Games You Had to Force Yourself to Finish

[NeutralDrow]

Generally, when I find I'm forcing myself to play a game, it's because I need to take a break and come back in a month or so. Which happens for most very long games that aren't Tales of Symphonia or Devil May Cry 3-level gripping, and happens regardless of their overall quality (I love Tales of the Abyss, Skyrim, and the like, but I haven't finished them to date), so I don't hold it against them.

Sometimes, though, I have to force myself to play a game because it's just not clicking and there's an outside reason I have to finish. Dark Souls was like that, just flat-out refusing to engage me or let me get immersed, to the point where I hated the world but had to finish out of pride ("it's not too difficult for me") and passive-aggressiveness ("surely there's an ending that will let me destroy the world").

Spoiler

Glad I did, though, because while there was no "destroy the world" ending, what I got was the only time I was ever engaged by the story. And the combat was always pretty fun.

Also...

Spec Ops: The Line. After seeing it praised all across the board I forced myself through its horrible combat, ugly scenery and pretentious tone to see what was so great about the ending.

Turns out it was nothing at all, and I just wasted my goddamn time. Thank god I bought the damn thing on Steam sale.

Weird thing for me was that I actually enjoyed the combat and didn't mind the scenery. The sarcastic tone of the game more than made up for that. Playing that story felt like being trolled by someone who wasn't interested in your opinion and was nowhere near as smart as they thought they were, and I finished it again based on pure passive-aggression. So I totally sympathize with you on the "waste of goddamn time" part. I feel fortunate that I got it for free with a friend's spare Steam code.

 

[Blinkmage]

Dragon Age Origins. I hit that last part where the game just throws a billion darkspawn at you and got so sick of fighting that I just turned it down to easy and fireballed everything to death. Didn't help I was running it on my toaster laptop and that many enemies brought it down to a crawl. Had to push through though cuz darn it I wanna find out what happens at the end!

 

[Ihateregistering1]

The 'Shadow Warrior' reboot.

At the beginning I loved the game, and one of the big reasons why is because it felt like it was constantly introducing new weapons and monsters to you, so you always had something to look forward to.

However, in the game's final act (once you get to the mountain fortress) the game just seems to drag on forever without introducing any new elements. Every time you think your almost near the end, the game will drop you into some new random dungeon or the big baddy will get away and you'll have to chase him for another 2 hours. Got very old.

 

[Evonisia]

I had to force myself to finish Dead Space. I played it last Friday/Saturday and I don't see why it's called good horror. I felt like I was playing an inferior version of Resident Evil 4 in an inferior setting of Aliens. I did like part of it (the zero-gravity bits especially) but I could summaries it by saying "When it's not annoying, it's boring". The reason I finished it was because I wanted to give it a fair chance, and it didn't grip me.

 

[Hazy]

Resident Evil 5.

Holy shit, fuuuuck that game. Absolutely terrible. Terrible design, terrible AI, terrible levels, terrible everything.

 

[babinro]

I'm sure there are a TON of games I could list growing up. Though ever since Gamecube generation and later I was finally able to adapt the mentality that I don't need to force myself through a video game. So the following are some games I WOULD have forced myself through if I didn't grow out of that phase:
- GTA4
- Zelda: Skyward Sword (I want to experience the story I just can't deal with the broken control. I'm sure I'll let's play it eventually)
- L.A. Noire
- Torchlight 2
- Skyrim (more refering to the guilds here since I actually pushed myself to complete the main quest)
- FF 13-2

 

[Ryan Minns]

Final Fantasy XIII... wait no, I couldn't bring myself to bother putting that back on

Let me think... Gears of War 1 & 2. I can't think of a single moment where I even had a single bit of enjoyment from them, I can't remember why I forced myself to suffer those games but I wasn't going to suffer a third time with number 3

 

[Knocker]

Assassin's Creed 3. Oh wait, i haven't finished it yet. Every time i play it, i get uncontrollably sleepy for some reason.

 

[Racecarlock]

Mafia II. I just HAD to find out why so many people wanted it's features in GTA V. It didn't convince me, by the way. Luckily it didn't convince rockstar either. And thank god, because a fuel system would have sucked in the game.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 2. After LOVING the original games I was so angry and disappointed with the changes I had to force myself to finish them, telling myself the story could still be worth it.

 

[PortalThinker113]

-Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Assassin's Creed III.

I used to love the series- I really enjoyed 1 and absolutely loved 2. Brotherhood was a step down from 2, but a mechanically fun game nonetheless. But Revelations and III... Ugh. I finished those two out of a sense of obligation- I paid $60 for both of them and felt as though I had to get to the end so that I could see the whole story. Maybe there would be some sort of payoff to the slog I was forcing myself through! By the time I reached III's horrible, slapdash, rushed ending, I officially swore off the series for good. Black Flag is the first AC game that I will not be buying.

-Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

I dearly, dearly adore all the Mario RPGs. Sticker Star was one of my most anticipated games for the 3DS since it was first announced. I was hoping for some classic Paper Mario witty humor and interesting characters, but what I got was a broken, boring combat system and a story that consisted of moving from point A to point B without so much as two new characters with any interesting dialogue. I finished the game and was still waiting for the actual Paper Mario part to kick in. After a truly terrible final boss, I filed the game away as one of the biggest disappointments that I've had in a while. Unlike AC, however, I still plan on playing future Mario RPGs (haven't gotten around to Dream Team yet, but it looks good).

 

[Hugh Wright]

All the Dead Space games. The world was wonderful, the asthetics, the weapons, the fact you had to think about where you shoot. Pity the pacing was terrible, the characters wooden, and the story rushed yet over long

 

[Lunar Templar]

Dragon Age: Origin

just kinda lost my some where a long the line and put it down for 6 months or so before saying fuck it, might as well finish it, and was then quickly reminded WHY i'd stopped playing to begin with but at that point I was committed to finishing it.

end result? no more bioware games ever. DO:O wasn't the 'last straw' but it was kind of a micro cosom of the problem all bioware games have in that they are BORING AS FUCK, and the choices, really don't matter past the first 5 minutes after making it.

 

[kidd25]

Dead island was the worse. I am going to try again with mods, but the characters, setting and story. Was my main gripes.

 

[LegendaryVKickr]

Skyward Sword. I only made myself finish it because, "it's a Zelda game, it'll get better right?" It proceeded to get worse every time I thought that.

The controls weren't the issue for me. It was bad game design, tons of padding, repeated boss fights, annoying characters, lack of proper exploration for a game that is supposed to emphasize and reward exploration, underwhelming lack of new environments, and poor graphics disguised as "artistic".

 

[VodkaKnight]

I'm not sure if this counts, but World of bloody Warcraft.
I started it, and by the time I got to level 30 I was sick of the whole thing.
The endless grind, the repetitive quests, the awful writing, the awful characters, the fact there was no real story up to the start of the Burning Legion quests, the community is awful as well, the unbalanced and boring PVP, and above all, the dungeons are the quickest way to level up to 60, and then they are no longer viable as a way of leveling. You need to quest if you go past level 60, and if you do mostly dungeons questing is like jumping into the deep end of the pool when you can barely swim.

 

[JagermanXcell]

- Zelda: Skyward Sword (I want to experience the story I just can't deal with the broken control. I'm sure I'll let's play it eventually)

You are the one who's probably broken, because Skyward Sword controls are extremly well done. You just have to adjust to it.
If you don't like the controls, say it that way, because the problem isn't with them, it's with you.

The motion controls for Skyward Sword have a 98% successful response rate, due to sensor adjustment/possible internal wiimote issues. Whereas controls with simple button configuration, unless the control itself is broken, guarantees 100% response. Yes, Skyward Swords' controls work most of the time, but "most of the time" isn't good enough.

He's bringing up a legitimate complaint with the game, no need to call him broken for it.

OT:
Bioshock, same reason as everyone else, I can see what all the buzz was about but my god it got so boring after Ryan.

One I had to share the forceful experience with was Resident Evil 5. Me and my cousin bought it, thinking all the negative things said about it would be completely wiped away by an at least fun co-op feature.
We were wrong.
We had finished it in less then 2 days, a lot of our sanity slipped, had some laughs until that damn Jill fight... but thats ok cause now I never have to experience such garbage ever again.

 

[Seracen]

Every Final Fantasy since X (some of which I am still struggling through). Shinobi (PS2), I dropped it's sequel, Kunoichi, after one particularly stupid boss fight.

Advent Rising (XBOX), New Legends (XBOX), Bioshock 2.

I would say Skyrim and Fallout 3, but that's more because there was so much to do, I'd get stuck sidequesting ad infinitum, and eventually move away for a while (to play other games) before returning.