There are rare moments in gaming life that make me stop and say “wow”. I pick up the controller, and I know that I’m playing gaming gold, that what I am experiencing is something new and fresh and fascinating, and I know it within a couple of minutes of gameplay. Then, there are times when the exact opposite happens. When I know that what I am playing is complete and utter crap. And it barely took me long to figure it out.
For me this weekend, that was Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. While I’ve been excited to play this game for months, I was pretty horrified early on when I discovered how shoddy the gameplay mechanics felt, how boring the whole thing was, and how glitchy it was to boot. I mean, hell, they literally use the same exact tutorial from the XBox game (Escape from Butcher Bay) as the intro to this one, shocking you with its outdated graphics. I was really disappointed at how boring the game is, because I really wanted to like it.
So what about you guys? What’s the last game that you played where you knew almost instantly that you didn’t want to play it anymore?
Metroid Prime 3. I didn’t have the same wow factor as the first or even the second. A shoody reconstruction of the first level of Halo 2 and a shooty opening was a far cry away from the other 2.
I’m sure you’re in the minority, as far as i’ve seen, most people seemed to like Dark Athena…
[quote comment=”6398″]I’m sure you’re in the minority, as far as i’ve seen, most people seemed to like Dark Athena…[/quote]
Yeah, I’ve read some decent reviews of the game, so I was surprised when I played it. I just didn’t care for it at all. I found it to be a boring mess. Try it out for yourself and see how you feel about it, is all I can say.
Eddy is right, I played the demo for this and was excited about it…until I played the demo. Bleh. No, thank you.
Skuba, I am shocked by that! I loved MP, hated MP 2 and am playing MP 3 as we speak and I love it, it is better than MP 2 for sure. If you had stayed with it about 20 minutes more, you would have had your mind blown by some amazing planets and exploration.
The demo is boring, but I hoped the actual game would have more to offer.
I LOVED Escape from Butcher Bay, so this is sad news.
hmm I’d have to say Far Cry 2. At first I was pretty impressed and the gameplay was fun, but some of the repition forced the game stale, much like Assassin’s Creed.
Also WaW. I got it for Christmas, and it just… Did not live up to Modern Warfare at all, so I havent finished the campaign; never bothered with the MP since I got sick of the MP on CoD4 anyways.
[quote comment=”6401″]Eddy is right, I played the demo for this and was excited about it…until I played the demo. Bleh. No, thank you.
Skuba, I am shocked by that! I loved MP, hated MP 2 and am playing MP 3 as we speak and I love it, it is better than MP 2 for sure. If you had stayed with it about 20 minutes more, you would have had your mind blown by some amazing planets and exploration.[/quote]
I’ve completed it twice. BORING, or at least compared to 1 and 2. I didn’t like the dimension swap mechanic. It made for great puzzles but the gimmick wore off after a while. MP1 remains my firm fave to this day. Still plays like a dream.
I left out half of my comment there. I didn’t like the dimension swap in MP2 but even despite that I thought it was a better game overall. More exploration.
Fable 2 was like that for me. As soon as I completed the first dungeon, I said “no thanks”. That, and I had already gotten married, which kind of killed my enthusiasm for exploring, knowing that there was someone back at my gypsy camper waiting to nag me for being gone to long. I solved that by having my friend play co-op and kill her. Yeah, that was evil, but only by extension, so that makes it alright.
lol i had the exact same reaction. I rented dark athena from gamefly and played through and loved the old butcher bay. Then I played about one or two hours of dark athena and shipped it back unfinished. it was just horrible especially after the greatness of butcher bay.
Billy Hatcher. Why did I buy that game!?!?!?!?
I, too, was also intrigued by Dark Athena, but then people said the graphics and gameplay was bad and glitchy. The said there were moments of great stealth gameplay at that the story and Vin Dieselness was great, but that there were a lot of problems with the two games. Plus, the multiplayer is lack-luster, even though I think the Riddick gametype is fairly sexy.
I feel ya. Far Cry 2. It got old SO fast.
Worst part, $12 sell back….
Id recommend selling Riddick back ASAP
[quote comment=”6401″]Eddy is right, I played the demo for this and was excited about it…until I played the demo. Bleh. No, thank you.
Skuba, I am shocked by that! I loved MP, hated MP 2 and am playing MP 3 as we speak and I love it, it is better than MP 2 for sure. If you had stayed with it about 20 minutes more, you would have had your mind blown by some amazing planets and exploration.[/quote]
MADNESS ANTHONY! HATED MP2? That game was the best of all three in my opinion, in terms of gameplay mechanics and the dark world vs. light and how you were restricted. Felt realistic, in a way; but, to each his own.
I’d have to say that the last game that made me quiver in mental/emotional sensual spasm was BioShock (1), sadly, I started playing it in broad daylight. But even so, I knew that I would have to wait until night time to really get into the game. There have been games that have made me say “wow” after BioShock, for sure. But BioShock’s greatness was so unexpected for me, that I couldn’t help but to be reminded of my true inner gamer once I started it up. That, and it covered more mature subject topic than most games of date (even “hardcore” games). Mature games are more of my thing. Truly mature and serious. Being 17, my Halo/GoW friends simply said “ew? BioShock?” but, I loved the game. Suited my taste.
I’m a huge RTS fan, and for me it’s pretty clear when one RTS is great or total garbage. I remember playing Panzer Claws for the first time, played it for maybe 15 minutes, then completely forgetting about it.
To be honest the only total wtf awesome moment I have ever had is with HL2, I sat down to play it for the first time and decided to take a break a little while later. I then realized that I had just played for 4 1/2 hours straight without moving my eyes from the screen. (I paid pretty bad for that one)
As for horrible games..I think the last one was X-Blades, I did 2 fights before I realized how awfully repetitive and dull this was going to be. I lasted about 10 minutes before shutting it off and cleansing my gamer-soul with some Fallout 3.