A game you wanted to like but you just couldn't?

[Frindis]

Dragons Dogma. I really, really wanted to like it! I remember playing it for a couple of hours and being quite impressed with how the night worked and that if you didn't have a torch with you everything would be pitch black. Then I played a little more and got to an encounter with a giant cyclops and I just went: oh, man, this is boring! It was the same with Dragon Age: Inquisition and I thought it might have had something to do with controlling different characters, but then I remembered I had a good time playing Dragon Age: Origins.

So, I just concluded that those two games just didn't have what I wanted, but without really knowing exactly what it was I didn't like. While saying that, I am a little hyped for Dragons Dogma 2! The combat is probably just the same, but I feel there might be something different in this one....maybe.

Here is a fun fact: It took me some tries to like Witcher 3 and it was mainly because of how the landscape was presented. Everything looked so small while you were riding horseback and I also thought the tress behaved ridiculously which broke the immersion for me, but thankfully after some more hours of playing, I started to think less of it and got more invested in the amazing story!

What about you? What game did you want to like, but never actually could?

 

[Alm]

I'm wondering if my memory is shot. I bought a star wars rts many years ago but I found it too difficult to control. I searched for tips on the web but it seemed that the consensus was it was just a bad game. I thought it was probably empire at war but that has a 97% positive on Steam.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'm wondering if my memory is shot. I bought a star wars rts many years ago but I found it too difficult to control. I searched for tips on the web but it seemed that the consensus was it was just a bad game. I thought it was probably empire at war but that has a 97% positive on Steam.

I do remember Empires at War from the time and the controls were pretty loosey goosey somehow. I think it gets a lot of slack for just being Star Wars, and if I remember right there are a ton of mods for it to improve it.
-------------------------------------------------------


As to the question, I'll say Nier Automata. How people talk about the storyline and how it works out sounds exactly my thing, and the shoot em up mini games and weirdness were fun, but the gameplay just didnt hold my interest after a few hours. Tried twice, got about the same place 10 hours in and fell off both times

 

[Frindis]

I just remembered another one! Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I heard a lot of good talk about it with the theme and all, but after trying it for a while I just couldn't get into it. I remember the voices being annoying or something like that.

@Kaamos_Llama Nier Automata is one of these games I think would be fun to play, but I know I would suck at playing it

​

 

[DXCHASE]

Baldurs Gate 3, but mainly just TBC games. Ive tried them so many times; BG3, Divinity Original Sin, FF 10, XCOM, the list goes on.

Its just too...slow... and i just cant get behind running out of 'points' to use when moving across a room to kill someone because its so immersive breaking to me i just lose interest quickly.

 

[Frindis]

@DXCHASE Funny you mention that because I see some similarity (immersion breaking) in that and why I don't like the JRPGS where you have to do the same bloody area again if you go back to it. I mean, I love a lot of the fabled SNES Chrono Trigger (music, art) but I got so fed up with ALL the backtracking and ending up with the same fight over and over and over again. I will never understand how people would go through that over and over again and enjoy it.

 

[Johnway]

Without a doubt, metal gear solid series is one of the key games. Critically acclaimed, filled with great ideas, features, graphics and was a must play game on the PS1. What i experienced was something that was pretentious, graphically impressive but deeply flawed and put form before function. Spend more time watching absolute drivel then playing the game. The story itself was delivered in a way that irritated and annoyed the hell out of me.

Guild wars 2. to be fair, all MMOs aren't my cup of tea . But GW2 did things differently apparently, but i found it too boring to play. the problem is more the mechanics of the MMO, too many fetch quests and the enemies are passive at best.

Xcom apocalypse and jagged alliance series. Far too ancient and clunky for me to enjoy. real shame i would love to play those games.

 

[Frindis]

@Johnway The PvE was insanely boring in GW2, but they did a lot of things right with the World vs World PvP. The PvP outside of that area was also fun and I did a couple of PvP tournaments with the guild I was a part of back then. If I am not mistaken, GW2 was also one of the first MMOs that did shared sector-based PVE quests. At least that made it a bit more about team effort, but not necessarily making it that much more interesting.

 

[ZedClampet]

I have about 100 bad games that I wished I liked, but we won't count those.

Of the good games that I wished I liked, the 3 that come immediately to mind are Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium and Against the Storm.

Now, with the exception of Disco Elysium, there is a chance that i will try the others again and possibly enjoy them. I like CRPGs like Baldur's Gate, but I've actually never liked Larian's versions before. Even though I'm a big fan of sandboxes, I like my CRPGs to be a little more structured and give me a clear idea of things to do next, which Larian games don't always do. That wasn't bad with Baldur's Gate 3, but the story just didn't grab me. I need to be invested in the story to enjoy these types of games, and I just wasn't in BG3.

As for Against the Storm, I may just not have been in the mood for colony sims at the time I tried it. Not sure what happened there.

But Disco Elysium? I loathe that game and its cheap deaths and miserable protagonist. That one is not getting another chance from me.

 

[Pifanjr]

There's probably a ton of them, but I'm too tired to think right now. One that does come to mind is Bioshock. I had already played Bioshock: Infinite and liked it, so I decided to give Bioshock a try too since I heard so many good things about it. Now maybe it was my mistake of trying it on hard or trying to play it stealthy, but I quit after the first chapter.

I also liked Fallout 4 much less than the other open world Bethesda games. I did put about 40 hours in it, so it's not that I didn't like it at all, but it didn't draw me in like other Bethesda games have. I think I would have liked it more without the crafting system that incentivizes looking at every object to see if it has good crafting components. If I do ever go back to it I'm not going to take any of the crafting perks.

But Disco Elysium? I loathe that game and it's cheap deaths and miserable protagonist. That one is not getting another chance from me.

I do think I'll get back to Disco Elysium at some point, but the cheap deaths and miserable protagonist were also major reasons I stopped playing after the first day.

 

[Brian Boru]

Hah, Pifanjr stealing my thunder!

Fallout 4 would be top of the list—I even started a playthru thread here but let it drop. I intend to return 'some time'.

Bioshock series—I've posted here before about the depressing setting wearing me out.

Dishonored series—same as Bioshock, I just don't need squalor and vermin in my gaming.

Borderlands 2 was supposed to be like Far Cry, but crap guns, too much melee, and not open world.

Crysis 2 & 3—these got 'consolized', so a huge disappointment after one of my all-time favs in 1 + Warhead.

Sniper Ghost Warrior 2—Love SGW3, but this one is linear, dark, low agency.

Third Person Perspective

Just doesn't work for me, games I have I'd like to revisit with a FPP mod:
Recent Tomb Raiders and Assassins Creeds, Control and MGS5.
Will get if hits $5—Horizon ZD games, might get a few hours out of them.

 

[Colif]

Too many to number. plenty in the early years when all you got to go on was the cover art for the game in the shop. Blind purchases are not always good. Did find a few but it was hit & miss.

I guess it doesn't help when you don't like most of the ones released every year... without ever trying them.

Bethesda Fallout games & Skyram: just not for me... which is a shame as I liked NV. If they hadn't let someone else make one game, I wouldn't like any of the series.
GTA 5: Its just not for me... didn't get very far at all. I don't really like shooting games.
Path of Exile: i have tried... its like the biggest ARPG but I always found it clunky... might try POE 2 when it comes out.
Children of Light: Its made by people who made Journey... its essentially Multiplayer Journey... I didn't like how instead of being able to choose to team up, its essential to passing some things. That and its all about colllectables and skins... didn't feel like I was right age group. Never felt that way in Journey.

Will post if I think of more.

 

[Zloth]

Dragons Dogma. I really, really wanted to like it! I remember playing it for a couple of hours and being quite impressed with how the night worked and that if you didn't have a torch with you everything would be pitch black. Then I played a little more and got to an encounter with a giant cyclops and I just went: oh, man, this is boring!

WHAT!? Zloth jumps onto Frindis' shoulders and starts looking all over his scalp

How do you pop the hood on this thing? Something isn't connected right. Nothing a little spit & glue can't solve, I'm sure, but I've got to get in there!

What about you? What game did you want to like, but never actually could?

Well, I've never bought a game without wanting to like it, so quite a few.

Third person real time is bad for me, too, but not normal third person - I'm talking scaled way back third person, like RTS games or Diablo-likes. I made it through Command & Conquer, Diablo 1 (barely), and I think the first Icewind Dale. I might have made it through the second Homeworld game (now called Homeworld Emergence), but I'm not sure there. Sins of a Solar Empire didn't last long for me, either. Solaris lasted a lot longer but, once the fleets started getting big and more battles were happening, I got tired of it.

I can take that kind of real time 3rd person for short periods. Sword of the Stars had real time battles, but they didn't last all that long. Most of the game was played on stellar map. (Plus, I loved watching those plasma torps hit.)

 

[Colif]

WHAT!? Zloth jumps onto Frindis' shoulders and starts looking all over his scalp

Just shows we not all the same.
DD wasn't a bad game when I played it years ago, but I also get it mixed up with another game from my past so not sure which parts of my memory are actually that game. DD2 due out in March...

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I just remembered another one! Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I heard a lot of good talk about it with the theme and all, but after trying it for a while I just couldn't get into it. I remember the voices being annoying or something like that.

@Kaamos_Llama Nier Automata is one of these games I think would be fun to play, but I know I would suck at playing it

​

I loved Hellblades character and story, but the puzzles were boring so totally get you there.

Nier is basically a JRPG in equipment and menus, with slightly button mashy 3d combat. I thought it was fine but it wasnt particularly good at making me feel skillful outside of the shoot em up mini game parts

But Disco Elysium? I loathe that game and its cheap deaths and miserable protagonist. That one is not getting another chance from me.

I do think I'll get back to Disco Elysium at some point, but the cheap deaths and miserable protagonist were also major reasons I stopped playing after the first day.

The thing about being an amnesiac drug and alcohol wasted mess without a memory is that the character is a blank canvas to do whatever the player wants with, and the game lets you do with that what you will. Its doesn't make any kind of redemption easy or that obvious, doesnt even make out like that means anything in the end either, but its kind of beautiful for that.

 

[Pifanjr]

Two more that came to mind:

Control: I really liked the setting, but I really disliked the gameplay. For some reason I had a really hard time just shooting enemies without getting overwhelmed, so I had to resort to hiding and chucking objects at enemies until they were all dead. The platforming parts sucked even more.

Sacred 2: I really loved Sacred Gold, but Sacred 2 just felt too different. I tried it for maybe half an hour before giving up on it.

 

[ZedClampet]

I loved Hellblades character and story, but the puzzles were boring so totally get you there.

Nier is basically a JRPG in equipment and menus, with slightly button mashy 3d combat. I thought it was fine but it wasnt particularly good at making me feel skillful outside of the shoot em up mini game parts


The thing about being an amnesiac drug and alcohol wasted mess is that without a memory is that the character is a blank canvas to do whatever the player wants with, and the game lets you do with that what you will. Its doesn't make any kind of redemption easy or that obvious, doesnt even make out like that means anything in the end either, but its kind of beautiful for that.

Not sure I would call that sloppy drunk idiot a blank canvas. He starts off pretty disgusting. If he's a canvas, the canvas probably has vomit on it.

 

[Colif]

Sacred 2: I really loved Sacred Gold, but Sacred 2 just felt too different. I tried it for maybe half an hour before giving up on it.

Bans Pifan and acts like he never existed... deletes all posts as well

Come on... 30 minutes? I played it for 3+ years... but oh well, your loss

 

[OsaX Nymloth]

Dragon's Dogma.
Wanted to like it, but the "consolization" put me off. There were certain elements so clearly designed for consoles/gamepad, that I just couldn't be bothered.

Dragon Age: Inquisition
Another example quite similar to the one above, but this one was treating me like a dumb bucket at every turn. The combat being quasi action RPG and barely any control over companions made me quick very quickly.

Oh well, not that I have a shortage of games to play.

 

[neogunhero]

Most recent one that comes to mind is Horizon Zero Dawn. Something about its world, characters, animations, dialogue and overall gameplay feel just didn’t sit right with me. The beginning took hours to get through before you can explore on your own, and when I got to that point I was just not interesting in continuing.

Prey 2017 is also another one for me. I love a good immersive sim, but I absolutely can’t stand constant backtracking. It’s done with a good reason here, since the main hub is the lobby of the space station and there’s lots of locked doors, other games use it as a cheap excuse to make the game longer so there is a specific reason in Prey. That doesn’t change my mind about backtracking every time you make some decent progress.

And as much as I seriously want to be into this game and franchise, I just can’t play any Hitman games for very long before losing interest. I really don’t like stealth games to begin with, but the modern Hitman games’ sandbox approach to its gameplay was seriously intriguing. I loved how it was presented, I think the graphics are very nice, the audio and tech behind the game is impressive, but as for actually playing it I couldn’t go very far apart from botching a couple missions before I had to give it up.

I would like to give these games another shot because I know they are great games, especially Hitman. I have hundreds more to list like Zed does but I can’t possibly list them all.

 

[Pifanjr]

Bans Pifan and acts like he never existed... deletes all posts as well

Come on... 30 minutes? I played it for 3+ years... but oh well, your loss

I think it was mostly the graphics that just looked weird to me. I think the screen was too cluttered compared to Sacred Gold.

I actually tried playing it again recently, with a friend I used to play Sacred Gold with, but I couldn't get the multiplayer to work. I might give it a try one day when I feel like playing an ARPG again.

 

[Colif]

I can't comment on the multiplayer as I never played it that way. Probably is harder now the servers are long gone.

I can't recall UI of Sacred 1. So I can't really compare. I look at game now and wonder what some things do or are... not playing a game for 10 years does that.

 

[Zloth]

Dragon's Dogma.
Wanted to like it, but the "consolization" put me off. There were certain elements so clearly designed for consoles/gamepad, that I just couldn't be bothered.

That's going to be trouble. Seems like more PC gamers are playing with controllers from couches in front of TVs now (hence Steam's Big Picture Mode). Even a game made purely for PC is liable to be 'consolized.'

 

[Zimbaly]

Most survival games. Ark, The Forest. I've watched friends stream and play it, use to watch my one buddy play at his house. I actually enjoyed watching it more then playing them.

Also Apex Legends. I was so pumped for it till I found out no giant robots. Hey let's make a movie in the Godzilla universe and have no giant monsters in it...........uuuummmmmmmm no. I gave it a go, but it didn't even feel fun playing it. Played it with some L4D2 buds and they loved it...... everyone knows not to invite me.

Two of my biggest games though for this post. CS Source and DoD Source. CS and DoD controlled good, felt snappy and were fun. But the source engine to me just changed how the games felt. I thought it would be a natural progression to DoD Source changing over from old DoD...... basically on that day DoD series sadly died for me and so did CS when source version came out.

Finally the last ones. Pretty much most MOBA games. I hate the default game mode of LoL. Got a few friends who play it and I've only played maybe 10 matches or so of normal mode with them.... or at least I'm hoping that's the most I played with them. I only play ARAM in it. I hate Dota and most others. The only ones I liked were the Dead Island one and Vainglory's quick play game mode. Matches were like 5 minutes.... maybe 10? Hard to remember right now, but it was the only MOBA I played for a while.

 

[Johnway]

I'll throw in another few games. Both RTS games:

Starcraft - It felt wrong to play for me. I was familiar with the C&C mechanics and SC unit composition felt off. The terran's had no armour unit and the one tank they had was a siege unit. The goliath and bike felt like side units (like Anti air and scout). Meanwhile the protoss, whilst had shields they had no life recovery which felt stupid. The other thing was the speed it ran at. I think it could be sped up so that it was smoother. The really strange thing is that i LOVED SC2, the SP QOL improvements, like upgrading basic units, the speed the game ran at, the missions were more interesting and unsurprisingly looked and played better. plus i was more familiar with the RTS mechanics that i could hold me own whereas in SC1 i was absolutely destroyed playing as the protoss.

The Company of Hero series - I dunno about this one. i think the biggest turn off was the pop cap, it meant that i had very limited units and couldn't play like a regular RTS game. The other thing was the AI just wouldn't use cover properly and you would lose individuals soldiers to their stupidity. The whole thing reached its boiling point with ardenne assualt Where i had to not only complete a mission with limited units but had a limited reinforcement cap for the entire campaign. Bloody annoying when i don't have the units i need because of the pop cap and if i play it like a regular RTS game i expect to lose in the long run. To add insult to injury even on EASY i struggled. The AI could (and would) play the game like a regualr multiplayer skirmish and throw units away. Me? i had to keep them alive and every individual casualty in a squad added up.

Men of war series - it was far too complex and clunky that i lost interest in it. Which is strange as the micromanagement of each person would have been great. The other problem for some of the game was some lacked any narrative campaign and were just skirmish missions.