The Escapist Users have ruined a game for me...

[tippy2k2]

Yes YOU! Especially you Gary!

I suppose that's a smidge of a hyperbole so let me explain. I just finished Far Cry 4 and had a grand old time with it. It's basically Far Cry 3 except you get to ride an elephant and every character is basically Vaas. It was a fun ride that lasted surprisingly long (I really liked some of this side stuff).

But it's not a Game of the Year for me and it's all thanks to you guys (especially fucking Gary!). Something that would have never bothered me in the past that was pointed out first by people during Tomb Raider (2014 version) where game and story don't match. Let me explain (no spoilers unless you count the basic premise of the game a spoiler):

So the first thing you do when you step into the country is meet the coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs dictator. He talks with you, he murders someone with a pen; you know, the usual. You go with him to his palace where you're broken out by the rebel group, the Golden Path.

I'm on board so far I suppose. It's kind of silly since I have no clue who you people are (I've never stepped foot in this country according to the loading screen) but Cocoa Puffs over there murdered a man with a pen so I'll assume he's a bad guy. So first mission for the Golden Path...

Oh No! The girl leader and the guy leader can't decide what they want to do! There's only one thing to do here....YOU! Guy leader wants to run the country this way and girl leader wants to run the country that way, how should we proceed?

I look behind me, expecting someone else to be in the room but nope, it's just me. I let this go since "Are you fucking kidding me? I just got in this fucking country and you want me to run your civil war for you? I know nothing about the politics and I have zero clue what the hell is going on" wasn't an option but the entire game, this has been bugging me.

So way to go Escapist (and Gary!), now it's all I can think about when I should be thinking about what a fun time Far Cry 4 was!

TLDR/Discussion Topic; What has been brought up in forums that have kind of ruined or made a game less fun. Was it my situation (I now notice when game-play and story don't match-up)? Maybe you learned the "meta" way of maxing a character and now you can't play the way you want to. Is it something else? Do tell!

[small]Also, "ruined" is probably a bit extreme. I still really liked the game and I would recommend it to anyone that likes the Open World genre and interesting characters.[/small]

 

[DoPo]

Yes YOU! Especially you Gary!

Aww, I am sorry. I really am - I didn't mean to. It was an accident, random chance - an act of God, if you will - I feel it's a bit unfair to be holding me responsible.

Also, my name is not Gary.

OT: I don't think I've had this situation specifically. I certainly have had a game turn way worse than I would have expected and I do think I would have not minded as much had I played it earlier. Probably the most recent example is Kingdoms of Amalur - I played the demo because I was promised some totally new and never heard of levelling system. Turned out it was, let's say an exaggeration. And when I actually downloaded the demo and launched it it advertised the story was by R. A. Salvatore. But despite these two things I still went ahead and gave it a spin. With my expectations low, the game pretty much delivered but since it didn't go lower, I thought I could pick it up at a deep discount at a later date.

Some years passed and I saw KoA for something like £2.50 on a sale somewhere and I got it. Some more time passed and I finally installed it and decided to play it. This was about two weeks ago. My gods, it turned out my annoyance threshold had lowered or something - everything was exactly the same as before, but I quit it before an hour had passed. And then I promptly uninstalled it. For some reason, the things I found passable before were now grating. I think I clocked more playtime in the demo than the full game (well, something like hour and a half vs an hour, but still).

 

[Foehunter82]

I look behind me, expecting someone else to be in the room but nope, it's just me. I let this go since "Are you fucking kidding me? I just got in this fucking country and you want me to run your civil war for you? I know nothing about the politics and I have zero clue what the hell is going on" wasn't an option but the entire game, this has been bugging me.

I'm fairly confident this is the way most countries are run these days.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So it's basically the Escapist version of TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]?

Also, do you know what happened to the last person who called me "Gary"? You can go visit him in Pennsylvania. And Wisconsin. And Maine. And there might be little bits of him left in Connecticut.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

eh there are VERY few games in life that I don't notice gripes/inconsistencies, but I usually can ignore them and just have fun, I have a very low maintenance style of enjoyment when it comes to entertainment (this applies to movies/games/tv shows/etc..) so the little things don't tend to bug me much or I just ignore them.

All that said, there are some games that have been "ruined" for me. Such as hearthstone, I used to play the game just for fun and to try out interesting card combos, but anytime I've seen someone talk about it on here (and been seeing it in the game more lately) it seems like everyone is fucking HARDCORE as possible about winning and couldn't give two shits about if the game is fun or if they came up with anything themselves. If they aren't playing the exact card combos the pros are playing, then they are failing miserably and insist on scrounging over pro decks until they find the next "lol, win" deck.

So as of late, the game just hasn't been much fun at all, it's gotten way too edgy for my tastes and the game isn't accounting for bigger playstyles so I'll probably be done with it.

the next one could be a bit flame baity, but meh, my opinion, so whatever

Mass effect 3

I read up on spoiler-less reviews before playing the game, so my bar was already set pretty low...played through the game myself, absorbing just about everything an average rpg player would in their first playthrough, and thought "ehh...that ending was pretty fucking shit, but the rest of the game wasn't too bad...so overall I didn't mind it, I suppose."

huge mistake to get on the forums after that...there were so many plotholes and choices from previous games that I hadn't thought about that were either retro-actively destroyed/changed/didn't matter based on what the third game did, so not only was my view now skewed about the third games trash it had brought with it, but it almost ruined the previous two games as well for me, thankfully I came to terms with the bullshit and have just kept the first two games separate from the third one and retconned it. But in all my years of gaming, I've never had something bug me like that did; after combing back over the plot, the choices, and all the other shit that happened back then, it just put one hell of a sour taste in my mouth and I've all but sworn off mass effect besides the first two games.


(that wasn't mean to stir up anyone, so if you enjoyed mass effect 3, by all means, great! I don't want to take away from your enjoyment of it.)

 

[Ambient_Malice]

Far Cry 4 suffers from the same problem RAGE did.

You're fighting the government from the start of the game for no clear reason.

He stabbed a guy with a pen? Well, that guy DID almost kill you, and people on the bus died. Extreme response, but maybe there's a death penalty for such actions.

He stabbed a chap at dinner? Well, he WAS a member of a terrorist organisation, was he not? Sure, proceeding to torture the guy was a bit on the iffy side, but... not 100% convincing.

In Far Cry 3, Vaas shoots your brother and then tells you to run for your life. His malice is immediately established. You are given clear motivations.

(I think FC3 has vastly better writing than FC4, despite FC3 being self-indulgently arty-farty.)

 

[Elijin]

Far Cry 4 suffers from the same problem RAGE did.

You're fighting the government from the start of the game for no clear reason.

He stabbed a guy with a pen? Well, that guy DID almost kill you, and people on the bus died. Extreme response, but maybe there's a death penalty for such actions.

He stabbed a chap at dinner? Well, he WAS a member of a terrorist organisation, was he not? Sure, proceeding to torture the guy was a bit on the iffy side, but... not 100% convincing.

In Far Cry 3, Vaas shoots your brother and then tells you to run for your life. His malice is immediately established. You are given clear motivations.

(I think FC3 has vastly better writing than FC4, despite FC3 being self-indulgently arty-farty.)

Isnt that sort of the point? Anytime you let Min do stuff, its exceedingly clear that he bears no ill will towards you specifically. He might be a monster in many ways, but he never expresses anything but amusement and patience towards Ajay.

I mean the final thing that I walked away from FC4 with, was that everyone's a monster and Min was the only one who wanted you for you, rather than the symbol you represented.

 

[chiggerwood]

Far Cry 4 suffers from the same problem RAGE did.

Oh man I had forgotten about Rage. I seriously couldn't play the game because of the story. The entire time I was just thinking, "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is going on? Why am I doing this again?" I mean if you're going to rip off the basic premise of Fallout, at least rip off the pacing as well.

OT: Tomb Raider 2014 is one that infuriated the shit out of me. It really kicked in at the stand off with the cult taking the old man hostage and I while Lara Croft was being a pussy and whinging about everything around her I was thinking, "*****, you have killed at least a dozen motherfuckers with an ice axe! You ain't some delicate flower, you're Jason mutha-fuckin' Voorhees, act like it!" Then after her mentor got killed and she was STILL FUCKING WHINGING, all I could think was "Mutha-fucka! You are basically the fucking predator at this point! Quit your fucking whining and skin a few of these fucks to make your point!" But nooooooo she was still a pwecious wittle fwower, ugh. And that was just two instances in a game filled to the brim with that kind of shit. I'm telling ya it made me hate the entire game. Also her voice was so cringe inducing that I'd rather drink a bucket of sick than hear it ever again. That game ruined Lara croft even more than she already was.

Outcast was another one that made me wonder why I was playing it. It's not scary and there's virtually no reason why the main character couldn't have just legged it at the beginning or picked up a blunt object and gone to town on a couple of nutty bars. Not to mention its portrayal of the mentally ill was fucking awful. Although the overly polite rapist made me laugh.

B.J. Blazkowicz's weakness to syringes pissed me off to no end and made me yell fuck you a lot to Wolfenstein.

Metro: Last Light's Morality system made me tell that game to go fuck enough times that I never want to play it again.

Max Payne 3's story was just piss from beginning to end.

Deus Ex: Human revolutions ending made me hate the rest of the story even more than I already did.

Bioshock infinite's bullshit got to me real early and I just uninstalled it before hour two, I'd burn it if I could.

That's all I could think of right now.

 

[chiggerwood]

Far Cry 4 suffers from the same problem RAGE did.

You're fighting the government from the start of the game for no clear reason.

He stabbed a guy with a pen? Well, that guy DID almost kill you, and people on the bus died. Extreme response, but maybe there's a death penalty for such actions.

He stabbed a chap at dinner? Well, he WAS a member of a terrorist organisation, was he not? Sure, proceeding to torture the guy was a bit on the iffy side, but... not 100% convincing.

In Far Cry 3, Vaas shoots your brother and then tells you to run for your life. His malice is immediately established. You are given clear motivations.

(I think FC3 has vastly better writing than FC4, despite FC3 being self-indulgently arty-farty.)

Isnt that sort of the point? Anytime you let Min do stuff, its exceedingly clear that he bears no ill will towards you specifically. He might be a monster in many ways, but he never expresses anything but amusement and patience towards Ajay.

I mean the final thing that I walked away from FC4 with, was that everyone's a monster and Min was the only one who wanted you for you, rather than the symbol you represented.

I actually loved Pagan Min. He was the only one that flat out admitted that he wanted power so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted. I was actually a little tempted to let him live out of a grudging respect for his honesty.

 

[Balimaar]

Mass effect 3

there were so many plotholes and choices from previous games that I hadn't thought about that were either retro-actively destroyed/changed/didn't matter based on what the third game did,

I know that feeling. I was expecting a pretty big backlash from the Krogans in my "evil Shep" playthrough but nope. Nothing.

Then there was me picking Anderson to be human councillor suddenly ME3 Udina. WTF?

 

[DementedSheep]

If that bothers you then you are going to get that in a lot of games because "hey random person I just meet and who I should give no fucks about the opinion of! Can you make this important decision for me?" seems fairly common, at least it is if you play RPGs.

 

[DoPo]

Far Cry 4 suffers from the same problem RAGE did.

Oh man I had forgotten about Rage. I seriously couldn't play the game because of the story. The entire time I was just thinking, "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is going on? Why am I doing this again?" I mean if you're going to rip off the basic premise of Fallout, at least rip off the pacing as well.

Ri-i-i-ight, that one. Umm, yeah. I agree. I basically did the first dungeon thingie (well, ok it was two) then quit and never came back. It was too annoying. Freeman's silence, I get - any time you're spoken to there, no answer is reasonable. Also, Freeman is clearly capable of communication but I sort of assumed he was using his hands to beckon people or tell them to stop. Well, the main character in RAGE was engaged in a few conversations he absolutely would have had to make any sort of effort to...well, participate. Random dude shows up in the beginning and goes "You are wanted." and then leaves it at that. Why? Why am I wanted? Who wants me? Oh I don't know, well fucking spotted you moron, so how about you tell me instead of telling me I don't know. And what is fucking wrong with you? You literally sent me to my death not even two minutes after saving me from one!

The story was annoying as hell but the gameplay was also one - "Hey, did you know you can sneak?" a tooltip goes and I think "Oh, cool - maybe I can stealth dispatch those guys ahead" (I'm pretty sure I actually arrived at that conclusion because the tooltip alluded to it). Nope - I shoot once and everybody comes running at me. And there isn't anything like a stealth kill - I can pistol whip somebody, but I don't think it actually does anything than bruise them a bit. And headshots seem to be more of an annoyance than actual harm. Either that, or that dude that sent me to my death gave me a BB gun to really make sure I died.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Well, the only game that ever came close to being ruined for me by, not just the Escapist, but gamers everywhere, was Portal. And that's because nobody could shut the fuck up about it and stop being so delightfully witty with those goddamn cake references. Also they ruined the companion cube by turning it into a freaking mascotte. It was Pyramid Head all over again.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I look behind me, expecting someone else to be in the room but nope, it's just me. I let this go since "Are you fucking kidding me? I just got in this fucking country and you want me to run your civil war for you? I know nothing about the politics and I have zero clue what the hell is going on" wasn't an option but the entire game, this has been bugging me.

Yeah, that bothered me quite a bit as well. Especially because Ajay never ever bloody brings it up! He's just staggered out of a disastrous border crossing that killed his entire party bus, kidnapped by a fabulously eccentric tyrant *and* served crab rangoon against his will, yet he never once entertains the notion of fleeing the country or ranting to the Golden Path that he's aware his dad was a great terroristfreedom fighter but *he* himself doesn't have the faintest connection to this civil war or the expertise to solve it! And where did he become so proficient with firearms?

OT

"Ruined" implies I actually played the game, but the Escapist paid no small part in scaring me off Dragon Age: II, even though from what I've read on the wiki it sounds like I would have enjoyed the ultra-cynical grimdarkness of the plot more than Inquisition's inability to keep a consistent tone; flitting between "Religious crisis X apocalypse" and "Slumber party hijinks" at random.

 

[DanteRL]

If that bothers you then you are going to get that in a lot of games because "hey random person I just meet and who I should give no fucks about the opinion of! Can you make this important decision for me?" seems fairly common, at least it is if you play RPGs.

The worst time I encountered that was in Season 2 of The Walking Dead. So, we're this group of grown up survivors that just escaped from some terrible guy, and we're really worried about our security, since there's a pregnant woman and a young girl with some degree of psychological issues, so what should we do now...

Well I dunno! Let's ask this random 10yr old girl for life or death decisions I guess!!!

I loved the game, but this gets too stupid, to the point of a grown man armed with a rifle asking for Clementine of all people, if he should take the shot. "Hey child that is already scarred enough, what is your opinion on blowing that man's head to kingdom come? Bear in mind that I will only shoot if you say that's a good idea, so the decision is on you!".

 

[webkilla]

Ever since I got my degree in UX and game design, I too became increasingly aware of the common tropes and idiosyncrasies of game design.

It never makes much sense that a single person should be fighting and winning a whole war - that just doesn't make sense.

Of course, games are rarely meant to be realistic - they show power fantasies and allow us to be things that we could never be in reality, so that's usually just ignores and accepted, and IMO that's quite ok.

 

[Zhukov]

It never makes much sense that a single person should be fighting and winning a whole war - that just doesn't make sense.

Yeah, that one irritates me a bit too.

Not so much that it's one person doing all the fighting, but that the story often has to bend over backwards to provide some kind of 'We Win' button so that the world can conceivably be saved by the direct actions of just 1-10 heavily armed people.

 

[tippy2k2]

"It's implied that the despotic leader will groom you to be a "lesser-of-two-evils" ruler, and all you had to do was let the game play itself."

...that is my new ending. That's awesome!!!

I thought that none of them were fit to lead (golden path people are looking to a stranger to decide their civil war and Min is captain crazy). I declare that ending canon and I am now the ruler of Kyrat.

 

[xaszatm]

"It's implied that the despotic leader will groom you to be a "lesser-of-two-evils" ruler, and all you had to do was let the game play itself."

...that is my new ending. That's awesome!!!

I thought that none of them were fit to lead (golden path people are looking to a stranger to decide their civil war and Min is captain crazy). I declare that ending canon and I am now the ruler of Kyrat.

You really want to see a good ending? When Pagan Min tells you to wait and try the crab Rangoon at the beginning of the game...sit down and wait for about 10-15 minutes. Boom, best ending.

EDIT: Never mind, I can't read. But that is my favorite ending as well.