Games you have played A LOT but never finished.

[someonehairy-ish]

Skyrim. I've got hundreds of hours in that game, never bothered finishing the main quest chain. Not really sure why.

Minecraft- fuck spending ages trying to find a fortress so I can go fight the ender dragon. I've cheated and done it on creation mode, but thats it.

Civ and Crusader Kings and the like get really boring in the late game, it generally ends up with you and one other major power that can't really take each other down, so you end up having to do a science victory or something... yawn.

Errrm. Oh yeah, I never actually beat the boss in FTL. I got it down to a few percent before, but I couldn't be asked with doing it all again after that.

 

[Kaisikudo]

The original Black & White. Never made it past the island where you have to rescue your Creature. Hearing it's distant screams of agony sort of put me off playing xD

Populus: The Beginning. Final few chapters of that game were pretty brutal.

Civilization III... Oh dear. Expanding your territories early on is awesome and all, but I wound up with so many cities and units to manage per turn, that it took hours to go through them all. I kind of gave up out of boredom after a while xD

Baldur's Gate 2... SO MANY SIDEQUESTS, I DON'T WANNA MISS ANYTHING.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Saints Row 2, main story is done but most of the side activities are left open. Started from scratch just yesterday, might go for 100% now.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Happens a lot during Total War campaigns. Most notably Medieval II, Shogun 2 and Fall of the Samurai. In the end I always end up with a couple of huge armies, but I can't be bothered to steamroll the rest of the map.

Others to note:

- Star Ocean IV. I don't precisely know how far I got (seemed close to the end), but in the end I didn't feel like grinding enough to complete it.

- Black and White. I played that game for months, but never finished it. Don't think I really got close either. :S

- Okami. For shame, I know, but every time I wanted to finish it, something got in the way. And I really like it as well.

In Shogun 2 I play till the Realm Divide because that's total bullshit on a horseshit sandwhich.

Add me to the Skyrim list as well, also Rome 2 Total War, FFX (some bosses are so bullshitty), Wargame European Escalation, Airland battle, and Red Dragon, X, X2, X3 (the learning curve is practically vertical) and a ton of others.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

Morrowind, Skyrim, Dragon Age Origins (neither PC nor 360 versions), Saints Row 1, and New Vegas are the ones I'm most guilty of not finishing.

I almost finished 100% of everything in Fallout 3 and all of its DLC, except that I never finished The Superhero Gambit (vanilla quest) and never started The Pitt DLC.

 

[Zakarath]

The original XCOM and Terror from the Deep.

I love the series, but the final mission(s) in the first are brutal (At least the 1st half. I never got to the second half), and Terror form the Deep has multiple 2-part missions.

Though I never got around to TFTD, i got through the X-COM final mission by virtue of packing enough guided missiles (blaster bombs, I think?) into my transport to level everything on Mars

OT: Neverwinter Nights 2. Got up to what I'm pretty sure were the last missions, and the game just stopped being fun. This has happened on a couple playthroughs.

 

[PPB]

I never finished any of the two Icewind Dale games. I played both of them a lot, especially the second one. I made it several times to the last or second-to-last dungeon, but something always happens to make me lose interest or want to start over with a new group. I've played through the first couple of chapters so many times that I used to know every area by heart. I start a new game on a yearly basis but have yet to break the cycle.

 

[aozgolo]

The thread title should have been "Why I never finished Skyrim"

Dark Souls
I've made it to the final boss on one character but got discouraged and since then I keep making different ones and not sticking with anything past Anor Londo.

As much as I love open world games, I don't think I'll be able to ever get into Dark Souls since "challenge" isn't really a reason for me to play games anymore, I just want to get lost in the world and roleplay as I want, and all I tend to hear about Dark Souls other than the minimalist story is how unforgivingly difficult it is.

This happens in The Elder Scrolls for me. I rarely play the games for completing them. I'm just interested in exploring the world and role playing a character, and more often than not, those characters care very little about the main conflict. Now, I generally do have a character that wants to complete the main quest, but I rarely enjoy them as much as the other characters and rarely complete the main quest before getting bored with them and moving on to another character.

I've done this a few times, my last character I made was a pure hunter who avoided cities and just lived off the land hunting animals, pre-Dragons. My character before that was a thirsty for power mage who rose to archmage before he even set foot in Whiterun for the first time.

Don't blame you guys for not finishing TES IV and TES V's mainquests. They're not that great.
TES III, however, is a whole 'nother story altogether.

For me, the most egregious case is probably GTA: Vice City. Spent hundreds of hours creating chaos in that, but could never advance the main plotline because I couldn't finish enough sidequests to break 50% completion (required to move the plot along). I finished everything possible but got stuck with the flying missions (I even remember, it was one where you had to drop porno flyers from a small plane over the city). Similar thing happened in GTA: San Andreas when I got to the part where you buy the airfield.

Having played Morrowind with mods for a good 100+ hours before ever finishing the main campaign, I then made it a point in each Elder Scrolls and Fallout game (except New Vegas... ooops) to finish the main quest once on my first playthrough before modding it (other than graphic improvements)

As for GTA, I've surprisingly beaten 3, Vice City, and V despite not being all that great at the games. I didn't get to beat San Andreas due to a glitch in one mission where you're supposed to save a guy who is going to jump off a building by moving a truck under him, but instead of waiting he jumps immediately never giving you time to save him. I never played IV past about an hour...

Morrowind, Skyrim, Dragon Age Origins (neither PC nor 360 versions), Saints Row 1, and New Vegas are the ones I'm most guilty of not finishing.

I almost finished 100% of everything in Fallout 3 and all of its DLC, except that I never finished The Superhero Gambit (vanilla quest) and never started The Pitt DLC.

I haven't finished Dragon Age yet though I can't say I've sunk as many hours into it as some people (for me it's got to be at least 50+ to consider it a true timesink). I did manage to beat Fallout 3's normal campaign, but the Broken Steel DLC glitched on me (probably due to mods) and I could never play past the normal ending. I did however play through Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, and Mothership Zeta DLCs and really enjoyed them.

Fallout New Vegas is approaching that level of "never gonna finish" since I tend to just like to wander around a lot and collect things in my Underground Hideout Mod (the best housing mod I've ever seen... period)

 

[Supdupadog]

I have made like 8 play through Paper Mario: The Thousand year door but I never get myself to do the final dungeon.

I kinda took the 100 pit challenge, got to the final floor, lost, then rage quit it for years on end.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Another Elder Scrolls non-completionist here, particularly regarding Morrowind. I've sunk hundreds of hours into that game with God knows how many restarts, but I have never come close to finishing the main quest. I always end up getting way too sidetracked by all the distractions the game world has to offer:

"Okay, time to head to Balmor-hey, is that a half-sunken ship?! I'm gonna go check it-ooh, some islands! I wonder what they might ha-whoa, a Daedric ruin!"

It's gotten to the point that I don't even bother trying to accomplish the main quest anymore. Most of my time is spent just wandering around while roleplaying with a particular character build (living off the land as a Bosmer hunter, making pilgrimages to sacred shrines as staff-wielding monk, gathering plant samples as an alchemist-mage, etc.).

 

[JasonKaotic]

I usually put finishing the game before doing side stuff because I suck but there are a few exceptions:

Unreal Tournament 3 - I've sank so many hours into bot matches in that game but the single player campaign is absolute ass. Like, wow. Probably never going to finish it.

Croc 2 - This game took up like an entire quarter of my childhood. I remember very little about my time with it as a kid but I remember I never finished it. Got it again recently and I'm stuck pretty bad so it'll probably be a while before this ever gets finished.

Monkey Hero - Another quarter of my childhood, never finished it as a kid because of reasons I've forgotten, and now I'll never finish it because I played A Link to the Past and realized that Monkey Hero is just a borderline lawsuit ripoff of LttP. Which sucks. I loved this game so much before.

Dark Chronicle - To be fair I did try, but I got killed by the final boss at the end of a long-ass boss rush with no save breaks and I didn't fancy trying to beat all those bosses again. Now I just spend all my time on it destroying and rebuilding all my towns and occasionally aimlessly running dungeons I've already finished. I probably should've finished it though, I'll have forgotten everything by now so it's kind of too late.

 

[Saulkar]

GTA IV. I passed both of the expansions and put a lot of hours into the main game but never passed it. It is always just too dull for me to get into. Mod support is dope though.

 

[Siege_TF]

Chrono Cross; I loose motivation to continue playing, the narrative just looses steam.
Skyrim; Damn fetchquests just took the piss out of me.
FA: NV; Everything is shades of grey and I just can't choose mine.
Strider; It's been a hell of a journey and I just don't want it to end.

 

[Zetatrain]

Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim
-put about 100 hours into both of them, but i lost interest before I completed the main quest lines.

Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3
-sunk countless hours into both games at multiple points throughout my life, but never did beat them.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Another one for Skyrim.

It's fun enough initially, but after a while I just get bored killing the same dudes in the same caves. Even the dragons just become annoying and monotonous after you killed like 10.

 

[Euryalus]

Civilization 5. I love playing through the first few eras, growing my Civ and discovering the map. But once you get to modern times, the game is super slow and not much new or interesting. By then I typically have the dominant technology, economy, army and culture, but I just don't have the desire to finish off one of the victory conditions. I've got like 100 hours in that game, and dozens of partly-finished campaigns.

Having to choose the production and movements for all your units and cities just becomes a massive chore towards the final stretch.

Sure you can automate a lot of it, but it's hard to get what you need done without the micro managing. I know what you mean :/

The only thing that keeps me going so late is my desire to spread my religions of Scientology or Hedonsim to the world XD

 

[Rylot]

snip

Eh, I'd say it isn't so much that it's difficult as it is unforgiving. Unlike most games you're not gonna be able to charge your way through hordes of enemies. But if you take it slow and be careful you're rewarded with a really solid combat system and interesting world. Since it's probably pretty cheap by now I'd suggest taking a look at it.

 

[Kerethos]

There's so far only one: Skyrim.

776 hours played (according to Steam) though I have a tendency to just alt tab out when making dinner or suddenly deciding to look for an interesting mod to tweak something for a few hours. That darn mod list just grows and grows... (137 plugins in the load list by now >_<)

Either way I've yet to finish the last 2-3 quests in the main quest, bunch of Dark Brotherhood quests, and probably a bunch of random missions in all the DLC's (as well as the last 2 Dragonborn main quests).

I did just finish Dawnguard, on the vampire side. It was way better than I expected, even had some actual roleplaying in it.

And I'm probably restarting again, once I've tried all the radiant vampire missions

But I'll finish all of it, some day... only problem is that there's so many interesting mods to try out, making me restart every 40-60 hours.

 

[visiblenoise]

Borderlands 2 - I haven't finished that game yet because I haven't reached my personal goal of getting all six characters to level 70.

Really though, I always finish the games I love. Otherwise I may not have loved them that much.

 

[Idlemessiah]

The Witcher. The story I've played through is really interesting, the characters are well written, it still holds up visually considering it came out SEVEN YEARS AGO, but it is soooo loooong! I get so far in and I just get distracted by other things.

GTA IV. I never even bought it to play the story, just to use as stress relief.