Games You Had to Force Yourself to Finish

[Battenberg]

I'm sure there are other games but the only one I can think of is Half Life 2 although technically I'm still in the process of forcing myself to finish it. I absolutely loved the first game and played it through in a couple of days but I just didn't find the same thing with HL2 at all, especially Ravenholme which is where I'm still at.

 

[FPLOON]

Platinuming Lollipop Chainsaw... That FUCKING ARCADE section... HOW IN FLYING FUCK DO YOU GET PASS THIS PARTICULAR SECTION WITHOUT ATTACKING ONCE OR DYING WHEN IT'S ALL RANDOM AS FUCK?!?! THAT'S SOME FUCKING BS RIGHT THERE!!!! FUCK CHANCE!!! FUCK IT TO GET THE LAST BRONZE TROPHY!!

*breathes*
*calms down*

Anyway... Sonic 06... All main levels with S ranks... No rank lower except during side-missions, which some of them having to be done to advance the story... Other than that, I only force myself to finish a particular game if I handicap myself beforehand in some way, shape, or form...

(Also, Child of Eden... One day... less than 2 hours... One shot... I don't want to talk about it... Oh hay! Free platinum!!)

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

GTA IV: Really wasn't worth it.

Far Cry 3 After Vass dies any motivation I had for beating the game was gone. The story fell apart and at that point the game was just beginning to wear a bit thin.

 

[TomWiley]

Excellent question! Here's my list:

*Deus Ex Human Revolution - like an endless, repetitive chore that I paid for and needlessly subjected myself to for many hours more than it should have taken me to just realize I didn't enjoy it. And trust me, I really wanted to enjoy it.

*Sleeping Dogs - this game is objectively great in any imaginable way but I just found it totally boring

*GTA 5 currently. I know I'm supposed to love it. My friends, the critics, everyone keeps telling me so. But right now it's just insufferably slow. Characters are inconsistent and I wish I could just switch directly to the next mission, because I have absolutely zero interest in all the crazy open world stuff. I don't want to try any golf-simulator or get caught up in a police chase for the hundredth time. I just want to get on with the story.


*Bioshock Still haven't finished it. I suppose I should, but I've had enough of turrent-hacking and endless splicer attacks to last me a life time. I do enjoy the theme, the concept, the atmosphere (at least when the latter isn't interrupted by constant chaos), but the game is game is just way too lively for me.


*L.A NOIRE Great writing, great dialogs - everything else about is just suffocating. The repetitive search for clues waiting for the controller to vibrate, driving from point A to point B. I suppose I could always just swallow my dignity and watch the entire game on YouTube...


*Silent Hill 2 I wanted this game to scare the living shit out of me. Instead, the only thing scary about SH2 ended up being the horrible PC controls. Not even Pyramid Head could give me that horror fix I so desperately wanted.

*I Am Alive - hey I paid for it. I need to finish it.

I got like a dozen other Steam games I paid good money for but will probably never finish. I dread the inevitability conclusion that I just don't like games anymore. But if that's the case, how come I can play 100 hours for everyone STALKER mod I download?

 

[Eddie the head]

It's my free time why would I force myself to do something I clearly don't like. If you're not having fun with a game fuck it and watch TV. Don't fall for the "Sunk Costs Fallacy."

 

[DementedSheep]

I actually like Dragon Age: Origins but it took me a long time to finish it. It goes for so long, get repetitive and I don't like stopping for a few weeks and coming back to the same game because I will have forgotten what I was doing. The result is that I played up to the deep roads multiple times before actually finishing the game and I had to force myself to do so.

Chronicles of Riddick, again it went on too long and got boring.

Bioshock. Love the atmosphere but dislike the combat and the final levels after the Andrew Ryan confrontation aren't as good as the rest.

Skyrim if we take the main quest as finishing it. I kept getting sidetracked and making new characters because I'm not going to bother with the achievements and sure as hell haven't completed the whole game. It's one of the few game I've bought at full price and I kinda of regret it. It's not bad but I don't think it's that great.

Overlord. I don't really know why I bothered TBH.

 

[Sandjube]

Honestly, no. I've only finished about ten games in my life, probably, and if I finish it, that means it was a DAMN good game in my books. If I don't like a game, I can't be fucked forcing myself through it.

 

[Oglop]

None. If I need to force myself to play a game, it isn't worth my time.

That's the magic of returns.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

Bioshock after the twist felt like such a slog but I got through it. Psychonauts after the level where you play as a giant monster in lungfishopolis wasn't as good but I kept going even though the meat circus was pretty damned frustrating. A while back I forced myself to finish Knights of the Old Republic which was a pretty big chore since in many RPGs I get side tracked and eventually get bored with things. GTA4 required me to focus solely on the story and ignore the dates and other phone calls entirely so I could finish the story.

 

[lunavixen]

Ohh geez, there are a few:

Dead Space:
I still haven't finished this actually, and i'm not looking forward to finishing it the vaccuum areas are a bit stupid, I mean if Isaac is wearing a sealed suit capable of going on the outside of a ship hull, why the hell didn't they put an air recycler in his suit? The story is a bit of a mess, some guns like the ripper and the line gun are way too overpowered even before upgrading them (they're the only two weapons i've been using with the plasma cutter with one full load as backup), and what's most disappointing of all is that the game is not scary in the slightest, I bought it thinking i'd get a semi decent horror game, and I was horribly wrong.

Dragon Age:
I haven't finished either of them yet, I love RPGs but I just can't get into Dragon Age. The combat is iffy, the dialogue doesn't make a whole lot of sense in places, and that whole affection/rivalry thing makes me want to kill all of the characters in the most painful ways I can think of.

The Last of Us:
I didn't enjoy this, the story was so predictable that I managed to deduce every major plot point before it happens (when I wasn't busy poking holes in the story), the combat was alright as were the dialogue and animation. It just got to the point where I couldn't play more than an hour at a time before realising how bored I was.


Uncharted:
I've finished the first one, but not the other two. For much the same reasons as TLoU, except that I hate Nathan Drake with the heat of a nova, he is such an unlikable character (I found the dialogue overall to be unpleasant), I kept deliberately throwing him off cliffs to see if he could wisecrack his way out of a major splatter death, and i'm pleased to say that he can't. I actually pity his LI Elena, he must be drugging her or something in between games.

 

[debtcollector]

Portal. That game was simply an unfunny boring game. The humor was non-existent.

.....huh. It was only about 5 hours long, though.

OT: I was about to name a bunch of games, only to realize I've never beaten any of them. Lost Odyssey, one day I will see what secrets lie on disc 4.

I suppose Nier counts here. The gameplay was utterly forgettable and the music (particularly the field theme) got pretty grating after a while. Not that I didn't love the story, but I had to get through a lot of shit before I decided that it was worth it to keep playing.

Dragon Warrior 1 and 2. I was young and had beaten every other game I owned. So I figured I'd beat these guys. My God was that a mistake. NES JRPGS at their finest most infuriating.

Uncharted 3 as well. Everything about it just screamed generic shooter from start to finish, with a stupid plot and cardboard characters.

I'm not sure that FFIII counts here. I never beat the damn final boss, but I can tell you that even getting that far was a test of my willpower.

 

[mitchell271]

Honestly, no. I've never understood finishing a game once you don't like it anymore. For example, I was excited for Final Fantasy XIII. I played for 4 hours, trying to find something good and just completely gave up on it. There have been times where I've pushed through the opening, like KOTOR, based purely on what I've been told by friends to find something I love.

 

[conmag9]

Pretty much all of them, in the rare event I do. Even the ones I adore. I hate the feeling of games ending. It's like I'm allergic to closure or something. That, and I tend to get easily diverted to different games.

 

[hermes]

Last one I remember was Assassins Creed 3. I hated how it constantly introduced half-baked mechanics that only applied to a handful of missions, how the interface was a clusterfuck (finished the game without knowing how to send assassins to do missions), how the sidequests rewards were unsatisfying (you liberated this fort, have some pelts) and how buggy it was.

The character grow on my on the last couple missions, but it was a steep hill before that.

 

[Kaisikudo]

I'm struggling to think of an answer for this question. Generally, I like to make sure that I'm going to enjoy a game before I go to the trouble of actually buying it. And even if I get as far as that, only to discover that I'm not having as much fun as I expected to (e.g. Maximo), I tend to just take the game back to where I purchased it.

There are games I've forced myself to continue playing, for the sake of earning 100% completion however. For example, getting every single one of the precursor artifacts in the original Jak & Daxter, just so I could see the secret ending. Or replaying through career mode on Guitar Hero III on each of the higher difficulties. Oh, boy. Those many hours wasted on trying to beat that final boss battle on Expert... totally worth my precious time >_<

Actually... does The Impossible Quiz flash game count as forcing yourself to complete a game?

 

[Mr Fixit]

I am currently doing this with Dragon Age Origins, I find myself not liking my character & I keep restarting. I'll finish it one of these days. Another one that I'll have to force myself to finish is Infinite Undiscovery. I can deal with the absolute shit voice acting, but the game pissed me off over a very stupid little thing & I haven't played it in so long I'll have to start over completely because I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. Story is good, but damn that gameplay gets boring quickly.

 

[veloper]

Pretty much all of them, in the rare event I do. Even the ones I adore. I hate the feeling of games ending. It's like I'm allergic to closure or something. That, and I tend to get easily diverted to different games.

Go one step further. I simply don't force myself to finish games.

To me the topic title means almost the opposite of a bad game.
If I absolutely have to finish the game even when it's inconvenient for me, or when I have a new interesting game, then the old game must have many good qualities.

 

[jpblade666]

Ni no kuni. I love the story but I can't stand the combat. I'm so bored with the combat!

 

[AD-Stu]

Biggest culprit was Assassin's Creed 1 - I think it took me about a year and a bit all up to get around to finishing it? Dear gawd it was a dull repetitive grind. Kinda glad I did though, because I really enjoyed AC2 and Brotherhood.

Dragon Age: Origins was like that to a lesser extent. For the most part I enjoyed it, but there were sections (caverns underneath Orzammar in particular) that just dragged out for freaking ever. I finished it, but it definitely felt like it was about 15 hours too long.

The Witcher 1, on the other hand, I couldn't even bring myself to finish. By midway through the third act I'd had enough of Gerald, the combat, the voice acting, the grind and the whole thing, so I gave it up and never came back to it.