Your 'Guilty Pleasure' Games/Gaming Habits?

[Starbird]

What are they? You know - those cheesy, shallow or straight up bad games you still find yourself enjoying for one reason or the other?

Or maybe it's something in a game that is silly or unproductive, but you cannot stop doing?

For me:
Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series. Yeah it's imbalanced, the fighting mechanics are outdated and the last game was the first time I've ever seen anime style filler in a gaming series. Still - the boss fights are just all kinds of awesome and it's a nice fun way to revisit what is probably my favorite long running manga in an abbreviated form.

Tug Of War maps in Starcraft 2. Oh yeah, they are samey, shallow and I can play them while watching a movie AND cooking dinner for the most part. Still though...just building a massive army and watching it herpderp over the landscape is oddly soothing.

Making new characters in WoW/Skyrim/Guild Wars 2 etc. I am a serial 'fresh starter' - every time I play the game I want to start fresh and do things differently. Even once I get past the novelty and hit that Northrend stretch I regret it intensely.

How about you?

 

[Treeberry]

Making new characters in WoW/Skyrim/Guild Wars 2 etc. I am a serial 'fresh starter' - every time I play the game I want to start fresh and do things differently. Even once I get past the novelty and hit that Northrend stretch I regret it intensely.

I know that feeling.

Guilty pleasure games...Rumble Roses on the PS2. I didn't care about the fanservice, it was just fun. I loved how cheery and flat out fun it was. I don't have it anymore but I keep thinking about picking it up again sometime.

On a similar note, I prefer the Dead or Alive series to other fighters. That said, I'm not a big player of the fighting genre and I haven't played the Xbox exclusive games. I hope they keep the Marie Rose character in future installments and shake things up on the appearance front. Everyone looks so...plastic...and same-y. I like having a dedicated block button, being able to move in a circle, the multi-tiered destructable stages and those special stage actions.

Spoiler

Also, Rachel is ugly.

I also have this thing for boardgame games. Like Fortune/Boom/Itadaki Street and that 100% Orange Juice one that I need to get someday...

Spoiler

And visual novels. I read them for the stories! Seriously, I like murder mystery ones but you don't see them much.

 

[Sidewalker]

Breath of Fire 2 on an snes emulater. The progression is strong throughout, and the characters at the end actually get really freaking strong. Plus, we're talking old school snes graphics and world maps with secret islands and characters. All the goodness with instant saving!

 

[johnnybleu]

Conan for the PS3 is a guilty pleasure game that instantly comes to mind. It's a wretchedly average and merely competent God of War clone, but I inexplicably love it. It's one of those games I revisit regularly, even given it's mediocrity.

I suppose it stands to reason that I'd also put Age of Barbarian right along side it. Hmmm... I'm sensing a theme...

 

[sageoftruth]

Breath of Fire 2 on an snes emulater. The progression is strong throughout, and the characters at the end actually get really freaking strong. Plus, we're talking old school snes graphics and world maps with secret islands and characters. All the goodness with instant saving!

You really need those saves in Sten's fortress. That part was so cheap, with the deathspell-casting enemies. It would've been excusable if you didn't have to go through it with just one character.

 

[sageoftruth]

Any Elder scrolls game, when I get around to playing it. When I'm not playing it, I stay far away from it, since I know it will be 90% wandering, with only an illusory sense of progression, and a very dull combat system. However, when I somehow get tricked into starting it, I get so roped onto the treadmill to nowhere that it becomes a guilty pleasure for me.

 

[sageoftruth]

Blazblue seems to be a half-guilty pleasure for me. There are plenty of things I really like about it like the actual fighting system and the characters themselves, but there are also things, like the convoluted story and some of the costume designs that make me feel compelled to go "No! Really! I'm not that kind of guy!"

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Never really felt guilty over playing anything in particular. Resident Evil 5 is supposed to be abominable but I quite enjoyed it.

 

[EHKOS]

I really thought I had a constant one, but I looked everywhere on my shelves and I guess I don't.

Right now though, One Piece, Unlimited World Red. Holy shit it's bad, it's bloody awful. The dodge controls don't work right half the time, it's as padded as a women's products isle, and it feels like a reskinned Kingdom Hearts 1. It's SO MUCH like KH1. And the combat is terribly boring, I wish I was playing on the Misou Kaizuko engine and moveset instead. Nami, Robin, and Usopp are unbalanced and terrible as usual. Ugh, I hate it so much.


...But I have 30 hours into it right now and will add more.

I suppose RE: Revelations might count. I don't know if it's hated but the atmosphere is great...most of the time. Everything else was awful. I just like finding ghost ships and exploring through them before you find out what's going on, like that level in Republic Commando.

 

[SweetShark]

Visual Novel, Hentai and similar games. Reason: You know why.
There are of course MANY exceptions like Saya no Uta, Tsukihime, Corruption of Champions etc.

Other than that, nothing really. I don't feel guilty for liking a game.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I rarely let the opinion of others or what is widely regarded as "the norm" stop me from enjoying any game I play, personally.

 

[Sleix]

The first Assassin's Creed game. I absolutely adored the first game, and felt the series got progressively weaker, but everyone seems to shit on the first game all the time. It's probably one of my favorite AAA games to come out in the last decade.

Oh, and every Suda51 game ever. (Maybe excluding Killer 7)

 

[Pink Gregory]

Breath of Fire 2 on an snes emulater. The progression is strong throughout, and the characters at the end actually get really freaking strong. Plus, we're talking old school snes graphics and world maps with secret islands and characters. All the goodness with instant saving!

Isn't that...y'know...known to be a good game, though?

That's a guilty pleasure.

Shit there are quite a few things I should be guilty about in that case...

 

[RedDeadFred]

Playing Control Warrior in Hearthstone. It's a top tier deck, is one of the easiest to play (clear the board until you can drop legendary after legendary), and is easily the most pay to win deck there is. While I myself haven't spent a whole lot on the game (okay, I bought the biggest pack bundle at the start to get some of the more essential rares), players tend to assume that you went and dropped a couple hundred to get all of the legendary cards. Worst of all, now that Hunter has been shit on, it's worst match-up is probably Shaman which are fairly rare.

Anyway, I feel like an asshole when I play this deck, but it's a lot of fun. It's not my favourite deck though (control Shaman with one Bloodlust and one Windfury for a very surprising burst), so I'm not being an asshole too much of the time.

 

[Keyhound]

i wouldnt say there is a "guilty pleasure" in video games, if you enjoy playing something, good, there is no need to say things like "its crap but i like it", that being said... there is this horrible crappy game in the genesis(or mega driver) called 2 crude dudes(also called 2 crude busters) i have almost all sonic games, both toe jam & earl, but god i loved that game... and sice i found out there is a arcade version, i knew i had to try it...

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Resident Evil 5. I used to hate the fuck out of this game for it fully abandoning Resident Evil?s horror roots and going straight up action. I hated how they ended up making Wesker, who before then seemed more like this master manipulator who was always there who?s goals were never really clear, nothing more than a psycho who wanted to rule the world, and felt the best way to do that was to turn a small minority of the world into ferocious beasts and he would be king of shit mountain.

Then Resident Evil 6 happened and I didn?t realise just how good we had! I was able to just look back and see Resident Evil 5 for what it should have been. a fun bombastic conclusion to a series I loved. Seriously, Wesker is dead all loose ends have been tied where else did they really have to go? Nowhere hence the bull they came up with for 6.

Looking at it like that, it?s a fucking riot. The story and characters are approaching Metal Gear levels of absurd and silliness; and looking at it as the conclusion I can accept it as this action packed third act and can actually enjoy Wesker as Mr.Evil.
I don?t know I don?t feel guilty for liking it, I just know it?s a silly yet enjoyable game.

Another sad guilty sort of pleasure (more like vice) of mine is
Mortal Kombat.
More specifically the Story. You see, I?m one of those fans that really got into the story and ?lore? and that was the reason I kept coming back to the games. But after the last one, heh, man have I ever become disenchanted and realised I and most of the minority that like MK for that reason, are fans for the wrong reason. It?s a fighting game, the story hardly matters. Mind you MK has more of a focus on story than most other fighters but still, the people behind it are hardly putting much thought into the narrative as we wish/ or like to believe.
It?s something I am really trying to break myself free of and have, it honestly makes me sad but hey, if I want story and characters I should just go to a bioware game.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Blazblue seems to be a half-guilty pleasure for me. There are plenty of things I really like about it like the actual fighting system and the characters themselves, but there are also things, like the convoluted story and some of the costume designs that make me feel compelled to go "No! Really! I'm not that kind of guy!"

Mu-12 main here. I know exactly what you're talking about... I rely on her Forward H for defensive and zoning purposes. No really, I do but it's not my fault they decided to make it twist her around for a blatant ass shot for a good second and a half.

OT: Recently, Monster Girl Quest has been eating up my time. It has no right to be this good and I heavily recommend it to anyone who can handle a little weirdness. The story and characters are really damn solid by any standards, not just "good for a hentai game lol" and the soundtrack is great, I have the normal battle music on repeat cuz it's catchy as hell. I never thought hentai and feels could... Co-exist.

[sub][sub]Yeeeeeeaaahhhhhhhhhh![/sub][/sub]

Anyway, the genius is that it has only... Ten? unavoidable H scenes in the entire game (Thanks Alice!) There's over 100 in there if I had to guess off the top of my head. Basically the gist of it is you get attacked by monstergirls like for example Snake Girls, Harpies, there's good old Crab Girl in there (and just to show you they're not doing things by halves they run out Slug Girl and Sea Cucumber Girl early) and if you lose you get an in-depth rape scene, a game over and a lecture from the Goddess Ilias on how shit you are then some tips on the battle, usually along the lines of "see if you'd summoned Gnome more, you wouldn't have gotten locked down by stuns" So it's only hentai if you lose.

Otherwise, it's the (Fake) Hero Luka's quest to pave the way for Human and Monster co-existence by questing across the map to the defeat the evil Monster Lord. (Yes this is also kind of a parody of JRPGs on occasion) It's surprisingly well written and quite intriguing. Of course another motivation to keep playing is wondering what the next monster design is gonna be.

The combat is fun as hell too, 's a turn based thing where you unlock new moves (with crazy over the top JRPG names like Death Sword Chaos Star or Vaporising Rebellion Sword) and all that standard stuff then at fixed points in the game your skill set changes entirely to mix things up. Like summoning Undine is totally awful when you first get her because she's just a powered down version of Gnome but later she's kind of the free win button if you do it right. 100% dodge chance and increased damage for a few turns based on how much SP you have. I'm actually going to finish it on all three difficulties too which is something I rarely bother to do.

 

[Sidewalker]

Breath of Fire 2 on an snes emulater. The progression is strong throughout, and the characters at the end actually get really freaking strong. Plus, we're talking old school snes graphics and world maps with secret islands and characters. All the goodness with instant saving!

Isn't that...y'know...known to be a good game, though?

That's a guilty pleasure.

Shit there are quite a few things I should be guilty about in that case...

I mean I guess you can call that a good game. I started playing it though during the initial PS and N64 craze. So my friends would gather for Goldeneye and WCW and I would be like, "Hey that's cool. I'mma go play my old game now..."

But now that you mention it, that was a great game.

 

[Sidewalker]

Breath of Fire 2 on an snes emulater. The progression is strong throughout, and the characters at the end actually get really freaking strong. Plus, we're talking old school snes graphics and world maps with secret islands and characters. All the goodness with instant saving!

You really need those saves in Sten's fortress. That part was so cheap, with the deathspell-casting enemies. It would've been excusable if you didn't have to go through it with just one character.

RIGHT!? The falling fight scene took forfreakingever. That, and breaking Bleu out of her fortress or whatever it was. There were so many parts where I just freeze saved (or w/e it was called) and bullrushed right through the content. That game was the sole reason I got into a hardcore RPG phase. That and Tecmo Secret of the Stars.

 

[Irick]

I don't really have guilty pleasures.
I'll play the hell out of whatever ends up in front of me.

Probably wouldn't let my parents see me playing visual novels though. Just because it's difficult to explain what the hell is going on in Hatoful Boyfriend and WORLD END ECONOMiCA.

Spoiler

And visual novels. I read them for the stories! Seriously, I like murder mystery ones but you don't see them much.

Hatoful Boyfriend's BBL arc has something to offer you. Plus until you unlock that arc, it will make you laugh at the apparent absurdity.