Critically acclaimed games you didn't like.

[Becial]

Oh gosh, here we go. Mind you some of these games I can respect for their dependability and their general game play. However, I just saw nothing inspiring, personally fun, in some cases terribly unique, or good enough to take my mind away from the mindset that I hadn't already seen it done before, or that I was doing the same thing over and over.

Infamous (series)
Halo (series)
Uncharted (series)
Oblivion (mainly just this one)
Call of Duty (beyond MW2)
Fallout 3 and New Vegas
Saint's Row (series)

I know I'm forgetting some. Topping my list in order starting with absolute worst though is Halo, Uncharted, and the Fallouts.

 

[Denariax]

Final Fantasy VII.

Buggy, horribly written, tripe covered in the excrement that would soon follow its surprising popularity.

Also: Resident Evil 4. I hate this game with a passion. Resident Evil died with Raccoon City.

 

[Fall from Honor]

Halflife 2, now I loved the first part but constantly bugging me with more physics puzzles really just pissed me off...

Starcraft 2, again, loved the first part and loved the second part roughly 80% through the story, but the last few missions and the ending took such a sudden turn that it put me off of the game entirely

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Dragon Age: Origins
- I'm trying it again and it's better but nowhere near as engrossing as the Mass Effect series.

Resistance: Fall of Man
- Wow, I was just bored.

Killzone (Series)
- Yes they're well put together shooters but really nothing special.

Call of Duty (Since the original WW2 games)
- I was there at the beginning when COD was a good quality competitor for MOH and it actually won. Now it's just a yearly cash grab and I have no interest in it at all.

Sants Row
- It's just too immature for my liking and lacks a compelling narrative. GTA4's change to a more serious game world appealed to me more.

Halo 2
- Seriously guys, I love Halo as a series but Halo 2 was NOT as good as everyone says. By far the weakest link.

As for me? I don't get Halo. The level design is copy-pasted metal hallways (or at least was, I haven't played the latest ones). I dunno, it just annoys me so much.

I don't get it when people say that; I've played them all and I never noticed anything repetitive about level design.

I am a huge Halo fan and Combat Evolved is my all time favourite... but I will agree with the above statement. If some people have only played Halo: CE there is a good chance they will find the levels repetative. Especially during the Library and Two Betrayals where a lot of the architechture is very similar and the objective is to visit several levels or installations that look the same or have the same purpose.

But like you say, these are places all built by the same race... they aren't exactly going to design them all differently just because the Reclaimer might get bored when he's shooting the place up.

Red Dead Redemption.

Oh and that, all of that. I hear what you're saying about having things in the world simply for the sake of it. I was excited when I saw an entire railroad network that could be ridden. But that was about its only purpose, as stage dressing and a means of transport. I wanted to explore more themes along the lines (no pun lol) of the impact the industrial revolution has on the wild west. There is a small mention late in the game about motor cars when Marston first sees one, but that is about the extent of the impact.

Once you reach Blackwater, the game throws you a few more missions and pretty much ends. That should have been a much larger chunk of the game, a stark contrast to the things Marston is used to. But it all just felt too limited for me to really believe it.

It's a great game but I have not the heart to return to the world.

 

[SmegInThePants]

i second:

uncharted
halo
team fortress 2

 

[kurtzy23]

I dont know if i was critically acclaimed but little big planet.
Im not buying a game that just makes me make my own because the designers were just to lazy to make one.

 

[Ravnican]

I believe the most recent to be The Witcher 2 (though, I didn't like the first one either). I know it's good, but it's just not fun for me.

 

[Closet Superhero]

Assassin's Creed 2 (got bored)
Beyond Good & Evil (no better than numerous action/adventure games, and worse than plenty)
Monkey Island series (humor does not a game make)
Metal Gear Solid 2

Generally, it's games that get high critical acclaim for their stories. In these games I found the stories still, by non-video game standards, fairly uninteresting. This was exacerbated by their length and/or bland gameplay.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

Anything by BioWare, really.

- Gameplay is meh, solid at best
- repetitive characters and settings (oh look, you're part of a small elite above-the-law faction, start with two bland humans and pick up companions while defending them from fantastic racism on your quest to slay the humongous outlandish beast)
- not a fan of the storytelling in any way; the stories themselves are rather bland and a good chunk of the world is explained in exposition dumps called codex pages. Not well-utilizing the medium.
- Dialogue options rarely fit what I'd like to do and are usually good/neutral/evil to the extreme
- Can't bring myself to like any of the characters, they just feel bland. Also chemistry or buildup is completely lacking in romance, you just have to pretend you did more than explore their past in dialogue and battle a bit together.
- last and least, really uncanny models, especially when it comes to facial animations and body types (Depending on what you equip her with, DAO's Wynne can have a young body and an old face - yikes)

 

[Denariax]

Can I just say that, screw Bioware? A game cannot simply say it has good story and expect me to believe it, especially when it laughingly has a 'moral choice' brigade. In fact the only game that has flawless story is Neverwinter Nights, and that's solely because you can create your own, because story can sometimes fly over the heads of the dumb.

 

[doctorsilly]

Bioshock. It doesn't matter how good the sory was, or how cool rapture looked, playing it felt like drinking wet plaster and I only kept on going to get to the next level.

 

[yahtzeesbitch]

Skyrim (Don't hurt me angry crowd!)

Yes that one environment looks nice and I'm sure it would be fun to explore but the combat is so boring. Sorry people!

 

[NrthBlood]

Not to sound like a call of duty fan but i didn't like Battlefield 3, i loved the first 2 because of there humor and distructo scenery, it felt like they had ripped off from them, the engine with the ability to jump over obstacles quickly was a good idea that should be incorporated into more shooters, jet fighter thing ehh would of been better if u were allowed to fly the bloody thing instead of playing shot gun

Ohh i almost forgot borderlands just couldn't believe the amount of hype that went in to it and we got something that looked cartoonish, difficult to navigate though menus and just no storyline other than find the treasure, 2nd worst game ever

 

[Scrustle]

Mass Effect. Talked about that one many times so I can't be bothered to get worked up about it again.

Fable 2. Same story as Mass Effect.

NFS Shift and Hot Pursuit. They just suck. I have no idea what these critics are talking about when they praise these games. They are just talking blatant lies. How they describe the games is NOTHING like how they actually play. I think there's something going on that we aren't told about with those games when the press gets hold of them.

Final Fantasy. They're so so dull and linear. The only one I've actually enjoyed is FFIII on the DS, and I never got that far on it. Got bored of grinding. I had an okay time with X but again I didn't get far. III was better.

But there are several games that were slated by critics that I really enjoyed. Test Drive Unlimited 2 for example. It's not the best racing game in the world but I think it's still great fun. A lot of the critical negativity of that came from the broken servers at launch, which are far more competent now. And they are releasing huge free updates for it every now and then too. Also Ninety Nine Nights. I don't have it anymore because I got stuck on one bit and couldn't get any further but I really liked that game, despite not being a fan of the genre at all. I really liked the characters and the lore they created for it. And I loved the combos you could do. If you took advantage of them then it was really enjoyable. I was really surprised they made a sequel to that game given the performance of the first. I always felt like the lore had a lot of potential to be expanded on, but when I played the demo I was disappointed. It was crap.

 

[tehroc]

Oblivion, it's baby's first RPG. Pretty world that lacks any soul or personality, a trophy wife.

Mass Effect, I found it to be a poor clone of Gears of War gameplay wise. On a similar note, Bioware has been making the same game now since KOTOR 1 released.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

Beyond Good and Evil: Very dull and unengaging. I stopped playing extremely quickly.
The Darkness: Same as above. And in certain places it was unclear as to where I should go, so I logically left the game entirely...
Knights of the Old Republic: Not the biggest RPG fan, but I didn't honestly think it was possible to make the Star Wars universe that boring. It took so, so long to get going properly and I spent most of my time wandering back and forwards between uninspiring quests.

 

[darkcalling]

FF7: Am I the only person that was glad to see Aeris get stabbed? She was sooooooo boring and useless.

GTA San Andreas: Honestly the only game in the series I enjoyed was Vice City. The others didn't have the same fun factor to me.

CoD MW2: Played for like a hour. Boring, trade in for something less "realistic".

BlazBlue series: (Not sure how acclaimed it was but most of my friends loved it.) Just doesn't feel right to me. Not really sure why.

 

[Whyso]

i have honestly never been on board with the zelda series ever
the gameplay and puzzles are simply mundane (completely un-interesting)

the story.... it seems too chilish for me

will i get torn apart? find out after this

 

[Whyso]

oh and half-life 2 but that was ENTIRELY because you needed to press a button to go up a ladder, ruined my immersion always

 

[Monkey_Warfare]

Borderlands, monotonous drivel, the loot system sucked, way too few slots and the abilities given weren't hugely interesting. Couldn't even be bothered getting to the vault though I heard it as a huge letdown.
Halo, copypasta levels
Fable, couldn't be stuffed with 2 + 3 after getting bored of 1 (though I amnaged to force myself to complete the lost chapters)
Mass Effect 2, probeing for minerals, whoever came up with that being necessary for the best end should die with nails in their eyes
CoD, just bores me, give me doom 2 anyday
Splinter cell games ever since I played theif 2