[AHA-Lambda]

Alpha Protocol

"Play it guys, one of the best RPGs ever since deus ex"

Demon's/Dark Souls

"play it or you're not a REAL gamer"

Saint's Row

"Play it, its so much better than GTA."

Red Dead Redemption
"One of the best games this gen."

Ico
"One of the best games EVER!!"

yeah ummm... no to all of those.

EDIT:

also want to mention minecraft, limbo and braid aswell.

[Volcynika]

There have been many popular games that I don't like. I'm not sure which one GAF specifically has hyped, but then I saw this post. Holy crap, people think that The Last Remnant is a good game? Was it the only JRPG those people have ever seen?

There exist people that love it and have played tons more JRPGs than most people. I just blew your mind.

[Air Zombie Meat]

I guess I'll join those mentioning Xenoblade Chronicles, but with a caveat. I'm still playing through it, and it's compelling enough for me to continue, but only barely. In fact, I already put it down once to play The Witcher, but got stuck in a boss in that so I went back. I think Xenoblade's reputation as the greatest JRPG of the generation is way overblown thus far. Combat it pretty fun, but the pacing is horrendous (oh no, a character is in mortal danger and we need to save them immediately, but first I'm going to do all these tiny quests and waste about a week farming one type of creature to get a specific item, don't worry, it's cool, the monsters will wait), and it's falling into some bad JRPG tropes. Part of that may be me, though. Frankly, the only current gen JRPG that really grabbed me is Tales of Vesperia. But my opinion may change as I get further into the game. It's just that thus far it's "decent" to "good" and not the mind-blowing experience it had been portrayed as having been.

From what I've played of Xenoblade I think your ability to ignore sidequests (or lack of in my case) will be an important factor in how much you enjoy the game.

[nexen]

TWEWY
Universe was nonsensical and arbitrary, gameplay was crap and the rpg elements were obscure as all hell. I like the art style a lot so I kept trying to get into it but eventually just gave up.

Prinny
Would have been good had it not been SO GODDAMNED DIFFICULT. Got to the point where the idea of playing it any longer caused me physical pain. I could see liking it more though if I had the reflexes of a crack addicted 10 year old so I guess it gets a pass.

Metal Gear Solid IV
Dated gameplay mechanics, clunky controls, and a story that reads like it was written by a middleschooler. I'm still bitter at all the love this game gets when so many better games go ignored.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
This was just a terrible game. Why is there a slot machine during combat? Who thought having a main character constantly quote from a fictional opera would be an appealing trait?

No More Heroes
+10 points for style, -1 million points for execution.

[kuroshiki]

most of indie games.

[toastyToast]

I didn't really care for Bastion either. Game was rather repetitive and those goo dudes weren't interesting enough for me to want to hit for 90% of the game.

Also, I didn't find the aesthetics as enthralling as others did, which includes the music and the narrator.

[qq more]

Minecraft

There is an end boss in the game.


Why the hell did you expect story anyways?

[edgefusion]

I don't usually purchase games based solely on GAF recommendations but there is one (well, rented at least):

Demon's Souls
I thought it was okay, but that's all. I simply found the whole thing very bland and the combat boring. It didn't really live up to its hype of being super punishing or difficult either. I just found the whole thing a little monotonous and ended up sending it back to LoveFilm after I'd put maybe 5-10 hours into it. I didn't find it to be really terrible or anything just completely forgettable.

EDIT: After scrolling up and seeing a bunch of Xenoblade mentions, yeah that is kind of one for me too. I've not played nearly long enough to pass judgement yet but the beginning intro with the weird-faced guys being all like "Yeah! Let's go kill this robot army even though everyone else is running away in terror! Hyped-up awesome-time!!" and their completely ridiculous VA has totally turned me off the game. If the rest of the experience is that melodramatic and poorly acted then count me out!

[TheMan]

might as well pull down my pants and take a dump on dark souls while i'm in here

in a nutshell: great weapon/fighting mechanics wrapped up in too much bullshit. the game is hard for the sake of being hard and should have included difficulty levels to appease those who aren't masochists.

[Bisnic]

Xenoblade ? linear ? With all the quest you can do and all the thingsoutside the main story ? Xenoblade ? linear ? really ? I have nothing aout anyone taste for games but lies shouldn't be accepted like that..

Yeah, i dont get it. Sure there is always a little flag on the map pointing where to go for advancing the story and seeing the next cutscene, but you can literally ignore that flag for HOURS while you do quests or kill some unique monsters in some huge zone that isnt just a simple corridor.

[Wildesy]

Legitimate stealth Nier thread unlike the 'Secret games of this gen' thread that was floating around recently.
You play as a glorified courier and your job as the player is to mash the same button in combat as many times as humanly possible. I think they made the combat so simple because they feared you might not actually be able to see anything considering the bloom borders on blinding, hence making button mashing the only viable option for combat control.

The story supposedly gets good half-way through the game, but I think that is just an unsubstantiated report leaked by the creators of the game as I struggle to believe anybody genuinely made it to the half-way point of this game.

[Rikkun]

Hmm.

Deadly Premonition

BEST HORROR OF THE GEN
The first two hours are so bad I won't go back soon.


But.. that's it.
GAF made me more curious than I was about so many games.. Demon Souls, SSX, Shadow of the Damned, Vanquish, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006...

[PetrCobra]

I guess I'll join those mentioning Xenoblade Chronicles, but with a caveat. I'm still playing through it, and it's compelling enough for me to continue, but only barely. In fact, I already put it down once to play The Witcher, but got stuck in a boss in that so I went back. I think Xenoblade's reputation as the greatest JRPG of the generation is way overblown thus far. Combat it pretty fun, but the pacing is horrendous (oh no, a character is in mortal danger and we need to save them immediately, but first I'm going to do all these tiny quests and waste about a week farming one type of creature to get a specific item, don't worry, it's cool, the monsters will wait), and it's falling into some bad JRPG tropes. Part of that may be me, though. Frankly, the only current gen JRPG that really grabbed me is Tales of Vesperia. But my opinion may change as I get further into the game. It's just that thus far it's "decent" to "good" and not the mind-blowing experience it had been portrayed as having been.

Well, in The Witcher which I play right now I am actually experiencing the same thing you mentioned - interrupting the main story with tiny sidequests, farming monsters for an ingredient... It's different, that's for sure, but similar enough that you could say your comments are true for both games to some degree.

For the record, I played Xenoblade when it came out here in Europe and put it down towards the end, but that was not the game's fault, I tend to not finish my games in the last few years. I would like to finish The Witcher, for example, but cannot be sure I won't be distracted by something else again (before that it was the first Fallout, and before that, Total Annihilation; grat games by the way, believe the hype)

[Patryn]

Well, in The Witcher which I play right now I am actually experiencing the same thing you mentioned - interrupting the main story with tiny sidequests, farming monsters for an ingredient... It's different, that's for sure, but similar enough that you could say your comments are true for both games to some degree. For the record, I played Xenoblade when it came out here in Europe and put it down towards the end, but that was not the game's fault, I tend to not finish my games in the last few years. I would like to finish The Witcher, for example, but cannot be sure I won't be distracted by something else again (before that it was the first Fallout, and before that, Total Annihilation; grat games by the way, believe the hype)

I never said The Witcher was the be-all, end-all. There's a reason I'm only playing it now despite having owned it for several years.

[drspeedy]

GAF: "Viewtiful Joe is awesome!"

Me: "meh."

Gets some credit for visual style, but the controls felt sludgy compared to the breakneck speed of the gameplay, difficulty is all over the map, and the audio is atrocious. Turned me off all around.

[Shepard]

The Binding of Isaac
Produced by the same people who made the incredible Super meat boy and with these GAF reactions:

This game, man. Pure awesome. Different playstyles every time.

This game is a steal at $5. My only complaint is that you can't naturally use a gamepad to play. (I am using the JoyToKey config that is in the op and that works great). Graphics are beautiful, Music is amazing and (with the gamepad) the controls are pretty tight.

this game is AMAZING i think i might like it even more than super meat boy.

Man, they were wrong... Interesting premise wrapped with boring gameplay, terrible controls, random (and bad) level design... so, so wrong...

[The Albatross]

Does The Wire count?

There aren't enough GIFs on the internet to accurately ask.. wtf?

[Onion_Relish]

I actually got suckered into buying oblivion due to 4chan. Good thing I managed to return the game for full price even though it was opened.

[cacildo]

What Gaf said on Borderlands

Its amazing. Its wonderful. You will cry, you will laugh there´s so many weapons every little thing this game does is magic

What i think about Borderlands now that i own it

Its boring, its downright pointless since you die and just reespawn a few inches back, it dosent matter if it has one billion weapons if all of em look and feel the same, its so boring its depressing, i had A LOT more fun playing Doom64 last week.



What Gaf is saying about Borderlands 2 reveal and trailers

OH MY GOD LOOK AT THIS DUBSTEP TRAILER IS SO AMAZING LOOK AT ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THIS GAME (in the cutscenes)

What i think about Borderlands 2 up until now

It will be the same boring mess of a game as the first.
All this incredible things, scenes and slow motion that happens in the trailer are just cutscenes. The real game is just a very tedious FPS

[Verelios]

Alpha Protocol Demon's/Dark Souls "play it or you're not a REAL gamer" also want to mention minecraft, limbo and braid aswell.

TWEWY Universe was nonsensical and arbitrary, gameplay was crap and the rpg elements were obscure as all hell. I like the art style a lot so I kept trying to get into it but eventually just gave up.

I don't usually purchase games based solely on GAF recommendations but there is one (well, rented at least): Demon's Souls I thought it was okay, but that's all. I simply found the whole thing very bland and the combat boring. It didn't really live up to its hype of being super punishing or difficult either. I just found the whole thing a little monotonous and ended up sending it back to LoveFilm after I'd put maybe 5-10 hours into it. I didn't find it to be really terrible or anything just completely forgettable. EDIT: After scrolling up and seeing a bunch of Xenoblade mentions, yeah that is kind of one for me too. I've not played nearly long enough to pass judgement yet but the beginning intro with the weird-faced guys being all like "Yeah! Let's go kill this robot army even though everyone else is running away in terror! Hyped-up awesome-time!!" and their completely ridiculous VA has totally turned me off the game. If the rest of the experience is that melodramatic and poorly acted then count me out!

Legitimate stealth Nier thread unlike the 'Secret games of this gen' thread that was floating around recently. You play as a glorified courier and your job as the player is to mash the same button in combat as many times as humanly possible. I think they made the combat so simple because they feared you might not actually be able to see anything considering the bloom borders on blinding, hence making button mashing the only viable option for combat control. The story supposedly gets good half-way through the game, but I think that is just an unsubstantiated report leaked by the creators of the game as I struggle to believe anybody genuinely made it to the half-way point of this game.

Okay, what the fuck GAF? Did I just come out of some wormhole somewhere? Limbo is shit though, I'll give you that. Also, Assassins Creed. God, what a horrible game- thanks a lot GAF! Horrible.

[El Sloth]

The Binding of Isaac Produced by the same people who made the incredible Super meat boy

Only half of Team Meat actually.

[Magnus]

999.

The World Ends With You.

Xenoblade.

Snore, snore, snore.

[Rahxephon91]

Legitimate stealth Nier thread unlike the 'Secret games of this gen' thread that was floating around recently. You play as a glorified courier and your job as the player is to mash the same button in combat as many times as humanly possible. I think they made the combat so simple because they feared you might not actually be able to see anything considering the bloom borders on blinding, hence making button mashing the only viable option for combat control. The story supposedly gets good half-way through the game, but I think that is just an unsubstantiated report leaked by the creators of the game as I struggle to believe anybody genuinely made it to the half-way point of this game.

Yes! YES! YES!!!

[Wildesy]

There aren't enough GIFs on the internet to accurately ask.. wtf?

Disagree with that guy about The Wire, but what about Homeland? Does it count? Unlikeable and poorly written characters, a lot of average acting and a ridiculously exaggerated and sensationalised storyline. It seems to be universally adored though, so it's probably just me.

Okay, what the fuck GAF? Did I just come out of some wormhole somewhere? Limbo is shit though, I'll give you that. Also, Assassins Creed. God, what a horrible game- thanks a lot GAF! Horrible.

The general consensus on Nier was that it was pretty average and more people disliked it than liked it. There is a strange undercurrent of love for it on Gaf, but on the whole, it was pretty poorly received. With that in mind, I don't really see how my comment could come as that much of a surprise.

999. The World Ends With You. Xenoblade. Snore, snore, snore.

999 was a text-based adventure, what were you expecting exactly?

[tiff]

This is why I don't buy games based on GAF recommendations.

Heaven forbid you get 'tricked' into buying one of the best games this generation.

RDR is terrible.

[Papercuts]

Uncharted 1 - It was rare to go into a thread and NOT see something from this game brought up, whether it was a random picture or just crazy hype. The game itself didn't stand out at all to me, with mediocre and unsatisfying gunplay and pretty standard everything else.

Journey - Contains a pretty simple message, but does so in an extremely short way that lacks pretty much any actual gameplay. I'm generally okay with "artsy" type games, but the only thing I thought of when the credits were rolling was that I spent way too much money for what I got.

[Deified Data]

Games GAF has recommended to me: Nier, Saints Row 3, Tales of Graces f, Darksiders.

I've yet to be let down.

[PetrCobra]

I never said The Witcher was the be-all, end-all. There's a reason I'm only playing it now despite having owned it for several years.

On the other hand, I was not trying to make the Witcher look bad or anything, in fact I'm enjoying it massively despite its many flaws. I just don't consider one of the flaws to be the fact that you are not dragged forward by the game's plot and are instead allowed to have more fun with something else in the meantime.

It's true that a freedom like this always comes at the expense of fragmenting the story and making the game less compact of an experience, but a game made without such approach couldn't last for more than a few hours. Much of the time you spend with any game that's not an interactive movie is what you do when no story is being presented - be it combat or sidequests or whatever.

In the end, of course it depends on personal taste which approach you prefer, but isn't it possible in Xenoblade to just ignore any sidequests and enjoy the main story with very little interruption? I did not try it myself though, so maybe it's too hard to play it that way due to underlevelled characters or something...

[Slayven]

Took this shit back the same day.

[AppleMIX]

Demon's Souls

Great atmosphere but is difficult for all the wrong reasons.

[Myriadis]

Xenoblade [...] It's probably a more linear gaming experience than Pong. Awesome game if you like exploring empty walls.

Ever played Final Fantasy X? I don't know how any game could be more linear than FFX.

after looking at my collection, it had to be Dead Space. [...] which is absolutely laughable, it's another fucking random shooter with cheap scares and a poor love letter to metroid prime, which actually did scare me a couple of times.

I liked Dead Space just for the reason that it is a love letter to Metroid Prime. It doesn't reach MP, but this fact alone makes it great for me.

I don't buy games based on GAF Hype or their Rose-tinted glasses of their Nostalgia Goggles, since there are several games that many Gaffers hate but I love, like Final Fantasy XII and Prince of Persia 2008, but there was one Zelda game where I excepted something special after all this praise from GAF and other forums.


It is a nice game with a great intro level, but I didn't like the sound quality, the artstyle (although it is good in some spots), the lifeless town and the dumbed down difficulty after the perfect one in Zelda 1. It also doesn't help that it really helped forming the Zelda formula and that every subsequent Zelda game is based on it (which is nothing bad, since it is solid and also improved by several Zelda games).

[Orayn]

might as well pull down my pants and take a dump on dark souls while i'm in here in a nutshell: great weapon/fighting mechanics wrapped up in too much bullshit. the game is hard for the sake of being hard and should have included difficulty levels to appease those who aren't masochists.

You don't know what "hard" is.

[Emitan]

Nier.

I will never plaything like it again ;_;

[Palette Swap]

Nier. It's not bad but it's not great either.

It's a mediocre ARPG with very bland gameplay, some nice music, a few nice moments in the story and a character who swears. Again, not bad but really nothing to write home about IMO.

[Meccanical]

Ever played Final Fantasy X? I don't know how any game could be more linear than FFX.

FFXIII.

[toastyToast]

Demon's Souls Great atmosphere but is difficult for all the wrong reasons.

No it isn't. It being difficult for the right reasons is what makes it appealing

[schwupp]

dark souls/demon souls

creating difficulty by withholding necessary information ..

[maquiladora]

Made 3 attempts to get into this. Had zero fun each time. Traded in.

[Vamphuntr]

Xenoblade

"It's the best JRPG of this generation or even the best JRPG in the whole universe"

I had to force myself to beat it and the more I played the more I had to control my urge to not snap the disk in two :( .

It tries too hard at throwing so many mechanics and gimmicks at you that few of those actually stick. It felt like a half-baked game to me. It tries to have some sort of wannabe Star Ocean item creation with the gem system and it tries to have some sort of Tales Of skits system with the hearts to hearts system but overall in both cases the result is worse than in the original games. Battle system became boring quickly for me. I hated Shulk and his goddamn speeches about if he should continue his quest every 5 seconds and I absolutely loathed the copy pasta sidequests.

Some gaffers were trying to have people keep realistic expectations but they were vastly ignored in that Rainfall/hype thread. I learned my lesson the hard way I guess ;P

[AAK]

I`m not gonna say these games are bad and they shouldn`t be hyped, but they just weren`t for me:

Demons Souls - put around 40-60 hours across all my characters into it believing at one point something will just spark out of all the positive impressions in the OT but with a transparent narrative and lack of any accomplishment even when you die, I just stopped.

Half Life 2 - I finished it in the end and there were some fantastic sequences but the vast majority of it was pretty boring to the extent where I just didn`t care and didn`t pay attention to the surroundings or what the NPC`s were telling me. The final sequence inside the citadel forcing you to use only the gravity gun also felt kinda anti-climatic. (Although Episode 1 and 2 were really good)

[AppleMIX]

No it isn't. It being difficult for the right reasons is what makes it appealing

The whole game is based off pattern memorization.

A game should challenge me with good AI rather then just kill me because I didn't know a dragon was going to attack.

Also platforming in that games is a joke and it forces you to make drops when the game is clearly not designed for it.

[nexen]

TWEWY is getting a beat down in this thread.

[CecilRousso]

Based on the demos for Risen and Bastion, I don´t understand Neogaf´s love for those two games, but since I didn´t actually buy them I guess they don´t count. But other than that, I can´t recall any, The one game that I know I bought because of this forum is Defence Grid, and that game is really good.

Made 3 attempts to get into this. Had zero fun each time. Traded in.

Made 4 or 5 attempts, and on the last one I ended up finishing it. It started slow, but turned out to be an awesome game.

[Orayn]

dark souls/demon souls creating difficulty by withholding necessary information ..

Such as? The inner workings of the stat system would be a valid target for this argument, but it's the only one I can think of.

The whole game is based off pattern memorization. A game should challenge me with good AI rather then just kill me because I didn't know a dragon was going to attack. Also platforming in that games is a joke and it forces you to make drops when the game is clearly not designed for it.

Every game is pattern memorization of one kind or another, and the Souls games don't necessarily kill you for not getting out right the first time unless you're being really dumb.

[Anth0ny]

Sonic Colors

GAF said: Best Sonic game since the Genesis days.

It's shit.

[Meccanical]

The whole game is based off pattern memorization. A game should challenge me with good AI rather then just kill me because I didn't know a dragon was going to attack.

That is dumb as hell, if the AI was good you wouldn't know the dragon was going to attack anyway because it wouldn't telegraph anything.

Some people in this thread can't deal with the fact that they are bad at the particular game they hate.

[Birbo]

Killer 7. What kind of crap was that? Like the art, but the gameplay was horseshit.

[GeekyDad]

Dark Void Zero & inFamous come immediately to mind. Neither are bad games. As a matter of fact, there's a lot I love about both games, but yeah, they both made me sad. DVZ was just too frustrating because the controls didn't match the difficulty in my opinion, and inFamous had too many treks down in the sewers, and when I wasn't in the sewer system I was getting stuck on shit; too much like GTA, but without all the, you know, fun stuff.

[nexen]

Such as? The inner workings of the stat system would be a valid target for this argument, but it's the only one I can think of.

I enjoyed Demon's Souls but I understand this complaint. The game will come out of nowhere and bitch slap you. A lot of it is trial & error and memorization.

Full disclosure: I stopped playing sometime after I defeated that ooze boss so I may not know wtf I am talking about.

[Papercuts]

TWEWY is getting a beat down in this thread.

I'm not really surprised at that. I ended up dropping the game for over a year after getting partially in it and being overwhelmed. I came back, caught my bearings, and really enjoyed it...but I can definitely see why it gets mixed views.

I enjoyed Demon's Souls but I understand this complaint. The game will come out of nowhere and bitch slap you. A lot of it is trial & error and memorization. Full disclosure: I stopped playing sometime after I defeated that ooze boss so I may not know wtf I am talking about.

I also agree, the game's don't explain a lot of stuff as clearly as they should. People like the no handholding aspect, but it's a game where you really should learn what the stats mean, what to do with souls right away, the talisman/catalyst stuff being confusing as hell even if it's pretty obvious, etc.

I also don't think either game is all that hard.