Thread: Controversial Video Games

I think with Angry Birds it's more a case of what TV Tropes calls Hype Backlash. It's one of the most popular and best-known smartphone games, and it has a ton of really enthusiastic fans and merchandise for those fans. It's hard to escape even if you don't own a smartphone. I think a lot of the "controversy" is just that people are sick of hearing about it - similar to most of the "controversy" Pokemon had at the height of its popularity, where it was largely parents who were sick of spending so much money on the merchandise for their kids.

Also there's probably some animal rights group somewhere that thinks the idea of hurling live birds as projectiles - even ones as cartoonish and unrealistic as the ones depicted in the game - is promoting animal cruelty or whatever. The same sort of people who complain about Pokemon as being a fantastical version of cockfighting.

For the record, I love playing Angry Birds on my phone but not enough that I'd buy an Angry Birds plushie or t-shirt or anything. It's fun but I don't understand the level of obsession that some people have with it.

Originally Posted by Dread Advocate

Originally Posted by Robo-Floatzel

Alas, fans always complain whenever a new installment of their favorite game franchise comes out, and it's like this for all franchises. Skylanders was a VERY controversial game among the Spyro fandom when it was announced.

Of course Skylanders was. It shoehorned our favorite dragon into a game that's meh at best, and the overall game had absolutely nothing to do with him.

What about those silly Halo fans? When the first bits of info came out, they started to complain that it's gonna be to similar to Call of Duty. But they were complaining about 3 and Reach that the games are stagnating. Some are ever getting their panties in a wad because Bungie is not developing. They think that 343 ruined Halo Anniversary, and so they'll ruin the rest of the Halo franchise. How is it fair to judge a company that has never actually developed a game? Halo Anniversary was old bones with new skin. Halo 4 will be their first truly developed game. And most employees there are former Bungie employees, so they know exactly what they're doing.

Well, Activison was simply using Spyro to make money, they slapped in Spyro to attract gamers, only to get a game that has nothing to do with the previous Spyro games at all, but was instead a completely different game with Spyro's name simply being used as a "get rich quick" scheme, saying that Skylanders is Spyro the Dragon "In Name Only" isn't enough, and there are some Crash Bandicoot fans who fear that Activision will do the same to that franchise too.

On the subject of Halo and Call of Duty, given that First Person Shooters are milked to the bone anymore nowadays, there isn't really much new things you can add to the genre anymore.

By the way, should I mention Activision owns the Call of Duty franchise?

Originally Posted by Goodbye Blue Monday

I think with Angry Birds it's more a case of what TV Tropes calls Hype Backlash. It's one of the most popular and best-known smartphone games, and it has a ton of really enthusiastic fans and merchandise for those fans. It's hard to escape even if you don't own a smartphone. I think a lot of the "controversy" is just that people are sick of hearing about it - similar to most of the "controversy" Pokemon had at the height of its popularity, where it was largely parents who were sick of spending so much money on the merchandise for their kids.

I agree to this. I've seen far too many people refuse to play the games because they're so sick of hearing about it from other people, which is a silly reason to hate anything, in my opinion. It's just a game.

Originally Posted by Robo-Floatzel

Let's face it, pretty much EVERY Pokemon game released after Generation 2 is expected to have a bunch of hate to some extent, even Black and White 2 are not entirely immune to being hated on by fans of the original Black and White

As for Sonic games, is anyone familiar with the Sonic Cycle:

It occurs every time a new Sonic game is announced, and with the rumors of a posible reboot of the franchise in 2014, the cycle is starting to renew again, but face it, after Sonic Adventure 2, we weren't exactly sure what direction Sega was trying to take the series, Sonic Heroes was good, Shadow's game was a major misstep, Sonic 2006 was flat out terrible, Unleashed was perhaps a step in the right direction, and then Sonic Colors came out and blew peoples expectations away by being surprisingly good, and was notable for breaking the Sonic Cycle at the time:

Alas, fans always complain whenever a new installment of their favorite game franchise comes out, and it's like this for all franchises. Skylanders was a VERY controversial game among the Spyro fandom when it was announced.

I like Colors just as much as the next fan and all, but I never understood why it's an example of it "breaking the Sonic cycle." The only that's improved are the controls. The Wii and PS2 versions of Unleashed had some of the worst controls on their respective consoles, but if you're patient and forgiving enough to get used to them, they have some of the best level and boss design of the entire series. Colors, on the other hand, has much better controls, but I find the level design bland (with the exception of Asteroid Coaster), and the boss battles tedious and repetitive, the latter point being especially true since all the bosses except the final boss are repeated at least once.

Colors did have some innovations, though. I like that it had some elements of Super Mario 3. They also must have taken lessons from Megaman by allowing you to choose the order you want to do each stage. It also has an immensely diverse soundtrack that's awesome. So it was still a great game, but if you ask me, it was one step forward, and a couple steps back.

That's all just my opinion anyway.