Games that are popular and loved, but that you can't understand why.

[Entropyutd]

The whole Halo series, mediocre shooters at best.

In response to the World of Warcraft comments, The game itself has two levels of play, The mediocre grinding part in which you level, which quite honestly must put off a lot of people, and then the endgame raiding, which is where the game truely shines.

I think the main reason is despite updates, the initial leveling system is still 5 years old, Blizzard have made efforts to make the task of leveling less arduous, but it still remains a chore.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

Halo

Just annoying how terrible it is, and it's still popular.

I completely agree. I finally got round to playing it and was shocked and appalled to see what a mediocre FPS it actually is. I'm sorry but do Xbox owners not have standards?

I'll also throw in Final Fantasy 12 for its awful plot,dialogue,characters,gameplay and to an extent graphics yet it has a plethora of supporters. Why is this!?!?

 

[Davrel]

TF2 - tried several times go get into it and found nothing, nothing enjoyable about the experience. It even looks ugly.

No - I'm not trying to troll people, this is how I feel.

Of course it looks ugly, that's the point of it.

I'm not entirely sure whether or not that was meant as sarcasm. If it was meant to look ugly, then I fail to see why; Note, I'm not complaining about the fact that it doesn't look photo-realistic, just that its artistic direction fails to appeal to me in any way.

 

[FightThePower]

The entire Final Fantasy series.

Fuck it, every popular RPG ever. Except Pokemon, that I mildly enjoy.

 

[Iceburg116]

I never liked Chrono Trigger.
The battle was too dry for me, grinding like I do (20+ levels what most people are normally at) took a LOT away from the game's "fun factor", and it just didn't give me the 'Wow' that most people are spooging over.
I have friends telling me to keep playing, that it'll pick it up at the next turn, I'll feel that static awesome in the next fight, that greatess will hit me like a watermelon wrapped with a goldbrick in a bedsheet at the next--
Yeah, no. I just don't like it, and can't see why everyone else does.

But, there was no grinding in Chrono Trigger. It was so easy that you could go the entire game without grinding.

There was if you did it. Which I did.
I'm compelled to grind, whether the game is easy or not. The fact that it was too simple made it that much less interesting.
I've grinded until I had Lavtiz's last Addition attack in Legend of Dragoon, /before/ he died. I wasted days, almost weeks, in Baten Kaitos just edging my characters up enough for the final battle. To a point where I took almost no (noticeable) damage.
Battles make RPGs, and when you take that away from a game like Chrono Trigger, I'm left with choices without motivation.

-Aside from that, your statement of "But there was no grinding" isn't the only thing I found uninteresting with the game.
Just my opinion, man.

 

[Bruce Edwards]

I *was* going to say Halo, but I can understand why an audience that had never encountered FPS games before would be blown away by it.

No, games I can't understand the success of would be:

a) Gears of War. This is fun? Hiding behind chest high walls in a dirty grey environment, shooting thousands of rounds of ammo into dirty grey enemies? Repeatedly? Maybe the multiplayer made the game. I dunno.

b) GTA4, GTA Vice City, and I assume any game after these two. Really, really, really tried to get into them. Lasted longer in Vice City simply because I liked the soundtrack. Never really got into them. Not RPG-enough to be good in that respect, and the action was to sloppy and inaccurate to be bad at that too. I guess sandbox gameplay (without fantasy trappings) was such a huge novelty it overcame the terrible parts of the game for most people.

c) Bioshock. Great, polished delivery that really impressed me for about an hour. Until I realised I was insufferibly bored by it. Probably because all of the Splicers looked like comic book characters - they were simply too exagerated to take seriously as a threat. And the respawn chambers had a habit of turning the game into some kind of demented repetitive suicide run until you had cleared an area by brute force. Neat theme and subtext, but I was surprised this didn't get dumped down to 'cult hit'.

d) All JRPG's. Ever. God, I hate every aspect of those damnable games. Why do people buy them? I don't understand. GET A HAIRCUT AND EAT A STEAK. Sorry. Reflex.

Anyway, I've had friends tell me that the games I love (Fallout 3, COD4:MW, Half-Life 2) are terrible as well. When it comes to games, taste - it seems - is *extremely* subjective.

 

[Pirce]

I *was* going to say Halo, but I can understand why an audience that had never encountered FPS games before would be blown away by it.

No, games I can't understand the success of would be:

a) Gears of War. This is fun? Hiding behind chest high walls in a dirty grey environment, shooting thousands of rounds of ammo into dirty grey enemies? Repeatedly? Maybe the multiplayer made the game. I dunno.

b) GTA4, GTA Vice City, and I assume any game after these two. Really, really, really tried to get into them. Lasted longer in Vice City simply because I liked the soundtrack. Never really got into them. Not RPG-enough to be good in that respect, and the action was to sloppy and inaccurate to be bad at that too. I guess sandbox gameplay (without fantasy trappings) was such a huge novelty it overcame the terrible parts of the game for most people.

c) Bioshock. Great, polished delivery that really impressed me for about an hour. Until I realised I was insufferibly bored by it. Probably because all of the Splicers looked like comic book characters - they were simply too exagerated to take seriously as a threat. And the respawn chambers had a habit of turning the game into some kind of demented repetitive suicide run until you had cleared an area by brute force. Neat theme and subtext, but I was surprised this didn't get dumped down to 'cult hit'.

d) All JRPG's. Ever. God, I hate every aspect of those damnable games. Why do people buy them? I don't understand. GET A HAIRCUT AND EAT A STEAK. Sorry. Reflex.

Anyway, I've had friends tell me that the games I love (Fallout 3, COD4:MW, Half-Life 2) are terrible as well. When it comes to games, taste - it seems - is *extremely* subjective.

I want you to find those friends that questioned Half-Life 2, I want you to get out a physics book, and then I want you to SCREAM THAT BOOK AT THEM!

 

[Legion IV]

Hald life 2 and GTA4 those games put me to sleep and are just so boring.

 

[AtticusSP]

Kingdom Hearts.
Well, not the first game, but all the games after it.

Actually, I'm kinda lying. I know why it's popular. OMG ROXUSxAXEL IS SO KAWAII!! <3 <3 <3 MY OTP.

I miss the first game, with the floppy clown shoes and the only real storyline being DARKNESS and CLOSE THOSE KEYHOLES.

 

[sylekage]

I would have to say Fallout, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, RPG's in general, or Heavy Rain. I've tried a lot of games, but I just can't seem to figure out what the big deal is out of these. And heavy rain is like one big movie.

 

[Marv21]

MW2, Campaign was solid, I heavily enjoyed it and then the online play totally butt raped me, its like torture. You get decent gear etc. to start with I guess but those who kick ass's power are augmented by how much XP they have and they totally decimate the average player making him feeling angry and frustrated yet compelled to get the same gear as he is. Flawed idea for online play IMO...if you are going to give more gear to people who play more, than bracket them please otherwise its just alienating players who are giving the game and try.

 

[Sylocat]

Gee, this topic hasn't been done to death in ten gazillion other identical threads at all...

Ah well, I never miss an opportunity to bash Zynga and all its crappy knock-offs of better games... on the other hand, I DO understand why they're so popular and loved: They spam ads for their crappy games like mad, over and over again.

 

[orangeapples]

every games "WOW" factor is a matter of timing. When it is new and everyone is saying, "This game is awesome because __________." People who played it when it was WOW will always remember the WOW, but people who played much after won't get it.

People who played Ocarina of Time when it was new will always remember it, but if someone new to the game decides to play it they won't get the same feeling. many have even said that Twilight Princess is better than Ocarina of Time because it is by all means better. However, saying it is not as good as Ocarina of Time is also true because Ocarina had such a high WOW factor.

 

[Auric]

MW2.

Maybe its cause i only played it for like 3 days during the free weekend, but its annoyingly unfun and infuriating in comparison to just about every FPS ive played.

Annoying 1 hit kill knives, getting RPGed randomly, hit by missles, planes, choppers, the list goes on.

Also oblivion, i love the game myself, but only in hindsight to a recognize how boring it was. A stupidly flawed leveling system, pretty much battling the same 5 enemies over and over again, and the repetitiveness of closing oblivion gate after oblivion gate.

 

[Chris Dempsey]

Should I be glad or sad that I never saw EVE Online on this list? Heh.

I won't add to the pile of anti-game opinions in this thread; its got enough of it as it is. Games are made for various demographics, and game companies usually know which one their aiming for; if you make the perfect game for that party, then your making money and who cares how crappy its conceived to be?

But it does make me sad when developers don't fully explore the ideas they present in their games; Modern Warfare's campaign was fun, but not as long as it could be. It also makes be sad that the RTS genre is going the same way as first person shooter games: quicker, faster paced, and not as worked on as the earlier games (see C&C4), making the new genre I've been naming as the Streamlined RTS (SRTS) games coming out. They are not bad games; but on average, they are putting your clicking speed and effects over your intellectual ability, and are generally less quality than many other games.