Malf on 23/9/2008 at 08:27
The other thread got me thinking; learning to love games is all very well and good, but what about games you started out loving, then over the course of time developed a passionate hatred for?
I'm thinking MMOs might have a strong showing here, but the prime candidate for me is WoW.
Up until end-game, it was reasonable fun and enough to keep my attention, but when I reached what was at the time the level-cap of 60, I found the game's blatant money-grabbing elements became all too obvious.
I'd already cottoned on to the massive timesink that was world travel and how you actually spent massive swathes of playing time not actually playing the game, but hitting the cap brought me face-to-face with the reality of pointless grind.
So I stopped playing, only to fire it up a few months later for a month just to realise that my first conclusions were correct.
Thankfully, it was enough to put me off of monthly subscription games for life.
More surprisingly, I find myself harbouring similar feelings towards Guild Wars these days, although it's more accurately described as apathy in GW's case really.
I put a LOT of time into GW (well over 3,000 hours), and now whenever I start it up, I can guarantee that I'll be quitting in 5 minutes.
Somehow, they took the orignal premise and completely twisted it; where the game was originally advertised as providing the MMO experience with little to no grind, over the years pandering to community requests has resulted in a game where once you've seen everything, all that's left to do is grind for titles and pretty gear. And no matter how much I initially loved them, the addition of Heroes ripped the heart out of PvE, resulting in almost the complete destruction of PuG play.
Anyone else with such gaming-gone-bad tales?
Thirith on 23/9/2008 at 08:31
Nothing this extreme, but there were games where at a certain point I felt, "I've been playing this for long enough and wouldn't mind if it was over some time soon." Especially FPSes can easily overstay their welcome, even such charming FPSes as the NOLF games.
june gloom on 23/9/2008 at 08:41
All Resident Evil games prior to RE4 (RE2 and REmake are excused for various reasons.) I played through the original again last year and it drove me nearly insane. WHO THE HELL TURNS THAT SLOWLY
WingedKagouti on 23/9/2008 at 08:54
Baldur's Gate.
I did complete it, but by the end I had no reason left to play the expansion or sequel. "You must gather your party before venturing forth!" indeed. The story was interesting at first, but as the plot unfolded I felt less and less connection to the game or characters.
Minsc is literally the only character I can remember, and that's because he's a very unusual (and funny) character. The rest I remember as a random bunch of abilities with no real interesting personalities.
Thirith on 23/9/2008 at 08:57
I must say that I don't remember the first Baldur's Gate as much else than a hack&slay RPG. Very little RP in that G... It's the sequel that's truly great (if we ignore the starting dungeon, not exactly the best of first impressions).
Briareos H on 23/9/2008 at 09:00
Bioshock. The first hour or so was quite wonderful until I realized how deep the "mainstreaming" had been made and that nothing I could do had any meaning.
I'd take any average FPS anytime (enjoying Red Faction for the fourth time right now) over replaying this.
june gloom on 23/9/2008 at 09:05
I think I would rather shove a pineapple up my urethra before playing Red Faction again. I played it to completion once and that was plenty enough.
kidmystik101 on 23/9/2008 at 09:25
Gta 3.
No words can describe how much that game gave me the shits.
raevol on 23/9/2008 at 09:35
Counter Strike. I played that game for the better portion of my life, and now I can only play it on 1v1 with my old friend Temtasketh. All the awp whoring and 13 year olds in the pub servers make me sick.
WoW, though it only took me to level 10. I was actually in the Stress Test beta for the game, and quit after 2 days after months of anticipation.
I have to agree on Guild Wars. Used to be ridiculously fun. Now? Not so much.
Warcraft 3. Decent single player romp, but as soon as I tried to get serious about it I realized it was awful.
Diablo 2, while I still enjoy it, I will not play it to the point where I am just Baal running over and over.
Savage 2. I played Savage for countless hours waiting for this game. I suffered through Beta, I suffered through FCPs, and finally gave up when the game kept getting continually worse.
Team Fortress, the Half-Life 1 one. I wanted so badly to love this game, and I worked hard to get good at it. And then one day I got sick and tired of all the explosions and just quit. TF2 hasn't grabbed me either, though for different reasons.
