The Hipster's Guide To Hating Games

Enjoying games is so passé. While normal, lame-o players enjoy this holiday's slate of amazing titles, an elite and much cooler group of gamers will be lamenting how terrible everything about the industry is and discussing super important topics such as ludonarrative dissonance. If you want to join the cool-kids' table but don't know what to hate about this holiday's games, look no further.

Below you'll find a list of some of this season's hottest games, a totally posh reason to hate each one, and a backup complaint to really drive home how awesome you are. It's a lot to remember, so if you happen to forget one of these topics during a heated argument with your friends, just remember that hating a game simply because it's popular is always a valid alternative.

Diablo III (Console Versions)
Haters Gonna Hate: It's On Consoles
Sure, the console version of Diablo III is made by the same developer and features all the same content of the PC version. There's just one problem – it's on consoles! There's no way the PC-fueled brilliance of the Diablo series can be translated to a controller and television screen [Editor's Note: It totally can]. Impress your friends by condescendingly dismissing the console versions as dumbed-down ports for gamers who are too stupid to figure out how a mouse works.
Backup Complaint: It's Still Not Diablo II!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Haters Gonna Hate: A Gateway To Animal Cruelty
In addition to exploring the cities of Havana, Kingston, and Nassau, AC IV: Black Flag introduces players to a bevy of new pirate-themed activities on the open seas. It should be a lot of fun – if you're an animal-slaughtering psychopath. Ubisoft Montreal has revealed that players can hunt sharks and whales in the game, activities that will undoubtedly lead to countless gamers going on real-life poaching expeditions. Forget the millions of random guards players have ruthlessly shot, stabbed, and (my personal favorite) pushed off of rooftops in the series – won't someone stand up for the rights of digital marine life?
Backup Complaint: Pirates Are As Clichéd As Zombies

Killzone: Shadow Fall
Haters Gonna Hate: More Of The Same
This one's easy. Killzone: Shadow Fall doesn't do anything new! All you do is run around with guns and shoot bad guys – real original. It takes place on a sci-fi planet? Uh, been there, done that. The Helghast are involved in a conflict? Puh-lease. If you need any more proof that this series is out of ideas, Shadow Fall even has multiplayer. Talk about a by-the-numbers sequel.

Note: While this kind of overgeneralization is amazingly powerful for dismissing first-person shooters, it works with virtually any genre. Rayman Legends? All you do is run around and jump on stuff. Dragon Age: Inquisition? All you do is talk to characters and level up. Forza 5? All you do is drive cars in a circle. Works every time!  
Backup Complaint: Jimmy Fallon Played It On Television – Gross!

Watch Dogs
Haters Gonna Hate: Big Brother
Watch Dogs takes place in a dynamic, modern-day open world that mixes single- and multiplayer gameplay in new and interesting ways. However, if you play the game you might as well run the Bill of Rights through a shredder. Watch Dogs glorifies personal-privacy violations by allowing the player to spy on characters using security cameras, commit identity theft on unsuspecting civilians, and even hack people's smartphones! Given the recent political headlines and privacy concerns regarding Xbox One's Kinect, serving up these kinds of illegal activities as entertainment is unconscionable.

Some people will say that Watch Dogs is trying to warn players of the danger of intrusive technology – but the game sure makes hacking into people's lives look like a lot of fun. Do I smell government propaganda?
Backup Complaint: It's Just Assassin's Creed In The Modern Age

Need For Speed: Rivals
Haters Gonna Hate: Law Breakers
Ghost Games' upcoming open-world racer promotes two reprehensible behaviors: breaking the law and unfairly enforcing the law. As "racers" (read: criminals), players gleefully break every traffic law known to man, speeding, driving in oncoming traffic, and failing to recognize right of way at designated intersections.

Those who play as "the law" are even worse. Not only do officers spend the majority of their time running cars off the road (i.e. police brutality!) and committing their own traffic violations, Ghost Games has completely refused to acknowledge basic law enforcement protocol, like probable cause and reading suspects their Miranda rights. Even if you do successfully stop a criminal, no court of law is going to uphold your arrest – another aspect Ghost Games is all too willing to gloss over.
Backup Complaint: Criterion Has Turned Need For Speed Into Burnout

Battlefield 4
Haters Gonna Hate: The War On English
Battlefield 4 has been wowing gamers with demos of its 64-player matches and destructible environments. However, the game's fictional conflict between the U.S., Russia, and China isn't the only war DICE is busy brewing. The developer is calling its dynamic level design "levolution," an unforgivably stupid buzzword. This mangling of the English language is simply unacceptable; a few more years of this and we'll be communicating solely through grunts and drawings smeared on walls in poop. [Editor's Note: This is the only complaint on this list that I actually stand behind – these ridiculous buzzwords need to stop.]
Backup Complaint: It Uses EA Origin

Dead Rising 3
Haters Gonna Hate: Zombie Cruelty
Gamers are not immune to occasionally feeling guilty when taking the virtual lives of NPCs, but three classes of enemy can be brutalized with impunity: aliens, Nazis, and zombies. That's why it's inevitable that someday, someone will raise an objection to the cruel and unusual treatment of the undead – so why not impress your friends by being on the vanguard of such an awesomely progressive movement?

And your treatment of zombies in Dead Rising 3 certainly qualifies as both cruel and unusual; players can create all kinds of grotesque weapons and vehicles to re-kill the living dead. Demos of Dead Rising 3 have shown players mowing down hundreds of shambling corpses at a time. When is it going to end?

Just remember: Zombies are people too – or at least they were until they were infected and started eating people's brains. Still, that doesn't excuse you also behaving like a bloodthirsty monster.
Backup Complaint: It's Only On Xbox One

Call of Duty: Ghosts
Haters Gonna Hate: Dog Fighting
It would be easy to attack Call of Duty: Ghosts for animal cruelty – too easy. Virtual violence being committed against dogs isn't the problem. It's the dogs themselves.

Infinity Ward has stated that dogs play an important role in both the single-player story and in multiplayer. That's great – if you're a dirty dog lover. Simply put, Call of Duty: Ghosts is biased against cat owners, and Activision is neglecting a huge group of gamers out there who don't buy into the "man's best friend" propaganda dog owners have been peddling for years.

If there was any justice in the world, some fearless gamer would create an online petition demanding that Activision add a cat AI companion to Call of Duty: Ghosts. Unlike the canine companion, your cat partner doesn't take any orders and refuses to do anything but sit in the corner and lick itself. It's called animal independence – deal with it!
Backup Complaint: It's COD