Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: deathspeed on March 24, 2014, 06:53:56 pm
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I have a ton of games I have bought and started but never finished, for both PC and consoles - some of the highlights include MechWarrior 3 and 4, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, World in Conflict, several GTA games, and almost everything I have bought on sale at GOG or Steam. I have started almost all of them, and enjoyed them, but never seem to finish them. I finish very few games that I buy. I can honestly think of only a handful of post-Atari games I have played all the way through. ON PC, it is Crimson Skies, Command & Conquer 3, C&C3: Kane's Wrath, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and just last month, FSPort. For Xbox (the original, not One), it was Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, MechAssault, and...yeah, that's it I think.
I try not to be a perfectionist, but something in my psyche wants me to do everything "right" the first time through. (In RL, I certainly am not a perfectionist!) That means no failures or missed objectives in any sort of linear campaign. If there is an obvious secondary or bonus objective, I want that too. I think that is what kept me from finishing FS2 when I bought it over 13 years ago. I played for hours, but got frustrated that I could not finish part of it. It may have even been the same mission I just finished (with cheats). http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=87167.0;topicseen
I have similar issues with RPG or open-world games - I don't want to miss anything, so I try to do all side quests and get all equipment and finish everything, but sometimes it gets tedious and I quit. With racing games I want all the cars and all the upgrades and all the tracks, but it can turn into a chore instead of fun.
Fatherhood/family life has added a new set of challenges. I usually don't game while the kids are up, but when I do I usually don't play things where resuming from an ill-timed "pause" can cause issues, such as in racing games. It also makes it hard to play RPGs where I need to pay attention to what the characters are saying while the wife unit is talking to me as well. I tend to play slower-paced stuff like C&C3, and usually I do skirmishes rather than replaying campaign missions.
The end result is that even though I enjoy the games, I end up rarely finishing one.
Another thing that seems to be getting worse as I get older is that I don't want to learn new control schemes. That was part of what kept me from coming back to Freespace for so long - it was more complex than W-A-S-D and mouse with a couple of buttons. I'm still struggling with keyboard commands and adjusting joystick bindings, and I probably won't do any other flight games or mods until I finish this one. For instance, in Diaspora I had the hat switch mapped to thrusters to assist with landing, but right now I have targeting functions mapped to it for the main FS2 campaign, and I had the glide function mapped to a joystick button that I am currently using to equalize shields.
No point to this, just wanted to share my thoughts and see if anyone has anything similar they want to share.
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I do tend to finish what I start, and also have a habit of playing games in chronological order (Try that with TES series. Arena is a bit tedious, but Daggerfall is awesome, and they all make for an unique experience). Sometimes I do put off a game (mostly because of lack of time), and sometimes, when something is incredibly tedious, I leave it for longer, but I always try to finish what I started, if only to see how the story ends.
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i finish almost everything i start. the only ones i can think of not having finished other than deliberate quit because i didn't like the game is the descent series. without much of a story behind them (especially 1 and 2) there wasn't a lot to keep me pushing forward as the levels got larger, harder, and it felt monotonous.
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Most games that I spend more than 2-3 hours playing, I will try to finish. That is, games that actually have endings.
But there are quite a few that I've gotten through humble bundles, or in Steam sales for pennies that I'll play for a little and then completely forget about. I feel that if a game can't capture my full attention in that amount of time, there are better ones I can go play.
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Thanks to humble bundles, etc, I have a ridiculous number of games I've never even played, let alone finished!
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Thanks to humble bundles, etc, I have a ridiculous number of games I've never even played, let alone finished!
Yeah, I have that problem too, as I suspect does almost every Steam user ever. But if I sink any amount of time into a completable game, I pretty much always complete it, even if it sometimes takes me years to do so. I have a few PS2 titles around that I really need to go back to one of these days. *stares guiltily at Shadow of the Colossus*
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There are a lot of games I've stopped playing shortly before the end. Homeworld and Aquaria come to mind.
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I am a bit in the middle. Backloggery helps me take track though.
I often do finish my games, though. The exceptions are games that are just not any fun, or games in which I encounter game breaking bugs (mainly due to overzealous modding on my side ;) ). One issue is that I often forget to backup my savegames, so there are some games I have not finished, even though I have put more then enough time into them to finish them.
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Most of the games I played, I finished. Some games I finished multiple times, and I get back to them again and again.
That said,there are game I never finished and some games I bought but still haven't installed.
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I generally finish games I start unless they turn out to be lame. I think one of the few games I started but didn't finish was iF-16 (the controls were so blasted complicated you could have used the game to train real F-16 pilots. I prefer Ace Combat).
I also stopped playing Command and Conquer 2... I can't even remember why. Probably cause I started it right after C&C 1 and... well, by then I was sick of playing RTS.
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Some games I finish because I am just hooked on them, (F.E.A.R 1 and 2 come to mind). Others I have attempted to finish but if I get stuck on a level I loose heart and end up giving up. (Batman Arkham Origins). Others I have picked up and played for a while but then I get a new game I want to try so I start playing that one with the intention of coming back ot the first but get so hooked on the new game I forget about the first.
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I mostly play games until I finish them, but I only go for 100% if I really enjoyed the game.
Last game I played I have no intention of trying to complete is Dragon Age 2. I got to the penultimate battle, had the First Enchanter decide to go evil on me for no apparent reason other than cause the designers made the stupid decision to invalidate all my choices in the entire game, and decided to not only ragequit but also rage-uninstall. :p
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I tend to finish only games that are story-driven, if they are based on the challenge represented by AI behaviour solely I tend to drop them when I get the "full inventory" out of the game.
eg: DK I played to the and then DK2 played until I got all or most rooms/traps unlocked.
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I am pretty selective about the games I buy, and generally finish those I purchase. I can therefore actually name the games I've never bothered to finish (typically because I didn't like them or just got bored):
-Descent 2 (got stuck, got bored).
-Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (too arcadey)
-Dead Space (vastly inferior to System Shock 2; save system was obnoxious; predictable jump-scares, all-around overrated).
-Torchlight (got fed up with the ridiculous difficulty spikes in the side missions where I'd be flattening the main quest and getting squat for good loot, but getting my ass handed to me in the side missions after I got about 1/3 of the way in because I wasn't getting any good gear in the main quest.... and I just found the gameplay got tedious).
-Assassin's Creed (maybe it was good when it came out, but years later it is merely clunky and repetitive, with a brutal save system and semi-frustrating PC controls).
-Red Faction (gifted to me on Steam, and I might have enjoyed it back when I first played the original Half-Life, but gaming technology and storytelling has evolved so far since this game came out that I just couldn't do it).
-Company of Heroes expansions (have been shelved while I play other things as I'm not in an RTS mood right now, but I'm sure I'll eventually go back to them).
No, I do have a massive backlog on Steam and my hard disk. I'll eventually try them all, and probably finish most of them.
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I mostly play games until I finish them, but I only go for 100% if I really enjoyed the game.
My mind keeps trying to equate "finish" with "100%" even though rationally I know there is a difference. I guess I try to do it all at once rather than replay it.
I still don't know how the FS2 story ends; I have to avoid some posts in here. :) But I hope to finish by the end of the weekend!
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I still don't know how the FS2 story ends;
Soylent green is people!
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It was his sled!
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He was dead all along!
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I finish most games I play. I do have a lot of unplayed games that I never started, but once I take the time to install and configure a game I usually play it at least once, even if it's not that great. The exceptions to this are FPS/TPS games with checkpoint-only saves, which are becoming frustratingly common these days. Some of these games good enough to attract my attention initially, but I often become quickly irritated by the game wasting my time and just stop playing. I find a lot of older FPSs more fun since they actually let you save properly back then.
I have similar issues with RPG or open-world games - I don't want to miss anything, so I try to do all side quests and get all equipment and finish everything, but sometimes it gets tedious and I quit.
I'm a completionist too. I tend to just keep playing the same game for a few months and finish everything in it, even if I don't spend a lot of time gaming each day.
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i will sometimes start a game and not finish it, if its kinda crappy. there are a few games like that. fear was like that, i got so sick of the stock looking graphics that i just couldn't sit through one more level. i also have a thing about buying flight sims and never playing them. other than that i tend to beat games in about 2-4 days.
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It very much depends on how much a game draws me in. Shadow Warrior, while fun, didn't have enough going on to maintain my interest and I soon put it down for other games. Dark Souls 2, on the other hand, I am absolutely devouring.
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Other than rare exceptions, I do finish all the games I start.
It's easy to miss the true gems if you give up early ... on the other hand I do have little tolerance for games that intentionally waste your time with artificial grind and/or "copy paste content" (kill 5 gazillion of these things in order to proceed, grind 10 gazillion gold to buy epic weapon x which you need in stupid dungeon y which is kinda the same as dungeon w except that you need the sword from grinding out cash because everything has more hitpoints, etc. :P) I try to weed those out before I even buy them.... but am not always successful.
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I don't play many games that end now (mostly MMOs) so I tend to finish the ones I do get.
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I try to finish everything, currently I'm 75% through iron storm - its taken me 12 years due to bugs, enemies that cant be killed, enemies that kill you in 1 hit ect
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I'm terrible with restarting city-builder games because 'I could have done that better', but since there are no 'win' conditions as such on most of that kind of game, I'm not sure it counts.
Quite often though, I find my interest is driven by actual content, once I've discovered most of what there is to discover in a game, it needs to have a really compelling plot to make me continue playing it, There's nothing more annoying, for me, than 'The next tier of enemy is the same enemy as last time, but this time we've scaled the model up by 1.5x and re-textured it!'
Anyone who has played most Marvel-based game will be aware of this experience.
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I'm terrible with restarting city-builder games because 'I could have done that better', but since there are no 'win' conditions as such on most of that kind of game, I'm not sure it counts.
Quite often though, I find my interest is driven by actual content, once I've discovered most of what there is to discover in a game, it needs to have a really compelling plot to make me continue playing it, There's nothing more annoying, for me, than 'The next tier of enemy is the same enemy as last time, but this time we've scaled the model up by 1.5x and re-textured it!'
Anyone who has played most Marvel-based game will be aware of this experience.
I would have said: Anyone who has played most MMO's will be aware of this experience. ;)
Anyone remember Everquests lvl 50+ "Extraplanar" Rats in planes of power that still used the same rat model as the sewer rats in Queynos at lvl 1?;)
A true classic :)
And while some MMOs with large budgets go to some lenghts to have hundreds of different enemy models ... I would go one further and say that even if an enemy has a completely different model it is still the same enemy if the only thing that changes about it is the model and some stat increases to match the stat increases that the player goes through. (yeah duh.) i.e.: Killing bigger rats with bigger swords ... in some games even literally.
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I'm working my way through Final Fantasy VI right now (probably the third time I've attempted it without being it, because I'm stupid and keep losing/overwriting savefiles), and it's funny just how many of the enemies are recolored sprites of other enemies. At least in that case, they usually have vastly different qualities in their alternate forms.
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Depends if I get fed up with the game or not. It's not about finishing the game, it's about making use of my time: If I feel it's being wasted I'll quit.
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I probably do. The only game I absolutely refused to finish after installing was the second Lost Planet because it was an MMO trainwreck sequel to a single-player trainwreck port. I have gotten terribly stuck before, mind; there was a period of at least two or three years where I left MechCommander 1 at Op 1 Mission 5 because I couldn't figure out how to complete it. I only recently finished Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Skyrim is waiting on me to assemble a collection of patches and upgrades I like.
But I do usually complete if I start. Even if it's just out of rage, like the original Lost Planet.
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Mechcommander 1 Mission 5 is still probably the hardest single level I've encountered in a video game I ended up beating.
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Really? I must have gotten ridiculously lucky then, because I beat it with little difficulty. In terms of raw difficulty on higher levels, I think Mile High Club from the first Modern Warfare game takes the cake from me. I'm proud to have completed it exactly twice.
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The one case I remember like that was the Lost City level in Thief 2. That has to be one of the most irritating levels I've seen in any FPS. I think I got fed up with it, stopped playing the game for a few months, but eventually came back to it and finished the game.
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Really? I must have gotten ridiculously lucky then, because I beat it with little difficulty. In terms of raw difficulty on higher levels, I think Mile High Club from the first Modern Warfare game takes the cake from me. I'm proud to have completed it exactly twice.
If you know exactly what you're doing and where enemies will approach and bring along a minelayer and take the time to MINE ALL THE THINGS then it's quite simple. However, if you're trying to extemporize the answer to the mission on the fly, I don't think it's actually possible to complete it.
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It's most assuredly possible to complete. I do, however, highly highly doubt it's possible to complete perfectly without taking extreme measures. I tend to "cheat" at MechCommander by always telling my pilots to aim for the head. Allows for pristine salvage mid-mission to significantly expand fighting capabilities without needing a repair vehicle at all. Plus I'm fairly certain that your pilots are generally more effective at aiming for headshots than they are just picking apart every 'Mech in the way.
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Probably the single hardest "level" for me on any game I beat was the one and only level of Nanosaur. The idea is 1. the game is all one level, so the map is quite big and 2. In order to beat the game you really need to know where everything is. Since back then we didn't have the privilege of looking the map up on the internet, my brother and I spent a good three months on "exploration missions", where we made no attempt to complete the objectives, we just tried to map out the game environment. Finally we decided we were ready, and- huzzah! After many tries were able to complete the game... utilizing a cheat. (if you could boost yourself higher than the game-border cliffs (a challenge in itself if you were in a flatter part of the map) you got a health/ammo refill. We didn't know it was a cheat; we found it by accident and thought that it was mission control beaming powerups to you :P Hey, it's hard even with the cheat! :nervous: ) Needless to say we were very proud of ourselves.
And later, after we got our hands on the game's website, we decided to try and beat it without the cheat. My brother got to it about two weeks ahead of me. He still brags about it. :lol:
And now I've got so good at it I can beat it in EXTREME!!! mode. Not to mention the sequel.
Ah, retro games...
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It's most assuredly possible to complete. I do, however, highly highly doubt it's possible to complete perfectly without taking extreme measures. I tend to "cheat" at MechCommander by always telling my pilots to aim for the head. Allows for pristine salvage mid-mission to significantly expand fighting capabilities without needing a repair vehicle at all. Plus I'm fairly certain that your pilots are generally more effective at aiming for headshots than they are just picking apart every 'Mech in the way.
Ah. You've confused MC1 and MC2 I think...
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About the mid-mission salvage, yes. About the aiming for headshots, not in the slightest. I'm dead certain your pilots will more effectively take down enemy 'Mechs if they're aiming for headshots instead of just attacking.
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I recent memory ... I can't recall any level/fight that would even remotely approach the final boss of Metal Gear Solid Rising in difficulty.
(Played on hard the first time through - owww ;) )
Before that, I thought they didn't make games like that anymore hehe ;)
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I got Tomb Raider: Legend when it was on sale on steam recently. The whole game is a single player campaign that you move through in sequence: level by level, jump puzzle by jump puzzle. It's the first "figure out this part of the game or the game ends" formula that I have played in awhile. I think games now a days have multiple ways to play them and that is what allows you to get value from them no mater how much of a failure you are. The linear sequence game is becoming more of a rare breed, but it used to be the only sort of game in the 90s. (And to think we played these games without google!) That said, I am pretty entertained by this game. I like figuring out the jump puzzles and the action sequences are pretty clever. Good attention to ambiance too.
I don't think I have 100%ed a game in awhile. But 90%? Probably the vast majority. I play the crap out of what I buy, and I always research first.
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About the mid-mission salvage, yes. About the aiming for headshots, not in the slightest. I'm dead certain your pilots will more effectively take down enemy 'Mechs if they're aiming for headshots instead of just attacking.
Having actually tested this empirically several times in Gold with the X-Pulse Laser, because if you're going to do this it pays to have a DPS gun, you are connecting with something on the order of 1 in 60 to 1 in 80 shots giving orders to target the head. You'll get far less salvage, but the ability to neutralize hostiles in single salvos from a lance is something only accomplished by general targeting. You'll also take a lot less damage, which is very important.
MC2 allowed specialized range bracket, weapon accuracy improvements, and even at Ace level a headshot specialty which made it far more effective to aim that way.
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If by finish finish the primary story arc and most if not all optional side missions then I finished a good majority of games I started. If by finish you mean get a hundred percent of the cheevos then no.
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I rarely 100% a game, but I do try to finish every game I start. There are a couple noteable exceptions to this, however, even among some of my favourite games. For one, System Shock 2. I've gotten very far in SS2 multiple times, but at some point I wind up being distracted, or my co-op partner gets busy, or what have you, and the save file is neglected. If I ever come back to it, I forget what I was supposed to be doing, don't like my character build, whatever, and wind up just starting a new game. That, or mods update and I need to re-do my installation and don't keep the old save file because it now relies on an older version of my data. Now I have a recent save file that's on the Rickenbacker and with a character build I like and none of the mods it relies upon have updated recently... but the computer it's on is currently inoperable. :/
Another one: Morrowind. Despite spending thousands of hours playing that game, I have never played through the main quest. Mostly due to constantly-shifting what mods are installed. I think the farthest I got was being declared nerevarine by the Ashlanders before (of all things) that save file became unusable. To be more precise, that Morrowind install started BSoDing every time that save file was loaded. Real pain in the ass. I finished Oblivion and Skyrim within days of their release, but Morrowind remains in my "unfinished" category. On a slightly-related note, I finished Fallout 3, but only three of the DLC, and didn't even start the other two, and never finished Fallout: New Vegas (or started any of the DLC).
On the other hand, there are some games I do 100%. I got 100% in Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, despite the massive annoyance of clearing Full Boss Rush no fewer than three times. I 100%-ed both Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, unlocked everything on the PS2 version of Devil May Cry 3 (Special Edition), and went out of my way to view the secret endings in Kingdom Hearts, both 1 and 2. Currently, I'm trying to 100% the HD remaster of Final Fantasy X. Pretty close, too; got only two achievements left, and I'm most of the way towards getting one of them, and then I just have to beat the toughest superboss in the game.
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This thread reminds me of this:
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/ur6ce9/the-final-bosman-nobody-finishes-video-games (Just watch the first six minutes)
I don't 100% most of the games I play (with the exception of Super Smash Bros. Melee and FreeSpace)
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I generally used to finish and 100% complete any game I had. I even was a die hard achievement and trophy hunter for about 3 years, doing ridiculous BS like grinding relentlessly for weeks (and sometimes even months) for certain multiplayer badges / ranks / killcounts.
The craziest thing I did so far was getting in the top 100 for the Killzone 2 weekly multiplayer ladder for a particular badge. Took a week of vacation off from work just for that, playing 8 hours a day for seven days straight.
And at some point I stopped, looked back and thought "What the **** am I doing here?". Gaming had become some form of tedious work. Before I even started any game, I would look for collectible guides, look up missables and would completely plan out the minimum number of playthroughs needed. At some point, that stopped being fun. Although sometimes, the lines do get blurry. For example, I still read every wikia article about any Skyrim location I visit, to not miss out on any quests, npcs, treasure and bugs that might have to be accounted for. And I play Skyrim by systematically exploring the map, raiding dungeons in bigger getting circles like a sawm of locusts.
Then again, I started dropping games, when playing them wasn't fun anymore. I still play 95% of the games until the end, but if I do get annoyed too much, I just drop them and forget about the 100%. Not that is helps much in regard to my backlogs.
My current backlog from GoG.com alone is 120 games, sitting at about 150 total for PC.
My PS3/PS4 Backlog is at around 60 games.
Most of those 200+ being RPG games that can take 50h+ each.
Right now I am already feeling successful if I can keep the backlog at a steady number without it increasing. Chances are, that I might have to drop some games completely without ever having them touched.