Games your friends failed to talk you into

[Bizzaro Stormy]

So one of the best advertising methods is word of mouth. You hear about a product from someone you know, and since they have no financial stake in it, you figure you can probably take their word on it, or not if they're crazy. Sometimes this doesn't work. Over the years there have been a number of things that I've had friends try to talk me into and they failed. Rather spectacularly. Looking back sometimes they were right but the sales pitch was wrong. Since this is a game site I figure that focusing on games is a good idea.

I'll give one example if this topic is confusing. Years ago when Assassin's Creed came out people couldn't stop talking about it. I had several friends tell me to get it, even though it sucked. This statement confused me.
I asked them: Why should I get it if it sucks?
Friends: Because you need to, and you like history so there you go.
Me: So it's about drug addicted peasants who've been lied to by a despotic prince who sends them on murderous rampages? It's about the worst scum who took part in the various wars collectively known as the Crusades? I guess that sounds fun in an anti-hero kind of way!
Friends: Um, no. It's about a guy now who gets kidnapped by the Templars and is hooked into a machine that lets him see into his family's past! He knows that an ancestor of his was a heroic Assassin who fought for chaos against the evil hordes of the Templars!
Me: All that and the game itself is terrible?
Friends: Well yeah. If you run at all the Templars figure you're up to something and hunt you down.
Me: Is it ok if I never play this game and hope the series dies a quick death?
Friends:Huh?
With that said the games may be good. I'll never know. That conversation talked me out of them forever. I normally trust my friends, but starting the talk with, "Get it even though it sucks" was a bad idea.
So have you ever heard your friends talk glowingly about a game and have that glowing review turn you off to it? If so post below.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A friend of mine wanted me to get really enthused with certain turn-based, historical country-managing game (I forget its name).

 

[Shoggoth2588]

A friend of mine from high school would always wait for his classes to start sat outside of the door and playing something on his GBA-SP and I liked talking to him since I wasn't all that into Nintendo at the time. He would tell me about the games I had missed out on such as Mega Man Battle-Network, Metroid Prime, Geist, etc. Out of all of the games he told me about the only ones I've since picked up have been Metroid Prime and Mega Man Battlenet 2 which are both games that I've really enjoyed...granted, I haven't beaten Prime yet. I guess he did sell me on gamecube/GBA-era Nintendo I just didn't have any money of my own at the time.

 

[tippy2k2]

I have my boss and one of my friends trying desperately to get me to buy a Xbox One over the PS4 but.....ewwwwww

The boss I don't ever play games with (not because I don't like him but he's got a family and minimal free time) so that is easy to ignore but the other friend is someone I routinely game with so that will be a bit harder. Luckily, we have a mutual friend in the PS4 corner so my hopes is that we will break down his Microsoft brainwash that he has for some reason (seriously, he doesn't like the exclusives so I have zero clue why he wants the Xbox One so badly) so we can all game together on the PS4.

 

[MysticSlayer]

After a lot of prodding from friends, I did eventually cave in and get Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed 2. Both of them basically followed the same flow of:

-First three hours: Meh
-Next 5-10 hours: OMG! THIS IS SO FUN!
-Next 3 hours: Err...This is starting to get boring.
-Remainder of the game: OMG! JUST END ALREADY!

So yeah, mostly didn't like them, and AC2 completely screwed with the story that kept me going for all the time that I hated. Needless to say, when my friends started trying to sell me on all the other games, I vehemently said "NO!" and never gave in. I think that they eventually picked up on my dislike for the series by Black Flag, which oddly enough was one I actually wanted to play.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

You're very, very easily talked out of stuff it seems.

Most recently it's been Destiny. I have a friend of mine who so badly wants me to play it with him, he's almost bought it for me. I told him even if he sent me a copy signed by the Dinklage himself I still wouldn't pop the game in. I've got no interest in weswearitsnotanmmoexceptitsbasicallyareallysmallmmo shooter.

Being easily talked out of things can do wonders for your bank account! The bills at the end of each month just melt away! Some day I may post the insanity that talked me out of the Mass Effect games. Than again I may pick up the trilogy for PS3 at some point. Since I'm considering it now it wouldn't really fit this thread, but it's a weird story so I might tell it.

 

[Auron225]

My cousin kept trying to talk me into getting Monster Hunter Tri. I tried playing the first game years beforehand but I wasn't a fan of how realistic the movement/combat was. Running anywhere or climbing anything took forever and fighting just felt sluggish. I was mostly put off when 2 things happened;

1) I'd put all my resources into getting a Bone Lance, which turned out to be horribly impractical. Everyone I knew who had played it then informed me that big swords were the way to go but getting one at that point would have meant re-doing most of the quests I'd already done just to get the materials... i.e. start again.

2) A certain quest in which I had to kill something big. My stupid lance was horrifically ineffective against it so I never beat it. Each attempt took a long time as well, so after losing a few times I just gave up.

It kinda soured me from trying to get back into the series. As much as my cousin tried to inform me of how Monster Hunter Tri was far more forgiving for taking the "wrong" path, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

 

[Remus]

WoW: Warlords of Draenor. I played WoW once, from WotLK to near the end of Pandaria. I only started the game because my raid guild from Vanguard migrated over after we personally were having issues with the developers mishandling raid content to our detriment. So I leveled and raided on 4 different alts. But the player toxicity combined with the repetitiveness of raid content after Cata completely turned me off from the game. Not to mention, from a lore angle, Pandaria brought nothing to the table when compared to WotLK or even Cataclysm.

Guilds outright rejected me when, due to either my 5Mbps connection or reflexes, I could not jump out of fire and maintain 150kdps within melee range, in said fire. Not only that but I found the game to be very new-player adverse, that if you don't research your character, abilities, rotations, macros, before installing the game, you will be shunned by the general playerbase. This was not a community I wanted to be a part of and was more than glad to tell them on the WoW server forums to choke on a bag of d***s. Bridges burned, never going back.

So it was inevitable that one guy I work with was really into WoW and would tell me stories of how great Draenor was, and all I could think of was "that bunch of shitheels?" No thank you. I have several MMO fixes that I'm dividing my time between now and to go back to WoW would be a huge step backward. Every week, "Draenor's so cool, when are you going back?" Simple answer, can't, won't, not gonna happen, never, ever in a billion years. A friend of mine who took him up on his suggestion, personally witnessed the transformation that would happen when people play WoW and cannot understand how this can be a thing one can enjoy. This more than justified my outright refusal to play.

 

[Silence]

Minecraft - Well, I got it, and played it some, but I just somehow couldn't get into it. It's boring.

Don't Starve - Didn't like the artstyle, and game principle looked like Minecraft for the poor. And I don't really like scnarios where you can never win.
Played some of it later, was okay, but still no desire to get it for myself.

 

[babinro]

World of Warcraft...

I say failed but it was a minor success. I've been bugged by friends to get into this game for years. I would meet new people in different jobs or communities and then come to find out that they'd want me to get into it as well.

I've even had someone go as far as to say they'd pay for my monthly sub which while tempting would have left me feeling really guilty about my gaming.

In the end, I wound up trying the one week free trial around year 3 or 4 of the games launch. The end result of this experience was disinterest. It wasn't a very fun game to start and there was certainly nothing about it that hinted why a subscription fee was warranted.

The only other set of games would be ones that I know I'm not interested in given my experience in the genre.
-Moba's
-Multiplayer FPS games

 

[SecondPrize]

Final Fantasy XIV. It is a really well-polished game, but I just can't hotbar combat MMO anymore. I can't do it. Sorry, bro.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Most recently it's been Destiny. I have a friend of mine who so badly wants me to play it with him, he's almost bought it for me. I told him even if he sent me a copy signed by the Dinklage himself I still wouldn't pop the game in. I've got no interest in weswearitsnotanmmoexceptitsbasicallyareallysmallmmo shooter.

same here. He's like "It's on sale, get it so we can plaaaaay" and I'm like "No. I've NO interest in that game. If you want to BUY it for me, I'll play it with you" and he's like "nooo because then you won't play it by yourself" and I said "EXACTLY. I don't want to play a game that's involuntarily online AND that requires a lot of grinding. Also unnecessary Peter Dinklage"; if you couldn't guess, he couldn't come up with a legitimate reason why I SHOULD get it other than "I want you to" which isn't... a good enough reason.

Other than that and the occasional "Why don't you try Resident Evil again" question that pops up every time my friend comes over, I can't really think of any games I just wouldn't try to play.

 

[Cowabungaa]

So far, Diablo 3.

My girlfriend and a friend of hers really want me to play it with them. But I just can't be bothered with the time investment (as I was told the game really starts at max level) and especially with the Skinner Box-ian mechanics. I feel like my time is a little too precious for that, especially with my gaming time being as limited as it is. Not to mention the always-online bullshit that comes with it.

 

[Lilani]

Final Fantasy XIV. It is a really well-polished game, but I just can't hotbar combat MMO anymore. I can't do it. Sorry, bro.

But it's soooooooooooooo goooooooooooood :<

Anyway, Five Night's at Freddy's, any of them. I'm not good with horror games anyway, I only finished Amnesia: The Dark Descent because I was compelled enough by the story to be able to do it in 10-15 minute bursts. But all of that stress is just not for me, and I've pretty much absorbed all of the story by watching Markiplier and Jacksepticeye let's plays on YouTube.

 

[Callate]

Oh, World of Warcraft.

"This game is consuming my life! Aggh! You've got to play it, it's so much fun!"

...Yeah, pass, thanks...

Also, Magic: The Gathering, to a degree. I played it very, very early on- I had friends who took classes from Richard Garfield, the game's creator, back when he was still a prof at Whitman College. But I began to feel that a) the game was ultimately an arms race, and the publisher's interest was clearly served by allowing older cards to become obsolete and b) that half of every game was going to be spent going, "What is that? What does it do?"...

...Wish I hadn't traded away that Royal Assassin, though. Thing's probably worth a mint by now.

 

[flying_whimsy]

WoW, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Monster Hunter. My friends are huge blizzard fans (Yes, I know monster hunter wasn't blizzard, but it plays like one of theirs) and I was even open to trying those games, but they just didn't hook me that way (I don't respond well to skinner-box style level/reward systems).

The suckiest part is that I still have to sit there quietly while they talk about those games. It's almost as boring as actually playing them.

 

[SecondPrize]

Final Fantasy XIV. It is a really well-polished game, but I just can't hotbar combat MMO anymore. I can't do it. Sorry, bro.

But it's soooooooooooooo goooooooooooood :<

Anyway, Five Night's at Freddy's, any of them. I'm not good with horror games anyway, I only finished Amnesia: The Dark Descent because I was compelled enough by the story to be able to do it in 10-15 minute bursts. But all of that stress is just not for me, and I've pretty much absorbed all of the story by watching Markiplier and Jacksepticeye let's plays on YouTube.

Yeah I know, it is good. I did the trial. I liked it. It's a good MMO, I just can't do it anymore, there's so many design tropes, for lack of a better term, in these MMOs that it feels like I've already played each new release for years now, in a bad way. I just can't.

 

[L. Declis]

League of Legends.

In China, there are certain games which everyone is expected to play. World of Warcraft, Counterstrike, League of Legends, Starcraft 2. My group of friends likes League of Legends

So, my Chinese is okay at the time, and they install League (the Chinese version) onto my computer. Firstly, it gives me a virus; no, that's just the massive survelliance program from the Chinese government on my computer. Oh well.

Then they make me play a game with them. They don't tell me how to play, and everything is in Chinese. They may me play a big guy with a big sword, and I have to go down the bottom.

Nothing happens down the bottom. In a half an hour game, nothing happened. The middle and top looked interesting, but when I moved there, I was shouted at to stay at the bottom.

When I did get into a fight, it would always be 8 people. Somehow, I would last about half a second before I died, be forced to wait a minute to respawn, and then sent down the middle.

Because I cannot read anything, I couldn't figure out what was good to buy, so even if I did level, I always had a bad build on my character. I couldn't kill anyone. My friend could kill 40 people. He was allowed all over the map. I was forced to stay at the bottom.

People would shout at me in CHinese if I got it wrong. People would shout conflicting orders at me in Chinese, convinced all of them were right. It got to the point I began to sit on my phone and just text people when we played. No one noticed.

I played about 10 games, and then stopped. I hate League with a passion.

EDIT: My first ever game? I had invited a friend of my SO to help me find an apartment. I paid for his hotel, train tickets and food for three days. He just sat in an internet cafe and played League of Legends on my money, and seemed confused when I pointed out he was supposed to help. We went to one apartment, and then back to the cafe for 3 days where he refused to do more.

Fucking arsehole.