Top 3 Tuesdays #1 - feat. machomuu
Top 3 Video Game (Series) That Never Interested You
Top 3 Tuesdays is a weekly segment of the PokeCommunity Tumblr page that focuses on PokeCommunity members’ passion in video games and all of it’s accompanying components. For more community members’ opinions on video games, as well as large discussions on everything video gaming related, check out the Video Game section of PokeCommunity.
There was a time when I was in a very specific MOBA named DOTA- the original mod rather than its larger-than-life sequel. Heck, this was back before MOBAs were a genre as large as they are today, and I thought the scope of the mod was pretty impressive. Years passed and League of Legends came out. It was a sleeper hit, one that I learned about in its quieter days through circumstance until it exploded and became the face of Esports. I knew a lot of people who played it avidly and I even gave it a try myself once.
So why am I recapping all of this? Because it highlights something of an annoyance I have with the interest surrounding League of Legends. I, personally, have no interest in the game or MOBAs in general, but what gets my goat about LoL is that it has the same effect on the MOBA industry (which is very new) that World of Warcraft had (and still has) on the MMO genre. Other MOBAs seem like variations on LoL, so if you don't like one based on how it plays mechanically, you probably won't like the genre as a whole, and that's basically where I stand. Nothing against the game itself, though, as it's not its fault, and I won't dare say the game is bad, but I'm not personally the type that gets involved in games that revolve solely around a metagame and don't really allow for dynamic play. To LoL's credit, from what I understand, it does have a lot of options and give players some control in how they want to play without completely condemning them to the bottom ranks or lost games, and hell, I may even give it a try some time in the future, but for now it's a pass.
Riding on the very popular games train, Team Fortress 2 is an absolute success that I just don't care about at all. And like League of Legends, this in no way means I think it's a bad game, and in fact I would go as far as to say that Team Fortress 2 is a brilliant sum of various factors: Solid and unique gameplay, loads of supplementary works by the Valve, a fandom that just loves the game to death, and a Market model that's lucrative both from a player and publisher standpoint but does Optional DLC better than most. It's a solid title, and I can say that with certainty.
This one is cheating a bit, though, in that I was interested in it back in The Orange Box many years ago, but that interest dropped to zero when it came to PC years later. And those of you who know me around the VG forum know that I seldom talk about FPS (not out of disinterest) and I use my PC quite often, so it's certainly a game-side deal. If I had to give a reason, though, I'd say it's for a similar reason that I'm not into LoL in that it's not dynamic. This isn't much in the way of the game being stagnant since it's constantly changing, but rather it feels a lot like a Free-to...well, it is a Free-to-Play in there's no real sense of progression and you're merely kept coming back by intrinsic design. Design-wise, that's not bad at all, but the problem is that you're rewarded with only in-game items to rinse-and-repeat without unlocking more game, essentially, and I don't really get anything out of that. So it's a good game, but again, pass.
...I suppose these popular games are coming up because more obscure titles I don't care about just wouldn't come to mind...but anyway, Resident Evil 4 is the game among these that I will sing the least praise about because, if I'm to be brutally honest, unlike the others which I like from a design perspective, there's really not much I think of this game. To say it never interested me couldn't be more true. I grew up on Resident Evil, and actually for a short while I had a fear of zombies due to an overactive imagination and too much time spent on the N64. Fun times.
And I'm generally not the type to cry out against change, as I'm generally in favor of it, but...Resident Evil 4's change of pace really did a number on me. And it was more what it changed than simply its act of changing. How it tried to invoke fear, the atmosphere, the shift from away from zombies, the dramatic change in pretty much everything from gameplay to UI...it just didn't do it for me. And, as I say again and again, this isn't to say it's bad, though I will say that the game wasn't exactly scary by any stretch. Its overall grim enemy and animation design was closer to a modern Hideki Kamiya work than something that was trying to make you feel terror or suspense (which is unsurprising since, not by coincidence, Devil May Cry was originally supposed to be RE4). I suppose that what I liked about RE had just been removed and, as a result, it's just another Third-Person Shooter to me. A pass (for now)
Love discussing video games? Want to play video games with other people who share the same passion as you? PokeCommunity’s Video Games section is the hub for all things culture-related. Check out www.pokecommunity.com to sign up today!
