"You Must Have Liked It If You Finished It"

[Evonisia]

That logic is a load of nonsense.

Sometimes you cannot hate something as much until you've saw the ending. I know for a fact that I wouldn't have taken as much of a dislike to Mafia II if I hadn't saw it's ending. Halo 4's ending was so awfully putrid that it guaranteed that I'd never replay it again just to avoid that sickening pile of vomit, so my built up hatred up to that point was solidified by the ending. Gear of War 3's campaign is terrible, and it's ending much like Halo 4's just makes me feel sick. I finished Battlefield 3's campaign and I hated every second of it.

I try to get to the end of things so my opinion can change, it's usually just fanboys or something that will use that argument anyway. Sometimes it's the ending that redeems the game, and other times it's not.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

There are plenty of reasons to complete a game that you may not enjoy. For example I completed Silent Hill: Homecoming mostly out of morbid curiosity to see just how bad the game could fuck up.

Alternatively it's entirely possible to play and enjoy a game and then, once completed, form a negative opinion. For example I played through and had fun with Final Fantasy IX. Only after completion was I able to look back on the whole experience and fully contextualize my annoyance with it's core mechanics.

 

[l0ckd0wn]

Judging an entire genre after only listening to a few songs is still speaking out of ignorance.

See this is where I have to stop and disagree with you. Up until now I have pretty much agreed with most of what you've said and thought Amethyst was talking out of his ass, but I realized the sum of both of you is zero... You see you're both talking at polar extremes, because realistically no one sees "every portion of the screen at once" in every scene of the movie, our cognitive screens physically do not let this happen... However, at the same time we can form a near whole analysis of something, anything, based upon relative information we already possess, the key to this is no matter what is perceived and fed back, it's all subjective. Like Amethyst said early off, a personal perception is not objective, it's all relative to the person making the analysis.

So in reality, you're right to a point; Amethyst is right to a point; and that's pretty much why people can say they love a movie, story, book or adventure without having played or heard every single shred of it, or formed an opinion on a genre of music from only selections from it; they can still like or loath without knowing the entirety. To what degree is completely arguable though as using the word hate or love does not portray meaningful perception because of the deceptive nature of both words used in modern context...

The 'Usual Suspects' reference was a good one though, but you missed the counterpoint as did I with the stellar and distracting reference (When Verbal stops limping did objectively change the story making it from good to awesome); if someone didn't like that movie because they weren't into action/robber/copper/crime films, but were into suspense/deception films, then I could see why they would early off form an opinion, but getting to the end of the movie would bring out the heavy suspense that is the heart of the story; it very well could change an opinion, however the person already formed an opinion of the genre as a whole, and now he just has a caveat example of an action film he happens to like amongst all those he does not.

 

[Nazulu]

I don't agree with that logic because it isn't exactly logic every time it's used, and even then everyone looks for some thing in-particular to interest them in all entertainment. Some people's minds literally make it difficult for them to just drop a game because they feel they've invested too much time to leave it now. I know from experience of what I'm going to like and what I think will be terrible just by doing a little research. Guess what, I'm always right!

It's not very common that I finish a game I dislike, though that's usually because I'm forced into it a bit. I helped my friends finish Brawl over 2 days during a sleep over, and even though I enjoy working together with almost anything, I would never play that game ever again on my own. In fact the more I have to see the more things I find I have to criticise. I end up getting more ammo against it!

I also played through Uncharted 2 Among Thieves with a friend since it was a chrissy present, and though the dialogue didn't bother me as much as it did so many, the amount of bloody glitches and boring level design with insta-kill enemy's made things really tedious. Another game I would never go back to, as well as it doesn't make me look forward to the other games in the series.

 

[Bat Vader]

Nope.

In my opinion, you can't rightfully offer a view, be it positive or negative, of a property as a whole unless you consume it as a whole.
Else, you're only forming a partial view of the part of the property you did consume.

I agree but I disagree as well. If someone is trying to tell their view of a story or character in a game I do agree they need to finish it first/see the entire character's plot development before offering a view on the subject.

I think with gameplay though a person can play about half the game or so and have a pretty good view on how the gameplay in the game is. I got about 12 hours into Final Fantasy XIII before I had to quit because of how annoyed I was with the combat system. I know that isn't really close to the half way mark but for me my view of the combat is that it is terrible.

 

[Strazdas]

i always finish the game, whether i liked it or not. i plowed though far cry 2 even though i absolutely hated it (including all collectibles). the only times i dont finish a game where it is made not possible by external factors (game is so bugged it just crashes and/or corrupts the save file (i play iron man mode, always), usually give up after 3rd play-though. Or soemthing more severe like my hardware crashing (notably the war and peace case where i invested over 200 hours in its extremely long campaign, hardware crash, got to start for them begining, seriuosly?).
that being said i dont have to like it.

If a game is terrible for 3 hours and you can't finish or find it an absolute slog to get through, you're well within your right to put the controller down and say "I can say I found the game incredibly tedious/the controls incredibly frustrating/the story incomprehensible/etc. for the time I played it. I can't recommend based on my experience".

Yes, and that is all well and good, but you cant say that the whole game is bad because of your part of the game experience. which is exactly what he is arguing to begin with.
the problem is that most people simply ignore the part i bolded in your post.

 

[Kikyoo]

This argument is wasted upon the likes of me. I grew up in the NES era, so ... yeah. This mind set that you have to finish something, in order to enjoy it, just did not exist back then. Because it was like a big deal if you could beat anything back then. For instance, Rampage was a fun game to play with a friend, but it had so many levels in it, I only ever beat it once. But we'd play it a lot. It wasn't that it was too hard, it was just long.

More recently I enjoyed Xenoblade Chronicles, but didn't finish it. This doesn't mean I enjoyed it less than other RPGs, it just means it was longer. Inversely I've beaten many games that I didn't enjoy very much, but kept playing just for the sake of experiencing something new. And sometimes games can surprise you, so I try to finish most games I play, but not always because I'm enjoying it. And just because I stopped playing a game, or didn't finish it, does not necessarily mean I hated it.

TLDR: I am a Human. I am Complicated!

 

[Vykrel]

i powered through Call of Duty 3, hating every moment. i bought it, along with CoD2 on a whim, so i figured i might as well finish it, if not for anything but a higher gamerscore.

im actually really amazed at how fairly well-received that game was. i dont know what so many people see in it.

 

[madwarper]

they can still like or loath without knowing the entirety. To what degree is completely arguable though as using the word hate or love does not portray meaningful perception because of the deceptive nature of both words used in modern context...

Speaking from personal experience, my dad had started to listen to the local country station when he drove me to school years ago. I heard the shit that was being played and ignorantly formed an opinion on all of country music.

Then, I played New Vegas, heard the tolerable sounds from my Pip-Boy, looked further into it and with the help of the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, I managed to extract my head from my ass. I realized, that the songs I thought were crap were still crap, but were not representative of the genre as a whole.

I think with gameplay though a person can play about half the game or so and have a pretty good view on how the gameplay in the game is. I got about 12 hours into Final Fantasy XIII before I had to quit because of how annoyed I was with the combat system. I know that isn't really close to the half way mark but for me my view of the combat is that it is terrible.

But, if you had describe it to someone, would speak the gameplay of the whole game or just the 12 hours you did play?

Again, speaking from personal experience, I got Morrowind. I loaded it up, created a character, was going out into the world for exploration and adventure. So, I wandered not but 5 feet out of the starting hamlet and was killed by the first mudcrab I stumbled across.

Now, I refuse to speak negatively about Morrowind as a whole, because I did not experience Morrowind as a whole. I only experienced character creation, the text dump that served as conversation, and the sheer awfulness of the sole combat experience. It was that meager portion of the game that turned me off and it is that meager portion I can rightfully rag on.

 

[l0ckd0wn]

Speaking from personal experience, my dad had started to listen to the local country station when he drove me to school years ago. I heard the shit that was being played and ignorantly formed an opinion on all of country music.

Then, I played New Vegas, heard the tolerable sounds from my Pip-Boy, looked further into it and with the help of the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, I managed to extract my head from my ass. I realized, that the songs I thought were crap were still crap, but were not representative of the genre as a whole.

I can completely appreciate this as the older I get the older my music preferences seem to get as well, now being in my early 30s enjoying a lot of blues and traditional R&B from the turn of the last century, including folk, country, bluegrass (which I would put under country), big band and jazz.

However, I can still honestly say that I "don't like country music" without using the term 'most' because the majority of country I hear I do not care for, but when we further dissect country, like most forms of music, we find more subgenres of country that parse it into different sounds and manifestations. All of the subgenres of country have their own style and personality, and to understand those nuances is to move out of ignorance into knowledge, however it is not necessary to be knowledgeable over a topic to find satisfaction or a lack of interest in it. This is why I split your opinions in half as you and Amethyst both seem to think there is an absolute on the subjective nature of personal enjoyment.

Now, keep in mind to I also keep a country station on the presets in my truck, but I won't just sit and listen to it, I'll only really tune in if I happen to switch over and find a song that I happen to like. This, again, doesn't mean I loathe all of country music to the point of be intolerant of it but that I can appreciate a country song, without having to like the genre of country music. I'm also an electronic music DJ, and you wouldn't believe how many times this topic comes up when talking about drum & bass and the evolution of Dubstep. Along the same lines, I wholy loathe just about all Dubstep, the culture, the people (mostly the kids) and especially the sound. I have maybe 5 tracks I've ever heard from the genre of Dubstep that I would call "tolerable to listen to" or even "somewhat enjoyable" and I can say with massive prejudice that I don't like the entire genre. When I say "genre" I'm not just saying the original evolution of Dubstep maybe 5 years ago, but most everything that has come from it and I use that collective knowledge to say I don't like Dubstep as a genre, even if I happen to appreciate maybe 1-2 songs. And for reference, Country is infinitely better than Dubstep, if that gives you any type of comparative reference.

 

[HellbirdIV]

"You Must Have Liked It If You Finished It" is a popular retort to people complaining about certain experiences that said people have completed/finished. Do you agree with this logic?

Nope. I played Spec Ops: The Line all the way through because people said the story was good, even though I found it grating and the gameplay incredibly dull and repetetive. Lo and behold, the ending was crappy, and I didn't like it.

 

[ZexionSephiroth]

There's a major difference between sitting through a game you're not entirely thrilled about VS trying to sit through a game you can't stand.

In the Case given, it sounds like the remainder of the Uncharted Series may have fallen into the Previous, being games that aren't that great but you'll sit through in the vein hope it gets better.

Games that you aren't Thrilled about but sit through anyways tend to elicit a general sense of Apathy. You're sitting there knowing its not that fun, but you sit through anyways because hey, at least despite all its flaws it still works.

...And then there's games that can't even deliver minimum Expectations... Like One I got recently that tries to hide its crappy Gameplay and Crappy Story behind a Veneer of Moe and Cutesy Japanese Imagery... And Even THAT got infuriating after 2 minutes!

If there's okay Gameplay... I can sit through it...

If there's an Okay Story... I can survive it...

So long as one of those two are present... I will get through the game, despite my continued annoyance at the game's parts that make me not like it...

...If it has neither... then prepare a bon fire, there's no way I can finish it.

In other news, Applying this argument to food... Only means you're forced to eat something because its healthy for you.

 

[Bat Vader]

they can still like or loath without knowing the entirety. To what degree is completely arguable though as using the word hate or love does not portray meaningful perception because of the deceptive nature of both words used in modern context...

Speaking from personal experience, my dad had started to listen to the local country station when he drove me to school years ago. I heard the shit that was being played and ignorantly formed an opinion on all of country music.

Then, I played New Vegas, heard the tolerable sounds from my Pip-Boy, looked further into it and with the help of the Man in Black, Johnny Cash, I managed to extract my head from my ass. I realized, that the songs I thought were crap were still crap, but were not representative of the genre as a whole.

I think with gameplay though a person can play about half the game or so and have a pretty good view on how the gameplay in the game is. I got about 12 hours into Final Fantasy XIII before I had to quit because of how annoyed I was with the combat system. I know that isn't really close to the half way mark but for me my view of the combat is that it is terrible.

But, if you had describe it to someone, would speak the gameplay of the whole game or just the 12 hours you did play?

Again, speaking from personal experience, I got Morrowind. I loaded it up, created a character, was going out into the world for exploration and adventure. So, I wandered not but 5 feet out of the starting hamlet and was killed by the first mudcrab I stumbled across.

Now, I refuse to speak negatively about Morrowind as a whole, because I did not experience Morrowind as a whole. I only experienced character creation, the text dump that served as conversation, and the sheer awfulness of the sole combat experience. It was that meager portion of the game that turned me off and it is that meager portion I can rightfully rag on.

I would do my best to describe the combat system and how it works but I would also let them know I only played it for 12 hours before I quit and let them know why I quit. I plan on buying Morrowind from Steam in the next few weeks but before I even start to play the game I am going to get the mod that fixes the combat so that it is like Oblivion's and Skyrim's.

 

[Padwolf]

I do not agree with that logic. I sat through Silent Hill Homecoming because I love Silent Hill and I wanted to know if it would get better and also I did not want to waste the tenner I spent on it. I was disappointed quite heavily. I played the whole thing though, but I didn't enjoy it. In my opinion it's the same for many other people, they finish a game/film/book/what have you because they might want to see the rest of the story, they might not want to waste money and some people just can't stand leaving something uncompleted.

 

[rob_simple]

I regularly have a conversation similar to this with my flatmate, when he's watching me scream at a game. There are games I have finished purely out of spite; because I refuse to let poor design or unfair mechanics beat me (Dead Island springs to mind). I didn't enjoy those games at all, and usually I trade them in as soon as I'm done, but there's always a sense of 'I've come this far, I may as well finish it now'.

I also think, with video games more than other media, you can't just have a black and white loved it or hated it attitude.

To use your Uncharted example, OP, I love the series for its story, characters, ridiculously good graphics/set pieces and because I have a man crush on Nolan North...the combat, on the other hand, is absolutely shite and completely unfair at times --when enemies are literally dropping from the sky, I call bullshit-- but I suffered through it to get to the parts I loved.

 

[Tanis]

I finished all the Bayformer movies, and they are STILL horrid.

Finishing something, just to say you did or because you were trying to understand the appeal, is kind of common for me.

 

[Ytomyth]

Yes, tell other people what they think/like based on your (incomplete/faulty/one-sided) judgement of their (visible) actions and decisions. Perfectly valid. >.>
Whenever I finish a bloody meal in a restaurant I don't want the waiter (or anyone) telling me I liked it.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Do you agree with this logic? Why or why not? Have you ever used/been the receiver of this complaint? Has that phrase's use made you change your perception/thinking?

1) Not at all
2) Reasons [I have a story or two, don't worry]
3) I've probably received the complaint but can't remember definitively
4) No, not really.

Story time to answer number 2!

I have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy (including The Hobbit). I have also read volume 1 of, The Ultimates (The Avengers from The Ultimate universe). I've also read Young Blood numbers zero and one. I've played Crysis 2, Halo 4, Predator on the NES, Elite Beat Agents, Dragon Age 2, Fable 3 and, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). Out of the things I listed, I only genuinely liked two of them and I'll give you a hint: It's the last one and, The Hobbit.

There are a ton of things that I once thought I had to experience. When I realized that I'm kind of nerdy, I thought to myself "Well, better give this Hobbit thing a try and take it from there". I really enjoyed The Hobbit but it took me years and, more than three tries to get through the entire LotR trilogy. I really wanted to see it through to the end though; by the time I did manage to finish the trilogy, the third movie was just around the corner and I was so underwhelmed by the two before it, I knew I wouldn't make it in to see Return of the King. I just really wanted to experience that story, even though I didn't really like it.

Young Blood was so fucking terrible it was good. Hell, I've gone through and I can probably make a short documentary about everything wrong with it other than what people like Linkara have talked about.

I genuinely thought I would like The Ultimates...but then it turned into Hank Pym abusing Janet and Dr. Banner Hulking out so The Ultimates could test themselves. It wouldn't have been too bad if Hulk didn't talk about how much he wanted to rape...his ex...I think...can't quite remember who she was to him.

The various games I listed are games that I've reviewed previously on the site so I won't fill up more space here.

 

[9thRequiem]

I have played through Too Human to the end twice. I have no idea why I played it the second time; I think some variant on Stockholm syndrome. I started it a third time, and took incredible force of will to stop.
Playing something to the end does not constitute any kind of enjoyment.

 

[Angie7F]

I tend to stick through things to the end simply because I like to see how badly it ends.
Kinda like not being able to look away from a car crash