How do you deal with the hype monster?

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D-Man123

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Edited By D-Man123

Hype is something that will always exist when it comes to media in life. We all naturally have expectations for the things we enjoy, but hype when not contained it can become a huge monster that can never be sated. Being the type of person who follows games and nerd culture I'm exposed to the games, movies, and comics coming out and the buzz around them. While having hype is understandable to have for a product your excited about I believe we as consumers need to take a hard look at how hype can ruin our expectation of things.

As a big DC fan I was absolutely stoked to see Batman vs Superman for the first time together on the big screen. Alas when the movie came out I among other legions of fans was disappointed with what we got. No Man's Sky looked to change the way survival adventure genre worked, but what we got a game with to little features for way to much money. Now, some would say it was my fault for having such high expectations for the these things. I feel that statement is only partially right. While you can't really fault anybody for wanting something they are excited for to be good. You also have to look at things more critically and have a more judgmental eye when it comes certain things.

What brought this questioning on was a recent conversation with my brother about the new power rangers trailer. I told my brother that I don't think the new power rangers movie is going to be any good. His response was something along the lines of "You shouldn't have any expectations for this movie". What almost led giant spiel about how you shouldn't just blindly accept everything put in front of you like Jerry from Rick and Morty, but after the conversation I started to really think about what hype can do to something and after all that I came to a simple conclusion. I will keep hyping up the things I enjoy, but with realistic expectations. Why because I believe if you enjoy something you should expect to be a certain quality. The new Logan movie coming out if it doesn't live up to my expectations will I be disappointed yes, but I feel it's better than just being a mindless person willing to enjoy anything in front of my face.

How do you deal with hype? Do you shun all the news and trailers for a upcoming video game or movie? Do you eat up every bit of news so you can go into it with a knowledgeable and informed idea about what that product is? Thank you for reading and have a nice day ladies and gents.

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Teddie

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By getting old.

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ArtisanBreads

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I am pretty over it in most cases. I just keep expectations low with most things, even stuff I really like. I used to get really hyped up but as I got older I guess that just went away more.

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mburdett

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@teddie said:

By getting old.

I'm not even old but I really feel this. Getting excited for movies or games or whatever makes me feel silly now although occasionally one manages to crack my hype shell. I find the best solution is to lower your expectation for everything and occasionally you'll be pleasantly surprised.

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Milijango

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I try to avoid marketing for anything that interests me on the merits of being a sequel or successor to something that I really enjoyed. I originally did that out of concern for spoilers, but since then I've found that I just don't get pressured by hype anymore. It's a bummer if everyone else wants to talk about it beforehand, but once it comes out feel free to listen to what others say about it (if there are any red flags this is the stage that you'll hear about them). If you choose to stay in the dark, when you do get to see the movie or play that game, it doesn't have too much riding on it.

A bonus to that approach is it's much easier for something to completely blow you away.

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csl316

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I tend to watch a trailer or two early in the marketing cycle, then pretty much avoid everything else. Fuck launch trailers, MGS 4 and Starcraft 2 both featured way too much info, and once I got to those scenes it was "hey, it's that part from the trailer."

I remember the lead up to Suicide Squad consistently featured entire scenes being posted on IGN, which seemed insane to me. I used to think screenshots revealed a lot, let alone a half hour worth of clips before the thing releases.

So yeah, short answer, just avoid preview coverage more often than not. These days I just want to see what the game looks like, what vibe they're going for, maybe some gameplay, then I'm good. I don't get overly excited early on, but I tend to enjoy the final product a lot more when I'm pleasantly surprised by things people saw a year before.

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soulcake

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I think i played enough games in my life to know what the game is gonna be Like. For example i predicted that no man's sky, was a game where you do the same 5 things over and over again and that's what that game was. Doing the same things over and over again. Also the last time i really got hyped for a game was probably at the age of 10 for pokémon gold/silver, and it probably helped that i only use to get games for my Birthday and Christmas. Here's a other wild prediction Mass Effect Andromeda is gonna disappoint.

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shiftymagician

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By literally ignoring it once it's clear that the excitement has passed rational expectations (of course where that line is is subjectively up to you).

I'll watch a trailer or two on something to know if the pitch from them is something I am intrigued by. I then look into news if it's something I know I want to know more about, but ensure as to keep expectations tempered. I at least want to be sure that a game I'm interested in will somewhat turn out to be exactly that and not something completely different. I have played a ton of games and have observed the gaming industry more thoroughly than your average mainstream gamer for years - it's on me if I make stupid expectations for myself based on nothing but assumptions or if I blindly believe the words of any developers and PR without some fact-checking.

Also I just generally don't engage with gaming communities in social media or gaming sites AT ALL until after I have gotten and completed a game that I was waiting for. I'd rather my playthrough be as pure as possible so that I can formulate an opinion that isn't being influenced by potentially overly-sensitive community voices. They tend to poison online discussions time and time again with views that are generally extremely negative or positive (both are honestly bad to me for different reasons). This site for me has tended to fare better than most, but it still gets some of that which is sad to see but not unexpected.

That's my 2 cents on this topic :)

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Hamst3r

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I dunno if it's just my personality or what, but I get excited for stuff but not swept up in the hype. Maybe it's just a matter of degrees and I've never gotten as excited as you have about something, I have no idea. It's just not a problem.

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Colonel_Pockets

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Honestly, I sort of stay away from other opinions about the games or movies I want to see or play. I didn't even know people were hyped about No Man's Sky. Sometimes ignorance is OK with these type of things.

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TobbRobb

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#10  Edited By TobbRobb

By playing way too many games for way too long and becoming a jaded sack of "been there done that". It takes a lot to make me SUPER EXCITED WOO for a game at this point, and even then I'll take a microscope to it prerelease. I'm very rarely get disappointed by games at this point, and even when I do I usually knew it was a good possibility beforehand. Some people tell me that's a sad way to go, but eh here we are. Partially how I've become and partially how I always was, so I'm personally not too bummed about it.

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audioBusting

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#11  Edited By audioBusting

I think having expectations is fine. Having zero expectations out of anything might even be impossible. It's a matter of preventing our expectations from colouring our experience. An important thing to understand is that we can still enjoy things we are critical of. Separating our expectations from reality is a difficult thing to do, but it's worth trying!

"Hype", on the other hand, is something different than personal expectations. I don't know, I just try to ignore it because I realise that none of it matters. Video games and movies being good or bad have very little effect on my general well-being! I have better things to worry about in my life.

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JohnTunoku

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Knowing what you like and staying informed about what a game is makes it harder to be overly hyped about it.

For instance, if you're like me and didn't really enjoy Super Mario Galaxy, chances are good you won't be into this next Mario no matter how excited about it people get.

With NMS I was getting serious Molyneux vibes from the beginning so I always kind of expected a game that felt like bits and pieces of what the originally envisioned product was.

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FacelessVixen

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By not getting it wet or feeding it after midnight.

Actually, it just stays in that antique store for someone else to deal with.

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glots

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I'll join the "old" club. I can still definitely get excited for a game release, but long-gone are the days of counting down for a release and reading up on some preview articles several times to build-up more expectations for an upcoming game. I sometimes kinda miss that, but suppose it's better to not get too excited for a possible disappointment.

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Whitestripes09

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#15  Edited By Whitestripes09

I think hype is something that a lot of these marketers now focus on creating with fans and people really go nuts with it.

I've been watching E3 since I was about 10 and I used to really believe that "games just suck now", but I realized I just had higher expectations due to playing so many games and attaching feelings of joy to the experience of seeing/playing those games for the first time. At these conferences though, they know which games are really going to hype people up and they feed off that by promoting it like crazy or having these "live" game demos in super controlled environments within the game to show content that won't even be there in the final product or at a lower quality.

Same things with movies. Once you realize the methodology of film making and how formulaic a movie can be or how poorly it transitions from scenes, it just ends up being boring and disappointing.

For me with games, it's like once I realized the puppet strings of the grand show, it made me stop and think more about what I want to spend my time doing. Especially with newer game releases where they just release them all one after the other, you really have to stop and think what games are worth it at release, which can be lived without having immediately, and which should be avoided. What I've noticed by doing this is that I usually only get 2 or 3 "new releases" and then the rest that I might have some interest in, I keep an eye on and might purchase them during periods of "game drought". Also, I feel like in general it is better to just wait for games to come out later because there's always going to be a newer "ultimate" edition that has all the DLC included in it anyways.

Controlling hype for movies is a bit tougher, because again, they are basically carefully made to appeal to certain audiences but that doesn't necessarily mean thats the way the movie is going to be. There can be some really cool trailers that seem really exciting so it creates all this hype around it and people expect it to be a life changing experience or everything they ever wanted to see in a movie. I think this is why some people would rather they just avoid trailers or news all together to avoid getting these feelings out of hand. For them, going in blind is better because they don't really have any expectations aside from a name.

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deactivated-5ba16609964d9

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Years and years of disappointment.

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Ezekiel

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#18  Edited By Ezekiel

I don't get hyped for anything anymore. Except Star Wars. I've been dealing with it by writing about it and watching videos. I can watch the funny windbag Mark Hamill talk for hours at conventions and colleges. Which I did.

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Arabes

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Ignore it.

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BoOzak

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#20  Edited By BoOzak

I havent been excited for a movie in a long time, John Wick 2 will probably be alright but I doubt it will be as good as the first one which wasnt amazing to begin with. I might be excited for The Raid 3 but even then I know there will be limited showings and I probably wont see it until after it hits blu ray at which point the hype will have died down.

As for videogames I tend to only get hyped for things I know I enjoy and even then it isnt until the day before it comes out that I start getting excited. Thankfully games like Nier Automata and Nioh both have demos. (remember those?) It is sometimes more enticing to not know what you'll be getting but I've been burned too many times.

That said i'm not impervious to hype, if I were I'd buy all my games months after they come out and pay half price.

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sammo21

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There are things I still let myself get reasonably hyped for. I still get pretty hype for many of the MCU films but in terms of video games I have tempered expectations quite a bit by not consuming every piece of media I can for the game. I am a major Legend of Zelda fanboy but I've barely watched any video for Breath of the Wild because there's no need: I know I'm getting the game and playing so what does watching endless hours of videos, interviews, previews, etc do for me? Nothing.

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mellotronrules

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i have an odd affliction in that the more hype something has, the more skeptical i become.

it's a cynical way to live, but it's hard to be disappointed when you're not overly excited in the first place.

oh and i got older, too.

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stonyman65

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#23  Edited By stonyman65

I kind of just assume that the thing in question won't live up to hype, and that I'd rather be pleasantly surprised by something that is actually good rather than being let down by expecting more. If the last decade of games and movies have taught me anything, its that being cynical is always the best approach. Anything else and you'll get burned.

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Franstone

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I don't need the hype machine to get me excited about things, it just happens naturally. I'm older and that fire still hasn't died, WOOO!

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Zirilius

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Having a family really put the brakes on the hype train for me. Trust me I still get hyped for things but not everything has to be a Day 1 purchase anymore.

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deactivated-629ec706f0783

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Age means the hype monster dies and morphs into the cynical monster. Now I'm mostly the opposite, where I look at games that could seem cool and think there is going to be a huge flaw or something isn't going to be right.

Occasionally the hype monster revives for a period though. No Man's Sky had me in it's hype jaws, not in the insane ways it had a lot of the internet, but I was definitely looking forward to it. Then it came out and...yeah, biggest disappointment just from a game perspective. Thus, the cynical monster grew even stronger.

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hassun

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Being mostly immune to it myself I generally just shake my head in private when I see it in others. If they are friends and I know them well I'll sometimes try to manage their expectations a bit.

Always hope for the best. Just don't expect it.

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Zevvion

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#28  Edited By Zevvion

Avoid it. I don't watch even a single trailer for any movie that I'm interested in seeing. I also don't follow any news on games I want to play. People who say 'spoilers don't matter' are fucking insane and also wrong. I am enjoying both movies and games way, way more since I took this approach. And I've seen countless of 'spoilers don't matter'-people thinking everything, like almost literally everything, is disappointing.

My favorite trilogy of all time is Mass Effect. I haven't even seen what the new one looks like, really. I glanced at some screenshots here and there accidentally, but have no clue how it flows. I don't know if it has multiplayer, I don't know if it does whether it's competitive or co-op, I don't know who the protagonist is, I don't know any squad mates, I don't know anything. The chances of me liking that game are extremely high even if it will be disappointing for everyone else.

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pause422

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@teddie said:

By getting old.

This definitely helps. Little bit of getting older, and being disappointed by how hyped I would get for things to then be disappointed when I was younger. Makes it easy to never hold something high with hype anymore.

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liquiddragon

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My heart grew colder as I grew older...

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FrodoBaggins

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I don't have time to sit watching trailers and pre release stuff for games so that's how I deal with it.

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D-Man123

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Well it seems I just need to get older to lose some of hype I have for things lol, but seriously last year showed me that I shouldn't let the hype get to me and create unrealistic expectations for me. I thought after following games for as long as I have been I would be impervious to it. I was proven wrong about that last year and that won't happen again.

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Xaopling

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by being a cynical asshole. But I ignore myself so it has no effekt.

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lylebot

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#35  Edited By lylebot

It's impossible for me to get hyped for anything made by a big studio with tens (or hundreds) of millions of dollars of marketing push. They so obviously desperately want us to get hyped, and I just don't want to give them the satisfaction.

I do get hyped for smaller, "indie"-ish things, like a new Tom Waits album, or a new David Lynch project, things like that. Things where an artist I really like pretty much has complete freedom to do what they want and doesn't really care what anyone else thinks.

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Marcsman

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Who is this hype monster? I just got done slaying the panty monster. Point me in it's direction and I'll take care of it.

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D-Man123

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@marcsman: He generally stays in the basement and only comes when I give it food or a massive show of attention. If you have a team willing to come I would much appreciate you guys coming to slay it.

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slax

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I've recently been trying to flip the script on my views of hype as I often tried to actively not get excited for stuff just to make sure I was "right" when it turned out bad, or wouldn't be disappointed. That was lame, and it probably led me to not like stuff I otherwise would've liked just because I set myself up for failure.

I've been trying recently to just go into everything with a positive attitude. If something looks cool, I get excited, try not to rely too much on reviews (although they are still helpful to an extent) and just jump in. If i'm disappointed, that's fine, that's just life. I feel like I've been jaded for too long and it makes life less interesting.

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Marcsman

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@d-man123 said:

@marcsman: He generally stays in the basement and only comes when I give it food or a massive show of attention. If you have a team willing to come I would much appreciate you guys coming to slay it.

I'm on it buddy. I only charge 2 beers and a pat on the head.

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D-Man123

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@slax said:

I've recently been trying to flip the script on my views of hype as I often tried to actively not get excited for stuff just to make sure I was "right" when it turned out bad, or wouldn't be disappointed. That was lame, and it probably led me to not like stuff I otherwise would've liked just because I set myself up for failure.

I've been trying recently to just go into everything with a positive attitude. If something looks cool, I get excited, try not to rely too much on reviews (although they are still helpful to an extent) and just jump in. If I'm disappointed, that's fine, that's just life. I feel like I've been jaded for too long and it makes life less interesting.

I agree disappointment is a part of life and it will always happen. I don't want to become too jaded and negative to enjoy the hobby I love.

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afabs515

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The more stuff I see about video games as time goes on, the less excited i find myself getting about them. Maybe it's an aging thing, maybe it's overexposure, but regardless, I really don't get super excited for things anymore. The only game coming out in the foreseeable future I'm actively excited for is Persona 5, and I feel like that's mostly a holdover from when I got super hyped for games in high school. I feel like most games that come out now are usually "known quantities" and I'm much more able to judge based on a quick gameplay trailer if I'm going to like something or not, and I'm much better able to manage my expectations based on what I've seen.

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Tesla

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I am extremely grateful for what seems to be a unique gift regarding hype.

I'm able to be excited about a game without developing unreasonable expectations and/or getting angry when the game releases. It's amazing, I look forward to games like Christmas then I get my hands on them and play them and have fun.

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deactivated-633c70ff026e8

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I watch every video and read every article I can on the game and form my own opinion. I try to ignore social media as well because it's full of people who complain and/or blind fanboys, for example there was the No Mans Sky disaster where people thought it was going to be amazing and another example is RE7, I see a lot of people who just say they don't like the fact that it's 1st person and it's not like "old" RE so they're going to ignore the game and wait for the RE2 remake, but I really like what I see of the game so I'm going to get the game eventually, none of that bothers me. I don't want my opinion to be influenced at all.

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Onemanarmyy

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#44  Edited By Onemanarmyy

I have seen so many games, artstyles, game systems through the years that viewing some gameplay is often enough to know what the general beats of a game is going to be. When a game manages to do something that i didn't expect, i get extra hyped though. For instance, that spell combining system of Path of Exile is fairly unique. Or the work put into the characters in the 'grey-ish' third person shooter Binary Domain. The weirdness of Deadly Premonition, the story in MGS. The spell combining stuff in Transistor. The detective stuff in Condemned (even if it was bad, they tried )

Having some information about the creator also helps. I know what an Ubisoft open world game is. I knew that Hellogames doesn't have the manpower to generate interesting content to saturate infinite worlds.