Games you regret buying

@Moe, most of your complaints are weird. It's a survival horror first and everything else second. It's NOT SUPPOSED to pause everything while you rummage in your backpack or in some circuit board. It adds an element of urgency to every thing you do. The first game was the same, if you didn't notice, how can you complain about this? The skill system was designed around you having to eventually pick a direction you want to build yourself into and never look back, if you're smart about this, any character build is perfectly viable. The respawns are also there for a sense of urgency, so you wouldn't feel at ease. Survival Horror, remember?

The plot is predictable for a modern troper. Back in the day it actually was a nice break from the norm, with its early reveal and working for the supposed enemy and all that. This specific game set the standard all of its forebearers (Deus Ex, Bio Shock and Doom3, to name a few) followed.

BTW, which things were removed that you minded?

To make this post more on-topic: Worms Mayhem. I never managed to get used to the 3d episodes of Worms, probably why I jumped on Worms Reloaded as soon as I could.

edited 25th Feb '11 12:01:11 PM by Noelemahc

Commander Keen for Gameboy Color. Ugh.

I loved the PC games and hadn't gotten the memo that the console version was made by different guys in a different style.

Sold that sucker right back ASAP.

edited 25th Feb '11 2:45:44 PM by NateTheGreat

• A Boy and His Blob for Wii. More like A Bore and His Blob.
  • Red Steel 2 (no multiplayer)
    • The Conduit (same)
      • A bunch of others that I can't remember right now but will probably remember as soon as I click send

Oh yeah, Spore. My family basically pressured me into getting it because "it was something we could all enjoy". Yeah. No. We messed around with the creators for a bit before forgetting it existed.

Two of the more prominent ones:

• Halo 2. Yes, really. I picked it up when I was taking my first Xbox home to see what the hype was about, played through, and after a few hours, found that I enjoyed the first game far more (its PC port specifically). Never again would I trust hype and popular opinion.
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Not so much the singleplayer as much as the spy-vs.-merc multiplayer mode I wanted to try out. Unfortunately, there's no proper way to get a good grasp of the game without playing, and the playerbase is full of arrogant asshats who suggest you go kill yourself if you do badly at the game. I decided that I'd rather move on to other games rather than practice up, slowly but surely, so I could beat said asshats at their own game and rub it right into their fucking faces when I did, giving them a taste of their own bitter fucking medicine.
• Diablo II. I actually loved it at first, but as I was playing multiplayer, something eventually set in-not only were the players usually asshats, but I eventually realized that it was basically about killing monsters endlessly and hope that they drop an extremely rare item so that you can use it to kill more monsters more efficiently to...you get the idea. Too bad I can't sell my big-box copies, because everyone and their grandma's dog already owns the game.

Yeah, those latter two are largely cases of Tainted By The Base. (What happened to that trope, anyway?)

Fable III was distinctly underwhelming. With all the money grinding, effortless combat and glitchiness the game felt unplayable. A huge step down on its predecessor. And please fix the combat!

I'll second Nightmare Of Druaga. As far as Roguelikes go, it's the worst in the genre.

I regret buying most pokemon games because by default, I'm not a big fan of RPGS by default, and and the series shows much too much similarities between games.

Tainted By The Fanbase got axed because it was turning into "the trope where you whine about being flamed by fan group X."

@Noelemahc
I already acknowledged that some of the things I said about SS 2 could be said about SS 1. The difference is, SS 1 handled them better.

Understanding why something is, doesn't make it a good decision. "This cake is supposed to taste like chocolate" is a worthless defense if the cake doesn't actually taste like chocolate, and "this element is supposed to create suspense!" is worthless if the element doesn't actually create suspense, or allow you to build a viable character of your choice or whatever.

Having an enemy respawn up your ass while you're busy is not good horror—its cheap and irritating. It's the same bullshit Capcom tried to pull with Clock Tower 3. Funny how that game was actually less scary and suspenseful than either of the Scissorman games, and how SS 1 managed to create suspense and "a sense of urgency" without resorting to such a cheap gimmick.

"It would've been better if you had played it when it was fresh" actually just proves my point further. If the game was only good because of the initial "wow" factor, what more needs to be said? I repeat: I played both games back-to-back, for the first time, last year. One impressed me, the other didn't.

BTW, which things were removed that you minded?

In general I thought SS 1 had the better idea: Samus-like, you find upgrades that give you new abilities that allow you more access and better survivability. I especially miss:

• The Jump-Jets.
• The Radar.
• The Flashlights—and this is an especial WTF. SS 1 had three different flashlights, so you had some options if an area was too dark. SS 2? You don't get any flashlights, whatsoever. Yes yes, I know, "it was trying to be scary!" by using yet another cheap cop-out of a tactic.
• The inventory—SS 2's inventory is far more limited than SS 1's.
• The stimpatches. Particularly the Reflex Patch. The Speed Hypo is supposed to replace it, but like everything else in SS 2, it does a terrible job.
• Leaning—in SS 1 you could lean really far, while in SS 2 you can basically peak around a corner.
• The ability to crawl on your belly.
• Personal force-fields that could be activated on top of radiation suits.

And that's about it.

edited 25th Feb '11 7:12:04 PM by MoeDantes

BioShock and Call of Duty 4.

I found both to be rather boring, Bio Shock moreso.

I thought that the only good thing about Bio Shock was the first hour or so. I felt the "twist" was really stupid and kinda pointless and I quit playing the game around the time that you had to collect a Big Daddy suit, or whatever you were doing, I forgot. It's the only game I've ever played where I dozed off while playing it.

Co D 4 is a little more difficult to pin as I usually find even the most generic FPS somewhat entertaining, but with this game I only had fun in one mission, that being the Chernobyl Sniper Mission.

I didn't like the kill-cam in multiplayer, because I play sniper in most FPS and the kill-cam defeats the point of a sniper, making run 'n gun mindless shooting the only decent option.

Another problem I had with multiplayer was the ranking/class/whatever system, which basically meant that anybody getting into the game late starts with nothing and has to fight against all the "pros" who've gotten far better weapons and better equipment.

edited 26th Feb '11 10:46:39 PM by NULLcHiLD27

I've had to buy a number of crappy games for review purposes in the past, so these are just the ones that I resent having spent money on the most. :P

• Lunar: Dragon Song: A split combat system that only allow you to gain either XP or items is irritating enough. Even worse, you lose HP from running, making it a pain to get anywhere. It's especially irritating because most, if not all of your cash comes from doing deliveries. So you spend your time running between cities you've already been to, slowly wasting your healing in order to get money so you can buy more healing.

• Generation of Chaos: A little-known PSP game, Go C was basically a combination between an RTS and Monopoly. Or maybe Risk would be more apt. At any rate, the big problem was that the systems were all incredibly complicated and the game was pretty tough just on a basic level, but the game threw you in the deep end right away. The game was supposed to have a tutorial, but thanks to one of a large number of bugs, the game skipped right past it. Surviving the first couple of battles was more or less a matter of luck.

Alpha Protocol.

I bought this game during a Steam sale for about $8, and I still feel like I paid too much. Having good writing does not help if I have to suffer through terrible gameplay decisions and glitches.

I regret buying Lost Planet, Armored Core 3, and exchanging MGS 3 for the three Hitman games.

I'm also starting to wonder if I should've bought Halo Reach or Bad Company 2 rather than Black Ops.

OK, so, I am a fan of the Ace Attorney series, and it just so happens that I heard about that crossover with Professor Layton. Never heard of this game before, and since it is, well, a crossover, I decided to give it a go to see the other part of the universe...

I dont think it was a bad game. Its just not my tastes. The way the puzzles were presented are a bit weird after playing Ace Attorney... Maybe I should have played this and THEN Ace attorney... I tried my best to like Professor Layton, but I. just. COULDT. I may or may not continue to play to try to finish it someday, not sure...

Epic Mickey. I played it up to the future world and stopped not long after. After having to gather more of those stupid power sparks and track down NP Cs to complete fetch quests, I couldn't do it anymore. I just didn't have the will to keep going. Nice world, the story seemed decent, but such a disappointment otherwise. At least I got a cool Mickey figure with the collector's edition.

edited 27th Feb '11 8:03:44 PM by edvedd

Bad Company 2. It's not as cracked up as the anti-fanbase of MW 2 says it to be, and more infuriating.

Mass Effect 1 & 2.

I absolutely detest cover shooters. Worse yet, I chose Vanguard as my class for the second, and found everything that made playing that class fun was taken away on higher difficulty levels. So I had to make another character and found myself just hiding behind walls.

Call Of Duty 4 and Soul Calibur IV. On 360. Why I bought multiplayer games for my 360 when I have neither time nor money for a Gold account is beyond me.

Just Cause 2. It started out awesome, then got boring and repetitive.

edited 28th Feb '11 6:48:08 PM by LolipodDistortion

Headhunter. I could have got FFVI instead, but I was really new to FF at that time, knew nothing of VI, and thought the demo of Headhunter was good.

Never again will I trust a demo.