But surely your initial impressions can be...misinformed. I mean the first 5mins of Bioshock don't give even a clue as to the balls to the wall fun FPS that it actually is. Its just some swimming and Ayn Rand's dad giving a speech.Ezekiel said:
How soon is too soon to give up on a game?
- Thread starter Silentpony_v1legacy
- Start date
It depends on the game honestly. I'd say for a game with controls and mechanics that aren't maddeningly broken, then that calls for giving it about an hour. If it hasn't sufficiently grabbed your attention by that time, then its ok to say its not your cup o' tea. If the controls are shit, or you otherwise have issues with the mechanics, then you can say within a few minutes of play "fuck this game."
Everyone has different tastes and what one enjoys another may not like and that is absolutely fine. We're all different people, with different perspectives and pressures. I couldn't get into certain games, Gone Home comes to mind. I'll never begrudge a person for liking it despite my perspective that its damn impossible to imagine why someone would enjoy the game.
Everyone has different tastes and what one enjoys another may not like and that is absolutely fine. We're all different people, with different perspectives and pressures. I couldn't get into certain games, Gone Home comes to mind. I'll never begrudge a person for liking it despite my perspective that its damn impossible to imagine why someone would enjoy the game.
It's the game's responsibility to hook the player, not vice versa, IMO. But... Some pretty good games just fail at that, so what do you do? Whatever you feel like, of course. You don't "owe" a game anything.
Dishonored starts hella slow. The first time I played, it sucked me in pretty good anyway. Re-playing it, though? Ugh. I just can't.
Dishonored starts hella slow. The first time I played, it sucked me in pretty good anyway. Re-playing it, though? Ugh. I just can't.
...then either you or the game is doing it wrong.CritialGaming said:
/justsayin
OT: I've actually bailed on games within fifteen minutes if it just instantly said, "I suck, do not play me." NeverEnd was one of those games, and there've been a couple others, but I can't remember which ones now. An hour or two is my usual time, though.
I'm in the same boat I bought dishonored a while ago during a sale and got farther then you but not much I think I did like 2 more missions before giving up, it was just hard to drag myself through it and I wasn't having fun.
It also depends on the game as to weather or not you can judge it at the start or have to play through the whole thing, in this case I wouldn't keep going if I wasn't having fun I have a vague awareness of the story and it's not interesting enough for me to continue.
It also depends on the game as to weather or not you can judge it at the start or have to play through the whole thing, in this case I wouldn't keep going if I wasn't having fun I have a vague awareness of the story and it's not interesting enough for me to continue.
I could barely make it past the tutorial level in the Witcher 2. I'm sure it's a good game, but good fuck are the controls not very intuitive. I probably played through the tutorial like three times and still couldn't get a good grasp on the combat(or any of the mechanics for that mater), which means the rest of the game would have just been an excruciatingly painful chore should I had continued on.
Well, I'd say give it a solid hour or two at least. That's my rule of thumb, at least. If in those first two hours the game fails to ensnare me with some aspect of it, I'm out.
For instance, I made it a little over an hour into Undertale before I gave up. I didn't hate it, it just wasn't doing anything for me. I didn't find it compelling, the gameplay wasn't fun, the characters were alright but unspectacular, the visual style was the part of retro that I don't care for. All in all, wasn't having fun, so I went away. But I gave it that first hour, just to make sure. I felt like quitting 15 minutes into it, but persevered, if for no other reason than to remove any doubts later on.
For instance, I made it a little over an hour into Undertale before I gave up. I didn't hate it, it just wasn't doing anything for me. I didn't find it compelling, the gameplay wasn't fun, the characters were alright but unspectacular, the visual style was the part of retro that I don't care for. All in all, wasn't having fun, so I went away. But I gave it that first hour, just to make sure. I felt like quitting 15 minutes into it, but persevered, if for no other reason than to remove any doubts later on.
I tend to give games a far crack, I gave Final Fantasy 13 up until it became open world to impress me before I couldn't be arsed any more. I played almost all of The Evil Within and was only stopped by bullshit before I quit despite being really "meh" about the game. And I even beat Wolfenstein: The New Order despite not liking the game that much and wondering what all the fuss was about. So yeah, I like to give a game a chance to impress me.
Some times it works, most recently The Witcher 3, I started playing it and thought that it was slow and clunky and wasn't really having fun with it. But I kept on with it and by the time I'm doing stuff with Keira and The Bloody Baron, I actually realised that I had totally fallen in love with the game despite its faults.
Some times it works, most recently The Witcher 3, I started playing it and thought that it was slow and clunky and wasn't really having fun with it. But I kept on with it and by the time I'm doing stuff with Keira and The Bloody Baron, I actually realised that I had totally fallen in love with the game despite its faults.
I mean that kind of depends on the game doesn't it? Like anyone well versed in videogames could tell you within 5 minutes whether or not "The Binding of Isaac" is their kind of game, but you wouldn't get the proper scale of something like Skyrim until you've done at least 4-5 hours of wandering. Story driven games also may take a little longer. I know a few people who "got bored" with Spec Ops: The Line and put it down after 30 minutes.
I guess as soon as you get to the point where you're confident that you understand the game, if you still don't like it might as well not waste your time with it. If you get to the stuff that people say they like about it and still don't like it, that's a pretty good indicator it's not for you.
I guess as soon as you get to the point where you're confident that you understand the game, if you still don't like it might as well not waste your time with it. If you get to the stuff that people say they like about it and still don't like it, that's a pretty good indicator it's not for you.
Soon enough to get a refund? 
Honestly, if you think you should give up, then that's when you start spoiling some (and not all) of the in-game events to come... If it looks interesting, you trudge on... If not, you quit faster than an addiction... However, if it's the gameplay, itself, that's giving you the feeling of giving up on the game, then "soon" is of no concern when it comes to spoiling shit...
Other than that, for me, it comes down to me forgetting that I was playing the game in the first place... Oh shit! I just realized that I forgot that I stopped playing Super Mario Land!! Eh... I was enjoying the music more, anyway...
Honestly, if you think you should give up, then that's when you start spoiling some (and not all) of the in-game events to come... If it looks interesting, you trudge on... If not, you quit faster than an addiction... However, if it's the gameplay, itself, that's giving you the feeling of giving up on the game, then "soon" is of no concern when it comes to spoiling shit...
Other than that, for me, it comes down to me forgetting that I was playing the game in the first place... Oh shit! I just realized that I forgot that I stopped playing Super Mario Land!! Eh... I was enjoying the music more, anyway...
It's wierd you should say that because I loved Bioshock's opening, everything up until Ryan talks to you for the first time(before you go to the Medical Area). After that, it all kind of blurs together until You meet the man, which is the other part I really enjoyed.Silentpony said:
The rest of the game felt rather meh to me. Though I'm one of wierd people who liked Infinite a lot better then Bioshock.
I think it is fair to give up at any point if you just aren't feeling it. What I don't want to see though is judgement against said game. I've always said you have to play a good chunk of a game, if not all if you can, to judge it fairly.
What I will say though is that I recommend pushing on with whatever it is. Too many a game have I played where I have gone on to love it despite it giving terrible first impressions.
What I will say though is that I recommend pushing on with whatever it is. Too many a game have I played where I have gone on to love it despite it giving terrible first impressions.
As others have said, depends on the game type/genre. For an RPG, give it a few hours, which is usually enough time to get a feel for the game and see if it's actually connecting with you. For a shooter, if it's not grabbing you within an hour, it's probably not going to.
For shorter games, you can probably reduce that to a few missions/a play session.
And really, if you get to the point where it's no longer engaging/fun, and there's no reason to believe it will get better later, call it quits. At worst, you can always pick it back up later if it starts gnawing at you.
For shorter games, you can probably reduce that to a few missions/a play session.
And really, if you get to the point where it's no longer engaging/fun, and there's no reason to believe it will get better later, call it quits. At worst, you can always pick it back up later if it starts gnawing at you.
Man, all that sounds really terrible. I've never had to deal with that, in almost 30 years of gaming I've never not gotten my money's worth of satisfaction from a game. I may have given up on a couple here and there, but I guarantee if I did I bought it on a bargain rack or a Steam sale or something. My advice is do like I do, don't buy games you don't like. Then you won't have to worry about when to give up on it, because you won't care on those rare occasions when you do give up on a game.
For a shooter game, two hours is generally enough for me to make a call. For RPGs I'm more flexible since I know in most of them first few levels are always, always, the most tedious part. If an RPG hasn't grabbed me by say, six hours then I'm calling it quits.
Jeez, maybe it's just because I remember renting games from the local video store and knowing that would be my sole new form of entertainment for the next week, but giving up after just a few hours just doesn't sit right with me. Especially in the case of a game that's generally well regarded.
Guess I'm just the patient sort. I don't need to be instantly thrilled so long as I believe the exists the opportunity to enjoy something, and if I didn't think that existed in the first place I wouldn't be playing the game to begin with. If after a good length of time I'm still not enjoying it I might never get around to finishing a game, but I figure I'll at least give the product a good chance to impress me.
Fortunate too because I can think of quite a few games I would have missed out on were I to allow a poor first impression push me away. Different strokes for different folks and all that I guess.
Guess I'm just the patient sort. I don't need to be instantly thrilled so long as I believe the exists the opportunity to enjoy something, and if I didn't think that existed in the first place I wouldn't be playing the game to begin with. If after a good length of time I'm still not enjoying it I might never get around to finishing a game, but I figure I'll at least give the product a good chance to impress me.
Fortunate too because I can think of quite a few games I would have missed out on were I to allow a poor first impression push me away. Different strokes for different folks and all that I guess.
I don't feel any obligation to give any game "a fair chance" or any of that shit. I bought this game for myself to enjoy in my own free time and I feel completely justified in giving up on it after 10 seconds because the intro starts really badly or because the menu interface is really fucking annoying.
I tend to have specific limits for media for me to give up on it.
Comic series get five issues or the end of the first arc, whichever the sooner. Books get two chapters. So far the only movie I haven't been able to tolerate all the way through was 'Another 48 Hours'.
For games if I'm not impressed in the first five hours then I'm going to uninstall it. I have limited gaming time as it is and am not going to continue to play a game on the promise that it gets good later on.
Comic series get five issues or the end of the first arc, whichever the sooner. Books get two chapters. So far the only movie I haven't been able to tolerate all the way through was 'Another 48 Hours'.
For games if I'm not impressed in the first five hours then I'm going to uninstall it. I have limited gaming time as it is and am not going to continue to play a game on the promise that it gets good later on.