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 π
BioShock Infinite. Mostly because I hated all of the characters, with the exception of the Luteces, and even they were on thin ice, mostly because of Rosalind. And Elizabeth as a NPC companion? I would prefer Ashley from Resident Evil 4 over Elizabeth any day. It didn't help that every time I tried to listen to a voxophone, she'd start talking about some bs, so I'd wait for her to finish and start the voxophone over, only to have her start talking again. When it happened 4 times with one vox, I had to take a break from the game. I just wanted to listen to the damn recording.
Gameplay is great though. I'll play the heck out of the Clash in the Clouds dlc. I get the fun action, and none of Booker and Elizabeth's constant whining.
I started the game immersed in the story, but kind of gave up on it after awhile, I think it was when "Akshually the slaves are evil for rebelling against the people who kidnapped them, took them to a floating island, abused the fuck out of them, didn't even consider them human, and claimed it was doing them a favor because of White Man's Burden bullshit" that ruined the spell for me
As cool as the idea of fighting through a dying utopia with factions on both sides trying to kill you who are "equal and opposite" evils, it kind of doesn't work when one side is blatantly more in the right than the other yet the game wants me to believe it's "Evil Vs. Evil"
"The only difference between Daisy Fitzroy and Zachary Comstock is how you spell their name!" - Booker DeWiit proving he is the dumbest man alive!
The DLC story was slightly better, but it doesn't make sense for Elizabeth to go around killing all the Bookers because "Even though I love Booker like a father, some of the Bookers are evil!", when a multiverse traveler should probably realize that in an infinite amount of universes you're more likely than not going to find one where Adolf Hitler is known as the Rabbi who cured cancer and paints in his spare time.... more than one most likely....
Great game tbh, but the story is such bullshit... I agree with you though, this is not a game you replay the main campaign, you boot it up and do Clash in the Clouds to get the same experience without Booker and Elizabeth being methheads... which is a shame because the characters had a lot of potiential in my opinion.. Honestly the whole game did..
You can just tell that there was meant to be more going on with this story, but something clearly happened in development
My friend who loves the game praises the multiverse aspect of the game the most, and to me it just doesn't make sense, exactly for the reasons you gave. And having Elizabeth be there at the beginning of Rapture's downfall (and actively taking part in it, even if she was blackmailed iirc) didn't really sit right for me, but maybe that's just because I didn't like her lol.
I had totally forgot about the slavery aspect of the game. They absolutely could have handled it better. Like there's a million other ways they could have had an opposing faction who's also not 100% in the right, and that's the one you wanted to go with? Come on. Even BioShock 2 did that concept better with Ryan vs Lamb.
Me every time Booker or Elizabeth open their mouths.
The gameplay can be fun, but the story just isn't there. It's connection to Bioshock 1 and 2 feels forced.
As soon as they do the first "dimension switch", or whatever, I lost any feeling of commitment since everything done up to that point became worthless to the plot.