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Windows Games you like the idea of liking but can't be bothered...

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Stanley Tweedle, 12 May 2013.

  1. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    Instead of talking about this or that game you really like...

    Let's talk about games you want to like but for some reason can't fully embrace...

    I've tried hugging skyrim but can't connect fully with it.

    GTA IV >> Love the visuals... the city... can't motivate myself to play through it.

    Borderlands... Played through it so far but then got bored for some reason. I now have borderlands 2 but I'm not gonna play it unless I can fully embrace the first 1.

    Battlefield 2. I know it's old but I tried for 3 years to like it. Eventually I realised I didn't like it much at all and never went back to it.

    STALKER... absolutely love the dark, atmospheric Stalker world... Wanted to play through it but got bored after a while. To this day I still like the idea of liking Stalker.

    Fallout 3... I did get into this at one point and really liked it. Really liked the vast open-world and the enemies encountered. At some point I must have lost interest. I tried to get into it this year again but failed.

    Witcher 1 and 2. Started to like and want to like. Want to hug them but can't fully connect.

    I'm done listing games now. There might be others but these are the main ones. I may succeed in liking one or two of them at some point....
     
  2. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    STALKER all over. I want to like it, I do like it for a few minutes, and then...I don't know. Somehow it just doesn't grab my brain the way I know it should.

    For me it's the DiRT series, too. I loved rally games, and consumed the McRae Rally series with glee, but DiRT just leaves me cold. I think it's the excessive variety (with every kind of unsuitable vehicle type crammed into the format), the sensationalized, hyperactive presentation and the obnoxiously 'hip' soundtracks. It all felt like too much, trying too hard. I just wanted my rally games to be rally games, not lifestyle experiences.

    edit - oh, and of course, Arkham Asylum. I made a thread just to try to get to the bottom of why I don't enjoy it at all (and failed).

    edit 2 - I also failed miserably with The Witcher, because, despite a cool setting and story, the gameplay is a pile of poo, at least initially. Maybe it gets more complex and multilayered later on, but in the opening chapter it's comically simple and underwhelming. Ditto for Dragon Age: Origins, whose world is awesome but whose gameplay just does nothing for me at all.
     
    Last edited: 12 May 2013
  3. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    I also failed with Dirt but it was Dirt 2 in particular. I had fun once I got into a few of the races but it was that trailer home interface that really made me fecking angry. I just couldn't be bothered to sit through the OTT trailer home menu nav. Dirt 3 is better in that respect and I actually have been playing D3 recently and liking it.

    I tried Arkham... played first hour. Liked the visuals but haven't gone back to it.

    Re: STALKER... I did actually play into it for maybe a week at one point. Loved the dynamic weather. I think being sent here and there annoyed me. Having to wander across large areas of wilderness for various reasons.
     
  4. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    You HAVE TO HAVE TO HAVE TO stick with STALKER. It's first 3-4 hours are a slog, but after that it's really worth it. STALKER and Clear Sky complete updates/patches are necessary ;)
     
  5. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    I think you may be right.

    I will have to install and play through.

    Looking on my steam list it seems I still have to buy clear sky. I got Stalker and pripyat.
     
  6. Elton

    Elton Officially a Whisky Nerd

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    I would argue that the Complete mods for Clear Sky and SoC are good. BUT.

    There are better mods like SMP which makes it into the fully fledged version of what STALKER should've been. Also get past the first level. It gets good. Very very good.
     
  7. October

    October Mariachi Style

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    Just about to give GTA4 another go, it's been in my Steam list for a year or two now. Tried it once and got mega bored not actually being allowed to play for more than about 30 seconds at a time at the beginning with all the tuition cutscenes.

    See also; Dead Island, Metro 2033, Rage, Hitman, Riddick, Alan Wake, Prince of Persia...

    Pretty much all of those I started and enjoyed well enough (particularly Riddick, Alan Wake and PoP) but then something happened that I didn't get at them for a while and I just never can muster the motivation to go back to them. Arkham Asylum was another one, got about halfway through it, thoroughly enjoying myself, got a bit stuck, discovered BC2 and never went back.

    So I guess with me it's not a case of not liking the games, I just can't be bothered playing them.
     
  8. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    I shall have to do! :eeek: :clap:

    Back on topic: I'm interested in the Final Fantasy games because everyone harps on about them, but they just look boring as hell.

    Also, GTA games bore me silly, yet, Mafia and Mafia 2 do not.

    Saints Row. Sort of seems interesting but never enough for me to play them.

    Just Cause 2. Same as above. I watched Joe play it and laugh his socks off but had no feeling to do myself.

    Anno 2070. I even bought this but just can't get into it. UPlay tends to kill most feeling tbh.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 13 May 2013
  9. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    They are.

    I say that as a Final Fantasy veteran - I've played this game series a lot. Not Ruby Weapon lengths of time, but not too far off, either, and while a lot of the environments, characters and storylines are memorable, a lot of the series' appeal is huuuuuuge nostalgia goggles. Whichever incarnation of the series is out when you're a teenager just gets its claws into your formative teenage psyche and never lets go, giving you a bright, colourful world to get totally absorbed in, complete with romance, rivalry, adventure and comic relief, and enough content for it to feel in retrospect like an entire chunk of your adolescence was simply "the Final Fantasy years".

    It's so absorbing, you never notice that the gameplay is total shite.

    I'm sorry, Final Fantasy. I love you all (even you, Final Fantasy VIII), but you kinda suck at...being games. When I want to revisit you now, I cut out the middle man of tedious grindy levelling and just watch your cutscene compilations on youtube.

    edit - actually, Bindi, if you want to try and sample Final Fantasy without having your face melted by boredom, XII is the only one in the series to feature realtime combat gameplay and a lot of actual moving around, as well as one of the better storylines and some of the better characters in the franchise. Predictably, it was detested by fans everywhere, because DIFFERENT IS BAD.
     
  10. Elton

    Elton Officially a Whisky Nerd

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    Dead Island is a big winner for me in this game. And I think a game that I really should have liked but I never did or at least never got truly into: Batman Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Critically they're extremely well recieved, but i just seem to have never been able to get into them.

    Might I also add that it took me about 5 hours to play STALKER. Which by the way is an incredibly exhausting game.
     
  11. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    I actually was bored last night so I loaded up Just Cause 2 to try it with 3d Vision. Looks great and what I played through the game many months ago I liked.

    Anno 2070 I paid almost full price for and was shocked to find I don't have a clue how to play it. It doesn't seem very accessible.

    I didn't even think about mods for Stalker so I will have to look.

    Rage I liked but I haven't been back to it. Played maybe 3 hours. Alan Wake is one I actually have no trouble liking. What I don't like is how tough the ghosts are on hard. I actually got stuck in one section and no way can I overcome the monsters because they outrun me and I don't have the ammo. So I have to start the game over on easier setting.
    I must have played at least 5 hours on stalker in the past.
     
  12. Phalanx

    Phalanx Needs more dragons and stuff.

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    STALKER. Played the first one for 3 minutes, got headshot instantly on the first mission by god knows who or where. Instantly detested it, and the whole series, uninstalled. Sorry but if you're looking to grab someone's attention, that's not how you start a game.

    To this day, I've tried it three times. I want to like it, but it's the same thing every time.
     
  13. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    THIS! This all over. I'm stuck on the very first mission going "WTF do I do??"
     
  14. Jedra

    Jedra Supermodel

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    Stalker and Anno 2070 are good shouts but the main one for me is the 'X3' series - I currently have Albion Prelude installed but just can't seem to find the time to devote to it. It is a game that on paper I should be all over like a cheap suit, but for some reason I just can't get into it!
     
  15. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    Unfortunate. I got killed quite quickly on first mission but I went back there last night and it was easier. The Stalker world is great... It's showing it's age a bit now though.

    I was expecting a proper in-game tutorial... I must have blinked at the wrong time.
     
  16. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    Oh jeeze, loads – and almost all of them single player games. It’s taken me about 3 years to work out that single player games now bore me, though there is the occasional exception.
     
  17. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    I agree with this. I bought the game on release and never got more than a few hours into it, then toward the end of last year I forced myself to get into it (at gunpoint) and it gets pretty crazy later inthe game. It's bloody hard as well even on Veteran, Master would have been a challenge too far.

    I might add that the "Complete 2009" mod probably helped a lot.
     
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  18. digitaldunc

    digitaldunc What's a Dremel?

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    The hitman series.

    Was given the collection for Christmas a few years ago, completed hitman 2 but yet have to find the patience for the newer ones. I find it difficult to play games now that are graphically creaky compared to new stuff which leads me to...

    Deus Ex.

    I can hear the villagers gathering with their pitchforks and torches now.

    I know its supposedly a seminal gaming experience but I find it difficult to get past the older mechanics and terrible graphics. I know you can mod it with texture packs and the like, but it doesn't up the polygon count. I don't know why I missed it the first time round, but I wish I'd played it then.

    Starcraft

    Again, missed it the first time around. Starcraft II didn't really do it for me either.

    I have a theory that nostalgia for old games depends a lot on playing them when they were relatively new. I have a huge soft spot for goldeneye and perfect dark, but I don't think I'd have the same reverence for them now if I'd never played them on release.
     
  19. Stanley Tweedle

    Stanley Tweedle NO VR NO PLAY

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    Bin playing a lot of BF3 this year and slowly realising that many single player games I find are boring me. I like Dishonored, have recently completed Crysis 3 but I'm realising that the stories in many games are rather silly. Bioshock inf has to be the silliest for me and it's really made me question the whole single player story thing. Crysis 3 was cliche in parts but I could take it a whole lot more seriously and found myself liking it a lot. Dishonored I have no issue with. I like the Dishonored world. Crysis 2 was the usual mad scientist and over the top voice acting. I'm wondering why they feel it's ok to have hammy dialog in games. Are they trying to appeal to pre-teens?

    Downloading that mod now. I didn't even know it existed. :)

    Stalker mod installed. :)
     
    Last edited: 13 May 2013
  20. markb2010

    markb2010 What's a Dremel?

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    Gunsmith has done a few videos for ANNO 2070 which are on youtube. Certainly helped me get started.

    STALKER - funnily enough I just started playing this again at the weekend. Bought it years ago for the x-box but never really got into it. Seems more enjoyable on a PC for some reason.
     

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