Games you wanted to love that you ended up hating

[Enpatsu No Shakugan]

Could've sworn I made this already, but I guess not.

What are some video games that you wanted to try and were so excited for that not only let you down, but then utterly irritated you beyond simple mediocrity? And why?

I generally enjoy third person and open world games the most, so thus I'm a big fan of Rockstar games, who all but created the genre.
Tonality is less important to me, but in general, I have a dark sensibility to me in terms of interests. Darker stories generally carry more drama and have more weight.
So thus my two main entries both have elements of these.

1. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for PS3.
I had heard nothing but praise for the story, characters, setting and everything. To the point, it's actually even getting an upcoming movie starring Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx as the titular characters (really).
It's a very unpleasantly dark tale of two murdering thieves out for revenge; two men you'd never want to know personally and two men who are both violent, intense, damaged, and bordering on psychotic.
It wasn't open world, but it was a third person linear action game. And with all that going on, what could possibly go wrong?

Well... I got fair warning. Amidst the constant praise of story and all that, the last thing always brought up was "It's a terrible game". So much so, there's even article on it called "Kane & Lynch, the best game that sucks."
I knew this going in. I was optimistic though that the story could carry it....

And initially, it seemed I was right. The first/second stage didn't feel like a PS3 game (more like a launch game for the PS2) but it had its own style and I'd played worse. I was kinda getting into it. Kinda had to adjust your brain a little into bad game mode, but not bad. I was intrigued by the story and characters too.

And..... then you get to stage 3, in the pitch darkness trying to shoot with those controls. Unclear targets, cheap AI, undefined definitions, etc. I don't even know how I beat it. And continue with more stages and eventually I got to a part that required precise aiming in a finite timespan, and every failure FORCED you to rewatch the preceding cutscene.... and that was it.
No more.

If you want something really funny, I had to list it on Ebay just to hope to get rid of it, and only after months did I get a buy. A couple of days later, the buyer attempted to return it to me under the guise of it not working, yet couldn't provide when I asked for proof. IE, he found out the game sucked too and wanted to return it, like I was Blockbuster. 


2. LA Noire
When I first got a PS3, this was one of the first games I sought out. Rockstar again, hell yeah. This was their spin on a cop game vs the usual kind of open world crime things they established with GTA. That was all I ever heard.
And boy was that ever skewered.
Rockstar had almost nothing to do with it past releasing it and slapping their name on it, and boy was that ever apparent when you play it.

Poorly designed came to mind in terms of controls, awkward and tedious gameplay. I generally had absolutely no clue what I was expecting from this game, but the last thing I wanted was a mystery, note taking kind of game. (I legit never would've wasted my money). Add on top of it the boring story, sleep inducing gameplay, atrocious acting and writing and yeah, I was done so fast.

I actually saw a background video on the making of the game... and it made quite a lot of my issues with the game really make too much sense.
Props to anyone who could actually get into this game, but wow, I couldn't stand it. Just goes to show you that a brand label on something really doesn't amount to much.


I have more, but that's it for now. These are my top two. Share yours.

 

[user 115627]

Love is perhaps too strong of a word, but I certainly have played games with the expectation to like or at least enjoy them and more often they ended up killing my spirit across time...both Kane & Lynch and L.A. Noire would be part of that list for some of the cited reasons.

You could say I hadn't even learned my lesson because I bought the sequel to Kane and Lynch for something like 2,99 and completed the game in under 3 hours in one evening. It wasn't even bad (which might be the worst a game could be) but I removed it immediately afterwards. No desire to replay at all. The story and characters were alright, although I struggle to remember any of it at this point. I played it on PC, so the controls were not a problem but it was just so dull towards the end. I guess the short playtime of the sequel actually prevented that from reoccurring. Some people say that third-person games are actually the worst and laziest from a gameplay perspective. I cannot speak for that because I have played lots of good third-person games but perhaps they only shined because of good story, environment and specific gameplay elements that elevated them.

Well...at least I managed to complete both games in comparison to L.A. Noire. I attempted it twice with multiple years in between and I still couldn't get beyond playing for 1-2 hours before giving up. As an alternative, I played Murdered: Soul Suspect which could be considered a crime-solving game with an obvious gimmick (being dead) but that was far more simplified and had no replayability in my memory.

To talk about more than what was already mentioned:

Serious Sam 2: I wasn't familiar with the "horde wave" type of game before - or whatever the correct terminology is. I thought it would be alright, that the gunplay looked fun and I did end up playing for at least 10 hours, occasionally late into the night. I gave up and never touched it again after reaching the 5th world or so, it became horribly repetitive and maybe it was just supposed to be this way. I fell for it again when I tried the game Painkiller after having watched my brother play it years earlier. At least that had a neat theme and some kickass music going for it.

Borderlands: ...urrrrrrr. I tried, I really did. The base game was actually pretty neat and I completed it multiple times. Enjoyed the gameplay, looting and character customization aspects and looked past the frustration I had with some very bulletspongy enemies. Later I got the DLCs and it turned into a nightmare, the worst being that you'd always get teleported to the very entrance point of some locations if you restarted the game which turned some stretches of the game into an absolute chore if you wanted to get your hands on some good loot. I can only assume it would have been less of a pain in the ass with an available co-op player but I only got to enjoy that once. I gave the sequel a shot when it was on sale but I let it go after a few hours, hoping that I could muster up the energy again someday. Hasn't happened yet.

 

[Enpatsu No Shakugan]

Love is perhaps too strong of a word, but I certainly have played games with the expectation to like or at least enjoy them and more often they ended up killing my spirit across time...both Kane & Lynch and L.A. Noire would be part of that list for some of the cited reasons.

You could say I hadn't even learned my lesson because I bought the sequel to Kane and Lynch for something like 2,99 and completed the game in under 3 hours in one evening. It wasn't even bad (which might be the worst a game could be) but I removed it immediately afterwards. No desire to replay at all. The story and characters were alright, although I struggle to remember any of it at this point. I played it on PC, so the controls were not a problem but it was just so dull towards the end. I guess the short playtime of the sequel actually prevented that from reoccurring. Some people say that third-person games are actually the worst and laziest from a gameplay perspective. I cannot speak for that because I have played lots of good third-person games but perhaps they only shined because of good story, environment and specific gameplay elements that elevated them.

Well...at least I managed to complete both games in comparison to L.A. Noire. I attempted it twice with multiple years in between and I still couldn't get beyond playing for 1-2 hours before giving up. As an alternative, I played Murdered: Soul Suspect which could be considered a crime-solving game with an obvious gimmick (being dead) but that was far more simplified and had no replayability in my memory.

To talk about more than what was already mentioned:

Serious Sam 2: I wasn't familiar with the "horde wave" type of game before - or whatever the correct terminology is. I thought it would be alright, that the gunplay looked fun and I did end up playing for at least 10 hours, occasionally late into the night. I gave up and never touched it again after reaching the 5th world or so, it became horribly repetitive and maybe it was just supposed to be this way. I fell for it again when I tried the game Painkiller after having watched my brother play it years earlier. At least that had a neat theme and some kickass music going for it.

Borderlands: ...urrrrrrr. I tried, I really did. The base game was actually pretty neat and I completed it multiple times. Enjoyed the gameplay, looting and character customization aspects and looked past the frustration I had with some very bulletspongy enemies. Later I got the DLCs and it turned into a nightmare, the worst being that you'd always get teleported to the very entrance point of some locations if you restarted the game which turned some stretches of the game into an absolute chore if you wanted to get your hands on some good loot. I can only assume it would have been less of a pain in the ass with an available co-op player but I only got to enjoy that once. I gave the sequel a shot when it was on sale but I let it go after a few hours, hoping that I could muster up the energy again someday. Hasn't happened yet.

Thanks for the detailed response! Hope to see more like this!

Yeah, I didn't mean "love" exclusively, just more so you wanted to enjoy, etc.


The thing about Kane & Lynch 2 that I've heard is that even people who liked and will defend/tolerate the first game hate it. It removes the writing, and the gameplay is even worse.
I would judge it myself to see if I didn't have such an infuriating time with the broken controls of the first game. And then to hear it gets even worse, yikes.
Not sure if you mentioned if you actually tried the first game yourself or not; kinda sounds like it with "didn't learn your lesson", but not sure.


That's another thing I forgot to add in with games like LA Noire; as a mystery game, how does it have any replayability even if you did enjoy it? You'll know exactly who is lying, the clues, the end results, everything. Those kind of games literally only work ONCE.


I totally agree with you on third person shooters. I guess this is why I like open world third person, because shooting is only one slice of gameplay.
My first real 'third person shooter' was Uncharted and that made me realize just how boring they actually are, and I began to agree that it's the laziest way to design a game. Just slap that mechanic onto it and make it a third person shooter.

Thanks for reminding me too! That's another series: Uncharted.

I had heard so many great things and I was so jealous it was only on console when I just had a PC. So I actually bought a used PS3 at a yard sale simply because the seller had the Uncharted games with them. I'm glad I did that in the long run, as I love my PS3 and later even got a 4, but not for those games.

Uncharted 1 was.... underwhelming. Not bad and decently fun, but it made me realize how boring the genre of third person shooter really is. And then 2, despite its massive positive ratings, good lord, did I loathe everything about that game. The story, characters, more of the same tired gameplay. I shut it off halfway and resold them all, even 3.

I realized people like it because it's like Indiana Jones; a Mary Sue super protagonist and that has always been as boring as it gets for me. Because of Uncharted now, I tend to avoid Naughty Dog games like the plague. Even critically acclaimed games like The Last of Us, which looked interesting until I delved deeper; then I just saw Uncharted 2 2.0. Yeah, never again.

 

[user 115627]

To clarify, I have played the first one. I'm not a defender of any of them though...mostly because I can barely remember either. I doubt it's worth to replay them just to be able to speak about them again. I happily erase them from my memory.

I don't know if L.A. Noire offered alternative paths, conversations, different witnesses or something along these lines to enable any replayability. Or it's one of those games you have to replay after 2+ years because you forgot big chunks of the story...

I can't offer any insight on Uncharted, it always seemed like a Tomb Raider clone with more focus on combat plus a main character with more swagger.

Honorary mention goes to The Darkness II which I encountered while scrolling through my steam library. It's one of those "best worst games" that are very tightly knit and their mechanics and story are pretty solid and enjoyable, but...I completed it in 5 hours.

One might say a good story can be told in even less time and if the price is right you're still better off with that than by going to the movies. That's how I justify it to myself sometimes. I don't know if it's an elitist thing to say, but...I do expect more from games? Or maybe I just expect something different. Narrative-driven slash walking simulator games have also gotten more and more popular in recent years. Games that are even shorter, have no combat/threat and generally a very restricted interaction with the game world. I try to see it as a different category. I replayed SOMA this week and I greatly enjoyed that because it knows how to combine its components effectively.

 

[Marcus_83]

Elder Scrolls Blades was a big dissapointment for me :l

 

[Trevor]

Saint's Row 3

 

[user 176211]

Coming off the heels of those 2 awesome back to back Spider-Man games, I thought Marvel Avengers was gonna be cool. Its a cornfest. You only fight generic robots. You gotta keep paying every time they release a new avenger to play with. The controls are bad and you just keep doing the same "defend this spot" missions. Huge disappointment and I will never purchase anything again without watching it on YouTube first.

 

[Azariah]

Kingdom Come Deliverance but all i did was kill guards lol

 

[solonely20]

One of the batman games released in 2015.

 

[Sarah G]

Count to a million

 

[solonely20]

Red dead redemption is one..

Just feels so slow. Tried it but gave up after a few missions.

Takes forever.

 

[Hereward87]

"Star Wars: Yoda Stories" for the Gameboy colour.

Bought this when I was still a kid.

I didn't read the reviews, obviously, I just saw it in WHSmith and thought that it looked awesome from the information on the box. Also, at that stage of my life I was massively into Star Wars. The Rerelease had just happened in 1997 (I would have been ten years old).