Videogames you love, videogames you hate thread

[DioShiba]

Angry Birds - Maybe it's a bit unfair to pick on an iPhone game, but I legitimately don't see why so many people like it. There's pretty much no challenge, and really no skill involved in winning, it's nothing but a diversion with passable visuals. I'm sure there are hundreds of more fun iPhone games (Doodle Jump, for one example), yet for some reason Angry Birds is huge. idk can somebody who likes angry birds explain the appeal to me

People like angry birds mostly because it's one of those games that's simple enough where people can pick up and play with. kind of like pac-man and galaga in a sense really.

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The difference to me is that most 'good' games have some kind of challenge or tension, or at least something to engage the player in whats happening. The only thing Angry Birds has is solving really simple puzzles, which in my experience don't take much skill or effort. Compared to something like Doodle Jump (a game just as easy to pick up and play), which has the player a lot more involved since they have to be precise when timing their jumps or else they lose, Angry Birds is really, really boring; yet Angry Birds is extremely popular (not that Doodle Jump wasn't popular, but it's a million times more engaging than AB's so it actually makes sense to me that it was). I'm guessing it's because of the level format, which makes it so the game has a decent length and offers consistently 'new' experiences, even though to me they aren't much different.

Let me go a little different into the argument.

I could point out that most simple games usually have some form of depth, mainly to achieve the highest score you could possibly get, but have have to have some sort of strategy and be willing to look into it. In my opinion angry birds presents itself as one of those games because if you want I high score you have to know where to shoot the bird so you can destroy enough barriers and killing pigs in the least amount of birds possible.

Compare it to the original pacman game and it's strategy (where basically you stay at a wall and wait for one or two of the ghosts to pass before you try and go for the dots), the games aren't much different because if you want to get a higher score then you have to use that said strategy and try to stick to it. they may be different strategies due to gameplay but still their both methods to aim for the high score.

My point in general is that games like these in general require you to look into how you can get the highest score. In angry bird's case it's just not simply "launch your birds into the wood, glass and stone because you want to complete the level", it's more about "What can you do to complete the level to get the best score?".

[Rökkan]

All good games have their share of "skill" and "chance". Both are things that a game should have, one, to make the game feel "fair" to the player, as in, the player feels like what he does and how he approaches things matter to how well he is rewarded to the game (skill), but the game should also give elements that makes it "new" and "exciting" in later plays, elements that makes conditions and even results of the game change up in unexpected ways (chance).

Angry Birds' mechanic has both of that, as in, there are calculations involved to get the higher scores and destroy a lot of the "level" in one shoot (skill), but there is also the unexpected, which relies on its own gameplay and mechanics - because of its physics, two seemingly equal shots might give different results - even the slight difference in power and angle can make something unexpected happen, or not. Like a piece of wood far away from the range of your fire, that due to the consequences of your shot, unexpectedly moved itself and is on the edge of falling - it might just stay there, or fall, and cause a small reaction, or even a big and completely unexpected chain reaction that destroys a big chunk of the level.

Never played Angry Birds myself to judge whether it is good or not, but it seems clearly obvious that Angry Birds is not purely chance based.

[Rakia]

My thing with Angry Birds is that
there's tons of the exact same game.
So I don't know why it's insanely popular and none of the thousand others that came before it aren't.

[Jalopes]

Let me go a little different into the argument.

I could point out that most simple games usually have some form of depth, mainly to achieve the highest score you could possibly get, but have have to have some sort of strategy and be willing to look into it. In my opinion angry birds presents itself as one of those games because if you want I high score you have to know where to shoot the bird so you can destroy enough barriers and killing pigs in the least amount of birds possible.

Compare it to the original pacman game and it's strategy (where basically you stay at a wall and wait for one or two of the ghosts to pass before you try and go for the dots), the games aren't much different because if you want to get a higher score then you have to use that said strategy and try to stick to it. they may be different strategies due to gameplay but still their both methods to aim for the high score.

My point in general is that games like these in general require you to look into how you can get the highest score. In angry bird's case it's just not simply "launch your birds into the wood, glass and stone because you want to complete the level", it's more about "What can you do to complete the level to get the best score?".

From that perspective it makes sense, but I'm not so sure if the majority of people play Angry Birds for the high score; if they do, though, then its popularity makes a bit more sense, but I still think there are probably plenty of more interesting games on the App Store.

Never played Angry Birds myself to judge whether it is good or not, but it seems clearly obvious that Angry Birds is not purely chance based.

It's not entirely chance based, it has a fair amount of balance between that and 'skill,' but I guess my problem with it is that I just don't find the mechanic very fun :I

[Rökkan]

thanked both posts because i kinda posted just to try to put an end into the debate lmao

angry birds don't seem too appealing to me either, hence why i didn't play it yet, it's kinda like a distractive fun easy-to-play game, kinda like tetris was, and this is why it's popular

the reason why it is more popular than the various other flash games before it, seems to be because it's an iPhone game, attracting a lot of casual players and even non-players to it, while a flash game isn't as easily to get popular as an iPhone game, and also just... brought more attention than the others, it's all. The popularity spiked hard before anyone else could "compete" with it, making competition against it now just not really possible.

[PrettyNier]

However, there are few to no games which only principle of it IS to give or share an experience. All games does give experiences to the one playing it, but no games are there just for the sake of the experience, which is why Ebert is not convinced that games are not an art form, all videogames are first of all, well, games. They have objectives, goals, rules, etc, which for Ebert, keeps them from being art. Even games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and Flower have those.

i think that we can potentially overcome the hurdle that the objective-based nature of game design poses by reuniting the idea of these objectives with the ideas of the experience, with the central tenets and points of the game.

i suppose the issue therein lies in the fact that very few games actually bother to do this: in fact, most games are simply content to provide a schism between the two.

[Jalopes]

However, there are few to no games which only principle of it IS to give or share an experience. All games does give experiences to the one playing it, but no games are there just for the sake of the experience, which is why Ebert is not convinced that games are not an art form, all videogames are first of all, well, games. They have objectives, goals, rules, etc, which for Ebert, keeps them from being art. Even games such as Shadow of the Colossus, Ico and Flower have those.

i think that we can potentially overcome the hurdle that the objective-based nature of game design poses by reuniting the idea of these objectives with the ideas of the experience, with the central tenets and points of the game.

i suppose the issue therein lies in the fact that very few games actually bother to do this: in fact, most games are simply content to provide a schism between the two.

I'm curious now, how would you recommend trying to blend them together? I'm trying to think of how it would be possible; the only thing I can think of would be essentially virtual reality, but if that were the case then the game wouldn't have set objectives, and the objectives would come from what the player wants and not what the game is designed to give him. Is that what you mean, or what exactly?

[PrettyNier]

the closest thing to what i'm talking about would be ICO, where the game uses almost every aspect of its design to not only create an experience but try and accentuate its primary points: the plot is an extension of the gameplay just as the gameplay is an extension of the plot. they both operate under the same principles and neither really contradicts nor exists awkwardly contrary to the other.

the best example i can use from the game is how it creates this atmosphere of loneliness and minimalism, and then punctuates it with the girl you're supposed to be saving. it uses everything from the atmosphere of the game to the mechanics themselves - she is necessary to proceed, lose her and you die - to give her import and make you "care" about her well-being, just as the character in the game does.


your idea actually kind of exists contrary to that, personally speaking; its purely experience. there is no point or expression in it - i would say art requires some kind of intended direction, the hand of an artist. art is a communal relationship between a creator and a perceiver.

[Wing]

I cant play games that were are based around a movie. They make me sick, literally, I get nauseous and get a headache =/. But generally I end up enjoying most if not all the games I play.

[Maxpphire]

I am not the biggest fan of fps games, the storylines and such are not so bad it is just a lot of them try so hard to be call of duty and call of duty doesnt add many new things often, it just fells like I am playing the same game with how generic they have become.

[DioShiba]

when it comes to cod games it's usually quantity over quality

which is one of the reasons why I didn't give too much of a shit about it to begin with.

[Leaderproxima]

Metal gear (all of them): the games are basically a super long interactive cutscene with annoying as hell music they repeat every game and its gets on my nerves.

[Rakia]

Annoying as hell music?!
To each his own.

[DioShiba]

Metal gear (all of them): the games are basically a super long interactive cutscene with annoying as hell music they repeat every game and its gets on my nerves.

bwafahahahah.

maybe MGS4 had long cut scenes but I honestly think this is just silly.

Don't even get me started on the music thing.

[Rakia]

I have to agree. While I only beat MGS and MGS4, I played 2, and the only one with really long cutscenes were MGS4, the others weren't too bad.
Also the score is quality. But MGS isn't a series for everyone, so.