Games you didn't like, but you liked the idea of

[Alex Baas]

I'm going to say Monster Hunter. Although the way I experienced it was kind of backwards. I didn't find out about it and think "this sounds awesome, I know I'll love it", to only then buy it and find I hated it. I actually just found a copy of the game in a second hand game shop that used to be in my town. I really miss that place. They still exist, but now it's just a small computer hardware shop, or at least I think it is. But they used to do loads more, and they had a small collection of used games. Although they didn't have much they always had really interesting and unusual games there. I bought a few games there just on how interesting the box seemed. In fact, that's how I came across Elder Scrolls for the first time, when I found this strange little game called "Morrowind". Didn't have a clue what it was back then. The shop also had a very unique smell to it which conjures up a lot of nostalgia. I can't quite describe it, I guess it was the smell of brand new computer parts. It was pretty potent.

But enough nostalgia. I went in there one day and found a strange game on PS2 which I'd never heard of. It looked very Japanese, but not like any other game I'd seen before. I was originally drawn to it because if it's unusual but simple name. Just "Monster Hunter". I thought to myself "hunting monsters sound cool, but why did they just call it that?" It sounded really weird, like if you came across a skating game simply called "Skateboarder". From the look of the box, it didn't seem to have the low production values you would expect from something with such a seemingly uninspired name. In fact it seemed awesome. Fighting enormous monsters and crafting gear out of their remains in a huge, epic landscape. The game was cheap and I was curious, so I went for it.

When I tried it things went pretty wrong pretty fast. I was a different gamer than I am now, so I didn't really know what to make of it. I was thrust right in to the thick of it, right in at the deep end. I was not used to any game doing anything like that. Of course, right from the start they put you up against very imposing creatures. No easing in to this game at all. I couldn't get the hang of it. It wasn't just the difficulty of the game from the start that turned me off. I'd never played a game with a similar tone to Monster Hunter before. I'd never come across anything with similar mechanics. It was completely alien to me and I didn't know where to start. I didn't really know where to go or what to do, and I found the controls very unintuitive. I was completely staggered at the sheer size of the world though. I'd never seen anything close to it. Such a shame I never really explored any of it though.

Alas, my time with the game was short, but it made a big impression on me. Even though I didn't enjoy the game at the time, it left me with a soft spot for games with that kind of atmosphere to them. That quirkiness that you only seem to see from Japanese games. Shadow of the Colossus captures some of that, I think. As does Dragon's Dogma. Probably more the latter than the former. So far I'm having trouble getting in to Dragon's Dogma too, in fact. But I think one day I may give Monster Hunter another chance. If they only released the PS3/360 version of the game outside of Japan, that would have been perfect. But of course, Capcom, like so many other Japanese publishers of late, seem to have become incompetent. They release Monster Hunter for the Wii in the west, but not the consoles with a big online following, particularly the 360. Why bother making a 360 version of any game if you're only going to release it in Japan?

Crackdown, I thought it sounded cool, but when I played it it was shitty.

Just out curiosity, why exactly did you think it was shitty?

Actually the Monster Hunter Tri online play is really fun and as good as the Xbox 360 or PS3 once you learn how Capcom bypassed some limitations. Try it

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Persona 3 FES, it's so slow it's ridiculous.

The Persona games definitely aren't for everyone. I liked 3 & 4 myself, but in my circles I'm pretty much the only one who did.

It's just 3, 4 has excellent pacing throughout and is my favorite game currently and I haven't had a game take top place since the 90's so that's saying something.

 

[sammysoso]

Mirrors Edge- Can I have a plot to go along with these mechanics, maybe some characters too?

Borderlands- A game with this many guns should NOT be a boring grind fest

Brink- see Mirrors Edge

Guild Wars- Trying to break to typical MMO mold is good, next time start with the grinding

The Old Republic- MMO with good story an admirable goal, but the MMO trappings killed it. Should have just made KOTOR 3

 

[Evil Smurf]

civ 5, everything it does Sid Meiers Alpha Centuri does better!

 

[Duck Sandwich]

Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Awesome concept (co-op beat-em-up, character customization, and a cast of characters with awesome powers) ruined by shitty combat (terrible hit detection, ridiculous imbalance, and recycled combos/power attacks)

 

[CAPTCHA]

Mount and Blade.

An Action, RPG, RTS - such a strange combination, but a very welcome one. And it doesn't set its sight low and tries hard to be some sort of fully functioning medieval life simulator. Just about every facet of the game falls short however and the end result feels shallow, clunky, frustrating and aimless.

 

[A3sir]

Spore, Dragon Age 2 and Dead Island, they have all been said.

Another for me is APB. The early premise was persistent multiplayer with player run and owned gangs and police precincts in an open world city with GTA:SA style turf where you had to have players on to protect your turf, or risk losing it to a rival gang.
What we got - multiplayer GTA with 2 factions.

 

[LittleJoeRambler]

I loved Skyrim's world, but the combat was lacking, and puzzles were about matching pictures on a claw with a wheel thingy.

I want a game that takes Skyrim's massive open-ended world and smacks a Jedi from Battlefront II in the middle of it. Not that wishy-washy turn-based combat, real-time Force Sprinting, jumping insane heights and murdering everything with a lightsaber. Force Push and Pull could make a puzzle-solving mechanic identical to Half-Life's gravity gun.

 

[Hemlet]

Dead Island wasn't inherently bad (although it certainly wasn't good), I was just expecting something very different.

I was expecting an open world zombie-survival sim of sorts. What I got was a buggy first-person Diablo with a mind-blowing bias towards certain character builds and weapon types, and roughly a third of the main game being spent on an extended sewer level.

 

[NickBrahz]

Dead Island, i pre-ordered the GOTY a few months ago for about $30, when i got the game i booted it up and played for about 20 minutes before i turned it off, haven't even thought of it since.

Well except for a couple days ago, a friend was over and we wanted to play some Split-screen, the back of the game shows it can be co-op 2-4, under both Xbox 360 and XBL (Which means i should be able to play it on bloody split-screen the lying piece of crap) anyway kind of off-topic this last part but i guess i liked the idea of split-screen, until it lied to me!

 

[Nazulu]

I enjoyed everything about Bioshock except the game play, and the designs became repetitive after a bit.

 

[Cowabungaa]

The idea of Borderlands seemed really cool; co-op Diablo with guns and craziness? Yes please.

What I got was a repetitive (enemies and environments mostly) grindfest with broken multiplayer. Who in their right mind still uses GameSpy?!

Luckily Borderlands 2 seems to fix a lot of thing.

It's the same story with Assassin's Creed; brilliant concept bogged down with repetitiveness and a sequel that really fixed a lot of complaints.

 

[AngleWyrm]

What are games that you thought were mediocre or just didn't enjoy playing, but thought the premise behind them were good?

Endless Space. I love 4x games, and am currently enjoying Warlock, Master of the Arcane. Endless Space is pretty, and it seems to be right up my alley. But the game behind the graphical curtain isn't all that and a bag of chips. It's just the bag of chips, and lots of promises for the future.

If you've played Dwarf Fortress, then you know exactly what I mean about promises for the future.

 

[Legion]

I'd say most tacked on multiplayers.

- Assassins Creed had an excellent format for multiplayer, but the execution was horrific. You can join a game in a party large enough for a full team, yet will not always be put on the same team. Plus finding a game is impossible half the time.
- Condemned 2 has quite possibly the best idea ever for it, but it was laggy and kept kicking people.
- Bioshock 2's protect the Little Sister was another great idea, but they ruined it by having her respawn once captured. Plus it was terribly laggy.
- Dead Space 2 except they made the humans respawn as well, ruining any survival feeling.

 

[Olas]

Spor-

Oh.

Most of what I would say has already been mentioned.

I'll go for an older one: Battle for Middle Earth 2.

I loved the first one, but the second just changed everything I liked about it and just felt inconsistent. I though I was going to love it because it was using more book material.

They toyed with perfection, really. All the first one ever needed was a good expansion pack, not a Warcraft clone. The first one was great because it focused on BATTLE, not figuring out how to properly space out your resource structures.
Though BFME2 wasn't bad, just terrible compared to it's predecessor.

 

[Noah Coultrip]

Fable 3.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

It was Dragon Age: Origins for me.

I've tried playing through the game five or six times but I just can't play through it.
I like the story, the setting, the writing and the characters.
But the gameplay does not interest me at all. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not my thing.

Also the voice acting ranges from excellent to God-awful at times and really pulls me out of it.

If it were a book or graphic novel I'd be in love with it, but alas it isn't.

 

[Growley]

Dark Souls for PC..

 

[Don't taze me bro]

Fable. Molyneux always hypes his products. I recall watching videos of him citing features that never made it into the final game. The final product was massively underwhelming.