To me right now is the first Red Dead Redemption. Finally I’m able to play it, I’ve wait for over a decade. No spoilers, zero youtube gameplay videos, zero questions about the game to my friends. It gotta be me, and the game, it happened, and I think it sucks.
Maybe you thinking in “well, you shouldn’t play the second first”. I did not. My first Red Dead game was Red Dead Revolver, I was able to play it a few years ago when I could buy a PS2, but I couldn’t get a PS3 nor a Xbox 360 to play RDR1. It grinded my gears because we got the prequel in PC. When RDR1 came to PC it was so freaking expensive, yet today, I think it is expensive. I was able to buy the game some weeks ago while there was a Steam Sale, and well, I regreat it now.
I don’t like its exploration, its missions, its characters, its world, its secondary missions. its wanted system, and nothing but less important: has a lot of bugs.
That’s my experience in a few words.
What’s the game that you wanted to play but it was a total mess?
An old one: SPORE.
Cool creature editor. Lacked all the depth that was promised in the presentations. Instead of being a cohesive game through the ages, it’s like 5 bare-bones shallow games glued together.
The only good part of spore is the first part of the game, going from single cell to multi cellular.
I found the rest of the game convoluted, and this despite playing it to the end. And replaying it many times over
That said my brain can’t believe it only came out in 2008. I could have sworn it was a 90s game.
Hogwarts. And all the horizon games.
compared to all other harry potter games, hogwarts legacy is a masterpiece
I didn’t expect anything from Hogwarts Lefacy so I was positively surprised. I enjoyed my run but would not do another.
Horizon Zero Dawn on the other hand never clicked, I have had it for a while, never finished it.
Elden Ring… I’m sorry I just didn’t enjoy It even after beating a few bosses
Arkham Knight was pretty disappointing. The batmobile was forced into several sections. The announced Linux build never materialized.
Yeah I think I got Arkham Knight for free and I played it until the first batmobile puzzle then never played it again. It just was not enjoyable
Starfield. I tried it on a more recent update and it was just boring. There was no point to exploring because outposts were useless and space combat was trivial. Just an overall boring game
I played it out of morbid curiosity after everyone started talking how bad it was. I went in like “It can’t be THAT bad, can it?” - and indeed, it can. I’m still amazed that menus are fucking .swf files (Adobe Flash for those too young to recognize it)
It’s one of the least credible scifi settings I’ve ever seen. Also, despite the whole “multiverse” the main story tries to paint, it’s much closer to a time loop, given how nothing changes and effectively none of your actions are acknowledged by anyone. City NPCs won’t even react to your
dragon shoutsForce usetotally unique space magic, unless it hits them, then it’s just like being shot. Even Oblivion guards would tell you to holster your weapons, Starfield guards won’t even grunt if you shoot around like a maniac (but hit nobody)I am so glad for game pass (at least before the price hike).
I tried Starfield and found it just so contrived and boring. To being made to touch and gather the weird space magic stuff in the asteroid to just suddenly being given a space ship to the inane combat and awful environments.
And this is someone coming from over 5,000 hours in F04 (and 2000 across Fallout titles, and God knows how much across Morrowwind, Skyrim, Oblivion etc). I am very much used to Bethesda jank.
But jeebus, Starfield is as compelling as wet toast. I read the synopsis of the game and was utterly relieved to have missed wasting countless hours in what has to be one of the worst written and developed games of the past 10 years.
That said it is clear Starfield was a huge pump and dump scheme by Zenimax to sell Bethesda to MS under the idea Starfield was gonna be the next Elder Scroll/fallout block buster. (not to mention populating stories about giving Sony an exclusive on Starfield to make MS jealous)
Little did they know they were buying pure Todd co
kepium that had been cut with a shit tone of sweet’n lowStarfield only reinforced my aversion to pre-ordering.
I had about $100 set aside to pre-order the deluxe edition of Starfield when orders went available, but around that same time, a similarly priced, new limited-time premium cosmetic pack was announced for Warframe, and they did one of those things where “and it’s out RIGHT NOW!” (we typically know at least a couple months in advance before something drops), so I, without hesitation, redirected those funds to the Warframe item and did not order Starfield.
Still one of the best decisions I’ve made. Starfield, even had it delivered on all its promises, was just not the game I was looking for. I pledged for a Star Citizen ship two months later.
spoiler
Those last couple sentences are like a short horror story.
Witcher 3. Absolutely hated the sluggish movement, only made it a few hours
Same I’ve tried 3 times to get into it, but after a couple of hours I quit.
Oh, I gave it about an hour before giving up. I expected more.
Would you recommend the other games in the series?
I haven’t played any of the others but was assured it was no problem. My real controversial opinion is that I didn’t think the voice acting was that great either
It’s just an incredibly soulless game, towns are filled with cardboard cutout npcs, there’s generic guard, wandering peasant, blah blah blah
Fighting, even on Blood level, is trivial
“Searching” around with witcher senses is an absolutely pathetic mechanic
I’m not into “dark” games so I’ll just accept that this one isn’t for me
I modded it quite a bit to make it more enjoyable. Eventually just stopped playing without finishing everything though.
Funny for me it was RDR2. I still think I probably would have liked it if I stuck with it, but 20 minutes in I was told that I would have to regularly clean my gun and hunt to feed my camp etc. and it just felt like doing a bunch of chores and I noped straight out.
Gun cleaning, hunting, feeding camp, doing chores, etc are all optional in that game. You can just do missions to get to the end of the game with no problem.
Thats where I stopped. I played the prologue and was having a blast, then you get to the first camp and it shows you all the stuff youre expected to do and it just looked like hassle.
I couldn’t agree more. RDR2 has this aura of “you can do so many things, in any order, all the exploration, etc” and to me it feels like no one stopped to ask “are any of the things fun?”
I wanted to play Cuphead because I really liked the concept and the aesthetic. I got it not knowing its reputation for being hard as absolute fuck. Played it for several days with increasing frustration, started watching walkthroughs, those didn’t help, still tried to stubbornly stick with it, and eventually got to the point where my heart just wasn’t in it anymore.
If it helps, ive felt this way about a few games throughout my life and after beating my head against them for a while i would gice up and take a break. However, when returning later, i found things weren’t quite as hard for me, and i was able to make progress.
Don’t [permanently] give up!
…Or do. Gaming doesn’t have to be that deep. There are plenty of other experiences to enjoy, anyway!
Yeah, I loved the concept, hated the gameplay. There’s a TV show that’s way better than playing the game.
Duke Nukem Forever. As a teen Duke Nukem 3D was one of my most loved gaming experiences. Awesome game, came with easy to use level editor (Never got the original doom level editors to work back then). Played many many hours, made my own levels. Just plain loved the game.
Then the wait for Duke4Ever started and I waited, and waited and waited and (continue for 20 years so) and finaly got to play it.
It wasn’t bad really, it just wasn’t as fun as Duke3D was in my teens. It still had the same kind of humor, but never really hit any high notes. Weapons were limited, instead of having a weapon behind each number on the keyboard, now it was pick one up and drop one off.
Didn’t even try to see how the level editing was.
Maybe I’ll pick it up again if it’s a euro on Steam or GOG, as Duke3D still is loved childhood memory.
I played DNF shortly after release 🏴☠️ , but I was already an adult by then and was aware of the development hell that the game went thru. Started playing not expecting much and I was still disappointed.
“Power armor is for pussies!” - says the guy whose game is almost literally a shitty Halo: only 2 weapons, limited ammo, regenerating
shieldego.Duke3D was definitely peak Duke. I didn’t love DNF either. It was just meh. Fun enough for the time I played it, but never went back to it.
Any pokemon game after gen 2.
I started in 1999 with red. It was a childhood-defining experience. I spent all summer with my nose in that game boy. Keep in mind I had to use a loupe mounted in a glasses frame and had to hold the screen an inch from my eye, so the ergonomics weren’t ideal, but the experience was compelling enough for me to bear through it. Then I got gold in the summer of 2001, I think, and was blown away. It was an upgrade in every way. I personally think the series peaked with gen 2. To be absolutely clear I am not a “gen-wunner” or whatever the word is. I just think the combination of the game itself and the zeitgeist it created for those first few years came together to make something unrepeatable.
Gold and Silver came out while Pokemon was still everywhere, but by the time gen 3 released, the craze had ebbed. Yes it was still popular but it was no longer in everyone’s mouth. I was also in the latter half of high school, and most of my friends were no longer into it. I bought the game, so it’s not like I thought I was too old, but it just didn’t feel the same. They removed the day-night cycle and the calendar functionality. It felt like a downgrade.
I’ve tried several times since to rekindle that feeling I got in 1999. The closest was with Pokemon Go in 2016. For a few weeks it felt like the late 90s again, with everyone and their dog talking about Pokemon. I actually beat Pokemon Let’s Go, but I think the nostalgia is what kept me going. Tried with the first Legends game and just couldn’t stay interested. Ditto with Brilliant Diamond.
There has to be a word for not wanting something but wanting to want it. That’s how I feel. (Of course the nice thing about being a conlanger is I can make the word myself 😁)
spoiler
sdC CBa serial verb construction consisting of the verbs
sdC(to pine for/yearn for/be nostalgic for) andCB(to want). Perhaps “to miss wanting” is a close translation.sdC CB qGr qGrbfrp 0 sdC-0 CB-0 qGr-0 qGrbfr-p [1sg] yearn-A want-A play-A video_game-3D I miss wanting to play that video game. 1sg = 1st person singular (0 means it's dropped) -A = authoritative verbal mood (-0 means a null morpheme that isn't pronounced) -3D = 3rd person distal noun suffix ('that video game')I too felt like Gold and Silver was the pinnacle peak of Pokemon popularity. The games were fantastic. The closest I got to playing Pokemon similarly to how I did back then was the remakes of Gold and Silver for the DS.
Generation III, Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, really dulled the franchise as they were trying a lot of new things. Which really felt like a throw-anything-at-the-wall-see-what-sticks way to go about it, only Pokemon.
And granted that Generation IV, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, did fire up that spark again but it only felt like things tapered off once we moved on from that generation.
I had some fun playing slightly newer titles with an action replay to cut down on the grind and it really helped.
Any after gen 5 for me. Gen 5 is actually my favourite
I feel this one deep.
The word you are looking for isn’t “wish”? Like “I wish that happen again”. My first experience with a Pokémon game was with Pokémon Red Fire in a GBA, back in 2006 or 2007. That game itself obfuscate the third gen games. Ruby and Saphire aren’t bad games, but something definitively felts off.
Elden Ring. Love DS2 and 3 but I HATE the open world aspect. Makes it feel pointless and then sucks to find out my exploring took me somewhere I can’t deal with due to my level.
Came here for the same thing.
Found ER way too easy after the souls trilogy.
The open world and torrent let you run away anything you want, making the open world a very safe and not dangerous at all place.
Paradoxaly, riding 10km in 5min makes the Lands Between feel way smaller than any dark souls area, where you have to fight for you like every meter
Tbf i liked doing malenia and radahn, and all the “big dungeons”. (Damn actually i would prefer the game if it were just the concatenation of all dungons like a souls game.)
Anyway, very sad to enjoy this game as i loved the souls
AND GIVE ME BACK THE HELLISH RUNBACKS, I WANT TO FEEL THE FEAR OF DYING WHEN I FIGHT BOSSES (thank you silksong)
There was the “spiritual successor” of L4D announced. Back 4 Blood looked like a very nice and fun L4D clone with some new mechanics thrown in. I have applied for a Beta to try it out and got lucky!
Game was boring AF. Play on medium difficulty and you can’t do it without real players who actually have to be decent shooters including you. Basically, enemies hit you harder and you hit them less. Same as Left 4 Dead, right? Well… In Left 4 dead you’d just shoot special infected til they drop dead. Here, some infected are impeccable unless you shoot weak spots that are so tiny you might aswell just waste all your ammo on plain shooting. And a typical non-boss special infected on medium diffciulty is like tank on expert in L4D. PvP is locked in a small area so no actual campaign pvp like in L4D.
Also, afaik, card mechanics was broken in so many ways that they only kept nerfing it from the release til they closed servers.
Sonic CD.
For years and years it was a mythical sonic game, a rare golden-era game hardly anyone had got to play. And I’d slightly mis-remembered it appearing way more advanced and fluid than a mega drive game.
After being obsessed with Sonic in my youth, after finally getting to play it, it just felt like a less enjoyable Sonic 1.
I’ve never even bothered to finish it.
Agreed, and the level design in Sonic CD is absolutely atrocious. It’s like they put the guy who designed the Spring Yard Zone in Sonic 1 in charge of the entire game. Sonic 2 is vastly superior, and I maintain to this day that anyone who claims Sonic CD is better is either deliberately trolling or is doing some kind of more-hipster-than-thou thing as their shtick.
My personal experience with the Mega Drive Sonic games was always “fun first 2 stages, not so fun afterwards”
I had a really love/hate relationship with the pinball stages in Sonic 2.
Baldurs Gate 3 for me. I like the game mechanics and everything like that, but the story and characters put me off. The characters in general because of how unlikeable they all are, and the story I think my main problem is mostly that I know nothing about D&D and the game doesn’t try to introduce anything. So I can’t even follow the conversations properly because half the time I have no idea what they are talking about.
Just fyi, if you hate the main characters you can kill then if you want and just have generic NPCs as your companions.
Or you can ignore them full on it you don’t want to kill them - you don’t need them to join you.
I’m surprised you dislike Karlach though, the most normal/relatable one.
I think it took me getting to act 2 before I started liking anyone besides Gale and Wyll.
In the end I mostly stuck around Shadowheart but at first she was REAAAALLY annoying. I hated her guts lol.
I really enjoyed the game with 0 knowledge about the lore
That’s promising. I want to try it but don’t want to play the two precursors
You don’t have to, they are very old games and quite hard to play if you are not used to the genre. I believe that practically the only connections are two reoccurring characters whom you don’t need to know anything about beforehand.
My experience was the opposite (hated the gameplay, loved the lore). I couldn’t finish it because every fight was a lopsided slog and nonstop environmental hazards made exploring annoying as fuck.
My least favorite thing about BG3 is every enemy seems to be able to do so many actions and will nail your team from a mile away, yet you have a slim to none chance to hit, and when you hit you do a whopping 2 damage or something.
I finally started having an OK time with the game by messing with the custom settings to make combat more fun. But I have never finished it. Much more fun games keep popping up.
Baldur’s Gate 3 for me as well. BG2 is on my top five all time favorite games. BG3 was just a tedious bore.
I’ve played D&D and can’t follow half the BG3 conversations either. Names of places and characters have no intrinsic meaning. I find it to be a major pain in the ass to manage my own character’s abilities, let alone ~8 in total. Yes, there’s auto/suggested builds so you don’t have to choose everything, but it’s still difficult to remember how to utilize everyone. Plus, all that freedom of choice means freedom to pigeon hole yourself into some situation - unintended consequences, missed opportunities, that sort of thing. Yes, that’s great for roleplay, depth of game, replayability, and all that, but I just don’t have the time to get into that anymore.
Still playing tho. Took me like 20 hours to get into the swing of things. That’s also about how long it took me to get comfortable with Elite Dangerous, actually. But the 1200hrs in THAT game certainly paints a different picture about enjoyment
Really sorry to hear. Imho, it’s a strong candidate for best game of all time. I actually love the characters and I think you don’t need that much knowledge on lore to follow the story… I do know some lore, having previously played NWN 1 and 2 only…
Mewgenics. I just couldn’t squeeze any fun out of it. Wish there wasn’t 10 minutes of busy work every time I want to start a new run. Wish items were game-changing like in Isaac.
Agreed.
I really wish they had found a way to make their original concept fun. I was so excited for that.
The thing they turned it in to is just sooo not for me. I bounced off it HARD.
I am with you. I really want to like the game, but it just is not fun. I gave it 15 hrs.
Add to your list just how tedious all the bosses and mini bosses are. All of them act with maximum efficiency on every turn. Causes so many battles with them to drag on.
There are game changing items combinations. But it depends also on your traits.
For example, one run, I had a cleric that shared his regeneration with other cats, and an item that gave me +3 regen if I had at least 1 armor point.
So I equipped an armor item and every turn, my cats would heal 4 hp, making them extremely tanky and making the run trivial.
But it’s hard to get a combo going.
