To finish some games, no matter how highly acclaimed, regardless of just how damn gorgeous they look, can be analogous to getting a root canal in your eye balls. The following is a list of five notable games I just couldn't make myself complete.
1. Grand Theft Auto - every damn one
Obviously, the modern GTA series spans several games and two generations, but they’re so damn similar that they only count as one (not to mention that this would be a shitty list otherwise).
Initially, players are introduced to a vast world and interesting story. About eight to ten hours into any of these titles, I cease playing. Every time I begin in awe - and end up quitting. After the first of the narrative intrigue wears off, every subsequent addition to the story is some stupid scrap of “Go kill him!” “Set that on fire!” and “Run enemy X from faction Y off the road!” My, that’s a lot of exclamation points. The problem is, who gives a shit? After watching another vacuous cut scene in a hyperbolic vernacular, undertaking the “10-hour-trip-to-Grandma’s” simulator, and completing the same mission for the seventy fourth time, the story has progressed the whole length of a Chihuahua’s wang. Unlike with games I want to keep playing, GTA has a tendency to lay out everything the game has to offer in thirty minutes flat. Now, what’s $60.00 divided by 30 minutes? Too damn much for me to ever buy another GTA installment.
2. Far Cry 2
This game mostly offends by adhering to the template of the above: I think I’ll call it “Who gives a crap?” syndrome. Far Cry 2 is one of the most visually delectable games I've ever played. To further its credibility, it did ditch the completely out of place Hulk Rage mechanism that plagued previous iterations. However, beauty is only skin deep - at least when it comes to video games. Overall, this one is just plain tedious.
Want to hit the roads? Forget it. Every fifty yards you hit a “guard post” filled with mercenaries ready to get in their cars and hound you until you have to stop what you’re doing, kill them, and try to remember what in the hell you were doing in the first place. Sure, you can kill guards and get a rewarding message that keeps track of how many posts you've cleaned out. But if all the enemies respawn the next time you pass through, who the Hitler’s Ghost cares? Where’s my in-game reward? Why am I having to fight the same dicks over and over?
Technical glitches abound as well. First, hit detection is terrible. Too many times does the fun you could have had ditch you and instead go home with Ted Kennedy. I’ve had many an unaware bastard in my sight before letting lose a bullet barrage. Then, instead of a great death animation, the AI just looks up to see what the noise was. He’s not filled with holes, bleeding, and trying to desperately crawl away! I lost count of how many times I just had to walk up to a hostile and butcher it with my machete. For whatever reason, AI responds much better to that and dies more appropriately.
My last gripe is a combination of my first and second: respawning and technical glitches. I experienced so many erratic AI spawning glitches that I almost began to think I lost my marbles. Did anyone else bitch about enemies respawning out of thin air? I once had an enemy jeep, complete with driver and gunner, drop out of the sky right in front of me. At first I thought, “Amazing!” Where can I find this vehicle? Unfortunately, I played for a few more hours, never found this superb hovercraft, and turned the game off for good.
3. Assassin’s Creed
Goodness, are we recognizing a trend in this list? For the readers with learning disabilities, the trend is an obsession with creating incredible environments but populating them with chore-like activities. Playing Assassin’s Creed was like shaving ten years off my life. And not in a good, youthful exuberance way. Playing this beautiful pile of my dog’s puke was like being transported back to my childhood - and getting grounded.
To be fair, this game is much more enjoyable than the above two. For whatever reason, there was just a lack of motivation to keep playing. I’ll say no more about this one. I’ll buy the sequel. And then not finish it.
4. a single Final Fantasy game
I enjoyed playing Final Fantasy III on the DS immensely; it rocked serious spiky-haired protagonist. There were a multitude of unique classes from which to choose and mix in any combination. Hell, you could create a quad of Super Ass-Kicking Bards if you wanted. It was freedom! However, I didn’t finish it, but I’ll come back to that.
I bought the next installment, Final Fantasy IV, with high hopes - only to be blindsided by regressive game design. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. It looked identical to FF III (ignore reviewers who claim otherwise). I began recognizing that something was terribly wrong when my party’s classes kept changing (without my consent) in the middle of cut scenes. After three hours I realized the problem. I was no longer playing an RPG. I was playing some piece of crap game of calculus. Choices? nope. Creativity or experimentation? Forget about it. The rocking free will of FF III was long gone. If you’re a fan of predestination as opposed to role playing, go get your rocks off with FF IV.
Even though I adored FF III, it still suffered from the fate of every other FF game I’ve ever played: the numbing knowledge that comes with the encounter of the last boss. You can’t beat it. You’ve spent countless hours tweaking your party’s attributes and strategies, but you’re never going to beat the finale unless you go back and level up for five freaking more hours. Hell, no.
5. Battlefield 2’s single player campaign
If you want the worst gaming experience ever devised, pick up an old copy of BF 2 and play the offline single player campaign. Christ, it was terrible. I won’t dignify this game with the effort of ripping it a third anus; BF 2 obviously already had two to begin with.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
WTMG's Leo Faria: "The Switch version of Sticky Business is less of a game, and more of a very clunky and shallow creative tool with not a lot to entice players for long. The progression system is silly, the gameplay loop lacks any kind of excitemente, and the controls and interface are embarassingly bad, never taking advantage of the Switch’s touchscreen, or even giving us the bare minimum of a completely cursor-based interface. There’s just no sense of accomplishment while playing it. It’s just downright frustrating. If you really want to play Sticky Business, and come up with your sticker empire of sorts (hey, I’m not judging), just stick to the PC version."
We were expecting problems with mod support, but there are a lot of other issues.
This is why you get the GOG version on gog you can select the version of the game to download.
On pc fallout 4 fallout new vegas and skyrim are all broken on steam because they all got the same "next gen" update.
Skyrim dec 2023
https://www.pcgamer.com/sky...
Can not find new vegas but anyone that modded it knows the script extender there was also broken
Not accidental, they want modders to stop modding their older games to force them to mod Shitfield.
There doing the same on starfield with a mods store and blocking mods
There goal is like blizzard and what they did with fallout 76 you make mods they can sell and you become a slave.
On skyrim they have "trusted" mod devs now basically a badge that lets your mod on the store you get a crumb of the sale when someone buys it.
lol to the disagrees, the last Skyrim update broke mods too. They've been trying to kill mods to monetize them in creation club for years, it's not a stretch that they purposely put out patches just to break free mods.
The disagrees are from people who have common sense. They aren't trying to kill mods. Most mods for any game will break with a new update because they rely on files/code that have been changed. This isn't new. Even with Bethesda this would happen way before the creation club. Mod support is literally one of the things that got Bethesda to where they are, and they're one of the only devs that releases comprehensive mod tools for each of their games.
Over 14 GBs and doesn't change much at all? What? Taking up that much drive space for a pathetic 'remastering' is shameful.
Par for Bethesda.
LOL people are actually expecting massive improvements or something? From Bethesda?? the same people who released Skyrim multiple times and the all look like shit? THAT Bethesda? are people for real?
The ps5 version doesn't change a ton but from my small playtime it's enough to make me want to replay it just to have it running at 60.
A side note to this my PS4 version no longer boots after it's "update" so I guess that's what it feels like to own a Bethesda game on PC
GTA was first on the PC and the PS1 = 3 gen's. Popular as heck for 2 though. I love the GTA stories and while many missions are 'Kill x guy" there area a few times it throws you a huge bone like in GTA 4 where you get to rob the bank. That was a seriously sweet mission imo but I can see what you mean. if you can't get into the character of Niko or CJ or whoever then it may not appeal. I'm not a you african american from the hood so San Andreas may not click. However I did live in Russia for a long time and like Niko.
Your a good writer and kept me interested throughout. I especially liked your ideas on RPG's. Reminds me of my last blog which you should check out. "Choice in gaming"
Far Cry 2 was a serious downer for me as well. I think I got 30 min in and have yet to turn it back on... I want to sell it but gamestop is offering very very little and it's just not worth it.
Game on and good blog.
Agreed, All those games were too long a repetitive for me. I think on hard Bioshock is the longest game I have finished in recent time. I have tried Oblivion, Morrowind. Never again.
Playing FF7 on the PS1 was agony for me. If I had to fight another random house again......
Here is my list
FF7
Elder scrolls games - Morrowind/Oblivion
Assains Creed/Prototype (Same game as far as I am concerned)
S.T.A.L.K.E.R
GTA 3 and above
I have to agree with pretty much everything you said, although I have finished Assassins Creed and a few final fantasy games. To me if the repetative-ness has a very interesting story i can bare through it but im the kinda guy who grew up playing the original Final Fantasy so i'm use to very repetative gameplay.
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