Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don't forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!
Zelda: Breath of the Wild -
Not a bad game per se, but I don't get the hype behind it. Sure the dungeons are fun but the world is so lifeless, the story non existent, the combat pretty shallow, the tower climbing is very much like FarCry but for some reasons it's okay here while Ubisoft gets the blame...like I said I dont get why the game is so beloved. Never finished it after the 20 hour mark and probably never will.
Red Dead Redemption 2 -
Just like Zelda not a bad game, but imho highly overrated. Graphics and and atmosphere are amazing but the controls are clunky and overloaded, nearly everybody is an unlikable douchebag who I would love to shoot myself at the first opportunity (maybe except Jack and Abigail) but I have to root and care for them. The game is just so long and feels very stretched, you already know that you won't get Dutch because it's a prequel and for an open world game you often get handholded in your weapon selection or things you can do because you have to wait for them to be unlocked by the game. I'm now nearly done with the game, playing the epilogue at the moment and I would say the last chapters are more entertaining than the rest of the game, but I still can't understand why this game was on so many game of the year lists and I really wanted to put the controller down a dozen times.
So there they are, two highly controversial oppinions by me and now I'm really curios what your takes are and how highly I get downvoted into oblivion 😂
Outer Wilds. I think it’s a fine game with a pretty cool gimmick (time loop) and a neat story. The gameplay itself isn’t that fun. I think what ultimately ruined it for me was the online discourse about the game; every time it gets mentioned, hundreds of people flock to the comments to extol the philosophical storyline, and throw around hyperbolic descriptions like “life-changing”. Again, the story is pretty neat, but I was left underwhelmed after having been built up by fans of the game.
I audibly gasped at seeing this, I think it's the best game I've ever played, I really do
I’m glad you liked it! I really wanted to like the game. I wish one of my friends in real life played through it so I could walk through some others’ perspectives on the game in person.
Outer Wilds gave me super anxiety when playing it. Something about the time loop aspect and having to redo a bunch of stuff.
I also gave Outer Wilds a try and don’t think it stood up to the hype. Got through probably 95% of the story and then gave up on it, there were two “puzzles” that I just couldn’t figure out. Ended up reading a walkthrough and was not sad at all that I put it down.
Several hours in, I couldn't even make it to a point where the story started rewarding me. Which was part of the problem. I "cleared" one of the planets (Brittle Hollow), with its platforming elements (something I don't like in 3D), and my "reward" was a small piece of a puzzle. I needed a lot more than that.
Even before that point, the game hadn't made a good first impression. There was nothing about the intro section on the starting planet that particularly interested me. And then the ship controls drove me a bit nuts. The loop was the only interesting part about the game for me then.
Felt like the writing was on the wall for me after exploring that first planet, so I dropped it.
Yes! I forgot about this. There were like a hundred characters to speak to and very little of it was interesting or even helpful. I couldn’t help but feel guilty when I just gave up and decided to get on the ship and leave without exploring all of the dialogue or points of interest.
I haven't quite finished it yet, my feeling is that it slightly overstays it's welcome.
I've also noticed that most of the time I do a thing or two in the game then realise there's not quite enough time in the loop to do another thing, but just enough time to make me want to not waste the loop, since I find starting a new loop a bit tedious.