Games you want to get into but can't

[Lazy]

I haven't played the first one due to the time limits that are constantly imposed on you.

There's only the one time limit, really. After you get the water purifier you've got as much time as you want.

Besides, the second has a time limit too, you know.

 

[mitchell271]

Mass Effect.

All the right things are there. A sprawling Bioware Sci-fi RPG, it should be exactly my sort of game.

For some reason, however, it just falls flat.

I get that. Took me 3 separate occasions to get into the game but once I got past the first couple of hours, it sucked me in. It's now one of my favourite games.

OT: Skyrim. Despite dropping 12 hours into that game (mostly due to peer pressure), I just can't get into that game. The combat feels clunky and the story is one we've seen the likes of tons of times before. World is nice though.

 

[Duck Soup]

Dishonored. I hadn't actually heard of it before i came out, but it pickled my fancy. And with all the gushing reviews, I decided to dive in. But no. I just can't get into the game. Part of it is the entire "here's a person you've just met. You don't know anything about her, either as a ruler or as a person. But we say you're her lover, so remember that you care about her deeply. Now she dies!" setup. I seriously don't feel Corvo's motivation.

This is me, too. I expected to love Dishonored because I usually love stealth games but I just can't get into it. For me it's more the lack of instruction, I think. Like, I know I'm supposed to be doing something but I have no idea what and I don't have a journal or anything to tell me my objectives and on top of that I have no clue how to use any of my weird power things and there's no way to look it up (in game). And how am I supposed to know who is going to attack me on sight and who isn't? Things aren't very clear in that game. In my opinion.

 

[Semudara]

Chrono Trigger.

Is it just me, or has that game not aged very well? The music, particularly, has a very dated feel to it. The themes themselves are great, but the way they sound is just very distracting to me.

Also, the plot progresses soooooooooo graaaaaadualllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy. Even the most obvious, predictable set-ups take forever and a half before reaching a sudden, yet disappointing pay-off. It makes it feel like the game is just trying to drag itself out for no reason, which makes it really difficult to stay invested.

I really did want to like it. I enjoy classic RPGs and I thought the DS remake was a foolproof investment, but everything that's supposed to be great about the game (the time travel, the story, the characters, the battle system, the "twists") have just fallen flat for me. C'est la vie, I suppose.

 

[Semudara]

Pokemon

I've been trying to get into the Pokemon games for ages, but I never can. They are too grindy, I feel constantly torn between an OCD desire to gather all the pokemon and the dislike for the fact that I'll be benching most of them. And all the starter pokemon are lame, except for the first gen, and even then the starters are just OKish. And did I mention all the grind? I like the concept of the games, I like the pokemon themselves and it all honestly seem like something I'd enjoy, but somehow I get bored with it very fast.

Yeah, I love the Pokemon series, but there are two things you really need in order to enjoy it:

- You have to enjoy the grind, at least a little bit. Something about that level-up chime, and of course getting to see my Pokemon literally transform into stronger forms and learn better moves, is quite satisfying for me.

- Friends who play it. This is the most important thing. See, the Pokemon games have always been a social experience at their core. If you just play it solo, then it's basically the most boring RPG in existence. Sharing the experience with friends is what kindles that Pokemon magic.

That's my experience, anyway. Hopefully, one of these days, the conditions will be right and the Pokemon series can worm its way into your heart and make its magical nest therein. =D

 

[Username Redacted]

More recently I've had a hard time trying to get into Bayonetta. I wanted to get that kind of fighting game just to try a new genre, and Bayonetta was the cheapest option available to me. I really want to enjoy it enough to keep practising and get good, but the game has so many annoying design choices that I just can't.

I too recently picked up Bayonetta on the cheap. I quickly realized that I wasn't actually going to be very good at the game (hello lots of stone trophies). I also found that my most common comment on the game was a muttered "Well, fuck you too camera" as the camera drunkenly swerved away from anything resembling an optimal viewing angle for doing anything. Hell, the final boss killed me once because I outright couldn't see the super attack thing it had laid down. That said I did at least finish the game as it isn't particularly long.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

I have a friend that desperately wants me to like Dynasty Warriors and even gave me Dynasty Warriors 6 to get me into it, which was lovely of him. But every time I try it goes something like;

"These are a lot of Chinese names. I've lost track of who's who already."
"Hey, fighting all these armies is cool, I could get into this."
"Why is that guy and his squad retreating? Did we need him? Where was he, even? Ah, whatever."
"Who's Lu Bu?"
"Why am I dead"?

I'm sure if I pick up an interest in Chinese history at some point I'll come back to Dynasty Warriors and it'll be great. Oh, also the music's really good.

The first time I played it I felt that way. Playing it with a friend of mine helped (mostly because of shenanigans) and every now and then slaughtering the population of a virtual medieval Chinese village in one battle sometimes appeals to me.

For me it was Fable II. I think I got past the 2nd Important Person you had to rescue quest (which for me was the evil Tower place). But I was playing one afternoon and while following the magic trail on a quest, I fell asleep. Was completely awake a few moments before and then out. I woke up, tried to remember what I was supposed to be doing, who it was for, and who some of the major characters were, found out I couldn't remember and stopped playing. It didn't make me want to care.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Dark Souls
I love the gameplay, I love the challenge, the environments look great and the boss fights are some of the best I've ever gone through. However with that being said the one thing that REALLY draws me back from enjoying the game is the story, or more the complete lack of one. I can handle games with minimalistic plots like Doom, Minecraft and Monster Hunter but those games still had basic motivations, (stop the demons, create shit, hunt the monsters). With Dark Souls I'm not even finding that. I just drift from place to place hoping I'm going the right way and then occasionally I walk through some fog to fight a big thing and then I do the whole process all over again with me coming off no stronger, no more enlightened and no more profited by loot.
From the way NPC's talk I'm guessing there is meant to be some plot and some motivation somewhere but fuck me if I could find them!

As a Dark Souls fan...I actually have to agree. This was something that I said on another site, but it occurred to me recently that Demons Souls has a better narrative, or at least a better sense of motivation. Get killed, try to come back to life, find out about world-destroying demon coming back, kill world-destroying demon's subordinates, kill world-destroying demon, simple as that. As we're dealing with a silent protagonist, the world-destroying threat is an understandable motivation, as we're not really doing it for ourselves but for everyone else. Dark Souls though, not so much. The motivations would imply something personal, but since the protagonist has no actual personality save your own it means that there's little to actually want to see what's next, story wise. It's less a narrative and more an amusing tale of someone who constantly falls into some new event that they have to sort themselves out of. I think the DLC has a better sense of urgency and motivation, but the main game does suffer a major motivation problem, and this is coming from a big defender of the game.

Anyways, games I couldn't get into? I tried Resonance of Fate a few months back and was just bored out of my skull, although I have a suspicion that may just be my lack of interest for JRPGs. Dragon's Dogma I couldn't get into, even though there is everything there for me to like. For whatever reason it just never really *clicked* for me. I might buy it again used if I have nothing else to do.

 

[Xman490]

Bioshock is interesting and all, but as soon as I die and go back and forth from Big Daddy to Vita-Chamber, I quit playing. I have no idea how people say it's easy.
Red Dead Redemption was the same way, but I've fully given up on that odyssey.
Assassin's Creed 2 bored me too much to bother with Ubisoft's stupid DRM and the game's bad framerate on Mac.

 

[ATRAYA]

Anything made by Blizzard. I don't know what it is about their games, but I can't get into ANY of them.

 

[4173]

Dishonored -- I just don't get along with first person stealthing.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

ive always wanted to get into the gta series but the lack of save points always turned it off for me. Mostly because im not the best driver and if i want to get anywhere i have to drive perfectly so i dont wreck and die and end up right back where i started on the other side of the map. Its just no fun.

Even though I'm terrible at driving in video games (my ineptitude is a subject of great jest among between my cousin and I) the wanton destruction and sometimes silly situations you can get into without being in a mission are what made the games most fun for me.

But I understand how you feel. The missions where you have to protect an NPC vehicle from a different vehicle, as well as missions that involve precision driving (or flying or boating) killed the fun for me.

 

[ComandaKool]

Mass Effect

Same here, I love RPGs and Sci-Fi, and I really enjoyed KOTOR but I just can't get through the first few hours of gameplay. To the disappointment and anger of some of my friends.

 

[mokes310]

Arcade racers for me. They're just so pointless. Give me a solid F1 game and I'm golden.

 

[Phlakes]

Kingdoms of Amalur is generic as fuck. I don't have one single arbitrary unit of caring in my body when it comes to what's going on in that game. All I know is I'm the chosen one and some evil dude who has no setup is being evil and shit. So I'm just following objective markers and killing the two enemies that show up along the way by pressing X a few times.

I really want to like this game but I can't run ten feet without instantly burning out.

At least the music's good.

 

[Starik20X6]

Team Fortress 2. I adore the art style, the humor, the characterization, and just about everything else about it. I just can't play it to save myself.

 

[Tokarev_Soviet40]

I've recently been trying to get into Fallout 1 since I just finished Fallout: New Vegas but for some reason I just can't get into it. I usually get to Shady Sands and start the beginning quest lines there before I get bored and stop playing. And I don't think it's because of how old the game is because I beat Planescape: Torment not too long ago and I loved it.

There's also all the games I have in my backlog that I buy because I think they look interesting but never seem to get around to playing them. Some examples of these would be XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Dishonored, Persona 4, and The Walking Dead.

 

[gxs]

Hitman: Absolution for me. It has been sitting on my HDD since release but I only finished the tutorial.

 

[Jharry5]

I might catch a bit of flak for this, but Bioshock. I saw gameplay of it and thought it looked good. After hearing nothing but praise for it, I got it. I just don't get what the hype was about. Yeah, choosing different powers was cool, the atmosphere was good and I loved the setting. I'm a fan of FPS games, so I know I should have liked it but something just didn't click for me. Despite all these things in its favour, I just completely lost interest in it. And I still couldn't really tell you why.

I've also got the latest Deus Ex in my backlog, and even though I've started that game twice, I've still not got further than the first few hours for a few different reasons. I want to go back to it, but that would mean started it for a third time. In the end, I just end up playing something else...

 

[nightingale]

Dishonored -- I just don't get along with first person stealthing.

Dishonored here, too. First person? NEVER. Also another reason, I simply don't like the setting of the game.