What game do you absolutely love that you know yourself is bad, but love it anyway?
For me, it’s Callisto Protocol. Loved that it was just more Dead Space. Not good by any metric but I liked it.
Skyrim. I mostly just like to install a fuckzillion mods and not play it, though…
Right there with you.
Fortnite. No story to catch up on, no true goals besides winning, no long-term strategizing. I’m sure PUBG is the same/better, but my SO is entertained by the cartoonish nature of FN. It brings us excitement when I’m close to winning. With the introduction of zero build, I fair well. I used to feel more guilt for it being a “bad” game and for not giving time to the betrer story/campaign titles, bur you know what? I’m tired and my time is limited as an actual adult. I’ll take my dopamine where I can get it, thank you.
I’m replaying Ace Combat 7 right now. I can’t believe how bad the writing is. I played it in 2020 and had a grand time with probably 6 runs for the various achievements. Turns out, I remember basically nothing of the story. It’s definitely amusing to revisit the AI story aspects now that “AI” is in full swing. I guess AC5 set my standard for AC stories, but maybe that doesn’t hold up well either. Regardless, I’m in it for the fun, respectable flight physics. Just don’t ask me where I keep 144 missiles stored.
Is it really bad writing, or just anime tropes?
My kids play fortnite and I sometimes join them. Was watching some tournament on a stream and the “meta” at a high level of this game is just completely bonkers.
I quit around 2019 because I just didn’t stand a chance anymore. I’d place 2 walls and a ramp in the time it took most top-25 players to build a small castle with a wine cellar, jacuzzi, and escalator (or so it felt). I can’t keep up with these goddamn Ritalin-riddled kids.
It always cracks me up when my go-to move (in zero build) is to just stand still when it gets to close quarters. They start jumping like a cracked out kangaroo and miss shot after shot. I only do pitch/yaw and some sideways strafe, no jumping. It lets me use my Ps1/Ps2 era PvE experience.
Far Cry games at least until 4. I like mindlessly collecting 300 map markers sometimes. Funny enough, I don‘t like 5 cause there doesn‘t seem to be a collectibles map that lets me just move up and down the map collecting everything lol
Love me some Far Cry games
It’s the only time I’ll ever get an Ubisoft game, and usually I’ll pick them up on deep sales
But for whatever reason they just scratch a particular itch
I hated the ending of 5, but it was otherwise alright
6 was whatever, but overall not as bad as the reviews made it out to be imo
Escape from Tarkov, but single player (SPTarkov, not the paid upgrade). Lots of controversy surrounding the game, but I quite enjoy it playing at my own pace and difficulty
If you got friends, grab project fika mod and enjoy pve with friends. It’s a ton of fun and works great.
Goddess of Victory NIKKE.
I try to be careful where I play it because the character designs are pretty uh… well the characters have huge personalities, usually. That’s not why I play the game, but I recognize some people have more of a problem with that than others so I try to be respectful about it. Also, NIKKE is a mobile gacha game, which a lot of people dislike. So I would say it counts as a guilty pleasure, although I don’t really feel guilty for playing the game.
For me, I don’t really spend money on it. Except for their two collabs with Neon Genesis Evangelion and one collab with NieR, because for me it is literally the law that I pay at least a little for IPs I really like. I am not a Whale (Richard Nixon impression lol), I am not even a Dolphin(?) I think I am called a Minnow. Whatever they call a basically F2P player that spends so rarely they might as well not spend at all. Besides, I have played for 3 years and only spent $60 total, I think that’s a pretty good deal so far.
Anyway, I like the gameplay. I realize to some people this might sound like I am saying “I read Playboy for the articles,” but hear me out.
When I was younger, I really enjoyed going to arcades. In the tail years of the arcades, newer games started to pop up, among them being lightgun games. I really enjoyed playing Time Crisis and Lethal Enforcers, and later on playing Silent Hill The Arcade, Alien, Terminator, and others. It was fun while it lasted, but now arcades are dead and game developers don’t really make those kind of games anymore. Beside my home arcade cabinet where I emulate the older games (and get a worse experience because I have neither the pizza grease and cigarette smell, nor the different shaped controllers), I don’t have new options for lightgun games these days. Then NIKKE came out and the gameplay was close enough for me that I felt that same fun of a lightgun game. I enjoy my time with the game mostly because it reminds me of the fun I had in actual arcades with lightgun games.
Stellar Blade has got some personalities as well…
Polarity
You’re essentially just trying to make less mistakes then your opponent but the semi-hovering magnets have an awesome table presence
Skyrim! I always boot it up at least once a year
You think Skyrim is bad?
Not bad per de but Its defo really dated
Tons of bugs. Rereleased on every platform. Zero fixes. Special editions fix nothing of note either.
Well certainly it had a lot of bugs. I remember there was one that bothered me when I first bought it, though that was fixed and I think more were fixed than you seem to imagine. Also being re-released on every platform hardly makes it a bad game, and special editions are only an issue if you’re buying multiple copies I’d say. All the bugs aside though I’ve never heard someone call it a bad game exactly.
When it comes to games, I have no guilt anymore. I enjoy some games and despise others. I think the only one that comes to mind for this category is E.V.O. The Search For Eden (SNES). I prefer it with a patch to improve the translation.
A classic. I loved how in the last phase you could make the right combination of nonsensical choices and end up with human and do really well. Not as well as my hyper-evolved Rhino-montser, but really well.
2-5 times a year I get really into Enlisted. It’s a really grindy free to play game, it feels like 90% of my teammates fail to work toward the objective, and every other round there’s an enemy player that paid for overpowered equipment wiping us out.
But man, it is a thrill to charge through whizzing bullets to get into the midst of the other team before firing round after round from a lee enfield bolt action. And if I am playing with friends there is constant strategic and tactical chatter that makes it so engaging.
Goat simulator and its sequels/DLCs. It’s a dumb shitpost game where you run around and create chaos but I enjoy it without any irony for some reason
Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.
Yes the DoA franchise has a solid fighting game mechanic, but this was made purely for the fan service.
Stranglehold. I friggin love this game. It’s the John Woo videogame that is technically a sequel to the movie Hard Boiled and has Chow Yun-fat as the lead. I don’t know but I just really dig this game. Similar to it Enter the Matrix I also love. I go back and replay both every so often.
It’s also a bit of a comfort type of thing as those came out in the early 00’s when I was in my early 20s and still living at home and had more money than I knew what to do with hah.
Inspector Tequila was bad ass.
I’ve wasted so many hours looking at tiny circles go up in Game Dev Tycoon
I still say Enclave was a great game. The reviewers at the time absolutely misunderstood it.
Most of the complaints from 2003 are things people love about the Souls games now…
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