You all know how this goes. You get a game recommendation and you're excited to get into the game. You start playing it but immediately realize you're not having fun with it. You consider quitting it, but suddenly a fan of the game starts telling you over and over again that "it gets better, you'll see! It's worth it!" So, you slog through it. Sometimes you even manage to finish it. But it never did "get better". In fact, it ended up being a huge waste of time. And you end up wondering why didn't people just tell you to quit the game, instead of telling you it would get better (sometimes this happens late in the game, to top it all off).

Know the feeling? If you do, feel free to participate in the discussion by letting us know what games people kept telling you "would get better" and "would be worth it" when they should have just realized that maybe those games just weren't your cup of tea -- for whatever number of reasons -- and told you it wasn't actually worth the trouble.

This isn't a thread about the "quality" of a game; no single person is the target audience for *every* video game, and saying a game isn't for us doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad game.

I'll start it off by giving two examples: Divine Divinity and Outcast (1.1). In the case of Divine Divinity, I never even managed to finish it, but I *did*, unfortunately, finish Outcast, because people kept telling me about how great the story was and how the "twist" was so rewarding. Turns out there was actually no twist, and I found the story to be pretty boring, full of clichés and ultimately badly written and implemented; plus the characters are some of the worst voiced in any video game I played and the main protagonist, Cutter Slade, is arguably the less charismatic, most unlikable character I ever had the displeasure to play as. My understanding of the whole thing is that it basically is a mix of Tintin comics with a really shoddily made poor-man's Stargate (the movie, not the TV show), in which you play as some douchebag. The only good thing about finishing this game, to me, was knowing I wouldn't have to touch it ever again.

As for Divine Divinity, it's much more simple: I was expecting a fun, pick-up-and-play hack'n slash, but what I got was a long-ass action cRPG, way too complex for my liking, with a kind of humour that I tend to find unfunny at best. Yet, people seemed to not be able to understand that not all gamers have the same kind of humour, and kept telling me it gets "so much better". Let me just say this: if you don't like the humour in Larian games from the get-go, it does *not* get any better. Trust me, I tried, I endured way too many hours of it, and now I'll never get those hours of my life back. I wish I could.

I guess I could also mention Deus Ex, but that one is a very special case, as I am actually the one telling myself it will get better. I've been telling that to myself for roughly 17 years.

Now, a little disclaimer: I know these games are cherished by *a lot* of people, in here. I understand many of you will try to tell me "it gets better". Others will straight up bash and ridicule me for disliking some of the "best games ever made". That's fine, I'm not going to stop you. But nothing you say will make me think these games are enjoyable or that they "eventually get better". Again: I'm not saying, at all, that these are bad games, they just didn't "get better" to me, and I wished someone had told me to quit them, instead of telling me to endure them.

Only problem is, for people that love any particular game, they genuinely believe it will 'get better' (I tend to think this actually means they think you'll grow to like it - not necessarily that it gets objectively better). Anyway, if you've actually told people that you're not liking a game and why you don't like it... they should probably get the hint and be able to tell you to just put it aside, yes.

Personally, I can't really tihnk of any offhand where this occurred to me.

I really can't think of a game I'd spend too much time with if I don't like it. I don't care for assurances that "it get's better". Even if that's true... so what? What do I care if it's better 5, 10 or 30 hours in? Why can't the game be good right now? Others can. Why would I keep playing it until it might, perhaps, get good, instead of picking up something else that will be fun from the get go? I'll give a game a chance, I won't turn it off immediately, but once I feel I played enough, then it's enough.

I wholeheartedly agree with what you said.

The thing is that, quite a few times, people won't understand why you're not enjoying a game, no matter how much or how well you explain that to them. For instance, I kept telling Larian fans how I wasn't enjoying Divine Divinity, particularly its brand of reference-humour, and they kept telling me it would, in fact, get better. Some of those folks realized I probably wouldn't like it at all, when I told them I didn't laugh or even smirk at that "existentialist skeleton" joke, but most just dismissed that and kept asking me to keep trying the game.

I understand wanting to have others enjoying the same stuff we do, but if someone tells me they can't get into Soul Reaver because they find the game to be too ugly, too clunky, too serious, too melodramatic, or because Raziel is too "emo", as much as I love the game, I will tell them to stop playing, because it's not going to get any better to them. Seems like the right attitude to have, to me.

Off the top of my head: Turok 2.

I despise that game. I played the original Turok for the first time earlier this year (I had only played Evolution in the series on the PS2 when I was a kid), and it was an absolute blast. Turok 2 changed so much, and almost always not for the better. The biggest issue for me was how tedious the level design was, especially towards the end when you had to go through levels again to get stuff you couldn't before. The look of the levels and how they were laid out made it such a slog to get through everything. It wasn't even hard, just a grind. The often-times useless map made matters worse. There were other issues I had as well--how slow you were compared to Turok 1, what felt like sometimes arbitrary damage outputs (perhaps this wasn't the case, but it felt like it), the repetitive music that was a downgrade from Turok 1, among a few other things. But the level design by far contributed the most to how much I hated it, especially considering how pretty well-done it was in Turok 1.

There were ups and downs to start the game off. There were moments of genuine fun. But the grind got to me at about the 2/3 mark of the game, perhaps a bit past that. YetI had seen all the great reviews on it, and being bolstered by that and a great experience with Turok 1 I kept going. Eventually, I finished it just to say I beat it and because I was near enough to the end. I can safely I am never going back to that game again. Aww, I loved Divine Divinity. Actually finished it a few months ago for the first time. I wouldn't say the humor is "my kind" of humor or gut-bustingly funny, but I found it amusing and genuinely funny at times. I could see how someone else wouldn't like it though. Shame that you hated it, but different strokes for different folks. It could've probably done with being a little bit shorter, but for me there was a ton of interesting stuff to do.

As for Deus Ex, I tried it a little bit but wasn't impressed. To be honest though, I don't think I've given it enough of a fair shot. I may go back to it sometime, but I got other games in my backlog to get to.

To me the strange thing is I don't even remember the humor being such a major part of the game as to ruin it if one doesn't find it funny. It was there, it added some flavor, I liked it a lot, but I don't remember it as a comedy game. Just a game with some comic relief. But it's been many, many years since I played it.

Russian Roulette

You should quit playing with my heart.

The Crying Game

Hmm.... Honestly the first thing that popped into my head when I read the thread title was World of Warcraft.

Only played it for a few months near launch, and all it really did was trigger my addictive OCD like behavior when it comes to games.
And having to deal with actual people on the other end really brought out a lot of my bad social behaviors.

Think I'd have been better off had I never played that game, or any of the other MMO games that I briefly got into there after.

(And this is coming from someone that all told only payed for maybe... say five months total subscription in all the MMOs I've played, including the months that came from the initial purchases. I feel bad for people that have become super addicted and have been playing for years.)

It was the sequel, Baldur's Gate 2, that did it for me. Got so irritated with the combat that I just quit giving a crap about the story.

The Witcher. Something about it is just meh. I love the combat and such, but by the third act, the game is so repetitive and boring that I've never actually finished it. Witcher 2 suffered from similar problems despite the more action focus. Witcher 3 isn't as bad, but I've still never reached Kaer Morhen.

People tell me how awesome it is, and I'll go back into the game thinking "OK, I've missed something." Eventually my enthusiasm peters out at about the same place every time. The Witcher 3 is different, I really do like it (I think, or at least I want to like it) but I keep getting distracted by life or newer games and forgetting about it until when I do go back, I have to start over due to not remembering ANYTHING about where I am.

The problem with recommendations in general, and in online forums in particular, is that (even if you specify you like X and Y and dislike Z) people will almost always suggest what they like, not what they believe you will like. Unless you know very well the person that made the recommendation, just keep in mind that personal taste is... well, personal.

Starbound. Turns out I had played it during the peak back in the Koala beta.