Unpopular Opinions V. FP should go down more often
999 replies, posted
No calories dew is utter trash UGH
generally the trend of making default soft drinks their diet version is terrible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp9lMwFO_MU
Sabaton is boring as shit flower-metal, but power metal has always been embarrassing, cheese with a focus on nerdy shit, and that has always been part of the appeal. That which isn't typically falls into overdramatic pomp. Even when you look at proto power metal bands that were following the same styles that spawned the subgenre, this is true. Just look at the German proto power metal band, Dark Avenger.
When we listen what I say
Please believe that, what i say.
What that fairies in this night
Held the Rainbows really tight.
Used their rainbows just like swords
To defend their royal lords.
And the Dolphins on our side
We can figure in this night.
Not exactly deep, well thought out lyrics without any nerdy shit. While insignificant, they had the same influences as Helloween and even released a split with them. Helloween, too, which influenced many power metal bands, is no better in this regard, with several cringey songs about the genre its self with fantasy songs on top, although some are intended to be tongue in cheek. Likewise, Manowar is a similar story. "Genuine intensity" is extremely scarce in the genre, and I've never heard anything within it that can really be said to have emotional weight, and that which attempts to usually veers off into the unintentionally hilarious zone for trying too hard.
This image of power metal also already existed prior to Sabaton gaining any recognition, and was fostered in the early 2000s when the subgenre started to get mainstream acceptance via bands toning down their music and focusing on more poppy, catchy, chorus driven structures. Don't you remember Dragonforce and the handful of other absolute trash power metal bands that were popular then?
To me, complaining about 'nerd bait' within power metal is shockingly similar to people who get mad at the fact that Death Metal frequently has violent lyrics and sounds abrasive. It's a major part of the genre. has always been a major part of the genre, and will likely not be separated from it any time soon.
You're right for European power metal. Dead on. (And Manowar). But, like-- Tyrant? Helstar? Jag Panzer? Early Lizzy Borden? Agent Steel? Brocas Helm? Warlord? Early Savatage (before they went full prog)? Everybody seems to want to collectively push the American power metal bands out of their memory even though they were far more averse to descending into mindless cheese (except Lizzy Borden, but they at least had some riff-writing chops)-- at worst you'd have your baseline "old metal edginess cringe" with the lyrics off of something like Too Late to Pray, but even at their worst the American bands had some command over some god damn atmosphere.
I'll agree that Sabaton's formula of Googling a random battle in history and writing a big triumphant song about it is really tiring, but I don't think it makes them a bad band; it's just not for me. Them writing some songs about such-and-such having taken place in so-and-so then playing it live in so-and-so is cool and is a nice little way to honor said events. Their singer's breastplate thing and sunglasses is stupid tho lol.
Anyway, I thought the story in Red Dead Redemption 2 was really disappointing. RDR2 itselft is a visual masterpiece and the level of detail in the world, along with some fantastic sound design and voice acting, is incredible. When it comes to actually playing it however, I only ever came away from it feeling underwhelmed or just outright sour about.
I obviously won't go into any specifics, but a lot of the reasoning behind your character's decision making - and some of the gangs' - were poorly executed and felt like it was just there to move the story along to its uninteresting end. Half way in and I just stopped feeling sympathetic towards Arthur and Dutch since (sorta spoilers) the game spent the entire time making it seem like there was going to be a big, dramatic clash between the two, except nope lol.
I don't understand why 'film critic' is a profession in most situations. I understand 'food critic' because even the threat of a critic in this situation can discourage sloppiness, plus I can understand wanting to be aware of red flags before paying £20+ for food. Then there's film critics. I'm sure you could argue that film critics serve a similar purpose and prevent sloppy film-making, but most film reviews I see nowadays are just "I don't like it, because *triviality*. Therefore, you shouldn't like it". It's been a while since I've seen a film review that does the world the favour by highlighting films that are an affront to the film-making industry, but most now are just professional opinions. I can't even count how many times I've watched a well-reviewed film and found myself hating it, or found myself liking a film that received only scorn from 'film critics'; raw food is raw, no matter who you ask, but the enjoyment of a film will never be objective.
I suppose it just boils down to the basic economic fact that if there's demand for it, there'll be supply.
It's the same thing for video games, really. Arbitrary numbers aren't a good way to determine quality, especially not if they're coming from a single person, i.e. a "video games journalist". If one really wants to rely on ratings, even steam user reviews or metacritic user score is a better measure, in spite of its flaws like troll/humor reviews.
Every time someone mentions this, I just think of the "gaming journalist" that got stuck on the Cuphead tutorial.
hearing about movies from critics that you know and already mostly agree with is pretty handy
even though i dont always agree with YMS, so far every movie i've seen that he's recommended has been at least interesting and entertaining and i probably would never have seen even one of them if not for his recommendations
criticism is also handy for learning about and from a movie/game, hearing what people like about something you don't like can help you understand it better
i'm currently making a game and hearing what people have to say about similar games has helped a lot with designing it and making sure i learn from the successes and mistakes of other games
this only applies to proper critics and not the kind that pretend that calling a movie bad by nitpicking to go against a common consensus is good criticism, of course
They're writers. They write about movies. And are generally hired for being good at writing, not for scientific evaluations of movies. I feel like all of this should be obvious
I guess my issue is more so with the people that will base their opinion of something solely on reviews from 'professionals'. I find it ridiculous that someone would dislike something because "Critic John said it's bad, so I'm going to presume it's bad". I understand using reviews as an indicator, but I've had people outright refuse to watch films or TV shows because it received a couple bad reviews from a few critics; why does their 'professional' opinion hold any more weight than Average Joe's?
They make reviews that are entertaining, or informative, or thought-provoking, or whatever they feel it should be, because they're writers, and that's what writers do.
Why do people put stock in their opinions? For the same reasons they put stock in Hemingway's or Douglas Adam's. Because good authors have skill and practice in encapsulating thoughts, emotions, and experiences, all of which are important to criticizing film.
Of course, sometimes both the critics and their readers are just hipsters, with their heads up their asses, wanting to sound cultured. And if you wanna criticize that, that's fine, but it's the most popular opinion on film criticism there is, by far
Polygon Pictures best work was the Godzilla Earth trilogy and Transformers: Prime.
I have not seen Voltron but I hear it's fine.
While I greatly respect Spec Ops: The Line, I don't believe its an example that other games should model themselves after if the video game medium is to move forward.
The relationship between a video game's audience and the game itself is different than with other mediums. I'd consider it more like the relationship between a movie and it's actors, except the actors have to pay for the privilege to take part. Imagine if any Hollywood actor paid out of pocket to take part in a production where everything their character does makes life worse for the rest of the cast and the only way for it to stop is for them to stop showing up. Maybe they'd enjoy the raw challenge of it but maybe they'd feel indignant about the experience and consider it to be a waste of time.
TL:DR
Spec Ops: The Line went a little overboard on its "Death to The Player" concept. If video games in general are going to evolve as a medium, they must not forget the privilege it is to have The Player take part. Especially if they paid money for it.
Wow, really? I thought Spec Ops: The Line told it's story really well. To me it felt like the team went out of their way to make the game seem as generic as possible on its surface to disguise the story from the player. It's not something that you can go into if you know how it plays out ahead of time. That and you start to notice on a second playthrough how they pulled the strings behind the scenes to make it all work, but I thought they did a great job overall.
Spec Ops was boring as fuck and has some of the most bland gameplay imaginable, no matter how good a story is it can't make up for shitty gameplay. If the game part of a game is bad then its not a good video game.
Also the story for it wasn't as impressive as people make it out to be and was a pretty forgettable twist. fite me
SpecOpsTheLine tells a portmodern metanarrative that twists the heroic structure and linearity of shooter games of that era, which on its own merit is already wholly unique and a welcoming one given its budget. It is by no means a sloppily executed game, unless you went in there expecting a Black Ops 2, which I'm sure many did.
I thought Spec Ops: The Line managed to do both its twist and gameplay well enough. It looks like a really generic shooter on the surface, and succeeded in disguising it on that front. However, despite the generic gameplay, it's still solid generic gameplay. The shooting mechanics feels good, with a good balance between cover shooting and squad-based tactics with fun level designs that served their purpose. There's even some really neat details like the animations and the reload details for the guns, which isn't seen too much with other cover-based shooters at time outside Gears.
If there wasn't a unique story tied to it, it'd be a fun if unremarkable Gears of War clone with a modern military skin. But it did manage to be both a fun shooter and an effective narrative which is why I think it does deserve the praise and accolades it had.
Precisely as intended.
was the "twist" falling flat on its head also intended?
I pretty much warmed up to dabbing at this point. No sense in hating it.
I think it's mostly ironic at this point, unless it's done by an out-of-touch journalist. Or a 12-year-old.
I haven't been to those forums in a while, but... If the Steam forums was wrapped into one person, it would be one of the most narcissistic, selfish and possibly impatient person. This person also thinks they have first-rate game design skills at all times when they don't. At all.
I like both simple & complex game mechanics, but I can never get into most big budget action games because altough the environments look dynamic and interactive, they aren’t, so I’m just left hoping I could interact with stuff.
Ditto. You get worlds with lots of apparent nooks and crannies but as soon as you try to scratch the surface you typically come across some invisible wall. As ugly as older games were, at least whatever you saw was an actual object for the most part. This made the latter feel more immersive, ironically.
tbh i never understood the hate for it beyond "them dang kids these days" as if we didn't have stupid shit that we did then too that was cool to hate.
someone in the facepunch community should get a refugee forum running just in case
Facepunch stopped being good on the change over to newpunch and the forums dying in the new year would be for the best.
You don't have to stay here
Dabbing's one of those memes that become so cringy and mainstream that they become good again.
I mean.. this is the opinions thread..
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