Things you liked about games you didn't

[Veylon]

Star Wars: Rebellion. I loved the premise; a grand strategy game for the Star Wars Universe! Unfortunately, the developers managed to get everything wrong.

The main problem is the interface, which is a grossly inconvenient wreck approaching Dwarf Fortress levels. Every game in space has a starmap which shows you all the planets in relation to one another and little icons and lines showing where stuff is going and what it is. This game does not. To find out if an enemy fleet is on it's way, you have to open up each individual sector window and see if the enemy fleet icon is next to a planet. That means either there's an enemy fleet there, or there's one coming. No distinction is made whether it's a single TIE Fighter or a flock of Star Destroyers. Also, this game runs in real time, so you constantly have to pause and flip through various sector windows and icons to see what's going on.

I will say this for it: you can actually build Death Stars (yes, plural) and blow up planets if you want. That alone puts it ahead of Star Trek: Birth of the Federation.

 

[Savagezion]

TES series skill system has potential. (I hope Skyrim taps into it.)

 

[random_bars]

Brutal Legend's premise. Brutal Legend started off strong with a fun little hack-and-slash game, but quickly turned into the most restrictive and annoying RTS games I've ever played. But the premise itself, of being trapped in a heavy metal-inspired fantasy world resonated with me. The comedy aspect could have also been great... if it had managed to stay funny for longer than 30 minutes.

...How exactly was Brutal Legend 'the most restrictive RTS ever'? You had just as much freedom as in any other RTS-type game, just in different places. I could just as well say that Starcraft is the most restrictive RTS ever because you can't even do teamup attacks with your units, land on the ground to kill stuff yourself, fight your opponent head-on to take them out of the battle for a few moments or to distract them while your guys kill their base... Like I said, freedom in different places and directions.

But anyway, Bioshock 2's hacking system was an improvement over the first game's one IMO. But that's pretty much the only thing I liked about it.

 

[Technopath]

Blitzball.

Yeah I said it. When I played final fantasy ten, I went to the tournaments and played the mini-game for 6 hours, without processing in the story.

I found the minigame fast paced and quite enjoyable, if there was ever a "sports game" spin off that I would've bought it was that one.

 

[Alfador_VII]

But anyway, Bioshock 2's hacking system was an improvement over the first game's one IMO. But that's pretty much the only thing I liked about it.

As Yahtzee said, it may be the only time in history where a QTE made a game better

It works much better than Bioshock 1's silly pipes.

But yes, other than that Bioshock 2 is a much weaker game than the first. A sequel to a game that didn't need one.

 

[Durananrananrananran]

GTA 4 - I liked that you could take a taxi ride and chill out. It made the city feel real.

 

[The Gnome King]

So, we've all played games we didn't particularly care for. Maybe it was annoying gameplay mechanics, a lack of polish, or an atrocious story, any number of factors can go into making a game suck.

For me, Bethesda's TES: Oblivion was a game I both loved and hated. I am *still* working my way through it. Let me explain:

Loved:
The huge, open world and lack of being "forced" into following the "main storyline" first. I got the Game of the Year edition and I love how I can just flit around from quest to quest, occasionally dip into the main plot if I feel like it.. etc. I also *love* the level scaling - it's genius. It lets me explore (and re-explore) areas of the world and know that I can explore to my heart's content without going someplace "I'm not meant to go" and getting one-shot-killed by some evil critter a lot stronger than I am.

Hated:
Leveling, leveling - and leveling. Did I mention leveling? OK, who the HECK thought it was a good idea to take this beautiful, huge game and make leveling tied to the number of times a giant rat, say, hits you in heavy armor? Or how many times you bash a button to spam your low level spells? I read through leveling guides to this game showing you how to get "optimal" stat allocation points and it really turned me off. Being able to level through repeatedly mashing a button or letting giant rats hit my shield while I hit "block" is just insanely dumb.

So... I find myself playing it, on and off, every now and then, but every time I notice myself inching closer to a level without meaning to I get angry at the game for making me do stupid things in order to keep my endurance up, etc.

Yeah. Oblivion. I hope Skyrim doesn't do this.

 

[DaJoW]

The Pripyat level in MW was quite fun. There were a couple of others that were alright.

The vault bit in Fallout 3 was a pretty good intro to a game.

 

[Space Spoons]

I wasn't really a fan of Chrono Cross, but I have to admit that the soundtrack was pretty amazing.

 

[Drummie666]

The rest of Fallout 3 was dull and lifeless.

I don't really know if by this you mean... You expected a wasteland full of life? If you did, Darwin would like a word with you

Sorry, poor wording. I meant that it had no atmosphere.

 

[MetalDooley]

Hated:
Leveling, leveling - and leveling. Did I mention leveling? OK, who the HECK thought it was a good idea to take this beautiful, huge game and make leveling tied to the number of times a giant rat, say, hits you in heavy armor? Or how many times you bash a button to spam your low level spells? I read through leveling guides to this game showing you how to get "optimal" stat allocation points and it really turned me off. Being able to level through repeatedly mashing a button or letting giant rats hit my shield while I hit "block" is just insanely dumb.

So... I find myself playing it, on and off, every now and then, but every time I notice myself inching closer to a level without meaning to I get angry at the game for making me do stupid things in order to keep my endurance up, etc.

Yeah. Oblivion. I hope Skyrim doesn't do this.

I hated Oblivion's levelling system too.I know it makes sense in theory because the only way to level your skills is to use them but in practice it's a pain.Having to deliberately let myself get hit in combat so my armour skill will improve,jumping instead of walking so my jump skill improves etc.

Hate to tell you this but from what I've heard Skyrim is going to use a virtually identical system

 

[Ultress]

Wild Arms 4,the Hex based combat was ok if extremely exploitable.

 

[The Gnome King]

I hated Oblivion's levelling system too.I know it makes sense in theory because the only way to level your skills is to use them but in practice it's a pain.Having to deliberately let myself get hit in combat so my armour skill will improve,jumping instead of walking so my jump skill improves etc.

Hate to tell you this but from what I've heard Skyrim is going to use a virtually identical system

I won't be playing Skyrim, then. It might "make sense" but I don't need my fantasy games where I fling fireballs to "make sense" - I just want them to be fun.

Mashing a button repeatedly isn't fun; for me.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

The opening section in the vault was very well done. The rest of Fallout 3 was dull and lifeless.

Then there was Moira Brown. She was awesome.

After replaying Fallout 3 more than five times, you will find that Vault 101 will become very, very fucking annoying to go through.

OT: I like how MAG handled healing -- you could bring a heal spray with you for yourself or comrades, but if you don't comrades can heal you, and they get experience for it.