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Completely mediocre games...that you just can't stop playing.

Rage is a fun game until you realize how unfinished it was. Then it was just ok, right up to the end. When I beat it I was like wtf was that shit! I really hate when games build you up to a point, and then make you wait for the sequel for any kind of pay off.
What I mean when I say unfinished is that they didn't put real effort into making it feel like a real world. If you dont need to talk to someone they either don't talk to you or disappear from the game all together.
 
WoW... Gameplay is rather anemic now... It IS really old though so I can't fault the game itself. A shit ton of people still play the game despite this though. It didn't launch mediocre, but it is currently pretty mediocre.

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After the great gamecube entries, Resident Evil 5 was really mediocre. No Horror, bad controls, cheesy story etc. But played it coop to death and obtained the platin trophy.
Diablo 3 same story.
 
After the great gamecube entries, Resident Evil 5 was really mediocre. No Horror, bad controls, cheesy story etc. But played it coop to death and obtained the platin trophy.
Diablo 3 same story.

Any RE tittle that has to follow up RE4 is considered mediocre from the get go. I don't think they have the talent anymore for a game like RE4.
 
Back in the early days of this gen, Test Drive Unlimited. Overall, mediocre racing game at best, but it had some addicting social elements to it, and one of the first racers to do that. Plus it was new in the 360 world, so getting achievements and competing with friends felt really fresh.
 
Lemmings
Tetris Attack
Dr. Mario

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO BEAT THESE?!!? GRRRRRRRR..... do they even end? I probably just suck.

My brother would probably put in:

Jet Set Radio Future
Burnout 3 (the xbox original one right? I can't recall)
Final Fantasy 7 or 8 and Chrono Trigger

Now, these games are not mediocre, but they are very old.
 
One truly mediocre game that I kept playing for reasons beyond my understanding was Nostalgia for the ds.

It was an extremely plain and simple jrpg that lacked any charm or depth. I have no idea why I kept playing it but I did.
 
I'm not even trying to troll here, but Pokemon. Every time I play it I rage at the terrible / lazy design decisions, but I'm hooked. I replay at least one of the games every year.
 
Sands of Destruction.

Totally average DS RPG... but I tend to play it whenever I'm mad at the world, because blowing it up is cool. As a result, I'm on my third playthrough right now. :/
 
When I was Wii-only gamer I'd give a mediocrity a fair shake that I don't anymore.

I enjoyed Conduit, Red Steel, and Deadly Creatures. All games that were good in some aspects, but pretty mediocre in the end.
 
Lagoon for the SNES. For some reason I keep playing this mediocre little action RPG again and again. It's probably because it was one of my first SNES games and the soundtrack is to die for. With that tiny little sword the guy in the game uses I sometimes wonder why.

Holy shit. I played through that game over and over back in the day. I kind of forgot about it. But yea excellent example because it really was nothing too special. I want to play it again now to see if it holds my interest anymore.
 
Mediocre games I really enjoyed:

EDF Insect Armageddon. Can't resist leveling-up/RPG mechanics in games. Wouldn't mind if all games had it.

Red Faction Armageddon. See above. Also: more games should have a new game plus option.

MicroBot (XBLA). Again: leveling-up your arsenal, fuck yeah!

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. Enjoyable headshots. It means a lot to me in shooters.

Wolfenstein (2009). Again, headshots.

X-men Origins: Wolverine. Enjoyable hack'n'slashing.

Divinity II. Mediocre across the board but fun nontheless. Plus: it's an RPG, m'kay.

Dragon Age 2. Finished it twice, back to back. *shrug*

Too Human. Loot'n all.

H.A.W.X. Next "best" thing to Ace Combat, I guess.

Lost Planet. Great explosions!

The Saboteur. See above!

Sacred 2. Yeah, average, but: Loot! ARPG!

Silent Hill Homecoming. Wanted to play a horror game. This was good enough.

Stranglehold. Slo-mo shooting! Can't go wrong with that.

Supreme Commander 2 (X360). Big units! Laserz! Shit blowing up en masse! Closer to Total Annihilation then SC 1.
 
if you're having so much fun that you can't stop playing it, then does it not exceed the label of mediocre?

I think something can keep your interest and still be recognized as mediocre...or I wouldn't have made a thread. ;). If you're playing something that has interesting elements with stretches of not-so-interesting or just plain boring/badly designed joining elements, I think it would fall into that camp. A lot of us on these forums have been playing games for a couple decades now and recognize some sort of difference between a game that is great throughout (say something like Metroid Prime in my case) and something that has fun moments but a lot of other elements just don't quite click, which for me has been Rage these 8 or so hours I've put in so far. Call it mediocre or what you will...
 
Dragon Age 2.

I don't know why, but I played through the entire game and completed most of the side quests. The combat was trivial and I had no interest in the story. Regardless, I spent weeks playing it.

I've since put it down, but I played the game to completion 2.5 times before getting bored of it.
 
So in answer to questions about Split/Second, I think it's not so hot on a technical level, and the whole driving mechanic feels like a box sliding across a wood surface. The cars have no distinction and little road feel. I also think that the lack of even semi real cars is meh, many of the cars look very generic, with a few designs I like.

But I love the tracks that change, I love the almost mario kart style of building boost for special attacks and the level of choice that brings to each race. I also really like the presentation of it as a TV show with seasons etc.

Anyways I love the game obviously, but I'm not enamored with much of it's actual driving, which is strange, it being a racer and all.

As for FEAR 2, well... it's got nothing on FEAR. But damn I love those explosions and the smoke. Also it has some good environmental and enemy variety.

But yeah the plot is nutter-butter
The rape scene at the end had me rolling on the floor
and it's way too colorful, which doesn't match it's scary, gritty vibe. People have strawberry jam for blood, and lots of it. The guns just don't have the umph of the guns from FEAR, and they ruined the amazing shotgun.
 
You're gonna be happy to hear that Bethesda has plans for more RAGE then!

As for me, it's gotta be this:

Dungeon_Siege_III.jpg


Really mediocre RPG, even moreso by Obsidian standards but I can't put it down :(

Me too, a mediocre game in many ways but I have played it many times, alone and with friends. I find it much more fun than diablo 3 just because the controls (with a gamepad)
 
I'd love to know what some people consider non-mediocre game are. Not everyone. Just some of you guys ha

I agree. I mean, I guess it's opinion, but to see so much Skyrim, Diablo and other games pretty much universally praised seems weird. I even saw Chrono Trigger on here. What the...

007 Quantum of Solace was a horrible game that allowed me to keep my Call of Duty experience going back when I was into that stuff after I played CoD4. Was made by Treyarch on the CoD4 engine and had a Metacritic of 65. I had some fun with it, though.
 
Lemmings
Tetris Attack
Dr. Mario

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE TO BEAT THESE?!!? GRRRRRRRR..... do they even end? I probably just suck.

My brother would probably put in:

Jet Set Radio Future
Burnout 3 (the xbox original one right? I can't recall)
Final Fantasy 7 or 8 and Chrono Trigger

Now, these games are not mediocre, but they are very old.
What. The. Fuck.
 
Hot Shots Tennis on the PSP.

Decided to pick this up on a whim. and I've poured a ton of hours into it. I can't stop. The gradual costume unlock structure and gentle RPG story progression is really compelling, and it mixes up the locations and types of challenge enough to keep it interesting.

I'm at the final zone right now, but I never expected to play so much.

The title was mediocre games that you can't stop playing
 
this! Nice game, but so lacking on the Metroid-feel of Isolation :/ (And kinda short, 8 hours and I've 100% the game on Normal)

Metroid Other M is also my guilty pleasure. I am aware of the game's many flaws but somehow keep looking passed them and wanting to come back.

In this manner I have somehow managed to get over 40 hours out of it... don't ask me how... there is just something hypnotizing about that game.
 
Not to pile on Rage, but another instance where the game just plain lacks polish: in the world you can find items that are identified as books. At first I thought, well that's neat, maybe if I go into the inventory screen they'll contain little blurbs that flesh out the world abit.

Nope, just some shit you can sell for a few bucks at the store. Why even make them books? They couldn't bother to have somebody spend a day throwing some text into the game?

Also, boy does that looping music become really apparent during the moments where it ramps up while fighting.

The shotgun is really satisfying, I will say that much...
 
Jamestown. It's a tight shooter, but it still has its share of problems that come with being indie. Cave is lightyears ahead in terms of both mechanics and aesthetics. I play it because I don't have a console, I'm too lazy to set up Shmupmame, and because I'm pining for the new Cave STGs anyways. I want to play them and not the older stuff like Ketsui. I can't tell you what I'd do if I saw Espgaluda 2 or Daifukkatsu on Steam.
 
Even before I clicked into this thread, I knew it would be full of well-rated, well received and well-reviewed
AAA
games, with only the odd post actually referencing 'mediocre' games. I was not disappointed.
 
Diablo III! It's the loot system feeding my (previously undiscovered) gambling addiction with farming ;_; The game's really buggy and unfinished, as Yoshi mentioned earlier.
 
Bought Dragon Age II for $25 and finished it despite nearly every aspect being mediocre and generic. The story was actually pretty good but that was it.

Beat the campaign of Bad Company 2 three times I think, and I have no idea why. It didn't do anything "badly" (not like BF3's campaign at least), it was kinda just shooter junk food.

I don't know if I want to call Lost Planet mediocre. By most standards maybe, but the game has a different feel from pretty much any other shooter on the market - being a competent 3rd person shooter from a Japanese developer. It could be the mechs and sense of scale that come with them, or it could be that it successfully combined the controls of Gears with the "feel" of, like, Contra or something.

I would personally call Dead Space mediocre but I think I've beaten it three times - twice on PS3 and at least once on PC. A big part of it might be because it's the closest thing to a modern space survival horror game - after watching Prometheus I actually thought about re-installing it. Having a new game plus option is probably a big part of it. If System Shock 2 were easier to keep installed on modern computers this wouldn't be an issue.

Silent Hill: Downpour

The enemy encounters make this game not mediocre but outright BAD. And I still want to continue...

Me too. I actually intend to buy it when it goes on sale for $20 at Best Buy next week. The reason I think is because it's the closest thing to a traditional survival horror experience on current gen consoles (other than Siren: Blood Curse). Even a mediocre survival horror game feels more interesting than all the action horror games we're getting today.

Actually, pretty much all the games I listed above are games I either rented or bought at really low prices.
 
Alpha Protocol was probably the last one I played. I dunno I really liked some parts of that game and what it did right it did very well, but the bad did overall make that game the closest to mediocre that i can think of.

Like other has said my opinion of Skyrim dropped after playing it for a while, but I dunno if I would go so far as to say it was a mediocre game. Now that i think about it Oblivion might be number one. I can see myself getting the urge to replay AP or Skyrim one day. Oblivion though I don't think I will ever get the urge to play it again.
 
Dungeon Siege 3. So bland and by the numbers and yet I kept playing. I honestly can't even say I was having fun, but there I was playing it.

Dark Void - Love the Rocketeer concept, so I was willing to look past the warts in this game and see it to the end.
 
The Force Unleashed.

I thought the game was fantastic but most critics and gamers say otherwise. I loved every bit of it though and have played through it several times. I actually got the CE of Force Unleashed 2 and haven't gotten around to playing it yet. I remembered playing the demo and it didn't feel as good as the first one but I got it for $10 so whatever.
 
I played the hell out of LA Noire. And I bought the DLC package. Nearly platinumed it, but there's just no way to find the last couple of cars.

What can I say but I see this game as a spiritual successor to old Police Quest games, charming but broken.
 
Warband. The actual battles are amazing of course but all the content around it makes it feel like I am playing a mod that hasn't had the fat trimmed yet. Every time I run around that overworld I wonder why the fuck I am playing it...

This thread is turning into a popular game thread. Dead Space? Lost Planet?
 
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin. The level design was rather bland, the theme reusing near the end was very disappointing, the story was just bad... but the combat (especially with Charlotte) felt really satisfying. I've replayed it three times already.
 
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