Not that I was ever a huge PC gamer, but it was also very annoying how many sound cards there were, and games tried to be compatible with as many as possible because there was no uniformity. Didn't have a SoundBlaster, Roland, or Adlib? Tough shit, you're stuck with PC speaker music (which wasn't bad if the developer knew how to use it... *hums Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest themes*)

 

I’m not a big fan of the series. Maybe I played the games to late but I found the branching choose your adventure narrative to be bad. It just gives you the illusion of choice. Even if a character dies you aren’t blocked out from achieving things. Plus the choose blue or red doesn’t make you question your choices. Combat was mediocre at best.

 

Not sure if it's an unpopular opinion, tho. ;]

BioEAWare had a growing franchise that could be, if properly curated, expanded into much bigger IP. Well beyond the video game market. Then they killed it with their own doing. Ahahahahaha!


However... Bioware always was overhyped.

Their writing always was cliched and saved mostly by good voice actors. Lots of their games appeal was coming from the fanservice of romancing voiced NPCs. Except... I never cared about it in any of their games so it wasn't hard to see the cracks underneath.

 

I love KOTOR and Mass Effect, but their games have always operated on the illusion of choice rather then actual choice and they mostly all have the same plot structure.

Obsidian were so close to making a Bioware style game that actually works how people think that Bioware games work with Alpha Protocol, but nobody paid attention to what that got right because it had all the usual Obsidian issues with development and publisher disputes in spades. I hope they revisit that concept at some point now that they have MS money and support behind them.

I never thought the Sound Card market was that bad personally, it only took 2 or 3 years to get a de facto standard with SoundBlaster and support for AdLib and the first generation Roland cards hung around for a few years after that. Must have sucked for people that brought IBM or Covox out of the first wave though and it was very much buyer beware for new market entrants after that like PAS and Gravis.

 

By the late '90s, any decent card had backwards support for Adlib, SB, and SB16. I had an inexpensive Yamaha card with killer (for the time) wavetable MIDI playback, excellent SB16 compatibility, and (thanks to a genuine onboard OPL3) perfect Adlib emulation. What sucked on any sound card was if your game only supported MT-32. Even Roland's own hardware only kept partial support for that.

 

I find it ironic that New Vegas has pretty much the same basic structure as the Hordes of The Underdark, Dragon Age, Mass Effects. Walk around fixing things and gathering allies for the final battle. It's just executed in a less cliche way.

But FNV was a technical failure on arrival and still requires mods and bugfixes to enjoy.

 

Yeah, once you get into the 9x era cards the issue with MIDI becomes how much you care about it and how good the implementation is if you're using it for playing DOS games. The last 90s card I had was an Aureal Vortex, which was a great Windows card but had pretty grotty MIDI.

If Obsidian had died instead of successfully Kickstarting POE, most of that last sentence should have been carved on their gravestone.  

 

The lack of cliche doesn’t make the Fallout series games, Bethesda or Obsidian developed, any less janky and obnoxious to play. Plus I find I can’t do RPGs without a voiced protagonist any more if everyone else is talking.

Anyway, here’s one that’s sure to get my PC Gaming Master Race membership card revoked: I hate Dark Souls, and most games that ape it are equally obnoxious to play - looking at you, Jedi: Fallen Order. Also the first person to say “Git gud” to me in person is gonna get a pineapple up their arse sideways.

 

I can't do RPGs when stitches and cliches are showing everywhere and I can point at every character and say what trope they are. Bioware defeats themselves with this. Their characters are annoying to interact with.

Which is kinda big deal because the mechanics in Bioware games are polished but generic (with the Jade Empire sort of standing out) and you're supposed to focus on the story.

FNV... I could play as a survival post-apocalypic western shooter when I didn't feel like listening to NPC. This desert is too small for both of us, hombre.

FO3 and FO4 I couldn't even complete. Those two were tedious and heading nowhere.

 

I consider M.Bison's definitive theme to be "Brave or Grave" from Street Fighter Alpha 3 over his original Street Fighter II theme.

 

You know when people complain about Pokémon has jumped the shark because of how they add Pokémon that are inanimate objects like tea kettles or gears (ignoring things from gen 1 like magnets eggs and piles of crap)? I’m genuinely convinced if at any time you went back in time and switched gen 1 list with ANY. Of the other regions it would suddenly be getting the same level of hate.

 

You sir.... Are not wrong at all.

It's literally because most people can't get past the "This is from when I was a kid! So it's absolute best!"

 

Although if were down to first impressions, I'd say the starters beyond the first gen have been less...charismatic. Flaming dinosaur/dragon is way cooler than a chicken, or a monkey, say. Gen2 grass-type was just a ...thing, with a leaf on its head.

Mind you, the criticism could easily go both ways. I'm just now cluing into the fact that all three Gen 1 starters were lizards(ish), which is less inspiring in some ways.

 

I dont think Symphony Of The Night is as food as I once thought. Yikes...scares me to say that as it was my favorite post-16 bit CV game. I am replaying it for like the 100th time. It gets old super fast, especially the 2nd castle. My major complaints are: Instead of new musuic for each new area, in castle 2 there are just a few tracks used for almost all areas. And I hate all of them exept for the chill music in the library amd a few others. The super creepy music in the catacombs is cool though. Also, I never liked that an enemy who gives you a certain exp amount will give you exponentially less exp as you level up. They have the same HP, and do the same damage, so why make it less? So it takes you 20 years to fully level up? I have never fully levelled up in that game. Does it give you anything special if you do? Who knows? I think my highest is like level 75? In other games it does not do that. Zelda 2 takes a long time to fully level up...but at least the enemies always give you the same exp whether you are level 1 or 8.

 

I know I'm gonna get flak for this, but the Wii U is not a bad console. It does have it's issues, namely the Game Pad, but it has some excellent games and backwards compatibility.

 

I'll back that statement up. The Game Pad is a bit bulky and has terrible battery life, but the idea of it was pretty good, and when games took advantage of it, it worked really well (for example, Super Mario Maker).

Super Mario 3D World is still a great 3D platform, and it's a great game. Although I'm upset that I lost my 100% save game file due to an error with the file transfer, I'd happy go back and play it again. Plus, I had some fond memories with games, like Lego City Undercover, New Super Mario Bros U, Super Smash Bros for Wii U and a few more.

The Will compatability was great and simple, although I do wish there was offical Gamecube support, given how easy it is to play it via softmodding. Still, it's one of the main reasons I still use my Wii U, as it's the best way to play those games on a HD monitor.

Plus, if it weren't for the Wii U, then it's hard to imagine how the Switch would have come to fruition, and prevent them from repeating the same mistakes again.

If anything else, the Wii U was a important learning moment for Nintendo.

 

Yeah, it was. In it, you can see some things that would latter be used in the Switch. GC compatibility would be awesome. The Wii U had a lot of good ideas, but had some errors in execution. SSB4 is also a great game. I have spent I don't even know how many hours playing it.

 

Pokémon has always been a hipster franchise. People act like Pokémon was never merchandise heavy or never pandered to nostalgia... Pfffft, are they serious? xD

 

Or... it's 100% as good as it always was, but it paved the way for even better games that use the same formula, and now when we go back and play SoTN, we have the perspective of having played these better games that evolved from it.

 

My daughter refers to Chikorita as The Pear. Because that's the closest thing we can compare it to. Otherwise I've got no idea what the hell its actually supposed to be.