Thanks for the info- really interesting and good to see he made a career in gaming. He seems a bit of a legend. But, honestly, that game sucked...
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OS Neutral The Worst Game You Ever Bought?
- Thread starter Huntn
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Oh man I can't even remember the name but it was for the Atari 400/800 ca. 1982. It was a shoot-em-up space game and the magazine artwork made it look like the greatest thing ever. Then I saw it in its box in the store which made it look even more exciting. I saved & saved and finally bought it and took it home to try it out. It was absolute crap. I mean it was written mostly in BASIC with a bit of machine language thrown-in ("Hybrid"). Back then computer games were around $70 which would be equivalent to twice that today; I earned $4.25/hour at my job. What's that they say about judging a book by its cover?
I didn't buy it, but my parents did. Home Alone for SNES.
I would have to say that I was very disappointed with Karateka on my Atari 7800. I bought it when it was released and it was simply terrible in my opinion. I had such high hopes. The controls were very clunky and laggy. 
I remember thinking that this had to be the worst game I ever played and since that day, even with some of the stinkers that have come across my desk, I have never been as disappointed.
I remember thinking that this had to be the worst game I ever played and since that day, even with some of the stinkers that have come across my desk, I have never been as disappointed.
Civilisation Six.
A pointless and destructive re-write of Civ Five that turned it into a completely different game. Tinkering just to make another saleable product without thought for continuity.
A pointless and destructive re-write of Civ Five that turned it into a completely different game. Tinkering just to make another saleable product without thought for continuity.
Two Worlds II
How much I pay for a game can affect the level of emotion involved in my opinion. When this game came out, I read the marketing, looked at some reviews, got sucked in, and decided to pay full price to "support" this game on the Mac platform. Boy, was I pissed off, afterwards.
Ranged enemies that see you before you see them, frustratingly dull quests, and the terrible horse... I think I read someone on the internet saying the horse controls make it feel more "natural." What's natural about a digital horse being controlled by a plastic gamepad or a mouse + keyboard? The only natural thing I saw was that it still had a mind of its own.
I would have burned it as a sacrifice to Thor and Odin if I had bought a physical copy; at least someone would be happy with my purchase.
I wish I could remember some of the most hated gems from my Sega Master System days. Nothing made this 9-year old more angry than saving up money for 3 months to buy a game that takes less than 3 hours to hate.
How much I pay for a game can affect the level of emotion involved in my opinion. When this game came out, I read the marketing, looked at some reviews, got sucked in, and decided to pay full price to "support" this game on the Mac platform. Boy, was I pissed off, afterwards.
Ranged enemies that see you before you see them, frustratingly dull quests, and the terrible horse... I think I read someone on the internet saying the horse controls make it feel more "natural." What's natural about a digital horse being controlled by a plastic gamepad or a mouse + keyboard? The only natural thing I saw was that it still had a mind of its own.
I would have burned it as a sacrifice to Thor and Odin if I had bought a physical copy; at least someone would be happy with my purchase.
I wish I could remember some of the most hated gems from my Sega Master System days. Nothing made this 9-year old more angry than saving up money for 3 months to buy a game that takes less than 3 hours to hate.
That's heartbraking! I think we all had similar experiences.
To think the kids today never knew a time without the internet and YouTube.
If you haven't watched this yet, it's awesome -- totally worth an hour of your time!
This. Never been more let down. I hear they botched the latest Sims as well.
[doublepost=1496800601][/doublepost]
Blasphemy. XCOM2 is one of the best games of all time.
Hardly, they added sneaking mechanics which you cannot take advantage of (as in you cannot complete the objective without alerting enemies, and the timer ticks down despite you being in concealment), and they actively discourage the key strategy of the game, which was to engage only on your own terms. Too many times to count I've been on a map where dashing toward the objective in a beeline was the only way to beat the timer, activating every enemy on the map at the same time, and then being asked to take out 15-40HP enemies before they killed my soldiers.
On top of that, once you had an A-team, you risked the entire mission in bringing a B-team to train, so you ended up focusing 4-6 soldiers and nobody else, meaning there's no risk mitigation like in XCOM: EU, it's just "win or lose the entire campaign". The absolute best strategy int he game is AI exploitation, which thankfully the AI is pretty dumb so that's a distinct possibility, but that doesn't add to the strategy.
And further, they somehow made the game run like garbage on everything despite being on the same engine as the predecessor. Now they've been trying to port it to PS4 and I have to deal with the PS4 buttons covering the UI on the PC version.
The doom ticker is just as dumb as the mission timers (which were only added to counter a dumb strategy that people used to cheese in XCOM: EU, which just meant that they were cheating themselves out of a fun experience). Again, there's zero risk mitigation, and the doom ticker is ticked up randomly so, you may get a campaign that will have the ticker go up so quickly it's impossible to keep up, or one that's so lax it might as well not be there.
Wow, that's a very well-loved classic game. I can't speak for it on 7800, but on C-64 it was fantastic.
TL;DR: You have a problem with timers. Big deal, just mod them away. They are there for a reason: to add tension. And it succeeds. If your preferred strategy is to sneak around the map without engaging with enemies then do that on missions without timers. XCOM2 adds variety.
[doublepost=1496882552][/doublepost]I agree with the game running like garbage however. No way of getting a stable frame rate even years later :/
It isn't just the timers honestly, the enemies(that are not Advent) have loads of health and have enough abilities that you're in serious trouble if you don't kill them the moment they see you. Even in pods of 3-4 enemies that really means your damage output has to be high (which as I stated, means you can't bring a b-lister on a mission, or risk losing an entire squad).
Also, I feel like I should point out, XCOM: EU definitely felt like it has a lot more variety with the Enemy Within expansion than XCOM2 does across all of the expansions. (which were another disappointment, but I won't get into that).
As for the old "mod it" excuse, I paid full price for this game, the game should be satisfying enough without having to mod it to make it good. Mods are supposed to be the icing on top of a good cake, good game, good mods. If I have to mod a game to make it acceptable then I have a problem with that.
This is a feature, not a bug. XCOM has always been punishing (did you ever play the original?). Loss of team members is part and parcel of what makes the game. If you don't like it you can always play on lower difficulties and turn off ironman. But accepting that you need a stable of red shirts as well as not trying to get too attached to your heroes (especially the ones you name after family members) is the XCOM experience.
I did and I understand that, I've completed 2013 on Ironman Classic (Too lazy for Impossible since it requires nearly perfect strategy and I'm not that good) and the original. I'm well acquainted with the "that's XCOM baby!" moments.
My issue is that there's no real option for a plan-b in terms of soldier loss. On higher and even medium difficulties in XCOM2 by the mid-game you're at the point where there are skills which you cannot afford to give up. Salvo and Volatile Mix immediately come to mind. The Guerrilla Tactics school only mitigates this, but doesn't erase it.
It makes training B-Listers outright suicidal rather than challenging, since the whole game is based around volume of fire. Bringing redshirts along means endangering your good soldiers.
And before you accuse me of the overwatch camping strategy, I would like to say that I played very fast and loose with my team. My whole beef with XCOM 2 isn't the timers alone, or the abundance of tanky enemies, but the fact that those two are combined.
Don't get me wrong either, there's a few things I really liked about the game, so I didn't despise all of it. I really enjoyed the expansive customization options (though Anarchy's Children stuff is an eyesore), and the Overwatch/Sniper nerf was well thought out (even though Gunslinger outclasses it in every way). And there are fun moments, like launching acid bombs out of concealment and devastating an enemy squad, or using the gunslinger to mow down low-level enemies. But all of it doesn't make up for what I feel was a core gameplay mistake, which was slapping on timers and health to the enemies. Besides, it's not like the XCOM team couldn't have gotten creative with the enemies either, look at the Andromedon for example, or the Viper. They both combine interesting abilities and fit very nicely with the new game mechanics while not being overpowered.
They could've easily done something like, say, have an ever-increasing and more powerful number of enemies drop in after breaking concealment, or done a lot more with the concealment phase like letting the player complete missions by stealth alone. (especially when ranger/scouting is encouraged) Imagine being able to distract the map enemies while the ranger retrieves a VIP, or using the gremlin to hack a console from concealment. It would've fit and added another layer of strategy on top of the game.
I'm old enough to regret that I bought Daikatana at release. John Romero promised amazing. It was. It was amazingly bad.
Also, as a dishonorable mention, the original Xbox version of MLB 2k6 was awful. It didn't get the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and it would lock up all the time. Of course that was before console games got patches, so I was basically screwed.
Also, as a dishonorable mention, the original Xbox version of MLB 2k6 was awful. It didn't get the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and it would lock up all the time. Of course that was before console games got patches, so I was basically screwed.
I got to play Duke Nukem Forever months before release with Randy Pitchford. So I knew that I could easily dodge that bullet at release.