this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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Controversial games of the past. (lemmy.ca)
submitted 9 months ago by UncleBadTouch@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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I'm just sitting here thinking about all the hoopla around palworld right now and I was wondering what other titles out there have been in the controversy filled category in the past few years/decade? I can think of a few, but my game interests are kinda narrow.

What are some of your picks?

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[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Kinda feels like any big release has some kind of controversy added to it, be it poor performance, bugs, riddled with mtx/day1 dlc/seasonpass-nonsense, denuvo/horrid-drm-in-general, invasive anticheats, unnescessary launcher apps... you name it.

Off the top of my head the few "hooplas" I can remember. Also I'm not claiming to remember 100% correctly on the reasons/details

  • Arkham Knight
    • poor performance, 30 fps lock
  • Cyberpunk 2077
    • poor performance, bugs. BUGS. No 3rd person camera, cut content
  • Starfield
    • poor performance, lacluster gameplay, bugs
  • No Man's Sky
    • performance issues, content not what was promised
  • The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition
    • horrid performance, technical issues
  • Diablo 3
    • always online, in-game auction house (real money & in-game currency)
  • Diablo 4
    • seasonpasses, mtx, etc. IMO, on the surface level it looks like it's monetized like F2P game.
  • Diablo 2 remake/remaster
    • "p2p matchmaking, we promise" -> "oh hey, blizz servers only, no offline. kthxbai"
  • Diablo Immortal
    • "don't you guys have phones?"
    • pay-to-win gatcha game
  • Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
    • whatever is going on with this game. Seems like the usual shitshow with haters hating and coping users coping, trolling eachother.
  • Basically any 2k sports game, possibly others too
    • at minimum 60 £/€/$ entrance fee to virtual casino
  • HATRED
    • caused a concern storm about in-game violence (shooting civilians/innocent etc)
    • Haven't played it myself, but it looks like a nothing burger. Fairly mid twinstick shooter with edgelord paint over it. Wasn't Postal already doing this eons before?
  • Payday 2
    • "we promise we won't add lootboxes" -> "Oh hey, we added lootboxes"
  • Aliens: Colonial Marines
    • apparently was quite the shitshow on launch
    • isn't stellar now either, but on heavy discount at 5€ or so, it aint that bad for coop.
[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Wasn't Colonial Marines the game that gearbox "stole" budget from so they could fund Borderlands 2?

Iirc, it also had absolutely abysmal AI, with Alien(s) standing perfectly still in clear view, not reacting until they had been shot multiple times.

Then someone found that there was a single value in one of the game's ini configuration files you could change from 0 to 1, and the AI would become competent. The switch had been there since release, over multiple years the game was never updated to flip the "make the AI not braindead" switch. As far as I know, it still hasn't been updated to flip it.

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 4 points 9 months ago

Not a clue about budget stuff.

Iirc the config value key was mistyped, it was supposed to read "tether" (like, alient ai "tethers" to player, so it can find a path to the player, or somesuch), but it was mistyped in the config. ref: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Aliens:_Colonial_Marines#Improved_Xenomorph_AI

haven't tried the fix myself yet, not THAT keen on replaying it. :D

[–] Blamemeta@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Fo76 basically was a shitshow to the point it was false advertising. (Fucking canvas bags)

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 months ago

and moldy powerarmor helmets, which were a potential health hazard.

But even bigger issue, IMO, is the pvp/"mmo" aspect of it, which I don't care one bit. If anything I'd like p2p coop Fallout.

[–] hydroel@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Good points, but a few of these are mixing up controversy with genuine critics.

  • Arkham Knight's performance was terrible at launch. But many Ubisoft games could make this list, they were quite famous for their buggy games for some time.
  • Along with the Diablo 2 remake, you could add the Warcraft 3 remaster as well which was nonetheless apparently abysmal, but which also removed the original game from Battle.NET. We may also add most remakes and remasters, it feels like an exception when a remaster is generally appreciated.
  • Like Starfield, Fallout 4 was also heavily criticized at launch for the same reasons: unengaging story, always the same bugs, lackluster roleplay due to the voiced character... But maybe that's always the case with every new Bethesda game.
  • If I remember correctly, on of the main issues with Alien: Colonial Marines wasn't so much that it was a terrible and unfinished game (which it was), but that the demo released was very engaging, and a completely unfair representation of the actual game, which was considered false advertising.
[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Did they actually fix the performance of AK or did we just get better hardware to run the game better? And I'm also recalling some gameplay trailer which was sped up to seem like the game was running at 60 fps. But, yea, horrid performance is mostly genuine critique.

With Fallout 4, I think the biggest issue with roleplay was the dialogue options, not the voice acting per se. Basically each dialogue selection was 4 options: "Yes", "Yes (but snarky)", "No", and some non sequitur... give or take, it's been a hot minute since I last played it.

[–] hydroel@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Did they actually fix the performance of AK or did we just get better hardware to run the game better?

They actually pulled it from Steam for a while, and re-released it properly a few weeks later. But yes, they ended up fixing it properly, and it's probably one of the best-looking games of its generation on PC. The photo mode, in particular, is stellar.

[–] Malix@sopuli.xyz 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

They actually pulled it from Steam for a while, and re-released it properly a few weeks later.

Ooh, right. Completely forgot about that. And, yea the game is definitely a looker.

Back when the game was fairly new I did get it as a bundled game with my 2nd gpu. My SLI setup was quite the stutterfest with it, and I don't think it even supported SLI well, or at all. So I shelved it until several years later, and played it through with a lot beefier pc.

[–] hydroel@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Same: I got both Arkham Knight and The Witcher 3 with my 980! That's actually one of the reasons I bought one: I had planned to buy both games anyway, it made me "save" (as in, not spend) that much money. And given that it was NVIDIA's flagship at the time, it worked quite well with that GPU and I wouldn't have noticed the performance issues if I had not read so much backlash about them.

[–] pleb_maximus@feddit.de 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

it feels like an exception when a remaster is generally appreciated.

Don't think I ever heard something bad about the Starcraft remaster.
The Yakuza Kiwami games are supposedly good too, but I never played them or the originals.
The Resident Evil games are more like remakes, the only bad thing I heard is about 4. But that was from the perspective of challenge runners, apparently some weirdness going on there. But supposedly absolutely fine for casual gaming, but I never played any of these either.

[–] hydroel@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Off the top of my head:

  • I don't remember which one, but one recent Resident Evil remaster. Must be 4, if you say so!
  • As I mentioned, Warcraft III: Reforged was (is?) considered terrible
  • The GTA III, GTA: Vice City and GTA: San Andreas remasters, which are pretty bad ports of the Android/iOS versions
  • Batman: Return to Arkham
  • Dark Souls: Remastered
  • Metro 2033: Redux
  • Halo: The MCC as well, although I heard that it got a lot better down the line
  • Didn't some Final Fantasy recent remasters / new releases get criticized?

From what I recall, most of these were criticized for lacking the hand-crafted textures and lighting that the originals had. For obvious reasons, since most remasters are AI-enhanced textures, upgraded engines and little to no handcraft ever comes into play.