What kind of games do you HATE?

[Depression Moon]

I hate terrible games.

[Madame Adequate]

But I despise guitar hero/rock band. The level of skill some people display is staggering. With the amount of effort they put in to guitar hero, some people could be getting paid to play a real guitar which, from my experience, is far more enjoyable than any video game could be , at least once you get past the difficult phase (A phase that generally does not exist in any video game save guitar hero). They also teach people precisely how not to be a musician (ie, practice the whole thing from start to finish until you can do it without a mistake). Those few individuals who are inspired to take up a real instrument because of games like rock band are likely to wind up with major handicaps thanks to these games.

That's nonsense. You can get good enough to enjoy Rock Band within half an hour. The amount of time needed to get good at a rhythm game isn't remotely comparable to the amount of time needed to learn to play an instrument. Yes, I'm sure there are some people who put that overwhelming amount of effort in until they can do Through the Fire and the Flames on Expert but for most people it's just something fun they do.

[Slothy]

That's nonsense. You can get good enough to enjoy Rock Band within half an hour. The amount of time needed to get good at a rhythm game isn't remotely comparable to the amount of time needed to learn to play an instrument. Yes, I'm sure there are some people who put that overwhelming amount of effort in until they can do Through the Fire and the Flames on Expert but for most people it's just something fun they do.

Agreed MILF, though even something like becoming proficient with most songs on Expert takes less time than learning an instrument by a long shot. Hell, I was good enough to play most songs in GH 1 & 2 on Expert back when they came out and that just came from passing the controller around once or twice a week with friends more than any actual practice.

The only thing I might agree with is that playing the drums in these games can lead to some bad habits that people benefiting from some proper instruction would be taught to avoid. And I'm talking the sort of habits that could lead to injury of the hands and wrists from sloppy technique (tendinitis, carpal tunnel, etc.). But I also have never seen what the tutorials for the drums are like in these games so I can't be sure. But almost since Rock Band was first announced I've been worried about people with no experience and no instruction bashing away at those rubber pads. I'd be surprised if no one has ever hurt themselves playing the drums in a rhythm game before.

[Roto13]

In other news, I was going to run for public office but I decided to get really good at Sim City instead.

It's amazing that it's 2010 and there are still people spouting crap like that about music games as though they're replacing actual instruments. They're games.

[Jessweeee♪]

I like that we only have favorite threads! Thinking positive is good for you!

But I will participate.


There isn't really anything I flat out hate, but I'd never buy a party game such as Rock Band. They're fun enough that I'll play with friends and enjoy myself, but not fun enough that I'd shell out the bazillions of dollars for the plastic equipment just to have it break a million times. Best to wait until a friend buys them. (Plus that stuff will not fit in my house.)

[Seraphic]

Sports,FPS, and Sandbox games.

Sports games just flat out bore me.

While I can't say the entire genre of FPS since I like games like Perfect Dark and Mirror's Edge, the majority of them I just can't get into, or they make me really nauseous.

And for Sandbox games, I really like knowing what I have to do next and I generally don't like doing side missions or quests, so I just feel like I'm doing all this needless extra stuff when I really just want to play the actual game.

[Roto13]

Mirror's Edge is a first person platformer so you don't have to worry about that one. :P

[Iceglow]

But I despise guitar hero/rock band. The level of skill some people display is staggering. With the amount of effort they put in to guitar hero, some people could be getting paid to play a real guitar which, from my experience, is far more enjoyable than any video game could be , at least once you get past the difficult phase (A phase that generally does not exist in any video game save guitar hero). They also teach people precisely how not to be a musician (ie, practice the whole thing from start to finish until you can do it without a mistake). Those few individuals who are inspired to take up a real instrument because of games like rock band are likely to wind up with major handicaps thanks to these games.

That's nonsense. You can get good enough to enjoy Rock Band within half an hour. The amount of time needed to get good at a rhythm game isn't remotely comparable to the amount of time needed to learn to play an instrument. Yes, I'm sure there are some people who put that overwhelming amount of effort in until they can do Through the Fire and the Flames on Expert but for most people it's just something fun they do.

Very much agreed with Hux, it's a good point. Basically rhythym games are about naturally having a sense for it nothing more. The other day I was asked by a customer how DJ Hero is played. I've never played DJ Hero and to cap it all off it was DJ Hero 2, the game was set up on the "medium" difficulty and with having never played it and with the deck being arranged for a right handed person to play I managed to complete the mix I chose (not even an easy mix considering it was an eminem and a lil wayne track mixed in together) with 74% of the notes/beats/scratch symbols or whatever they're reffered to as hit correctly. You can learn to improve that sense of rhythym but why put in the effort? I mean I have Guitar Hero 3 and 4 and have borrowed others from my best mate when he comes over but I've never bothered to go for the time or effort involved in doing Through The Fire And Flames on expert (though it's a lot easier in Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits than in Guitar Hero 3 I've learnt)

In other news, I was going to run for public office but I decided to get really good at Sim City instead.

It's amazing that it's 2010 and there are still people spouting crap like that about music games as though they're replacing actual instruments. They're games.

It's ironic actually that they get seen as "replacing real instruments" and the like really especially considering the Pro instrument controller range for Rock Band 3. The Pro Guitar is after all a full sized 6 string electric guitar what teaches you how to play the songs for real on an electric guitar so that once you've learnt how to play it you can simply connect the "controller" to an amp and actually play the song in full. All the pro instruments can teach you how to play that instrument in question for real and most will hook up to an amp or similar technology and allow you to play stuff on. The only one I doubt could do this is the keyboard controller and thats because it's not a full size keyboard. So in effect with Rock Band 3, the games are now turning the tables (oooh DJ Hero pun here lol turning the tables geddit? lol sad, I know) on the myth that there could be another Jimi Hendrix out there who never bothered to play a real guitar because he was too busy playing Guitar Hero.

[Laddy]

You guys need to play a WRPG like Baldur's Gate. Now. Play a real RPG. A MAN'S RPG.

[Wolf Kanno]

I have played Baldur's Gate and I can say with honesty the most exciting part was rolling my characters. I've been waiting 15 years for WRPGs to impress me and they all still feel like poorly made digital pen and paper RPGs with the worst GM in terms of making the players feel immersed cause they can't act to save their life.

[Laddy]

Then watch a movie. JRPGs' GM's have no interaction with their player. Baldur's Gate II, for example, had an epic plot and fantastic characters that is extremely well-presented. Being forced to kill your lover isn't immersive? Reincarnating the very man who tried to kill you isn't immersive?

I'm sorry, but JRPG's just can't do that very much . They're too hold-your-hand in stories. And while they can be very good, often times you aren't even IN the story. You can't be immersed into a story you have zero role in.

[Wolf Kanno]

You've obviously not played the Persona series.

No, my issue with WRPGs stem from their poor presentation. The plot might be epic but the characters and VA work feel like they came out of an ameture acting club. When the ancient wizard sounds like Bill from accounting, trying to sound mystical it sorta shoots the seriousness of the plot into B movie cheese. That is my problem, when I played BG, I was always aware I was playing a game with fake characters. I was never able to give a damn about anyone cause they simply never garnered enough convincing emotion to make me see them as more than chess pieces in a game.

I agree that JRPGs nowadays are simply interactive movies but WRPGs lack any draw into their worlds and stories cause the characters that inhabit these worlds always sound like they are reading the script when they are recording their lines. Its like a bad Renaissance Fair re-enactment half the time. It often kills the story for me cause I just can't take it seriously anymore.

[Madame Adequate]

I think the problem is yours more than WRPGs, WK. BG and various other games are pretty widely regarded as being deeply immersive and competent. If you go in expecting something as freeform and convincing and PnP then yeah, you're going to be disappointed, but you're asking for games to do something which they could not then and still can't now do. Might as well criticize Metropolis for not being 3D.

[Mirage]

Then watch a movie. JRPGs' GM's have no interaction with their player. Baldur's Gate II, for example, had an epic plot and fantastic characters that is extremely well-presented. Being forced to kill your lover isn't immersive? Reincarnating the very man who tried to kill you isn't immersive?

I'm sorry, but JRPG's just can't do that very much . They're too hold-your-hand in stories. And while they can be very good, often times you aren't even IN the story. You can't be immersed into a story you have zero role in.

Idk about you, but i immerse myself in movies and TV series on a regular basis, even if I have no control over anything in the stories. So having to have some control over a story is clearly not a requisite for immersion for me, and apparently not for anyone else who gets immersed in movies and TV series (a lot of people).

[Wolf Kanno]

I think the problem is yours more than WRPGs, WK. BG and various other games are pretty widely regarded as being deeply immersive and competent. If you go in expecting something as freeform and convincing and PnP then yeah, you're going to be disappointed, but you're asking for games to do something which they could not then and still can't now do. Might as well criticize Metropolis for not being 3D.

The problem is that freedom of choice is the only thing that WRPGs have going for them but it has more to do with the choices feeling rather lacking and sadly sticking to closely to D&D rules of morality where you are basically either a saint or the devil. I can't be just aloof, I can't be greedy but good hearted, I can't be evil but with good intentions, I can't be mysterious. I'm either a hero or slightly less evil than the bad guys.

Also as stated before, I felt the real issue I have with WRPGs is that most of them lately tend to be really loosely structured. Going back to my Fallout 3 example, I'm 60+ hours in and barely touched the main story cause I keep getting derailed by the much more exciting but sadly short side missions. I've explored Fallout 3's world pretty extensively. Yet, beyond a handful of stories, I don't see any real point. I've pretty much been killing time in a post apocalyptic world, and while that is fun, I don't find it satisfying cause I never felt the game had a strong objective. I've just been wasting six hours doing side quests and fetch quests. At least with an MMO, I'd have some decent gear to show off to my friends.

I was 10 hours into the game before I even found Megaton. I simply walked the opposite direction and got holed up saving small towns from Super Mutants. How is that not more interesting than looking for your bastard father who abandoned you in the wasteland? Most of the main story has simply been: Talk to guy A, go to place B. and in all instances it just really felt like I was talking to a machine who was spitting out my next objection instead of feeling like I'm swept up in some mystery and high adventure.

Characters that join me never feel like real people, just lazy A.I. and I have seen plenty of them go (by my own hand more often than not) and never felt anything for them beyond being grateful another liability is gone. WRPGs just ultimately fail to take me out of the realization that I'm sitting in a room playing a video game. Even my choices that I make never really give me the sense of having serious heavy handed consequences, so I often wonder what the point was.

My feeling is, if you are wanting to play in a fantasy/sci-fi setting for the sake of creating your own character and being able to make the choices you want, you are simply better off just playing a PnP game cause I feel they offer more than a WRPG ever could and probably ever will. Because of that, I feel WRPGs could learn to be a little more structured and exciting like JRPGs at least in terms of making a stronger narrative and giving the NPCs better resources so they don't feel like empty card board cutout of real human beings. Still, I don't hate the genre, its just that I can't say I get the same level of enjoyment out of them that fans of the genre would. I look at Oblivion and Morrowind and just feel bored, feeling I would be better off reading a DragonLance novel.