Anyway, I tend to play a lot of games - and beat the vast majority of them. On another blog I like to frequent, the topic was how many games to you beat? I figure I am upwards of 90% or better in teams of 'beating' a game that has an actual ending of sorts. There were a handful of games this year that for one reason or another, I just could not finish in some capacity, and here they are.
Risen - Speaking of 'failing to be worth the effort', Risen was a huge disappointment for me. An open world RPG where your choices have consequences? Sounds good to me. Excellent music? Very nice. The graphics are a bit rough, but we can work through that. The text is hard to read even on a 32 inch TV... okay, less than ideal. Why is this quest buggy? What is the guy I'm dueling standing half-in and half-out of a wall as we fight? Why do I even care anymore? That is pretty much how that game went for me over a span of about thirty hours.
Ego Draconis II - RPG let-down #3 on this list. There has to be a hook to keep me invested. An awesome storyline, great artwork, some cool new gaming mechanic. But this was a game that had almost none of the above but instead offered up some odd glitches and uninspired gameplay that had me giving up on it relatively quickly.
Legends of Pegasus - A 4X strategy game with a ton of potential that went horribly to waste. You could feel some cool ideas just beneath the incredibly buggy surface and while I have read that most of the bugs have been addressed by now, I have no interest in this slow, chugging experience after it left such a bad taste in my mouth the first week it released.
Dungeons - And PC strategy takes another hit here as well. The idea of being a bad guy tempting heroes into trap-filled dungeons to be captured and eventually done away with seems cool. The camera and graphics were pretty rough however, and I just never really got into the flow of the game. Like Risen, a title that was reviewed poorly, but I saw enough potential to be hopeful. Sadly in both instances my hope was misplaced.
Elemental Monsters Online - I like my Collectible Card Games. By now that is fairly well-established. I nabbed this for free off of PlayStation Plus months ago, and at first found it to be fairly enjoyable. I still do not mind the game so much, but I have little interest in using the same decks, against the same guys, watching battles play out the exact same way hundreds of times. I might have been able to push through the storyline if I was actually getting new cards with my victories, but it seems like every pack I opened only added one more of something I already had, killing that potential hook as well. Better than the other games on this list, but still did not do enough to inspire me to see things through to the end.
Outland - this is a well-made puzzle/platformer game for the PlayStation Network, and because of the great reviews it received, I decided to pick it up on discount this year. I liked it well enough I suppose, but I just struggle to get into most games of this style for whatever reason. These were my bread and butter on the NES a zillion years ago, but now? I just sort of lose interest over time. I completed about three quarters of the game, but do not know if I will get around to polishing it off or not - hence no review just yet since this one was good enough I may come back to it eventually.
Any games stand out as ones you started but never finished? Did you have high hopes going in only to be sorely disappointed as you gave up in frustration or disinterest? Sound off!
I still haven't beaten Skyrim.
ReplyDeleteThat one took me a long time (I have it on PC). There's just so much to do and I tend to be a completionist - especially with RPGs. Hope you have a great holiday Tom!
ReplyDeleteDragon Quest IX as the last boss is an absolute bar steward and Wario: Master of Disguise as it turns out that I missed a power-up item, grrrr.
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