To me right now is the first Red Dead Redemption. Finally I'm able to play it, I've wait for over a decade. No spoilers, zero youtube gameplay videos, zero questions about the game to my friends. It gotta be me, and the game, it happened, and I think it sucks.

Maybe you thinking in "well, you shouldn't play the second first". I did not. My first Red Dead game was Red Dead Revolver, I was able to play it a few years ago when I could buy a PS2, but I couldn't get a PS3 nor a Xbox 360 to play RDR1. It grinded my gears because we got the prequel in PC. When RDR1 came to PC it was so freaking expensive, yet today, I think it is expensive. I was able to buy the game some weeks ago while there was a Steam Sale, and well, I regreat it now.

I don't like its exploration, its missions, its characters, its world, its secondary missions. its wanted system, and nothing but less important: has a lot of bugs.

That's my experience in a few words.

What's the game that you wanted to play but it was a total mess?

Robocraft 2. I loved the original, but they messed up its monetization really bad over time, when a sequel got announced i was expecting the game to return to its roots with a rewrite. Instead, it felt more of a downgrade compared to the original.

Dang, I wish you had played the second one first. Still might not be your thing, but it was a much better story and much better gameplay.

I feel this one deep.

Ho boy! Don’t buy RDR2 in that case. Worst (and last) full price game I’ve bought. Goddamn disappointing

Right know for me is Baldur’s Gates, it really don’t scratch my hitch. I have to play it in baby difficulty because I’m no tactician and I’m not a min maxer playing DnD so this game is really not for me

Yeah, I loved the concept, hated the gameplay. There's a TV show that's way better than playing the game.

I like to go back to old games that were well regarded in their time but I missed. It's neat to see what holds up and what doesn't, but the biggest disappointment to me has to be Secret of Mana. So many people love that game, so I went in with high expectations. I instead found the combat way too simple when it even lets me play, far too often, it takes control away from your characters through annoying status effects. I could not stand it and dropped it fairly quick.

Skulls and bones. Sailing in black flag is probably my favorite gaming experience ever. Ubisoft announced a sailing game right after. All they had to do was add some upgrade paths so people could set up their ships for different playstyles. Like 10 years later, the game finally came out. It's the only game I've ever refunded. Everything about it was terrible.

Mass Effect. Again. Third time’s the charm, I’m giving up on it. It’s too hard even on easy and too poorly balanced.

I mean the original. I tried and failed to get into the OG 360 version twice. Then Legendary came out (trilogy remastered and rebalanced) and I got it on sale for six bucks. Was finally able to play through the first one. And the second one. And the third one. Now I’m playing the fourth one, which I got on sale for $4. Went back and tried the OG again. It still sucks. It’s the damn Mako (tank), it’s so fragile. Two or three hits and it breaks. And you get half XP in it. It’s like everyone gets the hardest difficulty in it. And they never fixed the original.

So yeah, now it’s my favorite series and I’ll buy 5 at launch for full price. I’m in $10 for the first four and that’s awesome.

So yeah, if the original put up walls you couldn’t get over, try Legendary.

Monster Hunter(World & Rise).
I have played over 1k hours of Dark Souls 1&2 and my mate has 5k+ hours in the MH series. I gave it multiple tries but I can't get into the combat mechanics. It feels too slow, while being pretty complex. And then there's also quite some cutscenes, which is something that quickly turns my dumb brain off. :(

Silksong it's a great game but way too hard for me. :(

The Last Guardian.

I basically never got a PS3 because I was adamant about waiting for that game to come out. It didn't even release for the PS3 when it finally came out in 2016.

I finally played it on PS5 and holy shit was it a sluggish, buggy mess. Even after almost 10 years from the original releaee date.

Don't worry about the difficulty level and just play for the story.

If that isn't for you, then definitely throw in the towel. I am truly biased though as I have played D&D for a good deal of my life.

I’m a busy dad of two kids, so my play time is often fragmented and sporadic. There is a definite theme to mine.

Red Dead Redemption 2. There is so much I really love about it, but there are just too many systems to deal with. Hygeine, hunger, fashion, crafting, camp chores, random ambush attacks by too many enemies, stealth, tracking, etc. If it was a bit more streamlined I’d probably love it.

New Vegas. It’s the only Fallout I’ve played and I love it, up until inventory management takes more time than actually playing the game. I’ve made it to about the same point fiveish hours in three times.

Skyrim. I really want to love this one as well, but has both the inventory management issues that New Vegas does, and the controls are just wonky enough that I have to relearn them when I get back to it.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance. I really enjoyed it, up until I spent a precious uninterrupted hour and a half on a mission, only to die to something stupid just before the next save point. I know that it being Teh SupEr HaRdCorE is supposed to be part of the appeal, but I don’t have time for that shit.

smash bros melee. i was sooooo hyped. but the game felt way too fast for me compared to n64 smash, and the litany of clone characters was a massive letdown.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The final smashes are all the same. I miss the final smashes of Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Zelda OOT. The controls, especially when first using the slingshot and such, with the camera just sucked. I never got far with that after I finally tried it in my mid-/late-20s. It's one of those I found much more enjoyable watching someone else do.

Played Goldeneye for the first time at a barcade in my early 30s and I didn't really enjoy that much.

As I think about it, anything on N64 and maybe Gamecube that I would try once I had time and money later in life just were not great. I had been playing better PC games, even in the same years, and have zero nostalgia for it which probably doesn't help.

F5 and F8 for quicksave and quickload. As my son tells me: "Don't tell me how to play my $60 game."

Sable. At first it was amazing... the music, the world and the characters were all so well done. It was such an immersive experience. I'd probably still be playing it right now even after completing it (also the only game I would have bothered to get all the cheevos); however, nearer to the end of the game there's a huge glaring bug the devs never bothered to fix: the best hover bike in the game bugs out whenever you drive over a sand dune and there are sand dunes everywhere in the game. That's like the main feature of the world; it's a desert planet. Every time you ride over a sand dune at top speed you'd spin every which way, your character would disappear, you'd stop moving and end up upside down halfway outside the map. One of the main selling points of the game was riding your hover bike around the world exploring places and just chilling out to the excellent music... well, this bug ruins the first two so all that's left is the music.

It's too bad... I really loved the game up to that point, which just so happened to be near the end where I couldn't refund it... I don't like badmouthing devs because there's a LOT of work that goes into making a game that I don't understand; however, no matter the reason, that's a shitty thing to do. Such a massive bug that ruins the game should be fixed... but they were incapable of doing so and likely never will. My final words on this topic are: Incompetent assholes.

I remember a mod someone made for New Vegas that made all your items render in a loose ball on your back. Really shows how silly it is.

I was never able to get mods to work with New Vegas as I run a Linux system, but maybe you could try an inventory mod to help you like the game. I think figuring out how to do that would be worth it, it's a great game.

There was a game called Batallion that was super hyped about making an updated version of CoD 2. They were going to do real areas in WW2, use real weapon sounds and some other stuff. It sounded great but in practice it was awful... You had long halls where a guy would jump up and barely see his head and bang dead... shot through the wall. Couldn't even attempt to fire back.

What fun is that? I mean honestly your in mid jump and you can hit someone on a regular basis?? Aim should be completely wild and maybe have a 5% chance to actually hit what you are aiming at. The physics of things were either all wrong or they had a rampant hacking problem.

It was so bad they ended up refunding all the purchases and giving it away. https://store.steampowered.com/app/489940/BATTALION_Legacy/

I have over 50% of the achievements in Death Stranding (can't find my play time on the stupid Epic site) and am a breath away from stopping altogether due to the control issues.

Trying to play this fucking game with a controller is an exercise in frustration. For some fucking reason, the game can't handle using a controller without sending phantom inputs after a short time.

If I hadn't gotten the game for free on the Epic store I'd be pissed for giving my money for broken shit.

Videogamedunkey’s video on that will probably have you feeling vindicated if you haven’t seen it already.

God of War: Ragnarok.

I don't have a console so I had to wait for it to port to PC, then wait til it went on sale and I could snag it at a more reasonable price. I loved the one before it and was so excited to play. The first couple hours were good, and then I felt like it was an endless repetition of fight a boss, talk about our feelings while we walk to fight another boss, talk about our feelings some more, and repeat. The part where you have to play as Atreus helping that giant girl do her daily chores made me want to weep from boredom and it just went on forever. I think I gave up shortly after Freya met her brother again, but I don't really remember the storyline because it was just so mind numbingly exhausting, like listening in on a bunch of therapy sessions (and I'm super pro "take care of your mental health and go to therapy if you need it", but if I have to listen to a literal god whining and acting willfully helpless for an entire video game I'm out).

I have been told that it is actually a good game that gets better and I should give it another go, but I'm not sure if it's good for MY mental health.

Just keyboard and mouse it,

The hardest part for some people is getting through the story because MH games are notorious for "story? There's a story here?" They try, but it's never really that engaging. Definitely don't try Wilds if you don't like story stuff because that game they actually tried to push the story front an center. I really enjoyed it though, but I just love all Monster Hunter games lol

After the story (basically a long tutorial) it's all just hunt hunt hunt hunt, there are no more cutscenes to worry about. If you can power through the story, or just chip away at it a little at a time, you might enjoy it more.

As for the combat, maybe you haven't found the right weapon. Dual blades are really fast, the insect glaive is fairly fast and you can dart around in the air, sword and shield can be decently quick as well.

I'm stubborn so I'm still trying to enjoy it, but granblue fantasy relink just kills me... I enjoyed most of the game, but the endgame has pretty much everything I hate in action combat games: instakill dps check bullshit, enemies spamming crazy nonsense moves cluttering the screen, dodge timing that requires you to be a literal machine to get it right making elden ring look like a game for babies, and an ungodly amount of grinding the most aggravating bosses for materials...

I'm at an age now where I want to enjoy a game, not be enraged until I finally beat it.

World of Warcraft.

I didnt get to play it when it came out because I was still in school and couldnt afford the subscription. I was a huge Warcraft fan when I was younger. Eventually I forgot about it, until about 10 years later when I found a post online talking about WoW and I learned that they had a 14 day free trial. I immediately downloaded the game and made an account.

I uninstalled the game two days later. It wasn't even remotely close to the Warcraft that I grew up with. And sure part of that is on me. I had made the expectations that it was going to be like Runeacape but in the Warcraft universe. A top down, point and click, open world version of Warcraft 3.

The fetch quests was what really killed it for me though.

I haven't experienced any bugs that I can recall, but I was disappointed with Death Stranding too.

I was so hyped up because I love the Metal Gear Solid games so when I heard that Kojima was creating a new IP and it was going to have a great cast of actors supporting it and it was based on a post apocalyptic world where ghosts are attacking people, I was vibrating with excitement.

Then I found out that it's a walking simulator about delivering packages.

Ok, maybe it's still good?

Well it's all good and great in some ways and check off almost all of the boxes you would expect from a AAA game, except one. It's just not fun or relaxing or challenging or interesting. I put it down halfway through and I can't remember who/what/where/why, so now I have to start over or be lost.

It's just so damn tedious and there's no sense of satisfaction. Tedious is work and I get plenty of that at work.

South Park: Snow Day! I loved Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole, so I really wanted to like Snow Day, but unfortunately it's just not very good. I wouldn't even call it bad, it's just middling in almost every way. Now to add insult to injury, it was also pretty short.

If they make another South Park game it won't be a day one purchase for me, I've learned my lesson. I can wait for a sale.

Persona 5, disco Elysium, outer worlds, divinity original sin 2

Cultist Simulator was a disappointment after being hyped about it for a while. From the outside it looked like an addicting roguelike power fantasy type of game but it wasn't. It's a purposefully obscure game with no clear goal, which would be alright if there was some kind mystery to unfold or if the journey was enjoyable. There's no mystery as far as I can tell, it's all flavor text. The gameplay was interesting in the first few runs when I was still learning mechanics but after that it's just tedious. It's also really punishing if you don't play carefully all the time. Other than the vibes/atmosphere I have no idea what anyone enjoys about it.

Not set up like that on my couch.

Besides, in 40 years of gaming, Death Stranding is the ONLY game I've ever had to deal with this in. Plenty of games with bad controls and horrendous responsiveness, but this is the only one that is so supremely fucked in this way.

You bring up another good point: post-apocalyptic mailman trying to rebuild America isn't exactly captivating, especially at a time when America is taking actions to prove itself unworthy of being rebuilt, even if only in a fantasy setting.

Baldurs Gate 3 for me. I like the game mechanics and everything like that, but the story and characters put me off. The characters in general because of how unlikeable they all are, and the story I think my main problem is mostly that I know nothing about D&D and the game doesn't try to introduce anything. So I can't even follow the conversations properly because half the time I have no idea what they are talking about.

Nier series, expected way more from the stories

Are you not interested in text-heavy and/or turn-based games in general or are they the exception? I'm curious because I like all those games you listed to various degree, except Outer Worlds, haven't try it yet.

Really sorry to hear. Imho, it's a strong candidate for best game of all time. I actually love the characters and I think you don't need that much knowledge on lore to follow the story... I do know some lore, having previously played NWN 1 and 2 only...

I'm completely the other way. Loved the first one and can't get to grips with RDR2. There's too much stuff to do and not enough riding around gunning down bad guys

Fun fact: Sable is French for sand. I feels that adds an amusing layer of... grittiness to your commentary. But also irony that they never fixed it

I just finished it today and it truly is a grind. I'm a middling gamer at best, but that series has held my attention in a way few have in over 15 years. Persevere and it's worth it, but you'll absolutely throw down your controller in frustration more than once. Reminds me of the old Mario games for difficulty at times. Happy struggles!

I have a friend who defines his gaming existence by black flag. He's bought it, multiple times on multiple consoles out of sheer love for the game.

Skull and bones came out, I expected that to define the next 6 months of my life. Not a peep. Mentioned it and he just shrugs and goes: they had something good, and ubisofted it (this is after they've lost all consumer goodwill). I can't help but agree

If it helps, ive felt this way about a few games throughout my life and after beating my head against them for a while i would gice up and take a break. However, when returning later, i found things weren't quite as hard for me, and i was able to make progress.

Don't [permanently] give up!

...Or do. Gaming doesn't have to be that deep. There are plenty of other experiences to enjoy, anyway!

I've played it for hours trying to be a completionist, and loved it. Never experienced what you are experiencing. The bike isn't as smooth as it could be, but it's not that bad.

It's one of those games that never leaves my drive and I revisit occasionally just to hang about and climb stuff.

I genuinely miss doing hardcore challenges in Halo back in the day. But these days I'm simply unwilling to put that kind of time into a game.
So, I often play on easier difficulties. Still fun. :)

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Biggest reason I can’t generally recommend my favorite game of the last decade. Shit’s tuffer than elden ring