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?
adventures in the magic kingdom and yo noid
Most recently, Final Fantasy Tactics: The Invalice Chronicles. I remember loving Tactics Advance back in the day, but I tried several times to get into the Invalice Chronicles and I just can’t do it.
Curious. What puts you off in Ivalice Chronicles?
It’s just way too grindy, and not even the fun kind of grindy. Which is a lot coming from me since I can sit there and hunt the same Monster in Monster Hunter 50 times in a row to get what I need and not feel bored or frustrated. In the Invalice Chronicles, everything feels like it drags on-and-on to an exhausting level.
It’s likely my own fault, though. I haven’t played a tactics style game since one of the Fire Emblem games on Wii or 3DS and I’m probably not remembering how they truely played. Maybe down the line I’ll go back to it and give it another try.
Elden Ring… I’m sorry I just didn’t enjoy It even after beating a few bosses
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')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.
I think you just grew up. People seem to forget that these are games for children. Nostalgia can only take you so far.
Pokemon is games for babies
Any after gen 5 for me. Gen 5 is actually my favourite
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.
I feel this one deep.
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.
I loved spore as a kid, but I do agree that when I tried it again and an adult I was disappointed by the shallowness that I just hadn’t noticed as a kid
surprised you feel that way, I was 13 and played it 3 years after it came out with no expectations and really enjoyed it. I wasn’t part of the hype around it before release so I assumed a lot of other people in my position would feel the same way. I think the different “minigames” led me on a path to discover games later on like civilization, cities skylines, no man’s sky, etc
Yeah… See… I already played games like Sim City 2000, Age of Empires 2 and 3, Homeworld 1 and 2, Dungeon Siege, and space sims like Vega Strike and Freelancer.
So I understood what deep systems looked like, and also detailed character stat development. What they promised was something that sounded like a system heavy game, and my expectation (even as a young teenager back then) was that evolution was a creative spin on RPG stat development.
What we instead got was the most barebones element from each of the games I mentioned. There basically weren’t any systems, and the few that existed were entirely self-contained and could easily be completely ignored without any major loss.
Agreed.
Spore was horrendously disappointing after what I’d read about it.
I bought into the hype and pre-ordered it, and then regretted it.
I’d been given the impression by previews you’d get to play it as a singular session or experience, which I guess they never could have pulled off, but finding it to be segmented as it was was disappointing.
And then the way it portrayed “evolution” seemed deeply flawed to me. Choices you made had almost no consequences - rather than gradually going down different paths and committing to things playing out in different ways, you could just completely change your mind or go back on things, your choices didn’t really matter.
I’m a busy dad of two kids, so my play time is often fragmented and sporadic. There is a definite theme to mine.
Red Dead Redemption 2. There is so much I really love about it, but there are just too many systems to deal with. Hygeine, hunger, fashion, crafting, camp chores, random ambush attacks by too many enemies, stealth, tracking, etc. If it was a bit more streamlined I’d probably love it.
New Vegas. It’s the only Fallout I’ve played and I love it, up until inventory management takes more time than actually playing the game. I’ve made it to about the same point fiveish hours in three times.
Skyrim. I really want to love this one as well, but has both the inventory management issues that New Vegas does, and the controls are just wonky enough that I have to relearn them when I get back to it.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I really enjoyed it, up until I spent a precious uninterrupted hour and a half on a mission, only to die to something stupid just before the next save point. I know that it being Teh SupEr HaRdCorE is supposed to be part of the appeal, but I don’t have time for that shit.
You’d probably enjoy skyrim more if you added some mods to help with the UI.
Bags of Holding for Skyrim are great mods
These days when I play Bethesda games I always end up using console commands to expand inventory space. I’m so done with hyper-limited inventory systems and having to waste stat points to increase them.
player.setav carryweight 5000
player.additem 00079BE4 1
I remember a mod someone made for New Vegas that made all your items render in a loose ball on your back. Really shows how silly it is.
I was never able to get mods to work with New Vegas as I run a Linux system, but maybe you could try an inventory mod to help you like the game. I think figuring out how to do that would be worth it, it’s a great game.
I use an inventory mod on Linux, it’s basically like the “store all junk” option in fo4, it doesn’t store all junk, but it takes a huge weight off.
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
Hogwarts. And all the horizon games.
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.
compared to all other harry potter games, hogwarts legacy is a masterpiece
that’s really not a high bar to clear, like oh this dogshit is tastier than this cat shit. it’s like… you know it’s all shit right
yeah harry potter games before legacy were absolutely miserable. i watched every angryjoe review he did for harry potter cause he hated them all 😂
anyone who played Hogwarts Legacy after the huge outcry about boycotting it for trans solidarity deserves to be disappointed
Is Rowling a piece of trash, yes. Does the game include a trans character, also yes. Were people still pissed off at the characters name, also yes.
it was literally SIRona RYAN
ryan is a gender neutral name though
what country do you live in?
w-what?
this is like naming your only asian character something dangerously close to “ching chong” or having your one black character be named some shit like “Kingsley Shacklebolt” or…
actually, i don’t know why anybody expected anything better from this franchise lmfao
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.
- CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077:
the trailer showed V riding a crowded monorail train. I bought the game in promotion with Google Stadia. There was no monorail in the game. Or rather, you could look at it, and you could find some stations, but they were teleport points; - Obsidian Entertainment’s The Outer Worlds:
it was marketed as a role-play game, but your possible choices were either bad or good, with no in-between, and they did not influence your story at all. It’s just a shooter game, the SciFi setting is secondary and forgettable; - Blackbird Interactive’s Homeworld 3:
too far from what I loved in Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm. For some reason the developers believed they had to introduce physical people with mental issues in a game about faceless ships blowing up each other. Nevertheless, the story is bland. I would like to pretend that this game did not ever exist.
A game that I’ve been waiting years to play for years is Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds.
I have only heard praise about it. I can’t find the courage to finally play it and end up disappointed.Just pull the trigger and do it so you can know. Don’t rush it. Take your time enjoying the puzzle and piecing together the mystery. There is no rush, a couple moments require good timing but you’ll know what to do when they come up. It’s not everyone’s thing, but if it is your thing, you’ll wish to forget everything so you can play it anew.🙂
Outer Wilds (not Worlds) is incredible, I doubt you’ll regret playing it.
Well, you might. Some people do bounce off; usually due to not knowing where to go next, or what to do next. But if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want your hand holding and are okay to persevere a little, you’ll probably have a good time.
No other game for me has ever matched the feeling of exploration and discovery, and that is only possible because the game gives you a long leash.
Funny! Outer Wilds was exactly the OP question for me.
Utterly frustrating realistic space controls, unguided exploration that leads to reentering the same planet for the 8th time and still not finding anything new, annoyingly specific timing-based puzzles…
Tap for spoiler
And a nihilistic “friends we made along the way” ending that doesn’t solve the initial problem. Fuck that.
I’ve had games in my wishlist now that I see “It’s like Outer Wilds!” and I start to think twice about them.
I too came in here thinking about outer wilds.
The controls are less realistic than you think, because they attempted to have the ship correct itself but it constantly fought me. I program spacecraft for a living, I know how the orbital mechanics and movement in 3D space works, and they made it super frustrating it made me rage quit the game for years. I only finished it because a close friend wanted me to experience the story.
For me, the story >!was the games weakest point. Putting together the history and the question of “what happened” was cool, but the dialogue was insufferable, I hated reading the story walls and having to string together the order things were said. Then to finally put everything together, get a half baked story about being marooned on effectively a desert island and it ends with a shrug and “yup, everyone died, you too”… Man fuck that.!<
Different experience for everyone I suppose :)
I found the space controls and conservation of momentum to be such a fun aspect. I loved getting consistently good at it, and feeling like a competent rocket pilot when I nailed fancy manoeuvres.
Silksong on the other hand, I had to give up because it was way too hard for me!
Uptick for the awesome nickname.
Thanks mate, it’s my wish to live up to that name.
Now, though, read my comment too!
- CD Projekt RED’s Cyberpunk 2077:
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.
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.
This indie game called “selaco”,I kinda didn’t like the level design (especially the pass code parts)
Or a more main stream game:
“Lego movie 2: the video game”, I was young when I bought this and it was a confusing video game. (Don’t remember much)Many of the games I could make have already been mentioned (e.g. cyberpunk, rdr2, outer wilds etc), however I have another one The Alters. I thought I would really enjoy this and friends recommended it to me, but I just couldn’t stick with it. I have like 10 hours in it and it just feels tedious. Kinda sad because I like the overall idea, it just doesn’t click for me
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)
