Most of the video games I’ve played were pretty good. The only one I can think of that I didn’t like was MySims Kingdom for the Nintendo DS. Dropped that pretty quickly. It was a long while ago, but I’ll guess it was because there were too many fetch quests and annoying controls.
As far as being overhyped beyond belief: Celeste. As far as playing an entire game to the end just to finish it: A Way Out
I think Celeste is designed to be a super narrow experience - pure platforming. I found it pretty pleasant, but not what I’m generally looking to play. I personally don’t think it’s overhyped - the platforming design and movement is really very excellent. Having said that, not my cup of tea either.
My favorite game of the decade…
Even if I enjoyed it, which I found it impossibly boring, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around favorite of the DECADE. In 10 whole years you haven’t played a single game that you enjoyed more than a simplified platformer? Mind blowing.
Different people like different things for all sorts of reasons. Not that mind blowing.
Just let people enjoy stuff. It’s not something they need to justify.
They absolutely don’t. Thanks for the education man.
What is wrong with liking 2d platforming?
Nothing at all my friend, I LOVE 2D platformers. Mario World is one of my favorite games. But I don’t know, they don’t hit me in the feels like something like Fallout New Vegas or Metal Great Solid. Celeste just wasn’t nearly enough content to be better than everything else from the last 10 years IMO.
Bloodborne.
It didn’t even feel like a game. It was simply pattern-recognition torture.
This game has been the bane of my existence. I love the atmosphere, story, and design of Bloodborne. I cannot get myself to enjoy the game. I want to like it so badly because everything other than the mechanics are extremely my-interests, but FUCK do I not like the gameplay.
I feel this way about basically any Souls game. I’ve tried several of them thinking I would get the hype after playing for a while, but I still am kind of mystified by the mentality of those who really enjoy those games. I never get that sense of reward and accomplishment people describe for finally defeating a difficult boss, just sort of mild irritation.
As soon as I saw it’s locked at 30fps, it immediately killed any amount of interest I had in playing it. All the power to people who can stomach action games at what feels like a slide-deck input response.
That’s all the FromSoft games to be fair. I’m forcing myself to finish Dark Souls one for the first time right now and straight up? I fucking hate this game.
Curious why you’re forcing yourself to finish a game you don’t like. I usually drop at this point, because I play games for fun. Are you a completionist who’ll get some satisfaction when it’s all done, or someone who has to write a gaming review? I realize my tone seems judgmental but I’m really just curious and am not sure how to better word my post to come off as less judgmental.
Sort of the completionist thing, it’s just one of those games people rant and rave about, so I want to have the experience. I also rode every roller coaster in a very popular amusement park just so I could say I have done it and will never again. I’m a crazy person.
Hey. What are you doing? Stop playing Dark Souls.
I tried playing Blasphemous recently and had to drop it in a couple hours. I might’ve stuck with it had I tried it when I was younger but I’ve discovered that nowadays I don’t have the patience to play games that require you to beat your head against a brick wall until it breaks. So many frustrating enemy placements and insta-kill spikes, the movement is slow, the combat is unsatisfying, I just didn’t feel like I had much incentive to continue playing (minus the art style which is absolutely gorgeous).
I felt this with Elden ring. Once I got past the starting area, it just felt like everywhere I went I’d find enemies that kill me in 1-2 hits if I made one wrong or mistimed move. I wish I had the skill or patience to get through it, but I just found it too time consuming to try those tough enemies again and again. Definitely may just be a skill issue on my part, so I don’t necessarily want to dissuade others from giving it a shot.
That’s the point of the game. It’s definitely not an easy game, but it is the easiest game of the Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring series. And it’s okay if that’s not for you! It requires a different approach than your usual hack-and-slash game, and that’s certainly not for everyone.
I don’t know I had relatively little problem with Dark Souls 1 and 2, so I don’t get the people saying it’s the easiest game in the series. Something about the combat just didn’t mesh with me. No big deal though.
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
Now, it’s kind of the point. But I don’t know if it was my mouse or what but I found the controls to be too poorly implemented with how difficult of a game it already is. Sometimes, the hammer would basically glitch out or would apply way more pressure relative to my movements and fling me back down to the button. It served as an element of frustration that I think goes against the design goals. I’ve seen speed runs that make me think it could have been my hardware, but I’ll never know. Actually, remembering, I think I switched to a different mouse eventually that was better but still not great.
I also just didn’t really ever buy into the premise. I know it’s an ode to B games, but the piling of random assets is not what I would consider good design even if they serve the purpose of what the game is going for. There are plenty of difficult video games that are about perseverance but still put in the effort in level design, mechanics, controls, etc.
Tbh, I found it an interesting enough experiment with failed execution. I don’t understand people who hold it up as one of the better “art” games in the medium.
I’d say Dark Souls 2.
When you get to the area with the bazillion spitting statues that respawn when you do, it became very clear that Fromsoft was out of ideas for making the game both interesting AND challenging.
Dark souls 2 was definitely the weakest of all From games, this coming from someone with ~4000 hous in ds 1, 1-2k hours in ds3 and Sekiro
it’s dark souls 2, so there must be 2 of everything!
EA’s F1 completely ruined due to shit AI ramming and acting completely unrealistically
Before I say this I do admit I am in the wrong, and that an overwhelming majority of people love this game, and I understand that on an objective level it was both ground breaking and excellent.
I cannot, for the life of me, enjoy breath of the wild due to weapons breaking. I played maybe 5 hours? I got excited when I found a cool sword, and then proceeded to never use it because I was afraid to “waste” it. (and repeat that with new weapons, to save which I have to go find some little seed people to have more inventory slots?)
I understand that they want me to try new things, but for me, for some reason, it just wasn’t fun. I want to be excited when I find new loot, not anxious. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Diablo-like games, where accumulating loot was the fun part, but I can’t seem to enjoy it when the game takes toys away from me.
I loved BOTW as a generic open world adventure game. It was probably the worst “Zelda” entry outside of the CD-i games though.
I just pretend that it wasn’t one at all.
The weapons breaking thing along with incredibly repetitive and boring enemies made me avoid all fights not absolutely necessary.
The boss fights - few and far between though they were - were good.I had hoped that the new one would fix all of the previous one’s issues but as people like us are in the minority it seems that they kept the formula the same. I’m not sure if I’ll even play it.
You are not in the wrong for not enjoying a video game. A person’s level of subjective enjoyment can and will differ from objective quality.
That’s a fair point, I just know it’s a common contrarian take and wanted to distance myself a little from that. I meant that I am aware I’m in the minority on it, it’s not a purely bad feature, just one that doesn’t work for me.
i’m trying desperately hard to like Haunting Ground for the PS2 (i’m a big horror game fan) but keep being interrupted from puzzles and exploration by each of the ‘stalker’ enemies. for context, they can’t be killed or gotten rid of permanently, you can only run and hide. it’s a shame because otherwise it’s a very fun and unique game.
Final Fantasy 15. I’ve never been a fan of the modern (post FF7) games but fell for the hype around 15, purchased it, played it, actually finished it constantly wondering when the game would suck me in, and was left wondering what all that hype was about. The game had literally nothing I wanted in a JRPG as I found the story bog standard and the combat and traversal piss poor. That game officially made me give up on Final Fantasy since the only recent-ish game I’ve liked is FF Tactics. Make a sequel to that and I’ll reconsider.
This 100℅ I even bought a ps4 to play it. It was a really dull game and the character movement felt clunky. I finished it too, but I do not care to play it again.
Ff8 was dope though.
7, 8, 9, 10 are all great I think.
The only ones I like are 7 and 12. 12 especially because I hated the random battles in 7, I just wanted to progress through the story goddamnit.
Vampire Survivor.
I began playing it after so much praise from all over the place and it just uses predatory tactics to hook the gamer. I only had fun with the game for maybe a day or so but overall clocked in many more hours of hate-playing. The only good thing is that the developer (who’s background is developing gambling games) does not use those tactics for microtransactions.
Once I deleted the game, I was never even tempted to go back.
Really? I guess you could consider the game’s visual flair to be predatory that way but I always felt that stuff was a joke because it doesn’t have microtransactions
I’m not seeing how anything in the game could be considered predatory in the slightest…super confused on this.
Predatory usually implies that you’re being lured in to buy something, but the game has no microtransactions. At its worst the mobile version (which is free) has the option to watch an ad to get 1 revive per run. Don’t watch the ad? The game is the same as the console/PC version.
I think the lights, sounds, slaughtering massive hordes of enemies with overwhelming damage, and constant dopamine rush from them could certainly be predatory in nature if they were used to bait you into buying microtransactions, but that’s not the case here. I see where they’re coming from, but I can’t necessarily agree.
Aren’t vampires predatory by definition though?
Here’s a big question though
What’s the difference between predatory tactics to hook people into a game, and “normal” gameplay, whatever that is? If neither cost any money or have microtransactions in any way?
Is Diablo 2 using predatory mechanics? Is Counter Strike? Is Factorio?
Games are artificial constructs. If you deconstruct them entirely, unless they got some story to tell as the center point of the game, their mechanics and goals are entirely artificial and constructed to get you to keep playing, be engaged, and have fun, whatever that means and implies.
Because, well, in the end, games do not have a grand purpose. Their purpose is entertainment(or be art, but not all games have that goal). And so if vampire survivors keep you engaged and enjoy the game… Is that really that much different to other games? Another example to this are idle/incremental games, as a pure distillation of what games are. Are they predatory? Is there really much difference from the very core of other, more “proper”, games?
A game can offer an experience that leaves the player feeling satisfied or at least content with how they spent their time. There is a large space of possible interactive experiences that extend far beyond the simple dichotomy of fun vs educational or productive.
A game can certainly be considered predatory if it exploits psychological vulnerabilities to hook someone on engaging gameplay that gives the player very little in return in terms of fulfillment or mental recovery. Whether or not it takes the opportunity to swindle the player on top of that is a matter of degree in severity. Wasting a player’s time (or worse, induce stress or other harmful mental states for no good reason) is not a particularly nice thing to do.
(who’s background is developing gambling games)
Sure, he worked in the sector, but that’s because he couldn’t find better jobs. What you’re implying here is really unfair, especially considering there aren’t even any microtransactions in the game. As far as I know, he just made a game that he felt was fun.
Progress Quest.
It’s certainly funny but it is not a fun game. It plays itself. Literally. That’s the point. It was something you ran along side with your mIRC client to show your uptime in a fun way.
I don’t find any of those kinds of games fun. From Cookie Clicker to most mobile games, “idle games” are just the most unfun, un-game-like games ever made.
That’s the thing: progress quest isn’t an idle game. It’s a parody of modern games that was made long before idle games were a thing. It wasn’t fun just like a joke isn’t an interesting story.
I would say it was the grandaddy of idle games. It was made as a joke, but actual games have followed its model seriously. And it sucks. It parodies JRPGs, many of which had an auto-battle option. But that was still just an option, and they typically had stories and other fun things about them.
Most of the games of my childhood - they exclusively came from the <$5 bin 🙃 at least we had a PlayStation 2 but Crazy Frog Racer 2, Frogger: The Great Quest, Zathura, Animal Soccer World, and Street Vert Dirt are noteworthy “highlights”.
Crazy frog and its sequel were genuinely good racing games for the time. I enjoyed them a lot. Split screen was awesome.
Homeworld. I know that’s blasphemy. I love RTS games and the game is cool and beautiful but so slow and boring and tedious.
Ubisoft style open world games. I honestly know I’m not built to enjoy them but I convinced myself to try and finish Horizon Zero Dawn and it was a huge mistake.
For a single player game, it vigorously wastes your time. The entire game is based around crafting but each time you need to gather something you need to come to a full stop, and spend a second watching the interact meter fill before you can gather each thing you see in the overworld.
The talent trees either contain things that are not meaningfully impactful on the core experience, ie tons of talents are slightly dressed up raw damage increases. Or they are things that are meaningful, but not surprising such as silent takedowns or bullet time. Overall it feels like Aloy was designed to be kind of fun and then they hamstrung her in a bunch of different ways to give a reason for the talent system to exist, and it takes the runtime of the whole game to undo this.
Many quests do not have anything to say about the lore or characterization of the world, whether it be for individual characters or the world overall.
Same here re: Ubisoft cookie cutter open worlds. I LOVED the first ~40 hours of Immortals and thought I was approaching the end until I realized I was less than halfway at the rate I was progressing. I have no idea how length estimates like the ones on How Long to Beat are accurate for this game; usually they’re pretty spot on for my “complete what I find fun and interesting and not much else” play style. I gave up on the game after briefly skimming FAQs to see what I had left.
The first thing I do in games like that is Zerg Rush to all the towers needed to open the map and unlock fast travel.
Once you do that, the rest of the game becomes a lot easier.
Yeah basically open worlds that exist purely to have tons of repetitive tasks.
Street Fighter 1 is an interesting case of an historically extremely important game, that just wasn’t very good. Which in turn explains why it was largely forgotten and completely overshadowed by its sequel. While it invented most of the conventions for the fighting game genre, it implemented them all in a really clunky way. Special moves can’t be triggered with any kind of reliability, jumps don’t even follow a smooth arc but just jerk around and the thing is a button masher, due to originally not having the six-button layout of the sequel, but two huge buttons that would register how hard you pushed them. It’s barely even a functioning game by modern standards, yet it is the birthplace of a franchise that lasts to this day. It’s fascinating seeing all the elements from later fighting game on display in such a rough shape.
This is so true. I bought the anniversary collection years ago. When I went to play SF1 I was flabbergasted. It’s legitimately terrible. Even by standards back then. Though, as someone who is a bit obsessed currently, I am so glad they kept up with it.
