On games you never believed the hype

[Rub'Rum]

I really hope Skyrim's success gets more developers into doing TES-like games, we need MOAR of them so that Bethesda has some competition and can't get lazy. right now they can do pretty much anything they want since there's simply nothing quite like TES. also waiting five years for each new fix is not cool

To be honest there have been a few games that I played through that tried to emulate, like the two Two Worlds games, and Risen... They weren't very good, especially now that we see where The Elder Scrolls is at. I'm also already sad to wait for so long for the next game . Insatiable. When The Elder Scrolls VI comes out, there will probably be hype, but it's sort of deserved in that case isn't it. I'm always rather skeptical though, like when games announce supposedly awesome features... Like Skyrim's Radiant AI. Okay it's fun and all but it sure isn't that noticeable and great up to now for me. I didn't really buy into THAT specific hype, but it doesn't mean the game isn't great.

 

[Maniacal]

Who says they're players, lets say you work for a game company so assumably you read forums, so time to time you post about your games.

I make almost only expectation with MMOs, like Rift recently, it had amazing launch, events/rifts/zones/dungeon were full of player so worth the money,

Rift seems a lot more like WoW with a gimmick (albeit an apparently really fun one). It didn't really try to do its own thing, which is why I don't really like almost all MMOs, because they don't try hard enough (and most of the time when they do they screw up somewhere and fail).

Spoiler :

like right now Im thinking to get Mafia 2 or Witcher 2 when I find them cheap somewhere. Its same game whether you buy it now or 1 year later.

Mafia II has been cheap all year, I got it ages ago for $29 off Amazon.ca and it goes on sale every now and then (it will probably have a daily special in the current Steam sale).

The Witcher 2 has also gone on sale a number of times, and was totally worth paying full price for a boxed copy (it came with so many goodies, and that was the regular edition ). As it is it is only $39.99 on Good Old Games (owned by the same company that developed the game, no DRM etc) or on Amazon.com for a boxed copy. It also isn't quite the same game anymore, as they fixed a tonne of stuff with their massive 2.0 update back in September iirc.

To be honest there have been a few games that I played through that tried to emulate, like the two Two Worlds games, and Risen... They weren't very good, especially now that we see where The Elder Scrolls is at. I'm also already sad to wait for so long for the next game . Insatiable. When The Elder Scrolls VI comes out, there will probably be hype, but it's sort of deserved in that case isn't it. I'm always rather skeptical though, like when games announce supposedly awesome features... Like Skyrim's Radiant AI. Okay it's fun and all but it sure isn't that noticeable and great up to now for me. I didn't really buy into THAT specific hype, but it doesn't mean the game isn't great.

Exactly, which is why I have mixed feelings that Skyrim is getting so many perfect scores. The game still has major flaws or things that need serious improvements but can't becauseo f the xbox 360's pathetically old hardware. AI and physics are still iffy and average at best, the game apparently still slows to a crawl if you get upwards of 20 NPCs in one room. Combat is still average too.

While the rest of the game makes up for that and is still totally awesome (hell I don't usually enjoy watching other people play games but I can sit there and watch my friedn play Skyrim and get sucked into the world, also the cities are amazingly well designed) they could use some competition, and none of the current competition can hold up a candle to TES :/ Maybe Skyrim getting such great scores will encourage other companies to try harder.

 

[Thrawn]

Rift seems a lot more like WoW with a gimmick (albeit an apparently really fun one).

That's exactly what it felt like when I tried the free trial. SWTOR is in the same boat, it just happens to have leveling that is a bit more involved with all the voice acting, and is star wars.

 

[OrsonM]

I actually buy videogames quite often, and as many so keenly noted, this thread is mostly about Skyrim, I know it's probably awesome, but I'm just not too excited to see it everywhere (how many articles can be written about Skyrim?, writers can be a bit lazy sometimes)

I have bought into the hype of many games before though, I mean I did believed the extreme hype of Civilization V. Everyone but Tom Chick thought it was awesome, and even he stated it was a good game overall (with just a few flaws here and there, still "an admirable game").

And I still to date purchase every DLC for it, even though I'm aware that the product wasn't complete when released, that there may be a copyright violation(s) with the art within the game, that patches have fixed most but not all the game and that the DLC model is a bit pricey.

 

[Polycrates]

If you haven't played an Elder Scrolls game, the whole draw of them is that you get pretty much a whole country to go and explore around in and do whatever you want; Skyrim has a massive, massive world that is also meticulously detailed and well-designed; I've never seen a game where it's been so obvious what a ridiculous amount of work has gone into constructing it. And yeah Skyrim is pretty much the first one where the gameplay mechanics, while still nothing to write home about, actually pretty much work right out of the box as well.

Arkham Asylum is gloomy-looking but actually mostly just silly fun with excellent mechanics (I stuck a review in the review thread the other day). And I say this as someone whose favourite Batman is Adam West.

Assassin's Creed - You really only need one of these, since they're all pretty recycled. I'd recommend the second one, probably (for the variety and the end boss fight). You have to ignore the ludicrous sci-fi plot they've shoehorned in, but it's otherwise fun renaissance GTA with stealth-lite and free running. Worth getting on a Steam sale.

Company of Heroes I tried for a bit but it didn't really grab me, and there were just so many hoops to jump through just to get the thing running that I was frustrated from the start, and then I never could summon the energy to go through all that again to give it another chance and probably never will.

Fallout 1&2 are old games that I think still hold up remarkably well, and are probably worth putting the effort in.


For me, the game I'd add to this list is Mass Effect, which seemed to be lavished with praise from all corners but was easily the worst AAA game I've played in years (since Oblivion, actually) and not a patch on the rest of Bioware's otherwise pretty solid lineup. I know the second one got hyped even more but I couldn't even bring myself to finish the first, so I remain unconvinced.

 

[GoodGame]

Company of Heroes I tried for a bit but it didn't really grab me, and there were just so many hoops to jump through just to get the thing running that I was frustrated from the start, and then I never could summon the energy to go through all that again to give it another chance and probably never will.

I agree that the patching process of this game is ridiculously over-complicated as originally released. It shows horrible QA. However bought the whole thing on Steam for like $10 and didn't have to do anything other than download once and create a new account.

 

[LightSpectra]

Every Halo game (I kinda liked 2 though), every Call of Duty game after 4, basically every 'modern' FPS, Spore, Dead Island, Brink, World of Warcraft, Resident Evil 5, the Witcher games, TES4: Oblivion, Red Alert 3.

Games I've been wrong about: Skyrim's okay; I was expecting it to be as much of a chore as Oblivion. I thought New Vegas was just going to be a stupid map pack for Fallout 3 but ended up being MUCH better.

 

[Polycrates]

I agree that the patching process of this game is ridiculously over-complicated as originally released. It shows horrible QA. However bought the whole thing on Steam for like $10 and didn't have to do anything other than download once and create a new account.

Nah I bought it cheap on Steam as well, but the new account thing made itself a massive hassle - especially when I had no intention of ever playing anything but singleplayer - and it wanted me to manually re-login every time I tried to start it up, I could never remember my account settings when I tried to log in again and I couldn't be bothered going through all the rigmarole to reset the account or whatever. I've got so many games from steam sales that I haven't even played yet; if a game I essentially got for free in a bundle is working that hard to actively prevent me playing it, I'm gonna go play something else.


Another one for the list is Dead Space; played through a few minutes of hackneyed sci-fi horror cliches and then gave up because the controls were like swimming through treacle, plus I couldn't see anything because some guy's back was covering two thirds of the screen. Gather I'm not missing awfully much anyway.

 

[cardgame]

I got Minecraft before the hype and can tell you it's amazing. The only "inquiry" you may want to make is the minecraftwiki to obtain crafting recipes for the variety of tools, armors, etc. that you can make in the game. Everything else is learned as you go along.