Games you wish you had not bought

[mjs warlord]

First a trip down a very long memory lane ..... Transylvania Tower on the spectrum , it was basically a building full of rooms and bats and you had to wait for each room to reprint , it was claimed it was written in machine code but if you crashed the game you could see the listing written in basic , sadly the guy who made it could not handle the criticism and he took his own life.

Railway empire for pc ..... it came out in 2018 and even though it looked a bit primitive the idea behind it was good , i stopped using it because they admitted it had some sort of memory leaks that they have never fixed , my cpu permanently ran at 100% and everything else was running flat out and i dont think a game with this type of graphics should put that much demand on a pc.

Age of mythology extended .... the remade version by skybox labs NOT the original version made by eso/microsoft.
I got the remade version on day 1 because i played thousands of games on the eso/microsoft version and to say i was disappointed is an understatement.
I was hit by hackers on the day it was released and it is almost impossible to get a game on rated where you score points , i quiet often scan for a game and sit reading to pass the time on and i never get a game.. The biggest problem with the latest version is that if your scores get trashed you can change your name but your score does not go back to the default 1600.

FOOTNOTE the original version of age of mythology is the only game i have played and seen it shut down if chat content got out of hand , the screen used to go black and a message would appear saying ...... chat and games closed due to unacceptable activity please come back tomorrow

 

[Pifanjr]

Railway empire for pc ..... it came out in 2018 and even though it looked a bit primitive the idea behind it was good , i stopped using it because they admitted it had some sort of memory leaks that they have never fixed , my cpu permanently ran at 100% and everything else was running flat out and i dont think a game with this type of graphics should put that much demand on a pc.

I got Railway Empire for free on Epic and though I haven't played that much, I haven't encountered any crashes. Perhaps they've fixed the issue since you last played?

The only game that comes to mind that I regret buying is Ark: Survival Evolved. My computer at the time could not run it. It took longer than I had hoped before I could get an upgrade and now I don't have the time to put in the game any more. Nor does it really seem worth it honestly, from what I've heard of the game.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I have a ton of games that I bought and never ended up playing, or only played 30 minutes and quit. Too many to list.

First a trip down a very long memory lane ..... Transylvania Tower on the spectrum , it was basically a building full of rooms and bats and you had to wait for each room to reprint , it was claimed it was written in machine code but if you crashed the game you could see the listing written in basic , sadly the guy who made it could not handle the criticism and he took his own life.

That's a shame. I watched a video interview of the guy who played JarJar Binks, and he talked about almost taking his life because of bullying over his role.

But I just want to point out it's very possible the game could have used both machine language and BASIC. I did that on the Commodore 64. I would use Assembly Language for the low-end stuff, like graphics handling, but use BASIC for the scripting. They even do similar things today sometimes with game engines and scripting languages. Not saying he did that, but it's possible.

 

[Brian Boru]

Metal Gear Solid 5.
The pain of the intro sequence was no phantom for me. I hope someone comes up with a skip intro mod, because I hear the actual gameplay is very good.

Crysis 2 & 3.
After the sublime experiences of the first halves of Crysis and Warhead, the console-nerfed 2 was quite a disappointment. Graphically beautiful, but essentially a corridor shooter.
Crysis 3 was similarly shackled, mainly a dark & drab world with run & gun gameplay.

Far Cry 2.
Annoying. Impossible to clear enemies out of an area, constant degradation of health and weapons—overreached in search of realism.

Titanfall 2.
Parkour & platforming just aren't my thing.

Doki Doki Literature Club.
Apparently it gets good later, but it was so boring for the 6 hours I put in.

Save the Dodos.
Sadly, not the modern version of Lemmings I was hoping for.

 

[Colif]

I have a ton of games that I bought and never ended up playing, or only played 30 minutes and quit. Too many to list.

ditto

I can't name them as they forgotten as I didn't play them long. In the days when the only way to find a review of the game was to find a magazine that has played it. Many blind purchases based on what back of box looked like. Lucky they weren't all bad or I might have stopped looking for more diamonds in the rough.

I now don't buy very many games at all, might be an over reaction. Its still hard to find real diamonds, lots of shinny pebbles around though, and lots of well polished rubble.

 

[ZedClampet]

I got Railway Empire for free on Epic and though I haven't played that much, I haven't encountered any crashes. Perhaps they've fixed the issue since you last played?

The only game that comes to mind that I regret buying is Ark: Survival Evolved. My computer at the time could not run it. It took longer than I had hoped before I could get an upgrade and now I don't have the time to put in the game any more. Nor does it really seem worth it honestly, from what I've heard of the game.

Ark is a good survival game. It's kind of like Minecraft with the Ender dragon. You have a goal that you want to eventually do, but the rest of the game is just a sandbox for surviving, building, etc. If you like that stuff, you'll like the game, but it's probably better in single player if you go into the options and customize the difficulty a bit. With some tweaking you can be anything from a puny human to a god.

The only Ark game that I completed I spent most of my time building a zoo. I collected dinos from around the map and put them in the enclosures. I had a mod that let you build walls and fences that looked just like the ones in the original Jurassic Park. I also enjoyed working my way through the tech tree and building a base.

The only bad thing about the zoo is that because of the way the game keeps track of animals, they would eventually escape from your enclosures if you let them wander around. I built an enormous aviary that was about 30 stories tall and put all the flying dinos in there only to come back later and find that they'd all left.
_____

To the original question, I've got over 1000 games on Steam. I could probably give a few hundred back and never know the difference, but the one game that I really regret was Atari's Haunted House: Cryptic Graves.

People think Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin's Creed Unity were broken at launch. They obviously never tried to play HHCC. It was such a disaster that Atari said it couldn't be fixed and removed it from sale about two weeks after launch. What they didn't do was offer a refund (this was before refunds were allowed), so I still have this steaming pile of garbage in my library.

This was from 8 years ago, and I didn't realize how horrible Atari had become when I bought it.

 

[ZedClampet]

Titanfall 2.

You are dead to me.

 

[Pifanjr]

Wait, I just remembered about Godus. I paid money for that

At least with Ark there's a chance I might get to play it and perhaps even enjoy it at some point. Godus is just a steaming pile of ****.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I now don't buy very many games at all, might be an over reaction. Its still hard to find real diamonds, lots of shinny pebbles around though, and lots of well polished rubble.

I don't buy many games, either. But my reason is because I have a big backlog, a ton of free Epic games, and I don't have time to play what I already have.

 

[SBan83]

As of now, I'm still seething about purchasing Battlefield 2042, that too off EA Origin instead of Steam. Heard Steam are bending their return policy for this game as it's so unpopular. But no such luck on Origin.

 

[DXCHASE]

Crysis 2 & 3.
After the sublime experiences of the first halves of Crysis and Warhead, the console-nerfed 2 was quite a disappointment. Graphically beautiful, but essentially a corridor shooter.
Crysis 3 was similarly shackled, mainly a dark & drab world with run & gun gameplay.

I feel attacked! lol These 2 are games i actually bought and played all the way through and loved so much i bought the remasters!


My most recent list would be the following:

MECHWARRIOR 5
ALIENS: FIRETEAM ELITE
OUTRIDERS (hated that i paid full price for 2 copies, shouldve waited for a discount with all its bugs and problems but i enjoyed the game)
TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER

 

[Ryzengang]

There are a huge number of games that I've dropped really quickly, but generally speaking I don't really regret buying games. I just like trying a wide range of stuff and some games not hitting is just part of the deal. Plus, I usually get a lot of these games heavily discounted so that certainly helps.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Had to check my purchase history on Steam. I dont regret buying much, especially anything for less than 10 because almost anything is worth a try at that price IMO.

Apart from the stupidity of paying almost 90 Euros for a Steam Link and Steam controller years ago which barely got used...

Elite Dangerous paid €30 and played for 5 hours, also bought a flightstick for some dumb reason.

Nier Automata paid 59.99 which I hardly ever do, and I played for 20 hours over two different attempts to really get into it, but I just didnt enjoy it that much.

Ashen Paid €30 for and hardly played.

 

[COLGeek]

I regret a couple recent games:

- Doom Eternal because of the parkour stuff. Just too must of a distraction to me.
- Disco Elysium is just too wordy and slow. Will try again as my daughter says it gets better.
- Baldur's Gate 3 because of the camera mechanics and turned based approach. It is an early release so maybe it will improve. I would prefer to not have to play each NPC/party member.

 

[Pifanjr]

I went through my Steam games and found another one that ended up not being worth it: Tabletop Simulator. I bought it for my wife and myself and we only used it three times before she decided the controls were too annoying to bother with.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I went through my Steam games and found another one that ended up not being worth it: Tabletop Simulator. I bought it for my wife and myself and we only used it three times before she decided the controls were too annoying to bother with.

That's disappointing. I've been thinking about picking that up. The concept sounds awesome.

 

[Colif]

Final Fantasy 13 - too many cut scenes, not enough game until almost end of game.
Half of the games on N64, but then this is a PC forum... there was no choice, so few games to even buy. So many bad racing games too.

 

[Zloth]

I'll second both Crysis 2 and Final Fantasy 13. I'll also throw in Underworld: Ascendant, which I backed on Kickstarter.

Oh, and how about Civilization: Beyond Earth?

- Baldur's Gate 3 because of the camera mechanics and turned based approach. It is an early release so maybe it will improve. I would prefer to not have to play each NPC/party member.

The turn based feature is one of the big selling points, so don't bet on it. Maybe somebody will make a real time mod for it?

 

[Brian Boru]

one that ended up not being worth it: Tabletop Simulator

Yeah, that's in my pile—fired it up for maybe an hour years ago, and never since. But maybe sometime…

I just like trying a wide range of stuff and some games not hitting is just part of the deal. Plus, I usually get a lot of these games heavily discounted

Same here. I almost always buy very cheap, and many of them are just a vote for an Indie dev who's well regarded. Or even an AA—eg I bought the earlier Witcher games just to thank CDP for their great service on GOG.

Buy more cheap rather than fewer dear is my purchasing pattern.

how about Civilization: Beyond Earth?

Yeah, a dud. But I don't regret it, Firaxis have given me thousands of hours of great gaming time, so they're welcome to my few extra $.

 

[Pifanjr]

That's disappointing. I've been thinking about picking that up. The concept sounds awesome.

I personally had no problems with the controls. It's not as good as a custom designed UI, but the sheer content you get is more than worth it in my opinion.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

The turn based feature is one of the big selling points, so don't bet on it. Maybe somebody will make a real time mod for it?

I really hate turn-based games.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I really hate turn-based games.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Epic reply!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Epic reply!

What goes around comes around

 

[McStabStab]

Most of the games I own, even if I've negatively reviewed them, do not cross the line into "regret" territory. The one exception is the grand strategy game, Europa Universalis IV.

Now hear me out, I love strategy and management games. Shogun, Civilization, Endless Space/Legend, Tropico, Anno, Rimworld, Offworld Trading Company, C&C, etc. etc. etc. Additionally, I even had a major focused on history and I spent my first years out of college teaching middle school, high school, and undergrad students in the subject. This game just never brought me to a good place.

I spent 23 hours trying to learn and utilize the systems in EU4 and I never got to a point where I felt like I was progressing or even really fully understood what was going on. I watched streams and asked streamers for tips, went to forums, watched let's plays, and still I couldn't wrap my brain around it.

Subsequently I've passed on other grand strategy games like Crusader Kings and Stellaris in fear that I'll have more of the same experience. I don't feel like the concepts of the game are beyond me, but I definitely feel like an idiot when trying to figure it out!