It doesn't really fit the bill, but The Dig is great if you want some atmospheric 90s style SF about exploring things.

I'm wracking my brain to think of more, but it's a surprisingly hard theme to think of examples for.

 

No Man's Sky?

 

Nintendo's future settings don't tend to be dystopian. Metroid. F-Zero. StarFox, unless everyone being a furry is dystopian.

Kirby and Splatoon are technically post-apocalyptic, but they're still very tonally bright, hopeful futures.

 

I did think about that, but panther already got the Tommy Lee Jones jpeg for posting a game that woefully underdelivered.  

Missing the obvious right in front of me with Nintendo.

I don't think that StarFox is dystopic for bring all Furry, but please don't give the Sonic guys any ideas about that.

 

And made by LucasArts no less. I'll have to check that one out.

Splatoon I know is post-apocalyptic, but I'm fine with it. Nintendo's games I have no complaints with. Really, if the game in question HAS to be post-apocalyptic, then that's okay, as long as it more or less says "hey, humanity fucked up Earth, but they learned their lesson and moved on and either made Earth better or moved on to a different planet that looks a lot like Earth."

As for Kirby...is that series post-apocalyptic because of the theory about the snow planet from Kirby 64 being Earth in the far future?  

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Nope.

No Man's Sky I could never go back to. Paid $60 for what was essentially a bare-bones Minecraft but in space. Only got $40 back from trading it in at GameStop after owning it for two weeks, so that's essentially $20 I'll never get back. That, and Sean Murray lied about the game having multiplayer on national television before the game came out (when it really didn't), so there's that. I'm well aware that the game did get better with the updates, but that's my main gripe. If you're not going to be able to deliver everything that you promised us about the game, then delay it and get those things in there before you ship it out.

 

People call it a theory, but it's pretty obvious that's the intention.


The stages feature Earth-like areas not seen elsewhere in the series, such as a shopping mall. Everything is abandoned, and some of the robots have a nuclear/radiation motif IIRC. There's a lab area showing Earth animals. There's apparently material from Nintendo stating that the original residents had to leave, which certainly implies there was a catastrophe and it's not just an ice world to begin with. This was also the first game to indicate that there are humans in Kirby's universe. Makes sense that they would be introduced at the same time as an abandoned Earth.

 

I actually like No Man's Sky enough to have over 20 hours in it and counting.

 

Huh. Never got far in Kirby 64, but wow. When Nintendo does post-apocalyptic settings, they always seem to make it fun somehow.   I also realized that the Pikmin series could also be considered post-apocalyptic as well. PNF-404 (or the Distant Planet as its known in Super Smash Bros.) is practically Earth 250 million years into the future when all the continents have re-collided with each other to form Pangaea Ultima.

 

It seems to be a very Nintendo attitude: no matter how bad things get, life goes on--and life is an opportunity for happiness and adventure.

Even in Breath of the Wild--set in a ruined world, during the aftermath of a huge defeat, at a time when things are about to get a whole lot worse if you fail--the game has a certain pastoral peacefulness to it, and most of the people are still carrying on just trying to live their lives.

 

I don't like Kirby Dreamland 3. Kirby moves way too slow.

 

I like the game, but it does feel slow. So did 64. I'm not sure whether it's actually slow or I'm just spoiled by Super Star. The newer games all seem base their gameplay on Super Star, so they feel fine to me.

 

I don't know if this is uncommon/unpopular or not (I don't really follow the world of gaming very much), but I don't like photorealistic faces. I don't even really get why games feel the need to use them. If developers want photorealism, why not just film real actors for cutscenes? It doesn't matter too much during gameplay, as long as the faces are kept at a distance. I find it weird how photorealistic CGI faces are generally frowned upon in film and animated movies, but video games use them extensively. It's creepy! Either use real faces, or make the character designs more cartoony.

 

I mostly agree, except that I think it works fine in games like Silent Hill 3. Helps the game feel more believable and also more uncanny and wrong at the same time.

 

I am never touching Sonic Tag Team racing... Fuck that game.... Fuck that game.... It’s a painful bitter reminder that Sega would throw both the previous game’s concept and other Sega franchises for fucking sonic. No buy from me.

 

God I hope that first part is a typo........

 

I fixed it.

More on the Sonic thing, if diet Mario Kart is any indication, then we’re beyond screwed. Not only did it get rid of the last game’s best mechanics, then the sad attempt of what they call an anniversary game is the next disappointment just like sonic forces. Sonic fans will make fun of other series in order to make it look good, most of those series make an effort.

 

Actually a lot of the reviews say Sonic Team racing is pretty good.

Sure as hell better than CTR.

 

While we're on the subject, here's an unpopular opinion...

I HATE racing games. I rented Gran Turismo back in the day, and I thought it was one of the most boring, crappy games I ever played. Cart racers are a little more tolerable, but not by much. I got Super Mario Kart for my SNES...and never bought another cart racer, not even Mario Kart 64.

The only racing games I like are arcade-style, like the Outrun series, or Rad Racer. I enjoyed playing Chase HQ in the arcade, and I also enjoyed Nintendo's Cruisin' series, which leads me to another unpopular opinion...
I LIKED Crusin' USA and Crusin' World on my N64. Considering the horrible reputation those ports have, I must be one of the only people on the planet who liked them  

 

I like to make a distinction between racing games and racing simulators. Granted, racing itself is still a game either way. But I think this neatly sums up the difference in priorities. Is the developer trying to maximize fun and excitement by any means, or to faithfully recreate the experience of racing?

Like and genre split though, it does create some tricky edge cases. For instance, is Gran Turismo a bad racing game that gets bogged down by too much focus on the mundane details of real life motorsports? Or is it a bad racing simulator with janky, unrealistic physics?  

I don't think the Cruisn' games are something I would go back to, but I enjoyed them at the time. The N64 ports may not be as visually crisp as their arcade counterparts, but I think they deserve credit for being better games. The arcade versions had some cheap "gotcha" obstacles that you basically had to memorize after crashing into them and losing at least once. That's not only poor game design, it's also an obvious cash grab on behalf of the arcade owner. The home versions, if nothing else, were at least fair.