Abandoned Games (2019)

[The Boston Crab]

Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force (360)

I heard that ARMS was inspired by this so I've always wanted to give it a go. It seems like it has a lot of potential for a tight and snappy remake but it's a bit clunky and slow so I found it hard to enjoy in 2019.




Into the Breach (Switch)

I'm not patient or intelligent or motivated enough for strategy games. I had heard that this was a beautifully concise but deep and rich take on the genre, and it probably is that and more but I found it very boring. I understand the potential but I might as well be playing Solitaire.




Katana Zero (Switch)

Absolutely fine game, well made, slick, a bit weird. Just does nothing I've not seen before. A bit of Bleed, a bit of Mark of the Ninja, a bit of Hotline Miami. Very good if you've never played any of them or if you really enjoy that kind of game but I felt tired after half an hour.




Midnight Club: Los Angeles (360)

Basically, GTA as I play it, just driving round soaking it up without the abysmal missions and dialogue and combat. I expect this was great when it came out but it's been superceded by Forza Horizon and later GTA games.




Space Invaders Infinity Gene (360)


Interesting concept, creative, authentic but modernised presentation, everything a Space Invaders fan might dream about. I am not a Space Invaders fan, really. It's so stiff and unsatisfying to play.




Skullgirls (360)

Marvellous art deco presentation and bebop soundtrack. Almost every character is beautifully animated with a real focus on Shantae-style bouncy cartoon tits spilling everywhere. Just a shame that it's so annoying to play, like many anime style fighting games. Everything happens too quickly for me, you can attack from anywhere and there's so much swapping and tagging and teleporting and projectiles from all angles. I'm much more comfortable with Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter and a sense of weight and proportion.


___


What have you abandoned this year? I have hundreds to add.

[biggytitbo]

I gave up on the repetitive Lord of the Rings game Shadow of War, you could say I was Bored of the Rings.

[The Boston Crab]

Nice.

I've never been tempted by it but I've never really been into side scrolling brawlers and that seems like a 3D update on that genre.

[The Boston Crab]

Downwell (Switch)


Does what it does very well but it doesn't do much. Good feel, some roguelite elements, visually distinct and communicative. Genius, in a way, for its concise, precise, flawless design. It's just a bit insubstantial.




FIFA 19 (Switch / Xbox One X)


A reskin on Switch of last year's game. First time I've ever bought an EA Sports game two consecutive years. Waste of money though it plays equally well. The XB version is obviously better, I bought it to play with an Aussie mate from my China days but he's never free when I'm free because of the time difference and he works weekends. Waste of money because I'd never sit down and play FIFA.




Hollow Knight (Switch)


Genuinely disappointed that this has never clicked. I love pretty much everything about its presentation. The map stuff is perfectly fine. Great variety of areas. Music and SFX are wonderful. I just can't stand how it feels to play. It's so stiff and twitchy. Combat with the nail on a 2D plane is just annoying, wait, dodge, get one hit, wait, dodge, get one hit. Any enemies floating around in the air, jump, one hit, dodge, jump, one hit, dodge. It's so laborious and boring. I can't think of many 2D platforming games I do like, though, so I'll have to conclude it's just not my thing. This will be the final abandonment.




Hyper Light Drifter (Switch)


I don't know why I buy these games. I know they're not for me. Epitomises everything I find intriguing and boring about indie games. Great art, amazing music, auteur weirdness, fundamentally limited and boring gameplay.





Pokemon Let's Go, Pikachu! (Switch)


A clicker with Pokemon elements to press your buttons if you like Pokemon. No value as a game. Probably a good entry point for a little kid to get them hooked on the commercial treadmill of Pokemon for the rest of their life. There are far more interesting and rewarding Pokemon experiences you could get from the Pokepedia book I got for my nephew.




Gris (Switch)


I might still finish this but it's pretty hard work. The puzzles are simple but where you need to go is often unclear because the visual design can be confusing. It did make me a bit teary but I work like ninety hours a week so it doesn't take much. It looks like a beautiful watercolour painting and drawing.

[The Boston Crab]

Hyper Sentinel (Switch)


A Uridium clone. I have almost no interest in playing 80s and 90s home computer games. I hammered them back then, I had a blast, it was great. They are 99% worthless now besides their archival historic value or for retro aficionados who can enjoy them through a particular lens. This plays very faithfully, it looks and sounds the part, it's just very very stiff and limited.



Mutant Mudds Collection (Switch)


Complete waste of money.




Night in the Woods (Switch)


I enjoyed Oxenfree in several ways. I've tried to play this many times but I will finally abandon it forever. I heard it ends poorly so I decided to spoil it for myself. It's actually worse than I had imagined. It has atmosphere but the characters are of no interest and they're unlikeable. Even if that's the point, it doesn't encourage me to continue.




R-Type Dimensions EX (Switch)


It's been fascinating getting into Gradius and Darius this year and finding that I can really enjoy these older shmups and see what they do so well. They're precise, tough, demanding but full of character and when you master a few stages and you're seriously powered up, they're also very intense and exciting. Despite some investment, though, I find R-Type still as plodding and brutal as ever. It's just not what I enjoy about shmups.

[The Boston Crab]

Wargroove (Switch)


I didn't like Advance Wars, I don't like these games and this was a boring grind. Shitcanned. Has a lot of visual character, though. Feels solid, just not my thing.




West of Loathing (Switch)


I don't like the humour or the line drawing art style and I don't like RPGs or cowboy stuff. This is the polar opposite of what I enjoy playing. I will be out of debt finally within six months.



Iconoclasts (Switch)


I don't like Metroidvania games. Very bad icon.




Deathsmiles (360)


It's a horizontal Cave shmup. It's got a fun Halloween art style. One boss is a massive cow's head. It's fast, spectacular, flashy. I just can't get past the characters being little maids and stuff. Look, honestly, I can accept dumb pervy big tit games like Dead or Alive 5 or whatever. It's naff but it's no worse than the FHM or Loaded stuff I grew up with. This maid shit though is a total plague on my enjoyment of the game. I'm no prude but I'm never going to get past this kind of thing.




Soul Calibur V (360)


Just seems a bit slow and heavy compared to SC2HD or DoA5 or Virtua Fighter 5. I have lots of fighting games but this one seems like an unnecessary addition. Deleted.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Dying Light

I feel a bit bad, because it was a present, but I just want having any fun with it whatsoever. It does that irritating action RPG thing, where you're character is useless at everything until you've spent ages leveling up, which I just couldn't be bothered with. I gave up after a brand new weapon proved to be weaker than a zombie's head.

[The Boston Crab]

Dying Light

I feel a bit bad, because it was a present, but I just want having any fun with it whatsoever. It does that irritating action RPG thing, where you're character is useless at everything until you've spent ages leveling up, which I just couldn't be bothered with. I gave up after a brand new weapon proved to be weaker than a zombie's head.

Same here. I understand that you get a particular item in the second half which takes traversal to another level. Why didn't they just give you that at the start? It's a very unimaginative approach to progression. I don't like skill trees or Metroid style withholding. It was the worst part of Sekiro and why NG+ was much more enjoyable.

[Consignia]

Baba is You, which was super fun, but the late game puzzles just got way too obtuse.

[biggytitbo]

Dying Light

I feel a bit bad, because it was a present, but I just want having any fun with it whatsoever. It does that irritating action RPG thing, where you're character is useless at everything until you've spent ages leveling up, which I just couldn't be bothered with. I gave up after a brand new weapon proved to be weaker than a zombie's head.

Loved that game, finished it and its even better expansion. Very few games can match the atmosphere of this one when you're stuck in the city at night trying to get back to your base.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Driver

The opening tutorial level is infamously tough, but it's a Sunday drive compared to the final mission: driving a two ton slab of Teflon around in the middle of a blizzard, while bastards crash into you from all angles. I was so close, but so far from finishing the game.

Same here. I understand that you get a particular item in the second half which takes traversal to another level. Why didn't they just give you that at the start? It's a very unimaginative approach to progression. I don't like skill trees or Metroid style withholding.

Metroid/Zelda style progression I have no problem with. That's deliberate and considered design,  in which new weapons and equipment essentially act as keys. What annoyed me in Dying Light is that the barriers to progress seemed so arbitrary. You should easily be able to dispatch one or two zombies at a time from the start, but the game makes you and any weapons you find ridiculously weak. If a lone ghoul is supposed to be a threat, why does the game make you an able bodied bloke and arm you with machete? You should be one legged clown armed with nothing but twigs and dildos.

[The Boston Crab]

I agree with that. Zelda tends to make the actual game really enjoyable no matter what gear you have. It's the games which attempt to ape it but misunderstand that there's more to it than simply gating new areas behind items. In most games, the BotW paraglider you would get halfway through.

[The Boston Crab]

Dreamfall (Xbox Classic)


I can imagine being blown away by the this at the time, like with Morrowind. Now, it's mechanically too clunky and janky to immerse me particularly. I like the characters and the setting and the dialogue. It has a lot of atmosphere, I just don't have the patience or motivation to interact with it.




Ace Combat 6 (360)


I'm more of an AfterBurner guy, evidently. I've never enjoyed the mechanics of flying planes in any game since Wings on the Amiga. This looks really nice, it's not especially difficult to handle, it's just slow and fiddly and not so satisfying. AfterBurner Climax on the same system is flashier, faster, more explosive and prettier.

[madhair60]

This is just another thread where you sling dick about all the great games you dislike.

Not really a criticism, just an observation. You should do a YouTube channel where the thumbnails are you with your fucking mouth open.

[chveik]

Crusader Kings II

a bit boring isn't it

[The Boston Crab]

This is just another thread where you sling dick about all the great games you dislike.

Not really a criticism, just an observation. You should do a YouTube channel where the thumbnails are you with your fucking mouth open.

Let's face it, the entire Technology forum is basically dead despite my efforts. About ninety five percent of the threads I've started over the last couple of years about great games and this, that and the other have been largely a waste of time besides my own reflection and consideration. No discussion prompted. Now I tend to spew out assorted thoughts about games that aren't appropriate anywhere else because people would just think who's this fucking DICK.

Experience has taught me that it's no longer the place for meaningful discussion, which is why I tend to post more on gaming-specific places where there are more people interested in throwing the ball back. You might get the odd bit of chat about a big new Nintendo game or whatever or an E3 but largely nothing these days. I don't really get it but this is how it is.

The vast majority of threads which go to more than a handful of posts on here are basically reminiscences about two or three series from the 90s.

Maybe my posting puts people off even bothering but most of the time I'm just trying to prompt some discussion or reaction or emotion or idea or absolutely anything at all. I don't rag on games anywhere else, I'm pretty positive and if I've got nothing positive to say, I just don't contribute. Maybe I'm too familiar here, too comfortable, no manners. Maybe the games I like are just not of any interest to most people and the typical stuff people like to talk about is pretty antithetical to what I enjoy about games.

Either way, you're right. I don't like games simply because they're games. Most are very average and simply pass the time. I feel nothing playing them and I find that dispiriting, so I stop playing them. I'm not one to go through the motions with anything. I think that's probably a good thing. I don't need to do an entire dot to do compendium before concluding that dot to dot books and puzzles are nothing more than a time-wasting distraction to me.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I don't rag on games anywhere else, I'm pretty positive and if I've got nothing positive to say, I just don't contribute.

Is that a fact?

[The Boston Crab]

I meant on other forums. That was poor form though. Not at all cool taking a shit on a game someone else was enjoying. It's one thing to start a thread saying I haven't enjoyed something but unnecessary and rude to jump on someone else's thread with a a load of that.

[Twed]

It is fucking fantastic to be negative, including about things you like. I see negativity of highlighting the absence of love, which makes the discussion about beautiful things even more special.

Imagine being in love and everybody else loving that person too. Terrible.

[The Boston Crab]

Armored Core V (360)


I always assumed mech games would be slow, clunky and fiddly. The Daemon x Machina demo on the Switch earlier this year confirmed mysterious suspicions. It appears to have solid credentials though because it's very very much like this game which is also boring.




Myst III Exile (Xbox Classic)


I never played Myst and always fantasised about it when we couldn't afford a computer. I decided to give this a try for the sake of imaginary nostalgia for non-existent memories. They are now dead.



Slay the Spire (Switch)


'Deck builder' is the leather inspiring phrase I've heard since 'breast physics'. I couldn't give less of a shit about pulling out a random card and picking the one with the highest number.




Resident Evil: Code Veronica (XBLA)


I enjoyed the first game at the time for what it was. I really enjoyed RE4 on the Wii with the pointer controls. The rest is of no interest. The idea of managing ammo and inventory space is a crushing bore.