Have you ever NOT wanted to finish a game?? (spoiler warning)

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

So I realized that something has happened to me which has never happened before. A short story follows, the point is at the bottom for those with the tl;dr mentality.

I don't want to beat Crysis.
short story
Now for the past couple months I've been absolutely addicted to this game, playing through both the single player and multiplayer feverishly, and pretty much exclusively (CoD 4 is jealous, Bioshock misses me). Let's also make it clear that since I first set foot on the Crysis island, after about 6 minutes worth of play, I decided it was easily the greatest single player experience I've had to date.
The realism; total, absolute. Everything from the graphics to the physics to the complete (minus general objectives) open-endedness of the gameplay; go anywhere do anything to meet your goal. I have played through the campaign numerous times, I don't really know the count, up to and succeeding at Delta difficulty. So far I haven't played the exact same way twice, every situation is different and dynamic and the way I encounter it has been unique every time.
I f*cking love it.

BUT. Now the dilemma ensues. I love the game so much for the first 3/4 of its content that I am now unsure of whether or not I want to continue for fear that I'll ruin my experience.
spoilers follow, sort of
After I first got to the part where you enter the alien ship/dealy/thing I was still pretty mesmerized and riding the whole wave of how the plot thickens and where this mysterious gateway would lead, and what would I find...
I quickly realized this is not even the same game anymore. It took, what seemed like, way too long to navigate and finally get through the alien part during which I became bored and annoyed (read: frustrated).
When I finally came out on the other side and landed in an ice-covered world of destruction I was still unimpressed. I went ahead and read up on some strategy guides just to know what happens next.

Apparently the game becomes completely linear at this point as you run straight down some snowy valley, shooting some aliens, trying to keep the black guy alive when you find him again, then piloting a VTOL back to a carrier for some epic final battle with the Queen Bee or some crap after we nuke the island.
POINT
This doesn't sound like fun at all and I've come to enjoy the game so damn much for what the majority of the first part consists of. The alien ship section already pretty much killed my drive to continue. Do I really need to go complete the rest just to say I saw it? I've even gone and watched videos of the final action. It really doesn't seem all too appealing. I just want to keep playing the game for the man vs. man, island hopping, jungle rambo aspect.
But still, I've never not wanted to beat a game until now. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

[Nines]

There's no need to finsh Crysis, imo. The game has a huge cliffhanger at the end though, so I recommend you finish it before you play Crysis 2. :p

And no, I've never felt like I don't want to complete a game. :)

[B]

I have exactly the same issue's you mention, after (or actually during) the alien ship mission the game(play) spirals downward. I just played on because I wanted to finish it, but the fun was gone.

Oh and if you like the realism you should have started on Delta mode in the first place, Korean voices ftw! :)

[evilmrfrank]

Crysis was amazing, one of my favorite games ever :) To be honest the first 3\4 of the game were better than the last part. The last part did amaze me quite a bit. Loved the snowy part and all. The boss battle just seemed kinda bad though. The first half was ok but the second half was easy and uninteresting. The ending was really good though and I was quite glad to see the story wasn't ending there as that really would have been kinda sad...

[dragonfliet]

Edit: Yeah, B is right, Delta is awesome. Korean voices and no HUD makes the game A LOT more fun.

Yeah, the end of Crysis is somewhat of a letdown. It's much more linear and the plot is meh.

That being said, they do a good job at ramping up the action, which is really nice. More explosions, more enemies, etc. The trade off is the linearity, but I think it was a fair enough exchange even if I did much prefer the earlier, more open jungle levels. Oh well.

The last game I had no desire to finish was Zelda: Twilight Princess. Good lord that game was annoying. Yeah, it was the classic Zelda experience, which is fun and all, but they took what should have been a 15-20 hour game and completely bloated it. I had to ride back and forth between towns (over and over) to complete a single mission and it wasn't like there was anything else for me to do to multitask. Z: TP would have been a really fun game, despite not moving the franchise forward at all and feeling even more derivative of OoT and less innovative than Wind Waker (yeah, I said it), if only they had kept the game the proper length. But they didn't. They made me do a bunch of extraneous bullcrap until I wanted to throw my gamecube out of the window. Ugh. I beat it, but it took a long, long time.

~Jason

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

Well I didn't start on the easiest mode. I think I actually started on Hard which is only 1 below Delta. The others seemed too much easier. I played Hard up until the alien ship, then I played back through on Delta and did the ship for the first time on Delta.

Ever since when I go and replay the islands I am on Delta, of course.

But really it's like, yeah it'd be ok I guess just to say I did it (beat the game), but I've watched videos of the final action and the endgame sequence movie/outro so I know about the cliff hanger and the conclusion leading to a sequel.

So aside from actually doing it myself I've been to the end, I just really don't feel like physically playing it to that point.

[DarQraven]

Funny you should mention Twilight Princess.
While I didn't have the same issues you mentioned and completed the game pretty quickly (I like the horseriding part for instance, and btw .. you do know that you can warp from town to town in wolf form right?), I did have issues with another Zelda game.

Majora's Mask.

It's one of the most disliked and at the same time wonderful games I've ever played. The game mechanic where you get 3 'days' (about 90 minutes IRL) to complete whatever you have to do, after which you have to save and go back to the beginning of the cycle, losing all progress except for gathered items and something to prove you beat the dungeon, is absolutely amazing.

It turns the traditional way of beating Zelda dungeons by hanging around endlessly, trying all possible combinations, chopping up random patches of grass searching for rupees, and basically 'trial and error' into a much more challenging, time based, nerve-wrecking experience where you'll actually have to think .. and think fast.
The idea that you only have 15 minutes left to find the boss key and beat him, or you can go and do all this all over again simply adds to the experience for me. It was quite different, but I loved it.

HOWEVER. The masks. The god damn masks. There's .. what... 40 of them? All of them either gathered by completing sidequests, or finding hidden locations in dungeons/overworld.
Only if you had ALL 40 of them would you get the Fierce Deity Mask during the final boss battle against Skull Kid. This mask made you huge, cool-looking and really powerful, and as such, I HAD to have it.

There was just one problem....I couldn't find three of the remaining masks. After trying to find these for about two weeks I gave up on the game, because I simply didn't want to do the boss battle without the deity mask.


This is why I now have my N64 plugged into my TV instead of my gamecube, and am retrying the game from the start, 8 years after I bought it;)

[Kyllian]

Yea, once you have to deal with the aliens in Crysis it gets kinda boring.

As for realism, I find it hard to believe that a man with extensive military training(possibly surpassing Marine/Seal training) and a high-tech exo suit can't hold a sniper rifle steady while prone on concrete.
Then there's the koreans screaming bloody murder when hit with a sleep dart* or when you grab them by the throat while in strength mode(with the amount of strength displayed, crushing the man's voicebox should be easy)
*Let's not forget that they still screech when you shoot a knocked out soldier in the head. HE IS OUT COLD, oblivious to the fscking world! Not to mention it's a shot to the fscking HEAD, the only sound you should get out of him is a thunk as the bullet pops his skull and turns his brain into a bowl of jelly


At least the 1.2 patch fixed it so a sniped shot to a man's face doesn't knock his helmet off first.
Either way, yes, fun game, just a handful of things that make me wonder what the coders were thinking

There was just one problem....I couldn't find three of the remaining masks.Which 3?

[rex]

Yeah Crysis did amaze me too and kept me hanging on and wanting to play it constantly. I loved the jungle korean madness and then they blew it from when you enter the alien ship.

I played it on normal and it was quite hard enough for me. Now you mention Delta I actually feel intriqued to first go hard and then give Delta a go. That'd be awesome.

[Angel_Mapper]

I really, really can't bring myself to finish Phantom Hourglass. If I never see that frickin Ocean Temple again it will be too soon.

[Jackal]

Yeah Crysis...

oh wait, I can't play it.

[Fearless]

The final boss battle was utter ****. It was like playing a boss in 'Zelda: a link to the past' all over again.

[evilmrfrank]

Yea, once you have to deal with the aliens in Crysis it gets kinda boring.

As for realism, I find it hard to believe that a man with extensive military training(possibly surpassing Marine/Seal training) and a high-tech exo suit can't hold a sniper rifle steady while prone on concrete.
Then there's the koreans screaming bloody murder when hit with a sleep dart* or when you grab them by the throat while in strength mode(with the amount of strength displayed, crushing the man's voicebox should be easy)
*Let's not forget that they still screech when you shoot a knocked out soldier in the head. HE IS OUT COLD, oblivious to the fscking world! Not to mention it's a shot to the fscking HEAD, the only sound you should get out of him is a thunk as the bullet pops his skull and turns his brain into a bowl of jelly


At least the 1.2 patch fixed it so a sniped shot to a man's face doesn't knock his helmet off first.
Either way, yes, fun game, just a handful of things that make me wonder what the coders were thinking

Which 3?

Things like sniping somebody in the head will likely always be in a video game. It's always good to have some really nice audio feedback letting you know you just blew up somebodys mellon.

[Kantham]

UT3 is one of the few games I refused to finish.
Unreal 1 (Not a fan at all)
Grand Tourismo 3
Forza 2

And a bunch of racing games that plays like Forza or Grand Tourismo.

[Jordan L]

Yeah, this used to happen a lot a few years ago. Everytime I had gotten to the end of a Final Fantasy game. At the end of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the N64, I probably did the End boss " Gannon " at least 20 times, then I'd let him kill me right before I defeated him for some reason.

[UBerserker]

Didn't want to finish Devil May Cry 4. I don't want to play the same levels with basically the same stuff (99%) put in it again in the adventure. Not to mention using an annoying character.
That made me bored to death.

Another one was BioShock: press E to open this, press E to pick up this goddamn medikit, press E search stuff in the bodies, equip the Wrench and melee to beat lots of enemies, see yourself always safe with 9 Medikits/Eve, do some click to solve this pipe puzzle, remember the positions of the ammunitions you left behind because you didn't use any long-ranged weapons, etc...

[DarQraven]

Which 3?

I took a good look at my previous savegame (and a mask guide), and it seems there were only 20 masks, not 40. Still, the fact that I remember them as being 40 speaks books about how I perceived the quest of collecting all of them;)

I believe I still needed the couples mask (because I just couldn't complete that long-ass quest), some skeleton mask and one that makes you dance or something lame like that;)
Anyway, I know where they are now! (yay for mask guide).
I'm going to do the rest of the game without walkthroughs though, I'm already at the start of the third sequence (snowhead temple) and so far have cleared everything. The biggest obstacle in my way now is Stone Tower Temple (the fifth sequence). DAMN YOU, STONE TOWER TEMPLE!!! ,,lol:mad:
Insane puzzles, insanely large, insanely impossible boss battle and still the same 90 minute time limit:lol:

[Kyllian]

The dancing one is easy. You have to be outside at night(can't remember which day) and you'll hear music near the Goron mountain. He's sitting on one of the mushroom pillar thingies. Approach him and bring out the Ocarina, he'll pass on his song/dance to you.

Play it for the twins that appear in the market area and play it for them

[SleepyHe4d]

Doom 3... Actually once I barely got to the second section I just skipped to the last level. :lol: I didn't do it to see the ending either, I just wanted to see the duke nukem easter egg or whatever the secret was.

[dotnetbeast]

Yes.
The Matrix: Path of Neo, and Gran Turismo 3, like Kantham said.

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

At least the 1.2 patch fixed it so a sniped shot to a man's face doesn't knock his helmet off first.


Actually when you shoot a guys face in retail (1.0) it will kill him. You have to aim head on and lower to the mouth area, much above the nose or from the sides is what knocked the helmet off without killing them. I like this better than 1.2, makes it more of a challenge as far as precision accuracy is concerned.
Plus there's a lot of problems with 1.2 still in the way of compatibility issues.

[Kyllian]

I've been dead on the guys teeth and it would just knock his helment off

[Twisted Metal]

I'm making my way through Crysis now, I'm at the part where you push up to the mine after taking out the anti-air artillery. Such an awesome game.

Jacks, aren't there a bunch of custom single player missions you can download out there? On crymod.com or something?

On a side note, the Hélder Pinto graphics config is amazing. :eek:

[Leo(T.C.K.)]

I didn't finish some games only because I had to uninstall them, or because of hard drive crash etc.

I think it is always better to play a whole game than just a part, to have a whole complex view about the game itself.

I have found many games that were worst at end, or were worst at beginning, or just were worst at middle, but some parts were just amazing.

I always want to finish some games, only games I have not finished were just because of that something happened, or were just too difficult (I remember few at NES and they were mainly just pirated hacks with too difficult stuff, but hey I even completed some of these hard hacks, :-) )

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

I've been dead on the guys teeth and it would just knock his helment off

If I wasn't lazy I'd fraps some footage of me playing, you can aim at the face and kill a guy with a helmet on.
The difference might be in the weapon, the bug seems to appear with rifles. I know I can always kill a guy with a helmet on with 1 shot to the face using a pistol from close range.

I'm making my way through Crysis now, I'm at the part where you push up to the mine after taking out the anti-air artillery. Such an awesome game.

Jacks, aren't there a bunch of custom single player missions you can download out there? On crymod.com or something?


That AA mission with the cruiser sabotage at the end? F yes, one of my faves.
And you're right, people are getting good at their own singleplayer missions now that everyones getting used to the sandbox editor and becoming more advanced. I've tried a couple but at the moment I am still very easily sated by the current missions. I swear I haven't utilized the same tactics twice and I've been through the jungle levels over 10 times now.
I'm waiting for people to get good enough to create levels of retail quality or for the Crysis team to possibly release a pack.

If nothing else, Crysis 2!!

[Kyllian]

If I wasn't lazy I'd fraps some footage of me playing, you can aim at the face and kill a guy with a helmet on.
The difference might be in the weapon, the bug seems to appear with rifles. I know I can always kill a guy with a helmet on with 1 shot to the face using a pistol from close range. No biggie, I can pop a guys head now without the helmet making a difference.
Never had the problem with pistols tho, so it may have been a bug with rifles

My fav Crysis trick, sneak up on a group, decloak, pop a guy off with a pistol, recloak, move, repeat
Even more fun when you do it with a shotgun *BOOM!* "What the?!" :D

[Kantham]

Another one was BioShock: press E to open this, press E to pick up this goddamn medikit, press E search stuff in the bodies, equip the Wrench and melee to beat lots of enemies

Press E to find a single stupid bullet from some corpses, then go and fight that big daddy respawning over and over again with no penalties.

[Sine Deviance]

There's a few...

Need for Speed: Underground 2 - PC
I've been playing this game for 5 years now and I've still never finished it. I don't think I've got the willpower to. What could possibly happen at the end to make it all worthwhile? Seriously? You beat the last URL and then you get a nice closing comic-style cinematic and then you get dumped back onto the streets, I'm sure that's how it would end. Playing the game up until stage 5 is awesome. Playing stage 5 is not.

Tales of Phantasia - SNES (DeJap patch)
I've been trying to finish this game for over 10 years now. I have to play it on an emulator for obvious reasons and every time I take a break from it I seem to lose my savegame. I've actually been playing it alot over the last couple days. Will I ever finish it? Who knows.

Star Ocean - SNES (DeJap patch)
See 'Tales of Phantasia.'

F.E.A.R. - PC
Yes, I have never finished it. I'm attempting to play through it for the second time since it was released and I'm back at the same point I got bored last time - the abandoned buildings in Auburn. This part of the game just sucks for some reason. The ATC building was boring (and frustrating) in many places as well. I'm honestly not sure if I'll finish it this time.

Vagrant Story - PSX
Here's another little gem I've been trying to finish for the last 10 years. I can never make it more than five or six hours in before I get bored with it or I start playing some other game and forget about it entirely.

Legend of the Dragoon - PSX
Same as Vagrant Story. I actually came pretty close to finishing it when I was playing it on PSP, I made it to disc 3 before I stopped playing. If only I still had my savegame I'd probably pick up where I left off, but starting over from scratch again doesn't sound too fun to me.

Gears of War - PC
Gears of War is a really awesome game, don't get me wrong. Unfortunately it becomes very hard and kinda boring around the time you get into the caverns. Also, my save got corrupted so I had to start over again anyways. I've made it to chapter 2 in the new savegame but I seriously doubt I'll bother to finish it because I already know how it's going to end anyways (thanks Wikipedia!)


Majora's Mask.

+1

The '3 days' gameplay mechanic just didn't rub me the right way. I always enjoyed taking my time to figure things out in previous Zelda games so it's no surprise.

EDIT: Thinking of games I wish I'd never bothered to finish, I'll list off a few:


Bioshock - The game and storyline were awesome. The ending is less than memorable.
STALKER - For all the bugs and all the hoops they make you jump through, the endings to this game were pretty piss poor. It's pretty damn bad when a game has 7 endings and not one of them is worth getting.
Quake 4 - Yet another Doom 3-style ending - a couple lines of dialog, a window for Quake 5 and then fade to black.
Doom 3 - The game itself was incredible. The ending was not.
Fable: The Lost Chapters - The addition of 'The Hook Coast' was a nice touch but it couldn't save the lackluster ending (or the low replay value) from the original retail version.
Oblivion's Main Quest - The quest itself was very boring, closing all those Oblivion gates became tedious very fast. Also, the reward for finishing the main quest (full set of Dragon armor) was like a slap in the face. The glass armor I'd been using since level 12 was better. Hell, the Arena Champion Light Rainment is almost as good and you can get that piece at level 1 with very little difficulty. Not only that, if you've got Shivering Isles then you can get a full set of enchanted Perfect Amber armor and it makes the Dragon armor seem like child's play. Add to that the fact that you have to wait for 14 days for the armor to be ready and it's just not worth it. Oblivion's best feature is definitely the staggering number of non-main-quest-related sidequests and guilds to do stuff for.

[Kyllian]

The '3 days' gameplay mechanic just didn't rub me the right way.My girl refuses to even touch Majora's Mask anymore because of the 3 day thing

[Capt.Toilet]

Majoras Mask stuff

At least you get to play it. I had it for 3 days before having to return it to our local video store and never touched it since. That was 7 years ago. I am still waiting for Nintendo to put it on the virtual console :(

[-Jes-]

Imperium Galactica 2...

Knowing how my epic 4x ends when I actually wipe out the last opposing species, it's just a game-killer for me. :(

[dotnetbeast]

There's a few...

Need for Speed: Underground 2 - PC
I've been playing this game for 5 years now and I've still never finished it. I don't think I've got the willpower to. What could possibly happen at the end to make it all worthwhile? Seriously? You beat the last URL and then you get a nice closing comic-style cinematic and then you get dumped back onto the streets, I'm sure that's how it would end. Playing the game up until stage 5 is awesome. Playing stage 5 is not.

Oblivion's Main Quest - The quest itself was very boring, closing all those Oblivion gates became tedious very fast. Also, the reward for finishing the main quest (full set of Dragon armor) was like a slap in the face. The glass armor I'd been using since level 12 was better. Hell, the Arena Champion Light Rainment is almost as good and you can get that piece at level 1 with very little difficulty. Not only that, if you've got Shivering Isles then you can get a full set of enchanted Perfect Amber armor and it makes the Dragon armor seem like child's play. Add to that the fact that you have to wait for 14 days for the armor to be ready and it's just not worth it. Oblivion's best feature is definitely the staggering number of non-main-quest-related sidequests and guilds to do stuff for.
[/LIST]

NFSUG2: Not worth finishing. I stopped after stage 3.
Oblivion: Only if you got some mods running.

[Sine Deviance]

Oblivion: Only if you got some mods running.

I've already finished it. That was part of a list of games I wish I'd never bothered to finish.

[B]

I'm playing Assassin's Creed and I don't want to finish it, because that means I'll be done with the game and I don't want to be done, it's way too much fun to play. :)

[FaT CaM]

I never wanted to finish any of the Fatal Frame games simply because they started to scare me too much, I recently passed the second one though, and suddenly the things in the game don't bother me anymore.

But seriously, having dreams about stuff like this (http://media.teamxbox.com/games/ss/913/1088722607.jpg) isn't fun.

Then theres oblivion, nothing has made me appreciate morrowind more than that 'game'.

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

That's interesting but a video game has not truly scared me since the original Resident Evil on teh PSuno.

Maybe it was just because I was only like, 10, when I first played it but no game has actually ever scared me aside from that damn thing and its dogs busting through windows and gigantic spiders dropping on you from ceilings and the camera you can't control b/c it has to be in place for the shocking moments and the music and the atmosphere as you wander around waiting for something to pounce on you and chew your hand off *shiver*

[Capt.Toilet]

Sonic the Hedgehog(ps3). I finally finished this game about a month ago, but it was only Sonics episode. Shadow and Silver I may never touch because the game is just so damn buggy.

TBH thats the only game I have never wanted to finish. Its also on my list of worst game of all time

[Shadow]

Jak 2 and jak 3. Both so damn hard that it was a chore to play. Both of them never got any easier it would just be one pain in the ass mission after the other.

[Manticore]

American McGee's Scrapland is pretty lame.

[Jordan L]

Hellgate:London, even as short and repetitive as the game was, I still lost interest to complete the short 4 acts ( if you can call them acts ), or even to play it...ever again. Alley, Subway Tunnels, Roadways, were about all it offered in terms of Tile Sets. Tons of bugs, memory leaks, and glitches. Due to a big unresolved memory leak, they had to use Low Resolution Player Models until it was resolved, which took months according to the forums.

[[VaLkyR]Anubis]

I never finished Half Life 2,I got bored by this game.

[toniglandyl]

HL2's last level is great.
I didn't go past the third level (or was it the second ?) level of Project snowblind. the game crashed AT LEAST 10 times, no kidding. glad it was free (with the gfx card).

[Twisted Metal]

Just finished Crysis, and Jack's description of the alien cave onwards is pretty spot on. I went through absolute hell beating the final boss (sooo many bugs, it literally took me over 20 attempts) and I was left with a crappy 2 second ending scene.

Jungle parts were great, I had a blast with them. Then the aliens came and completely ruined the game. At least the alien portion was short. Hell the whole game was short. It's a shame.

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

Well the game is "relatively" short yes but depending on how you play. Technically, there's only 5 jungle island levels (contact, recovery, relic, assault and onslaught). But given their scope and the style of play you adopt per level it can take you hours to successfully navigate an area, which is the way I love to play.

I've gone rambo and taken our whole platoons and I've gone entirely stealth, only dispatching 2-3 enemies over the course of an entire zone. If you move quickly you can complete a level in 20 minutes. If you play the way I feel the game was meant to be played (read the manual) and play it on Delta, the hardest difficulty you'll average an hour and 30 minutes a level if you're really trying to not get your ass handed to you.

All more evidence for why I love the game so much and why I hope modders really get good at singeplayer level design or the games developers release an expansion/sequel.

[PainAmplifier]

Unreal - Got as far as the first Skaarj fight before I slammed permanent god-mode and all-ammo cheats in place, just to slog through the game to see the levels and end. The enemy AI is what ruined it for me.

Quake 3 - Lackluster physics (Q1 Grenade launcher VS Q3's is NO contest.) and far too many bugs. (Especially with the Arena addon...picked up both again used very cheap just to see if it fixed anything.) Not only did the 'arcade-y' feel turn me off, the sound, levels and weapon selection/balance just failed to excite me. I think the game lasted about 4 hours before I gave up, tagging it as a 'gold-plated dog turd'. (Arena lasted maybe 4 days tops, before I gave up again.)

Quake 4 - About half-way through the first level is when I loaded the cheats up, I think. The complete lack of ammo and the stupidly high amount it took to kill a single Strogg just wrecked the game before it even started. So by the time I had cheated my way through to the vehicle section(s) I had already given up, so their ass-tasticness wasn't able to ruin the game any farther than it already was. (I played through Doom3 without cheating, but Q4 just wasn't any fun.)

Heroes of Might and Magic IV - Leprechauns...need I say any more? I Bought the game very shortly after it was released...15 minutes after installing and starting the game I uninstalled it and took it to the re-sell place that *SAME* day.

Heroes of Might and Magic V - I was much less optimistic about this one after IV. I got about 1/2 way through the first campaign before the sheer suck-itude became unforgiveable. There was just no Balance and the game AI cheated like it was going out of style. (And this was on regular difficulty.)

Fire Warrior - 5 Frikin' minutes. (IF that.) When you start a game and the first weapon you have shoots colored fairy lights (and does about as much damage) it's a sure sign it sucks.

Titan Quest - I made it all the way to the end and the last boss...and after 80! damn heal potions dancing around all the 'Insta-Kill' attacks from the cyclops and the boss I had to run to town...came back and the boss was 100% health again. Tried to make another go as I had bought 2x as many potions this time, but the game crashed, wiping all my way points and corrupting the character...F! THAT! I tagged the damn game as 'beaten' anyway and just uninstalled it. This game was actually unwelcome before the end of the first (boss) level, but out of a misguided sense of 'finishing' it I slogged on praying it would get better. (Took like a year with breaks, to play games that were actually *gasp* fun!)

Divine Divinity - Not a bad game per se, but like Dagger Fall, the size of the world worked against it. That, crap inventory management and a poor character progression w/o an ability to re-work your char if you didn't see the crap coming before you built it the first time. I just kinda, gave up because it got too damn tedious to keep playing. (Not that Sacred was much better, but at least you could jump past 99% of everything and just get to the end boss once you got tired of the game.)

I could probably scrape up a few more if I sat down longer and really thought about it...but those are the ones that still stand out to my mind. Mostly because the hopes for them were high or previous games in the series were so much better.

[DarQraven]

Bioshock.

Amazing art style, amazing mood, great story, potential for greatness, yet spoiled for me by the most tedious yet noobified gameplay possible.

First of all, pretty much the only enemies you'll be fighting are big daddies. You know, those really strong, really scary bosses that are so powerful that you should be scared of them. Well, when you meet 3 of them subsequently in a single area, the effect kinda wears off.

There are some other enemies along the way, the splicers and security bots, but those are no real challenge. The splicers are dumb as fsck and make a constant racket so you'll know exactly where they are, and the security bots can be hacked to fight FOR you if you pick the right plasmids.

Speaking of plasmids, early on in the game you get the choice to either save the little sisters or exorcize them. When you save five of them, you get a plasmid that makes big daddies fight on your side (effectively eliminating one of the most challenging/unique parts of the game). When you sacrifice them, you get new plasmid powers.
Pick the wrong plasmid powers, and the big daddies won't fight for you, and you'll have no way in hell to beat them ... besides ... respawning.

That's the noobified part. You can just respawn infinitely in some kind of container tank, yet the enemies will be in the state you left them. In practice, this means that you can just run up to the end boss, punch it once, get pwned, respawn, punch it once again, get pwned, respawn, etc...until you beat him. I mean ... what the hell...

I stopped playing Bioshock in the second chapter. A shame really, it seems to be pretty good when it comes to everything besides the gameplay:(

edit: Oh, I forgot to mention the craptastic mouse support that forced me to turn down my windows mouse sensitivity because I could do five 360's by merely touching my mouse. And even after that it had a very noticeable delay. Console ports ftw.

[cuddles]

Splinter Cell - I just could not get past the CIA headquarters, I had no weapons and I could only walk in stealth, it got old pretty quick and I didnt bother to finish it anymore.

[dragonfliet]

Bioshock.

Amazing art style, amazing mood, great story, potential for greatness, yet spoiled for me by the most tedious yet noobified gameplay possible.

First of all, pretty much the only enemies you'll be fighting are big daddies. You know, those really strong, really scary bosses that are so powerful that you should be scared of them. Well, when you meet 3 of them subsequently in a single area, the effect kinda wears off.

There are some other enemies along the way, the splicers and security bots, but those are no real challenge. The splicers are dumb as fsck and make a constant racket so you'll know exactly where they are, and the security bots can be hacked to fight FOR you if you pick the right plasmids.

Speaking of plasmids, early on in the game you get the choice to either save the little sisters or exorcize them. When you save five of them, you get a plasmid that makes big daddies fight on your side (effectively eliminating one of the most challenging/unique parts of the game). When you sacrifice them, you get new plasmid powers.
Pick the wrong plasmid powers, and the big daddies won't fight for you, and you'll have no way in hell to beat them ... besides ... respawning.

That's the noobified part. You can just respawn infinitely in some kind of container tank, yet the enemies will be in the state you left them. In practice, this means that you can just run up to the end boss, punch it once, get pwned, respawn, punch it once again, get pwned, respawn, etc...until you beat him. I mean ... what the hell...

I stopped playing Bioshock in the second chapter. A shame really, it seems to be pretty good when it comes to everything besides the gameplay:(

edit: Oh, I forgot to mention the craptastic mouse support that forced me to turn down my windows mouse sensitivity because I could do five 360's by merely touching my mouse. And even after that it had a very noticeable delay. Console ports ftw.

? You play weird. You have to get fight big daddies to get little sisters. Period. If you don't attack a big daddy, it won't attack you, so you don't usually have to fight them. Killing a big daddy isn't really that hard if you think about things and plan. Set traps, use your plasmids smartly and keep in mind the environment. I turned the difficulty all the way up because yeah, the splicers are easy, but once you get to houdini splicers on hard, it's a decent challenge.

~Jason

[N1ghtmare]

Unreal - Got as far as the first Skaarj fight before I slammed permanent god-mode and all-ammo cheats in place, just to slog through the game to see the levels and end. The enemy AI is what ruined it for me.


The Unreal AI was supposed to be really good...

[Kaithofis]

The only game that comes to mind is Halo (PC). Extremely repetitive and linear. Walking in the same corridors, fighting the same set of enemies time after time after time really does not make me feel like I'm making progress. I quit not too long after the Library.

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

It's always nice to hear that someone who played Halo still didn't like it :D

[DarQraven]

? You play weird. You have to get fight big daddies to get little sisters. Period. If you don't attack a big daddy, it won't attack you, so you don't usually have to fight them. Killing a big daddy isn't really that hard if you think about things and plan. Set traps, use your plasmids smartly and keep in mind the environment. I turned the difficulty all the way up because yeah, the splicers are easy, but once you get to houdini splicers on hard, it's a decent challenge.

~Jason

But that's the point. If you DON'T fight them, you won't stand a chance later on in the game because you need the little sisters for extra plasmids.:)
Besides, what's the point of an FPS game if you're going to walk past the enemies instead of shoot them?

[dotnetbeast]

It's always nice to hear that someone who played Halo still didn't like it :D

Add me. Played the first one. Stopped after getting a weapon.

[PainAmplifier]

The Unreal AI was supposed to be really good...

The AI wasn't much better than the monsters in Doom were. Their biggest 'upgrade' was the ability to 'strafe' as they shot at you. Most the time they would stay at that range to keep shooting you instead of getting closer. Although they would eventually move closer as well. But almost without fail, if you had your cross-hairs over them and shot, they would auto-dodge without fail the split second you fired. They had no concept of cover or positioning, the AI just force-dodged them constantly if you were able to get your sights on them.

With a hit-scan weapon they weren't any harder than any other monster in any game at the time...they just had more health to soak up damage.

I had been playing UT for some time before I actually got Unreal, so even compared to the God-like bots in that game offline, the 'cheaty-ness' of the AI in Unreal was a huge turnoff for me once I figured it out.

[furby]

You and I are in the same boat as tons of people. IMO the game goes to complete **** the minute you enter the ship...

[Mister_Prophet]

But that's the point. If you DON'T fight them, you won't stand a chance later on in the game because you need the little sisters for extra plasmids.:)
Besides, what's the point of an FPS game if you're going to walk past the enemies instead of shoot them?

You need to watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwbPbPLawg)

[UBerserker]

The Unreal AI was supposed to be really good...

They were supposed to be the easiest in that generation (other than good). Unlike bots, they never cheat and are sometimes stupid as well. But it was still fun as hell, even nowadays.

[JaFO]

the AI in Unreal was fun as they actually ran away from you (in god-mode), unlike other games in which the AI would attack regardless of cost.
That's not to say that it didn't get boring. Although one of the main reasons for me to use god-mode/cheats was the fact that it was a slide-show experience once any monster was visible.

I still consider Civ 1 and Civ 4 as games I don't really like to finish. Especially once I'm so far ahead of the competition that I can literally decide who gets to live or die. I once launched the spaces-ship a little too early which meant I couldn't get a 'domination'-victory at the time-limit. It also sucks that you can only get one victory-movie and that subsequent victories (like killing the last remaining tribe) don't result in any rewards.

The GTA-series also are too much fun to play sandbox-style so I never liked finishing the story-line, especially once the missions got more difficult (GTA3 : after you get to the second island and get your first mission there).

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

The GTA-series also are too much fun to play sandbox-style so I never liked finishing the story-line, especially once the missions got more difficult (GTA3 : after you get to the second island and get your first mission there).

Hmm, while I've never wanted to get a GTA game to 100% (find a bunch of f*cking crap scattered god knows where around the map? k.. no, especially when the islands got massive) but I've always had to play the story missions to the end.

Haven't you ever wanted to know how things turn out for your guy? I've always loved the story in GTA games and the cutscenes surrounding story missions are often hilarious.