Crispy™ Does a game really "suck" if you spend 100 hours on it?

[baturinsky]

I think it's possible in (sub)genres so not-crowded that every game is one-of-a-kind and has no direct competitors. Daggerfall is one example.

 

[Jimmious]

Do you know any flawless game?

Monkey Island 1
Monkey Island 2
Indy4
DooM
Tie Fighter
Gothic 2.5
CoD4
Diablo
Rome: Total War
Terraria
Broforce
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Ultima IV

Just off the top of my head...

Problem, newfag? Show some balls and share your list of perfect games.

PS: ripping it off the KKK's master list of incline doesn't really count.

There are no perfect games oldfag bro. Just games that are so good that you don't care about their flaws.
I mean how can you say Rome was perfect when the AI was laughable to say the least? It's just because you enjoyed playing so much you didn't care about that

 

[DraQ]

Yes.

A more difficult question:
Can a game really suck if you enjoy it?

 

[Lord Azlan]

Well, imho yes. I have 70 hours in Oblivion on PS3 but absolutely hate the game, I literally hate it and cannot even play a single minute of it anymore. Everything about it makes me wanna puke, the npcs, the level scaling, the npcs, the diplomacy minigame, the NPCS OMG!!

So yes - you can play a game for 70 hours and still think it's shit

I was going to say this is rubbish - but looking down my list of games played there is one that stands out to me like it don't belong. King's Bounty Warriors of the North 185 hours played - over two attempts separated by many months gap.

I suppose we all have a game or two over the 50+ hour mark that looking back we know was shit - or just was shit in our opinion. If you buy a game and invest time in it - you want it to be good - you want to enjoy it.

I am not ashamed of my playtime in Oblivion or Skyrim but KB WotN - I can't justify that to myself - what was I thinking?

The next one after that is DA:O - nearly 50 hours - I must have really tried.

I suppose with expectations and your imagination - you are willing to give some games more of a chance...

Dark Star One 45 hours - I must of thought longer I played it would turn into Elite/ Eve -
S KoTR 43 hours - I don't enjoy it but its Star Wars - what is wrong with me
Witcher 36 hours - first impressions - I should trust them in the future - then I bought Witcher 2

 

[naossano]

Some kind can be considered as shitty, basic or simplist while providing some form of fun/entertainment that makes you go the whole way without being too much bored. You would dissociate the fact you enjoyed the game, despite not considering it great, when it comes to analizing it. I can think of the first Diablo games for instance. No matter the quality, you enjoyed those games well enough to spend time on them. (if you did at the time)

There are other that have no qualities, aren't fun either, and are overly long. You migh find yourself playing the first one you encounter, hoping that it get better or because you want to be sure. But that game being overly long, make you realize you spent too much time on it. Next game that doesn't manage to entertain you enough, nor is good enough, you will be likely to quit it in the first 25 hours. (or even before). The previous overly long bad game teach you a lesson. (i would consider Fallout 3 as the lesson and Borderlands as the game not finished, even though 1% of it was pretty good)

Then there are the very frustrating games that make you hesitate a lot to decide if you go the long way, if you do a completionist run, a very partial run, or to finish it at all. The core aspect are awesome/great, many other parts are quite good too, but there is ton of boring unecessary fillers, empty places, generic trashmob, walking 30 minutes to speak 5 minutes with the npc you are looking for. I take FoNV and maybe TW3 as example. The good parts are really really good, but is it worth the trouble of going all those awfully boring fillers to get to the meat of the game ? Right now, i am still at a loss to answer it. I think i will play only very few of those games, but even then, i think i will avoid completionist playthrough. It took me one year and half to finish FoNV and i really don't want to play another game that long.

 

[Jools]

Do you know any flawless game?

Monkey Island 1
Monkey Island 2
Indy4
DooM
Tie Fighter
Gothic 2.5
CoD4
Diablo
Rome: Total War
Terraria
Broforce
Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Ultima IV

Just off the top of my head...

Problem, newfag? Show some balls and share your list of perfect games.

PS: ripping it off the KKK's master list of incline doesn't really count.

There are no perfect games oldfag bro. Just games that are so good that you don't care about their flaws.
I mean how can you say Rome was perfect when the AI was laughable to say the least? It's just because you enjoyed playing so much you didn't care about that

So, let's hear your list of " games that are so good that you don't care about their flaws", then. We're not talking semantics here, you can call them whatever you want.

 

[Jimmious]

Fallout 1&2
VtMB
Jagged Alliance 2
BG 2
PS:T
Starcraft
Warcraft 3 (I know Im a Blizzard fanboy in rts)
FFT
... I can add some more I'm sure, if I think about it more(which I cant since Im in the middle of a gigantic SQL query)

* ALL FOOTBALL MANAGER GAMES

 

[CryptRat]

You can get bored by the 5 first hours of a game, and then play 95 more hours to see the end (yes, that's probably exaggerated). Then you inevitably hate it like anything else.
You start playing the game to see what it is, and then you go on playing for grinding, character progression, etc... it's doesn't mean you have to recommend the game to others, especially as you finished the game and saw that nothing saves it from being shit.

Of course there are also the games which are 100% based on grinding like the kitten thing, but in that case it is hard to determine if they suck or they don't since they do their job well.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Does a game really suck if you spend 7 years talking about it?

I get that those games from a design perspective are really awful, and certainly, the fact you spent 100 hours on Skyrim doesn't mean you think it's time well-spent or necessitates that Skyrim is a *good* game, but can you really say a game you spent 100 hours on *sucks*?

What's the difference? "It sucks" means "it's shit", nobody ever said "cool, that sucks" (unless as a sign of relief when their newly purchased vacuum cleaner is working as intended). If you think a game isn't good, you think it's shit. It's possible for a game that isn't "great" to still be good, but if you wouldn't even consider it "good", then it's shit. It's not rawkeet saiyans.

 

[bminorkey]

Does a game really suck if you spend 7 years talking about it?

I get that those games from a design perspective are really awful, and certainly, the fact you spent 100 hours on Skyrim doesn't mean you think it's time well-spent or necessitates that Skyrim is a *good* game, but can you really say a game you spent 100 hours on *sucks*?

What's the difference? "It sucks" means "it's shit", nobody ever said "cool, that sucks" (unless as a sign of relief when their newly purchased vacuum cleaner is working as intended). If you think a game isn't good, you think it's shit. It's possible for a game that isn't "great" to still be good, but if you wouldn't even consider it "good", then it's shit. It's not rawkeet saiyans.

The difference is that looking at a game from a distanced perspective and saying it has a lot of bad design decisions, and actually not enjoying a game / being engaged by it at all is different. Kind of like fast food I guess? There's a tasty cheap burger and then there's food that's actually disgusting, and those are different things.

 

[gestalt11]

I guess that kind of depends on how messed up in the head the "you" in the question is.

Some games have various good aspects to them but still wind up with a thumbs down but you may spend time on the good aspects. I liked playing a Knight Enchanter in DA:I it was fun gameplay, repettive and brainless but fun ... for a while. Like cotton candy. I sort of liked messing around the zones and what not. In the end though the game was a repetitive and boring MMORPG. By and large MMORPG are just bad RPGs dressed up with things to occupy your time or cause people to behave like old lady slot machine addicts in Vegas. Hmmmmmmmmm ... time ...

Yeah so all in all DA:I gets a thumbs down from me even though there are parts I liked and I probably put enough time in it to just fit the purchase. And in fact I don't regret the purchase I just would not reccomend it and have an overall negative opinon of it.

I am playing underrrail right now and its the exact opposite. Graphics are nowhere close. There are aspects of it that annoy me (slow walking through zones back and forth). But in the end its a good RPG that isn't wasting my time.


DA:I -> RPG cotton candy
Underrrail -> A real RPG meal even if some parts are not always to my taste.

Yeah I've eaten the real life equivalents of both in the past. But one is real and satisfying and the other is not even if its sometimes more tempting to eat.

 

[Cthulhu_is_love]

Bitching bout popamole but secretly playing Oblivion the whole time...

Spoiler

the codex way of life

 

[Kalasanty11]

Also if you are getting gang raped for over 100 hours what are the chances you'll like it ?

Chances are great, according to some japanese vn designers...

Also, that is not the case with me. I've played Skyrim for about 20 hours, and I'd rather gouge my eyes out than do it for even one more. I've seen some guy on reddit saying that wasting so many bucks for game and not playing it for at least 100+ hours is a waste. Personally, I prefer using torrents as demos

 

[baturinsky]

Also if you are getting gang raped for over 100 hours what are the chances you'll like it ?

A Dance with Rogues is pretty good

 

[Durandal]

Some do it out of obligation. Like, you spent $60 on what is actually an incredible piece of shit, but you want to make the most out of it because it cost you sixty fucking dollars. Either you learn your lesson to pirate do some research before buying a game, or you try to justify your $60 purchase on internet fora. Or they just do it to cross one more off their backlog.

Some do it to see how terrible it actually is. Like reviewing a game you heard nothing but jeers and criticism from, so you want to see for yourself how terrible it really is. Kind of like the Best of the Worst from RedLetterMedia, except you are playing 20+ hour long-excuses for games instead of 2 hour long-excuses for movies. This is more present amongst YouTube celbs so they else can save you the time from bothering with a shit game, though.

Some do it because they just want to see how it ends out of curiosity. Like most people who got into anime by watching Naruto, but later as they grew up they got some taste and just dropped it, yet they still check up on the story to see how it ends, because they just spent too many time on it. Which is why people have trouble quitting ASSFAGGOTS matches if there's still hope for victory.

Some do it because it is their guilty pleasure. They know it's crap, but they keep playing it because they have fun with it in their own ways. I know how Drakengard is objectively shit in several departments and I completely understand why people hate it and don't bother with it after one hour, but I still liked the crazy music, setting and story enough so I could grind the same enemy over and over in order to get the different endings. I liked it, but I can't really recommend it.

And then there's the category of people who just rack an insane amount of hours played on Steam, so they can write a review which usually says:

250 of 300 people (83%) found this review helpful
124 people found this review funny

1127.6 hrs played
"It's okay."

 

[MilesBeyond]

Sometimes you don't dislike a game until you play it for a long time. There are some games out there that have a lot of polish and a lot of cool ideas, and it's not until you spend a long time playing that you realize that the ideas don't actually work. The best example of this is any game that secretly railroads you through the illusion of choice. It presents three different paths - but they're all actually the same. There's seven different weapon trees to specialize in! But only two of them are actually any good. That sort of thing. I know that an overemphasis on balance can lead to a very bland and dull experience, but to minimize it too much can create the same experience. I know this is the RPG subforum but the example that keeps coming to mind is the Social Policies from Civ 5. Technically, you have a choice between four Social Policy trees at the start of the game - Tradition, Liberty, Honor, and Piety. These trees seem to be split based on different playstyles - Tradition for expanding vertically, Liberty for expanding horizontally, Honor for early warring, and Piety for religion. Yet the bonuses Tradition gives are so overwhelmingly better than any of the other trees that it ends up beating most other trees at their own game.

But the thing is, that's not something you'd necessarily realize unless you've invested a lot of hours into the game. A lot of other games are like that. Basically anything that's of the "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" variety can take dozens of hours of gameplay before you realize that it's not actually all that exciting. And then you feel doubly cheated because not only have you blown money on a game you actually didn't like, but you've blown tons of time as well. The only thing worse than realizing that a game you thought you liked actually sucks is realizing that with the time it took you to figure that out, you could have learned to play a new musical instrument.

Some do it because it is their guilty pleasure. They know it's crap, but they keep playing it because they have fun with it in their own ways. I know how Drakengard is objectively shit in several departments and I completely understand why people hate it and don't bother with it after one hour, but I still liked the crazy music, setting and story enough so I could grind the same enemy over and over in order to get the different endings. I liked it, but I can't really recommend it.

Hahaha, ohhh yeah. This was me with Gothic 3. Definitely lost a lot of what made the Gothic games great, but there was something strangely compelling about it that I really enjoyed. I think it's just the way the game happened to flow - I forced out a bunch of Orcs from human settlements, but in one of the towns I barely made it out alive. So I went down to the desert and spent the next chunk of time honing my combat skills and mastering dual-wielding. In order to do so, however, I had to kill all the Water Mages, and this caused something of a moral quandary - am I no better than the Orcs? Eventually I took my skills and went north and wiped out the rest of the Orcs.


Gameplay flaws aside, Gothic 3 made me feel like I was actually living out a cheesy 80s fantasy book.

 

[Leitz]

Am I banned now?

 

[thesheeep]

Not if your Skyrim count is even higher.

 

[Jed]

A game can be fun even if it's not a particularly good execution of it's genre. Morrowind, for example, is a much better RPG & I played it a hell of a lot longer, but I enjoyed Skyrim for the ~60 or so hours I spent with it. Is it a good RPG? Not really. And it gets pretty boring once you get to a certain level of power, but I got a good amount of fun hours out of it before I crossed that threshold.

 

[Renevent]

I don't think so, and I think most people who play a game for 100's of hours then turn around and calls it shit is either trolling or just being edgy. That or they are mentally handicapped. I mean, if I hate tuna fish I'm not going to stuff my face with tuna fish day in and day out...I'd have to be a crazy person to subject myself to something I strongly dislike for so long.

There's probably some exceptions, like if someone was a reviewer and had to play the game to do some sort of write-up for it. Or maybe they are dirt poor and it's the only game they have available to play. Even then, if the only game I could play was something I truly felt was shit I'd probably find another hobby to invest my time in.

I'd say another scenario is the scorned lover syndrome. Folks who played WoW for 1000's of hours, for instance, get bored or some change occurred and now the whole game is shit type stuff. Basically over-emotional immature people who have a tendency to lash out.

Same kind of over-emotional liars who join a boycott CoD steam group, only to buy it day 1.

Just my opinion, of course :D

 

[Morality Games]

Just been thinking. A lot of people are shitting on AAA titles like DA:I, Skyrim, et cetera despite having obviously played them for a billion hours. Many people who shit on F:NV here have played it for more hours than F2. I get that those games from a design perspective are really awful, and certainly, the fact you spent 100 hours on Skyrim doesn't mean you think it's time well-spent or necessitates that Skyrim is a *good* game, but can you really say a game you spent 100 hours on *sucks*? At the very least it succeeded in sucking you in to play for that long. Seems hypocritical to me, idk.

Also I've been recommended to post this picture here.

Some people don't really have a choice. I think Fire Emblem - Awakening was terrible (terrible being the monocled synonym of "suck") but I still played it twice consecutively, something I've maybe done 5 times in my 20+ years gaming through hundreds of PC and console titles. Bad or not, it provided mechanical nuance in the gameplay you can't find in series outside of Fire Emblem, which satisfied the part of my unconscious that has been "kneaded" to enjoy those mechanics because it was patterned into me by the franchise in childhood.

On some superficial level, I enjoyed Fire Emblem - Awakening just because of the way Allied and Enemy units look and interact with each other on the map.

Similarly, the Skyrim causes me genuine boredom and sadness when I play it, building and compounding upon itself, but simultaneously feel some of the thrill of exploration and discovery.

It's what you call ambivalence.

 

[Perkel]

Amount of hours spend on doing something has nothing to do with something being fun.
This works to everything games, movies, music, life, shitting etc.

I personally have 370h in Skyrim and yet i think vanilla skyrim is a shit game.
I played around 120h of Diablo3 and it is shit game
I played around 30h Planescape Torment and it is one of the best games i have ever played.

 

[valcik]

How can you compare vidya games with food, bros? Are you aware that your brains and stomach are a completely different piece of hardware, right?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

How can you compare vidya games with food, bros? Are you aware that your brains and stomach are a completely different piece of hardware, right?

Complex & good games are like food for a brain.
Simple crap like modern popamole games are like a shitty diet that leads to anorexia.

 

[naossano]

Also some games need a significant amount of time to notice the repetitiveness of its content, some more to be sure of it, and an additionnal amount to decide enough is enough and uninstall the crap.