I'm Upset that I Hate Good Games

[Conner42]

Whether or not a game is good is subjective.

It's not that fucking hard guys!

 

[Roxas1359]

No need to really be upset about it, I mean I've played a lot of "good" games in the past but I never got into them. Hell I get people jumping on me because I like games that they deem to be "bad". Sometimes certain games or genre don't click for some people and there's nothing to be ashamed of for it. I mean heck, I don't like Mass Effect games, Dragon Age games, really any FPS game (there are some I like), and many other examples but I still keep on going despite the amount of people who call me stupid or say I "don't know what a good game is."

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

A friend of mine lent me all three of the Uncharted Series, and I was excited to play them. He raved up and down on how much he enjoyed it, but by the time I reached Chapter 6, I didn't want anything to do with it. The gunfights were boring, frequent, and repetitive, and it became and actual chore to play.

Did you start with Uncharted 1?

If you did I have to say, you're doing it wrong. Uncharted 1 was the worst game in the series, and was incredibly mediocre. If you're going to judge the Uncharted series try playing Uncharted 2. It's an improvement on the first Uncharted in absolutely every way.

If you did start with Uncharted 2, then I guess I don't have much to say to you. Different people just like different games I guess.

 

[NeutralDrow]

It's certainly nothing to be ashamed of, though I sympathize with your discomfort. I've found it much easier to like something that's generally reviled than to hate something that's generally liked, because I can generally assume others found something in it that just didn't work for me.

Like Spec Ops: The Line. It's generally liked, but playing that game made me feel like I was being trolled. And not the quote-unquote "good" trolling, of someone playing devil's advocate, but of someone pretending to play devil's advocate with the secure knowledge that no matter how much I tried to talk, they never had to listen to me, because I couldn't punch them over the internet.

 

[Arslan Aladeen]

I get bored out of my mind when playing just about every open world game. This has included Skyrim, GTA4, Red Dead Redemption and Saints Row the Third.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

You like what you like. The rest are what friends say are worth playing. As long as you are having fun, fuck what others say.

 

[Snotnarok]

I think those who judge others based on a arbitrary "good game list" are judgemental jackasses, who cares if you don't like [Game A] and prefer [Game B].
What makes a good game good? Well personal taste honestly, I don't know many people who enjoy Serious Sam, I've played through the 3rd one a few times with friends and it was a lot more fun than I had with a number of 'popular tiles' and I've gotten flack for that.

Maybe that's the issue, you're mixing up "good games" with "popular games", and letting others opinions mess with your fun isn't something you should let happen.

 

[Ishal]

- Are there any games that have let you down, despite good reviews?

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

You know those "what's so great about half life 2?" threads that pop up every once and a while? Well, substitute Ocarian of Time in there and you have my problem. I should love it, its fantasy and supposedly awesome, but I just could never get into it, and that goes for every game out there. I won't deny there is something special about them, I just can't get into them. Ocarina didn't age well at all and every time I try to get through it I just decide to play something else.

I'm a heretic I know, but it is what it is.

 

[rob_simple]

There are no good games, only games that you like.

Also, as an aside: I love the Uncharted series but I hate the gunfights because they are horribly designed, largely due to that now industry staple of regenerating health; making damage ratios fucking whacked out of proportions. Sometimes I can be a bullet sponge, other times I'll die in three hits; it feels completely arbitrary and makes clearing out an entire room of bad guys only to be capped by one guy you never saw because he literally dropped down from the sky all the more infuriating.

 

[Nazulu]

Who knows why you dislike 'em. Could be over-hyped or that it only does a couple of things well while everything else is bland, and where it fails is the part in games you're most interested in, which also leads to 'popular doesn't mean good'. That's the most common really and where most people are short sighted.

I haven't played them myself or even looked at them so I don't know. Just do your research first.

 

[Irridium]

Minecraft bores the hell out of me. Not sure why, but I'm really not too fond of it.

This Summer, I had a lot of games to play. I must have been living under a rock, because I hadn't played some stellar games that my friends had highly recommended.
I learned that Dragon Age was a Bioware creation, and I thought if it's anything like KOTR and Mass Effect, I'd love it. I was dead wrong. Preemptively, I bought the first two games, used, for less than 50 dollars. As soon as I started playing I was very disappointed. A voiceless protagonist, boring quests, and simple, unimaginative combat made me hate the game.
Perhaps I merely set my expectations to high, but I was severely disappointed.

Not to knock your reasons, since it's perfectly valid to not like something, but KOTOR also has a voiceless protagonist, so why would that be a bad thing for Origins?

 

[piinyouri]

Ah, don't worry about it. Try not to think in terms of what others say is good and bad.

The first Fallouts are almost universally hailed as masterpieces, yet I don't like them. I don't necessarily say they are bad games, but they don;t appeal to me, and I don't feel bad that I don't enjoy games that most everyone else deems great.

 

[crimson sickle2]

Sounds like you've become a little jaded and are beginning to notice flaws much more critically. I'd suggest trying to find a game that you have fun playing, but does contain some very noticeable flaws (what you'd rate as a B or C-rate game) and trying to stick with it for a while. I can't make any suggestions, but just follow the TVtropes motto and don't try to get too burnt out.

I can somewhat sympathize though. I for some reason have trouble playing any Mario game past the first one. I've played almost all of them, and I don't have anything to complain about, but I find them to be incredibly boring for some reason.

 

[6_Qubed]

I played Dragon Age as well, and lost interest for much the same reason. I recommend, if only because it's what I'm doing right now, finding some nice freeware games for PC. I'm trying out Tales Of Maj'Eyal, right now, which is pretty fun, but I've also tried Dungeon Crawl (Stone Soup version), Cave Story, and Spelunky. Spelunky is one of those games where you start playing it in the afternoon and five minutes later it's midnight.

Those are just a few, mind. And if I can run them on my crappy laptop, you should have no problem. Hope your game luck changes, no matter what you do.



edit: Cave Story isn't a roguelike, what the hell is wrong with me.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I hate both those games too, don't feel bad. Just because a lot of people like them does not make them good games nor does it mean you have to like them.

 

[Last Hugh Alive]

I didn't play Dragon Age: Origins for very long before quitting from sheer boredom so I don't blame you either. I'm not saying it's completely rubbish or that others can't enjoy the game, it just didn't spark any interest in me at all in the time I played it. I'm not interested in Uncharted either from the ways I've heard it praised and criticized, despite really wanting some games for the PS3 I only just got.

As for my own guilty confession I was pretty let down by the new Tomb Raider recently, but for gameplay reasons only. The story wasn't amazing but I had no big issues with it either. For me, the only time I could really have fun with Tomb Raider was when I ignored the story and starting randomly jumping around the environment like a monkey looking for collectibles and ziplining to the tallest heights. So I did manage to find enjoyment in the game somewhere, but so many of TR's most thrilling moments in the main quest involved outright QTE's, fixed running/climbing segments and barebones cover shooting, usually in dark, tight, indoor environments, and the shooting itself was really unremarkable.

It was like the developers only intended for the player to enjoy the game in a certain way, and it left me feeling that Tomb Raider sacrificed a lot of it's identity - in terms of gameplay - for the sake of the story or intended moments in gameplay. That all said, while I think the game should've been less tight and more organic, I can still see how others would enjoy the game as it is.

The thing is, while I'm becoming more and more desperate for variety and I appreciate any identifiable, well-written female game characters we can get, I hesitate to simply give TR a pass for that. People can like what they like, but I have to raise my eyebrow at those who called it "revolutionary" or "innovative".

EDIT - I've just realised what an awfully cynical person I probably seem like now, hating all these popular games.

 

[MysticSlayer]

- Am I just being arrogant towards these games? Is there a hidden allure to these games that I'm missing?

I really can't speak for Uncharted, as I've never played it and have no desire to play it.

As for Dragon Age: Origins, still no. You're not being arrogant, it is just that the allure that some people see, you (and many others) don't see. It's just different tastes.

While I don't entirely get your criticism for disliking the voiceless protagonist, as its hardly any different than Elder Scrolls or Fallout or so many other RPGs, you can't really choose if you like or dislike the quests and combat. Most people I know hate the combat in those games, and I can really only enjoy it if I'm playing the Mage class, where it doesn't take long for combat to become very engaging with all the spells at your disposal. Not to mention, if you're ignoring the tactical view, which is almost completely unnecessary pre-Ostagar (and even at Ostagar to some extent), then you're missing out on like 50% of the combat system. Still, like I said, a lot of people just don't like that type of combat, and I can't really blame them. And yeah, the quests are pretty standard fare. Nothing really interesting there.

If you haven't tried it yet, you should try Dragon Age 2 (you said you picked it up as well?). Most of my friends who didn't like Origins didn't like it for similar reasons that you did, and they generally liked DA2, even if most of Origins's fans hated it. Also note that if you've played the Mass Effect games, you've pretty much seen everything the Dragon Age games have to offer, just in a sci-fi setting and with better writing.

- I understand that if you don't like a game, one simply shouldn't play it, but are these games true works that deserve to be played through?

No, the Dragon Age games don't do anything that makes them deserving of being played. They offer a nice, retro feel, but there are other games that do a better job at that. If you don't like it, there is no reason to play through. Again, though, if you haven't tried out DA2, I'd at least give it a shot. And if you haven't gotten past Ostagar in Origins or experimented with the combat system fully, then you might want to stick with it until a little after that. If not, again, don't bother. There's nothing that'll pique your interest if you still can't find it interesting after that.

- Are there any games that have let you down, despite good reviews?

The most recent example was BioShock Infinite. It was good for an average shooter, but I never played the BioShock games for an average shooter. I played them for their great atmosphere, which didn't really do anything for me in Infinite after you started timeline jumping; the storyline, which was incredibly convoluted and way too pretentious (I also didn't get how people said it was complex); the interesting characters, of which there were none in the game; and the unique combat, which was only a shadow of what the first two games had.

There's also Call of Duty: Black Ops. When it came out, so many people said it was the best game in the series. I strongly, strongly disagree. CoD has had it's low points over the last decade, but it's never been as low as BO, not even CoD3, MW2, or MW3. Maybe BO2, but I didn't bother to pick that up after the complete mess (putting it nicely) that was the first Black Ops.

 

[Woodsey]

I love KotOR, but it also has a voiceless protagonist and a far, far simpler combat system than DA:O. In fact, calling it Dragon Age's combat "simple" is rather perplexing.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Dragon Age: Origins gets significantly better after Ostagar. The combat opens up more (not a tremendous amount, mind but more), the dialogue (which, let's face it, if you're not here for in a Bioware game you might have misplaced expectations) opens up like crazy, and how you play gets a greater boost. But then, it's exactly what I wanted of a sword-and-sorcery kind of game, and those expectations of a standard fantasy game were met while I just dealt with the mediocre combat as a means to carry the game between the bits I wanted, so I might be a bit biased when I say it's a great game, definitely worth playing.

The Uncharted games I liked, but while Nathan Drake is a charming rogue, he's also a total jackass. I was turned off by the return to the start format of each game, and put off by the absolutely-standard gunplay and the bullshit bosses, but they were at least kind of nice to have as story games, with beautifully lush landscapes and gorgeous setpieces. Like any organ candy (eye candy, in this case), it lacks substance in its other areas.

But if you don't like them, you don't like them. You tried them, not your cup of tea, no harm done. At least you tried, rather than dismissing them immediately.