Gaming

This will be an extremely hot take for some: Almost all recent online games are complete garbage that solely exist to make profit and create addicted user bases and they hurt what videogames truly are, a revolutionary and interactive form of art.

I'll probably get roasted for this but.. Pokemon. It just seems like endless copy/paste and might be one of the laziest game franchises I've ever seen. I've really tried to get into them. I was there when the Pokemon cartoon started, I saw it rise to the phenomenon it is today, but damn if it isn't the most boring grindfest ever.

Red Dead Redemption 2. Everyone goes on about how awesome it is, but I just found the story and gameplay really slow and dull.

Any game that has daily login bonuses or a bonus for playing every day. Animal crossing pocket or whatever it is. Pokémon go. A bunch of afk phone games. A bunch of gacha games. It just feels so shallow to me. Like, I’m not being manipulated to play something, I just end up feeling so guilty to lose a streak I’d rather delete the game.

Honestly, Stardew Valley for me. I've tried it a couple times and it just didn't work for me. I wanted to like it, and I like the idea of it, but in practice, I hated the time management aspect and not being able to just run around and do as much as I wanted in a day (I haven't played on PC with mods; I know there's at least one or two that let you change that). I also hated the fishing. 🙃

I still can't make it through any of The Witcher games. Smooth and satisfying gameplay is super important for me to enjoy a game, and The Witcher has always felt slow, clunky, unintuitive, and super menu-heavy. I'm sure the story is great! But I just can't get past its gameplay.

Didn't see anyone else mention it, so I'll say MMOs. Pretty much all of them. WoW, FFXIV, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars one (can't remember the name). I really like the idea of MMOs, having a huge shared world that feels alive, tons of lore, epic quests, but I just find the gameplay loop so boring. They just feel like endless busywork to me.

Didn't play Skyrim at the time and the two times I've tried to get into It didn't really click for me. I understand why people like It, mayo give another try sometime

Monster Hunter. It's just so painfully slow and boring. Combat just feels clunky.

The Witcher 3.

It just feels so generic and suffers from one of the things I hate the most about rpgs. Endless sidequests that have nothing to do with the main quest.

Don't hate me but I cannot get into Minecraft. I get so bored running around collecting supplies and building things, it feels like a chore each and every time I try it out.

For me botw was that game. I didn't like the gameplay and many aspects of the game design. In contrast, I'm enjoying totk a lot more. It improved on a few aspects I didn't like and the gameplay feels closer to what I want in a Zelda game. Overall I'd still prefer them to go in a different direction with the series though.

But in general, I'm not a fan of a lot of currently popular elements. I don't need big, open worlds with a lot to do, that just gives me FOMO. I don't want to build and manage stuff, and make a lot of decisions in my adventure game, I just want a good story and fun traversal and combat. And I don't need 50+h of gameplay, I don't have that much time and I usually start burning out after the 20h mark anyway.

I guess I'll take the hit for this one. Dark Souls.

The combat can be really fun and I had a great time fighting the bosses but the slow, careful crawl between boss fights is just so dull to me that it's not worth it.

Borderlands: I mean the combat is fine and all, but the story is super weak. What is my incentive to keep playing? Just to click on more heads? There are better games for that (Doom, Quake, etc)

honestly most competitive multiplayer games tbh like league (stretching the definition of everyone loves I know). I just have a hard time learning the game when I feel like I'm dragging the team down

Any MOBA really, particularly League of Legends. A number of my friends played these obsessively, but I could just never get into it. I've sat in on quite a few Discord calls with people playing this game and I gotta say, not once did anyone ever sound like they were having fun. I'm not sure what it is, but it just seems like the genre attracts toxicity like no other, especially when playing with strangers. On the occasions I tried them myself, the gameplay just wasn't engaging enough for me to want to put in the tremendous amount of time necessary to become somewhat decent at the game.

Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West. Game is so empty and has an open world for having an open world’s sake. Couldn’t stand it for longer than 3 hours.

Souls games.

I like difficult games but I just don't enjoy the gameplay of Souls games. They feel sluggish and repetitive.

Destiny 2! The game is total trash. The combat is so fucking boring, its just nothing but bullet sponge bosses with simple ass mechanics.

I know that lots of people love it but man I do not understand lol

Honestly most online games. I just prefer to game alone than with strangers or even friends. And while there are exceptions to the next point, I am well aware. But I also don't feel like spending my free time having rando's on the internet hate me for not being some awesome e-sporter, or be called a hacker when it does go well, as often seems to be how it goes. Like, I don't get why people would spend their free time on something that just tends to make everything so negative. I have more fun things to do in my free time than get complained at... Honestly, the few online games I do like, you can play alone, and I mainly do, like ESO.

But one of the most loved games that I hate the most is GTA V. Especially the online mode. It's so full of hackers it's nearly impossible to do anything. Heck, I couldn't even go buy a new outfit because some stupid guy was spawning shopping cards above everyones head causing the store to close and me to loose my whole selection of stuff I wanted to buy.... Just why...

I also keep getting confused with the controlls somehow. Wanna get in your friends car picking you up? End up jumping on it's roof or kicking it instead... It's not that I can't game. My hand-eye cordination might suck but that's not even the issue here. I somehow just keep mixing everything up, while I'm fine with other games.

Diablo and Diablo-style games like Torchlight. Every time a new one comes out a few of my friends get excited and I've been convinced to try it again, but I think I've learned my lesson finally and I have skipped Diablo IV.

Personally, I feel like most games that have a grind are kryptonite to me. Like, unless I really, really, really like the game loop to an obsessive degree - which is rare - I quickly get to a point where I'm like "I get it, now show me something new for crying out loud".

This ropes in a vast number of games, alas. Occasionally, sure, I'll find a grindy game is suddenly palatable to my brain. Like, there was a month or two I went gonzo for Warframe and played the same 3 maps repeatedly. But then I swore off the game for a year. Same for Diablo and any number of gacha games.

Some of my favorites are indie games that have a good fun loop and progression that doesn't overstay its welcome.

A roguelike / roguelite like Hades drew me in for longer than expected, if only because I could shuffle up weapons and modifiers. Still kind of a repetition thing after awhile, but it had enough variety and novelty with each run to keep me engaged for good while.

There's one opinion that I've been afraid to say out loud forever because people are so passionate about it... Disco Elysium. I love rpgs and I love choice-based, narrative-driven games. But there were two main things which drove me crazy:

1. I really didn't like the writing. Honestly it felt like some fresh English lit major suddenly discovered big words and angst and went crazy with it. It was really cringy to me.
2. I didn't like the false paradigm of choices in terms of world views and beliefs, when the game very clearly sets them all up to suck. With a strong preference for communism. Like when you try to be measured and moderate the game actively negs you for being weak. Why give me the choice when you're just going to punish me for it? And what if I have some anti-capitalist beliefs but don't want to kill the landlords? It was just so extreme and off-putting.

GTA V. I tried playing it but it was just so boring. I never felt like picking if back up after I stopped playing around 15% into the story. The online never worked for me as it would just endlessly be stuck on a loading screen [PC].

I want to love Skyrim so much. I own it I've tried a bunch of mods I've played it probably 5 or 10 hours. I just eventually wander off looking at something neat the distance get lost, end up getting stuck in the terrain somewhere, get bored and find something else to do.

WoW. Can't stomach paying monthly for a game that's a lot of grinding. It's just not my thing.

I just can’t stand Genshin Impact. Idk what it is but I don’t see the draw and find it boring.

Oblivion, Morrowind and probably Skyrim too. The open world didn't captivate me, it just felt too big, too sparse and ultimately not interesting.

Same goes for Breath of the Wild. The world is just too barren. It doesn't help that I feel like the weapon breaking is extremely stressful.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is too slow and clunky. The skinning animation made me uninstall. It does not respect my time.

Kinda funny, because I don't mind grinding in arpgs. Maybe because they are faster-paced when the combat happens, and then you start wracking your brain with the theorycrafting side of builds.

Stardew Valley. I don't find it relaxing at all but a chore and stressful due to the day/night cycle. I feel like Terraria is handling day/night much better.

Anything with multiplayer.

Counterstrike. I was raised on Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1942/Vietnam, every iteration of CS I've tried is just slow and boring comparatively. Doesn't help that the maps and guns never change either. I'll probably give it a go again with CS2 but I'm not expecting anything different.

Genshin Impact or as I recently started to call it Genshit impact

-Microtransactions -Botw 0.01 -Visuals are not original -Bad touch controls besides having 99% of its players playing on mobile.

Elden ring. It looks like an amazing game but it just doesn't work for me. I feel like it's the combat? Somehow it feels "clunky" to me. It's odd I can't put my finger on it, but I don't like the movement which obviously affects combat.

Fallout: NV and Skyrim. People kept recommending them to me but neither really clicked. I put about 20 hours into each before just kinda dropping them and not looking back. Even tried mods since everyone says they're better modded, but just found I was spending more time modding the games than playing them. Maybe Bethesda games just aren't my thing.

I'll probably take some flak for my answers, but here I go!

Undertale

Maybe I would've loved it if I had got to the game before the fandom madness got to me. But to be fair, it looks like it's visually designed to tap into that 80's nostalgia, which would've bore me anyway.

Destiny 2

I used to enjoy that game (and Destiny). Played it way more than I'd like to admit. But as my anxiety got worse, the more I abhorred the way they force you into matchmaking for PvE content, then give you all kinds of reasons why you have to do those PvE content where you're forced to play with random players. Then there's the changes Bungie had made that made the game more and more hostile to me on a mechanics level. Lately, it also feels like they're treating Destiny 2 as a money-printing machine.

Diablo 4

Because Blizzard. I had a whole rant but I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I simply will not give Blizzard any money moving forward.

I don't get Minecraft. By all means it seems like one of those games that should totally be up my alley, but it does not click with me at all.

Most jrpgs that I've tried to play. The movement is always way to slow, and I'm not a fan of most of their combat systems

For me Skyrim, The Witcher 3, botw and all souls games.

Skyrim never clicked, it just felt buggy and empty and punishing. Trying to climb that mountain just so a yeti can beat you up? Great, here is your save spot form 15 min earlyer, please try again. I know that's why it's fun for so many, I just hated it.

The Witcher 3 was too... much dialogue. Most of the time I can play 1-3 hours every couple of days. And in the Witcher you walk 15min through beautiful but otherwise empty forest, killing 1-15 something, walk back and talk like another 15min with the guy who gave you the quest. It's really deep worldbuilding, but when you don't have a lot of time it's more "damn, what happend last?" 5min walking "ah, that happened" takes new quest, so much talking..."ah damn, my hour is gone, so I finish the quest another time." PC off.

Botw cause the world felt empty and everything broke in an instant and I'm the player ending with 50 healing potions, 10 big scrolls and so on cause MaYbE I'll need it another time. Doesn't match with botw. TotK is so much better handling this, cause you can craft any good item in an instant.

And Souls Games are just a broken mess. They're not hard by default, they're hard cause of all the buggy and mushy controls. It never feels crisp, it's just a big blob and maybe your character rolls or maybe it feels like an invisible wall, who knows. Games like Jedi Fallen Order in hard mode or Hollow Knight were so much more fun, cause the controls were crisp and everytime I lost, it was because of me. I did wrong and not some squishi spaghetti code.

For some reason I couldn't get into God of War (the ps4/ps5 game). Everyone I know praised the game and I read great reviews online. Once I tried it though, I felt like it was very linear and the storyline annoyed me. (Climbing up the mountain top to then have to climb down and go to parallel worlds) I might not have been in the right state of mind when I played it, but the game just didn't have an impact on me like it seemed to have had with others.

Needless to say that I didn't finish, but I've considered giving it another try again after hearing about the PC release

I just got done with Subnautica. Man, either I just had shit luck, or that game does NOT respect your time. It's infuriating to me when I know exactly what I need to do to progress, but I'm blocked by not being able to find a single damn rock out in a giant ocean. I dug the story, but man I was glad to be done with it.

Monster Hunter. I don't understand any of it. I tried rise and generations and I just... I just don't get it.