Games Not Worth Playing

[Simeon Ivanov]

Pretty much everything that comes out annually (sports, racing, most Wii titles etc.)

 

[zefiris]

Metroid Other M, no contest.

Sexist story, which is written very poorly, and the gameplay has huge flaws that makes a pain to play. Not hard, just annoying. The entire thing felt like playing Metroid: The Abridged series.

I cannot remember one redeeming thing about this game. It's Metroid. How do you screw controls in a metroid game up? How can you?


I have warned several people about these games. All of them bought it anyway, because Metroid.
Not one still owns the game. Not one. It's that bad.

Is that why it got mostly good reviews? (Don't bring Yahtzee into this. He's not a reviewer)

8.5

Reviewers are likely to give crappy games a good review if it has a good branch name, because fanboys will freak out if a franchise they like gets a new game that isn't rated extremely high.

See, oh, Zelda reviews. The Nintendo fandom is particularly prone to it, but the Sony and MS fandoms also have their share of this (remember Lair on the ps3?)

 

[John Farrell]

FF12. Fucking hate that game. Decoy protagonist, overly long cut scenes, no direct control over allies and a plot that doesn't have all the magic and wonder of previous titles. It is everything people complain about in jrpgs. I still maintain that Square wanted another mmorpg but realized no one in the ps2 era wanted to play them. Thus FF12 was born.

Also that imitation Duke Nukem Forever. Someday the real game will ship with the meaning of life included.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Any FPS with regenerating health.

Have you played Tribes: Ascend? That has regenerating health, but it takes about a minute to kick in and it's still more fun than you seem to think anything with regeneration has any right to be. (Also, here's something funny - Halo: Combat Evolved (and no other games in the series until Reach) had regenerating SHIELDS [edit: as well as] limited health.)

 

[toothofymir]

Supreme Commander 2. Gas-Powered needed a publisher so they went to paragon of strategy game publishers/developers: Square Enix

Wait a sec, something is wrong with that last sentence that I can't quite put my finer on...hmmmm

Took almost all the strategy out of it and turned it into "Japanese Super-robot tank rush!"

Don't believe me? Google "Cybranasaurus Rex"

 

[Tom Artingstall]

Army of Two: 40th Day.

They took everything I enjoyed about the first game and wiped their arses with it. Then they added a moral choice system for some reason I can't begin to fathom. Most pointless 30 minutes of my life.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Bioshock is the most overrated game I've ever played. I got excited when it was announced because I was a big fan of System Shock 2 and was waiting for another game like it. But Bioshock isn't anything ilke System Shock 2 other than the fact that you still have someone yelling at you over a radio throughout the game and the story is in the form of badly voice-acted audio logs. It's really a lot like Doom 3, except with weapon upgrades and pretty water effects. And just like Doom 3, you start with a shitty pistol and then you find a shotgun which you use for about 90% of the game.

There's only three types of enemies: splicers, automated turrets, and the big daddies which aren't really that tough at all. In fact, nothing in this game is really that tough. Everything's all consoled out, dumbed down, all the complexity and difficulty is gone. All the scary moments from SS2 are gone. The whole game you are just running back and forth doing fetch quests for the voice in your head and killing the same enemies and doing the same Pipe Dream minigame to hack into stuff.

The RPG elements don't help the game stay afloat for long, about 3/4ths of the way through I was just plain sick of playing it but I pressed on to see where the story went. Unfortunately, the big plot twist near the end is painfully predictable, and both the good and bad endings to the game are nothing more than 20 second long pre-rendered cutscenes that are just plain retarded. The moral choice system is a completely overhyped element that doesn't really add anything to the game. It doesn't even affect the game in any way, all it does is determine which ending you get and both of them suck.

I will say, the graphics and the atmosphere are very well done. But it seems like the developers thought they did such a terrific job on designing their big gilded underwater city that they didn't need to give you anything to do in it other than fetch keys and flip switches and shoot monsters with a shotgun. The beautiful visuals just aren't enough to compensate for the dated, simplistic FPS formula and the RPG elements feel tacked on and almost unnecessary.

I paid 60 bucks for this mediocre repetitive piece of crap and I still regret it. Don't buy Bioshock. If you want to play it, rent it. Or better yet, ask a friend if you can borrow it; trust me, he won't mind.

I agree that the combat got repetitive. But, having said that, if the atmosphere, visuals, voice acting and the great twist weren't enough to salvage it... you must absolutely loathe every single FPS that's come out in the last 10 years, no? I mean, they're that... minus atmosphere, visuals, voice acting, and plot twists. Just clarifying.

The only thing I can think of that's that bad is Lost: Via Domus. But it's not like anyone in their right mind would pick it up in the first place, so this warning really isn't necessary. I'm lucky to say I haven't had very many Lego: Indiana Jones experiences...

 

[newdarkcloud]

Allow me to be Captain Obvious a moment *ahem*:

Any PS2 or PS3 Tomb Raider game. Underworld has the privilege of being the only game I truly regret buying.
I'm really hoping the reboot won't suck, but my gut tells me it will.

 

[New Frontiersman]

One game I played recently that I think wasn't worth playing? Sonic Generations (the PC version at least).

Every time I tried to play it it made me so goddamn miserable, I got so unimaginably pissed at that game. Which that alone made it not worth playing. Specifically though, the controls made the game impossible, they were slippery and unresponsive and probably not suited for keyboard controls, and the level design was shit (made worse by the controls). I died so many unfair deaths in that game. It made me so mad.

I think out of all the games I've played in the last five to ten years, that is the one that was the most not worth playing.

If a game makes me physically angry, if it makes me want (for the first time since I was like 10 years old) to yell and scream and punch out the goddamn computer screen; then something is wrong with that game. It is not worth it to play it. For me Sonic Generations was that game.

 

[Agow95]

Assassin's Creed revelations, it's not a good game in that you start with most end-game items, to gain the rest requires a tutorial mission, and there is little improvement in gear and skills, the only appeal is ending the story of Altair and Ezio, but

Spoiler

it doesn't even end the story of Ezio, you have to watch Assassin's Creed: Embers, or read the revelations book, which by the way, you should, I genuinely enjoyed reading revelations more than playing it because it didn't feel like I was reading about a copy & paste middle eastern city, and Ezio actually gets a bloody end, and as a added bonus, the books don't tell the story from desmonds perspective, nor the animus, it's entirely from Ezio's view, even the book about the first assassins creed game was Ezio reading about Altair in Niccolo Polo's journal, but it didn't interrupt the story every other chapter so Ezio could stretch his legs

 

[thememan]

Snip.

Okay, so you created a thread that breeds flame-wars and trolls, and insult and berate those who point this out.

I berate those that post nothing of any importance. Bit of a difference there.

Okay, I understand that.

What I don't understand is this:

Why haven't you answered my bloody question yet?

And which question might that be? The only questions in the post I've seen appear to rhetorical. If they are not, then the simple answer to all of them is:

None of the the above. I understood fully that many would come in and post some rather non-topical suggestions. Yet the point of the thread is simply to gripe about games that are simply not worth the time for whatever reason. I posted about a game that gets very little attention in these regards, and I hardly see how I was trolling with my rather long and fairly comprehensive discussion involving it. The point of the thread is not "Herp-a-derp, this game suxxors because everyone thinks it's awesome and it's got so many problems". Rather it is a discussion on games that are so frustratingly bad that they are not worth the lost time you spend playing them. Some took it as the former, which is fine. They are at least contributing to the discussion. Many have taken the point of the thread as it is, which is better. And frankly, the fact that it is gone on this long rather validates that people really do want to discuss it, regardless of whether there are other threads out there of similar ilk.

So, once again, what the hell is your point in being here? Honestly, are you some sort of Crusader? A Knight's Templar of the Holy Land of Escapist Forums? Why is it so bloody important to further derail a thread you have absolutely no investment in, and have rather loudly proclaimed is not a valid topic of discussion? Isn't there anything, I don't know, better to do than to post in a topic you have absolutely no interest in discussing?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I really can't stand to play Gears of War 3...I had it on the hardest setting and I felt like I'd only been pressing A for hours and my brain was slowly turning into a lettuce.

Maybe I'm playing it wrong but it just didn't do anything for me, maybe the multiplayer is better.

Conversation with my friend:
Him:'Oh you don't like it?'
Me:'Yeah It's too...'*searches for word*
Him:'Violent?' *patronising smug grin*
Me:'Boring...'

 

[Tony2077]

i can't really of anything that's not worth playing except those very cheap broken games that don't really work no matter how hard you try like big rigs. when it comes down to it play what you like and don't be a sheep

 

[zeit]

I agree that the combat got repetitive. But, having said that, if the atmosphere, visuals, voice acting and the great twist weren't enough to salvage it... you must absolutely loathe every single FPS that's come out in the last 10 years, no? I mean, they're that... minus atmosphere, visuals, voice acting, and plot twists. Just clarifying.

The only thing I can think of that's that bad is Lost: Via Domus. But it's not like anyone in their right mind would pick it up in the first place, so this warning really isn't necessary. I'm lucky to say I haven't had very many Lego: Indiana Jones experiences...

Most FPSes are bad because its a very popular genre with a lot of competition and just having cool water effects or M. Night Shyamalan plot twists isn't enough to save a game that's just plain not fun. I mean, all that stuff is supposed to be the icing on the cake. If the game isn't fun on its own, all the gimmicks don't do anything but boost its review scores on IGN.

Half-Life 2 was undeniably fun. The atmosphere was perfect, the physics were perfect, the guns were perfect. People's faces looked like faces. The gameplay was smooth and fluid, lots of things to explore, lots of fun shootouts, a gun that shoots refrigerators across the room, a boss fight where you fight a helicopter in an air boat. The story wasn't packed into audio tapes with horrendous voice acting; the story was happening all around you. You were the story. In Bioshock it seemed like the story had already ended long before the game started and the only thing left for you to do was kill monsters and escape back to the surface (even though you went to the place voluntarily rather than waiting to be rescued.)

 

[zeit]

If you don't like Bethesda's games then why did you buy 3 of em and plan to buy a 4Th? Im a bit con-fuddled

I liked Morrowind and it's the only one I've actually paid for. What kind of argument is that, anyway? Are you saying I can't criticize a game unless I've never played it?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Bioshock is the most overrated game I've ever played. I got excited when it was announced because I was a big fan of System Shock 2 and was waiting for another game like it. But Bioshock isn't anything ilke System Shock 2 other than the fact that you still have someone yelling at you over a radio throughout the game and the story is in the form of badly voice-acted audio logs. It's really a lot like Doom 3, except with weapon upgrades and pretty water effects. And just like Doom 3, you start with a shitty pistol and then you find a shotgun which you use for about 90% of the game.

There's only three types of enemies: splicers, automated turrets, and the big daddies which aren't really that tough at all. In fact, nothing in this game is really that tough. Everything's all consoled out, dumbed down, all the complexity and difficulty is gone. All the scary moments from SS2 are gone. The whole game you are just running back and forth doing fetch quests for the voice in your head and killing the same enemies and doing the same Pipe Dream minigame to hack into stuff.

The RPG elements don't help the game stay afloat for long, about 3/4ths of the way through I was just plain sick of playing it but I pressed on to see where the story went. Unfortunately, the big plot twist near the end is painfully predictable, and both the good and bad endings to the game are nothing more than 20 second long pre-rendered cutscenes that are just plain retarded. The moral choice system is a completely overhyped element that doesn't really add anything to the game. It doesn't even affect the game in any way, all it does is determine which ending you get and both of them suck.

I will say, the graphics and the atmosphere are very well done. But it seems like the developers thought they did such a terrific job on designing their big gilded underwater city that they didn't need to give you anything to do in it other than fetch keys and flip switches and shoot monsters with a shotgun. The beautiful visuals just aren't enough to compensate for the dated, simplistic FPS formula and the RPG elements feel tacked on and almost unnecessary.

I paid 60 bucks for this mediocre repetitive piece of crap and I still regret it. Don't buy Bioshock. If you want to play it, rent it. Or better yet, ask a friend if you can borrow it; trust me, he won't mind.

I notice that you didn't even give a single word to the fun ADAM system (Plasmids, Tonics, etc.)