Games that are bad (or everyone else hates) that you like.

[happyninja42]

DragonAge II.

I’m told every respectable dragon age fan has to hate this game because it’s got less scope than Origins, you can’t choose your race, and that it doesn’t use tactical view.

Despite that, DragonAge II is fun to actually play because it’s voice acting means the PC doesn’t seem like an idiot mute, and it’s combat leans more into hack and slash and not the MMO but slow style of combat, I liked all of the companions bar Anders better than anyone in Origins who wasn’t Liliana.

I enjoyed DA 2 a lot. My one complaint with that game is regarding a reaction that the mage guy has if you turn him down romantically. You get a HUGE relationship hit with him if you reject his advances, even if you are polite about it. Which, as someone who has been in that very situation multiple times, where I had to tell a guy "No thanks man, sorry but I'm not gay." And had them be totally cool with it. To see that "Relationship Goes Down" message was somewhat annoying.

Like I could understand if you choose the rude "ew gross! gay germs!" style response (which, seriously WHY is that even an option developers? I see this a lot and it's frankly juvenile), but when you choose the polite decline? Why is this even an issue?

But yeah, DA2 was fun. I enjoyed the combat, the story was fine as best as I can recall. The narrative was a bit railroaded at times yes, but I've seen worse games in that regard.

 

[Worgen]

Halo 4's gunplay is better than any of the previous games, IMO, but it deviates too much from what I enjoy about Halo MP, with loadouts, perks, and killstreaks. Wacky modes like Dominion and Ricochet were great though.

I don't particularly like the levels or the gameplay in Halo 4, but I like the story.

Disagree. I thought Halo 4 was fine, the weapons were fine, the story, I really didn't like but thats mainly because it did a lot of story things that bug me in general, not because its necessarily bad. The problem I saw with the weapons was that everything became more generic and had less of a unique feeling. Like the covenant lost their neat plasma guns, the pistol became much closer to a normal pistol with high ammo usage, there lost the plasma rifle and got a normal assault rifle feeling weapon. The needler was still there but went through ammo so quick it was almost not worth using despite how effective it could be. The promethean guns were essentially just the same weapons, just slightly different. The new human guns were fun but still just kinda what you would expect, not really anything new in it weapon wise, just more of the same you expect from all fps games. Its fine, just, kinda expected more from Halo.

I guess for me I would say Dawn of War 3. Its a really solid rts game with some fantastic graphics and good gameplay but it seems to get a lot of hate for reasons that don't make sense to me. I remember early on people complaining that it looked too cartoony and not enough like Dawn of War 2, but people said the exact same thing about Dawn of War 2 before it came out.

 

[BrawlMan]

Unless the game forces you to try something new (a boss that is immune to a particular weapon type for example), there's really no reason to constantly swap out.

DmC (2013) and God of War 4 do this. It was a huge problem in the former and limited combat, combo potential, and creativity to a huge degree. The lack of a lock on two was why I didn't buy the vanilla version. The definitive edition fixes this by making enemies of the opposite color of the weapon not immune, and still take damage, but they do not stagger. That is what Ninja Theory and Capcom should have done to begin with amongst a whole lot of other things. God of War 4 does this better with a bit more subtly. You don't notice it at first until after you get the Blades of Chaos again halfway into the game. I love the weapon balance in GoW4. You get two, technically four, when taking Kratos shield and fists into account. They all fit perfectly. The Leviathan Axe is for mostly singular targets, Blades of Chaos is for multiple targets, Shield for blocking and parrying, and fist for stunning.

 

[happyninja42]

DmC (2013) and God of War 4 do this. It was a huge problem in the former and limited combat, combo potential, and creativity to a huge degree. The lack of a lock on two was why I didn't buy the vanilla version. The definitive edition fixes this by making enemies of the opposite color of the weapon not immune, and still take damage, but they do not stagger. That is what Ninja Theory and Capcom should have done to begin with amongst a whole lot of other things. God of War 4 does this better in a bit more subtly. You don't notice it at first until after you get the blades of chaos again halfway into the game. I love the weapon balance in GoW4. You get two, technically four, when taking Kratos shield and fists into account. They all fit perfectly. The Leviathan Axe is for mostly singular targets, Blades of Chaos is for multiple targets, sealed for blocking and pairing, and fist for stunning.

Yeah I was really loving going pure fist/shield with GoW4. I mean yeah, I had this Mjolnir-esque axe but...I mean come on, smash them with my shield, slam them into a wall and then QTE them to death? That's GoW for me baby!! It's like, yeah I COULD swing my axe until you lose all health.....ooooor, I could do WAY fewer attacks with my fist/shield, stun your ass and then basically insta-kill you and move on to the next guy. xD That combat was fun. I really didn't enjoy the axe all that much, and got annoyed when I was forced to use it in certain fights.

 

[laggyteabag]

Disagree. I thought Halo 4 was fine, the weapons were fine, the story, I really didn't like but thats mainly because it did a lot of story things that bug me in general, not because its necessarily bad. The problem I saw with the weapons was that everything became more generic and had less of a unique feeling. Like the covenant lost their neat plasma guns, the pistol became much closer to a normal pistol with high ammo usage, there lost the plasma rifle and got a normal assault rifle feeling weapon. The needler was still there but went through ammo so quick it was almost not worth using despite how effective it could be. The promethean guns were essentially just the same weapons, just slightly different. The new human guns were fun but still just kinda what you would expect, not really anything new in it weapon wise, just more of the same you expect from all fps games. Its fine, just, kinda expected more from Halo.

Oh, I completely agree with what you are saying. I don't think I conveyed what I meant to say very well.

When I say "gunplay", I mean how the weapons "feel" to use. For example, I think the Halo 4 DMR feels excellent compared to the Halo Reach DMR. Same goes for the Battle Rifle, Magnum, Assault Rifle, Carbine, etc. The weapons feel much more responsive, and accurate, compared to their previous iterations from previous games.

But I agree with a lot of what you have to say about the guns themselves. Halo 4 and 5 definitely suffer from a lot of the guns basically being the same thing, which makes a lot of them boring. For example, the magnum, battle rifle, DMR, carbine and light rifle, all fill the same role, which makes them all essentially interchangeable. So does the shotgun, sword, hammer, and now scattershot. And now we have a third sniper rifle and rocket launcher to add to the mix.

I don't feel like any of the new weapons tread new ground, with the Promethean weapons in particular feeling like they were created to be analogues of the existing human and covenant arsenals, ultimately creating a feeling of redundancy and blandness.

 

[Worgen]

Oh, I completely agree with what you are saying. I don't think I conveyed what I meant to say very well.

When I say "gunplay", I mean how the weapons "feel" to use. For example, I think the Halo 4 DMR feels excellent compared to the Halo Reach DMR. Same goes for the Battle Rifle, Magnum, Assault Rifle, Carbine, etc. The weapons feel much more responsive, and accurate, compared to their previous iterations from previous games.

But I agree with a lot of what you have to say about the guns themselves. Halo 4 and 5 definitely suffer from a lot of the guns basically being the same thing, which makes a lot of them boring. For example, the magnum, battle rifle, DMR, carbine and light rifle, all fill the same role, which makes them all essentially interchangeable. So does the shotgun, sword, hammer, and now scattershot. And now we have a third sniper rifle and rocket launcher to add to the mix.

I don't feel like any of the new weapons tread new ground, with the Promethean weapons in particular feeling like they were created to be analogues of the existing human and covenant arsenals, ultimately creating a feeling of redundancy and blandness.

Yeah, the weapons feel good, its just really disappointing that now pretty much everything comes down to pistol, assualt rifle, shotgun, rocket lawnchair. They have stopped having their unique faction feeling. It was so weird getting hte promethean shotgun and finding it you still had to load a single round at a time.

 

[SupahEwok]

My one complaint with that game is regarding a reaction that the mage guy has if you turn him down romantically. You get a HUGE relationship hit with him if you reject his advances, even if you are polite about it. Which, as someone who has been in that very situation multiple times, where I had to tell a guy "No thanks man, sorry but I'm not gay." And had them be totally cool with it. To see that "Relationship Goes Down" message was somewhat annoying.

Like I could understand if you choose the rude "ew gross! gay germs!" style response (which, seriously WHY is that even an option developers? I see this a lot and it's frankly juvenile), but when you choose the polite decline? Why is this even an issue?

Because it's in character for Anders, whose a little b!tch.

In regards to DA2 in general, its a big meh for me. Lots of fine ideas, but the game was clearly half-baked and rushed out the door. Combat consists of waves of enemies spawning in mid-air, the combat mechanics themselves, as I recall (and its been a while), are still MMO hotbar combat like DA:0, but you no longer have the tactical view to help manage a whole party of hot bars, for all the guff about the city changing with you all the NPCs stand in the same spots wearing the same things for 10 years in a mainly static city, the re-use of environments for dungeons was absolutely naked, some party members were really hit or miss...

DA2 had a lot of problems. It needed at least another year of development; it came out only 14 months after Origin. I can admire DA2's potential, but I judge the game as it is as lacking.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Silent Hill: Homecoming. Granted, it's the only Silent Hill game I've ever played, so I don't have much in the way of context with the other games, but as a horror game, it did its job by me. It was sufficiently creepy with some memorable monsters and enemies. But apparently, this is a flat spot in the series according to fans.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Because it's in character for Anders, whose a little b!tch.

In regards to DA2 in general, its a big meh for me. Lots of fine ideas, but the game was clearly half-baked and rushed out the door. Combat consists of waves of enemies spawning in mid-air, the combat mechanics themselves, as I recall (and its been a while), are still MMO hotbar combat like DA:0, but you no longer have the tactical view to help manage a whole party of hot bars, for all the guff about the city changing with you all the NPCs stand in the same spots wearing the same things for 10 years in a mainly static city, the re-use of environments for dungeons was absolutely naked, some party members were really hit or miss...

DA2 had a lot of problems. It needed at least another year of development; it came out only 14 months after Origin. I can admire DA2's potential, but I judge the game as it is as lacking.

Also the choices the game gives you are all completely meaningless, the game railroads you hard down the intended path. I don't know why they even bother giving you the option to choose between mages and templars because you have to fight them both anyway. Actually being a mage breaks the plot over it's knee and makes all of the templars look like complete morons.

The framing device with Varric telling the story is completely wasted potential and only really utilized, like twice. The time skips are also meaningless. Nothing and nobody in Kirkwall changes over the 10 years. The story could have easily taken place over a single month and you would hardly be able to tell.

The quests were mostly fetch quests or dungeon dives in the same handful of dungeons over and over. Also what the heck was with Hawke finding a random object, somehow intuiting who it belongs to and returning it for money? How do they even know?

Also, I personally couldn't stand the companion characters in II. All of them just rubbed me the wrong way with special mention for the brother who is a serious contender for "whiniest rpg companion of all time".

 

[Gordon_4]

Also the choices the game gives you are all completely meaningless, the game railroads you hard down the intended path. I don't know why they even bother giving you the option to choose between mages and templars because you have to fight them both anyway. Actually being a mage breaks the plot over it's knee and makes all of the templars look like complete morons.

The framing device with Varric telling the story is completely wasted potential and only really utilized, like twice. The time skips are also meaningless. Nothing and nobody in Kirkwall changes over the 10 years. The story could have easily taken place over a single month and you would hardly be able to tell.

The quests were mostly fetch quests or dungeon dives in the same handful of dungeons over and over. Also what the heck was with Hawke finding a random object, somehow intuiting who it belongs to and returning it for money? How do they even know?

Also, I personally couldn't stand the companion characters in II. All of them just rubbed me the wrong way with special mention for the brother who is a serious contender for "whiniest rpg companion of all time".

Okay I’ll pay that: Carver is a whiney douche canoe second only to Anders and Fenris; but Fenris at least had the decency to actually suffer some horrible shit to justify his attitude.

Thankfully I seldom put up with him for more than about fifteen minutes because while I like mage as a class, it wasn’t as much fun in DAII as it was in Origins (arcane warrior) or Inquisition (knight enchanter) so I usually had Bethany as my sibling. And she was just the sweetest cinnamon roll.

As for railroading, I actually kind of like that no matter what Hawke does, the Mages and Templars go to war anyway. The systemic abuses between the two groups in Kirkwall had been going on for decades. One plucky protagonist was never going to solve that. I do admit though it’s a bit of a bold bait and switch to pull on your players who are used to succeeding.

 

[Hawki]

It breaks my heart that Heroes of the Storm was shafted by Blizzard, because it is a stellar game. I would consider its per-character talent trees to be the gold standard. Much more interesting than the generic item shop that other MOBAs have.

Well, it's still going - HotS probably came out too late in the game to challenge LoL and DotA's dominance. Shame. It's the only MOBA I've ever truly enjoyed.

C+C:RA3 mostly gets shit for going too far to the Campy, Silly side, though my big issue was that a lot of the units(especially for the Empire) felt gimmicky.

That's the reason I hear, but I really don't get it. The jump in camp from RA2 to RA3, is much smaller than from RA1 to RA2. I mean, RA1 plays mostly everything straight, yet people don't seem to mind the jump to camp. Red Alert is known for camp, and I love how RA3 embraced it.

As for the gimmicks, I enjoyed them, but to each their own.

 

[Dalisclock]

That's the reason I hear, but I really don't get it. The jump in camp from RA2 to RA3, is much smaller than from RA1 to RA2. I mean, RA1 plays mostly everything straight, yet people don't seem to mind the jump to camp. Red Alert is known for camp, and I love how RA3 embraced it.

As for the gimmicks, I enjoyed them, but to each their own.

I mean, I didn't mind it very much and I enjoy RA2 and RA3 a lot more then RA1(which feels like a chore to play much of the time). The sillyness of the cutscenes is still what I mostly remember from that game, especially Tim Curry doing his most ridiculous Russian takes. JK Simmons and George Takei have plenty of their own moments as well.

I was more put off by the units/gameplay then anything else, but I still like it.

 

[BrawlMan]

It's like, yeah I COULD swing my axe until you lose all health.....ooooor, I could do WAY fewer attacks with my fist/shield, stun your ass and then basically insta-kill you and move on to the next guy. xD That combat was fun. I really didn't enjoy the axe all that much, and got annoyed when I was forced to use it in certain fights.

I know about the fist exploits, and them being overpowered as you level up. I never had a dislike for any single weapons, due to how balanced they were next each other. I love aiming with the Axe and later getting the upgrade where you can throw and bounce it off multiple times on 1 guy or several of them. It's just stylish when you set off certain juggles just throwing the Axe. Like I said before, God of War 4 is the best Thor game ever made.

 

[BrawlMan]

Dante's Inferno. Insane publicity shit aside, I love this game. Yeah it's a god of war clone but...so? God of war was a good game style, so cloning it means I'm already familiar with the combat and don't have to learn from scratch. The theme of it is something I enjoy a lot, and the mechanics of the redemption/punish were pretty cool.

I went redemption combat powers, meaning I'm using the crucifix almost all the time, and it's really satisfying to see that brilliant white light flash out in the dark bowels of hell, as you purge the enemies in front of you. Also, the redemption QTE attacks when you weaken an enemy, have you actually press the buttons in the manner you do if you were crossing yourself (Up, Down, Left, Right) Like you are literally giving the enemy a benediction to "kill" them, but you just end up redeeming them.

And you would frequently come across souls from history, that were often framed as being given a shit deal, and ending up in hell. And personally I enjoyed the idea of screwing up god's plans of ETERNAL TORMENT for a person who did something fairly minor. But you know, examples of the Deadly Sins or whatever, so apparently that's worthy of unending torment. Nah, fuck that shit, here, you get a free pass.

But yeah, playing the game like I'm doing a prison break on the souls of hell, to free them from the ridiculous spirit war of god/devil, yeah I eat that shit up.

You bought the game because of that Super Bowl Ad didn't you? My parents actually liked the ad despite not exactly knowing what it was until I explained it to them. Then again, it's "Ain't No Sunshine".

​

 

[happyninja42]

You bought the game because of that Super Bowl Ad didn't you? My parents actually liked the ad despite not exactly knowing what it was until I explained it to them. Then again, it's "Ain't No Sunshine".

​

You're damn right I bought it because of that commercial. That song was really haunting (Don't think I'd ever heard it prior to that ad), but yeah, him just base jumping IMMEDIATELY after his love, as she falls into hell, no hesitation, and then proceeds to just start fighting off the minions of hell. YEP! That's the kind of shit that gets my attention for a game.

 

[happyninja42]

@BrawlMan

Watching that trailer reminded me of another such game that I love, for pretty much the same reason. A trailer/cinematic that just hit my FUCK YES! brain button like a lab monkey on cocaine.


FOR THE LIVING!!

 

[BrawlMan]

You're damn right I bought it because of that commercial. That song was really haunting (Don't think I'd ever heard it prior to that ad), but yeah, him just base jumping IMMEDIATELY after his love, as she falls into hell, no hesitation, and then proceeds to just start fighting off the minions of hell. YEP! That's the kind of shit that gets my attention for a game.

Interesting! I recommend the best of Bill Withers album if you ever get the chance. No rush.

@BrawlMan

Watching that trailer reminded me of another such game that I love, for pretty much the same reason. A trailer/cinematic that just hit my FUCK YES! brain button like a lab monkey on cocaine.


FOR THE LIVING!!

First time I've seen the the trailer for Hellgate, but do remember some guys in the dorms playing it during my freshman year in college.

 

[Dalisclock]

I know I've said it before but since we're on this subject.

Bioshock Infinite.

Don't get me wrong, it's got more plot holes then a box grater and no doubt that has a ton to do with the fact they apparently went through like 5 games work of Material in the dev cycle(which...yeah, it feels like the stitched together components of several games). It also has that stupid 2 weapon rule and a massive amount of unusued potential(the tram lines only being useful in a few area), as well as a bunch of holdovers from bioshock(scavenging food out of garbage cans in a fully functioning city, not an already burning ruin). Songbird is also heavily underutilized and Elizabeth ends up doing whatever the writers want to her to do.

OTOH, the game tried to do something interesting and different even if that meant losing a lot of consistency along the way, Columbia is fucking gorgeous and a place I would have loved to explore more of in periods where people aren't trying to kill you(You get a few in the early game but they mostly stop later).

Assassins Creed III

One of the Black Sheep in the series(though Unity might have taken it's spot for worst perceived game), it covered a well worn period of history(at least to Americans) with a critical eye lacking in many other games(and even later games of the same series), had some great setpieces, the Naval battles were a blast and Conner is a good character with a genuinely tragic arc while the Templars are painted in a less cartoonishly shitty light, even having some valid points. Also, the homestead missions add a fun, sometimes heartfelt distraction to the sassynating and the peg leg missions are great, even if the payoff is meh. Also, it's kind of cool the recruitable assasins are unique and have their own abilities, but recruiting them can be a pain and you can't use them in story missions which is where they'd be most helpful.

With the gushing out of the way, the pacing is fucking awful. The intro with Haythem is strong but the game takes a LONG time to get up to speed, especially when it switches to boy Conner, and you end up with 5-6 sequences of tutorials which still leave out important shit before getting to the good stuff. One of the memory sequences is Conner in prison, which is a no gear mission and not much fun. Then at the end, right after the battle of virginia capes, it feels like the money ran out because the game quickly rushes to end the story and finishes on a whimper. Even worse, the modern day shortcuts to the end of Desmonds arc, offs him, brushes a lot of the previously built up threats and tensions aside(remember the Templar Satellite with a mind control apple everyone kept banging on about early in the series? Well, the writers pretty much just say the launch is scrubbed and that's the end of that) and sets up for Juno to be the next BIG THREAT, which never gets any payoff later down the line.

Also, Boston and New York are rather bland and uninteresting and for the life of me I can never tell what city I'm in without checking, the Frontier is huge and boring, and there's a bunch of potentially interesting side missions about ghosts and the headless horseman and UFOs that Conner can investigate, but they all end in the most boring way possible, with an anti-climax and a quick journal entry, like they had to rush to finish them in time for launch.

 

[happyninja42]

Assassins Creed III
Conner is a good character with a genuinely tragic arc

Gotta hard disagree there, he was the most bland, emo, couldn't be bothered, too cool for this shit kind of protag I've seen in a while. He had zero personality and emotional range. Most of the rest of the game, the mechanics of it and stuff, I agree with you as being fun. Though I've never really cared about american history, so having Connor "just so happen" to show up at all the historical highlights, and take part, got a bit old for me personally. But yes, the naval battles were fucking slick, and I'm glad they took that slice and expanded it into a full game with Black Flag later.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Pretty much any generic cover-based third person shooter. I never quite got the hate for them, there's something I enjoy about dashing up to a chest high wall and ducking behind it while enemy fire tracks you.