Okay let me start with two heavy hitters right from the get go and don't forget these are only personal oppinions and I absolute understand if you like those games. Good for you!
Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Not a bad game per se, but I don't get the hype behind it. Sure the dungeons are fun but the world is so lifeless, the story non existent, the combat pretty shallow, the tower climbing is very much like FarCry but for some reasons it's okay here while Ubisoft gets the blame...like I said I dont get why the game is so beloved. Never finished it after the 20 hour mark and probably never will.
Red Dead Redemption 2 - Just like Zelda not a bad game, but imho highly overrated. Graphics and and atmosphere are amazing but the controls are clunky and overloaded, nearly everybody is an unlikable douchebag who I would love to shoot myself at the first opportunity (maybe except Jack and Abigail) but I have to root and care for them. The game is just so long and feels very stretched, you already know that you won't get Dutch because it's a prequel and for an open world game you often get handholded in your weapon selection or things you can do because you have to wait for them to be unlocked by the game. I'm now nearly done with the game, playing the epilogue at the moment and I would say the last chapters are more entertaining than the rest of the game, but I still can't understand why this game was on so many game of the year lists and I really wanted to put the controller down a dozen times.
So there they are, two highly controversial oppinions by me and now I'm really curios what your takes are and how highly I get downvoted into oblivion ๐
At least back in the day, multiplayer games released with the server you could self host.
Or you'd find a chill one that you liked and it became its own little community of sorts with regulars and whatnot.
Now, some games make it genuinely hard to even play multiple rounds back to back with the same people.
The ranking system and match making superceded the lobby.
There's still a lot of enjoyable games, gems even, but there's a lot of hot garbage too.
I don't think it's (just) Internet's fault.
Hell, we'd play Diablo over dial-up and it was amazing at the time.
I think it's more the corpo greed making its way everywhere. No mTx, no subscription, no battle pass, no unlocking bs, no cosmetics, no unending daily grinds, just you, the game, maybe a buddy if your family didn't need the phone.
DRM didn't exist, they'd ask you questions about the game manual instead.
I remember bringing the Fallout manual on a trip and reading through it thinking about what character I'd make. Now everything is digital only, you're almost lucky if it comes with a wallpaper.