Games you wanted to like & why

[AstroManLuca]

Mass Effect 2: I heard they streamlined 1 for the better, it was supposed to be everything improved. But it felt like everything stripped away. I've gone back to it 4 times now and have yet to complete it. As tedius as exploring planets was in ME1, I enjoyed my alone time on the planets, it felt like space. Now the simulated 'planet scanner' bores me to tears and often I end up quitting after I scan a few new planets.

Which is why you use a save file editor to give yourself 500k of every resource so you don't have to scan planets except to find side missions.

They did seem to strip away a bit too much. Max level was cut in half from 60 to 30, and with most character classes, it's pretty easy to max every skill that matters.

Still, for me it's an improvement over ME1 for the sole reason that the combat is so much better. Also, the difficulty doesn't seem to vary too much. In the first game, I always felt like it started out very hard and got easier and easier as I leveled up. With ME2 it's more constant.

 

[Golgatha]

Quake Wars: ET - Not enough community support.

Final Fantasy 13 - It just all around sucked.

Command and Conquer 4 - DRM from Hell and...no base building?! WTF were they on?!

 

[CPA]

All Sid Meiers games.

Blasphemy. And I thought it couldn't get much worse from what I've seen from you in P&N.

 

[livingsacrifice]

Homefront, wanted to like it, trailers looked like it was going to be comparable to other top selling FPS games. After I got it I feel as though I was completely ripped off, shortest single player ever and didn't make me want to even try multiplayer.

 

[Majes]

Civilization: Civ 2 was one of my favorite games ever. Since then they only seem to take out and change things that I loved and add in things that I hate...

Defense Grid: People highly recommend this game, but it's complete junk compared to the tower defense maps created in the Warcraft 3 map editor.

MMOs in general: I was disillusioned by what a massively multiplayer meant... I was looking for persistent worlds where I could have an impact on events and make changes. Instead I got servers where the only thing I could do was spend hours upon hours leveling a character...

Spore: Game sucked. Boring and easy as heck.

Star Wars games: I think Star Wars: Rebellion was the last SW game I really enjoyed. TIE Fight was beast, but for such an amazing universe the games released lately have been weak.

 

[skace]

Which is why you use a save file editor to give yourself 500k of every resource so you don't have to scan planets except to find side missions.

They did seem to strip away a bit too much. Max level was cut in half from 60 to 30, and with most character classes, it's pretty easy to max every skill that matters.

Still, for me it's an improvement over ME1 for the sole reason that the combat is so much better. Also, the difficulty doesn't seem to vary too much. In the first game, I always felt like it started out very hard and got easier and easier as I leveled up. With ME2 it's more constant.

As logical as that might sound, my gamer honor won't let me edit a save file. Doing so would instantly ruin my enjoyment of the game for me. I never, ever cheat unless I've already beaten a game and I'm purposefully modding it in some fashion.

Keep in mind, I don't scan planets for resources, I scan them for completion. For the sole purpose of making sure I don't miss some secret mission.

I think I enjoyed the combat in ME1 more, but I honestly can't tell you why. I play a sniper in both games and the combat doesn't really stand out in either game as anything impressive. So I honestly couldn't tell you how they've possibly improved it in the 2nd one. I do recall that in the first one, I had a lot more ammo at my disposal I believe. It seems like in ME2, no matter what, I'm only ever going to have xyz number of sniper shots, so I can never really be a sniper, because eventually I have to charge into combat and play 52-pickup while random monsters chase me.

 

[skace]

Blasphemy. And I thought it couldn't get much worse from what I've seen from you in P&N.

Honestly, the comment doesn't carry much weight, like similar other ones in the thread. The point of the thread is to list games you _wanted_ to like and _why_. Listing "all sid meiers games" doesn't make sense. He has made, what, 30-40 games? So why, at game 36, would you still really want to like the game despite hating the last 35? And most importantly, why (without which, posting in this thread is a waste of time).

I suppose Craig could say he loves the concepts behind every game ever produced by Sid Meier, just like the guy who listed all of Valve's recent offerings. However, it sounds like a cop out to me to troll a specific developer of popular games.

Although, I could say I've hated everything Bungie has put out since Microsoft bought them. However, I never wanted to like any of those games either.

 

[AstroManLuca]

As logical as that might sound, my gamer honor won't let me edit a save file. Doing so would instantly ruin my enjoyment of the game for me. I never, ever cheat unless I've already beaten a game and I'm purposefully modding it in some fashion.

Keep in mind, I don't scan planets for resources, I scan them for completion. For the sole purpose of making sure I don't miss some secret mission.

I think I enjoyed the combat in ME1 more, but I honestly can't tell you why. I play a sniper in both games and the combat doesn't really stand out in either game as anything impressive. So I honestly couldn't tell you how they've possibly improved it in the 2nd one. I do recall that in the first one, I had a lot more ammo at my disposal I believe. It seems like in ME2, no matter what, I'm only ever going to have xyz number of sniper shots, so I can never really be a sniper, because eventually I have to charge into combat and play 52-pickup while random monsters chase me.

That's your decision I guess, and I understand. I find it makes the game more enjoyable to not have to worry about resources, but I can see wanting to do it at least on the first playthrough. After that it's just a chore. You can at least keep in mind that you only have to collect about 250k of each resource (about 50k of Element Zero) in order to buy every upgrade in the game, and anything past that is useless.

Also, if you're going for completion and scanning planets just to find side quests, you don't even have to do much scanning at all. Once you zoom in on a planet, EDI will say "anomaly detected" if there's a place to land. If not you can just zoom right out. Still requires you to travel to every planet but it's not a huge issue; scanning for resources takes a lot longer.

As for your problems with the combat system, I think the issue is that you're playing as an Infiltrator. It's a safe class but like you said it has ammo issues, and beyond that, it's just kind of slow and boring compared with the others. You should try playing as a Vanguard. It's crazy, your special ability is "Charge" which teleports you to an enemy. You then shoot them in the face with a shotgun, or smack them, or both. So rather than hanging back and plinking guys in the head, you're running around shotgunning them like a madman. Ammo isn't a problem since a lot of enemies drop ammo when you kill them, and you're right there to pick it up.

 

[fatpat268]

You should try playing as a Vanguard. It's crazy, your special ability is "Charge" which teleports you to an enemy. You then shoot them in the face with a shotgun, or smack them, or both. So rather than hanging back and plinking guys in the head, you're running around shotgunning them like a madman. Ammo isn't a problem since a lot of enemies drop ammo when you kill them, and you're right there to pick it up.

I normally play as a vanguard, and I practically never use the charge ability. Why? because I almost always die within a few seconds after using it because every enemy locks on to me, and then I have difficulty getting to cover.

 

[erikistired]

Are you just trying to be controversial? Oblivion and Fallout 3/NV are both amazing games. Best RPGs I have played in the last 5 years. Starcraft 2 is a polished, nearly perfectly balanced successor with a fun/decent sci-fi story and competitive online play.

Supreme Commander 2 does kinda suck, but 1 was fun, and a great attempt by a small studio. Never played TDU, it might actually suck.

while supreme commander 2 did suck, he said supreme commander, which was a bad ass game. i believe he's either trolling or just trying to be edgy. considering how he posts in OT, i'm going to say trolling. oblivion and fallout 3 speak for themselves. i haven't put enough time into starcraft 2, so that one could go either way.

-----

i really really wanted to like auto assault. i played the beta, and even played a month of release. it just never felt finished to me, unfortunately. i loved the concept, an MMO with cars that could fight each other with all sorts of weapons and whatnot. but what was released was just a mess, and it didn't last a year.

 

[stahlhart]

Serious Sam 2 -- really liked the first two, still do, but the whole business of the female Netricsa voice and the overall silly cartoonishness was off-putting

Gunman Chronicles -- wanted this one to be good, but just couldn't get into it (still try to every once in a while)

 

[Anneka]

Serious Sam 2 -- really liked the first two, still do, but the whole business of the female Netricsa voice and the overall silly cartoonishness was off-putting

Gunman Chronicles -- wanted this one to be good, but just couldn't get into it (still try to every once in a while)

You nailed with Serious Sam (both for my liking).
It was one of those games you couldn't let go.
Also at one point there was a copy of the game named "Will rock" or something. You must try that too

 

[Martimus]

As logical as that might sound, my gamer honor won't let me edit a save file. Doing so would instantly ruin my enjoyment of the game for me. I never, ever cheat unless I've already beaten a game and I'm purposefully modding it in some fashion.

Keep in mind, I don't scan planets for resources, I scan them for completion. For the sole purpose of making sure I don't miss some secret mission.

I think I enjoyed the combat in ME1 more, but I honestly can't tell you why. I play a sniper in both games and the combat doesn't really stand out in either game as anything impressive. So I honestly couldn't tell you how they've possibly improved it in the 2nd one. I do recall that in the first one, I had a lot more ammo at my disposal I believe. It seems like in ME2, no matter what, I'm only ever going to have xyz number of sniper shots, so I can never really be a sniper, because eventually I have to charge into combat and play 52-pickup while random monsters chase me.

I am playing the game now as a Infiltrator, and I found that I alternate firing fireballs at the enemy and doing head shots. Due to the lack of ammo, I try to make sure 100% of my shots are head shots. I have gotten good at it though, so I kill the majority of the bad guys in one shot now. But I usually start off with some adapts in my party and we use our force powers to kill as many enemies as possible to conserve on ammo.

 

[skace]

I am playing the game now as a Infiltrator, and I found that I alternate firing fireballs at the enemy and doing head shots. Due to the lack of ammo, I try to make sure 100% of my shots are head shots. I have gotten good at it though, so I kill the majority of the bad guys in one shot now. But I usually start off with some adapts in my party and we use our force powers to kill as many enemies as possible to conserve on ammo.

Yea, I've played out that same exact scenario many times as well. It just feels forced though. I go into each battle thinking the same things. Instead of using a force power because my shots are ineffective against some enemy, I'm using it because I'm afraid of running out of ammo.... constantly.

I ran out of ammo less in Resident Evil 4 & 5 than I did in ME2.

 

[blckgrffn]

Yea, I've played out that same exact scenario many times as well. It just feels forced though. I go into each battle thinking the same things. Instead of using a force power because my shots are ineffective against some enemy, I'm using it because I'm afraid of running out of ammo.... constantly.

I ran out of ammo less in Resident Evil 4 & 5 than I did in ME2.

lol, I thought to myself - somehow in two years of game times they swapped out all the guns for ones that run out of ammo. I play infiltrator too, and just got really used to using the submachine gun and heavy pistol. The heavy weapons never got used. I didn't die in fights, I got stuck in art assets and lost ~4 hours of my life to forgetting to save every time I did anything important. I could have beaten the latest medal of honor game in that amount of wasted time.

Baldurs Gate. What, if anything, was fun about this game? I just didn't get it, I guess.

TA: Kingdoms, disappointing single player.

ME2? I haven't done any DLC yet because I don't feel like firing it up. It just didn't appeal to the Diablo 2 player in me.

Deus Ex 2: IW. Come on people. Update the graphics. Let me go back to being the crazy jump from a building stealth killer I was in the first game.

I am disappointed that Undying 2 doesn't exist.

Far Cry 2 - bought it for the Benchmark, I guess. It works well enough for that. Repetitive game play - if you want to do game play like that well, try Just Cause 2. At least its fun and crazy crap is always going down.

Doom 3 - bought it, upgraded my PC for it, ended up being benchmark only. Cannot stand the zombie always behind you in the dark gameplay.

Soldier of Fortune: Payback. LOL - what a middle finger in the air to that gaming community.

That space game mentioned earlier in the thread - homeworld? Whatever. I sucked at it evidently and it had no difficulty settings so I was f'd.

Far Cry - tech demo of a game, monsters were retarded.

Will Rock. Will suck. I mean, compare it to Painkiller. There is no comparison - played it to the end though. Sat under Zues's throne and plinked him to death.

I loved Sup Com, and so did not buy Sup Com 2.

Many more, I am sure. I tend to buy games really cheap on Steam these days, which makes for less disappointment. A game at $10 doesn't have to have a "ton" of value to avoid being a disappointment.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms

Total Annihilation was the best Strategy game ever made.
Total Annihilation Core Contingency addon made it even better.

With TA:CC you could play general of the armies, coordinated attacks across multiple fronts with air, sea, and land units = epic!

It set the bar VERY high.

Kingdoms was garbage. Shitty low unit limit, no more epic war sized battle, instead... In kingdoms, you had a little tactical force, and pretty much could just control a squad .... boring IMO

 

[exar333]

Star Wars: Rebellion

Awesome potential ruined by a terrible UI and horrible mechanics. I pre-ordered that game 12-18 months ahead of release and gave it away to first person I could 1-2 weeks after I got it. Terrible, terrible game. I was so let down...

 

[exar333]

I wanted to like any of the Xenosaga series. When I first played Xenogears, I think I had skipped class on a Friday, and ended up beating the game before Monday night. I don't think there has been an RPG that I enjoyed more than Xenogears.

Yet when the Xenosagas came out all I saw were hollow shells of what Xenogears had been. The music was nowhere near as good, the characters didn't grip me at all, the combat felt far too easy in comparison, and the story was nowhere near as dramatic. I felt like I was playing a "mass appeal: Xenogears for kids" game. It is with great regret that I state that the Xenosaga games weren't for me.

Wow, really? I love, LOVE Xenogears but did really like Xenosaga. The second installment was weak (gameplay and story) but I and III were really good. The first game was definitely different because there was a lot of cutscenes plus multiple story lines all happening at once. Once they came together, the story was very intricate and you could appreciate the detail put into the characters and story itself. After playing through the series a couple times, I came to like the XS characters more than most of the XG characters, with maybe Citan and Elly excluded. I know this is a PC forum, but I couldn't help but comment here...

HL2 was another one. The game always felt kind of like a chore to play, not sure why. I had a blast playing the game fighting and exploring, but the story was really lame to me. Never could got into it...

MMORGs (pretty much all of these): Grindfests and 'fetch quests' built around a modern chat room. Lame.

 

[simonizor]

All of the CoD games from 4 on. I really wanted to like them because all of my friends were playing, but they just have too much shit going on to be fun. I'm always getting shot by some person that I never saw while I'm stuck on some random pile of garbage in the middle of the street that I can't see either unless I look directly at my feet while someone is calling in a chopper and throwing 80 nades in my direction. I much prefer the simplicity of CoD 1 & 2 (we can pretend that 3 never happend) over the newer ones.

 

[skace]

Wow, really? I love, LOVE Xenogears but did really like Xenosaga. The second installment was weak (gameplay and story) but I and III were really good. The first game was definitely different because there was a lot of cutscenes plus multiple story lines all happening at once. Once they came together, the story was very intricate and you could appreciate the detail put into the characters and story itself. After playing through the series a couple times, I came to like the XS characters more than most of the XG characters, with maybe Citan and Elly excluded. I know this is a PC forum, but I couldn't help but comment here...

As someone who absolutely loved Xenogears, Xenosaga pissed me off so much that I'm not sure I ever finished Episode 1 and refused to get Episode 2 after I read some reviews on it. After that the series was dead to me.

XG has a number of characters I really enjoyed: Id, Elly, Citan, Esmerelda and Maria. However, I also like Deus, The Ministry and Grahf.

 

[sandorski]

UT3-It was a disappoint. Partially because the whole DM/CTF/Similar genre has been done to death, but mostly because it just offered nothing new.

 

[OptimumSlinky]

UT3-It was a disappoint. Partially because the whole DM/CTF/Similar genre has been done to death, but mostly because it just offered nothing new.

I enjoyed UT3 simply as a throwback to arena games. I hadn't played a UT game since UT '99 (which I still hold as the best), so I enjoyed playing that style game with the Unreal Engine 3. But the vehicles were just a weak attempt to be like Halo, and there was like, zip community on this game (half the matches I joined were filled with bots).

Guess I just miss games like UT '99 (the Assault mode on that beach head map was just freakin' legendary) and Quake 3: Arena.

 

[Aristotelian]

Wow, really? I love, LOVE Xenogears but did really like Xenosaga. The second installment was weak (gameplay and story) but I and III were really good. The first game was definitely different because there was a lot of cutscenes plus multiple story lines all happening at once. Once they came together, the story was very intricate and you could appreciate the detail put into the characters and story itself. After playing through the series a couple times, I came to like the XS characters more than most of the XG characters, with maybe Citan and Elly excluded. I know this is a PC forum, but I couldn't help but comment here...

The OP mentioned a PS3 (RPG) game or two so I figured it would be okay.

If you've played through the series multiple times, I might have to give it another go. But I had a really strong negative reaction to the games, like this poster:

As someone who absolutely loved Xenogears, Xenosaga pissed me off so much that I'm not sure I ever finished Episode 1 and refused to get Episode 2 after I read some reviews on it. After that the series was dead to me.

XG has a number of characters I really enjoyed: Id, Elly, Citan, Esmerelda and Maria. However, I also like Deus, The Ministry and Grahf.

Xenogears was simply 'epic'. There were so many scenes that gripped me, and even the walls of text on the second disc were a pleasure to read (for me). But I got a really bad taste in the mouth after trying the first XS. I'll give them another go someday, as I'm probably gearing up for another play-through of XG. I can't seem to let the game go, and I must have played it through about 5 or 6 times at least.

 

[terry107]

Civilization V - Coming off of Civ IV (which I spent countless hours playing), I was worried about the changes that were being implemented. Still bought it on release and while I loved the updated graphics, it wasn't Civilization. The city-states annoy me, the AI is retarded, and the absence of culture and espionage really hurts. I try to get into it and played for awhile, but stopped playing months ago.

Just Cause 2 - Open, sandbox type games are generally up my alley, but I cannot get into this game. I have given it multiple attempts, but just end of closing the game out and going back to something else.

 

[n7]

UT3​

I eagerly anticipated this game for years!
The worst thing is, they actually did address a good number of the gameplay mechanics that were broken in UT2k4, making it better in some ways.
But overall, it just never felt quite right, & ultimately, it simply didn't have the replayability UT2k4 has always had for me.
A huge portion of the community never adopted UT3 either, which really didn't help either, as there weren't enough good servers filled not that long into the game...

TF2​

Another shooter i would have liked to have liked.
I simply have never been able to get into it the way many of my friends have.
I do enjoy playing with friends, but i rarely ever play unless they are as it just doesn't appeal to me the same way, especially with all the trading & hats stupidity now.

L4D2​

Another game i was eagerly waiting for.
I played the heck out of the first one & had so many fantastic memories playing multiplayer @ LANs, or online.
L4D2 i assumed i'd enjoy the same way, & that simply hasn't been the case.
There was just something about the first one.
I loved the characters, & the simplicity of the weapons, & especially, the levels.
In L4D2, i hate the characters, mostly dislike the levels, & mostly dislike the infected. And consequently haven't played it much at all.

Global Agenda​

Really wanted to get into this, but haven't been able to get my friends into it for more than playing a couple short stints, & i've just not wanted to play it on my own.

Quake 4​

Quake 3 was quite possibly the epitome of pure hardcore FPS gaming.
I personally have always been a UT guy, but Q3 is still a game i respect hugely, & i figured Q4 would be awesome too.
It wasn't.
They nerfed movement horribly to the point where the pace wasn't even close to the same insanity that was Q3, & instead felt too slow & clunky.
The pro community also shunned Q4 mostly just like they would later do in UT3.