Games you just couldn't get into

[Frindis]

Those romantic vampire puzzle games. I don't have a better word for them, but they pop up on Steam from time to time and I got a few of them through a couple of bundles in the past. I'm a man, so my multitasking abilities are quite slim, which makes RTS games often hard for me. I'm your typical base building bashing idiot that hopes something is done in the correct order and that I somehow can defeat my enemies with brute force. Tower defense games are also not really my cup of tea, but I'm going to try out Toy Soldier and Orcs Must Die as I have heard a lot of good things about them. I think most of my dislike for that genre comes from the flash games I have played.

 

[Pifanjr]

Those romantic vampire puzzle games. I don't have a better word for them, but they pop up on Steam from time to time and I got a few of them through a couple of bundles in the past. I'm a man, so my multitasking abilities are quite slim, which makes RTS games often hard for me. I'm your typical base building bashing idiot that hopes something is done in the correct order and that I somehow can defeat my enemies with brute force. Tower defense games are also not really my cup of tea, but I'm going to try out Toy Soldier and Orcs Must Die as I have heard a lot of good things about them. I think most of my dislike for that genre comes from the flash games I have played.

I don't care for Tower Defense either and RTS games are only enjoyable with friends. Starcraft 2 is the only game where I actually really enjoyed the campaign, though I've never gotten around to doing Legacy of the Void.

 

[Frindis]

@Pifanjr Heard a lot of good things about that campaign and definitely going to give it a go. I did play some Starcraft 2 multiplayer back in the day (Zerg my favorite), which makes me wonder why the hell I never tried out the campaign. I reckon I just got invited by some friends and it went from there.

 

[JCgames]

@Pifanjr Heard a lot of good things about that campaign and definitely going to give it a go. I did play some Starcraft 2 multiplayer back in the day (Zerg my favorite), which makes me wonder why the hell I never tried out the campaign. I reckon I just got invited by some friends and it went from there.

the campaign is good for newbies and people with slower twitch skills. I used to play a ton of SC back in the late 90's. I was maybe mid level? I climbed the ladder a little, but was no where near on skill with the good players. But i could also wreck folks too. Had some fantastic matches and over all had a lot of fun till i started playing MMO's.

That said these days i would avoid any RTS online like the plague outside of playing a friend for kicks.

 

[Pifanjr]

the campaign is good for newbies and people with slower twitch skills. I used to play a ton of SC back in the late 90's. I was maybe mid level? I climbed the ladder a little, but was no where near on skill with the good players. But i could also wreck folks too. Had some fantastic matches and over all had a lot of fun till i started playing MMO's.

That said these days i would avoid any RTS online like the plague outside of playing a friend for kicks.

Yeah, you definitely don't need to be very good at RTS games to do the campaign, especially not on the lower difficulty settings.

 

[Johnway]

Speaking of Starcraft 2 another game i didn't get into was starcraft. I think it was probably more about me then it tbh. The key things that meant i didn't get on the game were:

1. Graphics. Well, more the landscape and how clunky it felt.
2. my lack of RTS knowledge. Playing SC2 i'm kinda surprised as to how many probes, drones, SCU i need to harvest resources.
3. The mechaniacs kinder irked me. The terran's were the most conventional and yet... i was still in C&C thinking i would get light, medium, heavy tanks super units etc. Instead i got odd units that didn't quite work for me. The zerg, i had no problems with. The protoss were probably the most irksome. no healing units except energy shields. A bit of an oversight if you ask me. But whatever.
4. Speed of the game. It felt so slow. Although i hear that there is a speed slider so if i get the chance to play the game again i'll try that and see what happens.
5. The difficulty. I won't lie, i was losing patience with the game and it was challenging. Again probably my meta knowledge was poor.

Strangely i had absolutely no problems with Starcraft 2. in fact i thoroughly enjoyed all 3 of them as it kind of addressed all the problems/issues i had with the game. had a quick play of Wings of liberty a few months back and it was every bit as enjoyable as the first time i played the campaign.

Didn't play multiplayer, i generally don't play multiplayer at all these days.


Red alert 3. i kinda just gave up on the game. It just didn't grab me and i just stopped playing before i finished the imperial japan campaign. Might have to go back to that one.

 

[Pifanjr]

2. my lack of RTS knowledge. Playing SC2 i'm kinda surprised as to how many probes, drones, SCU i need to harvest resources.

That reminds me of the time I played a game of Age of Empires 2 with a friend who regularly played against other people, instead of playing against the AI as I always did (and not on the highest difficulty either). I usually had about 20, maybe 30 villagers at the end of the game and always had a ton of resources, so my mind was blown when I learned that my friend always built at least 50 and preferably up to 80 and used all of the resources. It had never occurred to me to build a dozen barracks to spam units, I usually just had one, maybe two if I built a second outpost.

In my defence though, I think I was about 12 at that time.

4. Speed of the game. It felt so slow. Although i hear that there is a speed slider so if i get the chance to play the game again i'll try that and see what happens.
5. The difficulty. I won't lie, i was losing patience with the game and it was challenging. Again probably my meta knowledge was poor.

Slow? Starcraft felt like a high speed train compared to Age of Empires, which was my favourite RTS. Even compared to C&C Tiberian Sun it was far faster. At least, I died a lot faster. It wasn't until someone who knew the game taught me how to play that I was able to defeat the AI, before that I died within 5 minutes, quicker if playing against Zerg.

 

[Johnway]

That reminds me of the time I played a game of Age of Empires 2 with a friend who regularly played against other people, instead of playing against the AI as I always did (and not on the highest difficulty either). I usually had about 20, maybe 30 villagers at the end of the game and always had a ton of resources, so my mind was blown when I learned that my friend always built at least 50 and preferably up to 80 and used all of the resources. It had never occurred to me to build a dozen barracks to spam units, I usually just had one, maybe two if I built a second outpost.

i didn't realize the number of workers needed in Starcraft until i played Legacy of the void and the game very generously let me know how many i really needed. An absolute eyeopener. Its something i'll probably remember when i play other RTS games.

Slow? Starcraft felt like a high speed train compared to Age of Empires, which was my favourite RTS. Even compared to C&C Tiberian Sun it was far faster. At least, I died a lot faster. It wasn't until someone who knew the game taught me how to play that I was able to defeat the AI, before that I died within 5 minutes, quicker if playing against Zerg.

I don't think it was the TTK. I think what made it feel slow was the unit animations. it felt like it was ... missing a few frames and it didn't sit well with me. i mean compare it with the SC2 units that seem to be smoothly animated and the SC ones felt... i dunno they looked slightly slower. i never played skirmish and honestly with my lack of experience in RTS games i very much favoured the terran/zerg at least i could understand those units and i could just send large armies of units or siege warfare. The Protoss was everything i didn't like about strategy games, micromanagement, the units were expense, didn't think much of their units their siege solution of needing to pay to build projectiles irked me.

Speaking of Age of empires 2, i didn't get on with that game either. Again resource management was the bane of my life. Farmers just stopped farming as opposed to reseeding a plot of land. The joan of arc campaign was suppose to be easy and i was utterly humiliated by how challenging it was. i think it was the longbow men just always out ranging me and picking me off. i got so feed up with the game i just turned on the cheats and messed around until i got bored of that.

Why i bought AoE2 the definitive edition last year i have no idea. Maybe because of the quality of life changes, maybe because i had fun with AoE3 and was more experienced maybe i knew i didn't give the game a fair chance or perhaps it was the expansion packs.

Whats this? AoE2 definitive edition isn't definitive? you mean there is a new DLC campaign and factions? FFS.

 

[McStabStab]

Europa Universalis IV - It just wasn't for me. I actually sunk 23 hours into it trying to learn the mechanics, watching streams, and checking tutorials, only to realize that no matter what I did I was not having that much fun.

The Evil Within - The story just jumped from scene to scene without any meaningful sense of progression, and the game kept moving the goalposts on boss battles. Yahtzee does a great Zero Punctuation bit on it that pretty much sums up my feelings:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xX5Q2iNZQ
Funny thing is I actually LOVED The Evil Within 2.

XCOM2 - As a fan of pretty much every X-Com game up to this point, this was a big disappointment for me. I put 40 hours into this game before giving up. The Avatar project is a grind. Ruler battles are not fun. Timers for loot, timers for extract, timers for objectives, timers for the Avatar project. Save scum, save scum, save scum. Ugh.

2D Platformers in general - Maybe because I played so many as a kid they've lost their luster, but I can't play through Celeste or Cuphead without wishing that I was playing something else. The rare exceptions are the ones that skirt the genre, like Terraria and Little Nightmares, but even those I'm less likely to play than something else in my library.

 

[Sinner7]

Here are a few....
Mass Effect series
Assassins Creed series
COD series
GTA series
Any game with strategy or squad based....

 

[Frag Maniac]

The Evil Within - The story just jumped from scene to scene without any meaningful sense of progression, and the game kept moving the goalposts on boss battles. Yahtzee does a great Zero Punctuation bit on it that pretty much sums up my feelings:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11xX5Q2iNZQ
Funny thing is I actually LOVED The Evil Within 2.

I feel both RE4 and TEW are great games, but like many whom prefer their survival horror games to actually FEEL like survival horror, I ended up liking TEW more. RE4 is far more of a less challenging arcade horror game than a truly visceral survival horror game. There are definitely many places in TEW where you need to decide whether it's better to try and dash past enemies, or use a fair bit of ammo and resources. You also need to be diligent about collecting resources on harder modes. In RE4, it's like a candy store by comparison with far too much ammo, largely due to the many appearances of the trader in the world you can sell loot to and buy goods from.

I also feel from a pure survival horror standpoint, TEW is also far better than TEW2. All they did with TEW2 is throw in a central open sandbox area and litter the game with ill conceived ideas like a cover system, auto takedowns, and enemies that don't chase you very far and give up looking immediately after losing sight of you. Features like that have no business being in a survival horror game, Mind you these were most likely included due to people complaining about TEW being too hard to play, without doing adequate testing on methods. Gamers really aren't up for much of a challenge these days it seems because they lack the patience to learn how to deal with them. Another thing about TEW was it had tons of replay value because the harder the mode you played on, the more aware and fast the enemies were, and wall mines were far harder to disarm. It was also unpredictable at it's core on any mode just due not knowing if knocked down enemies would get back up, which also made you think about how to spend your matches, and how to equip yourself. You also had to very carefully sneak up behind them due to them looking left and right a lot, sometimes wildly twitching when doing so. It also had a couple powerful one hit, one kill weapons you could carry with you, which played into the strategy.

The only negatives for me were the shoddy launch condition and the horrible heavy glare filter they used, which also somewhat muted colors and blurred textures. Fortunately the former was fixed relatively quickly with a patch, and the latter with a command you could use to remove the filter, at least on PC anyway.

As far as Yahtzee goes, I can never take the reviews too seriously. The guy just seems honed in on one thing, showing off his cavalier ego and devil may care attitude, which I also feel makes him miss lots of points, like how in reality RE4 and TEW are two very different games from a gameplay perspective. When a reviewer blatantly glosses over such crucial gameplay differences, and only harps on content elements that are more personal preference and trivial by comparison, I also have to wonder if he's even any good at actually PLAYING games.

I loved TEW so much I made a tutorial video series on how to beat it on Akumu with no locker keys, gel upgrades, or DLC weapons. It was no doubt very challenging, but yet another example of the reward of really getting to know a game well. On my first few play throughs I really did enjoy the nuance, strategy, and exploration involved in collecting statue keys, using locker loot, and upgrading though. By my last play through I was ready to abandon the time it takes to use all that stuff, but there's still a fair bit of time involved in working out new strategies going without it.

This is also captured via the command I mentioned to remove the glare filter,
so regardless of opinions on gameplay, it shows how good the game can look.

Full playlist - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHB6vX_n-5BP6l80RHREtCPPce4IfaVfc

 

[StaticFX]

GTA5 - i found it deathly boring after a few hours. Witcher 3... was good but lost my attention.
Actually there are lots of games I never finished lol.

I got Thief, but never played (because I got 3 fps.. yes.. three)

 

[Pifanjr]

2D Platformers in general - Maybe because I played so many as a kid they've lost their luster, but I can't play through Celeste or Cuphead without wishing that I was playing something else. The rare exceptions are the ones that skirt the genre, like Terraria and Little Nightmares, but even those I'm less likely to play than something else in my library.

That reminds me of UnEpic, which I played for 3 hours or so before I got fed up with the platform mechanics. Something similar happened with Rogue Galaxy.

 

[Frag Maniac]

GTA5 - i found it deathly boring after a few hours. Witcher 3... was good but lost my attention.
Actually there are lots of games I never finished lol.

I got Thief, but never played (because I got 3 fps.. yes.. three)

Curious as to what you grew tired of the most in GTA V? For me, it was the silly constant bickering between Michael and Trevor.

 

[Johnway]

Yeah i didn't like GTA V myself. The thought that springs to mind is "Miles wide, metres deep" it was just an empty shell and the intention was probably because of multiplayer. The map in SP is a vast amount of empty desert (which it is) lots of potential but little to do. The city might as well have been just human built mountains. Didn't play much of that based on how much Coop i had to do with random's and its not helped by the rumors of the trolling in that game.

i did finish it, but it was a massive disappointment for me and one i have no intention of going back to play again.

 

[McStabStab]

@Frag Maniac I completely agree on Yahtzee, his videos are more funny comedy bits than reviews, but I do remember finishing the game with mixed feelings and then seeing Yahtzee's video and laughing because it essentially validated my feelings towards the game.

It still stands fairly divisive on the forums between the two games. The first danced on the line between action horror and survival horror, where the 2nd just decided alright this is full on action horror.

 

[#Senpai]

I'd say 4X games and I cannot seem to workout. It's just so complex.

 

[badman]

Doom Eternal.

I know, it 'should' be great, according to reviews. But I refunded it. I had a 'meh'-feeling when I played it. And that's from a guy who currently loves Terminator Resistance.

I finished the previous (new) Doom game and thought it was good. Doom Eternal was probably overdoing it. It was more of the same, and my main problem with these games lies in the atmosphere and levelstructure. I'm the guy who needs to get lost in levels, who needs to search for ages to find all those secrets and some 'close to home' setting makes the game even more appealing. Doom Eternal is too straight forward for me: action, one way to go, simple and raw. It's set in some distant space/hellish fantasyworld. Not my cup...

 

[Johnway]

Speaking of Doom, doom 2016 wasn't really my cup of tea. I think it was partly because i played it on ultra violence. But it kinda felt all wrong to play for me. One of the things is probably too many weapons, different settings etc and it meant more button presses to get going. Secondly i wasn't particularly impressed with some of the weapons. Some felt they either lacked oomph or was just meh. The other problem is probably the serious ammo limitations. Scraps just felt like a chore thankless task of constantly swapping weapons and shoe horning the brutality mechanics in place. If there is one thing i hate of arena shooters, is insufficient ammo. I rather spend the time concentrating on the fight rather then running around with no ammo.

i'm a big fan of doom2 and the modding community so i'm stuck in my ways probably.

 

[Pifanjr]

Another game that just came to mind is Hearts of Iron. I got into Europa Universalis III, Crusader Kings 2 and with some difficulty I eventually got into Victoria 2 as well, but I really couldn't get into Hearts of Iron at all.

Perhaps it's because it focuses on the combat aspect too much (at least from my limited experience). The other games allow you to do a lot without ever declaring war, but that doesn't really seem to be true for Hearts of Iron.

 

[Splash]

Dark Souls.
I like a challenge as much as the next guy but Dark Souls frustrated me to the point where it just wasn't how I wanted spend my spare time.

 

[Pifanjr]

Dark Souls.
I like a challenge as much as the next guy but Dark Souls frustrated me to the point where it just wasn't how I wanted spend my spare time.

I recently played it with two friends, helping each other get through the next boss battle. It makes the game a lot less of a brick wall you bash your head against until you get through and instead a fun action-adventure game.

 

[Johnway]

Dark Souls.
I like a challenge as much as the next guy but Dark Souls frustrated me to the point where it just wasn't how I wanted spend my spare time.

Whilst i didn't hate the dark souls series. I almost nearly hated that game. The clunky controls even with joypad, the lack of narrative (quite literally thrown into the game with minimal plot). Oh and heading towards the graveyard getting thrashed by skeletons almost made me bin that game. Thank god after nearly an hour of bashing my head against a wall i discovered i had to take the other path instead. I didn't see it the first time as it looked like an area i couldn't go. Had they designed it slightly better i might have tweaked sooner. Oh well.


Resident evil 5 is probably another game i absolutely didn't along with. When i first got that game, i didn't play Re4 but some of the criticisms i make about RE5 i could say about RE4. But RE5 gets more flak because it was a sequel but also it added crap that i detested to the extreme.

Whilst story was one of the biggest factors for my hate, the gameplay was the bigger problem. Design choices that didn't make sense;

-Terrible AI packing an AI character to do side things pissed me off no end. Especially when they got downed and you couldn't revive them. The game then had the gall to say YOU died. I could name several other areas that pissed me off.
-Terrible inventory management. Restricted number of slots, a god awful shop. Why can i buy guns but not ammo for the guns? Where the hell was the logic in that?
-Stupid tank controls. The biggest problem was shooting meant you had to plant your feet firmly on the ground to shoot. Stupid.
-QTE sessions
-one Hit instanta death (the middle finger of gaming).
-Felt like the game was recycling ideas from RE4. The level progression was similar as well, just with an african twist as opposed to a medieval twist that all ends with fighting military zombies.
-Melee being more effective then guns. Far too often i heard that you had to use your weapons to stun enemies and then finish them with close quarter attacks. In some cases your fists did more damage then a shotgun! Or my handy tip, constantly knee cap all the enemies to finish them off with a neck snap.