Theme Aversion

[T-Pac | 7,774]

For a while I thought I was the only one who avoided certain games just based on their theme, but a few recent comments from users in other threads have made me realize I'm not alone here.

So what themes / aesthetics do you dislike in games? And does it keep you from playing those games altogether?

For example - I absolutely love shoot-em-ups, but I absolutely hate military-themed games. So I've never even touched stuff like 1942 or UN Squadron, even if they're highly regarded.

[T-Pac]

[Reed Rothchild | 9,817]

Stray and Cat Quest 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,693]

Honestly, I can't really think of anything off the top of my head, I'd be willing to try anything if the game is generally seen as pretty solid, and I'll like just about anything so long as it's executed well. There are certain genres that aren't really my cup of tea for sure, but in terms of just the set dressing, I can't think of any examples that have dissuaded me from playing the game. I mean, I love The Binding of Isaac and I think that's probably one of the most common examples of what you're talking about, in fact I think the theme there actually enhances the game in several ways, I think it'd be lesser without it.

That's just kind of how I've always been with games and movies and whatnot though, I've never been particularly picky. If a piece of entertainment is done well, then I'll probably like it. Curious to see other people's thoughts though.

[spacepup | 2,461]

I suppose I'm in a slightly similar boat to T-Pac in that I don't really care for most military / war-themed games.  The FPS genre isn't my favorite anyway, but some are ok --- I'm much less interested in FPS games that are war/military themed like Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc.  If I'm running around shooting aliens or monsters though, idk it just feels much more interesting to me.  Maybe it's because war sucks and even though it's a game I still don't like it.

--- I suppose the exception to this would be that I absolutely LOVE the Metal Gear Solid series.  I think it's a bit different thematically than the above and I feel more connected to the main character's reasons for fighting and who he's fighting.  It doesn't just seem like mindlessly running around killing everything with a pulse and then repeat repeat repeat.

I'm also not a fan of *overly* gross / disgusting themes.  I don't mind or get offended by certain types of horror and even gore, but some games take it to the extreme where it's just disgusting for the sake of it - reminds me of the evolution of Saw movies where it became more and more about almost torture-porn or pushing the envelope further and further.  There was some game we played for game nights a while back where the monster grabs a person and literally puts the person's body on a hook to hang them, and I just found that disgusting unnecessarily.  Then other games love to have exploding guts and gore all over the place for effect - and that's fine, just not a super fan myself.

Finally, I don't particularly enjoy over-sexualization in games.  Not really 'offended' by it per se, or taking a moral stance, but some games are just WAY over the top with it, to the point of blatant pandering / sexualization that doesn't even feel normal.  Like where the character's breasts are absolutely gigantic and bouncing around about to bust out of the clothing, with an aesthetic that maybe appeals to horny teenagers, I don't know.  I don't even necessarily mind sexual-themes or depicted sex in games - that isn't really an issue for me if it fits thematically or seems remotely normal or relevant.

[RH | 5,121]

I'm not sure if this applies but I don't mind games where you can choose to behave "good" OR "bad", but games where it's the objective to be bad are not to my taste.  They never have been, either.  It just doesn't appeal to me.  Granted, I can enjoy something like choosing a light-side vs. dark-side path in an SW game but on my first playthrough, I'm choosing to be a light-side/Jedi. Second-passes at such games I _might_ choose to go dark side but usually that doesn't last long. I don't get a cheap thrill on mowing down or cheating innocents, even in games like that.  It's just not my thing.

[RH | 5,121]

2 minutes ago, spacepup said:

I suppose I'm in a slightly similar boat to T-Pac in that I don't really care for most military / war-themed games.  The FPS genre isn't my favorite anyway, but some are ok --- I'm much less interested in FPS games that are war/military themed like Call of Duty, Battlefield, etc.  If I'm running around shooting aliens or monsters though, idk it just feels much more interesting to me.  Maybe it's because war sucks and even though it's a game I still don't like it.

I'm also not a fan of *overly* gross / disgusting themes.  I don't mind or get offended by certain types of horror and even gore, but some games take it to the extreme where it's just disgusting for the sake of it - reminds me of the evolution of Saw movies where it became more and more about almost torture-porn or pushing the envelope further and further.  There was some game we played for game nights a while back where the monster grabs a person and literally puts the person's body on a hook to hang them, and I just found that disgusting unnecessarily.  Then other games love to have exploding guts and gore all over the place for effect - and that's fine, just not a super fan myself.

Finally, I don't particularly enjoy over-sexualization in games.  Not really 'offended' by it per se, or taking a moral stance, but some games are just WAY over the top with it, to the point of blatant pandering / sexualization that doesn't even feel normal.  Like where the character's breasts are absolutely gigantic and bouncing around about to bust out of the clothing, with an aesthetic that maybe appeals to horny teenagers, I don't know.  I don't even necessarily mind sexual-themes or depicted sex in games - that isn't really an issue for me if it fits thematically or seems remotely normal or relevant.

I agree with not liking "sex" games but I too don't like anything overtly sexual in any game. I'm not saying there can't be relationships, and I'm not necessarily offended if something is "implied", but overtly sexual at all is a turn off for me.

Regarding violence in games, I'm not into the gory stuff either, but themes don't really bother me. I've wanted to play Medal of Honor since it's one of the first games to kick off the "war sim" genre and it's about WW2, but other than that, Call of Duty and the like just have no appeal to me.  I can still enjoy GoldenEye or sci-fi based FPSes so long as the focus isn't on gore for the sake of gore.

Oh, horror games. I enjoyed RE2 as a kid and Parasite Eve and though I can see the appeal, I completely avoid them now. I do want to play through the OG Dino Crisis, but that's probably my limit today.

[Tanooki | 5,028]

I largely won't touch pop scare/horror stuff because I find it utterly boring, samey, and in the end having little to no reward, especially in cases when it's related to the undead(or similar enough) and double down on that if the controls are tank style garbage which add faux 'fear' because of crap control/camera mechanics.

Sports are another, well, licensed sports at least -- I don't like, won't support, and find no enjoyment in big rosters of teams, stats, etc.  I won't touch a Madden but I could do even if it does have a slight shade of it something like Tecmo Bowl.  Or you have Blades of Steel, Mario Golf, Double Dribble, Baseball Stars 2, Neo Turf Masters, you get the idea.

FPS games - I have a soft spot for the old DOOM games, but mostly FPS for me I've enjoyed with a random exception have largely just been WW2 stuff as it tries to keep it real and respectful as much as a game can be of such things at least and not some lame murder sim or multiplayer jerk-fest of stalkers and nuts doing MP killfests hours on end.

The Starcraft1 /post SC1 RTS style of game -- They're too multiplayer centric and at a cost of a fun campaign where the routines used to allow a lot of variation in play to beat the enemy side(s.)  Once SC1 hit, it ended up being pea brained, scripted, do X Y and Z within a time frame and in a specific route, or the AI will just pound you into unrealistic levels of production created dust -- hate it.

(Similarly so) most Strategy/Tactical RPGs I refuse to touch -  Again it's the scripted turn based nature of it, at times it feels like it was made to fail a lot or buy a guide to win.  Despite seeing (fog of war stages aside) the map, the games often won't give you freedom to think it out in many paths, but you have to do one path the designer wanted or you're dead even 3 turns in even if you don't realize it until 15-20 turns of hours wasted into it.  I hate these styles of design whatever the genre(like the modern RTS above which does it too.)

So these themes I tend ot avoid, and one other is memorization specific games with pattern recognition, junk like Rhythm Heaven and laserdisc style Dragon's Lair no minimal/prompt games -- I can't play them, never will be able to do the timing/memorize the stage like a robot stuff.

[Webhead123 | 724]

38 minutes ago, RH said:

I'm not sure if this applies but I don't mind games where you can choose to behave "good" OR "bad", but games where it's the objective to be bad are not to my taste.  They never have been, either.  It just doesn't appeal to me.  Granted, I can enjoy something like choosing a light-side vs. dark-side path in an SW game but on my first playthrough, I'm choosing to be a light-side/Jedi. Second-passes at such games I _might_ choose to go dark side but usually that doesn't last long. I don't get a cheap thrill on mowing down or cheating innocents, even in games like that.  It's just not my thing.

To be fair, most games that allow you to choose the "evil" path don't really reward you much (or even actively punish you) for going that route. The extra benefits/powers/weapons/etc. for being evil are usually greatly overshadowed by the "good path" benefits, either by design or just because the advantages are things that can be gotten elsewhere. Choosing to be "evil" in such games also often locks you out of significant portions of content (i.e. some NPCs refuse to talk to you, some story missions are unavailable, some levels are skipped, etc.).

As for an aversion to particular themes, genres or settings...I can't really think of any off the top of my head. Maybe "realistic" racing games qualify (i.e. Formula One, Motocross, street racing, etc.) but even in that are exceptions. "Realistic" flight sims, also. I can play some TIE Fighter or Wing Commander all day but any of those games that puts you into the cockpit of a 747 or Cessna or something like that...no thanks. I can appreciate why those games have fans but it doesn't really do anything for me.

I have no aversion to war-themed games. Personally, I much prefer those that go for a bit more of a historical approach. I.e., I much prefer the WWII multiplayer game Hell Let Loose or some of the single player campaigns of the Medal of Honor series to the contemporary Call of Duty fare. In fact, maybe I'd go so far as to say that I do have a slight aversion to "modern warfare" themed games. I'm not nearly as interested in playing something like Rainbow Six, Black Ops or even Counter Strike as I am playing a shooter based in the wars of the early-to-mid 20th century.

Edited June 5 by Webhead123

[Webhead123 | 724]

13 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I largely won't touch pop scare/horror stuff because I find it utterly boring, samey, and in the end having little to no reward, especially in cases when it's related to the undead(or similar enough) and double down on that if the controls are tank style garbage which add faux 'fear' because of crap control/camera mechanics.

That's one I forgot. The category of contemporary "jump scare horror" games. I find those very uninteresting and if a game appears to be built around that concept, I will avoid it. I like horror games...just not the "I'm going to regularly startle you with sudden movement and musical stings" variety.

[RH | 5,121]

Lol, y'all just say what you're thinking--you all hate Five Nights at Freddie's. 

Anyway, what I meant where you follow the evil, or at least "amoral" path are games like GTA.  I'm not into that. I'm sure there are other examples but I'm not into that.

[Webhead123 | 724]

37 minutes ago, RH said:

Lol, y'all just say what you're thinking--you all hate Five Nights at Freddie's. 

Yep. Other than the initial novelty of "Har har! Wouldn't it be funny if the Chuck-E-Cheese animatronics were actually alive and evil?"...that premise wore out its welcome with me very quickly. It's seriously the kind of premise that works as a school yard joke and not much more. I know because my brother and I dreamt up a very similar concept around the Sesame Street characters back in the mid '90s. "What if Elmo, Big Bird and The Count were sadomasochistic horror movie villains?" Yeah, it was funny...but not funny enough to justify an entire genre of video games. Sheesh.

Edited June 5 by Webhead123

[Kguillemette | 1,587]

I always tend to gravitate to cartoony and fantasy themed games. I just don't find much appeal in realism in my games. Same thing with sports and racing games. I love those, but only over the top arcade style ones meant to just pick up and play. Give me Cruisn over Gran Turismo any day!

[Tulpa | 3,632]

Never been into rhythm games. I don't have the hand-eye coordination to be any good at them.

1 hour ago, Webhead123 said:

That's one I forgot. The category of contemporary "jump scare horror" games. I find those very uninteresting and if a game appears to be built around that concept, I will avoid it. I like horror games...just not the "I'm going to regularly startle you with sudden movement and musical stings" variety.

I know we had this discussion before, but I don't think the scares in FNAF are true "jump scares." They don't truly come out of nowhere; there's always some buildup (whether you catch that buildup or not is on you.) It's not like everything's normal and calm and suddenly a cat jumps out screeching. But that's another discussion.

That being said, I get why FNAF and games like it are polarizing. 

[wongojack | 262]

Theme is a tough thing to nail down.  There are definitely settings and styles that I avoid.  I know I won't have many like-minded folks with me on this, but I just can't get into Japanese anime and manga.  I don't like the art style.  I will tolerate it occasionally, but my wife will not watch it for even a single second (and she plays lots of games btw).  Honestly, it is everything cliche about the style that turns me off, the oversized eyes and foreheads, the attention to some details and not others, the overdubbing.  There's only been a handful of movies where I've managed to get through it and practically no games at all.

There are genres that tend to gravitate toward this style that I therefore have almost no patience for.  It doesn't help that I just don't want to walk around as a high schooler and give "presents" to my "friends."  I'm totally uninterested in that, and this of course eliminates all those interactive story-type manga games completely.  I wasn't even thinking about the "sex" games until reading some of the comments here, but yeah, I'm out on those too.

In terms of genre, I don't really know if I will ever play a 1v1 fighting game again.  The genre just never appealed to me after the initial interest wore off.  To a lesser extent, I just don't really take to the 16-bit console genres very strongly.  Shmups, JRPGs, endless side-scrollers.  Whenever I think about the SNES and Genesis library, I get kinda sad because I don't really want to play any of those- but I still do from time to time.  Just not the 1v1 fighters.

[fox | 1,732]

Wifu/aninu/idol/loli stuff I won’t touch with a ten foot pole

[Reed Rothchild | 9,817]

2 minutes ago, fox said:

Wifu/aninu/idol/loli stuff I won’t touch with a ten foot pole

Yeah, I dont know how to describe the theme here, and I'm never gonna find out:

[Tanooki | 5,028]

12 hours ago, Webhead123 said:

That's one I forgot. The category of contemporary "jump scare horror" games. I find those very uninteresting and if a game appears to be built around that concept, I will avoid it. I like horror games...just not the "I'm going to regularly startle you with sudden movement and musical stings" variety.

Totally.  I may keep RE2 N64 but it's more technical marvel I got cheap vs being actually good to play.  My idea of a scare game is the original Dead Space, even old original Doom when it first shocked people.  You didn't have pop scares really, it was all about the dark mood, the slipping into what could be death around the corner.  Maybe a shadow moved, a creaking sound made you edgy, a weird groan or growl in the distance...or not so distance.  The scares much like a Japanese movie like Ring or Ju-On did vs the dumb western hack n slash with the obvious build with double give away music to a re-used trope of POP you're gutted, onto the next.

[Tabonga | 2,432]

 I like SRPGs but only turn based. One recent exception was Unicorn Overlord which is a hybrid - really enjoyed that one.

[sp1nz | 648]

Space exploration, schools, circus/funfair/candyland type of stuff are some of them.

[Hammerfestus | 4,028]

Anime.  Gross.

[Sumez | 3,109]

I don't mind *military themed* games as such. I've played more than a fair share of it.

And I'm completely up for comical mass murder by the hands of Bill Rizer in Contra and the likes - but any game that treats guns, war and shooting other people with genuine reverence - pretty much trying to cash in on all the people who are horny for the army for some reason, is a massive turn-off for me.

I enjoyed the gameplay of Titanfall 2, but man, the theme was gross as fuck. And I feel similar with Call of Duty, etc. Not even going to bother playing those games.

 

Also, realistic sports (racing included) or boards games (even though I really enjoy actual board games) just screams snoozefest to me. They are gonna try extremely hard to grab my attention

I trust people who say Balatro are great, but good luck getting me to play poker in a video game. At least the cards in Slay The Spire have cool fantasy stuff on them.

Edited June 6 by Sumez

[Gloves | 12,078]

34 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Anime.  Gross.

[RH | 5,121]

This isn't really a theme, per se, but I'm not too into the cel-shaded aesthetic. I never have been and it's never looked or felt quite right to me and is in it's own form of uncanny valley. On paper, I like it, but instead of ever making me feel like I'm in a hand drawn cartoon, it always feels like I'm in a very flat-shaded 3D game. No thanks.

[Sumez | 3,109]

22 hours ago, spacepup said:

Finally, I don't particularly enjoy over-sexualization in games.  Not really 'offended' by it per se, or taking a moral stance, but some games are just WAY over the top with it, to the point of blatant pandering / sexualization that doesn't even feel normal.

Same. It's not like I don't love tits. But that sort of pandering is just embarassing

[Gloves | 12,078]

Just now, Sumez said:

Same. It's not like I don't love tits. But that sort of pandering is just embarassing

I've said it before but I really disliked this aspect of Baldur's Gate 3. I asked a character how they were doing at a party, and how they felt about the recent attack on their people; everything seemed normal about this conversation. The next day my character had a conversation option with him to say "Hey, sorry if I was a bit forward last night" and "God you ARE handsome though, wanna bang?". I don't mind that romances are a thing in games, but I really dislike it when every single character in the game is after my seed likes bees on flowers, it's annoying and extremely immersion breaking. 

The last time I engaged in anything resembling a sex scene to my recollection was when I got all the trophies on Dragon Age Origins on PS3, one of the trophies was for experiencing every romance.

It annoyed me in Mass Effect as well. Bro leave me alone I'm trying to save the universe. Quit acting like we're in a relationship when I've shown zero interest.