This seems interesting, never even knew the forum had Off-Topic sections. I guess I could throw my hat into the mix.
Ｕｎｄｅｒｒａｔｅｄ： Hotline MiamiIf you've even caught a glimpse of me on Roleplayer Guild, there's no doubt that you'll come to one logical conclusion: I absolutely love the Hotline Miami games. I love it all - the fast-paced ultraviolence, the retro pixel aesthetics, the glorious soundtrack that plays as you punch, shoot, and slice your way through Russian mobsters, it's all fantastic. The sequel (Hotline Miami 2 - Wrong Number) did everything that the original did, but improved on it drastically. HM2 reduced the amount of masks but improved their abilities, it expanded the levels and gave us more unique and thought-out level design, and it was just a general step up in difficulty. Dennaton knew they'd given the game a controversial ending, so what did they do? They added a level editor so the game could live on spiritually, imagined in the eyes of the fans! Hotline Miami 2 just hit the ball out of the park in terms of what a sequel should do.
Despite this, I still have a nostalgic pull towards the original game. It's just as solid as HM2, and it definitely made a big boom in the gaming world. Hotline Miami caused an increase in top-down, adrenaline pumped shooters, even if we did get a few bad eggs like Hatred and Bloodbath Kavkaz. Perhaps it's just the fact that the game first introduced me to this awesome new world of 80s aesthetics and hardcore shooters? Who knows, but I will forever idolise this game as one of the best in the indie games industry, if not the entire gaming industry, triple A games and all.
Ｏｖｅｒｒａｔｅｄ： The Witcher 3Now, don't get me wrong. Am I denying that this game is good? No. I am simply saying that this isn't "the best game ever created", according to some people. I know, I know, it's ironic coming from the person who worships a bunch of pixels like it's a god. The Witcher 3 is simply good. It's a good, solid RPG, and it has everything you could expect from an RPG. Now, if you can't handle anything other than utmost praise for this game, I'd recommend ignoring the rest of this post.
Despite being a good, solid RPG, lots of things that the game is praised for are inherently flawed. The questline is boring and bland, with no real originality, given the fact it's hours of "Go here to find Ciri, oh wait, your princess is in another castl- I mean, Ciri ain't here, my dude". I've seen lots of people praising this game for its' rich story and narrative, but that's hard to appreciate when it's strung together by endless fetch quests and walking from point A to B to find out it was completely useless. Sure, there's lots of side quests to complete, but again, they're incredibly lacking in variety when you strip them down to the bare essentials.
Now, another thing I've seen is people saying that The Witcher 3 is "prettier than most other games". Graphically? Hell yes, it is. CD Projekt Red outdid themselves with the graphical quality of the game, even if it did give way to elitist gamers whining that they can't imagine themselves petting uber-realistic dog fur in other games. However, everything else was average; what you'd expect from a game. Environment? Your average fantasy world formula: lots of grass, a few trees, some rocks, a few villages with the same house structure for every house, and then you might see some lakes and even some mountains if you're lucky. People? Average population growth formula: repeat the same general 4 NPC types, dress them all up in different clothes (not too similar, you've got to trick players into thinking there's variety!), and then copy/paste them into each town.
I'm not gonna go into much more detail, since I've got a Character Sheet to finish, but here's what I'll end with: The Witcher 3 is average. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not saying it does worse than other games, and I'm not necessarily saying that any game has done better than it, but it's what you'd expect from an RPG. People who hold it as "the pinnacle of gaming" are probably the reason that "no other games have come close to it" - if a developer can get the entire gaming community to jizz everywhere simply by sending out a standard RPG with pretty graphics, then why should anyone else bother?
If anything, the credit for the game's success should go to the author of the Witcher universe, as it's his imagination and creativity that gave the game any sense of individuality. Practically all the monsters, lore and cool weapons and items are a result of his work, not CD Projekt Red, who simply digitized it and wowed everyone with "look, every blade of grass is individually animated!"[overexaggeration].
TL;DR: The Witcher 3 is widely viewed as the pinnacle of gaming, when it's really just an average - yet good - game, with everything you should expect from an RPG.
1x Laugh
