Games that outstay their welcome?

VincentHanna · 17 Jan 2023 at 10:10

So this is about games you initially thought were good, but then went on and on and became a grind to finish

My example:

I started Playing Dying Light 2 a few weeks ago, at first I thought it was excellent but I'm up to 60 hours on it now, and its really starting to get samey as hell, and that's after unlocking a lot of fast travel and the parachute to help get around.

I started outright skipping a lot of the side quests an cutscene dialogue that isn't story related just to speed things up (and I don't usually do that)

I could quite happily just delete it from my hard drive and never play it again at this point.

Another example I can think of from a few years ago is: Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain. According to Steam I played that for 109 hours! And was so glad when the credits eventually rolled

Zefan · 17 Jan 2023 at 10:45

I agree @ Phantom Pain except I just stopped playing it before that happened.

Spoilers: when it moves on from Afghanistan to Africa it just lost its heart for me, or at least didn't progress in the way I felt it should've for a new area. Just same old same old same old. Technically great, just lacked the magic that the more linear experiences of earlier entries' had.

bazzabear · 17 Jan 2023 at 11:10

This can happen a lot with open world type games.
I've never finished an Assassins Creed game, and similarly didn't finish Phantom Pain.

On the other hand, I 100% completed Just Cause 2, despite that meaning scouring a massive city for that one last tiny red satellite dish to destroy.

I would struggle to explain to you why the difference. Yes, JC2 is excellent. But so was AC: Black Flag. So why did I get fed up with the repetition in one, but not the other? Dunno.

zola25 · 17 Jan 2023 at 11:57

Only managed 20 hours on Dying Light 2, rather than simply outstaying its welcome just thought it was terrible from the off compared to the first game. Phantom Pain is a strange one, an excellent game IMO, and enjoyed the Africa map. It was the weird second chapter where you literally repeated main missions that put a dampner on things.

While I enjoyed AC Origins and Odyssey, I found Valhalla to be a real slog, but perhaps just burnt out on AC plus dark ages England is not exactly a thrilling setting. The absolute worst game for me that hugely overstayed it's welcome was Far Cry 6. If you took one of the major regions and fleshed it out more, it would have been more interesting.

bazzabear said:
I would struggle to explain to you why the difference. Yes, JC2 is excellent. But so was AC: Black Flag. So why did I get fed up with the repetition in one, but not the other? Dunno.

I think it comes down to whether you still enjoy the gameplay mechanics or sense of exploration. Even if a task is repetitive, that's fine as long as it is fun or rewarding.

Zefan · 17 Jan 2023 at 12:07

bazzabear said:
This can happen a lot with open world type games.
I've never finished an Assassins Creed game, and similarly didn't finish Phantom Pain.

On the other hand, I 100% completed Just Cause 2, despite that meaning scouring a massive city for that one last tiny red satellite dish to destroy.

I would struggle to explain to you why the difference. Yes, JC2 is excellent. But so was AC: Black Flag. So why did I get fed up with the repetition in one, but not the other? Dunno.

Yeah I know this feel, I squeezed almost every last drop out of Crackdown but that was very repetitive. I just didn't stop enjoying it.

strumpusplunket · 17 Jan 2023 at 12:43

I really enjoyed Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, but it took 140 hours to finish, and I was definintely ready for the end when it came. This wasn't helped by the final level being chock-full of repeated multi-enemy encounters. Like, every ten steps. Give it a rest already and let me get to the end now! (Kingmaker did this too, and it grated then as well)

Fenyx Rising was much shorter, but I was very tired of the busywork in that time, and it ended up a coin toss whether I would plough through to the end or not. If I'd had more alternative games lined up to play at time I probably wouldn't have.

I don't remember getting this with The Phantom Pain. I think I was finished in quite a bit less than 100 hours, though, so maybe that's why. Currently playing Dying Light 2 and I can see it feels a bit "Ubi" already in terms of the grindiness. The first one felt better in quite a lot of ways, actually.

ShiWarrior · 17 Jan 2023 at 12:49

Team fortress 2

Should be finished by now

TF3 should also be out by now

Glanza · 17 Jan 2023 at 12:52

Anything open world from the last few years especially Ubisoft titles are packed with filler side stuff AC:O was one where they locked the main story missions behind certain levels forcing you to do side content to level up, the only game I've played recently that did side quests better than the main story is Cyberpunk 2077.

Smeghead · 17 Jan 2023 at 13:53

Cyberpunk 2077. Bought it at launch. Of course it was bug-ridden, but for me personally that was only occasionally, and for the most part playable. But it felt empty. The cities were very surface-level impressive, but you couldn't actually do much exploring as barely anything was actually enterable. Combine that with the half-baked driving mechanics, half-baked police system, half-baked choices and (lack of) consequences, and the fact it was fairly easy to get overpowered from around the halfway point, it all got a bit old quite fast. I ended up finishing it in about 90 hours and pretty much left it since.

j4ska · 17 Jan 2023 at 16:46

*Cyberpunk 2077, bought it at launch and asked for refund after 30min gameplay - game was just unplayable.
*Calisto Project, got it free with graphics card and I wish you could ask for part refund on these freebies

. Uninstalled after 2h in. One of most boring games out there and huge waste of disc space, although graphics are insane.

Iron Man · 17 Jan 2023 at 16:47

I played 200 hours on Ac Vahalla and still need to finish the last two dlcs. Can’t seem to bring myself to finish it off though

GGizmo · 17 Jan 2023 at 18:35

I liked Mafia III but eventually stopped playing it as it become repetative.

But a few years later it came up as a free game on the consoles with all the dlc's.. So I re-downloaded it and completed the game with dlc's.

I wish the world had been more atmospheric. The game makers made some amazing places. But the map was too big, and it become a pain to keep driving across it.

CaptainRAVE · 17 Jan 2023 at 18:36

AC Valhalla. My goodness the story dragged on and on and on.

Smeghead said:
Cyberpunk 2077. Bought it at launch. Of course it was bug-ridden, but for me personally that was only occasionally, and for the most part playable. But it felt empty. The cities were very surface-level impressive, but you couldn't actually do much exploring as barely anything was actually enterable. Combine that with the half-baked driving mechanics, half-baked police system, half-baked choices and (lack of) consequences, and the fact it was fairly easy to get overpowered from around the halfway point, it all got a bit old quite fast. I ended up finishing it in about 90 hours and pretty much left it since.

Rookie numbers, completed it in about 20 hours and refunded it. Recently picked it up cheap and it is a tad better, but still a shell of what we were promised. I still only got another 40 hours or so out of it.

Now funnily enough, whilst marmite, death stranding was a game I expected to be as such in the OP, but am actually hooked for a second time.

throwaway4372 · 17 Jan 2023 at 18:37

Divinity Original Sin 2
never got to the end

Tombstone · 17 Jan 2023 at 18:54

For me, its actually Red Dead Redemption 2. I've tried time and again but every time I just lose interest and get bored part way through and never reach the end.

VincentHanna · 17 Jan 2023 at 18:56

Tombstone said:
For me, its actually Red Dead Redemption 2. I've tried time and again but every time I just lose interest and get bored part way through and never reach the end.

This is like me with most Rockstar games to be honest!

Completed GTA 3, and Vice City. Never completed San Andreas.

Completed GTA IV but took a while.

Completed Red Dead Redemption (1)

Took me years to finish GTA V.

Never finished Red Dead Redemption 2

gettothechopper · 17 Jan 2023 at 19:08

Liked every ac game (haven't played origins or Valhalla or syndicate) got odyssey for free and it's so boring couldn't get into it really

Too big
Too much side collecting etc
Loot being levels and random makes everything feel pointless
Can't even attack certain things if they are too high a level
Not really much being an assassin

Tried playing it again during lockdown and it was terrible still and I gave up (usually always complete games I buy)

Same with ghost recon breakpoint liked Wildlands got so bored on breakpoint

HangTime · 17 Jan 2023 at 22:14

Agreed open world games are prone to this particularly if you have OCD around completing stuff like collecting silly objects. I find it worse in cases where they have limited environments like you stay in one city for a long time, if you travel around different levels it's not so bad.

FIFA can be quite a grind with some objectives etc, like "Play 20 games with 7 Championship players in starting XI" - at ~15mins+ per match that's 5hrs+ just on that single objective (if you're lucky picking up a few other objectives in parallel), and there's at least 4 different leagues.

GTA: San Andreas was maybe a little too long, I think it took me about 6 years to finish. It's a really good game but like you find yourself back in the hood battling for your corners, I just wanted that to be over and get to the finale.

Doom Eternal had too many parkour sections, although it's slightly different in the sense that actually the game is less boring later on as you have more weapons/abilities, access to slayer gates etc. But they could have sped up the progression in the first third of the game, and reduced the endgame parkour.

Glanza said:
the only game I've played recently that did side quests better than the main story is Cyberpunk 2077.

I thought Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had some excellent side quests (Harvester) that were more fun than the main story.

TNA · 18 Jan 2023 at 09:27

j4ska said:
*Calisto Project, got it free with graphics card and I wish you could ask for part refund on these freebies . Uninstalled after 2h in. One of most boring games out there and huge waste of disc space, although graphics are insane.

You probably did not play it in ultrawide.

@mrk

Tombstone said:
For me, its actually Red Dead Redemption 2. I've tried time and again but every time I just lose interest and get bored part way through and never reach the end.

I am having the same issue with it. On my 4th install at the moment. Once I have completed a few other games I have installed will have a one last crack at it. If I can’t complete it this time I will never install it again. Don’t get why it is so highly rated. I enjoyed the first game more and completed it back in the day.

HangTime said:
I thought Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had some excellent side quests (Harvester) that were more fun than the main story.

Agreed. Deus Ex:Mankind Divided had the opposite problem. Even though it was not a short game many felt finished prematurely and it needed another 10 hours or so. Plan on playing it again once I complete my backlog.

Bubo · 18 Jan 2023 at 10:03

Dungeon crawl loot games like Torchlight and Titan Quest, they are always great to start with, acquiring better gear etc, but you reach that point where better gear is meaningless and just having slightly different enemies with just more hit points becomes a chore and you just want it to end. 60 hours is a common theme for this to kick in it seems.