Games Others Like But You Don't

[Consignia]

Recently I purchased the latest Humble Bundle. It seemed quite appealing as it was full of games I'd heard some good buzz about. Stuff like Hotline Miami, and Dear Esther. Sadly, there was exactly one game in the pack that I enjoyed, Little Inferno. The rest I just couldn't get on with. I could see the qualities in them which would appeal to others, but I just received no enjoyment from them.

Likewise, the popular Ico and Shadow of The Colossus popped up on Playstation Plus this week. Again I downloaded them both eagerly due to their reputation, but once more I find myself feeling nothing from them. Ico in particular, I felt a lumbering chore.

So I was thinking, are the games that Verb Whores don't enjoy that many others adore? Obviously ignoring genres you don't like anyway; I don't like First Person Shooters, so no Call of Duty would ever rouse me. But things you feel you should like. Perhaps it's just me and my taste has just gone to shit these days.

[syntaxerror]

Bioshock.

[Big Jack McBastard]

Dear Esther isn't so much a game as a 'wandering around a three quarters bleak island while a depressed guy rattles on' simulator, can't fault anyone for not liking it or not being engaged by it. I very nearly stopped once I reached the caves, there wasn't exactly any compelling incentive to continue other than in seeing how it concluded.

I've yet to play Hotline Miami though nigh on every man and his dog has said something positive about it.

I though I might like the recent XCOM, but oh boy did I hate the interface/character movements so much that I traded it in the day after I bought it.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I didn't think much of The Journey, it looked pretty but it didn't do much for me.

I've never been much into games that are self-consciously arty but end up being non-committal and wishy-washy 'experiences'. That's not to say games cannot be art, but for me the art of game design is in constructing a challenge the player cannot resist.

[Consignia]

Bioshock.

Add that one to my list.

Dear Esther isn't so much a game as a 'wandering around a three quarters bleak island while a depressed guy rattles on' simulator, can't fault anyone for not liking it or not being engaged by it. I very nearly stopped once I reached the caves, there wasn't exactly any compelling incentive to continue other than in seeing how it concluded.

My particular issue with Dear Esther was I couldn't work out where to go, I kept losing sight of the path and trying to find it again was a ball-ache. I also tuned out to Mr. Dreary, which was supposed to be half the experience.

[eluc55]

Bioshock for me, as well. Terrible controls (on  PC), shoddy animation on the characters[nb]it borders on stop motion at times[/nb] and peaks way too soon with the end of the Andrew Ryan storyline, ultimately becomes a very humdrum shooter from that point on - repetitive levels, repetitive enemies, and the "true" villain, once revealed, has a voice that only his mother could love. 

[syntaxerror]

Bioshock for me, as well. Terrible controls (on  PC), shoddy animation on the characters[nb]it borders on stop motion at times[/nb] and peaks way too soon with the end of the Andrew Ryan storyline, ultimately becomes a very humdrum shooter from that point on - repetitive levels, repetitive enemies, and the "true" villain, once revealed, has a voice that only his mother could love.

I've only played the xbocks version, but how do you fuck up controls on a pc?? Assuming you can map to whatever you like that is, a major drawback to console gaming being very often, you can't. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

[mobias]

Bioshock, COD, most if not all FPS games. I just don't like not having a character infront of me I can relate to. The FPS viewpoint just doesn't look like anything I'm used to seeing on a screen. It's just a bouncing gun infront of me. Or hands with knives flying about. It just looks silly. I tried so hard to get into Dishonoured because there was so much to like in that game but I just couldn't engage with the first person view point. It seemed novel when Wolfenstein came out way back, but that was then.

Another massive game is Gran Turismo. On every level I've found it a dull, tedious and vacuous experience. There's far more fun and impressive racing games out there in my opinion.

I didn't think much of The Journey, it looked pretty but it didn't do much for me.

I've never been much into games that are self-consciously arty but end up being non-committal and wishy-washy 'experiences'. That's not to say games cannot be art, but for me the art of game design is in constructing a challenge the player cannot resist.

I wouldn't describe The Journey as self consciously arty. I just think it was trying to do something different, for which I massively applaud it. I'm not sure I got into it much howevere. I actually thought Flower was a better over all experience. There needs to be far more games like these out there, especially on the consoles.  It's very odd that there's not in some ways. That big open world puzzle game coming out on the PS4 looks interesting.

[eluc55]

I've only played the xbocks version, but how do you fuck up controls on a pc?? Assuming you can map to whatever you like that is, a major drawback to console gaming being very often, you can't. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

It's been a couple of years since I played it, so I can't answer that properly.

I just seem to remember that you could never quickly access the right skill in the midst of the action. I think the weapons were mapped 1-9, but the "wizardy powers", you had to scroll through. Maybe even the weopons weren't mapped to the hotkeys. It was a bloody pain, anyway.

[clingfilm portent]

Dead Space. Turned it off after half an hour.

[lardboy]

GTA4.

I've recently replayed GTA3, VC and SA each to 100% (ah, the joys of unemployment) but I've failed to get more than 3 or 4 hours into GTA4 before losing interest.  It's just so po-faced that it seems like a chore to do anything.  It seems like I've spent the whole time doing training missions with slow cars and an annoying cousin.  It's the third time I've tried to play it, but had the same problem each time.  Bored, bored, bored.  In the words of Vyvyan, "Even mindless violence seems boring today".

[Rolf Lundgren]

Fallout 3. Must have played it for about 12 hours and achieved nothing. Wandered from wasteland to wasteland getting killed repeatedly. I do believe it is a good game, it's just not one I like.

[mobias]

GTA4.

I've recently replayed GTA3, VC and SA each to 100% (ah, the joys of unemployment) but I've failed to get more than 3 or 4 hours into GTA4 before losing interest.  It's just so po-faced that it seems like a chore to do anything.  It seems like I've spent the whole time doing training missions with slow cars and an annoying cousin.  It's the third time I've tried to play it, but had the same problem each time.  Bored, bored, bored.  In the words of Vyvyan, "Even mindless violence seems boring today".

You're not at all alone in thinking that though. Your sentiments seem to be fairly common outside of the critics who praised it and a hardcore group of GTA fans who love it. Rockstar themselves seem to acknowledge there are legitimate criticisms of it out there.

[thenoise]

Myst (series).  I love adventure games, even the rubbish ones, but I couldn't get into these at all.  I think it was the lack of dialogue/characters, the lack of humour, the puzzles being rather frustrating and boring, and the fact that I'm not all that interested in art/graphics (it does admittedly look quite lovely, but not enough to sustain my interest beyond about half an hour).

[Famous Mortimer]

Bioshock and Dead Space for me, but it looks like I wasn't alone in that.

The first Deus Ex, I don't know if I waited too long to play it (I only had a go just before the new one was due to be released) and it seemed a bit unwelcoming, to me anyway.

[syntaxerror]

I insist that you give it another go.

[mook]

Bioshock and Dead Space for me, but it looks like I wasn't alone in that.

The first Deus Ex, I don't know if I waited too long to play it (I only had a go just before the new one was due to be released) and it seemed a bit unwelcoming, to me anyway.

i finally got around to finishing bioshock a couple of months ago, i bought it a couple of years back but just couldn't get into it, in the end i quite enjoyed it although it did seem to end a bit suddenly.

i've just started to play deus ex HR this morning. again a game i bought when it came out but couldn't get into so left it on the shelf, i think i made it as far as the boss in the circular room, quite early in the game as i recall, i just could not kill her for love nor money. mind, i am shite at games so i doubt i'll get much further this time either.

[Thursday]

There's no "The" in Journey for goodness sake, this is almost as bad as people who called it "The Family Guy"

Ni No Kuni is a game I seem to have given up on. The fighting wasn't actually that bad, I can tolerate a JRPG grindfest for a bit, but the writing is abysmal, it's obviously Level 5 writers and nothing to do with Ghibli. so save for a few nicely animated sequences, there's not much to recommend. The puzzles (or the running around talking to people bits) are the most, patronizing stuff I've come across in a game. If you ever need to cast a spell on a character for instance, you can't just go ahead and do it. You need to do it in the very precise manner and initiate the conversation so that the game will tell you what to do and how to do it, so it automatically brings up the spell menu and then you can cast it. Even to a child this is insulting. Which makes it all the more bizarre that the boss battles can be very challenging.

[Acceptable]

Fez!*shakes fist at sky*

Widely lauded as being a clever, challenging and aesthetically beautiful puzzle platformer; I found it to be completely derivative, trivially easy in a sort of '99p Book of Puzzles' sort of way and just ugly. Ugly in how it looked, how the controls felt to play, how amateurish the soundtrack was. Fez, to me, feels like a game that so desperately wants to be old-fashioned it forgets that at the time, the games it nostalgically apes were actually inventing new things. Fez is proof of the principle: 'never let someone more stupid than you review a puzzle game'.

Deus Ex, on the other hand, is the greatest game ever made and thus I can't talk about it in this thread!

[Puffin Chunks]

I seem to be in the minority of 1 as someone who just could not get on with Skyrim. I tried to persevere. I think I've put about 15 hours into it, before abandoning it never to return.

[lardboy]

I seem to be in the minority of 1 as someone who just could not get on with Skyrim. I tried to persevere. I think I've put about 15 hours into it, before abandoning it never to return.

Oh, in that case, Oblivion.  At least it was cheap on Steam.

[lardboy]

You're not at all alone in thinking that though. Your sentiments seem to be fairly common outside of the critics who praised it and a hardcore group of GTA fans who love it. Rockstar themselves seem to acknowledge there are legitimate criticisms of it out there.

Really?  I thought it was almost universally loved.  At least there's not something everyone else gets that I'm missing.

[Viero_Berlotti]

There's no "The" in Journey for goodness sake...

Another reason to hate it then, like annoying single word band names that should use the definite article but don't.

[syntaxerror]

i finally got around to finishing bioshock a couple of months ago, i bought it a couple of years back but just couldn't get into it, in the end i quite enjoyed it although it did seem to end a bit suddenly.

i've just started to play deus ex HR this morning. again a game i bought when it came out but couldn't get into so left it on the shelf, i think i made it as far as the boss in the circular room, quite early in the game as i recall, i just could not kill her for love nor money. mind, i am shite at games so i doubt i'll get much further this time either.

The boss battles in DE:HR nearly ruined an otherwise excellent game (the fact that they were all outsourced to a different development company I guess explains why the gameplay feels so jarringly different to the rest of the game) but if you want make the fight  you got stuck on a damn sight easier make sure you

Spoiler alert

get the praxis upgrade that makes you resistant to electric shocks.

[close]

[mobias]

Really?  I thought it was almost universally loved.  At least there's not something everyone else gets that I'm missing.

It was universally loved by critics upon release. Though I've read a few cases of people saying they admit they gave it too much praise. It certainly isn't universally loved amongst fans. Even here on CAB there's no shortage of people that didn't really enjoy it much, read back on the GTA V thread.  Go on Neogaf or any GTA forum and you'll find it a hot topic of debate. GTAV is clearly an answer to what Rockstar themselves have admitted are legitimate criticisms of the game, namely not much to do or spend money on and repetitive sprawling missions, amongst other things.

I seem to be in the minority of 1 as someone who just could not get on with Skyrim. I tried to persevere. I think I've put about 15 hours into it, before abandoning it never to return.

You can add me to that list. I traded the game in after about a week of trying hard to get into it. It was visually nowhere near as good as people where claiming it to be (certainly on the PS3 anyway) and I just found it all rather clunky. I like the idea of the really involved RPG elements but the game has to engage you otherwise it all just seems rather bewildering. Games like Skyrim take over your life if you get into them but if you don't then there's nothing there for you. There's not much in-between. You can't just dabble in games like that a few times a week when you've got the time.

[Rev]

Fucking Skyrim, although I'm not sure that anyone really likes it.  The best thing that can be said for it is that it can inspire you to have another crack at Morrowind.

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

COD, fucking COD, COD, COD

Anything that involves Kinect or Move

Any of those dance games

Any of those rock band/guitar hero shit

[onthebeach]

I do have one really absurd - and I know it's absurd - problem with Civilisation. I hate the thing of starting with a nation that is supposed to be the beginning of a civilisation but already has all the characteristics of an established society and where technology is completely foreshadowed.

I know this is silly because how else could they do it but it really puts me off playing it. I preferred Alpha Centauri.

[The Masked Unit]

Minecraft.

I mean I haven't played it or ever paid any attention to it whatsoever, but it looks gay as fuck. See also Dwarf Fortress.

[MojoJojo]

Civ 4 does have the Caveman to Cosmos mod - where you start off just hunting mammoths.