Or something like that.

No matter how many games I play and movies I watch, I am unable to form any positive or negative opinions about them, instead basing my "opinions" on others' just because I feel weird without some sort of view. I can tell when a game or movie is atrociously bad, but anything above that equals "It was pretty good."

What is wrong with me?

So if you find something incredibly boring or annoying you can't form an opinion based on that?

I guess the problem is more distinguishing between "it was okay" and "it was good/great."

Maybe I just don't know enough about what makes a good game/movie.

You, and 99% of Hollywood.

Yes, I went there. Physically, too! :P

I wouldn't be worried, too much. Everyone's tastes are different, and you seem to find the good bits in anything. Even the humdrum. "critics" are 10 a penny, but if you find something they panned to be "watchable", then more power to you.

Are you saying that nothing really gets more than a "meh" out of you, or that you do enjoy them and just have trouble articulating the reasons?

I really only have two opinions, either "I enjoy(ed) it, which doesn't necessarily mean it's 'better' than anything else" or "I didn't/don't enjoy it, which doesn't make it 'worse' than anything else".

All in all, I'd say you're better at forming an opinion than I am.

It's a mixture of both, I suppose. Half the time I see a movie (particularly a non-comedy) I just think "it was alright, I suppose" when practically everyone else says the movie was amazing and then it wins an Academy Award.
There are, however, some games (Baldur's Gate, Beyond Good and Evil, Recettear) that I enjoy immensely, but cannot tell you why.

That's just down to your personal tastes then as much as anything. It's just that they might be a bit narrower than some people's

Apparantly you don't suffer from Chronic Neutrality Syndrome then because there obviously are games that you're quite passionate about. So your actual problem is more that you feel unable to explain the reasons for your positive opinions to others?

Well, that's normal. Everyone has different tastes. There are dozens of games, bands and movies out there that I think are mediocre or crappy, but that everyone else pees themselves over (recent example: The Dark Knight).

Now if you've never seen anything that you didn't think was mediocre, that's a little odd. Well, sometimes I enjoy a game for no clear reason, and that's okay. Most of the time, though, I can tell you why (I enjoy those sorts of discussions, but every other gamer I know just zones out and ignores me, so I usually refrain).

Do you ever think while you're playing "this or that is a really cool feature," or "this is a really interesting character," or that sort of thing, or do you just sit back and enjoy the ride without thinking too hard about it?

In general opinions are formed when comparing a movie, game, book, whatever with other movies, games, books, whatevers from the same (or close) genre. Or better said, this is the easiest way to forming an opinion.

Now, another way is to have enough knowledge in that field so that you have a checklist of things you go through when assessing the subject.

Possible spoilers ahead.

For example Inception was an okay movie in my opinion, because even though the plot was interesting the real-life science behind it is totally wrong. It also doesn't go higher than OK because the characters, including the protagonists, are pretty flat and don't really evolve with the story; I would have expected that, as they go along the dream levels more and more of the character motivations and backstory to be revealed, but this didn't happen except for the main character and even there on a very superficial level. Character interactions were also weak, but that was to be expected coming for a movie aimed at the blockbuster title.

Now, if I was to compare it, it's even less than an OK movie, as it borrows a lot of elements from The Matrix but doesn't address them as deeply as that movie did; it also takes inspiration from The Fountain but again, it's only skin deep and makes the movie even less enjoyable. Not to mention that the whole story is shamelessly stolen (well, adapted) from Paprika (2006) which was much deeper and harder to digest, but again, it wouldn't of made a good mass consumption movie otherwise (Inception, not Paprika).

wait, what? I love The Fountain, but I didn't really notice a connection, except from having a few parallel storylines. I think this just proves, how relative and subjective opinions are. TheJadedMieu, I think you can consider yourself lucky, that you are not swayed from the beginning by the hype of what you are playing/watching. Maybe it's better to form a good opinion over time, rather than jump at it right from the beginning :)

Maybe I just read to much into it; I was referring to the aspect of locking your lover into your memories and your inner world. In Inception it was pretty explicit and up front, as the main character couldn't let go of the representation of his lover, while in The Fountain, despite being more of a love story taking place across time, I read it as a desperate attempt to keep the one you love from dying by connecting with them on that deep emotional level and doing anything for them.

I mean, both were about not being willing to let go, but where Inception took the easy way out (she's dead but keeps haunting him), The Fountain took the more philosophical route (just how much are you willing to give to keep the one you care about).

But yet again, maybe I'm waaaay off the mark with that.

I can tell you why.... because Recettear is the shit... nuff said.

On a side note... know what else is the shit? Tales of the Abyss.... Just sayin' =)

I took a course on movie history that helped a lot with filtering out the crap from the gems. It turns out that a genuinely good movie comes out about 2 times a decade. If you've watched more than that, you can safely say that most of them are crap.

Hope that helps.