I can't believe I let it happened AGAIN.

[NiallXoldham]

I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I know exactly what you mean. I have never enjoyed sandbox games, the main ones being Grand Theft Auto. I liked Crackdown and Saints Row 2 was good, but GTA and others like it just do not fit even though everyone around me loves them. I recently gave in and played GTAIV, knowing I was going to hate it but going in with an open mind. I got stung again by the GTA francise, it's just not for me.

Prince of Persia: Sands trilogy is my one of my fave, and to see someone else hate it so makes me wonder why, the story is compelling, the characters are fleshed out well, and the platforming is phanomanol. The first and third had terrible combat, while the second, Warrior Within, is still, in my opinion one of the best combat engines around.

I'll skim the next few quickly. Portal I love, I understand you don't have that place thats tickled by Portal's tricks and style, this I understand. Half-life I find to be fantastic, though I will admit on a recent playthrough it seemed so bland compared to half-life 2.

I urge you to try POP again, if you love platforming or puzzle-solving, this really is the game series for you, just be patient, explore and do some trial and error, the more you play, the more you feel you need to finish

 

[Denamic]

Running and gunning won't work in Deus Ex.
That's part of what makes Deus Ex great.
You've got to find alternative solutions to problems.
Your problem seems to be that you tried going though the front door.
There's like 5 different ways to get into the statue, for example.
You don't even need to kill/knock out anyone if you don't want to.

 

[Sixcess]

I can sympathise with a couple of the OP's points.

Firstly, the platforming in Half Life does suck. I hate platforming sections in FPSs, because you never ever have the level of precision you get in a decent third person perspective game, and because all the time I'm spending falling to my death is time that would be better spent shooting things, and yeah, the tentacle monster level is a pain in the ass.

Having recently reinstalled Deus Ex I found that the difficulty is WAY higher than most modern FPSs - excluding some other non-linear games like STALKER - partly because you're not being led from set piece to set piece by the level design. Also, as someone who specialised in rifles the drunk crosshairs did annoy me even back in my original playthrough. It takes a particular mindset to enjoy Deus Ex, but that said, I still think it's one of the finest games ever made.

So, feel free to hate on Half Life, OP. I won't try to convince you otherwise, but Deus Ex deserves another chance. If you don't think of it as a straight up shooter, and if you like non-linear level design, you might learn to love Deus Ex.

 

[Kabutos]

Deus Ex is an RPG with FPS elements, and not the other way around.

I think that's what confuses most people when they first play.

 

[random_bars]

Generally, quitting a game before you've really got anywhere in it just means you suck at it, and failed to grasp the key concepts you need to be successful. Of course, sometimes a game is just bad, but really, games generally don't get made unless there's a way of playing them. A developer isn't going to just throw out some random crap (unless it's part of a long running series or a sequel to a popular game, in which case the developer probably doesn't have much choice in making the game anyway).

What sometimes falters is a game's ability to explain itself, which is especially prevalent in older games where players didn't expect to have everything spoon fed to them (and game manuals were half decent, and people actually read them). But this doesn't mean the game is bad - if it doesn't come with a set of instructions, is chess a bad game? If you can't drive, does that mean cars suck?

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Not that I disagree much or anything, but was this

Oh well. Go play Call of Duty 7. You'll love it.

really necessary?

As a CoD fan who came to this thread to basically defend the games in question, I suddenly don't feel like doing so because the very fans of those games on these forums have been stereotyping and generalizing the community I'm part of.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

What do you want us to say?

I think you have been playing too many games in general and now games just lost their "magic".
Happened to me once.
Just to make it clear to you about the tentacle monster in half life 1, you should have paid attention to what the scared guard said "don't make noise, that's how it finds you" or something like that he said. And if you paid attention to the tutorial, you would know that crouching is the game's stealth mode. Crouch, wait for the monster to stop bashing things (he will start groaning for some reason) and move slowly whilst crouching (press shift), use grenades to distract it.

Dude, these games require at least a little brain power, i'm not trolling you or being mean but just pay a little more attention and they will be a little more fun.
These games are like films, you need an active thinking mind to appreciate them, maybe you are tired? Got enough sleep? I dunno what you want to hear from us.

What video games did you enjoy? Mass effect 2? fable the lost chapters? What?

Valve games weren't as crazy fun to me as people made them out to be either, they were just interesting, that's all.

And yahtzee isn't the mighty god of all video game opinions, nobody really listens to him, they just laugh at him.

I think if we know what games you have played that you enjoyed then we could tell you, whatever the heck it is you want us to tell you.

 

[Zhukov]

Not that I disagree much or anything, but was this

Oh well. Go play Call of Duty 7. You'll love it.

really necessary?

As a CoD fan who came to this thread to basically defend the games in question, I suddenly don't feel like doing so because the very fans of those games on these forums have been stereotyping and generalizing the community I'm part of.

If it's any concolation, that remark wasn't intended as a jibe at CoD's fanbase. Although I suppose, given the context, it could certainaly serve as one.

The OP said he likes FPSs but doesn't like "intense brain activity during a video game." So I recommended CoD: Black Ops.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

Not that I disagree much or anything, but was this

Oh well. Go play Call of Duty 7. You'll love it.

really necessary?

As a CoD fan who came to this thread to basically defend the games in question, I suddenly don't feel like doing so because the very fans of those games on these forums have been stereotyping and generalizing the community I'm part of.

If it's any concolation, that remark wasn't intended as a jibe at CoD's fanbase. Although I suppose, given the context, it could certainaly serve as one.

The OP said he likes FPSs but doesn't like "intense brain activity during a video game." So I recommended CoD: Black Ops.

Well, you didn't really recommend it as much as made a remark that could be seen as somewhat condescending with the whole "you'll like it" thing.

However, yeah, if it wasn't intended as such, I have no problem with it. Indeed, CoD rarely requires thought and is more of a spectacle - it never aimed to be anything more.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Personally, Half-Life gets a big meh from me. Im about half-way through it, and im just not interested. I dont feel like im affecting anything really, or getting anywhere for that matter. And they keep spamming the same 3 enemies all the time for the aliens. Sure, there are others but theyre not common. I like the weapons, but I know what they all are (ive played a bit of HL-Deatmatch). However, I realy want to get through it, because 2 seems really good. It actually has characters, rather than Genric Scientist, Generic Black Scientist, Generic Guard (which in terms of ammo, serve better as corpses)

Portal, however, is awesome. That game just has great atmosphere, which makes the puzzles all the more interesting.

As for getting stung, Final Fantasy 13, and Final Fantasy 14. Evil games.

 

[80Maxwell08]

since I don't care much for intense brain activity during a video game.

You're entitled to your opinion and all, and you shouldn't follow someone else's opinion on what games are good if you don't think you'll enjoy them, demos are designed for that reason.
However, with that having been said, that has to be the stupidest reason to dislike a game/set of games I've ever read, purely because I don't know what else exactly you were expecting from Portal.

Actually I didn't realize exactly how much thought was needed to beat it. After a certain point I realized this was not going to be anywhere near what I could even come up with. Someone else said a similar comment and I'll get to that afterward but while I can put some effort into thought in a game the amount required for Portal is several leaps beyond what I've ever done for anything else and my patience ran thin when i ended up in a almost death trap with no way I could think of getting past. Also the Prince of Persia games were on the PS2 and I played a demo of the first one and it was good. I don't think there is a demo for Deus Ex so all I could do was go on what I heard and finally Portal was free for a time. Thank you for your comment and I hope you understand now what I meant by saying not caring for intense brain activity.

 

[80Maxwell08]

Heh. Reading the OP is like having a man born without eyes tell me sunsets are overrated.

I feel sorry for you.

...

Actually, wait a second...

...I don't care much for intense brain activity during a video game.

Ah. And that would be the problem right there. Those are all games that require at least a little bit of thought. Not much, but a bit.

Oh well. Go play Call of Duty 7. You'll love it.

Like I told someone else (even though you posted before him sorry I just replied to him first) It wasn't really that it required any thought but the sheer amount of creative intellect needed to get past some parts. I only made it through the last parts of the tutorial by shooting at just about anything in sight to see what I could do and after a certain point I couldn't think of anything so that's where I stopped.

Also I don't get the "having a man born without eyes tell me sunsets are overrated" comment. No need to explain if you don't want to but I really don't understand it.

 

[Kevonovitch]

i take most "popular" stuff with ALOT of scrutiny, and put it through the ringer, most of the time, i'm not interested in them, and alot of them, if i play, i don't like. but if i do like them, sometimes it's lives up to it all, but most of the time, eh, only good for a little while

btw, is that a post? or an article for the daily newspaper :|

 

[ender214]

I had the same issue when I got Thief: Deadly Shadows and the original KOTOR for cheap on Steam. Both highly rated games, but I just couldn't make myself like them.

I think a major factor is that the games have aged. While some old games play fine, I find that a lot of them seem broken compared to the newer games.

BEFORE FLAMERS ARRIVE: I did enjoy the Half-Life series and Portal however. I wouldn't really consider Portal old and while the pacing of Half-Life got a bit slow once in a while (mainly because I had to carry that damned gnome everywhere I went), I still felt it was an overall good game.

 

[80Maxwell08]

What do you want us to say?

I think you have been playing too many games in general and now games just lost their "magic".
Happened to me once.
Just to make it clear to you about the tentacle monster in half life 1, you should have paid attention to what the scared guard said "don't make noise, that's how it finds you" or something like that he said. And if you paid attention to the tutorial, you would know that crouching is the game's stealth mode. Crouch, wait for the monster to stop bashing things (he will start groaning for some reason) and move slowly whilst crouching (press shift), use grenades to distract it.

Dude, these games require at least a little brain power, i'm not trolling you or being mean but just pay a little more attention and they will be a little more fun.
These games are like films, you need an active thinking mind to appreciate them, maybe you are tired? Got enough sleep? I dunno what you want to hear from us.

What video games did you enjoy? Mass effect 2? fable the lost chapters? What?

Valve games weren't as crazy fun to me as people made them out to be either, they were just interesting, that's all.

And yahtzee isn't the mighty god of all video game opinions, nobody really listens to him, they just laugh at him.

I think if we know what games you have played that you enjoyed then we could tell you, whatever the heck it is you want us to tell you.

Ok this might be the most intelligent post yet if only because the amount of effort put into it. Now I attempt to try to show my point of view. For the tentacle monster while I did know crouching was their stealth move the security guard telling me to use stealth might have been drowned out by the massive amount of noise the monster itself was always causing. Also it never stopped attacking for me so I stopped. I knew that Half Life took thought after a early on event where a bridge collapsed and the only way was a small crawl space slightly hidden in a back room. But along with the incredibly loose controls and the game telling me to jump across boxes above a death pit then some other instances where the controls brought me to my death several times just by trying to go up a ladder. It was not the game for me in any regard. I posted some of the genres I liked in a later edit and I explained to someone else that Yahtzee wasn't the sole reason I tried any of them but perhaps more than any other person. Hope this helps out.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

huh wow. someone i can actually agree with on here, besides the fact that you dont like thinking much about video games we have some very similar tastes in games we dont like thus far.

i can't recommend much to you though, as you seem to stick more to the shooter genre..

 

[80Maxwell08]

Running and gunning won't work in Deus Ex.
That's part of what makes Deus Ex great.
You've got to find alternative solutions to problems.
Your problem seems to be that you tried going though the front door.
There's like 5 different ways to get into the statue, for example.
You don't even need to kill/knock out anyone if you don't want to.

I actually tried alternative methods in later playthroughs. I mentioned my problem with this in my rant(I say that now by looking at it and thinking "wow this sounds angry") but put that aside and kept trying. I mentioned the final nail in that coffin was when I tried stealth but was caught by an unavoidable sentry turret that brought me down to almost nothing then I got away from it and right in front of an enemy with a gun which finished me. While I never actually found the front door that was basically my approach the first run. But I did at least try different methods.

 

[80Maxwell08]

I'm gonna get flamed for this, but I know exactly what you mean. I have never enjoyed sandbox games, the main ones being Grand Theft Auto. I liked Crackdown and Saints Row 2 was good, but GTA and others like it just do not fit even though everyone around me loves them. I recently gave in and played GTAIV, knowing I was going to hate it but going in with an open mind. I got stung again by the GTA francise, it's just not for me.

Prince of Persia: Sands trilogy is my one of my fave, and to see someone else hate it so makes me wonder why, the story is compelling, the characters are fleshed out well, and the platforming is phanomanol. The first and third had terrible combat, while the second, Warrior Within, is still, in my opinion one of the best combat engines around.

I'll skim the next few quickly. Portal I love, I understand you don't have that place thats tickled by Portal's tricks and style, this I understand. Half-life I find to be fantastic, though I will admit on a recent playthrough it seemed so bland compared to half-life 2.

I urge you to try POP again, if you love platforming or puzzle-solving, this really is the game series for you, just be patient, explore and do some trial and error, the more you play, the more you feel you need to finish

I think at some point I will go try all of these again (except Half Life that one is still up in the air) and the PoP series would probably be the first one to jump to. I didn't play them that much but I get this feeling I could probably enjoy them a lot more if I tried again.

I can sympathise with a couple of the OP's points.

Firstly, the platforming in Half Life does suck. I hate platforming sections in FPSs, because you never ever have the level of precision you get in a decent third person perspective game, and because all the time I'm spending falling to my death is time that would be better spent shooting things, and yeah, the tentacle monster level is a pain in the ass.

Having recently reinstalled Deus Ex I found that the difficulty is WAY higher than most modern FPSs - excluding some other non-linear games like STALKER - partly because you're not being led from set piece to set piece by the level design. Also, as someone who specialised in rifles the drunk crosshairs did annoy me even back in my original playthrough. It takes a particular mindset to enjoy Deus Ex, but that said, I still think it's one of the finest games ever made.

So, feel free to hate on Half Life, OP. I won't try to convince you otherwise, but Deus Ex deserves another chance. If you don't think of it as a straight up shooter, and if you like non-linear level design, you might learn to love Deus Ex.

Well there isn't any explanations to give here so I'll just say this. At some point in time I probably will go back to Deus Ex but I highly doubt it will be anytime soon.

Generally, quitting a game before you've really got anywhere in it just means you suck at it, and failed to grasp the key concepts you need to be successful. Of course, sometimes a game is just bad, but really, games generally don't get made unless there's a way of playing them. A developer isn't going to just throw out some random crap (unless it's part of a long running series or a sequel to a popular game, in which case the developer probably doesn't have much choice in making the game anyway).

What sometimes falters is a game's ability to explain itself, which is especially prevalent in older games where players didn't expect to have everything spoon fed to them (and game manuals were half decent, and people actually read them). But this doesn't mean the game is bad - if it doesn't come with a set of instructions, is chess a bad game? If you can't drive, does that mean cars suck?

I don't think I said any of them actually "sucked" in my post since I purposely tried not saying that. I listed all the problems I had with them and I will easily admit this, I either was not that good at them or I sucked at them. Portal was definitely aimed against me the instant I got the Portal Gun and actually had to do the work myself. I don't think any of these are bad but I had problems with them personally.

I think that's long enough here. Hopefully it won't look too massive. *hits preview*. Oh god.

 

[jaketaz]

Yahtzee's hilarious and writes great reviews, but that doesn't mean you two have anything in common. I love Peter Travers' movie reviews on Rolling Stone because the movies he recommends are always good, but I only know that because I gave them a chance after he recommended them, liked them, and now just take his word for it. You should find a reviewer that has a good track record with you.