Games with good gameplay but terrible story that made you stop playing

[IamLEAM1983]

Probably gonna get crucified for this but, honestly? The Souls games.

The gameplay's punishing. Okay, fine. That's the principal allure of the series. What really kept me from enjoying and finishing the games, though, was how opaque everything was. I kept wondering where my sense of agency was in all this, I didn't know where I had to care about the state of the Boletarian Palace or if I had to wonder why there was a big-ass dragon wrecking up one of its upper areas - nothing attached me to the game.

Playing through the Souls games, I kept hearing the designers going "Oooh, oooh! Here's an awesome setpiece! Ooooh! That awesome goat demon we talked about in another meeting? Let's put him there! Oooh, oooh! And the player turns into a zombie when he dies and there's Furtive Pygmies and OH MY GOD, I'M JIZZING IDEAS ALL OVER THE CONFERENCE ROOM IT FEELS SO GOOD."

All I saw were disparate, albeit nice-looking puzzle pieces. I don't mind difficulty in gameplay, but difficulty in narrative construction? I don't see that as a ground-breaking concept; it's more an admission that From Software didn't so much world-build a convincing universe as they just glued stuff together and figured nobody would care.

Why would anyone care? People like the Souls games because they're challenging, right? Fuck lore and world design, right?

*sighs*

 

[Hawkeye 131]

Unfortunately I never actually played the original Crysis which I hear is much better but, with that being said Crysis 2 was one of those very few games in which the gameplay was great but the story was deplorable. I literally had to force myself to finish it. I thought the story (or lack thereof), was SO convoluted, inconsistent and unremarkable.

Now that I think about it there are a few more games that fit this criteria;

-Rage
-Homefront
-Brink
-Medal of Honor (2010)
-CoD: MW2 & Black Ops (stopped playing after BO)
-Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

In retrospect, at the time I bought and played those games I rarely if ever actually watched or read reviews prior to the purchase. I use to pre-order games almost sight unseen without really looking into what I was about to buy. Ironically Mass Effect 3 was the catalyst , for me. It was the one game that started to make me question and take my role as a fan/customer/consumer more seriously and actually be more patient before buying a game. Now I actually take the time to read 5+ reviews on one game, watch 2 or 3 different video reviews, look at all the pre-release trailers, ads and even then wait a week after release until the patch(es) come out (Tomb Raider).

Like many other faithful customers before me, I've been screwed too! I just feel sorry for those poor bastards that bought Aliens: Colonial Marines... At least with ME3 it was just the endings that sucked not the entire game!

-Hawk

 

[SquidSponge]

Well for a start, I think there's a balance to be had. A ratio, if you will, of the comparative quality of gameplay to story, in which I think the gameplay is the more important component to keep a person's interest. To more directly answer the question, I will admit that a bad story is a bit offputting, but the worst it's made me do is stop playing for now, whereas bad gameplay can prompt me to stop playing entirely.

Case in point, the world's least credible frame-job in Dishonoured I found almost insulting - I think it was supposed to make the player feel some sort of righteous indignation, but the fact is a child could've seen through that feeble frame-up (I think in this case they stretched my suspension of disbelief too early). Back on topic though, I played the intro, switched that crap off, then came back a couple of days later and enjoyed it much more on the second attempt. Just a wild idea, could it have been better by skipping the intro and leaving it a mystery, letting players figure out for theirselves whether Corvo was guilty or not?

 

[ABLb0y]

Well, I disagree with you on Jack Black's character, but I'm just glad to find someone that actually enjoyed those segments. And the Drowning Doom is available in multiplayer, if you have any interest in that.

Did people really dislike the RTS segments that much? Why?

Anyway, I think it would be cool if the DD got their own campaign. Whatshisface seemed so much like a villain (Loud, obnoxious douchebag who helped drive a woman to suicide) for comfort.

 

[Dominic Crossman]

Never happened to me, if it was going to it would have happened with dragons dogma.

 

[Dagda Mor]

EDIT: Just to be crystal clear, If a game has VERY GOOD gameplay, but shit story (Some examples posted so far are: Sonic 2006 (when its not gliching the fuck out), Dishonored, Mass Effect 3) then it should be mentioned here.

Who gave those examples and what are they smoking?


Anyway, gameplay and story should ideally be one and the same. If the ARE segregated, I can stomach a game with fun gameplay and shitty story as long as I can get right to the gameplay. If it has a good story that simply doesn't gel with the gameplay, it depends on just how big the disconnect is.

 

[Alexander Kirby]

Here's a thought; games that are focused more on story only tend to only get one playthrough from me (once I know the story I know it'll never have the same effect on me the second time), while games that I play purely for the gameplay tend to get more than one playthrough.

I don't think I've ever stopped playing a game simply because the story was bad, and it would probably have to personally offend me in some way for me to ever consider it.

 

[rasputin0009]

Um, The Legend of Zelda: Anything is pretty bland story-wise. Gameplay is usually fun.

Pokemon has terrible stories, too. Really, almost everything Nintendo has a terrible story alongside good gameplay. It's hard to come up with a Nintendo game with a good story.

Blood Dragon has a terrible story on purpose and it's fun as hell.

Shadow of the Collosus is debatable. It has pretty much no story until the end, but its gameplay is amazing.

Gears of War has a really shitty story, but it's fun. Same as most shooters.

 

[rasputin0009]

Just cause 2... I already have adhd and like my games to be a little focused. This game was just to far spread imo and suffered because of it. Also the voice acting was horrible, And I usually love open world games but this one just seemed lack anything interesting.

I played it for an hour and said, "Wow, this game is complete shit. I'm not suffering through this". And then I stopped playing it

 

[Joby Baumann]

I'd say ME 3, but the gameplay was just as dull as the story.
The Armored Core series tends to do this. While the gameplay is fun,I have no clue what the hell is going on in the story, so I get bored and play something else. I always would come back, usually after watching a bit of anime, but I never make it especially far.

 

[superstringz]

Reciever: Roguelike FPS, Worst story and Best Gunplay. All in all not bad for a game made in 7 days. Would recommend.

 

[JazzJack2]

Why would anyone care? People like the Souls games because they're challenging, right? Fuck lore and world design, right?

*sighs*

Actually most people I've met will list lore as one of this biggest reasons for why they love Dark souls and I'd say it was probably the biggest thing for me and I'd go as far in saying that it has the most intelligent story from any game in the past five years or so.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Actually most people I've met will list lore as one of this biggest reasons for why they love Dark souls and I'd say it was probably the biggest thing for me and I'd go as far in saying that it has the most intelligent story from any game in the past five years or so.

Then you're a better man than I, I was forced to go snoop around the 'tubes to get some sort of condensed, orderly narrative presentation. I guess I'm a narrative square. Or something.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Radiata stories . That game bored me to tears with it's story and i didn't care .

Every sandbox game , ever . I can't stand sandbox games for this very reason .

Actually, I was going to say I couldn't think of any until you mentioned that one. Radiata stories I wanted to like but the story just sucked out what little enjoyment I got from the game and I got board and dropped it pretty fast.

The gameplay was not all that good in that game anyway. And holy crap was it hideous.
As for the story, it's simultaneously awful and interesting, but not for the usual reasons a story is interesting.
Radiata Stories was meant to be, largely, a riff on typical RPG tropes. Unfortunately, most of those jokes were hidden behind its main gimmick being able to pick fights with most NPCs on the street, while the others were just flat out bad.

But what I found interesting was that later into the game, the main storyline split.
As in, actually split with different content for each branch, not just the usual "false consequence" silliness (the Mass Effect series is the worst offender in recent memory) or "But Thou Must!" false choice.

And for whatever reason, that made me realize just how damned difficult it would be to create a game with actual consequence to choice and action. You would have to create largely if not entirely new content for each deviation from the main storyline, and branches within branches if you wanted choice within the new content. (it's almost fractal!)

Radiata Stories was clearly made on a low budget, but try to imagine an actual AAA variant of that; the cost of production is currently enormous; imagine multiplying that for each story branch!

So as crappy as Radiata Stories was, it wasn't entirely useless to me.

 

[Gatx]

Never, but the closet I've come to with that combination is Ace Combat Assault Horizon. Story was terrible (main character has no motivation other than hating America), but the gameplay was so much fun I didn't care.

 

[JamesStone]

What the fuck.

Does someone ACTUALLY quit games than they THEMSELVES consider are good in gameplay (You know, the whole reason of why you are playing a videoGAME in the first place?) just for having a bad story?...

I mean... I just... wow. People cant be this stupid. I think... the only reason I MIGHT say this situation is legit is if they completly, UTTERLY destroy a history in a sequel of a great series... and even then I have a hard time trying to understand how this is even possible.



For the record; the inverse, aka good story but fail gameplay (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, all of those "art" games, looking at you. Althougt your story was/is usually as shit as your gameplay but whatever) dosnt appeals to me at all. Why play a horrible game gameplaywise just to see the story? Go watch it in youtube or something...

Fuuuuuuuuuuuush...

Fuuuuuuuuuuuush...

That noise? That's nothing. Just the point going over your head.
BTW all games are art, officially. Calling people stupid for actually being invested in a game like they would in a movie or a book is beyond douchebaggy.
Just to get some context, you sound like a guy with a massive hard-on for Michael Bay when someone critizices Transformers - "Hoo, u r so stupid, we rn't hre fur de story, its ull abut the xplosions, BOOOOOOOM".
Ironically, you are calling people stupid yet you were the one coming around as all mighty fucksockety dumb.

OT: Only happened once, mostly because I try to finish every game I play no matter how infuriatingly stupid or frustrating it gets (reason n1 of why Turok 2006 isn't in a bin on an abandoned alley). But by God, Final Fantasy's sotry was bad. The gameplay is not exactly the next coming of Christ, but next to the story it's the fourth coming of the Flying Spagheti Monster.
Also, I couldn't find it in me to replay Mass Effect 3, even when I played the previous 2 twelve times. Does that count?

 

[PayNSprayBandit]

Rockstar North; the answer to your question is Rockstar North. Grand Theft Auto IV, Max Payne 3, and especially Read Dead Redemption all have universally atrocious characters. Only now do I truly appreciate GTA 3?s silent protagonist. MP3 is just, kind of, alright; so when I had to put it down because of the idiotic writing that tries to be clever, but only lands it about five percent of the time, it wasn?t too painful. But RDR is amazing. It has one of the most beautiful, interesting, detailed, and immersive worlds I?ve ever had the pleasure to explore. Yet I can only stomach a couple of missions at a time. I bought the GOTY edition, the day it came out (more than a year ago) and I finished it last week. The writing is just so painful. Once I got through the story, and could spend all my time on ambient challenges with the whole world map open, I had a fantastic time. It was just the story, which was literally nauseating. Seriously, in places, I felt sick.

GTA IV is, I think, the best illustration of their writing talents. The characters, that is, the protagonist and everyone with whom he interacts, are awful, but there is fun to be found in the writing in some of the radio stations. It becomes clear that they don?t really build characters well, but when they go for random bits of humor, often they find it. And since they are prepared to go just about anywhere for a punch line, when they are clever, their wit tends to be rather sharp. Rockstar?s best writing is its satire, but often they come off as self-righteous or preachy. Their particular style works best when they put a stereotype of a preposterous personality up against a comedic straight man. The best example of this is the Chatterbox station from GTA III. There are a couple of places where Nikko (the protagonist of GTA IV) is able to make it work, particularly with some of the strangers he meets, but he?s usually too unlikeable or unrelatable for it to be effective.

I am still looking forward to GTA V. I?m sure everything other than the characters will be great and I?m still holding out hope that one of these days they?ll get a good story in there, too.

 

[Professor James]

I don't think there was single game that story was so horrible that I had to stop playing it. I would probably just mute my TV or skip the cutscenes.

 

[hooglese]

Dragon Age 2. I got through it eventually, but that was when I had literally no internet, no other games and wasn't allowed to go outside. I don't know if it was 100% the stories fault for making me not play it, what also got to me was that there was like one dungeon in the entire game, but the story was almost non-existent which I found to be strange considering that's why I played the first game.


On a side note, I hope EA isn't or has killed Bioware with out me knowing because I do want the third installment of the series but it really looks like they have ended Bioware's run as a good game company with a few blemishes.

 

[Trinab]

What springs to mind in recent memory are:

Kingdoms of Amalor (Spelling?): Reckoning - enjoyable, satisfying gameplay in terms of fight mechanics and loot, story and pacing were so dull I got bored and quit.

Diablo 3 - the actual spells, classes and talents I felt were all varied, interesting, and satisfying to use. Item upgrades were diablo-like enough to be interesting. But after that first play through, the crappiness of the story made me utterly disinterested in experiencing it multiple times with different characters and different difficulty settings. Quit soon after. I occationally try to come back because a class looks really fun to play, but then I think about act 2 and go 'bleh.'

Mass Effect 2 - again, I liked the combat, I thought it fun and interesting. The story though didnt pick up enough for me to be able to get through the game.

Can't think of anything more at the moment. I am very sensitive to story in games. I can endure pretty crappy gameplay for story, but not always visa versa.