The last game you gave up on and your reasons + some gooseberry fool about MGS

Trelliz wrote:Unfortunately I had to ditch The Bradwell Conspiracy on PS4, purely for game performance issues. It's an interesting and witty portal-like first person puzzle game set in a lab under Stonehenge and the first game I can recall to mention Amesbury and the A303, however even though the environments aren't that detailed, the frame rate tanks anywhere other than a small corridor, making it a bit unpleasant to play. It was cheap in the sale so I'll keep an eye out for it on pc for the next sale and maybe give it another go.

State of that countess roundabout.

Edit - jesus this thread moves slow, i was only one page back and i have dragged up a nearly 3 month old post

The Sinking City

I was enjoying the Sherlock style investigations but the rest of the game is an absolute mess. I haven't felt buyer's remorse this bad in years

Battlefield V - I played through Battlefield 1 at the end of last year. It had a couple of pretty cool story arcs (the biplane one and the one with Lawrence of Arabia), but a lot of them were quite dull stealth-em-up missions. In addition to that the guns' attributes were complete pot luck. I stuck with it because I'd never played a WWI game and it took me soooo long to download via Origin. I fired up BFV and the first mission is a dull as dishwater stealth-em-up with a character whose accent reminds me of someone doing an impression of Taron Egerton committing a hate crime against Londoners. Get into a firefight and the guns are gooseberry fool AGAIN. Played WW2 games before, can't be doing with it, done. It's a shame because I loved Dice's Battlefront 2 campaign.

Trelliz wrote:Another one to the pile; Hob, an Epic Store freebie.

This epitomises the kind of indie game which boils my piss. Action platformers/Metroidvanias that think dropping you in a world with no indication of who/what/where you are at all creates a sense of mystery or intrigue, along with characters who speak but in alien words with no subtitles.

What happens for me is I run around for a while doing...stuff. Machines light up, doors open, i hit some bad guys and get given a marker on a map to go to because...? As such I have no reason to give a gooseberry fool about anything that happens, which is only amplified by what would be minor setbacks like dying and respawning, even if the respawn point is close by to the point where I completely check out.

Other indie darlings like Hyper Light Drifter had the same effect - games journos go on about "It made me want to explore the world, sometimes i'd sit for a while and look at the scenery and think about what happened to the people who used to live in these ruins and that spark of emotion made me have a little cry, 10/10 GOTY, Best of E3" but I quickly go "why am I here, who am I, why should I care?" and without an answer I quickly and irrevocably don't, as the answer is rarely worth the effort.

I thought I'd search on the forum for this game as I just tried the demo. I feel exactly the same, word for word.

I'll add....

As I wandered around aimlessly, things opened up, which look like you should stand on them, I think they are the checkpoints you refer to. You can't stand of them, at least at this point, so the design is very confusing (even if something happens later). There's a weird alien-looking plant thing that you can interact with - an on screen prompt appear to indicate "Press 'Y' " (finally! Something you can do) but you just tug at it ineffectively - nothing happens.

After wandering around for ages with no sense of place, with all areas I walk to looking the same, I thought I was stuck. Eventually I did the 'follow the left hand edge of the maze and you'll get through it' and discovered a new area.

At one point I somehow upgraded and could kill things, but I couldn't tell which things I was supposed to kill - good or bad they die anyway with seemingly no difference in outcome.

I eventually did enough for the demo to end - I was hoping to discover why it was so highly rated - and I was presented with a video of a dramatic, high action game that bore little resemblance to the aimless wandering around I had just endured.

I don't know why it annoyed me so much, but it did.

Aegis Defenders
I liked the idea of this - a mix of platforming and tower defence - but in practice it's just not that compelling, and I found it tedious. Realised I had no enthusiasm to go back to it.

Psychonauts
Second or third attempt at getting into this, and while I got further than I did before, I just don't find it fun to play. So much gooseberry fool to collect, awful menus and UI, frustrating levels...there are too many annoyances which overwhelm the good elements. I don't have the time or patience to play games that frustrate me, so this one goes in the bin as well.

State of Decay
I liked this when I started it, but it soon descended into too much resource management and worrying about player stamina, base security, etc. Soon turned into something not very enjoyable. Combine those issues with poor performance, annoying sections of having to fight of endless hordes of zombies through poor combat, and it just wasn't enjoyable enough to keep me interested.

Resonance of Fate
I've had a few attempts at this, and while I like the visuals, the music, and the overall concept seemed fine, the combat is so poorly explained and so tedious that it's enough to put me off. People have created tutorials online to help explain the combat because the game does such a poor job itself and misses out key information, but even then, it's just not fun, especially when your characters start limping around in a cowardly manner and you can barely do anything - not fun at all. It's a shame because the rest of the game seemed promising.

Chocobo racing GP: the gameplay didnt click for me and that main menu song was unbearable

Trek to Yomi - love the aesthetics but man the combat thinks a bit too highly of itself, and isn’t actually that great.

Buffalo wrote:Trek to Yomi - love the aesthetics but man the combat thinks a bit too highly of itself, and isn’t actually that great.

I find the combat is so janky and rubbish.

I almost give up with the game.

shy guy 64 wrote:Chocobo racing GP: the gameplay didnt click for me and that main menu song was unbearable

Dang, sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it, shy guy. I played it a lot when I first got it and I liked it... but haven't been back for a few weeks now.

That menu music sure can get to be a bit annoying although I believe you can change it. You have to complete the story mode and then you can purchase and apply different background music (using in-game currency). You can apply different background images, too.

Oh! Just a thought - were you playing the free version? If so, I don't think you can play the story mode.

BOR wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Trek to Yomi - love the aesthetics but man the combat thinks a bit too highly of itself, and isn’t actually that great.

I find the combat is so janky and rubbish.

I almost give up with the game.

I got about 2/3 of the way through (Chapter 5) but I just can’t push on to the end, it’s driving me mad.

jawa_ wrote:

shy guy 64 wrote:Chocobo racing GP: the gameplay didnt click for me and that main menu song was unbearable

Dang, sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy it, shy guy. I played it a lot when I first got it and I liked it... but haven't been back for a few weeks now.

That menu music sure can get to be a bit annoying although I believe you can change it. You have to complete the story mode and then you can purchase and apply different background music (using in-game currency). You can apply different background images, too.

Oh! Just a thought - were you playing the free version? If so, I don't think you can play the story mode.

I didn’t find out about the free version until after I bought it l. The story was woeful

Buffalo wrote:

BOR wrote:

Buffalo wrote:Trek to Yomi - love the aesthetics but man the combat thinks a bit too highly of itself, and isn’t actually that great.

I find the combat is so janky and rubbish.

I almost give up with the game.

I got about 2/3 of the way through (Chapter 5) but I just can’t push on to the end, it’s driving me mad.

I am nearly at the end of Chapter 2 and I don't know if I would be bothered to carry on playing.

Lego Super Villains, just couldn’t get into it

Dowbocop wrote:I think I'm done with GTA V. I started playing it for the play along and I tried to carry on with it. In only a few missions in but I just don't give a strawberry float about it in general, and the game world seems so vast I'll have to sink too much time to get to bits I like.

Only good thing which I look forward to every month with GTA 5 now is the Survive the Hunt series on Youtube other than that I am done with Rockstar once a great studio now milking one game to death for the last 8 years

Elden Ring, I honestly don't get the exceptionally high praise for this. 40 hours was enough for me to realise the game is poorly balanced. It has issues that need ironing out. I'll give it a go when they finish patching it. I love Dark Souls and DS3.

Slay the Spire, picked this up on Xbox. It just didn't grab me. I'm not sure I'm playing it on the right platform. Seems like something I'd enjoy on a mobile.

Squinty wrote:Elden Ring, I honestly don't get the exceptionally high praise for this. 40 hours was enough for me to realise the game is poorly balanced. It has issues that need ironing out. I'll give it a go when they finish patching it. I love Dark Souls and DS3.

Slay the Spire, picked this up on Xbox. It just didn't grab me. I'm not sure I'm playing it on the right platform. Seems like something I'd enjoy on a mobile.

I could make this post verbatim. Except StS has come dangerously close to a compulsion now and I'm only playing it for the dopamine hit.

I will go back and finish Elden Ring though but I really wish I loved it as much as everyone else. Bloodborne is still one of my favourite games of all time but ER just didn't click for me.

Elden Ring

Went back to it today after a month break and I'm just not feeling it. Might be in a bad mood today because everything was just infuriating me and I was bouncing off most games i turned on but I think today has killed the game for me.

It's has the ingredients for an amazing game but it just doesn't work for me and the balancing is all over the place. Started off difficult but then became super easy for most of the game until the end game where they've lazily thrown in hundreds of repetitive and heavy hitting enemies, grinding progress to an absolute slog.

I really wished I love it and understood what everyone else sees in it but it's nowhere near the perfection of DS1, Bloodborne or Sekiro.

I think it's the open world that has killed it for me ultimately.

Dowbocop wrote:Battlefield V - I played through Battlefield 1 at the end of last year. It had a couple of pretty cool story arcs (the biplane one and the one with Lawrence of Arabia), but a lot of them were quite dull stealth-em-up missions. In addition to that the guns' attributes were complete pot luck. I stuck with it because I'd never played a WWI game and it took me soooo long to download via Origin. I fired up BFV and the first mission is a dull as dishwater stealth-em-up with a character whose accent reminds me of someone doing an impression of Taron Egerton committing a hate crime against Londoners. Get into a firefight and the guns are gooseberry fool AGAIN. Played WW2 games before, can't be doing with it, done. It's a shame because I loved Dice's Battlefront 2 campaign.

If you think BF5 is bad then give BF2042 a go.

It makes BF5 look like a bloody masterpiece.

Zelda Skyward Sword, i put in just over 10 hours, but i didn't enjoy a single second of it so just dropped it. I tried lots to like it but it just wasn't doing it for me.