Hot Take Thread

Grand Theft Auto V is relatively overrated and the original Watch Dogs was a great game that got shat on too much because of that freaking E3 2012 trailer.

To be more specific, Grand Theft Auto V's story feels like a bunch of good ideas that don't really mesh well together. The storyline is about 69 missions long plus some side stuff, yet there are so many antagonists and plot points. Some plot points just get thrown out of the window without warning. Granted, I've replayed the game "slowly" taking my time to do the Friend activities and such, but it still feels jumbled. Why does Martin Madrazo suddenly become such a weak shrill? Why does the story need to suddenly shoehorn in Stretch near the end when his role was largely irrelevant? That's not getting into other issues such as the ragdoll physics feeling weak sauce compared to Grand Theft Auto IV, worse car damage, a map that is big but isn't interesting, etc. Yet critics hold it to such a high standard for some reason. It's all right but not the best.

Watch Dogs has only recently gotten its redemption arc. While the story isn't perfect, I take the protagonists in Watch Dogs (Lucky Quinn, Iraq, and Damien Brenks) a lot more seriously than the clowns that were Devin Weston and Steven Haines. The map is well designed too, the hacking features are really fun, the side quests are interesting as well and the mini games are neatly designed. Yet this game got destroyed on release, in part because of GTA fanboys. The graphic downgrade sucked, but the stock graphics are good. The Living_City mod make this game even better and is the definitive way to play this game. Gun fights and takedowns in Watch Dogs are way more satisfying than in Grand Theft Auto V too because it's much more difficult (there's even a difficulty slider!). Grand Theft Auto V gunfights are straightforward; shoot a few people, they die quickly from your overpowered gun, etc. It feels like Watch Dogs wants you to clear a level a lot more creatively, while Grand Theft Auto V feels dumbed down.

What I'd do for a Watch Dogs 2013 remaster.

as long as we're talking about overrated games I personally never got what the big deal was about Skyrim(or Elder Scrolls in general really), the late great Total Biscuit perfectly summed up that game "As wide as an ocean with the depth of a paddling pool".

Also there's quite a few indie games that got more praise then they deserve, i'm not a fan of the whole "small-child-big-scary-world" formula(to quote Yahtzee) like Limbo as I feel that formula has been overdone at this point and feels like the gaming equivalent of Oscar Bait(also sick of the retro-pixel art trend in crap like Fist Puncher).

I think GTA V and Watch Dogs are both good in their own right. I preferred V's physics over IVs as driving in that game felt like too much of a slog and a pain at times(don't get me started on the lack of checkpoints in missions) so I was relieved that the physics were loosened up a bit. You have a point about V having weak and lame villains for the most part admittedly and there was one mission that was unbelievably stupid story wise(the one involving Molly supposedly stealing the last copy of Solomon's film and Michael chasing her to get it back, even though logically the characters should all know that there are digital copies of the film so while that car chase was cool from a gameplay standpoint from a story standpoint it was mind-blowingly stupid because it was over something that didn't matter in the slightest, really baffled how Dan Houser approved that nonsense). i will say Watch Dogs 2 had an even lamer villain then GTA V though, at least I remember the names of the villains in V whereas I couldn't name the main bad guy in WD2 without looking him up if you held a gun to my head. They tried pathetically to make him look badass by randomly karate chopping someone but instead he came off as utterly lame. In general WD2 dissapointed in a number of ways, I liked Marcus and the characters but didn't like how the game was light-hearted for the most part and then suddenly got all serious by having one of the characters killed by a group of villains who basically came out of nowhere and getting revenge on them didn't feel very satisfying because of their lack of focus and build-up, also found it very annoying to have to hunt for points to increase my skills when you didn't have to do that shit in part 1, the vigilante system in part 1 was way more interesting then it was in part 4.

Speaking of dissapointing sequels I didn't think a lot of Saints Row 4, it was too over-the-top for it's own good to the point where it no longer felt special and it was painfully obvious that it was meant as DLC for part 3 originally, I already found Steelport kinda dull compared to Stillwater and it was even less interesting being forced to play through it with an ugly night filter the entire time(seriously whose bone-headed idea was it to lock changing the color scheme behind game completion? that makes no logical sense). The story is kind of a mess and not in a good way(there's so little focus on the president stuff that I wondered why they even bothered putting it in and the new characters were kinda eh aside from Zinyak) and I wasn't that impressed with the powers, it felt like a second-rate version of Prototype(even down to the glide mechanic feeling almost the same, which completely made vehicles utterly worthless).

Also like Jim Sterling i've never been a fan of Team Ico's games(I fucking hated that shit in SOTC where your horse would randomly disobey and fuck the directors excuses of "it's more realistic cause a horse can disobey you in real life" that was the beginning of misplaced realism in games I feel).

Probably my most controversial gaming opinion is that I don't believe Valve is this great savior of PC gaming, in fact I hate what they did to the used PC games market by essentially popularizing and mainstreaming DRM(they also have a lot to answer for for the popularity of loot boxes as they were one of the first companies to pull that shit with the crates you could buy in CS:GO and there's actually a video of one of the people involved with that game laughing at the idea of gamers spending money on virtual nonsense). So yeah pretty sick of those Gabe-N fanboys.

Also think Nintendo has a major cult problem with it's fanboys, ESPECIALLY Zelda fans as Jim Sterling found out first-hand for daring to not blindly praise BOTW and TOTW and actually give valid criticisms of them(and as Jeff Gertzman found out years earlier for the crime of *gasp* only giving Twilight Princess an 8 out of 10! seriously just go read the old comments on Gamefaqs with people bitching about Jeff's review, it's beyond embarrassing and cringe. Also I think critics have been far too forgiving of Nintendo's increasingly formulaic style(certainly didn't fall in love with Odyssey like others did).

Also never really gave a shit about anything World of Warcraft related(or Blizzard in general really, seriously fuck Overwatch and all of the damage it did to the industry by promoting so many shitty business models), my sister used to play WoW and I remember impatiently waiting for her to finish a quest so I could get on the computer. In general the hotkey based MMO style of gameplay always bored me, even when it was a property I liked such as Star Wars the Old Republic as much as the story appealed I could never stomach the bland gameplay and I got more enjoyment watching other people play the game on Youtube then actually playing it myself.

Not a hot take, that's common sense

From my experience, I'd say yeah. It IS common to hear people roasting each other outside.

I hate most carbonated drinks. They don't make my taste buds suffer, but they are just... gross, especially if they have tons of sugar in them. The slushes from SONIC are an absolute nightmare. Anything that does not taste natural is just painful to consume.

I don't like Coffee or Tea myself, they just taste really nasty to me, also can't stand Diet Soda with that awful aftertaste and don't care for club soba or sparkling water(I.E. La Croix which my mom inexplicably loves). Also kinda eh on sports drinks and energy drinks.

Also I don't touch alcohol period, especially not after seeing what it's done to some members of my family, just not worth the risk and tastes awful to me anyways.

Also do not like eggs, as I just can't get past the texture, I can eat stuff where egg just happens to be one of the ingredients like caesar dressing or Gelato(not egg on a sandwich though that's just plain nasty IMO).