Have you ever found yourself, bored with games?

[Quaidis]

I go through it from time to time; it usually happens when the games I'm playing suck. Afterwards, I get this ultimate fear that any game I play that would be like it or is even remotely similar will also suck - including genre and game console.

Many games released in the last five some years have been progressively going downhill [to me] in originality and playability; what's worse is that these games are usually hyped to be the next big thing. So in the end I am left playing an fps I feel I've played before, but more repetitive and tedious, or a new big rpg that drolls in dialogs and slams me full of menu screens. It's not me in some regards: the game creator is taking the old engine I've played before, greased it up, and fit it to a new (but not necessarily better) car. The new car may drive a bit better than the old one and it may have the old car feel, however it now has new options that only serve to get in my way and it doesn't have the greatest gas mileage. That's about the best analogy I can put to it.

The solutions I found would be to take a step back and read a good book, take a walk, then either find a new game that looks different and has promising reviews (ie, a different brand of car), or play one of the current games on your shelf that you've been staring at for the last few weeks. You may get a sulfurous taste in your mouth at first, and if it continues then by all means stop playing, but usually it will go away once you get into the new game atmosphere.

 

[the monopoly guy]

yes, playin cabelas outdoor adventures (yes, a hunting/fishing game, I was young) and you had to ish, and tat was incredibly boring. it was a chore and not fun in the least

 

[Syrio Forel]

Actually, I haven't even touched a video game in almost a week :O (don't hate it's exam season). And actually didn't really feel like playing much anyways. I go through cycles where all I do is game for a few months, and then the next few months do something else. It's kind of funny I know.

 

[nickwake360]

yes gaming is fun but if it gets to the piont to where your bored of it, i think its a hint you need to go outside and get some sun

 

[shadow skill]

Yea, I've got into the habit of playing a game almost to the end and then setting it down for months or even years, I still have to finish Xenosaga episode 2, Prince of Persia T2T, Black and a bunch of other games. I am proud that I knocked off Ninja Gaiden Sigma a few weeks back though.

 

[monostable]

I don't always tend to get bored of the games i own mainly because there is a shop about 5 minutes walk away from my house that will trade in old games ( i get around £10 for a slightly old 360 game, £15 - £20 for a newer one) so buying new games to keep the boredom at bay isn't really a problem for me. only problem now is that I'm skint so can't really buy anything new.

however, i have started playing awesome games that i completed a while ago e.g. halo 3 (you cannot imagine the excitement when i first started to play the campaign) Gears of War (the disk broke, so i haven't been able to play it for a while, just got a new copy). i recently bought army of two. hmmm. don't ever buy that game. i've also got guitar hero 3, which is good for a while, but gets boring.

if i got xbox live I'm sure all that would change (except army of two), but i can't get it to work. it's something to do with the modem not allowing other things to use the connection, but I can't work out how to fix it

 

[nickwake360]

man what do you got against army of two? i thought the game kicked ass!

 

[ear8dmg]

I play games more for their potential rather than what they actually are. I get bored with and fail to finish most games. Looking back, I have completed (without cheating) in the last 10 years, Half Life, Final Fantasy VII, Halo, Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Fahrenheit and er... erm... Thats it

I have an enourmous guilt complex about not having finished Deus Ex. I can blame a hard drive failure for that one though.

I've played a lot more games than that. What happened to make me fail to get to the end of them? I can't ever recall starting a novel and not finishing it eventually. Unless I'm still reading it, that is.

Why is that? I guess that, quite simply, most games aren't interesting enough to keep me playing. I'm a sucker for plot and storytelling. They both need to be good to keep me interested. Generally, the plots (or their delivery) in games just aren't good enough, or are padded so much that you forget about them somewhere along the way.

Gameplay mechanics in themselves don't interest me in the long term. As Kieron Gillen mentioned in his Mass Effect review at Eurogamer, it's the plot that gives the gameplay relevance. I need relevance.

Rome: Total War, Assassin's Creed, Company of Heroes, Bioshock and Oblivion are on the currently playing list. I'll probably finish some of them eventually but the chances of coming across storylines as good as most novels I read are pretty slim.

I'll get back to Deus Ex when the HD Texture Pack comes out. Mass Effect looks like one to get. Any other suggestions?

 

[Quaidis]

ear8dmg, do you think your lack of finishing a game may not only have to do with the plot and storyflow, but also with the length? That's a problem I have with playing certain games all the way through. It could have an alright plot and story, but in the end they fill the game with so much cumbersome nonsense (like gathering special items n'th times or having to face n amount of enemies before the door opens. You have to go through the level again to find Point A where generic npc Sam is to pick up nonsensical item 1 and deliver it through the repetative maze ! at point B for the seventh time.) that it takes away from the goal of the game. I mean, I like games with plot, but even a good game without much of a plot can be just as good if it's not spread out over sixty hours (ie, it's good if it's short). Shadow of the Colossus is a nice example.

 

[ear8dmg]

It's not so much length as padding. I must have spent 50+ hours on Bloodlines but most of it seemed relevant.

I've recently started Oblivion for the third time now. On my first go I broke the game by chatting to people too much and everything levelled past me. On my second try I realised that dungeons respawned after you'd trawled through them, hence most of what I'd done was completely irrelevant. This time I'm trying to stick to actual quests and it seems more fun.

On a side note: is completing Oblivion actually possible or does the world just keep on going?

 

[The Potato Lord]

Yep too many games are one shot ordeals, where while amazingly fun on the first run become remarkably boring on the second run. though if you're looking for a game to waste some time on the PC rthat's free and as far as i've seen incredibly origional I reccomend Toribash
The website is here:
http://www.toribash.com/

One of my favorite games ever

But to get back on topic and avoid looking like a bot.

I think its beacuse this generation of games are a lot shorter than previous generations because many developers decide to waste so much memory of detail and graphics they forget to make sure its fun for more that one 9-hour run. Or maybe its because many games are story-driven which IMO destroys the ability to have much re-playability.

 

[Isaac Dodgson]

Heaven's you have no idea how bored I am with my games. I have a 360, and a limited number of games to work with

Bioshock - Completed, twice, bored stupid with it
Assassin's Creed - All I have left is flag collecting and Temple Knight killing, and arduous if not tedious tasks of the such are just mind numbing
Halo 3 - Um yeah, anyone who's balls have dropped and spend a majority of their time doing other things will get bored of this
COD 4 - Same as Halo 3, that and there's only so many times I can get ripped apart on Veteran by the same insurgent before I wish to claw my eyes out
Mass Effect - Insanely long, dry and sometimes mindless dialogue hurts the brain
GTA IV - Everyone I know has burned out on this game
Armored Core 4 - I'm at that point where I'm trying to beat the missions on Hard, but no combination of parts is helping, and I'm just getting annoyed
Tiger Woods 08 - At the end of the day it's still Golf
DMC 4 - Hack and slash, hack and slash, hack and slash....Next?
Dynasty Warriors Gundam - Only interesting if you're a fan of the different Gundam series, which I am, however it still numbs me. My only solace is that i didn't shell out cash for it.

My other games I sold back, and I'm almost compelled to go back to my Gamecube, but I feel like I'd be slapping technological evolution across the face or something

 

[WlknCntrdiction]

i just randomly zone out of games sometimes, one minute i love them then next thing you know im turning off the xbox cause i cant be assed to even move the analogue sticks.
im in that sort of mood right now, my games dont interest me as much as they used to, im even finding myself *gasp* going outside, its horrible lol.

 

[Quaidis]

My other games I sold back, and I'm almost compelled to go back to my Gamecube, but I feel like I'd be slapping technological evolution across the face or something

You'd be surprised how effectively fun the Gamecube is. Go slap technological evolution in the face while you still have the chance! I recently played Skies of Arcadia and bloody well it was refreshing.

 

[GreatVladmir]

On a side note: is completing Oblivion actually possible or does the world just keep on going?

Sorry, but it keeps going and going and going and going etc.

And yeah, I have to say, modern games feel like some kinda of girl you met in a pub, sure she is good looking, but the fun only lasts a short ammount of time, and you quickly forget about her, these new games are just so meh, shallow, and dull (funny use of word, when they are beautiful to look at). What we need, is for video game developers to take some time to look at the past, see what made brilliant games brilliant, and try to make some brilliant single-player games, insted of these online focused games, bloody counter-strike ¬_¬.

 

[JackofTrades]

Yea this happens often after I've done every thing I could possibly do and free roamed too much like Oblivion I'm the only one of my friends who has done EVERY quest in the game with just one character, every one of them, all the downloaded ones, side quests hidden deep in the game, main storylines (Like the guilds and such) but yet I've not reached passed level 29 and thats cause all the main skills I have suck (Ones that are useless like speech craft, Illusion, and hand to hand)
Doom 3 became boring after beating it on each difficulty (But nightmare cause the newer version of nightmare is nothing like the original counter part)
Halo 3 cause of how repeditive it becomes after you've been owned again and again by such annoying players and strategies (oh yea there are none but brutally charging! lol)
Rainbow Six Vegas because people never play it too often on a more harder difficulty (Realistic is funner because it then invokes the point of the game which is working as a team)

But yet I still never get bored or annoyed by counter strike:source because if I need to use strategies I do, and when I don't I own noobs with the p90 and AUG...but this is most likely cause I'm more of a pc player and those other games I play on xbox 360

 

[JackofTrades]

Yea this happens often after I've done every thing I could possibly do and free roamed too much like Oblivion I'm the only one of my friends who has done EVERY quest in the game with just one character, every one of them, all the downloaded ones, side quests hidden deep in the game, main storylines (Like the guilds and such) but yet I've not reached passed level 29 and thats cause all the main skills I have suck (Ones that are useless like speech craft, Illusion, and hand to hand)
Doom 3 became boring after beating it on each difficulty (But nightmare cause the newer version of nightmare is nothing like the original counter part)
Halo 3 cause of how repeditive it becomes after you've been owned again and again by such annoying players and strategies (oh yea there are none but brutally charging! lol)
Rainbow Six Vegas because people never play it too often on a more harder difficulty (Realistic is funner because it then invokes the point of the game which is working as a team)

But yet I still never get bored or annoyed by counter strike:source because if I need to use strategies I do, and when I don't I own noobs with the p90 and AUG...but this is most likely cause I'm more of a pc player and those other games I play on xbox 360