I forgot Burnout paradise. It's actually an entertaining game, but also too repetitive for me.

Halo was only impressive to the console only crowd.

Man, I love Ocarina of Time. I know everyone loves it so there's not much to argue about anymore, but geeze. The beginning is amazing, watching Link shudder in bed as he dreams about the future... the dungeons are all really fun to play (if you're into that sort of thing). The Shadow Temple still makes me uneasy, with ****ing hands that drop from the ceiling and grab you. The relaxation from all of the stress of saving the world when you go fishing... The combat is just great, I thought, and all of the bosses are really fun to fight, and feel appropriately big and menacing. Like, seriously some of the best boss battles I've played, nothing compared to Shadow of the Colossus but that's not really a fair comparison.

And man, it was so cool after beating everything the game tells you to and arriving at the Temple of Time to find out that not only do you get to play as adult Link, but that there's a ton of game left and more items to collect. I guess the menu kind of gives this stuff away but I was too young and dumb at the time I played it to realize.

I wouldn't call it sub-par, just different.

Thumps Up

in that case, have you guys ever encountered a hack n slash that you liked? i can't think of one that isn't just repeating the same three things over and over. though i do love them

I'd have to say Resident Evil 4 or FF12 as the two games which are very well regarded, but which I personally think are absolute trash. RE4, in particular, I really hate.

out of curiosity have you played divinity 2? i've been eyeing it because the ability to turn into a dragon looks unbelievably cool

Far Cry 2

Eh, Diablo II as a necromancer tends to be a lot more fun. I don't think I've bothered playing through as any of the other classes. At least with the necromancer you can have skeletons and golems do the heavy lifting.

Halo. Call of Duty 4. Diablo 2.

Reasonings.

Halo: I enjoyed the first part, with the fun enemies, and the pretty landscapes and everything, but once they introduced the Flood it suddenly got shitty. All of the sudden the enemies were boring, there were stupid design decisions, the levels got insanely constrained, even when you were outside, and they were bland. Fist half was fun, not great, though.

Call of Duty 4: The only Call of Duty I've played, and it is a good game, a genuinely fun and good game. But it does not deserve the amount of praise it gets. It's not that amazing, guys. Infinity Ward aren't that great a writing an amazing story, merely decent.

Diablo 2: My main beef with this game? It lacks the atmosphere of the first one, and the atmosphere was what made it great. The gameplay was fun in the first one, and 2 does improve on that, but at the expense of the sense of dread that pervaded the first game.

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Crysis.

I've heard the rumors that it is mostly a graphical tech demo, but I also heard it has a fairly open levels. I play it, the openness of the levels fall short, and I conclude Crysis really is a tech demo.

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And the fact that you cannot lose vs the AI.