Games you dropped down

Started by TheFrighter, Tue 26/12/2023 17:58:09

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TheFrighter


Some times ago I tried to play at Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, a mix of platforming, racing, and puzzles. Not my cup of tea, but I endured in playing because I adore the old Larry.
After a lot of frustranting missions I throw the towel and stop playing. The game is still unfinished somewhere in my library despite how much I payed it.

Have you experienced the same situation? Ran out of fun for a game and drop it before the ending? 

What makes a game a frustration?

_

LimpingFish

#1
Oh, good question. I haven't been back to Starfield is about two months or so...it's kind of a Schrödinger's cat situation; I have both dropped the game and not dropped the game, I suppose, up until the moment I decide to uninstall it. :-\

In general, unless it's a game on Gamepass or Playstation Plus that I'm just trying out, I usually make it a rule to see the end credits of whatever game I commit to.

...

It's very annoying.
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Babar

So many! In my old age, I seem to have gotten a lot more impatient.

I'd heard of The Last Express for so long (even from an old AGS member who would constantly praise it), so a while back, I got it in gog, and...I just couldn't. I barely played it for a few minutes, but the interface, the time mechanic, it all just didn't work for me.

An example closer to what TheFrighter mentioned would be the original Deus Ex. I got that a couple years ago as well, and I actually got reasonably far into it, but just dropped it for some reason at a point. I might have to return to it now, I hear there are some QoL mods available, and I could start again from scratch.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a game I really liked quite a bit- the well done RPG mechanics, the visuals and style, even the story to an extent. I played through it quite a bit, but then at one point after several hours of gameplay you finish up with the foresty area of the game and move on to a desert area, and I got the impression that all that time that I had spent in the forest area, I was likely to have at least as much in this new area. That just felt like too much for me, and I abandoned the game.

Games really should know not to overstay their welcome- it happens a lot with RPGs, but also roguelikes. I noticed in games like Rogue Legacy, Hollow Knight, Hades- I play pretty long while, get to what I'd assume would be a satisfying ending, except it's not, and there is an expectation that I have to do about the same amount of time and effort as I'd already done, but again, to get the "true" ending.

A somewhat different example was Pillars of Eternity. I got it as one of the first in the new wave of RPGs, and while there was a lot to love about it, one of the core aspects just didn't do it for me: the combat. I got a reasonable way into it, but was probably still in the first quarter of the game. It culminated in me having stormed a castle, battling my way through it, finally defeating the big main guy in the castle to realise that I didn't enjoy a moment of the cumbersome, repetitive, battle-of-attrition style of combat it had, so I gave up. People tell me the sequel improved on this, but I'm not sure I trust that now.
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Crimson Wizard

#3
Quite a few actually, but if to count games that I played for the most part and could not make myself finish, then recently it's been "Subnautica: Below Zero".
I consider the first "Subnautica" be among the best games I ever played, and it stood out for many reasons: somehow it managed to be both a pretty scary game (where 99% of the gameplay is underwater) and have a very interesting and exciting world to explore.
"Subnautica: Below Zero", either a sequel or a side-quel of the first game, turned out to be a big disappointment for me, because it contained a shallow world (both literally and figuratively, as someone said in the Steam comments), constructed in seemingly random mix of biomes. Which is a shame, because it contained certain new elements which I liked, but they were not enough to make the whole experience enjoyable. Not even close to the first one at least.

I think I reached something like 85-90% of the game, made a pause, and then realized that I do not really want to come back to it.

heltenjon

A somewhat different reason: I have played some games with complicated controls, like racing games or action games, and advanced to a late stage. Then for some reason I haven't had time to play the game, and end up not remembering the controls well enough for easy control. So when I go back, it's too hard, unless I start over and re-learn everything. More often than not, I'm not in the mood for that. (It's the same way with a novel where I've forgotten who the characters are.)

Pogwizd

When I think of games I dropped down, two recent ones come to mind (I think there have been dozens of games I stopped playing for various reasons).

First one is Syberia. I started playing it for the first time somewhere around Christmas last year. From the very first moments, I realised the chapter areas are bloated with empty and lifeless rooms you had to walk through to get from one point to another. Walking speed also didn't help. Despite that, though, the game managed to keep me engaged for a few weeks and I would play it every evening. I think I've got pretty far into it, but when I got up to the cosmodrome area, filled with even more empty rooms (the cosmodrome area looked particularly dull imo), I realised I can't bear any more searches for hotspots or objects in hard-to-see areas. I still haven't uninstalled the game from my drive, but every time I boot it up and see the main menu I instantly feel fatigued and quit. Dunno, maybe I will get back to it one day, but only with a walkthrough.

Second is a non-adventure game. This War of Mine. I started playing it a few days back. At first try I got a pair of characters to play (a father and a daughter) and everything seemed rather fresh to me. I managed to survive for 7 in-game days. Then my characters died and when I started over I got a randomly selected set of different characters. Three this time. The location was different, too. However, when I saw the screen dotted with icons indicating points of interests/interactive hotspots and those three characters waiting for my orders I felt overwhelmed. I just couldn't get myself to manage the characters' needs, resources etc etc. It may be due to the fact that I have very little free time, and when I do, I don't want to burden myself with even more (micro)managing...



CaptainD

I had very much the same reaction to Syberia, and a similar reaction to Keepsake. Both just felt very empty. I did like aspects of both games, but couldn't keep playing them.
 

cat

Quote from: Babar on Wed 27/12/2023 07:41:34I'd heard of The Last Express for so long (even from an old AGS member who would constantly praise it), so a while back, I got it in gog, and...I just couldn't. I barely played it for a few minutes, but the interface, the time mechanic, it all just didn't work for me.

Long ago, I played it quite some time, but I couldn't make reasonable progress. The whole concept was overwhelming and lacking direction.

Danvzare

How long do I have to have played a game, before it qualifies as having been "dropped down"?
I only ask, because I've technically played the entire libraries of the Intellivision, the Colecovision, the Atari 7800, the Atari Lynx, and the Virtual Boy. Plus a large portion of the Atari 2600 and the Famicom Disk System libraries. (I've found some pretty good games doing this, but also a LOT of garbage.)

Although if we're only talking about games that I've at least gotten a decent way in... well it's still a huge list (probably close to the triple digits by now). Sword of Mana, Ancient Evil, Technomage, Little Big Adventure 2, Call of Duty World at War, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, The Sims 2 for DS, Uncharted Waters 2 New Horizons. The list goes on and on, and most of them are for completely different reasons, ranging from me getting stuck, to the game being absolute garbage that I couldn't bother to continue on with (with me only playing it as far as I did, under the hope that it would get better).

If I really had to name a reason for why I suddenly stopped playing most of the games that I stopped playing halfway through. I'd cite getting stuck as the main point. But that can be from the difficulty getting too high, to me having left it long enough that I had no idea what to do next by the time I finally returned.

Is it normal to only have a couple of games that you suddenly stopped playing?  ???

Cassiebsg

Uhm, come to think I never finished Syberia either. But I'm not sure why, I remember I bought it back when it come out, and startet playing it... but why I stopped? No idea honestly! Maybe it was due to the fact that that year I had 3 jobs + uni and just run out of "free time". That was also the last adventure game I bought for many many years.

More recently I got Wolf Among us for the Xbox, and was excited about it "Oh boy! An adventure game!". I started playing and right away I was annoyed with the timed dialog. I had barely time to read the "question and the answers" that I didn't even had time to pick my answer... it just picked it for me. Annoyed, but I said to myself "Well, whatever is said is probably not too important anyway, lets give the game a chance." I picked up a few items, entered the room where a fight has happening and all of a sudden I'm forced to fast press buttons and crap... and die, and try again, and die, and .... multiply this by 10 or so, and then the game saves right before I die again... and from that moment on every time I booted the game up I would instantly die. I gave up on the game at this point.

Then I found out there was a Back to the Future adventure game! Oh joy! 2 favorites spliced together! What could go wrong? :) Well all I didn't want in an adventure game. Give me 4 options of dialogue to pick from, only to reply the exact same line (even when it made no sense on the option I picked... lazy developer?). After that the game kept telling me what to do, instead of letting me explore, even though I had turned the "help function" off. If there's anything I hate more in adventure games, is when I'm not allowed to figure stuff on my own, since it takes all my enjoyment of the game. So... I dropped it.
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Danvzare

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Thu 28/12/2023 16:23:48and all of a sudden I'm forced to fast press buttons and crap... and die, and try again, and die, and .... multiply this by 10 or so, and then the game saves right before I die again...
That perfectly describes most games from 2005 to 2013, where every game had to have quick time events. I'd love to say that was an annoying period in gaming, but every period has its annoying bits.  (laugh)

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