Worst PC Game you've ever purchased

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Absolution75

Senior member
Dec 3, 2007
983
3
81
1) Oblivion

Others: Mafia II, The force unleashed, league of legends (not because its bad, but its not a good purchase at $50)
 

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,860
44
91
System Shock 2 (couldn't stand the graphics).
Jedi Knight 1 (couldn't stand the graphics).

Uh...what? When did you play them? If it was anywhere near when they were new, they had excellent graphics for their times.

If it years and years later, well...that's pretty much on you. I will never understand the people to whom graphics are a be-all-end-all, who purchase older games knowing the graphics are dated, and are then disappointed.
 

TidusZ

Golden Member
Nov 13, 2007
1,765
2
81

Too true, such an overrated game. Good production value doesn't make a fun game.

For me its black and white, bought into the hype and then realized I was lied to. Tried to take the game back a couple days later and was offered $10 store credit so I just kept it as a lesson learned.
 
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Leopardos

Senior member
Jul 15, 2009
332
2
81
Red Orchestra 2: Heroes Of Stalingrad

I had a big hope for this game ... Reminded me of RTCW(The orginal one, not Enemy terrotiry)

I was like arguing everywhere while playing the beta that this game gonna rock after the release ... But i was wrong, and couldnt stand playing it ... feels so buggy game.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
lol, been watching a playthru of Batman Arkham City. Apparently "A" does a million different things, what it does depends where you are and it always lets you know exactly what it does at that point. I just shake my head at this, might as well just remove the Player.

Worked pretty well for Ocarina of Time
 

keyed

Senior member
Feb 21, 2001
478
0
71
Kill OSes? Explain that to me please.

As for my worst games ever purchased...

I don't know. I guess...Rogue Warrior. I don't know. I have never actually played the game lol
It came with the Id/Bethesda Pack last year. All I know is that it apparently won or was a nominee for Gamespot's worst game of 2010(or whatever year the game came out)
Uninstalling would delete system files for some people.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
So where you are seeing symptom, I am seeing direct line causal relationship. Adoption is directly related to and caused by the adoption of consoles as an easily accessible platform. More consoles equals more users. Developers are seeing dollar signs associated with the console market and so are mostly focusing on games that sell into that market (with PC development being seen as an “Additional revenue stream” and coded for appropriately). This causes artificial limitations on games that come out for the PC market. This is Causal, not symptomatic. A leads to B leads to C.

Although not every console is a powerhouse, historically (in the PC market) hardware development drives software innovation, which then in turn drives hardware development. As better platforms emerge, people adopt to the new platform to play new and better games. That is why DX11 is such a big sticking point, and why Microsoft made it a condition of Vista/Windows 7. Because they knew it would drive adoption. But since consoles, a platform that hasn’t changed significantly in the past 7 years, are the lions share of the market, Developers, not wanting to abandon Consoles, are not building for DX11. Consolization at it’s finest.

And again, BECAUSE of consoles being the primary medium of adoption, more and more games are being made “Dumbed down” to meet the market. Again, consolization. Controls are simpler, game play is more accessible to lower skill levels. And classically “Console” type development decisions are increasingly being made in game development BECAUSE consoles are the dominant platform of choice for largest portion of the gaming community.

All Consolization. This isn’t a Scapegoat. It is a causal driver in the market. And one PC gamers their backs up about.

The problem is I don't think it addresses the bigger picture. If the game market had no consoles in it, I think you would still be experiencing the same thing. Except everyone would call it "tabletization" or "phoneization" or "casualization" or "flashization" or whatever it is that would have filled the gap. Impossible to say.

If you take the game market's growth and reverse it, or more precisely reduce it's penetration into new demographics, the problem shrinks with it; not entirely but somewhat. It shrinks because without those new markets there, there's a smaller margin of error for producers. When the market is smaller, each customer's relative buying power increases and information spreads through the user base relatively faster (same means of communication, but fewer ears to reach), so the 'collective judgment' issued by the customer base is more likely to be more 'pointed' and, subsequently, influential.

A market that is small or young typically has a userbase that has an abnormally heavy distribution in favor of proficient, passionate or interested users. Because when something is still unknown or new, there needs to be 'something' there to spark 'entering' the market before it's 'cool' or 'understood' or 'accessible'. Computers used to be intimidating and prohibitively expensive and tough to learn, something that the early advanced users could mitigate and therefore take part in. In time computers became more user friendly (eg: the "consolization" if you will) to both suit the early mainstream adopters and to catalyze further adoption. I guess you could see a chicken and egg scenario as to whether this happens because the market grows, or to induce market growth, but really I think it's both and they both result in more or less the same thing anyway.

Take consoles out of the market and even give everyone a super PC, and you're still going to deal with "consolization" because the game an average user wants to play/thinks is good and the critiques an average user makes are substantially different than the games wanted and the critiques made by a person who bothers to talk about this stuff in an online forum. And I'm sure you can guess who there's more of.
 

SithSolo1

Diamond Member
Mar 19, 2001
7,740
11
81
World of Warcraft

Not so much because it was a bad game but rather because of the time and money invested, $1600+ and roughly 3% of my current time spend on earth out the window.
 

thraashman

Lifer
Apr 10, 2000
11,084
1,505
126
Back in late '98 I bought one of the Red Alert games. I loved other RTS games I'd played at the time, I HATED the gameplay of Red Alert.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
20,736
1,377
126
Back in late '98 I bought one of the Red Alert games. I loved other RTS games I'd played at the time, I HATED the gameplay of Red Alert.

I loved the first Red Alert, it was the only C&C game that I really ever liked RA2/etc I didn't like though.
 

thespyder

Golden Member
Aug 31, 2006
1,979
0
0
...et all...

So at least you are admitting that there is a problem. But it seems you find issue with the label put on the issue. Yes, if there were no consoles, we would call it something else. but it doesn't invalidate the fact that there is a problem. And for lack of a better label, the community in general chooses to call it "Consolization".

Now you also said that if everyone had "Super computers" the problem would remain. And here i think you are missing the mark. The problem is (as I see it) that the larger market is on the less powerful platform, and hence limiting a segment of the market from realizing the full potential of that platform. In this, if you were to level the playing field, people might complain, but the arguments would be of a whole different nature. And therefore would be a separate issue entirely (IMHO).
 
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thespyder

Golden Member
Aug 31, 2006
1,979
0
0
Dragon Age 2 - never again. If Dragon Age 3 is made I will not spend a dime on it.

I am kind of curious here. "If" Bioware were to recant and actually go back to the drawing board. If they were to start again with a PC only with intent to upgrade and improve DA:O based on feedback from the community on what worked and what didn't work (from both the DA:O and DA2 forums). If all of this increasingly impossible suppostion were to happen, would you at least test drive the "New" game? Or has Bio totally torpedoed that line for ever and all time in your mind?
 

skace

Lifer
Jan 23, 2001
14,488
7
81
When someone lists a decent/mediocre game as the worst thing they've ever bought, all I can think of is "Wow that person must steal a lot of games" because that is the only way some of these are the worst games ever purchased.

I forget the name of the worst game I ever bought. It was some half-completed fantasy based game that I made the mistake of buying.

Oh and ET > RTCW. Everyone knows that.
 

QuantumPion

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2005
6,010
1
76
Wasn't ET that free multiplayer mod for RTCW? I thought that totally kicked ass back then - sort of like rush mode in BF3 today but without the vehicles or unlocks.
 

goobernoodles

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2005
1,820
2
81
Wasn't ET that free multiplayer mod for RTCW? I thought that totally kicked ass back then - sort of like rush mode in BF3 today but without the vehicles or unlocks.
Essentially, yes. It was a stand-alone free mod. You didn't need RTCW. It wasn't really a bad game in and of itself. Compared to RTCW w/ OSP however, it was complete trash. Borderline insulting to competitive RTCW players.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
So at least you are admitting that there is a problem. But it seems you find issue with the label put on the issue. Yes, if there were no consoles, we would call it something else. but it doesn't invalidate the fact that there is a problem. And for lack of a better label, the community in general chooses to call it "Consolization".

Now you also said that if everyone had "Super computers" the problem would remain. And here i think you are missing the mark. The problem is (as I see it) that the larger market is on the less powerful platform, and hence limiting a segment of the market from realizing the full potential of that platform. In this, if you were to level the playing field, people might complain, but the arguments would be of a whole different nature. And therefore would be a separate issue entirely (IMHO).

Not really, I don't find it to be a problem because I don't have enough hours in the day to even play all the games I want to in a given year anyway, not to mention plenty from the last decade and further back I still have just sitting. But even if I did, I still don't think it's a problem, I think it's simply the way it is. It's to be expected. I am simply trying to provide an explanation, personally I think it's a benefit that it's becoming more mainstream. Hell when I was a kid I was a nerd for playing video games and only 2 kids in my 5th grade had an N64. Now as long as you don't let it consume you, it's quite socially accepted. I consider it an improvement.

And the fact that it's poorly defined and little more than misnomer is part of the problem I've had all along. Like I said, people bandy the term about and use it to mean anything and everything they want it to, as such consoles have suddenly become the 'bane' of PC gaming. Basically it's placing blame where it doesn't belong, and in fact, there's little to blame anyway. Because you get rid of the consoles, and these same things will still happen.

You can't blame the console producers for making something that isn't bleeding edge, it's bad business. Personally I don't, but I'm sure some will regardless, blame the game producers for wanting their games to be playable by and enjoyable to a wider audience. I mean there are no perfect games from any year/era/genre/platform, but in spite of everything that's supposedly "wrong" with the industry we still have a lot of incredible games to play. Even multiplatform titles. Even console exclusive titles. And even PC exclusive titles.

Giving everyone super computers would just mean that farmville and addictinggames load faster. Most people wouldn't even realize they had a supercomputer if they had one, the only reasonable change that I could possibly see happening is the lowest common denominator level of graphics would increase marginally, but I think expecting them to leap is unrealistic, because ultimately hardware is not the only limitation, it is but one. Time, manpower, and funding all bottleneck development, and just because every consumer would have a computer that could render pretty high res textures and high poly models and deep backdrops does not mean that the resources to produce any of those exist.

"Consolization" is simply part of what's happening as a result of market changes at work, it's not a root cause itself. When a hurricane comes, it rains. The rain is "consolization" and it can still move the soil around, but it's not the root cause. The hurricane, the changing market, is.
 

IGemini

Platinum Member
Nov 5, 2010
2,473
2
81
Actually, I recant Far Cry 2 for mine. Replace with Battlecruiser Millenium.
 

HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,832
38
91
NFS: undercover...crashes at the intro no matter what.
Deus ex 3: crashes in the alley..again, no matter what i try or driver i have.
SC: conviction..."please insert legitimate CD instead of backup and try again" DRM bs.
BF2: permanent ban from all servers cause it was my first online game and i killed a few team mates not knowing what i was doing....must have ticked off someone important who worked for Dice or something.

basically all the games that i was unable to play. there has been a few more i cant recall ATM
 
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