Video games you want to like, but don't? / Video games you wished you liked more?

Sonygamer455

Sonygamer455

5,375
United States
The US of A
This is a topic that has been on my mind a bit lately and at first, I didn't think it was worth making a thread for, but the longer I thought about it, the more I wanted to talk about it. So here it is! :)

Anyways, just as the title suggests, what are some games you want so badly to like, but you just don't like/don't care about it for various reasons and wish that weren't the case? Or maybe you do like it, but not as much as you want to? I am sure we've been there before at least once, I can't be the only one, so feel free to share! :)
 
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Man you come up with some interesting threads, I'll give you that.

I think like 95% of the time people just like the games they like and simply avoid the games they dislike, but I have an example or two of games I just can't get with despite the good qualities they have.

The Crew 2 for instance. It has an interesting open world, the driving and vehicle physics are solid for an arcade racer, I genuinely love the premise of this like giant coast-to-coast international racing festival/world cup being held all over the US. (Also being able to do the Cannonball Run in a video game is sweet) But for some reason I just find the game grindy and boring as hell despite the charm it has. Like honestly seeing the game mature from the first which was some weird, overly serious NFS-inspired gangs vs cops thing to this big professional motorsports festival was really cool, but the execution of the game itself just didn't stick the landing in all areas.

To be fair, I gave up on the game pretty quickly and I'm aware it still has a small but loyal following and has probably gotten better like most Ubisoft titles, but with GT7 coming out I just don't see myself wanting to devote time to the game anytime soon.
 
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Open world games with medieval settings and 30fps racers with little to no sense of speed (a few that I like however)
 
Forza 7. I played the **** out of it yes, only because it was a nice 4k car-pg game with good tuning, but it was such a grind not being able to have the classic PI car restrictions. I mean using the Veyron and the car's division instantly restricts the power by 300kW, what even was the point
 
Test Drive 6.
Grew up playing Test Drive 5 for many years and liked it a lot, so it was only natural I'd want to play its sequel. Eventually, I got the game from a friend and was quite happy, but in the end, I didn't care too much for it. Recently tried playing it again and I just could not get into it. The game has a decent car list, the soundtrack is pretty good, and has really grown on me as of recent. The tracks are also pretty cool, especially since they have one set on Cape Hatteras in my home state and even featured tracks from the previous game. I'm sure theirs more I could say, but it has a lot of what made me like Test Drive 5, perhaps a bit more and it speaks to me in a similar language that Test Drive 5 did and feels like something I should like.

However, I don't like it too much because:
1. The physics and handling just aren't good. It's like driving a golf cart on steroids and feels like it wasn't designed to handle the extreme speeds the cars have in this game.
2. The AI is absolutely merciless and even on easy, no matter what car you choose, they are always way faster than you when they shouldn't be and make you feel like you're always at a disadvantage no matter what.
3. Maybe I am too attached to TD5, but the fact this game has a credit system is not something I am crazy about, but it's not too annoying to me especially since you can buy upgrades for your cars. What does annoy me the most about it however is being forced to use this weird "place your bet" feature which I just find a little confusing, intrusive, and overall kind of a useless feature it'd be better off without.

To be fair though, Test Drive 5 had problems 1 and 2 as well, but I swear 6 made it many times worse rather than improving it. #2 is probably my biggest problem with the game and if I had to pick only one to be fixed, it'd be this. I really really want to like this game, but it generally is just way too hard and unfair to be enjoyable and I cannot force myself to progress in the game simply because of that. If they would just tone the AI WAY down and actually make them play by the rules, improve the overall driving experience and ditch that stupid bet system, I feel like it'd be fine.
 
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AudiMan2011
Forza Horizon 5. Whilst there are many areas which it shines, its tainted by huge amounts of complacency in some of the design decisions. The current formula feels burnt out and just isnt as enjoyable any more.
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100% with you here. The flame started dying out with FH4 and peaked with FH3. Definitely needs a shake up.
 
Crash Bandicoot 1.
Played a demo of this game as a kid in my very early days of gaming and played its sequel a ton as well, which became a huge staple in my library for many years. Eventually, I finally got the first game. I thought it would be a lot of fun to finally have it and at first, it was, but that quickly went away because:

1. The controls are just awful by today's standards and haven't aged well at all. Crash is generally just a little too hard to control and I make so many stupid mistakes because of this.
2. The levels just get FAR too difficult the longer you play it and it quickly becomes unenjoyable after a while.
3. The save system requiring you to enter a bonus round (not available in all levels) is terrible and just makes it unnecessarily difficult to keep up with your progress.

I wish I could enjoy this game as I did with the 2 that came after. I know it's the first in the series and I want to like it because visually it still holds up well even now, has some neat level design and I don't think it's bad. It's just way too hard and frustrating for me to justify playing it. The N'Sane Trilogy makes some needed improvements on the first and it wasn't as bad, but I still found it a bit too hard and gave up when I reached Slippery Climb.

Now modding in the original games is something that has existed for years now and if a modder somehow manages to make Crash handle as he did in Crash 2 or 3 in this game, I might give it another chance, but until then, I don't see myself enjoying the game much.
 
WRC10, 9 hours in I just realized it wasn't for me and went back to wreckfest. Wish I didn't pay 60 bucks for it tho
 
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edit: I originally had Grim Fandango here, but I think it's more of game I couldn't like than a game I don't like, so I change my pick. I'll choose 2013's Shadow Warrior reboot.

I think I tried it sometime around 2014, and I had heard a lot of good thing about it, including a wholehearted recommendation from TotalBiscuit (bless his soul), so I basically went through the game forcing myself to like it, even though I wasn't really enjoying how it felt to play. SMG felt pathetic, shotgun felt limp, and only weapon I actually liked was crossbow. Level design was confusing, and so much of it simply consisted of dull grey industrial settings.

I do appreciate that developers took a risk and created old-school FPS style game when they were all but extinct though. Those kind of shooters started becoming popular again right after the Shadow Warrior, and that led to creation of fantastic games like Wolfenstein: New Order, so I'm glad that Shadow Warrior was able to kickstart all of that in some way.
 
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For me it was Midnight Club: LA. I love the Midnight Club series even today and I wanted to love Midnight Club LA but I didn't like that it was just one city from the jump. But then as played the game I found the racing to be difficult not because the AI was so great but the traffic you often race in would cause you lost a lot of races. I cant count out many races I lost because an AI car jumped out in front of me just as I was about to win a race. I tried to make through the career mode but I just quit after a month of trying to like the game and I eventually sold it
 
Destiny 2

The movement and shooting feel great, but I just can’t get into it. I hate feeling like I’m doing the same thing over and over again. Not into the lore either, it corny.

I want to mention the Division series too. The gameplay feels good, and I like the lore behind it. But it’s just another soulless Ubisoft game.
 
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Twisted Metal 2.
Big fan of Twisted Metal, got into it in 2011 with Head-On, then Black, and the 2012 game, but I had wanted to play Twisted Metal 2 long before any of them and I eventually did in mid to late 2012. The game had a cool soundtrack, nice maps, interesting characters, and great endings for them. It had just about everything I could ask for in a Twisted Metal game, however, all this is greatly undermined by the game's harsh difficulty. The AI cheats like no other game I've ever played. They spam their special weapons and freeze missiles at a rate you could never achieve without cheats making it easy to get killed and it doesn't help the health pickups don't respawn fast enough.

I want so badly to like Twisted Metal 2 more, but it's just too hard, unfair and generally, you die way too easy in this game. And I'm not trying to sound like a sore loser here, I've played through the entirety of Head-On, Black, and the 2012 game, even beating ATV without cheats in Head-On and 2012's story on Twisted difficulty with all golds. So I am aware Twisted Metal likes to challenge you, but Twisted Metal 2 just takes this too far and makes the game unenjoyable as a result. If they just fixed the AI and made them actually play within the game's limitations and made the health pickups respawn a little more, it'd be another TM game I'd love.
 
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MGS2. I love stealth games but got into them late, within the last 7-8 years. Try as I might, it just bores me for some reason. The wonky controls don't help. I've tried it from scratch at least 3 times. Funny thing is I played The Twin Snakes on the GC years ago and enjoyed it. I dunno 🤷‍♂️ I think it pales in comparison compared to Splinter Cell SAR which came out soon after.
 
Arcade track racers.

Dont mind arcade racers but when im playing on a race track i need semi decent physics. I try my hardest to like them as they tick every other box but the weird driving just frustrates me.

Arcade racers suit fantasy track settings like mario kart etc but not in games like grid.

At least give us the option to make it sim lite.
 
Gears of War games... Just something about their aesthetic and sounds that I just don't gel with.

The real kicker is Red Dead Redemption 2.
I played RDR to death, loved it. Tried so many times to get into RDR2 and it just doesn't hook. Won't give up, have no clue why I'm (still) not into it!
 
SDSmurf
Gears of War games... Just something about their aesthetic and sounds that I just don't gel with.

The real kicker is Red Dead Redemption 2.
I played RDR to death, loved it. Tried so many times to get into RDR2 and it just doesn't hook. Won't give up, have no clue why I'm (still) not into it!
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Gears of War came to mind instantly as well, as soon as I saw the title of this thread.
Halo series is another one, it doesn't do anything for me.

I played through some of RDR 2, but I gave up on it after a while.
It's not a bad game though, there is a chance I may give it another try later.
 
Need for Speed (2015).
When I put this in the OP:
Sonygamer455
Or maybe you do like it, but not as much as you want to?
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....this game was precisely why I did. As a huge fan of the Underground games and everything that came out between it and Undercover, when this game was announced, you could imagine I was very excited about it. However, when I got the game, although I enjoyed it quite a bit, it didn't quite hit the mark like I thought it would. Haven't touched the game in years, but the biggest problems I recall having with it was:
1. Simply put, I was not a fan of how the cars drove. I don't have anything super specific to say about it other than putting my car in grip mode was understeery as heck and drift mode wasn't great either. Been a little too long since I last played it, but all I know is, I didn't like it. 🤷‍♂️
2. The collision detection was easily my biggest problem with this game. It was one of those games where sometimes if you tap a wall, it will consider it as a crash when it shouldn't be and it made me pretty angry at times and that stupid crash cam didn't help in the slightest.
3. The garage was needlessly limited to like 5 cars I think and if I remember correctly, it could have easily held a lot more, but they intentionally limited it to that so you could "develop a closer bond with your car". This I thought was stupid and really discouraged me from trying out more of them. To be fair, they did come out with an update that allowed you to move your cars somewhere else (I forget where) to free up some space, but even that wasn't enough.
4. The game being online only was a problem I shared with many others. Truthfully I didn't think about it all that much, except when I needed to pause the game or if there was an update, but it was still a problem I wish the game didn't have.
5. When adding performance parts to your car, it was just needlessly confusing, not very straightforward and overall just executed badly in my opinion.
I am sure I left out something, but again, it's been a LONG time since I played it again on my PS4. Although people complained about the story and the cops being weak, I actually wasn't bothered by either of them. The body mods definitely could have been better, but the paint and vinyl editor made up for it for me since it was always my favorite part. #2 was actually my biggest problem and if I could only pick one thing to fix, it'd be that.

Overall, Need for Speed (2015) was not what I had hoped it would be, but it wasn't a total disappointment either. It was actually the first NFS I can honestly say I truly liked since Undercover. I want to like this game so much more than I currently do, but it had issues that brought it down quite a bit and once I beat it, it was just hard to find much enjoyment with it anymore after. I want it to be in my top 5 favorite NFS games but it ended up being more of an "honorable mention" instead and I wish that wasn't the case.
 
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FH5 for me too. As @Sonygamer455 knows I played the hell out of FH4 but 5 was a big regression.

I also have a few entire genres I'd love to like, such as 4X, fighting games and pretty much all isometric turn-based games (Fallout 1+2, Wasteland, Commandos, Jagged Alliance) but I feel like I missed the boat years ago and they either assume too much knowledge or that you've got the manual open while you play. Plus I have too many other games to play to want to get into new genres as it is... But if I had the time and nothing else to play, I probably would give them a proper go.
 
Pcars 2
when it's good it's really good
but when it's bad, I just want to smash my PC
I feel the same way about AMS2, but the improvements keep me hopeful

honorable mention is GTA IV,
I liked Liberty city in GTA III
but not so much in GTA IV
 
Ace Combat 7. I should love that game. But it misses on some of the dynamics (an A-10 doing HOW many knots???) and then throws all this "gamey" (for lack of a better term) stuff in that I don't care for, so even though it has the freaking fighter jets I love so much it goes months without being touched.

ACC. Just can't get into it. Tried it on my old X1X, I have no idea why people would do that to themselves. Tried it on the Series X before update, very meh. Couldn't get a good feel at all. Tried the new improved high-zoot xsx version for about 5 minutes, can't be bothered. Uninstalled.

The entire Forza Horizon series after the original. Wouldn't say they're bad games at all, I can certainly see the attraction, even though there's a few fictions in them that cause the old BS-o-meter to hit the limiter. I just can't get into them.
 
All the Horizon responses have me rethinking my taste a bit, but even with the dumb fun I've had in all five games, the first is my pick of the lot...after the update that cut back the prodding from the characters to do things.

That said, I can enjoy them in short bursts. I know I'm gonna get flack for it, but the proper Forza Motorsport series, start to finish so far, just doesn't gel with me. FM4 is the one I did the most in at once, and even then I regularly was thrown out of the experience for any number of reasons. Music, menus, car list, presentation, unskippable dialogue, etc. I'd like to know why exactly I don't get it, but all I know is I don't.
 
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Most post-apocalyptic games in general but one big example was The Last Of Us. Don't get me wrong, i somewhat understand why people loved it and why a lot of people considered it to be one of the best games ever made but for the life of me, I couldn't really get into it.

I only played it for like 3-5 hours which isn't a lot but from a gameplay standpoint, it's meh at best and tedious at it's worst. It's just your average shooty/stealth survival game that doesn't really engage me in. It's the story where i feel like this game truly shines in but even that wasn't enough for me to continue playing.

Maybe it's just me not being into "an empty, dead world that was the end result of a human disaster" types of media, especially nowadays.

Also we don't talk about the horrible mess that was TLOU2. I never played it but from what i seen online plus friends who actually played the game, disappointing seems to be an understatement.
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Honourable mention is Forza Horizon 5. When it comes to modern driving games genre or well, what's left of it, Horizon 5 is the least bad out of them all.

It's a pretty decent game if you never played a Horizon game before. However, for someone who played all of the previous Horizon games, FH5 got stale pretty quickly. The festival vibe somehow feels pretty dead compared to the first 2-3 titles. There's lack of any proper progression. The so called stories somehow manages to be even cringier than the previous Horizon game. There's barely anything new that have been added or changed since FH4. The soundtrack is pretty mixed bag.

What else? Oh yeah, lots of performance issues for the PC version.

The series just really needs a proper revamp or soft reboot.
 
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Fallout series. I find the character you meet and “bad-guys” to primitive and just dumb.

Persona series. I love the art style, but it get’s too technical and then too boring for me that I lose interest quite fast.
 
Forza Horizon since 3, bought 4 and 5, barely played them because I just can't seems to find the point. It looks great, it drives easy but yeah I dont know I dont get hooked up, even driving my favorite cars. Same things for FM since 4.

I also played FF15 and and Ni No Kuni 2 but yeah couldnt past 2h on them, dont really like the new action style battle. I'm a fan of the old jrpg gameplay, like NNK1 or old FF games.
 
AudiMan2011
Forza Horizon 5. Whilst there are many areas which it shines, its tainted by huge amounts of complacency in some of the design decisions. The current formula feels burnt out and just isnt as enjoyable any more.
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With you on this one...but I gave up at 4. I honestly kind of gave up at 3 and only bought 4 when it was offered at a discount. I really hope they find a little more creativity for the next installment. The only part I've actively enjoyed in any of the games (even going back to the first title) was the initial exploration phase. After you've become totally familiar with the map, the game starts to feel pointless and small, regardless of events and car packs added - and the map/world is not engaging enough to sustain that initial interest for more than 10-15 hours.

Same problem I have with Riders Republic ultimately. The development team, post launch, is focused entirely on adding new cosmetic content and races...I would greatly prefer they added new territory to explore.

SDSmurf
Gears of War games... Just something about their aesthetic and sounds that I just don't gel with.

The real kicker is Red Dead Redemption 2.
I played RDR to death, loved it. Tried so many times to get into RDR2 and it just doesn't hook. Won't give up, have no clue why I'm (still) not into it!
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With you on RDR2. I just didn't love it like I did the first game. I think I prefer the environment of the first title as well as the ambient atmosphere and tone (less foreboding) - this goes into minutia like the ambient music in RDR1 being wonderfully relaxing. I liked the inclusion of Saint Denis in 2, but so much of the game just kind of feels dreadful. Swamps & Murphy brood and the like. I really miss being able to access Mexico too.
 
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Samus
F1 games. Love to watch F1, love racing games in general but I just cannot get on with driving F1 cars.
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That's basically me with (mostly) licensed games for the series that I watch the most, primarily the F1 and NASCAR games. I've just never been able to get anywhere close to having the same amount of enjoyment and excitement in playing the games as I would watching the actual races live.
 

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