Gaming's Guilty Pleasures

[Weasel]

What are some games/characters you love, but everyone else seems to hate? Post why, if you care to go that far.

Games
~ Ultimate Mortal Kombat (DS) - I LOVE old-school MK, and when this came out, I had to get it. It's almost an arcade-perfect port of Ultimate MK3 with the added side game Puzzle Kombat from MK Deception. People aren't too crazy about this game due to the fact that th AI is almost psychic and predicts your every move. But that doesn't stop me from playing and enjoying it.

~ Mega Man 1 (NES) - It's balls-to-the-wall hard, which turns some people away from it, but it's a great game.

~Metroid 2 (GB) - People complain about it being to linear, and being the weakest of the Metroid series. I, being somewhat of a Metroid fanboy, love it.

Characters
~ Bowser Jr. - Go ahead, kick my virtual ass. This little dude rocks. I think that he's a good "sidekick" for Bowser. I honestly don't get why he gets so much hate, and I'd like to know why.

 

[Easmo]

Gaming's guilty pleasures? I have quite a lot of these.

1- My favourite Mario Kart was Double Dash. Go ahead and hate me, but although MKDS was neat too, character balance was absent (basically, dry bones with dry bomber or yoshi with egg1 = instant win, and more than by 1 lap if you use snaking). MKWii had a neat single player and a pretty good online but blew the most important part of a mario kart game: offline multiplayer (basically, killed all customisable options, especially in battle mode: mandatory team battles for the lose!). For me, even if the single player was very short, the multiplayer, variety of options and the gameplay in double dash kicked so much ass it made it the best mario kart in my opinion.

2- Speaking of Mario, I think that not counting Mario sports as mario games like some people do, is plain stupid. First, because the only MARIO platformer we got after SM64 was sunshine, the rest being freaking remakes... oh yeah, the GBA owns the dubtious honour of being the only Nintendo console WITHOUT a Mario platformer of it´s own. Second, because in that period, the Mario sports made up for the lack of platformers in the sense of keeping alive the Mario-verse and building it some more as well. Third, because if we "ban" the sports games for not being platformers, I dunno why the RPG´s don´t get banned, because even if they have a story, those aren´t platformers too. And third, I think that Mario Power Tennis (all the game and especially the intro movie) is much more Mario than Rogueport, generic racetracks like figure 8 track and a water-sprouting device all together. Although I liked all the games I referenced, it´s just that sometimes the sports games give me much more of a Mario feeling. Good thing Galaxy came and fixed all of this by making one of the best MARIO games of all time, complete with pipes, ? blocks, classic music, variety of power ups and all that stuff I missed in the other games.

3- About Mario, I don´t think this is rare but still I know some people are gonna bash me when I say this: IMO, Mario Galaxy is the best Mario platformer. Ever. SMB3, SM World, SM64 and all the classic ones are legendary, I know, but fair is fair, and when a better game comes out, it´s time to admit it. Galaxy is so awesome that even if there was no other Wii game I liked, Galaxy itself would still be a reason to buy a Wii (before you ask, I played it with my friend´s Wii because I am too poor at the moment to buy one of my own).

4- To name a similar non Mario example, IMO, Sonic Heroes is the best 3d Sonic game and possibly one of the best Sonic games overall. Variety of characters effectively combined in 4 teams so everyone gets to play with his/her favourite character without making it very weird, simple tolearn but hard to master controls, (the way it should always be), varied stages and excellent gameplay where you actually have to do things rather than RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN, excellent scoring system that encourages you to explore and make every possible trick or enemy combo to get higher scores (instead of making the time 80% of the score like in newer games), neat fluid graphics with a lot of detail (the eggman statue in Hang castle that turns into Metal Sonic when the gravity is switched, is one of the creepiest yet coolest things in a Sonic game ever), the original voice actors all together for one last time (omega sounds like omega, vector sounds like vector, rouge actually sounds like a 20 year old girl rather than a 40 year old one etc), cheery feeling all the time (even the loading screen when the stage name is shown is the same as in Sonic 2 and 3) and I could keep going on and on and on.

It´s a polished game full of little details here and there that nobody notice because OMG, THREE CHARACTERS AT THE SAME TIME, THIS IS BULLS***!!. Should Heroes have a water stage and it would be a 10/10 game, because an underwater stage is the only thing Heroes is really missing. I can´t understand the complains, because in my opinion, they are very contradictory or just stupid. For example, I´ll name the most common ones:

-Metal Sonic as the final boss sucked! He was too easy!: Ok, that´s stupid considering that complain usually comes from people who love Sonic Adventure 1 and therefore Perfect Chaos, which is a final boss you can beat WITH JUST THE CONTROL STICK. Count yourself lucky that you actually have to do stuff to beat Metal and the fact that Sega took the effort to give him a large role (and an awesome character and voice).

-The controls are goddam awful: I can understand this if it comes from a person who has played the PS2 version (or PC to a lesser extent). I dunno what was in Sega´s mind when they made the PS2 version, really: absurd framerate, worse FX quality, awful controls, etc... but if you play the Gamecube or Xbox ones, the controls work just as fine. The physics may be a little slippery but you can always tap the A button to do a little jump so you can stop in there or just push the stick in the opossite direction to brake like we always do in every freaking platformer we have been playing for years. Also, I hear a lot the "I go through rails and fall a lot"... well, remember that you can only jump normally from rails when pushing ONLY the A button, because if you press the stick when jumping from a rail, you make a quick jump which is supossed to be used to change rails when grinding paralell ones, and of course, doing the quick jump when there is no other rail at your side, or in the middle of a turn, chances are that of course you will be falling. And if you find this exlpanation too complex (too bad because the manual and the game itself explain this), just grind with the fly character so you can recover if something goes wrong.

-The story is absurd/too simple: So, this comes from people who complain about the angsty Shadow in SA2, the time paradoxes in Sonic 06 or the alien invasion in Shadow the hedgehog. In other words, if Sega does a complex storyline, it´s fail, and if they do a simple one, people will still complain. People just can´t make up their damn minds.

-The stages are poorly designed: Ok, so people love the adventure games, which contains shooting, treasure hunting and FISHING stages, and they love those games, yet they have one with classic sonic style levels ONLY and they complain too. And don´t say you prefer the "1 minute and a half" stages in SA2 than the well rounded 5-to-10 minutes stages in heroes which actually contain variety of situations such as putting the entire stage upside down (hang castle), escaping from a giant alligator (lost jungle), a rampaging decent in a bobsleigh in which you have to be careful not to miss anything in your way (chaotix bullet station), multiple path choose-your own-way style in the open sea (the turtle section in ocean palace etc... the closest you can get to this in the adventure games are the whale section and therock chase in lost world in SA1, the truck chase in SA2, and maybe the rocket scene in metal harbor in SA2 too.

In short, Heroes got everything that made SA1 and SA2 good and axed every bit of fishing, mecha-shooting, emerald hunting, un-interactive chao minigames, easy final bosses etc. Note that, like in Sunshine´s case compared to Galaxy, I also love the Adventure games just as I like Sunshine (the fact that you like a game better than another one, doesn´t mean you strictly don´t like that other game). I just can´t understand why people who love these games, critiquize Heroes so much, considering Heroes keeps all the good parts from the Adventure games and gets rid of all the less good bits. The only real complain I could accept is that some of the extra missions (especially with Chaotix) can take A LOT to finish the first time (Chaotix´s extra mission in mystic mansion took me 32 minutes the first time), but once you get the hang of the game and memorize the tricky spots, you can cut those times a lot (for example I can do Team Dark´s extra mission in final fortress in like 10 minutes).

5-And speaking of sonic I didn´t like Unleashed that much. Too much running, but the stages feel somewhat empty. The werehog stages are just OK.

I have quite a lot more of those guilty pleasures (for example, I liked Kirby Air Ride, gasp!) but just Mario and Sonic alone can take enough space to make a huge post as you see.

PS: Note that I´m not trying to offend anyone, because when I refer to "people" I usually refer to general opinion or silly/contradictory opinions that are spread from mouth to mouth. In other words, I´m not trying to offend any particular opinions and I´m always open for a civilizated discussion in case any of you want to.

 

[Jesus Freak]

Characters
~ Bowser Jr. - Go ahead, kick my virtual ass. This little dude rocks. I think that he's a good "sidekick" for Bowser. I honestly don't get why he gets so much hate, and I'd like to know why.

High-five!

Games

Uh................... none? Except Super Paper Mario.

Characters

Goomba
IDK why.

Hammer Bro
Well, not many people hate them, but they don't like them.

Nastasia
She's cool.

 

[ShyGuy27]

Almost everyone but me hates 3D Sonic games...
That's really all I can think of right now, sorry.

I loved SA2.

 

[Weasel]

Characters
~ Bowser Jr. - Go ahead, kick my virtual ass. This little dude rocks. I think that he's a good "sidekick" for Bowser. I honestly don't get why he gets so much hate, and I'd like to know why.

High-five!

*high-fives*

Almost everyone but me hates 3D Sonic games...
That's really all I can think of right now, sorry.

I loved SA2.

Me too. I also didn't think Shadow's game was as bad as people say. It was alright.

 

[Lario]

Characters

Goomba
IDK why.

I don't think Goombas are overrated or under'd.

 

[Easmo]

Characters
~ Bowser Jr. - Go ahead, kick my virtual ass. This little dude rocks. I think that he's a good "sidekick" for Bowser. I honestly don't get why he gets so much hate, and I'd like to know why.

High-five!

*high-fives*

Almost everyone but me hates 3D Sonic games...
That's really all I can think of right now, sorry.

I loved SA2.

Me too. I also didn't think Shadow's game was as bad as people say. It was alright.

Although I have critiquized Unleashed, I do like 3D Sonic a lot.

Also, I dunno why this post died so fast... I thought it could get interesting.

Hmph, I´ll just bump it one more time... guilty pleasure? Actually liked Super Paper Mario.

 

[Zeltrax]

Games:
Kameo: Elements of Power - 360

People nowdays seem to brush this game off, I quite enjoy playing it, its also one of Rare's first 360 games and even though its old, it still looks amazing.
It also has very good music, orchestral basically like all of Rare's games thesedays.

Killer 7: GC

This is the definition of a cult game, its very surreal and at times, disturbing, but that makes it so good to play and experience.
Its an interesting fusion of an On Rails shooter with a 3rd person viewpoint when moving around, works better than it sounds.

Characters:

Professor Pester - Viva Pinata series -360

He's never mentioned anywhere but once you meet him, you'll never forget him, unless you hate the game in which case, get out.
But anyway, Prof Pester's sole ambition is to raid your garden and smash your most valuable Pinata and he then laughs and says, "VICTORY IS MINE" and runs away.
It always amuses me when he runs towards your garden as he spends a few minutes sneaking around before he decides what to break.

 

[[ohgodpleasedelete]]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

Characters

Matthis (FE1/3/DS):

The dude's crosseyed.

Way to pick on him, guys. :<

 

[ShyGuy27]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

You're right. It's beyond worse.

 

[Glowsquid]

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

i've read an article saying that that game was supposed to amezing butt 9/10 of it's budget was slashed for the Galaga movie starring Orson Welles.

 

[[ohgodpleasedelete]]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

You're right. It's beyond worse.

You haven't even played it.

Talk about talking out of your ass.

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

i've read an article saying that that game was supposed to amezing butt 9/10 of it's budget was slashed for the Galaga movie starring Orson Welles.

I don't get it. >_>

 

[Stooben]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

I played part of that at a friends house. I don't get why people say it's no good.

 

[ShyGuy27]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

You're right. It's beyond worse.

You haven't even played it.

Talk about talking out of your ass.

Actually, I have played it. Don't assume things, it makes you look stupid when I'm right.

 

[[ohgodpleasedelete]]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

You're right. It's beyond worse.

You haven't even played it.

Talk about talking out of your ass.

Actually, I have played it. Don't assume things, it makes you look stupid when I'm right.

Oh, really? And you think that small time has given you an accurate representation of the entire game?

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

I played part of that at a friends house. I don't get why people say it's no good.

Because people compare it to ToS1 instead of looking at it as it's own game. >_>

 

[Stooben]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

I played part of that at a friends house. I don't get why people say it's no good.

Because people compare it to ToS1 instead of looking at it as it's own game. >_>

Well, that's stupid.

 

[SiFi]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

I played part of that at a friends house. I don't get why people say it's no good.

Because people compare it to ToS1 instead of looking at it as it's own game. >_>

Well, that's stupid.

That's how I get through Sonic games. It didn't help with '06.

So, Shadow the Hedgehog is one of mine.

And Pac-Man for Atari. It's rotated. Big whoop.

 

[ShyGuy27]

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

You're right. It's beyond worse.

You haven't even played it.

Talk about talking out of your ass.

Actually, I have played it. Don't assume things, it makes you look stupid when I'm right.

Oh, really? And you think that small time has given you an accurate representation of the entire game?

Games

TOS2:

I don't try to go "OMG ITS A WURSE VERSHUN OF TOS1!!11!11" like everyone else.

I played part of that at a friends house. I don't get why people say it's no good.

Because people compare it to ToS1 instead of looking at it as it's own game. >_>

1) Yes.

2) It would be easier to look at it as it's own game if they hadn't jammed "Tales of Symphonia" smack dab in the title, an obvious ploy at mooching off it's predecessors success.

 

[cojiro]

Characters

Goomba
IDK why.

I don't think Goombas are overrated or under'd.

Goombas are so underated. Man Mario has been stompin those suckers since day 2. I suppose the koopas were the first enemy to feel the wrath of marios kick ass feet, but the goombas are just so loveable. They are just like kamakazi dumb little turds. When ever I get killed by a goomba I'm not even pissed. That little guy is just troopin it, thinking he can go up against Mairio, the ultimate underdog, and BAM goomba comes out on top. And don't even get me started on how cool the paragoombas are. Like come on wings on a goomba, that is gold.