Why is it that I routinely regret buying games?

[PrincessFrosty]

Research games more before you buy them, TBH.

It's fairly well known that GFWL is annoying and often troublesome bloatware yet people still insist on buying games that use it, you have to get used to the idea of simply avoiding titles if they don't meet your requirements.

 

[exdeath]

Get a DS and explore what gaming was like before it became nothing but military first person versus shooters.

 

[Aikouka]

So, since you complained about Arkham Asylum, I decided to load it up on Steam and see how bad it truly is. Now, I already had GFWL installed because of another game, and after getting everything setup completely, I found it amusing when it downloads my profile and immediately crashes. The game was still up and running fine, which was all I cared about.

 

[Arkadrel]

Its the same with books, and movies.

You can read a "good" review, then buy the book, read it and it turns out its nothing like the reviewer said.

You can watch a trailer, and think OMG this looks good, then go to the movies and find out all the best parts of the movie where in the trailer and the rest of it was crap.

Its the same with games,.... and Less and Less games now-a-days have demo's you can play.

Spent the next hour just getting the game to work with that Microsoft Live Games shit. Had to try and recover my password but in the end just created a new account. And I'm going to forget the username for that account again because I don't use Live for anything. Anything. Played the game for a couple hours and lost interest. Didn't finish.

+1 for this part

Im not a big fan of the "always online" even for offline/singleplayer games,
that require you to take steps like you mentioned above.


On games that where a major let down....
Diablo 3

skill system = suckage (skill tree with synergies > everyone haveing same skills, options to change on fly)

diversity= suckage (everyone is useing the same skill builds, because their forced to play a certain way = less choice = not fun)

lootsystem = suckage (instead of +skills, everything has wep dmg > most other stuff = less diversity. Rare > uniques = wtf)

non boss run = suckage (its part of what made diablo 2 fun, raceing down to the bosses to slay them. less choice = not fun)

join game system = suckage (cant choose who you join, either friend or get thrown into random game, less choice = not fun)


thats just the tip of the iceberg.... major clusterfuckup... No idea how no one in development thought....
hey why are we doing "new" things just for the sake of doing something differnt? if it gives a sh*tty player experiance?
They didnt even test the inferno-mode, before they released the game, so balance was all sh*t and game was full of bugs people abused to get loot, then it was fixed and people that didnt have time to get decent loot from bugs where left behinde ect.
Which lead to the "auction house" game.

What is the point of a game, where the "gear" and being able to show off how badass your gear is, when ANYONE can just buy it off the auction house?

Auction house turns diablo III, from being a fun loot-grind/showoff game -> I spent 100$ on the auction house game.
Its stupid as f***.

 

[TheKub]

For those people frustrated with GFWL on Batman AA:

I think this works with at least several different GFWL games, you just have to be paying attention and they make creating/having a profile sound manditory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDdtgpq_ngw

 

[Arkadrel]

I need another Arcanum or Dungeon Keeper... or any top-down rpg.(3d ruined rpgs for me. NWN1 and NWN2 were the last that I really enjoyed)

Oh gawds yes please!

We need a "turn based RPG", not a action one, not a firstperson shooter rpg... but a REAL rpg.
With a decent story and not just good graphics/cut scenes.

I want a real Fallout3, not the sh***y first person shooter one, I want a Planescape Tormorment II, a new Baldurs Gate! or Icewind Dale. Give us a new Final Fantasty Tactics game

Id settle for a new Final Fantasy 7 "like" game. (turn based, open world exploration, random encounters)
(not just a re-launch of a old one, ive already spent 150+hours on)

Why is it so hard for developers to just not make another action-RPG or anything firstpersonshooter?

 

[Sureshot324]

You sounds like the kind of RTS player who likes to camp in his base for an hour and build a massive army and then crush the AI, but doing this is really taking advantage of an AI flaw in most RTS games.

You say you want to be able to build a large enough army to defend your own base AND attack the enemy. Anyone who plays multiplayer RTS games will tell you this is a bad idea and can only work in single player games with bad AI. Your opponent has had the same amount of time to build up his army as you, and should thus have the same size army, so if you split your forces to attack him and leave half in your base, you're going to get crushed. However, most RTS AIs will constantly waste resources sending small raiding parties so you can get away with this, since eventually you WILL have a much larger army.

In COH you have to actually use strategy to beat an equally sized army. Since you need to control points all over the map, there are a lot more strategic decisions to make like what zones to go after, whether to defend a point or let the enemy capture it, etc.. I admit the AI can be frustrating since it's much better than a human at constantly harrassing multiple points on the map, but it's worse at macro strategy.

Oh and a tank will back up instead of turn around if you click a short distance behind it, so you can hold shift and leave a trail of way points to make it retreat in reverse.

 

[thespyder]

At the end of the day, I think the problem the OP has is not enough (or the right kind of) research before purchasing.

Personally, I thought Batman: AA was one of the best games to come out in a long time. I totally devoured it. The fact that they didn't like it (considering the quality of the game itself) suggests that it merely isn't their type of game. Either that or the Windows live experience totally overswamped everything else.

Granted a lot of games coming out today are less than they could/should be. The gaming community as a whole has seemed to slant more towards casual gamers with a lower tollerance/expectation than some of us more hard core gamers. And the Game developers are moving right along with them, making games that are less robust or rigorous than they might otherwise be.

So it is vitally important that we, as consumers, pick and choose which games we support with our money. so research, research, research. then buy.

 

[Axon]

Bought Batman Arkham Asylum. Spent the next hour just getting the game to work with that Microsoft Live Games shit. Had to try and recover my password but in the end just created a new account. And I'm going to forget the username for that account again because I don't use Live for anything. Anything. Played the game for a couple hours and lost interest. Didn't finish.

Bought Battlefield 3. Realized quickly it's just another Counterstrike time waster with no substance and lots of hackers.

Bought the entire Company of Heroes collection. COH is a complete exercise in frustration with the stupid 75 population cap. And the only trainer out there that works to increase population requires me to subscribe to CheatHappens. There's no way to even do a double pronged flanking strategy with 75 pop cap unless you're willing to just have massive losses all the time. Plus the tanks and units are SO frustrating to command. Infantry routinely run into the line of fire. Tanks frequently expose their weak backside when retreating from enemy fire. I'm halfway through the first campaign and find myself fuming and screaming at the stupidity of the level cap and AI during the game. I honestly think I should just adopt a cannon-fodder play style rather than the real-world "let's try to minimize casualties" play style I prefer, especially for a WWII game... the tactics and strategy don't mean shit if the AI isn't up to even basic tasks. I refuse to re-open the game until I can at least get a higher population cap. It's a shame to uninstall a game played only 20% of the way through.

Nowadays I feel like there's such a high chance of wasting money on games that do the exact opposite of bringing you happiness.

/vent

I have similar problems with single player games. I find the only things that hold my interest are online, multiplayer enabled games.

That said, Arkham City totally sucked me in last winter. I understand your frustration with the Windows Live BS; that's part of the reason I bought it for Xbox 360. But give it another try. It's really good.

 

[shurato]

As already mentioned some of the games you're complaining about have demos. If you bought before trying them, that's on you.

As for the resell portion, that will never happen. Reselling a game is every bit as bad as piracy for the developer. They receive absolutely no money in the transaction and that's why they are working on so many DLC options and now multiplayer activations to cut down on the resale market.

STEAM sales are already good enough to save so much money.

The real crux of the problem may simply be you're getting older and growing out of gaming to some degree. I want to blame gaming, but have had to realize I'm simply not in the same point in my life as I used to be. Recognize that and adjust your purchasing accordingly. Perhaps you'll be less frustrated if you do.

I understand where your coming from but are games any different than anything else that's actually physically tangible that you can re-sell? I can resell my old electronics, dvds, etc on fleabay. What makes the digital medium of downloadable games any different? Should we not be able to resell other items we purchase and don't like or done with? Just food for thought playing devils advocate and not trying to start an argument.

Just curious why digital downloads are set to a different standard. I used to resell my PC games in their original boxes all the time. I used to resell my PS3 games when I used to own a PS3. I ended up selling the unit itself not too long ago.

 

[thespyder]

I understand where your coming from but are games any different than anything else that's actually physically tangible that you can re-sell? I can resell my old electronics, dvds, etc on fleabay. What makes the digital medium of downloadable games any different? Should we not be able to resell other items we purchase and don't like or done with? Just food for thought playing devils advocate and not trying to start an argument.

Just curious why digital downloads are set to a different standard. I used to resell my PC games in their original boxes all the time. I used to resell my PS3 games when I used to own a PS3. I ended up selling the unit itself not too long ago.

Consumers agree with your stance. Production houses hold a different view.

The real difference productions houses try to get everyone to buy is that there really isn't any degradation of service for electronic media and hence no compelling reason to buy new as opposed to used. So there is not as much depreciation as you might get if you sell, say a car. It's all bunkum, of course. But that is what they (and the music industry) try and put as their reasoning.

 

[Azeroth101]

He should check out game replays.com and see how they play it with commentary. I would have a hard time handling one tank. It's all about the micro.

I guess people just don't understand...

 

[Sureshot324]

I understand where your coming from but are games any different than anything else that's actually physically tangible that you can re-sell? I can resell my old electronics, dvds, etc on fleabay. What makes the digital medium of downloadable games any different? Should we not be able to resell other items we purchase and don't like or done with? Just food for thought playing devils advocate and not trying to start an argument.

Just curious why digital downloads are set to a different standard. I used to resell my PC games in their original boxes all the time. I used to resell my PS3 games when I used to own a PS3. I ended up selling the unit itself not too long ago.

It wouldn't work. Digital downloads don't deteriorate over time and could be transferred to someone else instantly for free. Nobody would buy a new game after the first week. People would just endlessly pass around the same used copies.

 

[Keeper]

For me I think its male menopause..... I could NOT get into Arkham Asylum....
COULD NOT PUT DOWN Arkham City. Burnt through it and the catwoman part. Didnt do Robin DLC.........
Mass effect 1..... Burnt through it in RECORD time (For me).....
ME2..... I have restarted 5 times..... DOES NOT GRAB.
And I have ME3 shrinkwrapped.... Waitting for me to finish 2..... Sigh.....
Gears 2..... Loved it.... Gears 3.... Only LIKE it as I play with my 3 sons on Wednesday nights. ..