Awful Crimes of Beloved Games

[Yegolev]

I'm going to be the first person to come in here and flat out say: This thread is weird.

You are the worst fit for this thread of all the people here.  You actually do realize the flaws in the sacred cows of gaming and mostly don't play shitty games.  Or if you do, you know what you are playing and are aware of it.

You can think of this as a place to contain all the "hey they are remaking ______!" "Oh, that pile of shit?", if that helps.  Been seeing a lot of that and I want to encourage people to speak out against games that the majority love.  Like Final Fantasy VII.

Also, I happen to dislike several popular titles and I wanted to have a place to dump those ideas when they came to me.  Never could get into some of them.  Metal Gear Solid?  I don't see the appeal.  I mean that from when it was new.  Walk around and avoid the eye-cones?  It's barely above the arcade classic Berserk, mechanically.  Don't even get me started on the "plot".

[Yegolev]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

[Yegolev]

Eternal Sonata! I don't even know why I finished it BUT BY GOD I DID.

Total.  Complete.  Shit.

I also bought this abortion on an optical disc.  Did not finish.  Characters were insipid, the starting premise of the story was BLAH WHAT, combat was shitshitshitty.  Why would anyone like this game?

[trias_e]

I'm going to be the first person to come in here and flat out say: This thread is weird.

The truly awful games that I've liked are mostly disliked here.  Star Wars: Rebellion and Alpha Protocol...

Can't say anything about Star Wars: Rebellion, but Alpha Protocol is fucking great.  Is it really disliked that much around here?  If so, you're all wrong.

[Fabricated]

I like Demon's/Dark Souls, but you pretty much have to have some low grade of autism to love it to the point you put hundreds of hours in.

[schild]

Your concept of "buggy" is flawed. As far as game balance goes, it's kind of a train wreck. But bugwise, it's a pretty clean game given the scope.

Entire stats didn't work in FF6; namely evade. Regular evasion as a stat did nothing because of a programming error attributing both physical dodge and magic dodge to the magic evasion stat. So if you aimed to max out magic evade (easy to do really) you can make a character that literally cannot be hit.

Relm's sketch bug can literally destroy all the savegames on your cartridge. Or give you 99 Illuminas and debug items. It is not hard at all to have the Relm sketch bug occur completely by accident since all you need to do generally is try to sketch an invisible enemy.

There's a whole LP someone did on Something Awful where they completely sequence break the game and gets to the point where he's directly editing the game's active memory via menu tricks:
http://lparchive.org/Breaking-Final-Fantasy-VI/

It's a fucking buggy ass game. I love it, it's still the best Final Fantasy game as far as I'm concerned, but it is a mess as far as bugs go.
snip

There's a difference between glitching the game and being a buggy ass game. Every game has bugs when provoked. Also, who the fuck actually looked at stats in that game? You didn't need too. It wasn't exactly, you know, difficult.

Again, played through it about 10 times, never once ran into a bug. I'd imagine that is most people's experience.

[schild]

I like Demon's/Dark Souls, but you pretty much have to have some low grade of autism to love it to the point you put hundreds of hours in.

I actually agree with this. I beat Demon's Souls I think, 3 times, just to try different builds. But it's not a game I would ever try to 100% in any capacity. Dark Souls I couldn't even bother with. It didn't have the cleanness of Demon's Souls.

The only Metal Gear Solid I've enjoyed was MGS4. I'm looking forward to the next one. All the ones prior to 4 struck me as basically unplayable.

I can barely even manage to slog through the 20 minutes of cutscenes and bad monologue about the nature of war it takes to get to the actual gameplay in MGS4.

So, I can't actually tell you the story of MGS4 for the most part as it's an incomprehensible train wreck. I skipped the vast majority of the cut scenes in the game both times I played through it. But the game portion of that title is absolutely worth experiencing. As far as I'm concerned, all of the other Metal Gears are completely unplayable, so it's not like I don't understand your sentiment. MGS4, however, is the only game I ever considered doing a no kill / no alert run through because it's just that good.

[Ruvaldt]

I've played through FF6 four times from beginning to end, and I can't recall ever encountering a bug.  I don't doubt that they exist, but they certainly never affected my gameplay in any noticeable way.

[Rendakor]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

So I wasn't doing it wrong. Good to know my reading comprehension still works.

[HaemishM]

the games you shouldn't have been interested in but that kept you interested because they were extreme design paradigms, spectacular failures, brilliant near-misses or simply because other people liked them a lot.

I can name two recent games that hit that button for me. Limbo and Bastion. Limbo because it's just so gorgeous but GODDAMN do I hate platformers with the white-hot passion of the sun. Bastion because I really shouldn't like such a goofy looking game that is all about clicking monsters to death but somehow is just so atmospheric and plain weird that I can't help but enjoy it little bits at a time.

[Lantyssa]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

So I wasn't doing it wrong. Good to know my reading comprehension still works.

Don't we do that on the rest of the site?  Then in that case, WoW, any recent Bioware release, .... pretty much everything you guys play.

[Rasix]

Can't say anything about Star Wars: Rebellion, but Alpha Protocol is fucking great.  Is it really disliked that much around here?  If so, you're all wrong.

Well, while I had a ton of fun playing Alpha Protocol, it did have a lot wrong with it.  First of all, the game has some really poor stealth and combat mechanics. The weapon balance is fucking terrible.  The game is unplayable on PC without a heavy amount of tweaks. Even then, some of the mini-games are god awful with a keyboard and mouse.  The AI is just plain wretched in parts.  Basically: it was made by Obsidian.  

BUT, it's a lot of fun to play.  It's cool to see the choices you make have an actual affect on the plot, and you have to make some difficult ones.  Sure, there's a lot of binary choices like "save the girl" or "save 1000 random civilians" (which are dumb when they're in there), but occasionally there's the "Jack Bauer this motherfucker", "introduce yourself", *head slam*    I think this game could have been something very special if they were able to smooth out the gameplay experience and didn't suffer from some of the publisher interference that was reported.  

Experiencing the game is a lot better than actually playing it, if that makes any sense.

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

So I wasn't doing it wrong. Good to know my reading comprehension still works.

I was right too.  Neener neener something.  

Still, weird, semi non-interesting thread with the original intent.  Reminds me of Sam's grammar gulag.

edit: <nah, I better not>

[Phred]

No other game has yet to replicate the awesomeness of making "The Robo Hedgehog" a huge body type set to tiny height with spikes and darkness aoe. The little brown spandex'd hero would just run in and shake around like a seizuring rodent on meth, it was glorious.

Still, fucking horrible grind, never made it past 20.

Ya Cryptic should have stuck to making character creators, cause their game design skills were pathetic.

[Merusk]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

So I wasn't doing it wrong. Good to know my reading comprehension still works.

Ditto.

By the by: Homeworld still sucks ass.

[Yegolev]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

So I wasn't doing it wrong. Good to know my reading comprehension still works.

I did a terrible job of specifying that.  I re-read the OP and it could have gone either way.

[Yegolev]

edit: <nah, I better not>

[Rasix]

Hey, I didn't have much to throw except "I think this game blows, but I can't give specifics.  WHY DO YOU MORONS LIKE IT?"

As for Homeworld and CoH; didn't like either game.  I didn't get past level 11 in CoH, which I think is my worst effort for any MMO I actually played at release and paid money for.   I don't include Auto Assault, because schild got me a press copy.  Go go wizard car!

[Sjofn]

Wait...is this thread about telling other people that the games they like are actually shit, or is it about admitting that the games you like are actually shit?

The first one, but I always underestimate how self-absorbed this community is.

Or, and I'm just guessing here, it feels way less douchey to have a thread that goes "haha, this game I love, I know it is shitty and yet I loved it anyway" than to throw poop at someone because they have the gall to like games you don't, and so people were erring on the side of self-depreciating.

But ... it's not like people are shy about telling other people their taste in games is shit in every other thread here. Which makes this thread even weirder than I originally thought.

[Zetor]

I would like to go on record saying that whoever invented that White Tower level in Lands of Lore with all the spirits and crap that kill you and you can't hurt them except for a random item you probably discarded several dungeons ago is a bad person and fuck that place with a spoon dgfiofdsjgadfijgo

[Fabricated]

There's a difference between glitching the game and being a buggy ass game. Every game has bugs when provoked. Also, who the fuck actually looked at stats in that game? You didn't need too. It wasn't exactly, you know, difficult.

Again, played through it about 10 times, never once ran into a bug. I'd imagine that is most people's experience.

Most of my friends encountered the Relm sketch bug; namely when they'd try to sketch stuff like Wrexsoul or Intangir.

Buggiest 16-bit RPG however is Lufia 2. There's an area that's literally a completely glitched out mess, and graphic/text glitches just happen on their own with no provocation.

[Yegolev]

Sketch wasn't something I used much.  Was it #6 where your team could all be kappas with genji gloves and imp halberds?

[Fabricated]

Yep.

[Yegolev]

I do remember now that there was a item duplication exploit in FF4.  I used that one a lot.

[Strazos]

Ooo, thought of another terrible game I shouldn't like but do -

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

The only redeeming trait I can think of off-hand is that I could beat it in a single weekend rental. 

[koro]

Ooo, thought of another terrible game I shouldn't like but do -

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest

The only redeeming trait I can think of off-hand is that I could beat it in a single weekend rental. 

I sometimes still pick up Mystic Quest for a quick play. I still find it fun, though I acknowledge it's not that good of a game.

But it has another redeeming trait though! Its soundtrack is fucking ace.

[Nebu]

Anyone mention ToA yet?   

[Rasix]

Who would admit to loving that?

[Nebu]

Who would admit to loving that?

ToA was a crime to my beloved game!  DAMMIT

[Rasix]

Donny, you're out of your element.

[Nebu]

Donny, you're out of your element.

I now realize that.  Fortunately, most people ignore me unless I'm talking about medicine.

[Yegolev]

I'm at least halfway through Bioshock Infinite, and I'm not seeing how it's special.  Shoot, cutscene, shoot, cutscene.

[pxib]

All of the great "adventure games", from Infocom to Lucasarts to Myst and its clones: The daffy shoe-horned world design. The pixel-hunting. Now guess the verb and guess what the designer is thinking, and then try every single object in your inventory on every single other object in your inventory and then every single object out in the world. As a reward, you get to watch precious minutes of terribly acted, terribly voice-acted, terribly directed, terribly produced "full motion video".

I still have a lot of nostalgia for the time I spent playing these games as a kid and the satisfaction I found in completing them, but as Old Man Murray put it: the genre committed suicide. People are still making these things, and they're still terrible. The medium has moved on.

For that matter, the entire concept of a "puzzle" is basically dead. Cognitive leaps just aren't predictable enough in the age of walkthroughs on the internet. If it can't be solved by flailing with the controls, it's not going to survive testing.

[Rasix]

I'm at least halfway through Bioshock Infinite, and I'm not seeing how it's special.  Shoot, cutscene, shoot, cutscene.

That's pretty much a tl:dr of the entire thread concerning said game, minus the beret squad picking the corpse bare.

[Velorath]

I have to say, I still remain a bit surprised that aside from WoW, the only two games I can think of that have had a long term, somewhat active f13 presence are Eve and Blood Bowl, neither of which I think are particularly good games. I guess there's LoL also, but I've never tried it so I can't really say shit about it.

[Margalis]

Movies are supposed to entertain us also, but I'm sure you can acknowledge that there are movies you've seen that are bad on any number of levels but that you somehow manage to enjoy. Hell, Michael Bay has built his career off people's willingness to enjoy shit movies provided there are enough explosions or they play off nostalgia from a line of toys from the 80's. That doesn't elevate them to the status of good movies.

I don't find Bay movies entertaining. They aren't good, and they aren't so bad you laugh at them. On the other hand I do like some schlocky movies, but I would argue that the schlocky movies I like are good in the ways that matter.

All of the great "adventure games", from Infocom to Lucasarts to Myst and its clones: The daffy shoe-horned world design. The pixel-hunting. Now guess the verb and guess what the designer is thinking, and then try every single object in your inventory on every single other object in your inventory and then every single object out in the world. As a reward, you get to watch precious minutes of terribly acted, terribly voice-acted, terribly directed, terribly produced "full motion video".

Yeah, adventure games as a whole are pretty terrible and they actually got worse over time. Once they became more graphical with a cursor and such they turned even more into "try every verb on every object." From what I understand modern adventure games are still pretty much the same.

Edit: It seems to me that after 20+ years nobody has figured out an actual gameplay mechanic for adventure games. The more successful games sidestep this - Walking Dead has almost no systemic gameplay at all, neither do many Visual Novel / Choose Your Own Adventure style games. Games like 999 have choice-based sections and then puzzle/minigames that are again not really systemically related.