Skyrim, it’s so damn mundane.
That’s because you’re playing it wrong. You see, at it’s core Skyrim is actually a puzzle game you play on the Nexus Mods website. You spend 30+ hours carefully researching, building, and tweaking the perfect pack of mods, only to immediately run out of interest in playing Skyrim once you’re finally done. The actual Skyrim installation only exists to check if you solved the puzzle correctly and it runs.
Damn. I feel so seen suddenly.
The end-game lasts about 30 seconds after boot.
“Oooh, pretty sky. Ooh, wavy plants. Ooh, god rays. Alt+F4.”
anyway, back to minecraft
I’m in this comment and I hate it
Actually. I tried Skyrim so many times and never got into it, then I decided to give it the best shot and play with a cavalcade of QoL mods. I went from a hater to a true Skyrim enjoyer. At this point, with how pessimistic I was about the game, I think with the right setup ANYONE can enjoy it.
Just get openmw and play a real elder scrolls game before Bethesda got got
Or spin up TES3MP with some friends and experience it together!
I recently tried Fallout 4 based off of the same expectations. Probably didn’t even make it a quarter of the way through the main story. I was having absolutely no fun. The thing that finally killed it for me was spending 5 minutes calculating which items needed to be sold at a shop and which I should keep, then getting blown up a block later, then respawning right before I did all that inventory management.
I have the opposite opinion. I avoided it for years because of the hype (and not having proper hardware to run it).
Now I have almost 900 hours in it, and sometimes I jump in just to walk around and revisit some places.
Skyrim came out 14 years ago.
Thanks for the tip
The title of this post was, “What’s a recent game you’ve tried playing that isn’t worth the hype?”
14 years is hardly ‘recent’
Depends entirely on how you interpret the question. It could be read as “What’s a recent game you’ve tried…” (as in, a recently released game that you tried), as you’ve done, or “What’s a recent game you’ve tried…” (as in, a game you’ve tried recently) as the person you’re responding to did.
I think either interpretation is fine since the title doesn’t actually clarify either way.
can it correctly be interpreted both ways grammatically though? I think only the former is actually correct.
idk. not my area. but I think they have a point, recent can only refer to the game itself, not when you played it
Slay the Spire for me, I thought it’d be a slam dunk because I love Balatro, but it just didn’t land for me at all.
Kinda the same, but I did like slay the spire. But balatro is leaps and bounds superior.
Huh opposite for me. I have played Slay the Spire for like 2000 hours. I have beaten it through ascension 20 on all 4 characters like 20ish times at this point. I still pick it up and play it when I’m bored and it still is fun somehow.
I could not get into Balatro like that. I think I have roughly 50 hours in it and like 3/4 of the way through it with all the decks and challenges and simply cannot bring myself to complete it. The last 10 or so hours just felt like a slog. Still a good game but the sheen wore off for me well before I could 100% it much less start replaying.
To each their own I guess! Funny how similar the games are and how there’s just some people that love one but can’t get into the other.
Dungeons and Dragons 5e is less fun than 3.5e IMO.
There was more of a sense of character progression, and ability differentiation in 3.5e.
5e achieves balance by flattening the power curve.
For example, the attack bonus for a level 20 Fighter in 5e is just 4 points higher than it was at level 1 - same as a 5e Wizard. Both get +2 at lvl 1 and +6 at lvl 20
In 3.5e, a level 20 fighter’s attack bonus is 19 points higher than it was at level 1 (+1 to +20), but a wizard only gains half that much fighting prowess as they level up (+0 to +10).
All 5e characters are pretty much the same statistically & mechanically. Differentiation comes from role play, which is the least interesting part of the game for me.
3.5e being the best is an opinion I’ve heard for my entire life. I would say preferring 5e is a more unpopular opinion.
I think this is one of the reasons why Pathfinder 2e has been doing so well.
It’s a middle ish ground and it feels good to progress.
My current issues with it are how underpowered the items are. So boring.
2024 is even worse. On top of that, they also stack extra abilities, and try to give everyone everything.
One of these days I should try Pathfinder
Differentiation comes from role play, which is the least interesting part of the game for me.
Can you explain why you would play a TTRPG if you’re not interested in role play? Seems like a battle sim like warhammer, or just a video game might be the thing you’re looking for.
As a DM, the cooperative story telling IS the interesting part. D&D has never been an airtight game system, it’s a bunch if hand waving to give just enough illusion of structure and randomness so you don’t feel like you’re just arbitrarily deciding everything yourselves. But at the end of the day, you are. The characters and story you’re left with is the only thing of value.
Just played through Doom: Eternal cause it was on sale for 4€ a bit back. The entire time I was wishing I was playing Doom 2016…
The new Doom games are all very different from each other. I liked what Doom 2016 was doing (even if it got repetitive) but really didn’t enjoy Eternal because the constant juggling didn’t sit with me. I haven’t tried Dark Ages but it seems like it’s doing something between 2016 and Eternal (not quite use what you want and not quite always juggle) while also adding its own dimension with the mix of melee and guns.
I would never recommend each Doom title based on the last title. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like what they’re doing. I think it’s brave to do its own thing instead of doing what is expected.
All the souls games. I don’t get it, they’re just no fun 🤷♂️
Also, never finished doom eternal, far too busy. Dark ages was great tho
Souls games didn’t make sense to me until I saw Giant Bomb play through Demon’s Souls. Mechanics that I didn’t know were there were explained in plain English, and then I could better understand where I went wrong when I died.
There was a time when I could not have imagined liking those kinds of games. My partner got me Dark Souls Prepare to Die Edition and I hated it. Hate may be too kind a word for how I felt. I’ve always loved metroidvanias and the style seemed right up my gothy, witchy alley, but I couldn’t get past the first basic zombie.
Then we watched a bunch of videos and realized that the game was designed to be played slowly and deliberately. There were no “junk” enemies and paying careful attention at all times was the game. When it clicked, it clicked, and now From Software games are my favorite.
I enjoyed Blue Prince, I’m exactly who it was made for, but it was definitely much worse than people would lead you to believe.
The game makers had no respect for players’ time. You solve one of the large, run-independent puzzles and it all clicks, then it could take you several hours to playtime to luck into the conditions to actually test your solution. Everything takes longer than it should. It’s obvious that I’m going to toggle security settings every time I’m in the Security Room, why do you make me go through this slow as hell PC every time? It’s not for realism because no PC back then had such fantastical functionality, so why not make the PCs load screens faster? How does the slowness enhance the experience? Why not just put buttons on the wall you can toggle for the security settings, at least? There were times where I figured something out, and rather than spend ten hours trying to actually do the thing, I just looked up that part of a walkthrough to get the next info.
Really interesting game, but I did some napkin math and I wasted 25 avoidable hours during my playthrough (long unskippable loads and such) that could have been spend completing an entire different game.
The game makers had no respect for players’ time.
I don’t know that game, but the importance of respecting the player’s time cannot be overstated.
I wish more game makers understood this and prioritized it accordingly.
Deep Rock Galactic. I was really excited to play it and I tried to like it. The colors and graphics were 10/10 awesome, I just found it to be extremely boring and repetitive.
Man I LOVE drg. A good team on a call made this the most fun I’ve had playing in recent years. Unfortunately, the population is lower and one may have trouble finding new players. Veterans are usually happy to help, but you’d need a patient one.
Friend recommended one of the hitman games. But the steam port is so incredibly janky in regards to controller layout. And it was fucking made for consoles is what’s bonkers!!!
Space marine 2. You shoot things with guns that don’t feel powerful and you die if you don’t have perfect reaction timing to do executes. I’ve never played a game where the world says “oh you’re amazing and powerful!” but then makes you feel incredibly weak. Also, the timing for executes is not fun. It would be nice if they were bonuses but they are necessary to survive because they replenish your health. The gun gameplay is just shooting. No strategy. Boring. I’m going back to hell drivers 2.
I played this with two friends. The progression system is just awful. So we got through the full campaign once and it was fine honestly. Then we were kind of hyped to try going through it again, it was all right definitely harder. And then the third time around we just gave up cuz it was clear that they’re just wasn’t that much game to play, and the enemy is just become bullet sponges and you either grind endlessly to try to level up and gain unknown amounts of power if its power at all.
Intermultiplayer sessions we did have a few epic moments won’t lie. But the cost just wasn’t worth it. And those thin offset the issues that we had.
I personally loved it the part where i was weak. Its lore accurate and it was like travelling back in time to the olden days.
It was great nostalgia rush to play a game where you could really die and it was not unusual to need and try same fight multiple times.
Now days i feel like most games are allmost impossible to loose. I dont want it from all the games, but its nice to have games like that available.
Helldivers 2 is hard game, but dying a lot is something the game mechanics are build around and you dont loose instantly and when you loose you just fire up a new game, it does not give me the same 2000’s vibe i got from the space marine 2.
Also the reaction times are not that tight. Even my dad reflexes can manage those.
You and my buddies say that the reaction times aren’t that tight. I must be doing something wrong then because they’re no different than any other reaction game for me: I miss a majority of the.
Luigi’s Mansion 3. At least if you consider 6 years ago recent. It got some really good reviews at the time, and it honestly makes me wonder if we were playing the same game. I loved the first one, by the way - I got an A rank while also getting golden frames on all the portraits (on the PAL version where you need more money).
I only persisted with the game because it was a birthday gift (and due to the sunk cost fallacy, I suppose), but I think it might be the game I’ve completed that I enjoyed the least. It looks nice, and some of the boss ghost encounters were charming, but the gameplay itself was fairly monotonous since they simplified the ghost catching mechanics from LM1 (I didn’t really play LM2, since it was on 3DS). Gooigi would have been a decent addition, but his puzzles generally just didn’t feel very fleshed out. It felt like they were either “I need two vacuums” or “I can’t fit through this grate”.
Also, I think Nintendo took the criticism that the first game was too short well and truly to heart, because LM3 might be the most filler-stuffed game I’ve ever played. Half the time when you get an elevator button, you get screwed over in some way and have to find it again. And don’t get me started on fucking Poulterkitty, when that little bastard showed up for the second time I legitimately thought about quitting the game there and then. The final boss was awful, too, which left an even more bitter taste in my mouth.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 might be the only game I’ve ever played where I thought “Thank god I don’t have to play that anymore” once I finished it.
Mario Kart World.
Soundtrack is 11/10. But they dropped the ball hard on the entire open world aspect. Completely wasted the entire potential.
Instead we get lame ass intermission tracks that count as the first two laps of the next race, so you don’t even get to enjoy the new and remade tracks during championships, because you’ll blink and miss them.
Horizon: Zero Dawn. I have yet to finish it but apart from robot dinosaurs, it feels so generically open world… Admitedly, a very pretty-looking open world. Can‘t really get into the story so far either since it takes itself so seriously while I‘m having a hard time not thinking too much about how ridiculous its world is. So apart from sight-seeing, there hasn‘t been much in this game for me thus far.
Edit: This comment section is a treasure trove of hot takes, so many of my beloved games mentioned making me go „What the fuck…,“ I love it
Cyberpunk 2077.
It’s okay, but it’s a far cry from giving me the feelings of a cyberpunk world in my opinion and I’m a massive fan of blade runner and the like.
Why am i spending so much time wandering at the street level where everywhere just looks and feels the same. Travelling is so boring.
And the voice acting of V (I played female) is so overreacted, it’s one of the cringiest performances in gaming, considering it’s meant to be all serious and whatnot.
Why am i spending so much time wandering at the street level where everywhere just looks and feels the same.
What game are you fucking playing?
“Looks and feels he same”!?
What are you even going on about? Every neighborhood, every nook and cranny, looks and feels different and has it’s own personality and story to tell!Night City is the real protagonist of the game! I could spend hours upon hours just walking those streets, experiencing the city (and have), and I’m far from the only one…
And the voice acting of V (I played female) is so overreacted, it’s one of the cringiest performances in gaming
I’m sorry, what? Cherami Leigh got a well deserved BAFTA nomination for that performance!
(Lost to Laura Bailey for her work as Abby on The Last of Us Part II.)What, were you playing with your eyes closed while listening to something else…?
To me every nook and cranny just looks bland with nothing to do there. Everywhere just had the same sidewalks and railings. There’s no way i could ever navigate that game without waypoints.
And with the acting the emphasis she puts on certain words in a sentence just don’t match the situation and the others she’s talking to, and it feels like she swaps between extreme emotions on the same dialogue and it’s like tonal whiplash to me. There was no nuance to lay in between, and nothing to unpack for the listener. You know when she’s angry because she has her 110% angry voice on and so on.
Unless the situation is heightened and dire, it just never fit in my opinion. Her performance fits a stage play more than what’s meant to be an immersive video game in my opinion.
Jackie’s and Keanu’s voice acting though was stellar.
My problem with Cyberpunk is it feels like all style and no substance. Night City is probably the best looking city I’ve ever seen in a game. The world designers did a phenomenal job with the visuals and atmosphere.
But it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough to do in the city or ways to interact with it or the NPCs. There should be more buildings you can enter and more activities to do. For me that’s what sets GTA and Red Dead apart from Cyberpunk. They have much more to do when you’re not on missions.
The game is definitely too sparse and spread out. It should’ve taken more inspiration from the likes of yakuza than gta and made a smaller but more dense world to play in where every nook and cranny ACTUALLY meant something rather than giving the illusion of doing so.
This is something that still disappoints me despite all the updates made to add immersion. The street food vendors just kind of hang out and stare at you. That and how every vendor interaction is just popping open their inventory and grabbing things.
I remember Postal 2 having a really clunky attempt at customer to vendor speech interactions where both were NPCs. Not as cool as a ridable metro system, but still.
They could have at least given us some:
“What news from the provinces?”
“I’ve heard others say the same”
“Be seeing you”
Agreed. I have bounced off this game a few times for similar reasons. For a game that is about a cyberpunk future, it felt so much like a gta clone. Having played the ttrpgs, I think I just have a different version of the world in my head, and the games version just feels off.
I often stay away of new games because that exactly, the hype. If you play a new game and you say it sucks, everybody yells at you, but if you let past the time, it’s the time the one who gives reason to people.
I always think it’s fascinating to see how the discourse around games evolves. It’s always most telling when people stop talking about a game at all. Remember Starfield? No one even talks about Starfield anymore, not even about how bad it may or may not have been. Just kinda flopped a bit and passed from memory.
I had to search “Bethesda space game” just now to even remember its generic name …
Funny thing is, starfield would probably still be relevant if it didnt have paid mods
I remember at the time it was getting all these awards. When I still had game pass I booted it up to see what it was all about. Dear god was it dull. All I remember is some dude comes out and is like “you had a space vision! Take my ship!” And I thought that was the most absurd way to start a game.
Life
