Games Abandoned thread

Scoop20906 · Post by **Scoop20906** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 6:56 pm

GreenGoo wrote:
Scoop20906 wrote:With Dying Light released and being a much superior game in mechanics, story and action, I am abandoning Dead Island. I hope those survivors find the way off the island on their own.
Interestingly, I am considering going back to Dead Island, after having played a decent amount of hours in Dying Light.

I found Dying Light more fun to play. The only real positive difference for Dead Island is the tropical setting. I tried but couldn't go back.

Canuck · Post by **Canuck** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:45 pm

I think I'm about to throw in the towel with xenoblade (3ds) after about 8 hours. I may have enjoyed this type of game at one point in my life but not at this point.

Scoop20906 · Post by **Scoop20906** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:49 pm

Canuck wrote:I think I'm about to throw in the towel with xenoblade (3ds) after about 8 hours. I may have enjoyed this type of game at one point in my life but not at this point.

I felt the same thing about Civ 5 and Beyond Earth or The Sims. There was a time when I would play those games until the birds starting chiriping and now Just One More Turn has become Ehhh. Tastes change I guess.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Apr 21, 2016 2:29 pm

I just went through the Great Purge of 2016 (TM).

I've been in a gaming rut as of late. I've only bought one big AAA title this year - Arkham Knight, which I played to 100% completion. The reason I didn't buy anything else is that I was sitting on a mountain of unplayed games, most of which I had either bought last year or had received for Christmas. Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Divinity: Original Sin, Halo: Master Chief Collection, among others.

All of these are fantastic games, but they were also long, long games that I knew would take dozens of hours of playtime to finish. And honestly, I had played bits of all of them and the thought of all that gameplay ahead of me didn't sound like fun. It sounded like work. I realized that due to my limited game time these days, if my plan was to not buy any new games until I finished these, then I was never going to be able to buy new games. It was actively turning me against the hobby I loved.

I tried for a time just setting them aside, but the idea of them even being in my house and on my console just weighed on me. It felt like an albatross around my neck. Finally, last week, I'd had enough.

I sold them all. I deleted them from my consoles, I deleted the save games. And it felt FANTASTIC! I feel so relaxed and free now, and ironically getting rid of those games made me excited about gaming again.

Now of course getting rid of games only to replace them with more games is counter-productive, so I'm being very careful moving forward to not let my purchases outpace my available time. But at least now I feel like I want to buy a game I'm highly interested in like Final Fantasy XV or No Man's Sky, I can do so without feeling a ton of guilt.

Hipolito · Post by **Hipolito** » Fri Apr 22, 2016 12:22 am

I recently abandoned a couple of retro sci-fi RTS games.

Creeper World 3: Arc Eternal: This is a nifty game in which you set up a network of resource and defense nodes to beat back a spreading layer of alien goop. There's a variety of nodes to keep things interesting; one of them even lets you raise and lower terrain. But each level is a time-consuming grind, with you slowly gaining centimeters of ground until you're finally close enough to the goop source to kill it. I enjoyed about 10 levels, then decided that was enough. Other things I like are the music, the story, and that each level fits on the screen; no scrolling necessary.

Ground Control: This was Sierra's 2000 RTS with Myth-like controls. After just a few levels, I decided the game doesn't hold up well, with its clunky interface and barren landscapes. The writing and voice acting are above average, though, and the manual nicely establishes the backstory about a war between corporations and a religious order.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat May 14, 2016 7:00 pm

12 is better than 6.

Too much puzzly twitchiness.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Aug 21, 2016 8:19 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:I'm marking Dirt 3 as Complandoned. I've only got the last X-Games final to unlock, but I'm not going to beat my head against the Gymkhana setups or trying to better my rally times to get those last 15 points to get there.

And after being suckered in by Dirt 3 Complete being added to my library at some point, I'm adding it to the list as well.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Mon Aug 22, 2016 11:29 am

Dead Space
I *should* like it. It's basically System Shock 2 with a pretty unusual combat system. Forget torso shots, you gotta go for the dicks. I mean... arms.

Except the novelty of the gimmick wears of quickly, and most of the guns kind of suck. As do the endless jump scares. And the stupid "silent protagonist" schtick. And the alien penises and sphincters everywhere. And I don't really care about the story for some reason, they just keep blathering on about some stupid alien-worshipping religious crap or screaming at me to fix some kind of ventilation system or some other BS. So I stopped after getting killed several times by a giant alien sphincter boss with three penises. Maybe I'll come back next time I want to feel vaguely uncomfortable.

Watch Dogs
This suffers from "ubisoft scavenger hunt" syndrome and also from "GTA Clone Syndrome". The former is when you have a scavenger hunt, but all the item locations are given to you in advance. The latter is when they make this attempt to portray the main character as an emotionally complex guy, except he then goes out and runs down a crowd of people while driving a stolen semi because he's trying to get a "gouranga bonus" or whatever, and the only way to solve any particular problem is by murdering about twenty people. I think it's more the scavenger hunt thing that kind of got me bored. That and the endless notifications ("Hey Nico, you want to go bowling?"). I mean there's cool stuff like tracking down network wires and hacking stuff on the road while driving, but I still got bored.

Friki · Post by **Friki** » Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:01 am

WoW is my Nr.1
I could never get back to it, i tried !
Very repetitive and i have no time to do this anymore.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Sat Aug 27, 2016 5:14 pm

Spelunky.
I finally got a shortcut built to the mummy world by dragging a key through half the game but now it's just way too difficult for me. I can't make any progress at all and its gone from being a fun difficult challenge to endless frustration. I did manage to put 30 hours into this though, so I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

hitbyambulance · Post by **hitbyambulance** » Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:59 pm

Archinerd wrote:Spelunky.
I finally got a shortcut built to the mummy world by dragging a key through half the game but now it's just way too difficult for me. I can't make any progress at all and its gone from being a fun difficult challenge to endless frustration. I did manage to put 30 hours into this though, so I can't say I didn't enjoy it.

the original (free) version is *much better, imho.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Sep 16, 2016 9:55 pm

Front Mission Evolved.

It was kinda fun, in a 2001 B-shooter kind of way (although it was released in 2010.) The acting and writing were absolutely awful, though. This wanted really, really badly to be a JRPG, with mindless trash that offered zero challenge followed by insane boss fights, followed by fights where you re-fought all your old bosses, followed by brutally hard multi-stage boss fights. The problem is that the port was absolutely awful. The controls were jumpy, the FOV was tiny, and the interface blocked half of the screen, and there was no way to fix any of it. I finally got frustrated on the next-to-final boss pre-boss, which can one-shot you if you make a single miscalculation in a four-stage extended fight in a tiny arena. I spent more time fighting the controls in that spot than I did the boss!

Blech. I finished 95% of the game. I'm calling it - screw the game design philosophy of 'easy game with insane final boss' that properly died off years ago.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 11:38 am

hitbyambulance wrote:
Archinerd wrote:Spelunky.
I finally got a shortcut built to the mummy world by dragging a key through half the game but now it's just way too difficult for me. I can't make any progress at all and its gone from being a fun difficult challenge to endless frustration. I did manage to put 30 hours into this though, so I can't say I didn't enjoy it.
the original (free) version is *much better, imho.

Thanks. I checked it out but I think the magic is gone for me now.
Lately I've been spending most of my gaming time revisiting Xenonauts.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 12:24 am

Neverwinter. Got this on XBox from one of the monthly giveaways, not realizing it was free to play MMO. The UI is incomprehensible, the tutor system insufficient, and it's just not something I want to mess with from a place where I'd spend half the time on my phone googling MMO guidance sites.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Jun 26, 2017 11:32 am

Isgrimnur wrote:Neverwinter. Got this on XBox from one of the monthly giveaways, not realizing it was free to play MMO. The UI is incomprehensible, the tutor system insufficient, and it's just not something I want to mess with from a place where I'd spend half the time on my phone googling MMO guidance sites.

I played this for a while on my computer, and then tried it on my Xbox and agree, it's really rough to play on the Xbox.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Mon Jun 26, 2017 11:41 am

It was a two-button combo to jump, for Gygax's sake!

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Jun 26, 2017 4:14 pm

hitbyambulance wrote:
Archinerd wrote:Spelunky.
I finally got a shortcut built to the mummy world by dragging a key through half the game but now it's just way too difficult for me. I can't make any progress at all and its gone from being a fun difficult challenge to endless frustration. I did manage to put 30 hours into this though, so I can't say I didn't enjoy it.
the original (free) version is *much better, imho.

Really? Why? I think I own the remastered version but have not started it yet.

Lassr · Post by **Lassr** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 9:48 am

Endless Legend. The graphics made it hard to tell where anything was located or what they were; Units, special resources. I tried to like it, I played for a few hours over several days, but in the end it couldn't hold my attention. Still like Fallen Enchantress much better.

hitbyambulance · Post by **hitbyambulance** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 12:27 am

Carpet_pissr wrote:
hitbyambulance wrote:
Archinerd wrote:Spelunky.
I finally got a shortcut built to the mummy world by dragging a key through half the game but now it's just way too difficult for me. I can't make any progress at all and its gone from being a fun difficult challenge to endless frustration. I did manage to put 30 hours into this though, so I can't say I didn't enjoy it.
the original (free) version is *much better, imho.
Really? Why? I think I own the remastered version but have not started it yet.

much more fun to play. it's kinda hard to explain why, tho.

Skinypupy · Post by **Skinypupy** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 11:13 am

hentzau wrote:
Isgrimnur wrote:Neverwinter. Got this on XBox from one of the monthly giveaways, not realizing it was free to play MMO. The UI is incomprehensible, the tutor system insufficient, and it's just not something I want to mess with from a place where I'd spend half the time on my phone googling MMO guidance sites.
I played this for a while on my computer, and then tried it on my Xbox and agree, it's really rough to play on the Xbox.

Makes me wonder if the Xbox version was somehow worse than the PS4 version. I played it on PC and burned out pretty quickly, but absolutely loved it on PS4. I agree that the UI was rather messy, but it was quite fun otherwise.

canuck wrote:
I think I'm about to throw in the towel with xenoblade (3ds) after about 8 hours. I may have enjoyed this type of game at one point in my life but not at this point.

The Xenoblade series are games that I always feel I should like more than I actually do. JRPG's with huge worlds, mechs, a fun story, good characters, great music...but somehow it just never really all comes together like it should. Too many tedious sidequests, too little explanation/tutorial (Xenoblade 2 was awful with this. I played through a full 50% of the game not having a clue what the hell I was doing), and too many crazy difficulty spikes make what should be a fun experience feel very...disjointed

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Mar 21, 2019 3:23 pm

I finished Sniper Elite 4. While reading about stuff, it was brought to my attention that Zombie Army Trilogy was built on the same engine. I fired it up last night, played the first mission, and lost. This looks to be only suitable for MP. I'm out.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:04 pm

Of Orcs and Men.

I love the concept. I love the characters. The execution, though, is just... bad. The combat is spammy, switching back and forth between two characters to set up the same rotation of two abilities (A, A, B, B) over and over. It turns what should be tactical into repetitive drudgery. The combat is interspersed with periods of stealth, where one character sneaks ahead, clears out a few solitary enemies around the main group, then rejoins the other to fight the rest. The problem is that the stealth mechanics are inconsistent, so you're never really sure if you're safe or not. And if you get caught, you'll either pull the three guys you see, or the entire garrison will come pouring out of every nook and cranny to stomp you. The problem is that there's no way of telling which is about to happen until you stab the guy and find out.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:09 pm

Do Not Feed The Monkeys

Not my thing to sit there and collect keywords for searches and try to make whatever connections have been programmed in. I prefer my Monkeys to have a few more legs and be a bit more free range.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Dec 06, 2019 11:49 pm

Battlefield: Hardline. I played it through my free month of Origin Access. It tried to be a cross between a Battlefield campaign (scripted scenes and set pieces) and a liner Far Cry (marking enemies, stealth takedowns.) In practice, it just wasn't fun. It felt tedious.

Enderal: Forgotten Stories. Oh, this game was good. It was Skyrim with a Witcher seriousness about it, and tough to boot, but oh-so-fun. The problem is that I made significant progress, then left it alone for eight months. Were I to return now, I'd be way out of my depth. I'd need to start again from scratch. So, for now, I'm walking away.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Jun 04, 2020 10:03 pm

The Mean Greens - Plastic Warfare

MP only, few players.

Done.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 12:53 am

King Arthur - The Role-playing Wargame

Can't play for any reasonable amount of time without CTDs, even after an un/re-install.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sat Dec 05, 2020 10:59 pm

60 Parsecs

Choose your own adventure trapped in an escape pod. I played it until I died twice. That seems plenty to me.

Buatha · Post by **Buatha** » Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:37 pm

Zombie Army Trilogy

My friends and I are L4D/L4D2 vets...and this game just kills us every time, and it isn't so nice with checkpoints.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 12:18 am

100% Orange Juice

100% Orange Juice is a digital multiplayer board game populated by developer Orange Juice's all-star cast. Characters from Flying Red Barrel, QP Shooting, Suguri and Sora come together with all-new characters to duke it out... with dice.

Randomness everywhere, including the old Trivial Pursuit problem of getting the proper roll to be able to win the game.

Hard pass.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:00 pm

Plague, Inc. - Evolved

"Plague Inc: Evolved is a unique mix of high strategy and terrifyingly realistic simulation. Your pathogen has just infected 'Patient Zero' - now you must bring about the end of human history by evolving a deadly, global Plague whilst adapting against everything humanity can do to defend itself."

I have tried this game a few different times over several years, and have never been able to be even moderately successful. In fact, I think I got an achievement saying something to the effect of "you're SO bad at this on NORMAL, you can play on CASUAL and we'll give you some pity DNA points to put into your bug"

It's obviously one of those games that has a pretty strict formula for success, which I am guessing is:
1. Infect the planet with an innocuous, non-lethal plague
2. Slowly boil that frog until it's too late for the WHO and countries to do too much about you/it/the plague

That involves simply moving puzzle pieces around, in the right order, at the right time. VERY gamey. Something I have found that I don't like in my older gaming days, I think. If I can't do well at a game just because I haven't read multiple guides on "how to win", following a strict recipe, I am probably not going to like that game. Which is ironic in some ways, because that essentially IS gaming, right?

In any case, uninstalled, but I do recommend it for those into that kind of thing, and it is presented very well - nice and shiny graphics, up to date "news" tickers, etc. Devs even giving out a free DLC (due to Covid) that takes the opposite approach...you are the scientists and WHO trying to combat the plague...getting ahead of it, etc. Pretty neat.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 1:08 pm

Detention

"Detention is an atmospheric horror game set in 1960s Taiwan under martial law. Incorporated religious elements based in Taiwanese/Chinese culture and mythology, the game provided players with unique graphics and gaming experience."

When things get rated so highly in both the Steam reviews AND on Metacritic, I REALLY try hard to see the win. I just couldn't after a while with this one...maybe because I have no interest in the underlying societal/civil themes, or maybe because I'm old and set it my gaming ways.

Apparently the "win" here is due to the "horror" and atmosphere and tension built around what is ultimately a platformer. I'm not easily (ever) scared by video games, so I guess it was a non-starter in my (hard) case.

Glad to know others enjoyed it, but not for me, personally.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 3:13 pm

Buatha wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 11:37 pm Zombie Army Trilogy

My friends and I are L4D/L4D2 vets...and this game just kills us every time, and it isn't so nice with checkpoints.

Agreed. This game is way too hard. I gave it a recommendation for fans of the series only, or cheat and have unlimited ammo for the shotgun, esp. preacher shotgun.

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 3:25 pm

Dumping "Hotel Giant". Developers dropped an "HD update" bringing the game to 1080p era. Unfortunately, it also managed to lock up the mouse, mess up the shaders (so everything appears in a fog of white) and basically is totally unfun to play.

Dumping "Flight Command". It's supposed to be Flight Commander II in WH40K universe. What we actually got is really confusing endpoints, artificially limited short duration combat (12 turns only, and only a few crafts on each side, generally less than 9, usually 4 or 5, more on the Orks side) where you're not even sure how did your guys die, and the campaigns are really lame, scenarios are not much better, and skirmishes are just random mission generators. Don't feel very WH40K ish, even if you can play the Orks.

Did finish Crying Suns, at least once, but probably will NOT try to keep playing every chapter with every ship. That's just grinding for achievements. Did replay every ship for chapters 1 and 2, but there are six chapters, and six ships.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:58 pm

Evil Genius

I played it back in the day, I've put five hours in on Steam, and I can't get past the initial money hump. I've read some guides, and I don't really want to have to be handheld through the initial levels.

So, sorry Evil Genius, I know you're critically acclaimed, but I'm not going to spend more time trying to make myself work the way you apparently need me to.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Sun Feb 14, 2021 9:22 pm

Having got into Star Wars lately, I tried playing Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast and... got about half an hour into it before I gave up. Forgot how much headache and nausea those old FPS would give me (especially from some engines, of which JK2 is one of). Ended up just watching the cutscenes from youtube and enjoying it that way.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:10 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:Evil Genius

I played it back in the day, I've put five hours in on Steam, and I can't get past the initial money hump. I've read some guides, and I don't really want to have to be handheld through the initial levels.

So, sorry Evil Genius, I know you're critically acclaimed, but I'm not going to spend more time trying to make myself work the way you apparently need me to.

This happened to me as well with EG, several times. It’s a game that checks all my gaming boxes, as it were, and so should have been a slam dunk. And I actually DID like it, it’s just that I kept getting stuck somehow. Just stupid shit.

I think I tried it for the final time within the past 6-8 months...and decided to let it go forever.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Feb 17, 2021 7:40 pm

Sequence / Before the Echo

I didn't recall that someone made a DDR meets RPG. And now I know I have zero interest in playing that sort of game.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Mar 24, 2021 8:15 pm

Worms Forts: Under Siege

I can't go back to 2004 3D environments, especially with slow-moving Worms. The addition of base-building doesn't sell me on it, either.

Fardaza · Post by **Fardaza** » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:32 am

YellowKing wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2016 2:29 pm I just went through the Great Purge of 2016 (TM).

I've been in a gaming rut as of late. I've only bought one big AAA title this year - Arkham Knight, which I played to 100% completion. The reason I didn't buy anything else is that I was sitting on a mountain of unplayed games, most of which I had either bought last year or had received for Christmas. Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Divinity: Original Sin, Halo: Master Chief Collection, among others.

All of these are fantastic games, but they were also long, long games that I knew would take dozens of hours of playtime to finish. And honestly, I had played bits of all of them and the thought of all that gameplay ahead of me didn't sound like fun. It sounded like work. I realized that due to my limited game time these days, if my plan was to not buy any new games until I finished these, then I was never going to be able to buy new games. It was actively turning me against the hobby I loved.

I tried for a time just setting them aside, but the idea of them even being in my house and on my console just weighed on me. It felt like an albatross around my neck. Finally, last week, I'd had enough.

I sold them all. I deleted them from my consoles, I deleted the save games. And it felt FANTASTIC! I feel so relaxed and free now, and ironically getting rid of those games made me excited about gaming again.

Now of course getting rid of games only to replace them with more games is counter-productive, so I'm being very careful moving forward to not let my purchases outpace my available time. But at least now I feel like I want to buy a game I'm highly interested in like Final Fantasy XV or No Man's Sky, I can do so without feeling a ton of guilt.

Just wondering how this turned out for you YK?
It's been 5 years now. Did you buy 78 more games on Steam and get overwhelmed/stuck again? Or were you able to control yourself better after doing this?
I'm in a similar spot now with over 100 games to play, and I keep playing the same three or four over and over again. I really want something new, but there are so many unplayed great games on my HD.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:04 pm

Fardaza wrote:Just wondering how this turned out for you YK?
It's been 5 years now. Did you buy 78 more games on Steam and get overwhelmed/stuck again? Or were you able to control yourself better after doing this?
I'm in a similar spot now with over 100 games to play, and I keep playing the same three or four over and over again. I really want something new, but there are so many unplayed great games on my HD.

I've actually done much better, but I can't give full credit to the purge. My lifestyle has changed quite a bit over the last 5 years. I've gotten deep into board gaming and other hobbies, which has reduced my time to play video games. And with the kids being 5 years older, I find I have less time in general.

I will say my entire attitude in general about "backlogs" has changed drastically since then. Not just for games, but for movies, television, books, etc. I view my collections not as piles of things to get through, but as libraries of things I have access to. I've stopped stressing about what I haven't played, and just play what I want, when I want. And if I get tired of it and set it aside, so be it.

You have to let go of the guilt of having spent money on something that you may or may not play. The money's spent, it's a sunk cost, move on. Appreciate that you have a nice collection, and if you can restrain yourself from buying more than so much the better. I came to the realization that worrying about the things you don't have time for prevents you from enjoying the things you do have time for.