Final Fantasy V. The one with the class system. Played it as a ROM a long time ago and then got bored and stopped. Then when I found out you could get it legit on the Anthologies release I picked that up and ended up quitting even sooner because my PSX died, I got a PS2 to replace it, then got hooked on Guitar Hero.
Also X-Com. It was just too hard. I probably sucked because I was a kid but once the super psionic aliens showed up I always got my ass whipped.
Guitar Hero II I suppose. I still haven't beaten Freebird on Expert yet to finish it, but I got bored of the game while having to sit through a 5 minute slow, dumb intro just to get to the hard part.
Max Payne. The running in the hallways dream level was annoying enough to stop playing an otherwise awesome game, maybe someday...
Yoshi's Island. Its good, but its not Super Mario World good to me. I even liked Yoshi's story better.
Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was fun enough I guess, I just dont like the rayman character. At all.
New Super Mario Bros. After beating the game, I started going back to get all the coins, but you couldnt just save after getting one, you had to get enough to open a path or something in order to save. Also I hold b and run and jump a lot, I always hated how you would sometimes wall jump in the opposite direction when you jump at something. The minigames ruled though.
Silent Hill 2. Early on I couldnt figure out where to go, and as it hadnt really grabbed me, I just stopped playing.
Hotel Dusk. Holding the ds like a book is awkward after more than 10 mins at a time for me. I find the dialogue really corny. The controls could have been streamlined a bit. I love the idea and the amount of freedom it gives you to explore though. I'll get back to this one someday.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. The underwater frog thing boss is really hard and I dont feel like grinding xp in order to beat him. I dont really like the quests you do for the ghost either. I pine for the days of a single character wandering a castle full of horrors with little or no respite.
Final Fantasy 8. Oh wait, games we liked but didnt finish. Nevermind.
Final Fantasy 9. I loved the first half of the game. Then it all falls apart. I slog through anyway over the course of a few months, and when I finally get somewhere, I find that my final disc is scratched beyond repair. I had bought it new, so I could always bring it back in, but by that point I didnt care.
Zelda, Twilight Princess. I think I'm one of the only ones who hates the wii controls for ZTP. Someday Ill pick up the cube version.
Resident Evil. I never get very far whenever I try and play the original. I'll play through 2 or 4 all day long, I dont understand it.
Viewtiful Joe 2. It plays identical to the first, which I loved, but theres just something about it that made me ambivalent.
Diablo 2. I was addicted to starcraft the entire time everyone else on the planet was playing diablo, so I never played it until a couple months ago. I'm still on act one, I hate the clicking, and I'm crossing my fingers for a DS version, because I love the story and atmosphere of blizzard's games.
STALKER and Oblivion. I don't know why but I never finished them. I should go back to those two.
Man STALKER was fun but in the end it just started scaring the shit out of me. Goddamn bloodsuckers.
edit: ALSO, Doom 3. Played maybe about 2 hours worth and then I said fuck it this is too scary, haha. God I'm a pussy...well I did beat F.E.A.R. though.
Also, Call of Duty 3...about an hour in I was like...'kay its Cod 1 and 2 with better graphics and cool focus effects when you zoom.
Max Payne. The running in the hallways dream level was annoying enough to stop playing an otherwise awesome game, maybe someday...
Yoshi's Island. Its good, but its not Super Mario World good to me. I even liked Yoshi's story better.
Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was fun enough I guess, I just dont like the rayman character. At all.
New Super Mario Bros. After beating the game, I started going back to get all the coins, but you couldnt just save after getting one, you had to get enough to open a path or something in order to save. Also I hold b and run and jump a lot, I always hated how you would sometimes wall jump in the opposite direction when you jump at something. The minigames ruled though.
Silent Hill 2. Early on I couldnt figure out where to go, and as it hadnt really grabbed me, I just stopped playing.
Hotel Dusk. Holding the ds like a book is awkward after more than 10 mins at a time for me. I find the dialogue really corny. The controls could have been streamlined a bit. I love the idea and the amount of freedom it gives you to explore though. I'll get back to this one someday.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. The underwater frog thing boss is really hard and I dont feel like grinding xp in order to beat him. I dont really like the quests you do for the ghost either. I pine for the days of a single character wandering a castle full of horrors with little or no respite.
Final Fantasy 8. Oh wait, games we liked but didnt finish. Nevermind.
Final Fantasy 9. I loved the first half of the game. Then it all falls apart. I slog through anyway over the course of a few months, and when I finally get somewhere, I find that my final disc is scratched beyond repair. I had bought it new, so I could always bring it back in, but by that point I didnt care.
Zelda, Twilight Princess. I think I'm one of the only ones who hates the wii controls for ZTP. Someday Ill pick up the cube version.
Resident Evil. I never get very far whenever I try and play the original. I'll play through 2 or 4 all day long, I dont understand it.
Viewtiful Joe 2. It plays identical to the first, which I loved, but theres just something about it that made me ambivalent.
Diablo 2. I was addicted to starcraft the entire time everyone else on the planet was playing diablo, so I never played it until a couple months ago. I'm still on act one, I hate the clicking, and I'm crossing my fingers for a DS version, because I love the story and atmosphere of blizzard's games.
Diablo 2 - You can click and hold to attack, for reduced clicking.
Resident Evil - You have a crush on Leon.
Max Payne - Oh please keep going. It's worth it, just to play the second one with proper backstory. (I liked the dream sequences, I'm a freak)
Sweet jesus, it took me 3 restarts and god, like 3-4 years (can't remember when it came out) to beat Final Fantasy Tactics ADvance.
The only reason I finally did beat it is that my laptop broke and I'm in China, hence my GBA was the only source of gaming I had until just recently when I got a new machine put together.
That game though...christ its long and boring for much of the game, leveling can be stupidly slow and the fights mindless if you know what your doing at all. Maybe if they put in a harder difficulty to give the enemies more levels so things would progress more evenly.
Also, the storyline was just "blah" after a while and didn't interest me much at all.
Sadly, its the only FF titled game I have ever beaten...I can't stand the non-strategy ones and I didn't own a PS 1/2/3 so no FF:T for me.
Half-Life: Source. I never owned the original, so when I got this together with HL2, I decided to play it. It was fun and I liked. Until I got to Xen. It just got really hard to find out where to go at that point and stopped being fun.
I seriously think that the boss fight as a convention needs to die, or at least be used much more sparingly. This is perhaps because I get really bored with games that require you to attempt the same thing over and over again.
I gave up on Ninja Gaiden and FFIV because the bossfights made them boring.
Developers just need to actually sit down and think about what would make the end of their game climactic.
Most just default to "Let's make a single enemy super rediculous!" and it's a boss fight.
Some games might benefit from having some big dramatic event happen, or a large scale city destroying battle against hordes of enemies.
Some might benefit from ending with a wimper instead of a bang.
Half-Life 2: I just...gave up at the end boss battle. I mean, the game was SO GOOD and then...ugh. I couldn't do it.
On the last sequence of HL2 :
Uh.. you basically have an instakill gun, the only thing that comes CLOSE to resembling a boss is the strider that you just have to shoot one of the big orbs at, and then it's just climbing the tower. There isn't really an end boss battle. Unless you mean sequence. Honestly the tripped out grav gun was one of the coolest things in the game. Also in reference to going out with a wimper instead of a bang, I think HL2 managed to do both at once quite masterfully.
Zelda: TP: It felt like I'd already played the game before. Yeah, it's pretty, but it's more of the same. At least WW felt like a refreshing change of pace. I couldn't get that far in it. It was good.. I guess.. but not good enough. So I guess this one doesn't really count.
Planescape: Torment: God damn I wanted to play this one so much but the RESOLUTION! I simply couldn't stand it after an hour or so.
System Shock 2: This game just has a scary atmosphere. The graphics are ancient but the sound and lighting achieve enough to make me turn the game off. I barely got through Ravenholm in HL2.. I'm just a horrible coward. It's a shame seeing how good the game is and not being able to force myself to get through it.
Half-Life 2: I just...gave up at the end boss battle. I mean, the game was SO GOOD and then...ugh. I couldn't do it.
On the last sequence of HL2 :
Uh.. you basically have an instakill gun, the only thing that comes CLOSE to resembling a boss is the strider that you just have to shoot one of the big orbs at, and then it's just climbing the tower. There isn't really an end boss battle. Unless you mean sequence. Honestly the tripped out grav gun was one of the coolest things in the game. Also in reference to going out with a wimper instead of a bang, I think HL2 managed to do both at once quite masterfully.
Have to agree there. I can't really see what he means about the "end boss battle".
Planescape: Torment: God damn I wanted to play this one so much but the RESOLUTION! I simply couldn't stand it after an hour or so.
System Shock 2: This game just has a scary atmosphere. The graphics are ancient but the sound and lighting achieve enough to make me turn the game off.
These two don't compute with me.
I mean sure PS:T has low res graphics, but the art style and animation stand up stands up very well even today. SS2 meanwhile you can crank the resolution up to see high res versions of dated characters. Although admittedly I've never used the re-texture / re-model packs so that probably explains it.
Seriously, after a while you'll stop noticing the resolution of PS:T and just get sucked into the game. Plus the spell animations still look cool (of course, that might just be personal bias) even today.
As for games I never completed:
Final Fantasy 6: Enjoyed it, but got near the end and couldn't be bothered with grinding to level up my spells / characters.
Baldur's Gate 1 / 2: I seriously WANT to get back to these some day. Thing is, I don't want to start BG2 without having played BG1 (understandable). But when I start I'll get a fair way through and then suffer a computer problem. Or get an influx of work to do (thereby cutting me off from the game for more than a month and making me want to re-start). As far as I can tell though, it's not due to a lack of interest, which is a darn good thing.
Warrior Within: Started it. Stopped shortly thereafter. Seriously, it's almost as if they were trying to sabotage what made the series unique and interesting back in Sands of Time. The crappy rock music just added insult to injury. I dunno, maybe I shouldn't count it since is about games you liked, but I wasn't expecting that after the first one. I'd heard the rumours, but I just brushed them off with the prospect of more death-defying acrobatics. Maybe I should go back and see if I can't get further, to the real meat of the game where all the cool acrobatics is.
I made it through space and ended up stopping at the last level. All it took was a peek at a faq to see how stupidly long I would have to be roaming around that utterly boring looking castle for me to stop. Atleast that's how I remember it.
It was either that, or because the game was boring the shit out of me. :P
Do more games need to "update" the player when they return from a long break (for example, Pokemon Pearl and Diamond do just this)?
Sounds interesting...how do they do this, exactly? If only Metal Gear Solid 2/Final Fantasy X-2 did this, I might actually remember the controls whenever I come back to them...a save-game date-checking question like "Do you require a practise?" when you load up again would be great, letting you practise the section you're on without consequence (and maybe slightly easier 'til you get back in the groove).
I actually gave up right at the end of FF VIII, as I hadn't leveled up enough...Ultimecia is a real bitch.
Having to depend on a weapon that releases an ultra-powerful combo at random is a real pain in the arse, especially after all the effort it takes to create the bloody Lionheart blade in the first place...*groans*.
I still need to finish Sacred, Diablo II LOD, Deus Ex, Kameo, NeverWinter Nights.. and Probably a bunch of others. A lot of my reason for the PC games is changing PCs every so often and either forgetting to back up my save, or finally reinstalling the game to have it be too long and I've forgotten most of the plot etc.
FFX is the only Final Fantasy I haven't beaten. I've been so close to the end twice (with all the ultimate weapons) and corrupted the save once, lost the memory card the second time.
I have no desire to do any of that, ever again. Ever.
I loved everything about the game. But I got up to the point where you had to hunt down all the tri-force pieces, got about three or four of them, and just never went back to finish it. My sister has beaten the game, but I never have.
I really should go back and finish it, I actually liked the treasure hunting in it.
Do more games need to "update" the player when they return from a long break (for example, Pokemon Pearl and Diamond do just this)?
Sounds interesting...how do they do this, exactly? If only Metal Gear Solid 2/Final Fantasy X-2 did this, I might actually remember the controls whenever I come back to them...a save-game date-checking question like "Do you require a practise?" when you load up again would be great, letting you practise the section you're on without consequence (and maybe slightly easier 'til you get back in the groove).
I actually gave up right at the end of FF VIII, as I hadn't leveled up enough...Ultimecia is a real bitch.
Having to depend on a weapon that releases an ultra-powerful combo at random is a real pain in the arse, especially after all the effort it takes to create the bloody Lionheart blade in the first place...*groans*.
Baldur's Gate 2. It's not that I didn't like it, or else I wouldn't put it here. It's just that the opening dungeon is enough to get anyone down. That said, I am already installing it and planning to give it a whirl again, for real this time.
Also, Planescape Torment. I got to the point where
Morte gets kidnapped
and I saved, planning to continue it later. "Later" became an eternity. I plan to finish this one after Baldur's Gate 2.
Medieval 2: Total War. I was dissatisfied with the "2 years a turn" time progression, thinking it was too fast, so I changed it to 6 months. Shit took too long to happen, but I persevered. I went through 421 turns as France and I still didn't have guns, so I became bored and discontinued my game. I did procure a mod recently that does, among other things, make the time progression a year per turn, which sounds like a fair pace, so I guess I'm gonna finish it soon too.
I don't get the complaints over Baldur's Gate II's intro dungeon. Have you played other RPGs tutorial dungeons? BG II's is easily the best in the genre.
Also, MTW isn't really about winning, its about the journey. I've never completed a long campaign in it, and only a few short ones.
Beyond Good and Evil: I really wanted to love it, but it never hooked me, I got about 5 hours in I think.
Suikoden 5: It didn't lure me the same way as Suikoden II(Though I also think I just enjoy RPGs less these days), and while it definitely seems like a good game that I'd finish some day, it's been shelved for a while now.
I don't get the complaints over Baldur's Gate II's intro dungeon. Have you played other RPGs tutorial dungeons? BG II's is easily the best in the genre.
I haven't played that many RPGs, but looking back at the ones I've played, I have to concede that you're probably right. Fallout 2's opening dungeon was worse by leagues.
Also, MTW isn't really about winning, its about the journey. I've never completed a long campaign in it, and only a few short ones.
Oh, make no mistake, I enjoy playing the game. I love the time period and I get an abnormal glee from slaughtering the English and Italians and such, but it was the 6-month-per-turn mod that I made that made things boring. Basically, I got tired of fighting battles with the same units, and at the point I was playing, virtually all towns were maxed out defensively with huge walls and ballista towers, so it became a concentrated effort of logistics and maneuvering that took about 10-15 turns to actually siege and claim a settlement. I was just waiting for guns and cannons at that point.
So now I restarted with the Stainless Steel mod, and I'm finding the changes it does really good so I may actually reach guns now.
Eternal Darkness - Okay, please don't lynch me over this one. The thing I love about the game (the atmosphere) is kind of hard to appreciate playing in 20 - 30 minutes bursts in the daylight, which is what almost all of my gaming time is these days. I was away from it for a few months and just couldn't pick it back up properly afterwards with that kind of gimped playtime.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - loved the atmosphere, but ultimately got very bored with the game. If you play it all-out stealth, it's more of a pathfinding puzzler than anything else (which I didn't enjoy). If you just take out everyone in your way, it's easy and boring and got stale about halfway through.
Etrian Odyssey - I ground up, got a good party to the first final boss...and then he did an attack all and killed off 4/5ths of my party before they even had a chance to act. Rather than retire and re-level my guys 70 levels, I said 'fuck it' and started a new game.
Front Mission 3 - Again, got to the very end of the game and just couldn't interest myself in finishing it off. I loved the customization and SRGP combat system, but the story just held NO interest whatsoever.
Vagrant Story - Loved the story. Loved the atmosphere. Loved the characters. Loved the combat system. Crafting made me want to rape whoever designed the game with something jagged and rusty. I shouldn't need to consult a FAQ in eveyr new area to craft a new club/sword/axe/lance to replace my old club/sword/axe/lance to do more than one damage to the new version of a bat or whatever.
Game-breaking glitches - Here's an example: I fell victim to Beyond Good & Evil's notorious "oh noes you ran down that hallway too fast and now one of your partners vanished and you can't operate the final elevator" asshat glitch of doom. Yes, you can seriously lose your ability to finish the game maybe five minutes from the end. After that I had absolutely no desire to play through again. I even collected all the pearls things and took all the pictures and all that crap. Talk about frustrating!
The ridiculous end-boss - This seems to be an RPG thing. That delightful thing where even though all of the game wasn't hard at all, you get to the last boss and they expected you to have just known to grind levels for 7 hours just to be able to complete the game. I'll include the action-game total BS "fight every boss all over again lolz" thing in this category. That sort of crap completely kills any desire to finish the game in even the most determined gamer.
Most of the games I've bought for the Wii thus far.
Red Steel: I feel it didn't deserve all those crappy reviews, but then again, I didn't finish it, so what do I know?
Rayman: I basically just bought it to unlock multiplayer games for my friends. Except, when we all sat down to play it, none of us were interested in much else besides throwing the cow, which got old quickly. So I stopped playing singleplayer and didn't unlock anything else.
Super Paper Mario: I think I got to level 5 or 6. I mean, LITERALLY got to that level, and then didn't play it. I waded through a shit-ton of exposition and dialogue (which wasn't nearly as clever or funny as it could have been), got the heart, went to the door to start the level, and went, "Ehhh, do I actually want to play this?"
GTA San Andreas: Got all the way up to the end, beat the big fat guy, and then Samuel L. Jackson set the building on fire. Most obnoxious mission ever. It's a fucking driving-and-gangbanging game, idiots, not a FPS!
STALKER: Hrm, I took a bullet. Bandage. Okay, let's get some more cover... took another bullet. Bandage. Alright, I took one of these guys out, now to stay behind cover and... winged by a bullet. Bandage. Alright, this is just getting absu... shot again. I'm out of bandages and bleeding to death. Least gratifying 10-second gunfight ever. Gave up after that point.
Escape from Monkey Island: As someone who loved the first three games damn near to death, I was exceptionally disappointed with the fourth. By the time I found myself in a lava field with two parrots doing something or other, I gave up.
Beyond Good and Evil: What everyone else said. I spent most of my time playing that cool air hockey game in the bar.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey: Spent $40 bucks on it only to have the retail upgrade erase my save game from the demo. I'll go back to it one of these days, I swear!
Almost every time I stop playing a game it's because a new, shiny one just came out. I'm deep into RUne Factory and Persona 3 but they'll both fall to the side on Wednesday when Wild Arms 5, DW: Gundam and Metroid 3 come out.
Vagrant Story - Loved the story. Loved the atmosphere. Loved the characters. Loved the combat system. Crafting made me want to rape whoever designed the game with something jagged and rusty. I shouldn't need to consult a FAQ in eveyr new area to craft a new club/sword/axe/lance to replace my old club/sword/axe/lance to do more than one damage to the new version of a bat or whatever.
I also completely misunderstood the combat system the 1st time through, and I don't know anyone who hasn't. I tried to Chain everything to death and eventually endured hour-long boss slugfests. The key is actually switching up equipment to build up either solid elemental or racial affinities.
In my second, fresh, playthrough I designated a weapon for each enemy type and switched as needed. Between the affinity buildup and gems, by the end Ashley could utterly and absolutely destroy all but the strongest enemies with one normal blow and maybe a chained Heavy Shot. My strongest weapon was a mere Rapier -- with 120 Human affinity.
Forging doesn't have as great an effect, though switching grips for more gem slots and coming up with cool weapon names is highly recommended. Seems like forging is most useful for combining built-up equipment to create uber weapons & armor.
Since then, I've also only used a chain or two at a time when attacking, and made extremely frequent use of Break Arts. They cost HP, and that's what held me back from using them until I realized: losing 25-75 HP a shot doesn't matter when you just MASSACRED everything; you're still alive, they're not. Your HP/MP regenerate quickly enough and you can easily heal yourself in safety if you feel the need.
As for myself, I haven't finished the orignial Wild ARMs due to picking it back up after a long time and not knowing what to do next. That's the only one I'm not sure I will ever complete. The rest of my unfinsihed games, have been whittled down through my recent efforts, but I did just buy a handful more to take their place
Ninja Gaiden, sometimes the game is just cheap.
Oblivion, did so many sidequests, I don't feel like finishing the game now.
Jade Empire and Psychonauts, good games, but I don't know why, I just don't feel compelled to play them.
Posts
I kinda got bored with oblivion and spent most of my time installing imba mods. And Mr. Robot, I really want to finish, but haven't had time.
Also X-Com. It was just too hard. I probably sucked because I was a kid but once the super psionic aliens showed up I always got my ass whipped.
Guitar Hero II I suppose. I still haven't beaten Freebird on Expert yet to finish it, but I got bored of the game while having to sit through a 5 minute slow, dumb intro just to get to the hard part.
Yoshi's Island. Its good, but its not Super Mario World good to me. I even liked Yoshi's story better.
Rayman Raving Rabbids. It was fun enough I guess, I just dont like the rayman character. At all.
New Super Mario Bros. After beating the game, I started going back to get all the coins, but you couldnt just save after getting one, you had to get enough to open a path or something in order to save. Also I hold b and run and jump a lot, I always hated how you would sometimes wall jump in the opposite direction when you jump at something. The minigames ruled though.
Silent Hill 2. Early on I couldnt figure out where to go, and as it hadnt really grabbed me, I just stopped playing.
Hotel Dusk. Holding the ds like a book is awkward after more than 10 mins at a time for me. I find the dialogue really corny. The controls could have been streamlined a bit. I love the idea and the amount of freedom it gives you to explore though. I'll get back to this one someday.
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. The underwater frog thing boss is really hard and I dont feel like grinding xp in order to beat him. I dont really like the quests you do for the ghost either. I pine for the days of a single character wandering a castle full of horrors with little or no respite.
Final Fantasy 8. Oh wait, games we liked but didnt finish. Nevermind.
Final Fantasy 9. I loved the first half of the game. Then it all falls apart. I slog through anyway over the course of a few months, and when I finally get somewhere, I find that my final disc is scratched beyond repair. I had bought it new, so I could always bring it back in, but by that point I didnt care.
Zelda, Twilight Princess. I think I'm one of the only ones who hates the wii controls for ZTP. Someday Ill pick up the cube version.
Resident Evil. I never get very far whenever I try and play the original. I'll play through 2 or 4 all day long, I dont understand it.
Viewtiful Joe 2. It plays identical to the first, which I loved, but theres just something about it that made me ambivalent.
Diablo 2. I was addicted to starcraft the entire time everyone else on the planet was playing diablo, so I never played it until a couple months ago. I'm still on act one, I hate the clicking, and I'm crossing my fingers for a DS version, because I love the story and atmosphere of blizzard's games.
Man STALKER was fun but in the end it just started scaring the shit out of me. Goddamn bloodsuckers.
edit: ALSO, Doom 3. Played maybe about 2 hours worth and then I said fuck it this is too scary, haha. God I'm a pussy...well I did beat F.E.A.R. though.
Also, Call of Duty 3...about an hour in I was like...'kay its Cod 1 and 2 with better graphics and cool focus effects when you zoom.
Diablo 2 - You can click and hold to attack, for reduced clicking.
Resident Evil - You have a crush on Leon.
Max Payne - Oh please keep going. It's worth it, just to play the second one with proper backstory. (I liked the dream sequences, I'm a freak)
The only reason I finally did beat it is that my laptop broke and I'm in China, hence my GBA was the only source of gaming I had until just recently when I got a new machine put together.
That game though...christ its long and boring for much of the game, leveling can be stupidly slow and the fights mindless if you know what your doing at all. Maybe if they put in a harder difficulty to give the enemies more levels so things would progress more evenly.
Also, the storyline was just "blah" after a while and didn't interest me much at all.
Sadly, its the only FF titled game I have ever beaten...I can't stand the non-strategy ones and I didn't own a PS 1/2/3 so no FF:T for me.
Half-Life 2: I just...gave up at the end boss battle. I mean, the game was SO GOOD and then...ugh. I couldn't do it.
C&C 3: Too lazy/distracted
I gave up on Ninja Gaiden and FFIV because the bossfights made them boring.
Most just default to "Let's make a single enemy super rediculous!" and it's a boss fight.
Some games might benefit from having some big dramatic event happen, or a large scale city destroying battle against hordes of enemies.
Some might benefit from ending with a wimper instead of a bang.
Zelda: TP: It felt like I'd already played the game before. Yeah, it's pretty, but it's more of the same. At least WW felt like a refreshing change of pace. I couldn't get that far in it. It was good.. I guess.. but not good enough. So I guess this one doesn't really count.
Planescape: Torment: God damn I wanted to play this one so much but the RESOLUTION! I simply couldn't stand it after an hour or so.
System Shock 2: This game just has a scary atmosphere. The graphics are ancient but the sound and lighting achieve enough to make me turn the game off. I barely got through Ravenholm in HL2.. I'm just a horrible coward. It's a shame seeing how good the game is and not being able to force myself to get through it.
Have to agree there. I can't really see what he means about the "end boss battle".
These two don't compute with me.
I mean sure PS:T has low res graphics, but the art style and animation stand up stands up very well even today. SS2 meanwhile you can crank the resolution up to see high res versions of dated characters. Although admittedly I've never used the re-texture / re-model packs so that probably explains it.
Seriously, after a while you'll stop noticing the resolution of PS:T and just get sucked into the game. Plus the spell animations still look cool (of course, that might just be personal bias) even today.
As for games I never completed:
Final Fantasy 6: Enjoyed it, but got near the end and couldn't be bothered with grinding to level up my spells / characters.
Baldur's Gate 1 / 2: I seriously WANT to get back to these some day. Thing is, I don't want to start BG2 without having played BG1 (understandable). But when I start I'll get a fair way through and then suffer a computer problem. Or get an influx of work to do (thereby cutting me off from the game for more than a month and making me want to re-start). As far as I can tell though, it's not due to a lack of interest, which is a darn good thing.
Warrior Within: Started it. Stopped shortly thereafter. Seriously, it's almost as if they were trying to sabotage what made the series unique and interesting back in Sands of Time. The crappy rock music just added insult to injury. I dunno, maybe I shouldn't count it since is about games you liked, but I wasn't expecting that after the first one. I'd heard the rumours, but I just brushed them off with the prospect of more death-defying acrobatics. Maybe I should go back and see if I can't get further, to the real meat of the game where all the cool acrobatics is.
EH, space is where I stopped playing.
I made it through space and ended up stopping at the last level. All it took was a peek at a faq to see how stupidly long I would have to be roaming around that utterly boring looking castle for me to stop. Atleast that's how I remember it.
It was either that, or because the game was boring the shit out of me. :P
http://DocumentingLaziness.blogspot.com/
Sounds interesting...how do they do this, exactly? If only Metal Gear Solid 2/Final Fantasy X-2 did this, I might actually remember the controls whenever I come back to them...a save-game date-checking question like "Do you require a practise?" when you load up again would be great, letting you practise the section you're on without consequence (and maybe slightly easier 'til you get back in the groove).
I actually gave up right at the end of FF VIII, as I hadn't leveled up enough...Ultimecia is a real bitch.
I have no desire to do any of that, ever again. Ever.
Zelda: Wind Waker
I loved everything about the game. But I got up to the point where you had to hunt down all the tri-force pieces, got about three or four of them, and just never went back to finish it. My sister has beaten the game, but I never have.
I really should go back and finish it, I actually liked the treasure hunting in it.
The original metal gear solid did this.
I have beaten 8 though, the two I haven't beaten are 5 and 6. 6 because you have to level your whole team and thats really annoying.
Is that a clever, on-purpose title?
Or did the whole thing just not fit?
If the first :^:, if the second :v:
I did that once. The boss had reflect.
Also, Yuna makes a hell of a lot better Black Mage than Lulu because of her stats. She just has to learn the spells.
Either way it's funny.
I've bought like 5 or 6 games this month, and I haven't finished ANY of them.
... And there's more stuff coming out this week...
Dammit.
Also, Planescape Torment. I got to the point where
Medieval 2: Total War. I was dissatisfied with the "2 years a turn" time progression, thinking it was too fast, so I changed it to 6 months. Shit took too long to happen, but I persevered. I went through 421 turns as France and I still didn't have guns, so I became bored and discontinued my game. I did procure a mod recently that does, among other things, make the time progression a year per turn, which sounds like a fair pace, so I guess I'm gonna finish it soon too.
Also, MTW isn't really about winning, its about the journey. I've never completed a long campaign in it, and only a few short ones.
Suikoden 5: It didn't lure me the same way as Suikoden II(Though I also think I just enjoy RPGs less these days), and while it definitely seems like a good game that I'd finish some day, it's been shelved for a while now.
I haven't played that many RPGs, but looking back at the ones I've played, I have to concede that you're probably right. Fallout 2's opening dungeon was worse by leagues.
Oh, make no mistake, I enjoy playing the game. I love the time period and I get an abnormal glee from slaughtering the English and Italians and such, but it was the 6-month-per-turn mod that I made that made things boring. Basically, I got tired of fighting battles with the same units, and at the point I was playing, virtually all towns were maxed out defensively with huge walls and ballista towers, so it became a concentrated effort of logistics and maneuvering that took about 10-15 turns to actually siege and claim a settlement. I was just waiting for guns and cannons at that point.
So now I restarted with the Stainless Steel mod, and I'm finding the changes it does really good so I may actually reach guns now.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - loved the atmosphere, but ultimately got very bored with the game. If you play it all-out stealth, it's more of a pathfinding puzzler than anything else (which I didn't enjoy). If you just take out everyone in your way, it's easy and boring and got stale about halfway through.
Etrian Odyssey - I ground up, got a good party to the first final boss...and then he did an attack all and killed off 4/5ths of my party before they even had a chance to act. Rather than retire and re-level my guys 70 levels, I said 'fuck it' and started a new game.
Front Mission 3 - Again, got to the very end of the game and just couldn't interest myself in finishing it off. I loved the customization and SRGP combat system, but the story just held NO interest whatsoever.
Vagrant Story - Loved the story. Loved the atmosphere. Loved the characters. Loved the combat system. Crafting made me want to rape whoever designed the game with something jagged and rusty. I shouldn't need to consult a FAQ in eveyr new area to craft a new club/sword/axe/lance to replace my old club/sword/axe/lance to do more than one damage to the new version of a bat or whatever.
Me too. I got fairly far in to it then I got distracted by other games and never felt the urge to go back.
It's a nifty game but there's something about it that makes me not want to keep playing it.
Game-breaking glitches - Here's an example: I fell victim to Beyond Good & Evil's notorious "oh noes you ran down that hallway too fast and now one of your partners vanished and you can't operate the final elevator" asshat glitch of doom. Yes, you can seriously lose your ability to finish the game maybe five minutes from the end. After that I had absolutely no desire to play through again. I even collected all the pearls things and took all the pictures and all that crap. Talk about frustrating!
The ridiculous end-boss - This seems to be an RPG thing. That delightful thing where even though all of the game wasn't hard at all, you get to the last boss and they expected you to have just known to grind levels for 7 hours just to be able to complete the game. I'll include the action-game total BS "fight every boss all over again lolz" thing in this category. That sort of crap completely kills any desire to finish the game in even the most determined gamer.
Red Steel: I feel it didn't deserve all those crappy reviews, but then again, I didn't finish it, so what do I know?
Rayman: I basically just bought it to unlock multiplayer games for my friends. Except, when we all sat down to play it, none of us were interested in much else besides throwing the cow, which got old quickly. So I stopped playing singleplayer and didn't unlock anything else.
Super Paper Mario: I think I got to level 5 or 6. I mean, LITERALLY got to that level, and then didn't play it. I waded through a shit-ton of exposition and dialogue (which wasn't nearly as clever or funny as it could have been), got the heart, went to the door to start the level, and went, "Ehhh, do I actually want to play this?"
GTA San Andreas: Got all the way up to the end, beat the big fat guy, and then Samuel L. Jackson set the building on fire. Most obnoxious mission ever. It's a fucking driving-and-gangbanging game, idiots, not a FPS!
STALKER: Hrm, I took a bullet. Bandage. Okay, let's get some more cover... took another bullet. Bandage. Alright, I took one of these guys out, now to stay behind cover and... winged by a bullet. Bandage. Alright, this is just getting absu... shot again. I'm out of bandages and bleeding to death. Least gratifying 10-second gunfight ever. Gave up after that point.
Escape from Monkey Island: As someone who loved the first three games damn near to death, I was exceptionally disappointed with the fourth. By the time I found myself in a lava field with two parrots doing something or other, I gave up.
Beyond Good and Evil: What everyone else said. I spent most of my time playing that cool air hockey game in the bar.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey: Spent $40 bucks on it only to have the retail upgrade erase my save game from the demo. I'll go back to it one of these days, I swear!
But I am currently well on the way to clearing up that particular blemish on my record.
PSN: TheSuperVillain
I also completely misunderstood the combat system the 1st time through, and I don't know anyone who hasn't. I tried to Chain everything to death and eventually endured hour-long boss slugfests. The key is actually switching up equipment to build up either solid elemental or racial affinities.
In my second, fresh, playthrough I designated a weapon for each enemy type and switched as needed. Between the affinity buildup and gems, by the end Ashley could utterly and absolutely destroy all but the strongest enemies with one normal blow and maybe a chained Heavy Shot. My strongest weapon was a mere Rapier -- with 120 Human affinity.
Forging doesn't have as great an effect, though switching grips for more gem slots and coming up with cool weapon names is highly recommended. Seems like forging is most useful for combining built-up equipment to create uber weapons & armor.
Since then, I've also only used a chain or two at a time when attacking, and made extremely frequent use of Break Arts. They cost HP, and that's what held me back from using them until I realized: losing 25-75 HP a shot doesn't matter when you just MASSACRED everything; you're still alive, they're not. Your HP/MP regenerate quickly enough and you can easily heal yourself in safety if you feel the need.
As for myself, I haven't finished the orignial Wild ARMs due to picking it back up after a long time and not knowing what to do next. That's the only one I'm not sure I will ever complete. The rest of my unfinsihed games, have been whittled down through my recent efforts, but I did just buy a handful more to take their place
PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
Oblivion, did so many sidequests, I don't feel like finishing the game now.
Jade Empire and Psychonauts, good games, but I don't know why, I just don't feel compelled to play them.
Also, awesome thread title.
Pokémon HGSS: 1205 1613 4041