Card-Based Say something positive about a game you don't like (and something negative about a game you do like)

[Lemming42]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:
Mass Effect: Superb visual design on the aliens
Oblivion: The forests look absolutely beautiful in some areas and they're very peaceful to walk through
Half-Life 2: Obvious one, but the Gravity Gun is genuinely cool in a way that nobody else seems to have replicated
Pathfinder Kingmaker: The amount of micro-engineering you can do with builds is genuinely amazing

BAD THINGS IN GAMES I DO LIKE:
Thief: Infinite knockouts are fucking stupid, especially with enemy AI being so easy to overcome. Flash bombs are the last straw
Doom: Another obvious one that's been discussed to death, but Shores of Hell and Inferno are way lower quality than E1, to the point where when I replay the game I usually can't be bothered doing Inferno
Mount & Blade Warband: The mid-game is boring as fuck, it's actually hard to keep playing when you've established your own kingdom because it just turns into constantly doing very samey sieges
Legend of Grimrock: Great game completely trivialised by being able to dance around like a fool during combat, with enemies having no good counter to it

What are yours? Go. Now. Write something. Immediately.

 

[cvv]

Last three Larian games - unbearably retarded writing but possibly the most fun classic RPG turn-based combat ever made.

Bethesda games - dumbed down, low-IQ writing, awkward, barely competent... but there's just something about a huge, epic, open-world RPG...

Bioware:
DA2 - deep, genuinely thought-provoking themes, generally solid writing, especially compared to the vegan nuSlop nowadays
DAI - jawdropping graphics and environs on release, still look good today
Andromeda - another Frostbite masterpiece and the gunplay/combat was actually a pile of fun
Anthem - dunno, probably nothing

 

[Lemming42]

Yeah I have a hard time with Dragon Age in general but there is one companion I like in each of the games (Shale, Aveline, Vivienne) which helps a lot. Developers of these games should learn to make sure that at least one companion serves the role of criticising/mocking the story and other characters, because it gives people who otherwise aren't enjoying the game a reason to stick around since there's someone on-screen who feels the same way they do. Mass Effect really suffered from a lack of that.

 

[Falksi]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:

• Starfox: Compadre chatter gives the game a nice teamwork vibe
• Donkey Kong Country: Great graphics, a few awesome tunes
• Pillars of Eternity: Excellent vibe
• Yoshi's Island: Great Graphics
• Chrono Trigger: The first 15 seconds of one song are awesome, and Frog's story is great
• Disco Elysium: It has "Disco" in the title
• Skyrim (original): First 15-20 hours are actually fun, before you realize just how badly it's all put together
• Super Mario RPG: it keeps retards busy, and so they aren't posting online

BAD THINGS IN GAMES I DO LIKE:

• Super Street Fighter 2: Poor sound FX on the SEGA Genesis version (which is the best version)
• Witcher 2: Combat is lacking
• Dark Wizard: Battles can get samey
• Alpha Protocol: Combat is rough as fuck
• Baldurs Gate 2: The mid game is entrenched in the Underdark for far too long
• Bard's Tale 4 DC: Game is far too long
• Persona 5 Royal: Another game which is too long

 

[processdaemon]

Good things in games I don't like
Pentiment: A lot of thought clearly went into some of the small details in the art like the margins of the books, and I think in that aspect at least it was a genuine passion project
Wildermyth: The idea of a generation spanning story of heroism is great and the first 5 or so hours are genuinely fun before you start realising how samey it is
Beyond Two Souls: That scene where you absolutely wreck that teenage girl's house, bullying people with Aiden
Hogwarts Legacy: Pet collecting. Also the Slytherin questline, I'm not sure if it was really good or just notably way better than the rest of the game but I enjoyed it.
Fable 3: Making you oppose your brother's harsh rule and then thrusting you into a position where you might have to make the same difficult choices was a great idea, it's a pity they didn't follow through by making it painfully easy to circumvent making any actually difficult decisions with the power of property ownership
Dark Souls 2: The only one of the FromSoft games I've played that I didn't click with, but it had some great elements, like the Bonfire Ascetics and some very memorable NPCs.

Bad things in games I do like
Wrath of the Righteous: Navigating Alushinyrra after your first playthrough (can be alleviated with Toybox, but still, why?)
BG3: Atrocious inventory management, too many threads to the plot that they fail to tie together in a satisfactory manner
Rogue Trader: The ending is very obviously rushed and the game as a whole clearly fell prey to Owlcat's ambition exceeding their resources, even moreso than the Pathfinder games
Morrowind: That goofy fucking run animation. I know the game is janky in a million ways but this is the only thing that bothers me so much that I install a mod to change it every time
BG1: Koveras. Come on.

 

[NecroLord]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:
Oblivion: Has the general Bethesda fantasy atmosphere going for it.

BAD THINGS IN GAMES I DO LIKE:
KOTOR 2: Peragus drags on for WAAAAAY too long. Also really turns into a combat marathon at the end (pretty much the way the first game did).
VTMB : Becomes linear in the last act and also turns into a combat marathon (can be problematic for a non combat character, but you should still be able to get through everything successfully).

 

[Ash]

Decline from recent Lemming42 threads. This one feels like insignificant housewife natter at the park on a cold and grey Monday afternoon. It's random, trivial, and has no meaningful purpose

The purpose of his other threads however were many. To share the classics others may have missed, educate the younger gamers, as well as hash out and establish what actually was or good or not (not that this happened, but the potential was there).

 

[jaekl]

Good things in game I don't like:
Baldur's Gate 3 - Everyone in the credits will be dead one day.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:

• Inquisitor - The atmosphere, the music and the art. Most of Act I's whodunnit when searching for heretics was still fresh and new.
• StarCraft - Music/art/funny command sounds.
• CounterStrike - The bomb defusal objective was okay I guess.
• Star Wars: Empire At War - The space combat maps were fun but too fucking small.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic - Best quest tracking/minimap I'd seen in an MMO as of 2012.
• Minecraft - The game as it was prior to the lighting update in beta. Still tolerable up to around the official launch but far too much bloat and feature creep since then. The game was complete in 2012 and they should have had the intelligence to recognize less is more.

BAD THINGS IN GAME I DO LIKE:

• KotOR I - The party A.I.'s inability to store queued commands and the lack of satisfying boss encounters past Taris. Game also needed an increase in enemy damage across the board. Also certain obvious roleplay dialogue options were never thought of as solutions to certain quests by the developers.
• The Witcher - Combat is too easy, enemies shouldn't take turns attacking and positioning should matter a great deal more than it does. Should have had an active parry system. The game sometimes forces you into accepting stupid arguments/framing from certain NPCs rather than being able to countersignal/refute effectively. The vampire brothel is one example where it should be easy to determine that the vampires are actually manipulating the girl into whoring herself by offering her eternal beauty when in reality, humans can never be turned into vampires in the Witcher's own lore. The game never let's you call them on their BS.
• Pool of Radiance - Currency shouldn't take up inventory space. Game needed a dedicated leave combat button. Load game should have been available in the encamp menu.
• Baldur's Gate II - Party members talk to you at wildly inappropriate times. Too many unique items dropping everywhere. Main plot has barely anything to do with the Bhaalspawn metanarrative, the Sahaugin City detour sucks and Falksi is also correct about the Underdark section.
• Baldur's Gate - Too much ludonarrative dissonance in the early game. The first quarter, while I enjoy it, is a pointless detour from what your character ought to be doing. The forced teamup with Khalid and Jaheira makes no sense plotwise when it's obvious that if Gorion had lived and failing to persuade them, he would not have allowed K&J to direct the party to Nashkel, rather than the obvious place to find info on the Iron Throne which was operating out of Baldur's Gate itself. The game via the dialogue simultaneously wants to portray your character as a scarred wide-eyed rabbit with all the assassins being sent your way, despite the fact that you merc them all in short order proving your own competence.
• Guild Wars - It takes way too damned long for new Nightfall characters to grind rep to get the hell off of Istan compared to foreign characters. I also hate the death of campaign momentum for new accounts in Factions when they're forced to grind Kurz/Lux rep to access the Grove/Hatchery missions. The whole campaign grinds to a halt in both of these segments. I hate the Junundu Wurm quests/missions in Nightfall where the game forces you to use a different skillbar. It's only ever novel once and becomes completely annoying on subsequent runs.
• Battle For Middle Earth II - Lack of persistent maps in War of the Ring mode, lack of walls that troops can be stationed upon.
• Crusader Kings II - The lack of cultural particularism in goals. The game desperately needed mission trees like EUIV to give the player some direction depending on the area/culture they were. Western Christians for example should not all feel identical.
• League of Legends - Lack of a "vote to eject" function. Lack of a sub-in system for leavers with incentives for players queueing for it. Lack of the ability to call retarded faggots faggot retards without getting banned.
• Conan Exiles - The inability to enslave real players in multiplayer. Let's say for 15-20 minutes max with a penalty that if they leave the game to dodge the quarry/orgypit they get a permanent stat debuff until their time is served. The captors get a permanent T4 thrall with that player's name, sort of like the ear trophies in Diablo 1.

 

[Froila]

The best part of any bad game:​

You don't have to play it and no one will force you.

If you're not a game journo, of course. But if you're, you probably deserve everything bad that happens to you.

 

[NecroLord]

KotOR I - The party A.I.'s inability to store queued commands and the lack of satisfying boss encounters past Taris. Game also needed an increase in enemy damage across the board.

Sherruk on Dantooine...

He can kick you and your party's ass real bad (he has Master Power Attack, Critical strike AND Flurry).
Force Whirlwind will neutralize him though and allow you to finish him off.

What the game needed was some improved AI and for the AI to use more force powers and target your more vulnerable characters with force powers and different attacks.

 

[Lemming42]

Decline from recent Lemming42 threads. This one feels like insignificant housewife natter at the park on a cold and grey Monday afternoon. It's random, trivial, and has no meaningful purpose

Don't worry, this is a mere breather before my next thread, which will be mindblowing. I haven't thought of it yet but it'll be the best yet.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

He can kick you and your party's ass real bad (he has Master Power Attack, Critical strike AND Flurry).
Force Whirlwind will neutralize him though and allow you to finish him off.

I don't recall ever having problems with Sherruk, but I usually play a So/G so that might be why.

 

[Beans00]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:

• Donkey Kong Country: Great graphics, a few awesome tunes
• Yoshi's Island: Great Graphics
• Chrono Trigger: The first 15 seconds of one song are awesome, and Frog's story is great
• Super Mario RPG: it keeps retards busy, and so they aren't posting online

Look bro, take a deep breath... You need to deal with the fact that blast processing couldn't save the genesis/megadrive. SNES reigned supreme.



OT-

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:
Quake's skyboxes, also I always liked episode 3, don't really care for the rest of the game
quake 2's weapons, although i like quake 2 in multiplayer so...
oblivion- soundtrack
pillars of eternity 1- there was a sidequest where someone tried to claim ownership of your castle or something
final fantasy 7-8, both these games are complete trash but the music is amazing. copy and paste this for almost every jrpg I have ever played.
nwn 1- menu music
hexen- everything is great except actually playing the game

BAD THINGS IN GAMES I DO LIKE:
donkey kong country 1- the ice levels
arcanum- combat
system shock 2- respawning enemies
thief gold- thieves guild
doom 2- the city levels in the middle of the game are trash
doom 1- episode 4
siege of avalon- combat
baldurs gate 1/2- annoying companions
deus ex- paris as a whole
unreal- the water temple
half life- xen
strife/dark forces1- worst sewer levels in great games
duke 3d- episode 2 sucked

 

[cvv]

It's random, trivial, and has no meaningful purpose

Fits right in on the Dex.

 

[NecroLord]

He can kick you and your party's ass real bad (he has Master Power Attack, Critical strike AND Flurry).
Force Whirlwind will neutralize him though and allow you to finish him off.

I don't recall ever having problems with Sherruk, but I usually play a So/G so that might be why.

He hits REALLY hard, especially if you are playing on Hard (as I do).
Enemies just do more damage on Hard, but that's about it. I have not noticed any changes in the AI's behavior.

Beans00 I forgot about the Anoat City sewer level...
I don't hate it as much, but it is quite a chore to get through.

 

[octavius]

GOOD THINGS IN GAMES I DON'T LIKE:
Splinter Cell: I like Sam Fisher's outfit; it makes much more sense for a stealth character than a stupid hood that impairs your vision and hearing.

BAD THINGS IN GAMES I DO LIKE:
Age of Wonders games: The AI is crippled; it can't do the same things that the player can do, like equipping items and exploring most sites. Lazy design.

 

[Beastro]

Thief: Infinite knockouts are fucking stupid, especially with enemy AI being so easy to overcome. Flash bombs are the last straw

I've found the game far more enjoyable after finding ways to turn off the "no kill" mission objective on most FM expert difficulties.

Suddenly you can't go wild attacking due to sound of the dying and being slowed down by your weapon.

 

[KafkaBot]

I normally do not spend too much time with games I disliked, so my list will be rather lopsided:



Good things in games I don't like:

Dragon Age II: the core idea is interesting, I guess. Execution's awful, but the game could have been good.

Lucifer Within Us: same as above. Game has brilliant ideas, but doesn't execute them properly (for the most part) and the whole thing is way too short.

Quake: Game might be boring as shit, but from a technical standpoint it truly was a marvel.

Crysis: It's pretty. Still looks good to this day.

Mass Effect 2: The suicide mission plot is actually quite interesting and sometimes gives off western/jidai geki vibes, which I definitely appreciate as a fan of both genres. It could have been a great game if it was a proper RPG.

Mass Effect: had real potential and quite a bit of soul. I actually liked it back then, but now it is difficult to see it as anything other than the harbinger of what Bioware eventually became.

Oblivion: It's better than Skyrim. At least it is an RPG.




Bad things in games I like:

Thief Gold: Down in the Bonehoard and The Lost City are mind-numbingly boring (I know some will crucify me for this). Also, the last few levels are a massive step down in terms of quality.

Thief 2: Casing the Joint.

Planescape: Torment: Combat sucks.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: the last legs of the game mostly suck. The sewers are a disgrace, to the point that I often recomment that new players use that nifty feature of the Plus Patch to just skip it.

Deus Ex: loses steam in the final areas.

Arcanum: Combat sucks. Also, Gnomes.

Fallout: traits are hilariously unbalanced. If you don't take gifted you are often intentionally gimping yourself.

Fallout 2: Tries too hard to be funny and the humor often doesn't land.

System Shock 2: builds are hilariously unbalanced. Game was clearly made for shooty-hacky characters; all other builds are extras.

System Shock: Cyberspace.

Prey: low enemy variety.

Slay the Spire: art style is hideous.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory: AI is easily exploited.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: plot is sometimes embarrassingly juvenile.

Blood: tossing grenades around corners can sometimes become boring, especially on Well Done.

Dusk: final boss is way too easy.

Duke Nukem 3D: the space levels are way too similar to each other and feel rather barren.

Baldur's Gate: too many annoying companions.

Alpha Protocol: Combat sucks (seriously, it is quite funny how many great RPGs have unsatisfactory combat).

Temple of Elemental Evil: Anything other than the combat system is awful.

Outer Wilds: sometimes going back to a place you've already explored can be quite annoying, especially in the DLC.

Paradise Killer: the trial portion is a step down in comparison to the investigative parts of the game.

Bloodborne: awful performance. No PC port.

Dark Souls: some areas are rough. The last legs of the game are significantly worse than what came before.

Riven: that one puzzle.

Stasis: Bone Totem: ending feels rushed.

Yuppie Psycho: parts of the plot are left vague in a way that doesn't really work. Sometimes vagueness enhances a story's mystique, but here it feels like content was simply left on the cutting room floor.

Garage: Bad Dream Adventure: hilariously janky. The Steam release ameliorates that, but also cleans up the graphics, diluting the atmosphere.

KOTOR 1 and 2: They're Star Wars games. Also, combat sucks and KOTOR 2 is unfinished.

 

[NecroLord]

Thief Gold: Down in the Bonehoard and The Lost City are mind-numbingly boring (I know some will crucify me for this). Also, the last few levels are a massive step down in terms of quality.

Down in the Bonehoard is one of the best missions.
A really massive dungeon and proper dungeon crawling experience.

Also in System Shock 2 a PSI character dominates in late game.
PSI is one of the most OP builds if done right.

 

[Hag]

Games I don't like, however :
- Oblivion : weather effects were nice.
- HL2 : the bridge part was very impressive and managed to trigger some height anxiety.
- Doom 3 : the weapons sounds, in particular the machinegun's, were perfect and satisfying.
- Baba is you : sure is a neat idea.

Game I like, however :
- Morrowind : AI and pathfinding in particular is shit, making many otherwise interesting fights trivial by having the enemy stuck in props or not using potions.
- Planescape Torment : everything apart from writing, story, art and lore is a disaster.
- Return of the Obra Dinn : the animated trail is too slow and not very fun, making replaying cumbersome.
- Stalker SoC : once you've played the game and know how to find equipment, the game is broken forever.

 

[KafkaBot]

Thief Gold: Down in the Bonehoard and The Lost City are mind-numbingly boring (I know some will crucify me for this). Also, the last few levels are a massive step down in terms of quality.

Down in the Bonehoard is one of the best missions.
A really massive dungeon and proper dungeon crawling experience.

Also in System Shock 2 a PSI character dominates in late game.
PSI is one of the most OP builds if done right.

I dislike Bonehoard because the zombies are supremely annoying. I often try to get through the level by dancing around them, but their constant moans grind my gears so much that I end up just slaughtering them with fire arrows. They are also so dumb and slow that sneaking around them isn't fun.

The level would probably be MUCH better if the zombies were replaced by, say, apparitions or haunts.

Spoiler

In fact, that moment with the Haunt at the end is one of the most chilling in the whole game

Sadly, Haunts or Apparitions might be too much for the game's third mission. Honestly, I loathe those zombies so much that I think that having no enemies at all would be an improvement.

As for SS2, PSI is broken if done right, as you put it, so it requires knowledge of how the game works (or, you know, a guide). Also, it is not all that interesting in the early game; it is essentially just something I'd recommend for subsequent playthroughs, and even then it is clearly not something SS2 was properly designed and balanced for. As far as I am concerned, it is just a bonus, a NG+ addition, if you will, and still makes me feel like I'm missing something.

 

[NecroLord]

The level would probably be MUCH better if the zombies were replaced by, say, apparitions or haunts.

The Hammer Haunts?


Having a horde of those things chase after you sounds like a lotta fun...

 

[KafkaBot]

The level would probably be MUCH better if the zombies were replaced by, say, apparitions or haunts.

The Hammer Haunts?


Having a horde of those things chase after you sounds like a lotta fun...

Yep, it does. Sadly, it couldn't really be done on the third mission of the game. Maybe if it was placed after the first half... a man can dream, I suppose.

 

[NecroLord]

The level would probably be MUCH better if the zombies were replaced by, say, apparitions or haunts.

The Hammer Haunts?


Having a horde of those things chase after you sounds like a lotta fun...

Yep, it does. Sadly, it couldn't really be done on the third mission of the game. Maybe if it was placed after the first half... a man can dream, I suppose.

"JOIN US! JOIN US NOOOW!" intensifies.