Games you've bought that you can't bring yourself to play

[gsilver]

I bought Abzu at launch because it was that new game by the Flow/Flower/Journey team... and it's still sitting in my library, unplayed. I've installed it a number of times on different machines, staring at it and intending to play it... but not actually doing it.

Now, I'm no stranger to backlogs, but Abzu is a unique case since I, you know, *bought it at launch* instead of a random bundle or sale purchase.

I also keep on making excuses for not starting Amnesia.

For some reason Suikoden 3. I always play a few hours and then just give up. I guess having a race of giant ducks taken seriously kinda ruins the epicness.

Oh man. I remember Suikoden 3. I was a big fan of 1/2 and was really hyped about 3... then when I actually played it, it was such a slog.
Going from Suikoden 1 (a 15 hour game) to 3 (a 60 hour game) miiiiiiiiggggghhhhtttt have hurt the pacing a little.

 

[the December King]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. Loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. For whatever reason, I couldn't get into Clear Sky. Now none of them run properly, so I'm kinda fucked.

I think if you had to miss a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, then you missed the right one- I adore all three, but it is the weakest, in my opinion.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I have a 80+ game backlog, but that's different. I fully intend to play all of those games, eventually. Once a month, I pick one randomly and tell myself "It's been sitting there forever, now sit down, and play it!"

But I do own a few games that don't interest me, but which I got because they were part of a Humble Bundle alongside games I did want and the whole package was dirt cheap. Risk of Rain, Teleglitch, Broken Chalice and one more I can't remember.

Nowadays I just give away the bundle games I don't care about, but I didn't always do that, thinking I paid for it, so I keep it. So now they sit there in my Steam account. They honestly don't even have a chance, because I don't count them as part of the backlog.

 

[Ironman126]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. Loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. For whatever reason, I couldn't get into Clear Sky. Now none of them run properly, so I'm kinda fucked.

I think if you had to miss a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, then you missed the right one- I adore all three, but it is the weakest, in my opinion.

That's kinda what I've heard. I'm sure that it's a decent game, but I think it was a misstep to do a prequel. I generally feel that way about games. Sometimes it should be OK to leave things a mystery.

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Men of War. Man, here's a series I should love, but the controls are all wrong. Right-click movement. We've had it since (at least) 1998. Why the fuck doesn't Men of War?

Actually, that's just the default setting, which is weird I know. In the options there was a simple checkbox/toggle to switch it to right-click movement/actions. It's definitely one of my favorite strategy games, due to a lot of mechanics and engine design (the tank-armor piercing system is so much more satisfying than the crude healthbar systems most strategy games have). Plus the direct control stuff, the AI, and a bunch of other things. Very underappreciated game-design.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. Loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. For whatever reason, I couldn't get into Clear Sky. Now none of them run properly, so I'm kinda fucked.

How is it you can't get any of them working now? Unless your system is... incredibly ancient, I don't see what kind of issues you might be having.

 

[laggyteabag]

Most of my fucking Steam Library, and I have 500 games now.

Plus a few PS4 games.

I've been in such a rut lately. I've pretty much been so absorbed with multiplayer games like Heroes of the Storm that I haven't had time to play almost anything else. Most of the time, I just get so sucked in by the constant daily quests and log in bonuses and first win bonuses, and then there are characters that are close to levelling up and just. one. more. game.

Its easy to be recommended a film to watch. "Hey, you should totally watch The Dark Knight!" and that is committing to what? 90 mins to 3 hours? Recommend a game though... "Hey, you should totally play The Witcher 3!", and just like that, you are committing yourself to over 100 hours of story. I think that is why I've been playing multiplayer games so much; I can get a game of Heroes of the Storm done and dusted in 20 minutes, and feel like I have accomplished something.

I haven't completed a singleplayer game in... oh, I don't know. Maybe since The Witcher 3, early this year? I didn't complete the Blood and Wine expansion though....

[EDIT] I completed Shadow of War, but that game was so forgettable, that, well, I forgot about it

I finally, finally got back into Rise of the Tomb Raider, and by god, I am going to finish it.

Next is The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, Until Dawn, Quantum Break, Horizon Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, Divinity Original Sin 2, Stick of Truth, Assassin's Creed Origins...

As a kid, buying a game was this huge occasion, and I finished each and every one of them. Now, I have enough disposable income, and games are so cheap, that if I get 3 games on Humble Bundle for $12, and I never end up playing any of them, its not the end of the world. Not to mention that outside of school, I had no commitments, and so much time on my hands.

I miss those days.

 

[iseko]

The Witcher. Heard it was great. Bought 1 and 2. Can't stand the gameplay. Shame, too, because CDProjekt is a top-rate company who actively tries to make me like them. I just wish I liked their games.

I feel ya. I tried the first one. Could not get past the intro due to the gameplay. Such a shame because I hear good things about it.

 

[laggyteabag]

The Witcher. Heard it was great. Bought 1 and 2. Can't stand the gameplay. Shame, too, because CDProjekt is a top-rate company who actively tries to make me like them. I just wish I liked their games.

SNIP

I feel ya. I tried the first one. Could not get past the intro due to the gameplay. Such a shame because I hear good things about it.

Honestly, just jump straight into 3.

I never played 1, and I dabbled in 2 - but I never liked it. I decided to get 3 anyway, and I do not regret it.

TW3 is massive, it looks stunning, it has a good story, and it has some of the best side quests that I have seen in an open world game.

The thing with The Witcher is that it was originally a series of books, and the games take place after the final Witcher book, so in the end, you are missing a lot of story anyway, regardless of whether or not you played the first two games. TW3 does a pretty good job at catching you up, not that the plot is overly complicated in the first place.

Frankly, I would say jump right in, as TW3 is leaps and bounds above the last two games.

Besides, its pretty cheap these days, anyway.

 

[Dalisclock]

The Witcher. Heard it was great. Bought 1 and 2. Can't stand the gameplay. Shame, too, because CDProjekt is a top-rate company who actively tries to make me like them. I just wish I liked their games.

I feel ya. I tried the first one. Could not get past the intro due to the gameplay. Such a shame because I hear good things about it.

I played the entire series like a year or so ago and honestly, if you skip 1, you aren't missing much. You can get the story from the wiki entry if you really want or maybe a LP with all the story bits highlighted. It's preferable at any rate then slogging through the sub-par gameplay of the first game.

The 2nd one is a bit better and sets up 3 a lot more, but don't be afraid to jump into 3. As cool as the branching paths in Witcher 2 are, your decisions don't end up making much difference when you get to 3. And almost nothing from Witcher 1 is even mentioned by the 3rd game.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Assassins Creed Origins

It looked and ended up being better than pretty much all the other games in the series but I've only started it up like 3 times since launch. I think it's open-world fatigue, I'm too impatient now to ride for 5 minutes to go to someone, talk to the person, ride 5 minutes more, complete the mission and then ride back for 5 minutes. The quests aren't fun enough and the world isn't interactive enough to keep me in the game.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Witcher 3's one. Partly because I do want to replay TW2 first, but also because 3 seems like such an exhausting undertaking given I got the GotY edition. It's been sitting on my shelf for about a year now. I know Geralt has his fans, but I've never been one of them, and so spending another 100 or so hours in his company never feels like an incentive to return to the series. Plus, it may be a vastly superior game to play than a Dragon Age, but I much prefer BioWare's world and lore (and party based combat, at least in DA:O and DAII). Still, I assume I'll enjoy TW3 whenever I get around to it.

The Walking Dead S2 and Life Is Strange have been knocking around for a while as well. I'm not overly keen to start TWD S2, as the first season was one of my best gaming experiences of all time (particularly the end), and I really don't see how any continuation of the characters story could do that justice.

I played LiS's first ep, and I think there's an almost equal amount to enjoy and loathe in that series... The story arc as a whole might be great, but jeese, so much of the writing and characterisation is just flat out awful. If it was a highschool narrative I could give some of its dialogue and characterisation a pass, but it isn't, and so I can't. Some fairly terrible/cringeworthy music in it, as well.

Does abandoning a game after about an hour count? If so, Rise Of The Tomb Raider's another. That was the first game I installed and started playing when I got an XB1, but I was never keen on where it looked like they were taking the rebooted series, disliked how they ditched Sam between games in a [fairly shitty] comic, and the opening of that game, structurally and in terms of pacing, is a complete mess. As a game to actually play I'm reliably told it's better than the reboot, but a game is much more than just its mechanics.

I do keep on intending to restart it, though I just never seem to get around to it.

 

[Ironman126]

Men of War. Man, here's a series I should love, but the controls are all wrong. Right-click movement. We've had it since (at least) 1998. Why the fuck doesn't Men of War?

Actually, that's just the default setting, which is weird I know. In the options there was a simple checkbox/toggle to switch it to right-click movement/actions. It's definitely one of my favorite strategy games, due to a lot of mechanics and engine design (the tank-armor piercing system is so much more satisfying than the crude healthbar systems most strategy games have). Plus the direct control stuff, the AI, and a bunch of other things. Very underappreciated game-design.

Hmm. I'll take another look at it then. I've seen videos of the games and I really love the tank combat. I was extremely disappointed with Company of Heroes 2 then the tanks behaved worse than in the first game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. Loved Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. For whatever reason, I couldn't get into Clear Sky. Now none of them run properly, so I'm kinda fucked.

How is it you can't get any of them working now? Unless your system is... incredibly ancient, I don't see what kind of issues you might be having.

It's not a performance issue, its stability. Shadow of Chernobyl looks likes it's going to start, then never does. Call of Pripyat crashes every few minutes. I haven't tried to play Clear Sky in years because I just don't care. What's bizarre (not really) is that they all ran on the much less capable PC I had when I first played them.

Honestly, just jump straight into 3.

I never played 1, and I dabbled in 2 - but I never liked it. I decided to get 3 anyway, and I do not regret it.

TW3 is massive, it looks stunning, it has a good story, and it has some of the best side quests that I have seen in an open world game.

The thing with The Witcher is that it was originally a series of books, and the games take place after the final Witcher book, so in the end, you are missing a lot of story anyway, regardless of whether or not you played the first two games. TW3 does a pretty good job at catching you up, not that the plot is overly complicated in the first place.

Frankly, I would say jump right in, as TW3 is leaps and bounds above the last two games.

Besides, its pretty cheap these days, anyway.

I may just do that. The Steam Christmas sale should be starting soon and I could use a new RPG.

 

[Raggedstar]

I've bought a few horror games like Amnesia and Alien Isolation. Horror is interesting, and these are good examples of horror. I can watch people play them without any issues, and I recently watched and enjoyed the first two Alien movies. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, being a complete bloody coward for one thing. Bye bye, money!

 

[vomafoyab444]

as Nancy explained I am alarmed that a mother able to earn $8674 in a few weeks on the

internet . see............. ► Ec?o?n?o?m?y o?r ► Ma?r?ke?t N?e?w?s




http://www.Help80.Com

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

The Witcher 3. I preordered it and its season pass the day they were available. I loved 1, liked 2, read the books, even watched the decade old Polish TV series. By reputation it's one of the best open world games and RPGs ever made. It's been installed on my hard drive since its release. So WhyTF can't I bring myself to play it? I did try once, got as far as the griffin in the beginning, and haven't picked it up again.

I bought Sleeping Dogs when it was on sale, but for some reason I never feel like playing it.

That's a shame, it's a really good game. The Hong Kong Cinema vibe is great and utterly unique in open world games, where generic-american-cities are so humdrum. They did a really great job with the characters....you actually care about them, and Shen.

I don't know what platform you have it on. The PC version has a terrible FoV, which is something that is ordinarily a deal breaker for me, but this game and Mafia 2 are the only games that get away with it. I would play the original version over definitive. They made some negative changes that I believe made the game worse (especially if you own the DLC).

Whenever I replay it, I look forward to one thing above the others. There's something immensely satisfying about putting on the DLC cop outfit while talking to Winston especially. Several playthrus and I still find it side-splittingly funny to be dressed in full cop uniform while sitting across from Winston who's ranting about how much he hates cops, what he does when he finds cops and he finds it so hard to trust anyone cos they could be an undercover cop. And Shen sits there nodding, in uniform, with that hat and sunglasses.

EDIT: Found someone else's recording:

​

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

Hmm. I'll take another look at it then. I've seen videos of the games and I really love the tank combat. I was extremely disappointed with Company of Heroes 2 then the tanks behaved worse than in the first game.

That's a shame about CoH 2. Not that I was a huge fan of Company of Heroes (Men of War kind of ruined it for me) but I have to applaud a lot of the things Relic tried and experimented with in CoH and Dawn of War.

It's not a performance issue, its stability. Shadow of Chernobyl looks likes it's going to start, then never does. Call of Pripyat crashes every few minutes. I haven't tried to play Clear Sky in years because I just don't care. What's bizarre (not really) is that they all ran on the much less capable PC I had when I first played them.

Ohhhh, right. I'm not familiar with the issues in Shadow of Chernobyl, other than the engine just... not being as stable as it was in later titles.

I'm pretty sure I know a what's causing your issues in Call of Pripyat though. Any kind of GPU overclock tends to crash your GPU drivers whenever there's a heavy lag spike.

If not that, then it might be an issue with trying to load a save you made close to a group of spawned zombies. It's a really bizarre engine bug that no one's really been able to properly "fix". Simplest solution is to simply... make sure you don't save your game in commonly populated zombie areas. And use multiple saves just in-case.

 

[Xerosch]

Oh, I got some:

Breath of the Wild
I played about five hours and just can't get into it. There is something about it that wards me off completely - and I like every other of Nintendo's Zelda games. It's so completely alien from what I expect a Zelda title to be that it could very well be a completely new franchise.

Banner Saga
This one I can't put my finger on. I love the art design, am comfortable with the gameplay and yet I just don't start a real playthrough after the intro and short tutorial. I bought the sequel, too, and haven't even seen the main menu.

X-Com 2: War of the Chosen
Speaking of strategy games... I was hyped for the addon. I impatiently waited month for being able to buy it (financial reasons). And after installing it I haven't even started it. I think it's because the with work and a relationship I'm very concious of how much time a game demands. So I guess at the moment I prefer the ten hour guided tour to the 50 choose-your-own-adventure. It's a real shame, though, as I'll probably never finish Witcher 3, though I absolutely loved the fifteen hours I was able to sink into it.

The Amnesia Series:To be fair with this one I am 99% sure that this happens because I know they're scary as fuck.

Just try what I do when I get queasy in a game: Kill yourself on purpose. Just charge into the room, see what happens, how the monster looks and how it attacks. You'll surprised how fast horror games become a tameable beast.

 

[Random Gamer]

I've plenty of games in my backlog, though I plan to play them all if I can.
That said, a few games I didn't finish. Red Alert / Tiberian Sun for instance. It's just that I feel their gameplay is so inferior compared to Starcraft that I never managed to play more than 5 missions from each game, and then was bored.
Empire Earth as well. Granted, I was just playing the first single-player campaign, but it seemed so slow to progress, compared to Age of Empires, that I never went beyond a handful of missions as well.

Amnesia I finished, but I played by rounds of 30 minutes mostly. Except that time when I ended up entering the Choir after 15 minutes - seeing what that big place was, how it seemed to work, I decided to call it a day and picked it up the next evening

Seriously, is there a walkthrough somewhere that goes "Here's Ireland for noobs. Here's all the basics you need to know to figure out how to git gud"?

For CK2, just as for Hearts of Iron and Europa Universalis, it helps to read the Wiki, which is quite detailed. They have some noobish guides there around as well.
That said, it's probably not enough or not thought out to be perfect introductions.
What helped me at times - though mostly to improve my mastery of some games - were the various AAR that one can find in Paradox forums. A few are really gameplay-oriented and take their time to explain what's going on, why the guy plays this way, how to use some trick, how to avoid getting easily destroyed... But it's quite a long work to find these AARs, it's usually not the titles that give them away, so you have to try a few topics and read a bit to see what kind of After Action Report it actually is...

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

My problem isn't that I buy a game and never play it, it's that I buy games, start to play them, and then never get around to finishing them. I used to make a point to always finish a game, even if I'm not really enjoying it all that much, so that I at least get my money's worth out of it. Then life happened, and now I just don't always have as much time as I'd like to have, so I have to prioritize.

Off the top of my head, these are some of the games I've yet to actually finish (there's a whole bunch more)...

1. Bioshock Infinite - Got to the part where you and Elizabeth are trying to buy a transportation ticket and you get a prompt about whether or not to kill the guy behind the counter. I think it's around the time you get your first shotgun. I liked the game well enough, but something came up that distracted me from finishing it. It's one that I'm looking forward to finishing when I get the time.

2. Prey - I've been absolutely loving this game so far. System Shock 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, and playing Prey for the first time has felt remarkably similar to my first experience with SS2. I've been playing this one in small chunks specifically so that I don't end up playing through it too fast. I want to savor this one.

3. Wasteland 2 - I honestly don't like this game at all. The combat feels incredibly clunky and unbalanced, the writing is awful, none of the characters are particularly likable, and none of the choices feel meaningful since most of the time it seems like one choice is clearly the better, "correct," choice. I was told by seemingly goddamn everyone that I'd love this game, because I love the oldschool Fallout games... but yeeeeah... not so much. I got to what felt like about halfway through the game, and just couldn't bring myself to finish it, despite the same people telling me that "it gets better."

4. Metro: Last Light - For some reason this one just didn't hook me like the first game. Got about two hours in, then moved on to something else. I didn't dislike it or anything, it just didn't motivate me to continue.

5. Skyrim - I've actually tried to finish this one several times now. I'll start a new game, put a whole bunch of hours into it, look back at the time I've spent and feel like I've not really gotten anywhere or done anything important, get bored and quit. Then a few months later, I'll decide that I'm really going to finish it this time, start a new game, have the exact same experience, and quit again for another couple months. I should really just pick up from where I left off previously, and say to hell with whether or not I still remember anything that had happened previously with that character story-wise. This game is a totally oddity in my Steam library, as it's the only one that I've put hundreds of hours into over the years, and never actually finished.

6. Telltale's Walking Dead: Season 3 - Not enough Clementine.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I bought Sleeping Dogs when it was on sale, but for some reason I never feel like playing it.

That's a shame, it's a really good game. The Hong Kong Cinema vibe is great and utterly unique in open world games, where generic-american-cities are so humdrum. They did a really great job with the characters....you actually care about them, and Shen.

I don't know what platform you have it on. The PC version has a terrible FoV, which is something that is ordinarily a deal breaker for me, but this game and Mafia 2 are the only games that get away with it. I would play the original version over definitive. They made some negative changes that I believe made the game worse (especially if you own the DLC).

Whenever I replay it, I look forward to one thing above the others. There's something immensely satisfying about putting on the DLC cop outfit while talking to Winston especially. Several playthrus and I still find it side-splittingly funny to be dressed in full cop uniform while sitting across from Winston who's ranting about how much he hates cops, what he does when he finds cops and he finds it so hard to trust anyone cos they could be an undercover cop. And Shen sits there nodding, in uniform, with that hat and sunglasses.

EDIT: Found someone else's recording:

​

I have the Definitive Edison on PC. I did play it for about half an hour and the FoV didn't seem all that bad. I'll probably give it another try. I have seen a video of Shen in the cop outfit and yeah that's pretty funny.