Try-hardiest games

[RJ 17]

Yes, I'm using that as a word.

I think the title is fairly self-explanatory. What games either went so far that they went full circle, or just weren't compelling enough despite their hardest efforts? The ones where you just rolled your eyes instead of tensing up, being on edge or scared.

I make this thread because Dead Space 2 was this for me. I'd heard it to be a good game, and in most ways it was. Looked great, mechanically sound and well balanced. But it failed so hard at trying to be scary, building atmosphere or a story that it actually dragged the perfectly enjoyable gameplay down with it, and left my final feeling at merely "Meh". From the opening seconds it tried so hard to shock that it blew its load 15 seconds in and after that couldn't do anything to provoke me anymore. What's left to see when the very first scene is you escaping from a mental ward, booming sound going off everywhere and monsters fully lit? I was never scared or surprised after the first 2 hours, and in a surprisingly long game for this day and age that's a problem. Since you're always expecting to fight one hideous malformed monstrosity after another, which you do, there can be nothing that subverts your expectations.

The story and characters were completely lackluster. A bunch of nonentities all talking as if they'd just ran a marathon with some rather gratuitous swearing mixed in. When the only emotional registers in the game are "desperate terror" and "paranoid anxiety" with no levity in between, it's hard to think of the characters as people.

Okay, your turn.

Soooo basically you agree with Yahtzee's assessment?

The thing about Dead Space 2 is that it suffers from what I like to call "Predator 2 Syndrome". What made the first Predator movie so good was that - the first time you see it - you don't know what's going on. You don't know what's stalking the squad through the jungle, thus it's able to build up a good bit of suspense. In the 2nd movie, though, you already know what you're getting into: another Predator movie. You already know what the "monster" is, you know what it can do and how it behaves. There's no suspense to be built. Same goes for DS2. You already know what you're getting into: space zombie aliens. As such the only thing it has to fall back on is an attempt to build up some atmosphere. I'd argue it does a decent enough job at that, just not enough to compensate for the fact that you're already fully aware of what you're up against and how to defeat it.

OT: On that very note, my nomination is every Resident Evil game beyond the first one. As I just described: the first one was able to build up some suspense because you don't really know what's going on...that and it really is a creepy old mansion.

But beyond that, you know what you're in for when you play a RE game: more zombies with an evil corporation backing them. Sure, there's a jump scare here and there that might startle you, but there's nothing truly terrifying.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Dragon Age: Inquisition. Everything about the game screams "LIKE ME!!!" at top volume with spit flying in your face from all directions. It's nauseating.

 

[Ravinoff]

I'd say Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. It focused way too hard on being "borderlands-y" and not on the aspects on which made Borderlands 2 great.
Ignoring the main storyline (which I liked), 90% of the sidequests don't relate to anything and are just there for a cheap joke or reference. At least half of the sidequests in BL2 gave interesting character introduction or backstory. The elements are also so unbalanced that they seem to exist purely for novelty rather than spicing up combat.

TPS had the makings of a good game, but was let down by shitty dev support and some abominable writing issues. The concept was solid, the mechanics were great (cryo beats the hell out of slag any day, and lasers are fun as fuck), it starts building towards a full-on villain turn for Jack, and then it just totally throws the entire point it's been moving towards out the window. You get this buildup where Jack goes from dick with good intentions and a hero complex to morally ambiguous megalomaniac...and then he gets betrayed apropos of nothing and you learn that the whole mess of shit in BL2 was basically caused by the "good guys."

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Battlefield 4.

The "campaign" was just too Goddamn painful I cant explain it.

 

[iller3]

Totally not the thread I thought the Subject line was implying.... everyone knows CSGO has the most tryhards

Nah I'd agree with that guy who listed Inquisition. Mainly b/c it did it through sexual identity aesthetics, not through mechanics and all the other stuff that should actually matter to gamers

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Dragon Age: Inquisition. Everything about the game screams "LIKE ME!!!" at top volume with spit flying in your face from all directions. It's nauseating.

Same fore me.
I loved exploring that game for about seven seconds until I realized all you find is iron and elfroot.
Iron and elfroot, everytime I climbed some hill to look for something secret I would find iron and elfroot and cry a little

And don't get me started on those goddamn shards. Hey, you know how you just walked through half the map and found nothing there, well guess what, now theres some shiny stuff there! Go run to get it!

No Dragon Age, I play your game for the characters, not to do MMO busywork

 

[sageoftruth]

Max Payne 3

It tries its darndest to show you this gritty underbelly and it comes across as so fucking juvenile and obnoxious. Ooh, a "sick" fliter and random words from the dialoge flashing on screen; it's like I'm right there in the grit. And then there's Max constantly monologuing to himself how much of bad seed he is... Grow up, you fucking dweeb.

Setting the game in sunny Brazil and having Max wear Reyn Spooners while sipping daiquiris didn't contribute a whole lot either.
It's like having Batman lording over Hawaii.

That would be hilarious.

 

[sageoftruth]

Totally not the thread I thought the Subject line was implying.... everyone knows CSGO has the most tryhards

Nah I'd agree with that guy who listed Inquisition. Mainly b/c it did it through sexual identity aesthetics, not through mechanics and all the other stuff that should actually matter to gamers

As someone who knows what a tryhard is, could you explain what it means when applied to people playing videogames? I only know what a tryhard is outside the realm of games.

 

[sageoftruth]

Splinter Cell Conviction came across that way for me. It really tried hard (get it?) to be edgy. Previous Splinter Cell games had some dark themes, but here you've got guards cursing like teenagers with something to prove, and a narrator who thinks he's the star in a film noir movie. Everything just felt so unnaturally edgy and way too juvenile for me to take it seriously. As a sequel to the Splinter Cell games before it, this was very disappointing in terms of theme and presentation.

 

[iller3]

Totally not the thread I thought the Subject line was implying.... everyone knows CSGO has the most tryhards

As someone who knows what a tryhard is, could you explain what it means when applied to people playing videogames? I only know what a tryhard is outside the realm of games.

That's weird, no one else answered this first. ....shoot, why not go with the Classic satire example?:
The famous mr "FPS DOUG": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7eKc7FxwOw
In the actual game, a lot of these players hyperfocus on questionable priorities as they are always the first ones to find exploits or the absolute most consistent method to get waaaaay more "Frags" than anyone else. They live in their own special perception bubble because of it and often have serious issues trying to relate to average players -- so in that sense it still relates to the topic of only seeing other human beings as "numbers" / "objectives" and missing the entire point of trying to engage them.

 

[sageoftruth]

Totally not the thread I thought the Subject line was implying.... everyone knows CSGO has the most tryhards

As someone who knows what a tryhard is, could you explain what it means when applied to people playing videogames? I only know what a tryhard is outside the realm of games.

That's weird, no one else answered this first. ....shoot, why not go with the Classic satire example?:
The famous mr "FPS DOUG": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7eKc7FxwOw
In the actual game, a lot of these players hyperfocus on questionable priorities as they are always the first ones to find exploits or the absolute most consistent method to get waaaaay more "Frags" than anyone else. They live in their own special perception bubble because of it and often have serious issues trying to relate to average players -- so in that sense it still relates to the topic of only seeing other human beings as "numbers" / "objectives" and missing the entire point of trying to engage them.

Ok. That sounds kind of familiar. I think TV tropes referred to them as "Stop Having Fun Guys". http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys
People who treat anything short of straight up hacking as an acceptable way to play and tend to believe that winning is the only thing that matters in a game.

Am I on the right track?

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I knew I had an example for this thread, but I couldn't think of one until now.

Magicka. That game tries SO HARD to be funny. It makes pop culture references every couple minutes, and that is just about all it does. I think I laughed at something once, when they made a pop culture reference and actually did something with it besides reference it.

The game is great, but it would be a lot better if they weren't trying so hard to be funny.