Games you just...stopped playing

[Easton Dark]

Duke Nukem Forever.

It was just so painfully... eugh. I've been in the construction yard outside the Duke Dome for months.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Vanquish. Once I got to the boss fight with the two guys flying around, and my suit overheating so much, I just quit the game and never went back.

Also, Zelda Link's Awakening. I'm in the dungeon where you need to break pillars with this orb, after dropping the ball down the holes a few times and falling down the holes myself, I decided to take a break, then I got distracted with Pokemon White 2, then Gravity Rush, then Uncharted... ummm, I intend to finish it.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Dark Souls.

I was completely engrossed for 100+ hours, and I've barely touched it for months. No idea why, cuz it's still engrossing, just a big change of mood I suppose. Ho hum.

 

[strumbore]

I normally play my games through once
and never touch them again.
I've replayed every one of my Uncharted
games multiple times though.
In fact, I'm 1/3 through Uncharted I
again right now (not NOW right now...).

I never finished Far Cry 3, though.

I know I claimed on a column comment I did.

I lied.

I went on Youtube and watched another guy
play the rest of it.

I liked the game a lot, but spent too much time
running through the jungle trying to get strong
enough to access new territory without getting
blown away or eaten by something insidious.

I knew it was a promising game from the story
and characters though, so I watched another guy
play it to the end online.
It looks awesome. I'll rent it again soon and
stick to the story. The character animation is
incredible, even if they all act like they just
snorted a barrel of coke.

 

[Kamukazi]

Im actually on a mission to try and complete Pokemon Soulsilver's Pokedex, and have hence gone and bought pearl and black, so i've been keeping busy with them at the moment

with around 280 hours clocked on soulsilver i now have a backlog of a dozen or so games that i have not yet played or finished, including L.A. Noire, RES 6, Dead Island, Shadows of the Damned, Enslaved, Far Cry 3, Infamous 2 and the Prince of Persia HD collection. Oh and AC3 and Hitman Absolution

Its safe to say that i dont get much done even with a lot of time on my hands

 

[Olas]

Bioshock, I know it's supposed to be like the greatest game of this generation but it just comes across as an awkward and poorly designed FPS with a great story that's told mostly in sound recordings. I got past the part where I had to cure the plants and when I realized I was just fighting even more splicers in a slightly different environment I sorta gave up.

Skyward Sword, I never got into it very much. The whole game just feels like one long boring dungeon with none of the classic Zelda overworld fun that I enjoyed so much in the others. So eventually I just stopped playing. I really hope the Zelda series doesn't continue in this irection.

 

[Nomadiac]

Skyrim. I got it when it first came out, and I logged about 150 hours on it in two months - but eventually I realised that I wasn't actually enjoying it anymore, so I just uninstalled it and haven't touched it since.
I often do the same for ridiculously addictive and time-consuming games - I binge on them for a few weeks, then realise how much time I'm spending on them and just stop playing them. Another example would be Crusader Kings II - but I actually loved playing it, and I'm looking to get back into it again.

 

[piinyouri]

Tokyo Jungle
Holy fuck is that game trollbait. Just when you're having fun, some bullshit will happen and goodbye 2 hours of work with nothing to show for it. I had unlocked almost all the herbivores, was stuck trying to get the Hippo. The Hippos are BULLSHIT. Like, no hippo would move that damn fast, and get this, any other hippo you find in the game? Not hard to kill, not that fast. These hippos (a whole herd, which you have to kill in order to unlock them) are stupidly fast and strong. And you have to do this with a bull/cow, not sure which. Whatever it was, you were grossly outmatched. After the thirteenth time trying and dying on those bastards, I calmly opened the save data on my PS3's dashboard and deleted my Toyko Jungle save data and haven't played it since. Thank god.

Also the first time I was going through Final Fantasy X I pretty much breezed through it as I recall. Never died once.
Got to Jecht, died.
Never finished the game.
I wasn't actually upset, it just for whatever reason killed all my motivation.

 

[Rush Syks]

The Last Remnant, the technical issues were unreal and I stopped after reaching disc 2, to be fair, the boss fights were bloody brilliant.

Get it on PC, it's waaay better there. [footnote]Since I decided to run with a TLR Name and Avatar, I am obliged to say this [/footnote]

Anyway, for me Two Worlds II comes to mind. I liked the graphics and didn't mind the horrible voice-acting, but I lost my drive during the second island anyway. I think I got DE:HR and never really came back.

 

[JemothSkarii]

Agarest: Generations of War: I LOVED the story and idea behind it, and I loved the combat in games like Disgaea and FF:TA, but the combat in this one was just...tedious.

Ni No Kuni: Have a compulsion to grind, the grinding gets boring, don't feel like I've grinded enough for the next area...vicious cycle.

Hitman: Absolution: I...think I'm getting annoyed at some level...I don't remember.

 

[The_Echo]

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal.

I played it for a few hours... and then... never put it in again. This was months ago; I think I got the HD Collection pretty soon after its release. I think it's because I had a different game, but I didn't go back ever. The whole... mission-oriented gameplay kind of turned me off.

I also recently stopped Devil May Cry a few weeks ago because Nightmare can eat shit and I wanted to play Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. I'll get back to it, though.

Tokyo Jungle
Holy fuck is that game trollbait. Just when you're having fun, some bullshit will happen and goodbye 2 hours of work with nothing to show for it. I had unlocked almost all the herbivores, was stuck trying to get the Hippo. The Hippos are BULLSHIT. Like, no hippo would move that damn fast, and get this, any other hippo you find in the game? Not hard to kill, not that fast. These hippos (a whole herd, which you have to kill in order to unlock them) are stupidly fast and strong. And you have to do this with a bull/cow, not sure which. Whatever it was, you were grossly outmatched. After the thirteenth time trying and dying on those bastards, I calmly opened the save data on my PS3's dashboard and deleted my Toyko Jungle save data and haven't played it since. Thank god.

Why would you delete your save? That's a lot of work just thrown out the window.

And you could have just... run through a few good generations to buff your stats?

 

[Mullac]

Red Dead Redemption.

I was playing it at the same time as my brother and he finished it before me. He then told me how bad the ending and overall game was so I just stopped playing, I had better games on my backlog. I don't normally stop playing games, wanting to see them through 'til to end but boy-O-boy was RDR just plain...meh...

 

[Gmans uncle]

I've got 2 for ya, both of which were given to me for X-mas 2012...

- Assassin's Creed III
I actually really liked most of the directions Ubisoft took with this game, but I was just havin' one of the nights where I wanted to play an old-school game instead of the latest tripple-A juggernaut, so I poped in Paper Mario on N46 again, played it through to the end; then I bought Infamous 2, played that; then I decided to buy Mass Effect 3 on Amazon and wanted to play the other games again to have a new sheppard ready; plus during all this I'm deep into college so this is like all across 2 months here... I just never got back around to playing it.
Maybe after I finish a few playthoughs of ME3 (which I am LOVING by the way) I'll get back into it, or start all over, whatever I feel like at the time I guess.

- Epic Mickey 2
This one I really loved... at first... then it slowly lost it's charm and by the time I was around half-way through it was just kinda... meh. This is really sad for me 'cause I loved the original Epic Mickey (I actually own a T-shirt that I wear all the time) but this just one was just... missing something, I don't know but it just couldn't keep me playing...

 

[Cookiegerard]

Far Cry 3
- I love the game, but there is a bit near the end (possible spoilers, maybe) where you have to defend a guy fixing a plane while waves of enemies charge and attack. The plane got fixed and then maybe three heavies just showed up and before I could do anything killed the guy I was babysitting. I admit I got annoyed and walked away from the game. I keep meaning to go back and finish the game but...meh...

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood
- I guess it is kind of my own fault for this one. I read the book before I finished the game. I got so annoyed that there is one guy you spend maybe two hours trying to kill, you get to kill him, and then your character basically goes "derp, better let him live". Again, went fuck this mode and went to go play a different game. I really want to finish the game, but I find it is the type of game that you need to be able to play well at that stage of the game, and it has been so long that I honestly can't remember how to play it anymore.

 

[blackrave]

GTAIV. It's actually now my least favourite game of all time. I only got two hours into it, and I gave up because the controls were terrible, the game world was bland and awful, and I wanted nothing more than to punch every character in the face. I still have it, it's just uninstalled. Maybe one day I'll try it out again, but I don't see that happening for a long time.

I always finish my games otherwise. Games are so expensive here that you really need to put effort into them to make the purchase worth it. Otherwise all I feel is crushing guilt.

^THIS^

So much this
I really wanted to like GTA4, I expected it
GTA:SA was awesome, so I was hyped for next GTA
And then it happened- DRM was first thing that made me scratch my head (THAT f@#$ing social club and MS live)
But I got past that, it is the game I'm for after all, right?
WRONG!!! The game was boring and I couldn't care less about story and characters.
Also technical issues were not helping. PC version was unoptimized and mouse was unresponsive as shit (no amount if .ini tweaking could fix that).
I got to the second apartment and I just stopped :/

 

[Baron Tanks]

Let me come out of the gate with stating that I possess a lethal combination of being a completionist and a bit of a cheapskate, which results in me sometimes finding myself playing games beyond enjoyment. However, there is one game that prominently comes to mind.

Halo Wars. I got this at some point last year, due to a friend playing it and I felt like giving it a go. I went in with low expectations, just a RTS with dumbed down mechanics to make it work with a controller, with a Halo skin tacked on to give it some mass market appeal. I actually suffered through the RTS mechanics in Brütal Legend, so I knew this couldn't possibly be worse. Now the game didn't do anything wrong exactly, but despite the cutscenes which were enjoyable enough, after 3 or 4 missions I couldn't go on. Technically the game was sound enough (apart from the inexcusable framerate drops when things got too busy on screen, seriously, you're developing for a single platform, what IS your excuse), but it all just felt so run of the mill and uninspired, I couldn't bare to go on.

Another one that comes to mind, but doesn't really count because it's by now a yearly sports game, is F1 2012. As a huge fan of the sport, I spent way too much time on the 2010 and 2011 editions combined, but by the time 2012 came around, I can't make myself play it anymore. Haven't even finished one season in career, hardly any online play. I guess I'll never know if it's the fault of the game or I just played too much of this franchise in the past two years...

 

[Vancleef]

Metro 2033: Not a bad game by any means. 6-7 hours in I just lost interest.

Guild Wars 2: After playing Engineer for 180 hours, I realized the class was very underpowered and lacked synergy, is still quite broken and wasn't that fun anymore.
I want to get into the game again, but the little group we had at the game launch has dispersed, and I absolutely loath playing mmo's on my own.

 

[jollybarracuda]

Far Cry 3, actually. I think its an absolutely brilliant game, one of the best this year, but i just...stopped playing. Maybe i just stopped being in the mood for a shooter like that, but its been like 2 months since i've really played a lot of it.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

I cut off DA:O right at the beginning of the final chapter and ME1 somewhere after the holo-talk with Harbi. I just have no idea what people see in Bioware's writing in general and characters especially.

Actually I also stopped playing Far Cry 3 because of the story and characters. Even the Vaas cutscenes got dull when it became the recipe of "he plays the volatile abusive husband for a few lines of dialogue and then proves to be as capable as Team Rocket trying to kill you".

Dishonored also felt so... devoid of heart? That I just stopped somewhere after ~*the twist*~. There was a lot of effort put into it, but I never got invested in anything of it. It all seemed so streamlined and mechanical and even wooden beneath the hood.

 

[Woodsey]

LA Noire, because it's utter shit. Any critic who made some bold claim about this being the future of game storytelling or writing or acting should find another job.