Gaming

Any multiplayer game. They sacrifice a deep and interesting storyline for the sake of pointless grinding and slaughtering.

In recent memory the two that have stood out to me are Risk of Rain 2 and Halo 4. I thought some 3rd-person action in the former would be fun but I found the core loop and overall shooting boring after a couple run attempts so I guess it just didn't click for me.

Now Halo 4... I think gameplay in that title is an exercise in tedium. Add on (what is in my opinion as:) poor AI, a bit too much melodrama, dumb retcons, "do X three times!" a bit much and I got a campaign that felt like a chore and haven't touched it since I left off at the level with the Mammoth. The Prometheans are a pain to fight and I felt funneled into making do with Forerunner weapons to take ranged potshots at Watchers above all other targets and then rushing to kill the one Knight I was targeting before it regenerates, also above all other targets. Yuck. (Update: Coming back here since it occurred to me that I could sum it up as: my ability to make mid-combat decisions and play in the sandbox was kneecapped by poor enemy and maaaybe level design respectively.)

Good music though.

Maybe not the most unfun game I have ever played (I've played games since the late 90s), but certainly the most unfun I have played in recent years: Elex.

I liked Piranha Bytes' old Gothic series a lot despite its weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. The Risen games weren't that great, but the reviews for Elex were pretty promising. So I gave it a shot, and tried for about 16 hours to find the fun in it. I stopped playing when I realised:

• I couldn't hold my own in almost any battle because I didn't have good enough gear
• In order to get better gear, I had to join one of the game's factions
• In order to join one of the factions, I had to perform a number of tasks for them
• The factions were all just dickheads, and I didn't want to do anything for them, much less their dirty work

So yeah, no fun to be had with this one.

Homeworld. I know that's blasphemy. I love RTS games and the game is cool and beautiful but so slow and boring and tedious.

I have a few:

• Tunic: I thought it had more than one puzzle, with how it was being talked about online, but it ended up repeating the same thing for 6 hours reusing the same gimmick over and over - after a below average first half.

• Xenoblade Chronicles (DE): the characters were really uninteresting, the story kept spoiling every attempted twist it had with needless foreshadowing and the combat felt really boring. The world was empty and it felt like a dead MMO.

• 13 Sentinels: I won't spoil anything specific, but the story was just a bunch of the most generic sci-fi cliches.

• Monster Hunter Rise: I love World/Iceborne and really enjoyed the parts I played of GU and 4U but Rise just felt bad to play.

• Games that force daily tasks/gacha games: I hate being forced - or even just being hinted at having - to grind daily. It just ends up pushing me away from the game, even if I'm enjoying it. I can't play games like Genshin Impact and Star Rail, but also the daily challenges in sf5/6 bother me every time I see them.

I also don't really get roguelikes, but I'm not sure if I just haven't found one I enjoy or I don't like the genre.

As far as being overhyped beyond belief: Celeste. As far as playing an entire game to the end just to finish it: A Way Out

My go-to for this is Resistance: Fall of Man. Invisible walls everywhere, a cover system and a health system that were absolutely at odds with a gun that shoots enemies through walls, and an uninteresting story told in boring slideshows. The only reason I played through it is that my college roommate and I were broke and needed another co-op game after we finished all of the good ones.

Beyond the beyond.

It was just... bad. The particle effects didn't make things look good they just made it hard to see anything, the plot was stupid, everything was stupid really.

The Last of Us. Over-hype definitely didn't help, but it looked brown and dreary, seemed to mainly involve walking around waiting for press X to do thing to appear on screen, and having plot thrown at me when I actually wanted to play a game.

I never got to finish Just Cause 1 and Kill Zone 1 🤔

I wouldn't say they were unfun, but definitely I felt JC was very repetitive that I sort of left it behind and same can be said with Killzone, I played Killzone 2 and 3 and never got back to 1, but I intend to.

Gloria Victis. It's an MMO with factional PVP warfare that uses directional combat (like Mordhau). I'll admit, I'm not a fan of these games, but I gave it a try since a friend of mine was interested in it. And I do like MMOs for the story content and to see what players can do with and within the world.

It was horribly boring. The main draw of the game is its PVP, but they definitely tried to also cater to the PVE playerbase, but the quests and story were generic and forgettable. I never even got to try the PVP, which I think my friend said was just OK anyway. I stopped playing after like a week. Apparently, the game is shutting down end of October, after releasing back in February 2023.

Another is the first Watch Dogs. I had played and completed Watch Dogs 2 and really liked it a lot. So thought to try the first one. I knew it was a very different mood and style from WD2, but thought it'd be OK. I can deal with moody and edgy. But it just wasn't at all fun or interesting. I think I played for a couple hours and then uninstalled.

i'm trying desperately hard to like Haunting Ground for the PS2 (i'm a big horror game fan) but keep being interrupted from puzzles and exploration by each of the 'stalker' enemies. for context, they can't be killed or gotten rid of permanently, you can only run and hide. it's a shame because otherwise it's a very fun and unique game.

Worms Blast. I didn't look at any of the game screenshots and thought it would just be like a normal worms games and not more like that arcade game where you throw the coloured balls up to the ceiling to match them.

I have nothing against that style of game, but I just didn't like it in the Worms style.