This, for instance, is not (Gaming)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Friday, March 11, 2016, 06:57 (3179 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I just woke up. This is what I am thinking.

Why is the Division so not fun, when other demonstrably unfun games like Firewatch or Life Is Strange get a pass from us?

Calling Firewatch "not fun" is on a level with disliking a film because it has an unhappy ending.

In fact, it is EXACTLY like that.

Please explain? Nothing about an ending being 'happy' or 'unhappy' has to do with whether a film is enjoyable to watch. Unhappy endings are often appropriate.

If a game is not fun to play, it is a bad game. Firewatch was not fun to play. It is a bad game. FOR ME IN MY OPINION.

If you say so. I have watched several slightly different playthroughs so far and enjoyed them all. What I see a lot of are apoplectic reactions to the ending, because I think they oversold certain elements to mask other elements. If that wasn't your issue, then fine

So you are defending a game you haven't even played? Games are meant to be played dude. You cannot with any kind of seriousness give me a review of a game if you haven't even tried it.

I'm really shocked here.

If you've played it and haven't noticed that there's almost nothing you can get out of it by playing that you can't get by watching someone else play, then you weren't really paying attention. Heck, that's why I didn't bother to ask you what you didn't like about it, because I never expected you to like it.

I expected you to be disappointed that there's no real gameplay, make a bunch of choices, realize that those choices don't matter in a gameplay sense, and then once again bemoan the lack of a clearly signposted DMZ between "real video games" and other forms of newfangled electronic entertainment that refuse to realize that nothing can be good or enjoyable unless it slides all the way towards noninteractive (TV, movies) or all the way the other way to become Halo or Super Meat Boy or something, and then I'd thank you for defending the racial purity of the definition of video game, because it means none of the rest of us have to bother with such silly nonsense.

I suppose someday soon that segment will be large enough that it'll have its own category on Amazon and its own wall of shelves in the stores (if those still exist) and so they won't be pissing in your wading pool, but you can still go hang out at the mall and tell the walking simulators to get off your lawn.