Archived Discussion Main / LoveItorHateIt

• If tropes were a physical substance, this one would be shipped in the same boxes as the Wii. Depending on who you ask, it's either a woefully underpowered pile of Nintendo GameCube spare parts with all games being either overly simplistic and not hardcore enough or rehashes of franchises that should have died years ago, or, the pinnacle of optimizing code to work on more affordable hardware containing the brilliant sequels of series that have been a beacon of quality ever since the NES came out and games that have the unique ability to make you more healthy playing them and games that appeal to everyone.
  • Really, this is true of all the systems. If you're a PC gamer, all the consoles are dumbed-down crap. If you're a 360er, the PS 3 is overpriced and has too small a library (and the Wii has the faults listed above). If you're a PS 3 fan, the 360 is basically an inferior clone and the Wii, again, has all the same problems. All three console fans would agree that P Cs are overpriced, underperforming, and have a terrible library (plus bad tech support). And let's not even get into the potential for someone to support an old console over its newer iteration...

• Final Fantasy, in its entirety. There are currently twelve games in the main franchise that all have a completely different cast, tone, world, and even completely different game mechanics. That isn't even counting the multiple spin-off franchises and direct sequels. It's very rare to find someone who likes all twelve, let alone everything with the name Final Fantasy on the box. And it's a given that the truly diehard fans of a particular entry are the most adamant that everything since then has sucked and the franchise is dead.
  • Final Fantasy VIII seems especially prone to this; as the follow-up to one of the most phenomenally successful and popular games ever and containing many storyline and gameplay elements that are controversial in their own right, it's pretty much inevitable.
  • Final Fantasy VII is arguably even more of a case of this than Final Fantasy VIII. The user reviews on Game FA Qs can be mostly summed up as either, "This game is awesome, Jesus H. Christ!" or "This game is overrated trash." In fact, message board threads about Final Fantasy VII have a tendency to draw out the die-hards that swear it is the greatest game ever made and the haters that would rather eat shards of glass than play it.
  • It seems that all Final Fantasy games split the audience in some ways, with the exception of Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI, which are more unanimously praised. For Final Fantasy V, you either love the job system and Gilgamesh, or dislike the characters and its generic villain. For Final Fantasy IX you either love the return to the classic themes or you feel it is too childish (it is the PS FF that sold the least). You either like Final Fantasy X for its love story between Yuna and Tidus and its beautiful environment and soundtrack or you hate it for its confusing story, annoying characters, and poor voice acting. You either like Final Fantasy XII and its ensemble cast and mature themes on war and cooperation or you hate its story and new gameplay system. Even upcoming Final Fantasy XIII seems to split the fanbase.

  • And it seems Sonic Chronicles as well, it's gotten reviews as high as Game of the Month from EGM and mediocre reviews from sites like IGN and Gamespot.
  • Sonic and the Secret Rings is either regarded as the best 3D Sonic, a fairly decent game, or the worst of the 3D games (but that seems utterly laughable considering the sheer horrifically bad quality of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)). It's usually because of the controls - they seem to work perfectly for some and be horrible for others, but considering its motion controls, it's not surprising.
  • And it's happened again with Sonic and the Black Knight, from the reviews going from IGN's 3.9 to NP's 8.0, and the reactions of players to disappointing to pretty damn good.
  • Sonic Unleashed is officially one of these. You'll either love the Werehog gameplay or hate it(though it's universally agreed that the Werehog stages aren't as good as the regular Sonic stages, unless you're Yahtzee).

  • It would perhaps be more accurate to say that in 90% of cases, the haters and the lovers give the exact same reasons for their positions.

  • The whole series falls under this, with the possible exception of the first two Metal Gears. Obviously the heavy saturation of cutscenes will irritate some people more than others.

• Midna seems to attract this; if you're a fan, she's cute, funny, charming, maybe even beautiful. If you're a detractor, she's stupid-looking, annoying, condescending, and the worst helper character in any Zelda game ever.
  • Majora's Mask and Wind Waker both got this treatment as well.
  • No, the title of "Worst Helper" is forever out of Midna's grasp. That honour can go to Navi or The King of Red Lions Just kill all of the Hyrule we know and love, why don't you?!.

  • Which is stupid, considering Ocarina Of Time is a complete rehash of A Link To The Past, but in 3D, and is still praised for its originality.
    • To be fair, Ocarina was praised because of HOW it successfully implements the formula from A Link To The Past in 3D. The transition allowed for better dungeons and combat, vastly improving the gameplay.
    • Who else but Nintendo could get away with a critically-acclaimed rehash of a critically-acclaimed rehash?
    • Well...those wacky guys who made the blue bomber.

  • This can also reflect your style of play. Those of the former are probably just mowing down zombies. The latter undoubtedly is trying to save every whiny civilian in the game.
  • Then there's the whole trying to get the proper ending thing, by collecting said whiny survivors.
    • And Otis. And the save system.
• Massively Multiplayer Online games in general. Especially, MMORPGs (of which most of them are). EVE Online is probably the most specific case, but there's probably worse. World Of Warcraft gets a mention too, if only because it's one of the few MMOs that's not only universally reviled by anyone who chooses not to play it, but a chunk of its own players hate it vocally! Just look at game review scores of any well-known MMORPG in Gamefaqs and you'll see scores ranging from one end to another.
  • From Warcraft 3, there's Defense Of The Ancients, which can be viewed as either "Ridiculously easy piece-of-trash map with wholly unbalanced characters that somehow filled the Battle.net lists, killing any chance for any decent map to show up and thus has singlehandedly killed Warcraft's entire mapping community and turned them all to mindless zombies" or "The most brilliant tactical scenario to ever grace the game, providing an excellent exercise of team-based strategy, with the heathens mocking it lacking any sort of true skill whatsoever."
    • Pretty much any multiplayer game's proponents dismiss haters as unskilled or doing it wrong. The more polarized the fandom, the louder these accusations become.
    • This even applies to individual classes/jobs in an MMORPG: (Dramatization) "I can barely survive a basic fight with my new druid!" "Funny, I did just fine..." Also crops up in spades after about every second patch on World Of Warcraft: "OMG THEY NERFED FIRE MAGI!!!!!!1111ONEONE" "Uh, yeah, they were pwning half the battlefields..." "BUT NOW MY RAID DAMAGE SUX 0 RZ"

  • Its often different people for Oblivion than for Morrowind. Morrowind was buggy, ugly with no good mechanics. Oblivion was shallow, empty and was a step back in lore. No compromise between the two viewpoints.

• Anything made by Peter Molyneux. You know what we're talking about.
  • Depending on who you ask, Fable and its sequel are either examples of beautifully crafted and incredibly addicting worlds that gamers of any experience level can enjoy thanks to its pick-up-and-play style or oversimplified casual button mashing garbage with no difficulty or depth whatsoever.
    • Just like Metal Gear Solid 2, you may love Fable 2, but still hate the ending.

• Some controllers, such as the original X Box controller (largely depending on the size and shape of your hands), Gamecube controller (the big A button is the major polarizer, and benefits some types of games more than others), and the Wii controller.

  • The soundtrack is also polarizing; some think it is the best sound track ever, others think the songs were chosen randomly with some remixes that are of debatable quality (LttP Dark World comes up a lot here) that omits classics in favor of Wii Shopping Channel.

• The entire Tales Series is like this for RPG fans, since its real-time battle system was one of the first to break away from the traditional turn-based format. Fans of the genre either embrace the fast-paced action or condemn it.

• JRPGs as a whole. The very things the fans love about them, long storylines, cutscenes galore, grinding, dungeon crawling, anime-inspired graphics, etc. are the exact reasons why non-fans tend to run like the plague because they see them as having prefab characters, very linear stories, shallow gameplay, and less freedom than Western RPGs
  • Even among the people who like the game, the online content sharing has divided opinions due to the "explicit" content some people post. Spore penis monsters?!

  • Even among the people who like the game, the online content sharing has divided opinions due to the "explicit" content some people post. Spore penis monsters?!
  • And then there's SecuROM, which managed to throw a chasm into the piracy debate.

• Shoot Em Ups. On one hand, we've got players who love them for their pick-up-and-play gameplay, daunting difficulty, their demand for focus and dexterity, the amount of action that can be packed into under two hours, the emphasis on Scoring Points and self-improvement, and the replay value that comes from being short and easy to play in a limited amount of time. And then there's people who blast them for being too easy (if a shmup has unlimited continues), way too hard (if a shmup doesn't), extremely short in comparison to most games, not having enough extras, and the aforementioned simple controls.
• Rail shooters get similar treatment. There's fans who enjoy their nonstop action and emphasis on blowing shit up. Then there's critics who hate being forced on a fixed path.

• Modern FPS titles with old-school style overdosing on The War Sequence, exemplified by Painkiller and Serious Sam. Some consider the game a hearkening to a simpler time when FPSes were about the pure joy of mowing down endless hordes of bad guys and feeling Bad Ass without the genre's later added baggage. Some consider the game a repetitive, pointless exercise of point-and-click killing with no real purpose.
  • Even among fans of "Slaughter" style gameplay, some find Painkiller and Serious Sam to be fresh installments that build upon the epic battles found in earlier games and mods. Others feel that they are too linear, repetitive, and restrictive; devoid of the innovative strategy required by their forebearers.
• The Ace Attorney fandom was split by the release of the fourth game, with some embracing the new characters and others wanting the old cast back. Phoenix's role in particular shows up on both Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Dethroning Moment of Suck.

• City Of Heroes can get like this. Either it's the only MMORPG in the world that's actually fun, or a shallow and repetitive excuse for 'real' MMO.
• The Dragon Quest series is huge example of this. It is phenomenally popular in Japan, probably more so than the "Final Fantasy" series, but in the West it does nowhere near as well.
• Just about anything Crytek releases. They are either great people pushing the FPS Genre to the new direction, or are just a bunch of overrated benchmark makers trying to pass out their "work" as games when its apparent that they have mostly focused on the graph*coughcough*moaning about some thing they call piracy.
  • Likewise, the recent Epic games for the similar reason, especially among the PC Gaming crowd.
• Tool-assisted speedruns. They are either brilliant demonstrations of what is possible in a game and masterworks of timing or blatant cheating by people who can't play the game the normal way. Especially the ones that are done in a manner that exploits the game engine in a manner impossible for normal humans. On the other hand, some Platform Hell games get a free pass, as only a tool-assisted run can allow you to finish the game.
  • Similarly, using hacked Pokemon in multiplayer battles. When Pokemon are spawned in-game (by Random Encounter or by hatching), they are assigned a multitude of both visible attributes and hidden values, making it practically impossible to encounter the statistically "perfect" Pokemon. Beyond that, fine-tuning the Pokemon's stats and giving it the desired moves also requires a lot of effort on the part of the player. Thus, the fanbase is split: One camp cites the effort of raising a team of Pokemon for multiplayer battle to be just as important as the effort of coming up with a battle strategy, and thus painstakingly breed and raise their Pokemon to be as good as possible. The other camp claims that the effort of raising Pokemon is just monotonous gruntwork that is completely irrelevant to multiplayer battle and has no qualms over using hacked Pokemon.

• It's not just the games themselves. It's their weapons/characters/moves/whatever as well, although this type of arguing is mostly limited to "Stop Having Fun" Guys. From what this troper has seen, in your typical FPS, weapons are either cheap and overpowered, or weak and worthless (with of course another group of people thinking the opposite things about the same two weapons and arguing just as intensely). Somewhat the same for JRPGs. You have the 4 or 5 guys that make the best possible party. The rest are apparently utter trash. Repeat for any game with any type of stat-affecting customization.
• Halo. An excellent distillation of the First-Person Shooter genre with a deep and engaging story, or a generic FPS with a plot ripped from Sci-Fi novels.
  • The removal of the Halo 1 pistol. Either removing any semblance of skill from the series, or fixing one of the most despised Game Breakers in gaming history,
• DLC itself. Either they give games more replay value and new content to play with or they are just a tactic used by developers to milk people for money for content that is already in the game or should have been there before.

• Portal: Prelude. It's either the best user-made mod ever, with some declaring it's better than the original Portal... or it's Portal made into the most frustrating flinging puzzles ever and overall an unplayable mess.
  • A growing portion of the players are now agreeing that it's both.

  • Also, Vegemite.
  • Also, Dolomite.
    • Wait, what? Isn't dolomite a kind of rock? I'm confused.
    • It's Dolomite, baby! That rightous mineral that won't cop out when heats all about!

Heck, any food made from aniseed.

• Any food containing aniseed, which tastes almost exactly like the above.
  • Isn't licorice made from aniseed?
  • Or fennel. The phrase "This tastes like licorice!" can have different implications, depending on the speaker's preference and tone.

• Any food containing aniseed, which tastes almost exactly like the above.
  • Isn't licorice made from aniseed?
  • Or fennel. The phrase "This tastes like licorice!" can have different implications, depending on the speaker's preference and tone.

• Strong smelling vegetables (garlic, onions, etc.)
  • However, everyone hates preparing onions — in onion there is strength.

  • You just made yourself an enemy for life.

  • Basically any fully flavored and scented cheese, Limburgher is the classic example, as is Brie.
  • On the opposite end of the scale, “cheeses” such as Easy Cheeze and Cheeze Whiz.
    • Velveeta, which some don't even consider to be real cheese, and consider cooking with it blasphemous. Some have even called it cheese flavored gelatin.
    • Government cheese also has a rather large group of fans whom think it's a "ghetto delicacy", while others thinks it has the texture of soft plastic

• Chili peppers
  • Jalapeno peppers
    • Habanero peppers

  • While we're on the subject of jelly beans, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, anyone? Let's see some of the flavors they have... grass, earwax, ink, rubber, iron.... and vomit.

  • Any flavour of crisps has people who love it and people who think it's horrible. Even ready salted, which is literally just plain crisps with a sprinkling of salt.
    • Combined with dips, this becomes complicated

• Tea in general. The fact that it is seen as the drink of the sophisticated is a two-edged blade: it's either an elegant drink for the civilized folk or the refuge of stuck-up snobs with more money than brains.

• Lapsang Souchong tea. It smells like burnt wood and tastes like it, too, or it's a pleasant, attractive smell, with a taste to go with.
  • Earl Grey. Great tea or like drinking neat perfume?
  • Green tea: the above, but replace "neat perfume" with "bitter, warmed-over pond scum". (In fairness, most people are more familiar with black tea and try to make green the same way, which results in a pot of nigh-undrinkable filth. Proper brewing cuts down on the feeling of drinking algae.)
  • Lemon tea.
  • Ice(d) tea and all the types it comes.

• Meat in general. There's people who will go OM NOM NOM on a plate-filling steak without question, and people who absolutely will not eat any of it (vegetarians).

• Coffee. Plain and simple. The most basic conflict is between those who think it is one of humanity's greatest inventions vs. those who think it is the harbinger of the apocalypse. Subsets include the decaf lovers vs. those who will spit out decaf; Starbucks lovers against Dunkin Donuts lovers against people who hate chain coffee, PERIOD; instant vs. slowroasted; etc.
  • Coffee cream chocolates are hated by many people, even coffee drinkers, but remain popular enough for the confectionery companies to keep making them.
  • Also included are those who fall into both camps - coffee is the greatest source of readily consumable caffeine on this earth, and shall be mocked by no man. It's just a shame that it tastes like, y'know, coffee...

• Soda: A carbonated refresher, or the unhealthiest substance on the planet?
  • Diet cola. For some it's the only kind they'll drink, for others it's undrinkable filth... and many who are newly diagnosed Type II diabetic fall into both categories simultaneously.
• Sushi, anyone? Either it's a delicious form of Japanese cuisine, or nasty raw fish....depending on who you ask.
  • To be fair, the latter (and probably some of the former) are making a common error; raw fish is sashimi, not sushi. In Britain it's possible to buy supermarket sushi packs of many types, including vegetarian, chicken, and fish ones which say "Contains No Raw Fish".
    • Elsewhere too. Sushi is practically a small portion of rice and filling/topping. Some even omit seaweed.

• Beer in general. Some people love it and some can't stand it, and that's without going into the conflicts among beer drinkers as to which styles and brands are the best and which are undrinkable piss.
  • Buffalo Rock, a VERY strong Ale that's made in the southeast.
  • Rolling Rock's odd flavor tends to make people either love it or hate it.
  • Turbo Dog. It's either a delightful beer experience, or like a drinking a bottle of soy sauce.
  • In Britain, bitter vs. lager vs. stout.

• Probably just about anything listed under Foreign Queasine would fall into this.

• Marzipan.
• Cranberry juice.
• This far into this page and nobody has mentioned coconuts or coconut-flavored food?!
  • Some people will only like it fresh, and vice versa. Not to mention how people are divided about coconut water: Sweet and yummy, or just plain weird.
• Curry. For that mattter, there are enough sub-varieties that someone who likes a certain kind, or even certain kinds, may not like the others.
• Cilantro
• White chocolate
  • While milk chocolate is almost universally loved, dark gets this from some. Also, fillings.
• Green peppers. They either are a great addition to recipes, or are bitter, unripe bell peppers.
• Tomatoes. Tomato sauce, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to get mentioned. Ketchup does probably because of the vinegar. Tomato products can elicit this reaction, as well.
• Mayo
• "Cinnamon" flavored candies.
• Gelatin. Its source disgusts many people.
• Like beer listed a little higher up, any specific alcoholic beverage.
  • Hell, any inspecific alcoholic beverage. There's plenty of people out there who don't drink just 'cause they can't stand the taste.

• Turkish Delight a.k.a Rahat Loukoum. To some it's one of the greatest confections ever devised, to others it's like eating sweetened soap.
• Hard water. To some people, the more calcium in the tap water the better it is to drink. Others disagree.
• Scrapple and Souse.
• Icelandic food, anyone? Hakarl (rotten shark), horse meat, ram's testicles... there's some pretty weird stuff eaten up in Iceland.
  • No one with half a brain that's actually seen good television thinks 24 is the best series of the 21st century. Not with ground-breaking cinema quality shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, Dexter, and Six Feet Under out there. Maybe some people feel its the best 21st century show on basic TV, but even then it likely would lose out to Lost, the Office, etc.

  • Star Trek itself. Either the greatest science-fiction adventure ever made or a cheap, derivative, hack 60's show that executives were desperate enough to keep remaking.

• 7th Heaven: Good wholesome family television in a world supposedly filled with smut, or stuffed to the gills with unpalatable glurge?
• Firefly: Brilliantly scripted show that died too soon at the hands of clueless network executives, or brown, derivative show with colourless worldbuilding, a misogynist Jerkass hero and fanatical fans?
• Desperate Housewives is either beautifully scripted, well acted, subtle dramedy, or an unwatchable, melodramatic, unbelievably dull piece of trash that has over the hill actresses hook up with young studs.
• SixFeetUnder is either a brilliantly written Chekovian masterpiece, or a pretentious piece of crap.
• Any and all Lifetime movies are either the most blatantly true displays of what it's like to be a woman in a man's world, or just 2 hours of some overacting Biatch getting her arse kicked.
  • For that matter, Doctor Who itself is a fairly polarizing show: well-thought out sci-fi brilliance or unwatchable British trash.

• Will And Grace is either a brilliant show, fully deserving of its acclaim or completely unwatchable.
  • Seeing as how Firefly has already been mentioned and it's only a matter of time before Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel wind up on this list, let's just cut to where the real debate is: Joss Whedon. Either he's a genius/practically God or a hack rehashing the same ideas in different settings.

• In the Law And Order fandom, most of the assistant D As - from Paul Robinette to the current Connie Rubirosa have their fans, detractors, and those who say "meh" to various degrees. Unless you're talking about Angie Harmon's Abby "The Texas Terminatrix" Carmichael - an unapologetically pro-cop, pro-death penalty, anti-plea bargain Brunette Republican Sex Kitten. And the fandom either finds that a cause to cheer her or jeer her. The sole exceptions are those new to the series who haven't watched enough reruns to be familiar with her character.

• Anime as a whole is a victim of this trope. The crowd of people who just view it as another style of animation is either significantly less than the crowds of hardcore otaku and anime-haters or extremely non-vocal.
  • Also, the sub VS dub wars.
• Certain genres of Anime get this troper to the letter. One prime example is Harem animes (Not naming specifics on this one, but just in general) either you like Harem anime or you hate it because it's sexist and just fanservice.
  • Mileage definitely varies on the protagonist. Woobie, Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds or Omnicidal Maniac? YOU decide!

  • It's also because the anime is primarily (or should I say only?) aimed at Otakus. Because of that, people either love it because the show is basically pure Otaku-Service or they loathe it because they hate the otaku-culture.
  • Other people watched it because they think Seinfeld-like humor is FUNNY.

  • This debate really seems to show up in regards to any series that involves children and large amounts of violence — see also Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni and the aforementioned Elfen Lied.
  • Ditto Noir with its Kirika.

• G Gundam went through a similar process, and even had to go through extra amount of stigma from being the only Gundam series that was Super Robot instead of Real Robot.
• And that brings us to Gundam Wing, probably THE most polarizing series in the Gundam canon. It's either a deep analysis of the Gundam mold brought to edgier, cooler, more modern sensibilities, or it's one huge emo/wangst filled dump shat on the "true" Gundam series. While G Gundam is as far as possible from what "true" Gundam is, this actually works in the series favor when it comes to opinions, since most old-school Gundam fans just disregard it altogether. However, Gundam Wing is close enough to the original series to "hit home" with old-school fans, inciting much more rage. And don't get me started on Gundam Seed.
  • Seed is possibly the biggest example of this trope right after Crazy Frog.
  • Turn A Gundam is generally considered quite good. However, the mech designs tend to be EXTREMELY this trope, with people either loving the innovation and refreshing new designs or despising the White Moustache. For most people, it does take getting used to.
  OK, that one was removed because it's Broken Base rather than LIOHI.

• Key/Visual Art's games and their anime adaptations. Either they're beautiful, heartwarming Tear Jerkers with lovable characters and endearing designs, or they're unbelievable melodramas with annoying characters whose faces look like bacon and eggs.
  • The fact that all but one of the adaptations were done by Kyo Ani (The Toei version of Kanon is best not talked about) and hence stop any development of, say, Full Metal Panic Season 3 or Haruhi Season two means that people will rip the hell out of it.
    • The Toei adaptation of Kanon is not considered as bad per se, but the character designs were quite different from the game and it was also a bit on the short side. Still, Makoto's arc possibly even has more impact than in Kyo Ani's version. The "after the events" episodes were rather nicely done too.

• Pretty much anything produced by Bee Train and/or directed by Kouichi Mashimo is either pretentious pseudo-psychological babble with great action scenes or the deepest psychological insight with utterly awesome characters since [your favorite anime here]. This especially goes for Noir.

• Studio SHAFT is either an innovative, creative studio that uses absolutely genius experimental animation techniques and styles, or the producer of horrible, overwrought, headache-inducing garbage that ruins whatever source material it is applied to.

• The anime that Studio Gonzo produces are either compelling works of art or massive trainwrecks with no redeeming qualities. Seeing their logo on any work will either draw you in instantly or send you running for the hills in terror.
  • And the Spartans too, frankly. Are they a) the pinnacle of warriorhood, b) bunch of comunistic/fascistic ignoramuses, or c) both?

  • This really applies to the very concept of So Bad, It's Good. Many unfortunate people are unable to find the campy delight of a B-Movie.
  • The same could My Immortal.

  • As well as many other projects related to Bill Murray, especially Wes Anderson's films The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums.

• Anything with Adam Sandler. He almost always plays the same basic type; some find it funny, some downright annoying.
  • This probably applies to the films of David Cronenberg in general. He isn't for the squeamish.

  • This can be expanded to include most Kubrick films but especially A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut

  • Arguably, David Fincher's works in general.

• Almost any audacious foreign horror film. They're either refreshing and daring, or gory pretentious crap. This is especially true if it's a Japanese movie. A very short list includes the following.
  • Martyrs
  • À l'intérieur (Inside)
  • Haute Tension
  • Ringu
  • Ju-on
  • A Tale of Two Sisters
  • Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento for similar reasons.

• Every other film Michael Bay has made.
  • With special mention to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. To elaborate, every critic as well as half of the Transformers fandom (being what it is) savagely trashed the movie down (19% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert wrote an THIRD article on the film, where he outright bashes the fans for being wrong, which says a lot about what he thought of it). The audience and the other half of the fanbase loved it big time. Result? The worst-rated $400 million earner in history.

• Australia. Seems Australian audiences love it (big surprise), American audiences and critics hate it.
  • And even (especially) here in Australia.
  • Possibly a subversion, in that the main reason the Australian hatedom hates it is because characters use words like 'crikey' and 'streuth.' They apparently don't realise that these were both very common slang terms around WW 2, which is when Australia is set.

  • Or it's either the most faithful comic book movie ever, or the most bland copy/paste job of any comic book movie ever.
    • Yes, that particular argument is about as nonsensical and confusing as you'd expect. Half the participants in the flamewars don't know what side they're on.
• Titanic used to fit this trope to a T, with some people calling it "best movie ever" - in all seriousness - and others calling it "worst movie ever." With the passage of time, this troper has encountered more intermediate opinions.

• Will Ferrel, and any movie associated with.
  • Oddly, Stranger Than Fiction, a film where he steps waaaaay out of the man-child role you would normally see him in, holds the same distinction.

• On Her Majestys Secret Service Is Lazenby Bond enough for Bond?
• Roger Moore-era James Bond films seem to be this way. Some feel it to be made of suck, while others believe them to be legitimate entries to the franchise, and then there are those who enjoy them purely for the camp factor.
  • Moore's tenure as Bond is more up-and-down in quality than flat-out bad. He even gets a Good Troi Episode in For Your Eyes Only.
  • A View To A Kill: Roger Moore versus Christopher Walken, a dirigible Of Doom, and Grace Jones? It's almost magnificent. The Duran Duran song helps, too.
  • The Man With The Golden Gun. Christopher Lee? Flying AMC Cars? What's not to love?
    • Penny whistle.

• Also any zombie novel (or film) that has zombies running, talking, using tools etc....(Brian Keene i'm looking at you)
  • Anything by Scott Weiland is like this, not just his career with STP. Velvet Revolver has a polarizing effect on STP and Guns 'n' Roses fans (though the latter group is mostly just Fan Dumb who hate Scott on the simple basis that he's not Axl Rose), and within those that like VR, opinions on Libertad are mixed. And if Velvet Revolver was polarizing for STP fans, Scott's solo albums are even more so.
  • And of course, "I liked Stone Temple Pilots better when they were called Pearl Jam".
    • Which is pretty hilarious when you consider that Stone Temple Pilots actually preceded Pearl Jam by 4 years, and they were initially compared by critics to Alice in Chains far more often.
    • Scott Weiland has said in interviews that he used to defend Pearl Jam from charges that they were ripping off the Screaming Trees.
    • On that note, Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees has been known to get "I liked him better when he was Tom Waits" by some.

• Honestly any contemporary R&B singer who doesn't have a 5 to 6 octave vocal range get a Love It or Hate It treatment. and not just from chin rubbing critics either.
  • Some also find his nasally voice very annoying. He's also been accused of having the same "advantage" as beyonce"

  • Hell, progressive rock in general falls under this. Pretentious musical wank-outs that go on forever, or innovative genius?

• The Beatles' John Lennon's Revolution 9. Daring experiment or pretentious crap?

• Pokemon, in any incarnation. It's either a wonderful piece of work that transcends age barriers, or childish trash. There are even schisms within the fanbase over fans of the different media bearing the name.
  • Team Rocket in particular. Either they're the endearing comic relief whom the audience also feel sorry for, given their poverty-like conditions, or they're nothing more than a horrendously Overused Running Gag who really need to stop speaking in rhyme.
• The Boondocks.
• Science Fiction as a genre, regardless of the form it's in, seems to fit the bill.
• Modern Horror as a genre get this as well.
• To a lesser exstent Fantasy as well

• GNU/Linux. Its natural advantages (most notably security and, for those who believe in it, copyleft) make its fans want everyone to use it. But many people find it significantly harder to use than Windows, and significantly less pretty. Corporations worry that the copyleft provisions will interfere with their making profitable documents on Linux systems. Attempts to make Linux user-friendly, such as Ubuntu, get attacked by some Linux fans for dumbing the software down.
• The Opera Web Browser, AKA "The best web browser that nobody uses".
• Windows Vista has gained its fair share of adherents, despite most of the tech press bemoaning its flaws.
• Apple products since the first iMac came out. Mac OS X is either the best operating system or not worth your time.
• Any questions or subjects that cannot be raised without setting off a Flame War are Religious Issues. There are quite a few.
  • Some people view them as both: pretty at certain angles and lighting levels, hideous at others.
  • And Maggie Gyllenhaal. For some reason.
    • This can really be said of most great wideouts of today. Chad Johnson Ocho Cinco, Randy Moss...

• Depending on who you ask, Barack Obama is either the savior of the United States, or full of empty promises and/or an Islamocommiefascist.

• Many political pundits and politicians fall into this - those on the same side of the political spectrum will love them, while those on the opposite side will consider them human trash.

• The Other Wiki. Great research tool or Ship Of Fools?
• Social networking sites are either a revolutionary mode of communication or mindless horseshit that needs to die a horrible, bloody death along with everybody who uses them.
  • Among the smark community, the general reaction seems to be "How could the writers take a group of wrestlers with this much talent and produce a product this crappy?", so it's definitely both at once.

  • Don't forget oWoD's use of Rule of Cool fun or retarded.
  • Both versions of Mage, especially, are either brilliant and interesting settings with wonderful characters and very, very expandable rulesets; or a mess of poorly defined rules making the local universe an unfriendly GMPC where players have no idea what they can do.
  • Not to mention White Wolf, in general, for the RPG community.
• d20 system is divided between fans who thought it provided a much needed simplification of the Dice system, and detractors who though the system was actually clunkier since the Dice doesn't take into account of all the varied situations a character could be in, and those who thought it was dumbing down the settings it was applied to.
• Don't get started on previous TSR-owned settings that were bought up by other companies, especially Ravenloft — you'll get toasted.
  • Getting laid itself. Expect either obsession (which many western cultures encourage through peer pressure) or utter indifference.

• Fanfic and other fan works in general. Some people are enamoured with the possibilities fan work offers for exploring the original work's depths and lesser-explored parts. Others think any attempt at meddling with the original, except perhaps for correcting a Wall Banger - and sometimes even that - is heresy to be stamped out.