**3D Grand Theft Auto games (GTA 3, 4, 5)**Some video essay (I can’t recall which one) compared GTA’s attitude to that of the protagonist of “Catcher in the Rye”. Its comedy is very cynical, just pointing fingers at everything and saying “they are phony”, “they suck, don’t they” and “we are too cool to even admit we’re cool”. The tone always rubbed me the wrong way and felt like these white gangsta rappers - Vanilla Ice and the kind. Rampant fanboyism does not help, either. I dared critisize GTA6 trailer somewhere (by saying “this is not for me, I will pass”) to be downvoted to oblivion and I shit you not, receive threats in DMs.
No Man’s SkyWhen it came out, NMS was a broken, buggy mess of a game with inventory management as a central mechanic. Punch trees got replaced with laser plants, but it’s basically the same loop of gather, combine, refine, build better tools. After a decade, NMS is a game chock-full of various content, with inventory management as a central mechanic. Not for me.
Souls-likes and MetroidvaniasI have plenty of rewarding challenges in my real live and consider myself lucky enough to have work that’s fulfilling and gratifying. I don’t seek validation in games - I seek relaxation and escapism. I play most games on easy and don’t feel like proving my skills in the game is the right use of my time. I can appreciate skilled players - often watching speedruns, 100% attempts or professional tournaments, but when it comes to playing - I rather pick fun, easy, light entertainment. (Death Stranding is one of my all-time favorites)
on a flip note, a game that everyone seems to hate and I quite enjoy is ForspokenSure, the dialog is cringe and there’s way too much of the same barks repeating (I need to look through menus, I think they added some slider to adjust the rate if I recall), but the traversal is fun, I love the UI design (gold and purple), I think costumes are freaking fantastic and combat is easy enough (on easy) to happily zone out to and play an hour here or there.