody can keep up with it all. 

[chris on the moon]

52 minutes ago, Thor said:

"Gotta catch 'em all" games, like Pokemon - games purely for neckbeards. No.

 

JRPG games with scantily clad young girls - just like pokemon, these are also for neckbeards, but neckbeards who are also vagina-drying virgins.

 

Plenty of posters here like Pokémon and JRPGs. I think that it would be better to not be so judgemental and rude about people just because they like things. I'm sure lots of people could (and do) think negatively about you for liking the things that you like.

[Thor]

Neckbeard alert!

[MattyP]

31 minutes ago, Lying Cat said:

 I actually find it very hard to define what it is I like.

Good point and same for me if I think about it...

 

Last couple of months played and enjoyed:

 

Panzer Dragoon

R-Type Final 2 

Inside

Plague's Tale Requiem

Return to Monkey Island 

Atari 50 Anniversary Collection (Tempest 2K mainly)

 

Currently playing Somerville. 

 

There is so much and why I enjoy GamePass so much pick up something play it for an hour or so if it resonates and I'm enjoying I'll keep playing. What it does allow me to do is explore all types of games I might not have tried. 

[thesnwmn]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

Yeah, I had to google 4x as I'd never heard that term before. Sign of being old?

 

Anyway, genres I respect because of the numbers they attract, but I stay away from because I don't enjoy them:

 

The Sims, and games like them. Lol-fucking-wut? It's just fake people milling about.

 

City building/Strategy games. Basically anything with resource management writ large - fuck off, that's not fun, that's fucking work.

 

"Gotta catch 'em all" games, like Pokemon - games purely for neckbeards. No.

 

Card games - I like Gwent, but prefer it in W3 to the standalone, otherwise I don't get on with them. I tried Marvel Snap and it's a vile grindy time-sink, specifically engineered to make you spend money, a downright awful game.

 

PUBG/Fortnite, and games like them (MOBAs?) - if there's no story, no point to what you're doing other than chicken fucking dinner, then it's not for me. My nephew and bro both love Fortnite though.

 

JRPG games with scantily clad young girls - just like pokemon, these are also for neckbeards, but neckbeards who are also vagina-drying virgins.

 

Twitch games, usually shoot 'em ups - I find these fun, but too frustrating to stick with.

 

Pixelart games - I respect that a lot of work goes into these, but for me pixel art is backward looking with hubble-grade rose-tinted specs. That graphic style belongs in the past, and should fucking stay there as far as I'm concerned. Only Fez has done this right.

 

Rogue-likes - some games take elements of these and are good (hello Soulsborne games), but pure roguelikes where you do the same levels over and over? Fuck me, boring as fuck. It's the reason I haven't bothered with the DLC for Prey, I know I'll actively hate it.

 

Much of this reads so much like "gamebro" to me. Maybe that's not fair but it's a way of writing that is dismissive of things and people broadly without explanation. It's the internet writ large. The exaggeration for a laugh that simply reflects as narrow minded thinking... Like people I expect to have a union jack in their window.

 

I could never understand how someone could be so generically against "pixelart" with the argument that it "belongs in the past". Obviously someone may not like the aesthetic but it seems so lacking taste to say it's just done, can never be revisited.

[thesnwmn]

Mentions of Game Pass in here are a good shout. A way for me to briefly explore the things I know I won't really like to just see a little something of its mechanics (although so many games hide their actual game hour and hours into it this doesn't really work).

 

But it's great for finding something you end up loving that you might never have tried.

[Thor]

2 minutes ago, thesnwmn said:

I could never understand how someone could be so generically against "pixelart" with the argument that it "belongs in the past". Obviously someone may not like the aesthetic but it seems so lacking taste to say it's just done, can never be revisited.

I did say Fez did it well. Fez is truly fantastic, but 90% of these pixelart games ... I've played them all before in my youth. They're just rehashes of games of old, and none of them come close to the originals like Sonic and Mario. Take Super Mario 3, for me that is the absolute best of the lot. If it was released now, as new, it would be 'pixel art', but for most it's just a game from the '90s. And for me none of these new pixel art games come even close to the perfection of SMB3, which I replayed (and adored) a few years back after getting a SNES mini. 

 

Basically, if I'm going to play a new game, I want it to have something genuinely new and/or innovative (again, this was why Fez was so bloody good), I want it to take the medium forward. Take Immortality, it's arguably a throwback to the '90s CD-ROM games, but it's absolutely fucking genius! See also Return of the Obra Dinn, old fashioned art style, but absolutely mesmerising in its storytelling and puzzling. 

 

My outlook is also why I'm a massive fan of VR. I always want what's next. I want the future, and I want it now. These pixel art platformers, shooters, and Rogue-likes that look back as they stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before ... they just do nothing for me. 

[Fry Crayola]

3 minutes ago, Thor said:

did say Fez did it well. Fez is truly fantastic, but 90% of these pixelart games ... I've played them all before in my youth.

 

An artistic style* is not a mechanic.

 

What you're describing is an old mechanic that reuses the aesthetic to evoke that era.

 

*I should add, pixel art is a medium, not a style. Shovel Knight does not have the same style as Huntdown, which does not have the same style as Cave Story, which in turn is not the same as Baba Is You. Dismissing an entire swathe of games because they might remind you of old things does not make you progressive.

[Thor]

Did you read all of my post, or just that part? 🙄

[thesnwmn]

12 minutes ago, Thor said:

I did say Fez did it well. Fez is truly fantastic, but 90% of these pixelart games ... I've played them all before in my youth. They're just rehashes of games of old, and none of them come close to the originals like Sonic and Mario. Take Super Mario 3, for me that is the absolute best of the lot. If it was released now, as new, it would be 'pixel art', but for most it's just a game from the '90s. And for me none of these new pixel art games come even close to the perfection of SMB3, which I replayed (and adored) a few years back after getting a SNES mini. 

 

Basically, if I'm going to play a new game, I want it to have something genuinely new and/or innovative (again, this was why Fez was so bloody good), I want it to take the medium forward. Take Immortality, it's arguably a throwback to the '90s CD-ROM games, but it's absolutely fucking genius! See also Return of the Obra Dinn, old fashioned art style, but absolutely mesmerising in its storytelling and puzzling. 

 

My outlook is also why I'm a massive fan of VR. I always want what's next. I want the future, and I want it now. These pixel art platformers, shooters, and Rogue-likes that look back as they stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before ... they just do nothing for me. 

 

I think all of that is fair.

 

And given it I don't think you mean "pixel art games" at all. It's a meaningless term by these criteria. It is simply an art style and has nothing to do with what the game is.

 

Fez isn't Mario 3 taken to the next level. I'd argue it owes very little to Mario lineage at all. It just happens to be a (mostly) 2D game with pixilated sprites.

 

Is Stardew Valley nothing more than what came before? Or Vampire Survivors? Or To the Moon? Or Unpacking? Or Coffee Talk? Or Baba Is You?

 

All of these are Pixelart games. You just need a better term for that I think.

[thesnwmn]

Or what Fry said 😅

[Fry Crayola]

On the topic at hand, I think I play a fairly broad range of things, but the core seems to be solo play. I don't play local multiplayer very often, and while I do have a weekly online session with friends, that's much more about socialising than it is about the games we play. I've zero interest in most forms of competitive online play, especially those with anonymous players, but I do make an exception for those games where the experience remains quite solo, such as Elite Dangerous, or playing PUBG back when it first came to the Xbox. 

 

For single player games, I don't play arcade, twitch stuff much. I'm not really interested in having my skills put to the test for their own sake. I guess that's also why I bemoan the neglect of proper career modes in sports games - I need context provided, rather than adding my own.

 

Oh, and I have no love for loot as a mechanic, at least as I've encountered it thus far. I played through a couple of Borderlands games and found new guns made fuck all difference to the experience, and if I was supposed to get excited about each random drop, well, they failed miserably with me. I'm not a big fan of raw numbers in games, anyhow, preferring differences to be made apparent in feel and execution rather than just because X > Y.

[Fry Crayola]

5 minutes ago, Thor said:

Did you read all of my post, or just that part? 🙄

 

I read all of it. I responded specifically to the part that stood out as bizarre. Or rather, which highlighted that you're using the term to refer to something completely different.

[Thor]

5 minutes ago, Fry Crayola said:

Or rather, which highlighted that you're using the term to refer to something completely different

Hmmm, please elaborate.