Ask Lemmy

I've failed at getting into any Battle Royale, Survival, or Extraction type game so far.

Outer Worlds. The premise was so great. A criticism of restrictive hyper capitalism in space? With an art Nouveau flair? Made by people who made Fallout? Sounded right up my alley!

But it just sucks! The intro is trying to be like Rick and Morty, you don't personally have to deal with any restriction from the capitalistic society (hell at least BioShock threw in pay toilets once in a while) and the story just didn't get me at all. You're just kind of there. You don't feel like you're rebelling against the system or indulging it, you just are an observer. You don't feel like an oppressed worker you feel more like a documentary crew. But even then it doesn't really feel like the situation is really bad. And there isn't really any tutorial to speak of. Sure, if you have played games a lot you know pretty much how everything works, but the mechanics are just dumped in your lap.

I'm just some schmuck on the Internet and I could've written a way better start to this game that lets you actually feel something.

When a fan made rap video makes you feel more of the alleged theme than the actual game does, then you've kinda screwed up.

RE and Silent Hill and Fatal Frame and Alien Isolation. I just can't get over the horror aspect.

Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls and Divinity series all spring to mind. I really want to like those games, but the story just progress way too slow.

I loved Planescape: Torment though.

God of War. I played 1,2, and 3 and they were all pretty much the same. I think a lot of the hype was from marketing and edge lords who were thrilled to have so much blood and some low-poly tits on the PS2. Once you get past the spectacle, the combat is a slog of mashing the Square button until the game decides to stop spawning HP sponges for you to hit. The puzzles are tedious and annoying. The platforming they try to force in just doesn't work with the physics and controls. The music is bland and generic "epic symphony" stuff that may as well just be from a stock music library, with no Greek influence at all. The story is a generic and modern story with a thin vineer of Greek mythology. Kratos is less of a character and more of a reason to move the game along to the various locations. I know it's not a completely fair comparison, but Hades used Greek instruments to create greek-influenced and interesting music that I still find myself humming and drumming to years later. Hades also did a way better job of using actual Greek mythology to create a narrative that would actually fit in that cannon.

I remember playing Knack 1&2 and thinking "wow, this is like if the old God of War games were fun". Knack is far from perfect of course, but is largely a similar series that cares more about being fun than being mature.

I'm playing through the 2018 God of War now. Completely different, and honestly a few hours in I'm still not sure why they chose to make this a God of War game staring Kratos instead of just making it a fresh IP. Maybe more lore reasons will be revealed, but so far it seems it was just to capitalize on the brand for marketing reasons. The music is still not a strength, but it's better. The environments are better. The combat is still pretty boring with way too many boring enemies with way too much health, but it's better. This is the first game where I'm starting to get tired of the same UI and over-the-shoulder perspective that other Sony games have used lately (Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, Horizon, Spiderman). GoW, like most of those games, has an unnecessarily complicated itemization and leveling system that just bogs the game down, and feels almost inspired by MMO's or gacha mobile games.

It does a great job of characterization, with plenty of small, subtle, beautifully written moments that grant insight into personalities. The boy is annoying, but I can see that's the point so I mostly don't mind. It's really annoying how the game won't shut up- there's always someone saying something, and if you even just stop moving for a second someone pipes up to remind you of what you should be doing. It doesn't have space to breath. The puzzles are better than the prior games- they are an acceptable tool for pacing but aren't great by themselves. The story seems a lot better, with much more attention given to original Norse mythology.

With Uncharted I could push last the mediocre puzzles and bullet sponge enemies because the cutscenes were really good and the stories were fun. For Ratchet and Clank I can ignore how the humor has gotten worse and more juvenile over time because it's still fun to platform, dodge, cycle through weapons, and kill tons of enemies. For Horizon Zero Dawn... Actually I don't have many complaints, that was a solid title. For GoW (2018) there's just nothing pulling me back to it.

Pokemon. Never played one, never will. Hot take is it's a gateway into IRL hunting which is honestly just very cruel. Do not approve.

Final Fantasy, it's too grindy for me.

Same with me. Can't get into Pokémon. Love the show though. Same with zelda...super boring.

A friend tried to get me into Half-Life multiple times and I just cannot get into it.

It's a fast-paced FPS game, which means I'm likely to get dizzy after some time but something about the ambience makes it worse than usual. I can play Skyrim for up to 1.5 hours at a time, Minecraft or Fortnite for 45-60 minutes, but I'd be lucky to play 20 minutes of Half-Life without my head pounding.

Plus, it's a linear, story-based game, and I'm more into games based more on mechanics and progression (like Pokémon, Factorio, Cities Skylines, Civ, Balatro, and incremental games) than story. And at least for as long as I've tried to play it, there isn't even much of a story.