Games You Hated But Played Anyway

[JadingTsunami]

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

 

I thought Origins was great, but Odyssey felt like a grind and a slog. I finished the main storyline, but it was fetch quests, XP grinding, and drudgery the whole time. I think I might have enjoyed less than 15 minutes of it.

 

All the reviewers gushed over it, so I seem to be fairly alone on that.

[666shooter]

10 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

The first game is pretty forgettable but it's obvious a lot more thought went into its design and overall structure than the followup.
 

I've got to disagree with you there on the aspect of forgetability. While it may not be quite as memorable as something like BioShock, I thought the first Red Faction had good characters and an interesting story and setting. The destructible environments ensured I've replayed the game two or three times, and the glass effects deserve a highlight as one of my favorites in an FPS. Despite the lackluster fourth game, I'm a little dissapointed we won't be getting a worthy sequel.

 

[Mr. Freeze]

Saint's Row 2. Not because it's bad (it isn't), but by the end I hated the main character so much I put the game back in its case and never reopened it. 

 

I don't have a more "on-topic" answer because if I hate a game I'll stop playing long before I hit completion. 

[qdash]

Quake Champions )))

[snapshot]

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, took me a month just to finish the main story, somehow it felt more boring than Rise eventhough the puzzles weren't as braindead, and I had no interest in the story whatsoever.

Spoiler

(Oh No, bad guy does bad things to the world and is somehow involved in killing lara's father, kill him)

such a lame ending, and that cringeworthy melodrama lol.

[DuckReconMajor]

PC benchmark 2018 has a story mode?

[snapshot]

I suppose so.

[zen4040]

15 hours ago, JadingTsunami said:

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

 

I thought Origins was great, but Odyssey felt like a grind and a slog. I finished the main storyline, but it was fetch quests, XP grinding, and drudgery the whole time. I think I might have enjoyed less than 15 minutes of it.

 

All the reviewers gushed over it, so I seem to be fairly alone on that.

haven't played odyssey but I feel similar about origins, I do see potential in the gameplay they went with but it just didn't get me.

[HeyItsDuke]

22 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

The first game is pretty forgettable

You make me sad inside.

 

I wasn't fond of Red Faction 2 but I played it anyway. I also don't like Oblivion much but played it. The combat is terrible.

[Guest MIND]

If I dont like it something I just put it away and shut it down.

 

If a game I'm playing is unnecessarily hard, I'll either use cheats and if I cant I'll just switch games and ignore it.

[Szuran]

Marvel's Spider-Man. It's not that I hated it, but I got extremely bored with it around the halfway mark. The story is overly long (and despite it manages to feel rushed and cut), and I really dislike repetitive side mission (the doom of open world games for me). But it cost me a lot, and I liked the swinging, so I finished it anyway.

 

The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption. I think these are barely games. There's near to no gameplay, for 85% of the time you walk or ride across vast empty areas. You're lost without the minimap as the world has no identifiable landmarks. Every mission hand-holds you as you go from one point to another, watch a cutscene, partake in a short fight. Then, again, you have to walk stupid long distances to trigger another short and cutscene-heavy mission. If you took walking away from it, they would be 4 hour long games.

[Phobus]

My first thought here was "stealth games", because I'm terrible at them. As I've been putting off playing through Thief properly for most of a decade at this point, I'm probably not going to get any better any time soon, either. I did go through Alien: Isolation and the DLC, which I enjoyed even though the main game went on for what felt like forever, so it's not that I hate them... I just struggle.

 

Then the 80s arcade bullshit on the NES Classic Mini came to mind. Ghosts 'n' Goblins is probably king of that pile, but it was nothing that save states couldn't solve... Which has proven true for a lot of games from back then that feel like they're deliberately screwing you over. Ice Climber, with it's strange collision detection with platforms probably annoyed me even more than GnG, which is a feat. 

 

On a slightly different note, I got a few PS2 games based on the strength of the sequel that I'd already played and was horribly disappointed. TimeSplitters, Midnight Club and 007: Agent Under Fire were all thoroughly outdone by their sequels and even after getting through TimeSplitters I was dissatisfied and got rid of them, along with the strangely pointless Bionicle game that seemed to offer no resistance at all for the few hours it took to beat and was absolutely not the complex open world game I seemed to believe existed.

[Dr. Toboggan]

Doom 2016. Wanted to love it. Knew everyone else loved it. thought it was boring af

[mrthejoshmon]

2 hours ago, Phobus said:

TimeSplitters 

TimeSplitters 1 was an ordeal to get through, I will come out and say that it's quite honestly horrendous and if I'd played that first I would have never played the sequels and missed out.

[Redneckerz]

3 hours ago, Szuran said:

The Witcher 3 and Red Dead Redemption. I think these are barely games. There's near to no gameplay, for 85% of the time you walk or ride across vast empty areas. You're lost without the minimap as the world has no identifiable landmarks. Every mission hand-holds you as you go from one point to another, watch a cutscene, partake in a short fight. Then, again, you have to walk stupid long distances to trigger another short and cutscene-heavy mission. If you took walking away from it, they would be 4 hour long games.

Its almost as if the open world was made to let you be aghast of its environments. This is more a duo of games that simply are not for you. Did you had a similar feeling when playing other open world titles?

 

I can imagine the Far Cry games will invoke a similar frustration with you.

[Szuran]

16 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Did you had a similar feeling when playing other open world titles?

 

 

Depends on the game. I actually quite enjoy Far Cry, at least more than The Witcher, but that's because there's a lot more gameplay involved, you bump into enemies quite often and the game feels faster. Most enemy encounters are filler, but that's my problem: RDR and TW3 don't even have this filler. I understand the allure is discovering their world, but there's nothing to discover if everything is markes with a "?" on your map.

I loved the open world of the original Crackdown, because it was like a puzzle itself - how to reach the seemingly out of reach areas where you can see a pickup. I loved it, there was a purpose to exploration other than another samey group of enemies. I also enjoy The Elder Scrolls, at least until I'm far enough that the game starts breaking.

 

The common element of open world games I like is the fact they have environmental stuff to guide you, you don't really need any map, while pretty much every corner of a single area in RDR and TW3 looks the same.

[_bruce_]

Warcraft II - good game, but in no way as fun as part I.

Unreal Tournament - art style & weapons were tacky as hell but the game was good.

Painkiller - got boring fast, but wanting to see some bosses kept me going.

Duke3D - second episode, albeit well made, was a party pooper.

XCom / UFO - only game that, after a few hours, managed to turn the ill feelings towards it into appreciation.

 

[seed]

Heretic and Quake 2.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I've grown relatively fond of both games, but I just don't think their combat system is good enough to warrant multiple playthroughs, and their bestiary is lacking with slow, bullet sponges. This is all the more pronounced on higher skill settings where both games just turn into a symphony of tedious gameplay, oh boy... You can say I have a sort of hate/love relation with these games now, apart from those there aren't other games I hated but played anyway, I prefer staying away from everything that has all the chances to be unenjoyable.

 

Although I forced my way through some games I had little to no fun with, such as SS2. This game is too clunky to be any fun, if it wasn't for the interesting story, mostly great level design, and awesome sound effects I would've never made it past the training area, it was interesting for what it is but it's a one-time only as far as I'm concerned.

[hybridial]

Bioshock Infinite for sure, when I started playing it I was hoping for something I would enjoy. I definitely did not develop any distaste for it before actually starting to play it. It was fairly clear quite quickly however that the game wasn't going to work for me at all. But I still played through the whole game. If anything that's why I hate it so much, because I experienced its story in its entirety and I though it was abhorrent. 

 

Oh, and... yeah I've not ranted about these yet.

 

Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2.

 

I played some of Demon's Souls back when it came out but not really enough to count, and I haven't played any of the later ones, so what I am going to say is only in relation to those games. 

 

Now, I can respect them to an extent. Its not like certain other games I criticise because they're soulless husks, ba dum tish. No, I respect that these are videogames, made by videogame designers. 

 

I guess its a lot like Seed's post above, this is simply about the fact I did not enjoy them. Why did I play through them? Unfortunately, ego had a lot to do with it. You know what the fanboys of all those games say if you criticise them. Git Gud. I hate that because these assholes probably ain't played Kingdom Under Fire Crusaders or Ninja Gaiden Black or a number of other games that I think are easilly far harder than what the Souls games try to be. I don't think they're hard. But they are very tedious, very clunky, and I just do not like the battle system. I don't like the stamina bar. I fundamentally think they designed it to not be fun, from my position and what I enjoy.

 

There are other things I'd say, I actually had a better time with 2, because its online actually worked, its a modestly pretty game and I guess I had practice, I did it in like half the time. 

 

The first game I find to be ugly, I think parts of it are blatantly unfinished, parts of it indeed are cheap difficulty. Not the whole game, certain parts. And it has several bosses that are absolute goddamn SHIT tier. 

 

Which is not necessarily universally damning because the bosses at the end of System Shock 2 are as well, but I certainly liked that game as a whole a lot more. 

 

 

 

[_bruce_]

8 hours ago, seed said:

Heretic and Quake 2.

 

Now don't get me wrong, I've grown relatively fond of both games, but I just don't think their combat system is good enough to warrant multiple playthroughs, and their bestiary is lacking with slow, bullet sponges. This is all the more pronounced on higher skill settings where both games just turn into a symphony of tedious gameplay, oh boy... You can say I have a sort of hate/love relation with these games now, apart from those there aren't other games I hated but played anyway, I prefer staying away from everything that has all the chances to be unenjoyable.

 

Although I forced my way through some games I had little to no fun with, such as SS2. This game is too clunky to be any fun, if it wasn't for the interesting story, mostly great level design, and awesome sound effects I would've never made it past the training area, it was interesting for what it is but it's a one-time only as far as I'm concerned.

 

Quake 2 was only stellar in Deathmatch on the Edge. The Hub system was totally anti-Quake from a progression perspective. It was most likely the first game where id caved in to "better design" and self destructed.

 

I can agree on SS2 feeling totally off/odd playwise... like somebody built a techdemo on top of a finished product and never cared to check if it's fun to interact with the provided world.

[ReaperAA]

57 minutes ago, seed said:

Heretic and Quake 2.

 

Regarding Heretic, I'll recommend using Wayfarer's Tome to play the wads. When I tried it for the first time, I was surprised how this balance mod made the game much more fun. Enemies no longer feel bullet spongey. Give it a try with some custom wad (like Elf Gets Pissed for example).

[hybridial]

Just now, ReaperAA said:

 

Regarding Heretic, I'll recommend using Wayfarer's Tome to play the wads. When I tried it for the first time, I was surprised how this balance mod made the game much more fun. Enemies no longer feel bullet spongey. Give it a try with some custom wad (like Elf Gets Pissed for example).

 

I just want to reiterate this, it really is worth a second try with that mod. 

[Eurisko]

Sonic '06

[Loud Silence]

Solitaire bundled with Win XP. I still play it and hate it very often. Too many times it goes to dead end.

[pcorf]

The 3 Super Star Wars games on the SNES.

 

Some of those bosses would own a Cyberdemon. Esp the Dagobah one and the Darth Vader battle was always fun especially when the debris started flying around. And the ending mission of Return of the Jedi after defeating the emperor or Darth Sidious or Palpatine where you must escape the second Death Star with the fire catching you from behind while maneuvering with perfect timing.

 

The music was great!

[yakfak]

i've been tricked into caring about idle games and clicker games if they have nice premises or sound effects or something but they are never actually fun, they just sort of appeal to the same part of your brain that likes to watch the windows 95 defragger. (that part of your brain is called the insane number magpie)

im starting to form the opinion that chapter nine of celeste is bad. i adore the main portion of the game and because the music and the themes are so nice i've struggled through all the additional content but chapter nine is kinda excruciating when your reflexes are shot. trying to beat chapter nine without the assist mode enabled for me is basically like learning how to input tekken combos cos there's no way i can actually react to what's happening on screen. feel free to put this on scrub quotes giggle

[Annul]

Not hate, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

Game has an amazing atmosphere and world, but everything else drags it down.

 

Mechanics are bizarre, it's an FPS but not really. Your weapons have chance to "miss" like an RPG, so sometimes you might waste an entire mag in someone head and hit a single bullet. The idea is that you need to find better weapons, but the only weapon I found to have consistent accuracy and damage was the last gun before I finished the game.

 

Every single quest to progress the story is awful, putting your through linear bunkers with a million enemies that can you kill pretty fast, but are dumb as bricks. You can stay in a corner and wait enemies to come and create your own personal body stockpile.

The end of the game section may have been the worst I have ever seen in a game. It's not pretty. Jesus Christ.

 

All I see here is untapped potential, the Zone is definitely the best part of it and I would have loved seen expanded to be a bigger part of the game, along side more advanced enemy behavior, a focus on more open ended missions, rework of the weapon mechanics, etc.

Seems like the Stalker community has already done that with mods, so I may try them one day.

[Xeriphas1994]

Played to completion is what makes this interesting. Doing so was far more challenging before infinite quickloads and pistol starts became the assumed standard. People have that much time?

 

Captain America and the Avengers (Genesis): felt like I was glued to the floor, most battles were extremely cramped, and Capcom had released a series of similar games without these issues which threw them into relief for me.

 

Contra Force: bad in a generic NES manner. I remember rationalizing that if my avatar existed in real life, undertaking such a mission would in actuality be grim and tedious every step of the way, thus the feeling of hating my circumstances was perfectly germane.

 

Solarian II: loved and hated simultaneously, which apparently was a common reaction. The graceful movement mechanics masked the high difficulty (per YouTube user "YesterYear's MacGames").

 

Lemmings Paintball (Windows 95): maybe I have a learning disability or something, but the isometric camera regularly made it impossible to see where I was about to move or aim, causing countless cheap deaths.

 

It's as though I have a switch in my brain which is either "OFF" or "ON -- APPEARS TO BE POSSIBLE BECAUSE OF X, Y, Z STOCHASTIC CONJECTURES". Once the switch flips, I have to stay, regardless of production values. It's very weird.

[GrogLoopy]

Bioshock 1, 2, 3 (I only dislike these games because I've discovered the wonders of it's predecessors: System Shock 1 and 2)
Every Cod game I've played

Dead Space 3

 

[hybridial]

Just now, GrogLoopy said:

Bioshock 1, 2, 3 (I only dislike these games because I've discovered the wonders of it's predecessors: System Shock 1 and 2)

 

I get what you mean, System Shock was always cooler, and 2 in particular is just fantastic. They cut its heart out, and desecrated the corpse to make it into Bioshock.