Games Everyone Likes That I Hate

This article was published on 03/31/2014.

I hate a lot of things, but for this article, I'll be focusing on the games I hate that everyone else seems to like. I'm an odd fellow with interests that differ considerably from the average person, so this list is bound to make a lot of people angry. You might be one of these people. If so, then I apologize. Well, not really; I don't actually care what you think, because I'm mean. I should also note that this list doesn't exactly include every single game I hate that is well liked. If it did, then this article would be the length of several novels duct taped together. I'm going to stick to listing the most popular games I dislike, with a heavy focus on what is currently relevant in modern gaming. That way, I can make sure to anger as many people as possible. Anyway, without further ado, here's my article.

Grand Theft Auto never appealed to me. It does appeal to a lot of people, though, and I can see why. It was one of the first open world games, back when people didn't refer to them as open world games. In any case, I don't like them. I was first introduced to the Grand Theft Auto series back when Vice City came out, and I did like it at the time, but quickly got tired of it when the novelty wore off. My experience has been more or less the same with every Grand Theft Auto, in that I'll play it for about ten to fifteen minutes, then get bored and never return to it again. I find the missions to be a chore, I don't find the story at all engaging, and there's not much else going for the game besides that. I like exploring in games like Metroid and Zelda, but the exploration in Grand Theft Auto is lacking to me, even if the world is much bigger. It feels like I'm constantly driving from one waypoint to the next, never having a reason to check what's outside those waypoints. Another thing I don't like about Grand Theft Auto is the premise. I know I'm the odd one out here, but I don't like playing as a criminal. Almost every mission is about smuggling drugs, robbing stores, or some other stereotypical criminal activity, and I can't get myself invested in that stuff. I suppose the life of a thug isn't for me.

Minecraft, more like, BOREcraft, am I right? Yeah, I never really enjoyed Minecraft. I tried to get into it a few times, but I always felt like I was wasting my time. You could argue that playing any video game is a waste of time. However, I don't actually feel that way with other games. I only feel like that with Minecraft. I think the reason behind this is the game's lack of goals. Goals give me a sense of purpose, and they make me feel accomplished when I successfully carry them out. The lack of goals and direction is ultimately why I could never enjoy the mining and crafting of Minecraft. Some people don't need goals to enjoy games, but I don't seem to be one of those people. Granted, I did enjoy certain aspects of Minecraft; I like the exploration, and I like building stuff. It's just that I get bored of it after a few minutes, feeling as if I wasted my time. After I successfully complete a massive structure, or mine some diamond ore, I ask myself, what's the point? When I realized I couldn't answer that question, I called it quits. Building can be fun, but it's tedious, and the exploration seems pointless without meaningful rewards. This is why I liked Terraria a little better, because the rewards were more meaningful, thanks to the character progression system that game has going for it. Maybe hate is too strong a word to describe my feelings toward Minecraft, but I definitely don't like it.

Animal Crossing is one of Nintendo's newer IPs and is seemingly loved by all, except for me. When Animal Crossing came out on the 3DS, the entirety of the Internet was dominated by people talking about how much they liked the game. I could not relate. I've been trying to get into the Animal Crossing series ever since the one on GameCube, and I could never do it. My issue with Animal Crossing is similar to Minecraft, in that there's no real goal to the game, leaving me wandering around aimlessly until I get bored and quit. Pretty much every Animal Crossing game has only one pseudo goal, which is to pay off the mortgage to the house you get at the start. That's not the real goal of the game, though. The real reason people play this game is to decorate their house with furniture and interact with the villagers. My problem with these activities is that I don't care about either of them. I'm not into interior decorating and I have no interest in the townsfolk of Animal Crossing. There are other optional things you can do, like catch fish and bugs to complete your fish and bug collection, but again, I can't be bothered. With most games on this list, I can at least understand why other people enjoy them, even if I don't enjoy them personally. However, I literally have no idea what makes Animal Crossing so appealing.

I don't like first-person shooters. That pretty much includes all of them. I guess it's cheating to include an entire genre on this list, but it is what it is. There are a few exceptions, of course: I do like the Metroid Prime series. Most FPS fans don't consider the Metroid Prime games to be real first-person shooters, though, and maybe that's why I like them. Still, I vastly prefer the side-scrolling Metroid games to the Metroid Prime series, mostly because I don't like the first-person perspective in video games. That right there is the main reason I don't like this genre. It might sound silly, but I have trouble enjoying a game where I don't see my character. Because FPS games are viewed from the perspective of the character you're playing as, all you can see of your hero is his or her arms, except for maybe cutscenes. One aspect of video games that I've always enjoyed is seeing the protagonist pull off all kinds of actions, knowing full well that those actions were the result of my inputs. That's why I've always preferred Final Fantasy to Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy was one of the first role-playing games to show characters do stuff in third-person, as opposed to merely showing a static, first-person view of the enemies being fought. Perhaps my reasons for disliking the FPS genre are stupid, but there you go.

There you have it, folks. Now you have a bunch of reasons to hate me. This article ensures that my site will lose whatever remained of its astronomically small fan base. I was going to make this list longer, but I think I did enough damage to my credibility as it is. Be sure to send me lots of angry e-mails so I can delete them.

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