oof, I gots me a few:
1 | I don't think there will ever be a better Multiplayer Shooter[or perhaps even multiplayer game] than Team Fortress 2. Even with Valve neglecting it the base game is so well designed and memorable that I genuinely doubt there will be an actual game that will overtake my personal enjoyment of it.
2| My favorite Nintendo game is Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem. yes really. not exactly unpopular in that people don't like the game but it's usually not loved over Nintendo's other games. I hope some spiritual successor does get made or Nintendo makes a game similar to it, though I doubt Dennis Dyak himself could truly make something like it again.
3| Mafia 3 didn't deserve the hate it got at launch. It's admittingly a very flawed game[with it's glitches & badly thought out mechanics] and I still perfer the other games in the Mafia series over it. But that said despite it's disappointments I feel it still told a mostly engaging story with very interesting characters and a pretty neato blacksploitation aesthetic to the whole thing.
4| I perfer GTA IV to V. V isn't a terrible game and IV is still ultimately flawed but it told a much better story, had more things to do, had a much more interesting map and has a better cast of characters overall. V feels more like a Hollywood movie version of GTA than an actual GTA Game, there's ultimately less to actually do[shit like taxis, getting fat, etc] despite the fact the map itself is bigger and more accurate to real life Los Angeles. [hell, compared to San Andreas the map isn't really "bigger" in terms of scale, moreso just "more detailed"]
and don't get me started on what they did with online, GTA IV's DLCs provided interesting little plotlines of their own while rockstar never delivered with continuing V's. Splitting the 3D and HD Timelines overall was a mistake to me however.
5| While plenty of games in the DayZ style zombie survival genre suck[including DayZ itself], the idea in itself isn't that bad, but I've only seen it done right in unturned personally[I heard Rust is pretty good though]
6| Speaking of which, Fallout 76 could have been a genuinely good game[keyword: could], I've honestly always wanted a Fallout MMO. but because Bethesda was behind it all and plus they did shit like cut out NPCs, fucked up fallout's lore & their usual bouts of terrible game design, greed & mismanagement, they screwed up what could've been the best fallout game and now it's made the series a fucking laughing stock.
7| Maybe it's just from my experience of getting into D&D but I feel fallout as a whole would've been better as a Tabletop RPG rather than a video game. I find the lore itself to honestly be better than any of the actual games. not the greatest lore ever but fuck, my main enjoyment if anything in fallout is just being a bit of a "Wasteland Scholar" and discovering why the wasteland is the way it is.
8| The Metro 2033 series is better than any fallout game though. It's always an interesting thing to see a post-apocalyptic story not just set in the U.S. or U.K. and I feel it provides an interesting insight not just into Russian culture but the human condition in general.
9| Games as an Art Form should not be a controversial subject to begin with. No that doesn't mean I think every game should be Neil Druckman or David Cage style walking simulators, the medium should take advantage of it's actual interactivity and gameplay to tell compelling stories rather than just shun them to copy everything movies do. nor does every game have to be "Political" but that's a different subject
But that said I think it's undeniable Video Games can have artistic merit just as films, literature & animation do. Games like Hotline Miami, Silent Hill, Bioshock, This War of Mine, Grim Fandango, Undertale, etc. These games all serve as proof in the potential of games telling engaging stories & creating interesting worlds.