I've been playing Risen off and on for about a week now, about a full year after I had originally given up on it. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, especially compared to how boring I found it to be originally, and I'm quite happy that I decided to give it a second chance. I think I didn't like it the first go around simply because it felt too similar to Gothic 3 (which I had finished a week or so before starting Risen) and I had become more than a little burnt out on the "Gothic" formula (which Risen somewhat follows).

Well recently I've been looking for an open world action roleplaying game to play having gotten tired of the Elder Scrolls games. I initially tried giving Gothic 3 another playthrough but that didn't last long, and I haven't been in the mood for Divinity II. That left me with Risen, which I expected to be just as mediocre as I remembered it. However, playing Risen now I can see many positives that I completely overlooked when I first played it, it's actually quite a bit of fun! Without giving it a second chance I would probably still be mumbling about how I found it to be mediocre, so as mentioned previously, I'm quite glad I've given it a second chance.


What are your favorite "second chance" games, and what lead you to disliking the game initially and what lead you to giving the game a second chance?

Dracula: The Resurrection - for some reason I could not get into it the first time around. I put it aside for a long time and then found the cd and re-installed it. And loved it!

Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen.

I first tried this game when it was released, I was a child back then and I remember reading the manual over and over enjoying the lore. Unfortunately, when I decided to play it, I felt overwhelmed and did not understand the very basics.

Twenty years have passed and now I enjoy the game with new eyes.

A fair number for me. Most of the time it's because I fire up a game not really knowing what I'm in the mood for and after playing a bit I decide this particular game isn't it. I then get sidetracked with something else. Having said that:

Risen for me as well, for pretty much the same reason you stated.

Dragon Age:Awakening (along with a couple of the DLCs that I'd grabbed). I played about half way through Awakening and then just set it aside. I'm not a huge fan of high level play in RPGs, so this is a big reason I abandoned it. I played through another run of DA:O early this year and took that character right into Awakening and finished it. I found I quite enjoyed it this time. The DLCs were something I'd picked up around the same time as I was playing Awakening, so never got around to playing them after I abandoned the game. Finished those with same character when I did that run through DA:O and DA:A.

Drakensang Series: These ones I bought a while back but could never really get into them because I just didn't feel like really learning the rule set. Again, this year I took a second look, found some info on the rules, and ran through them one after the other. I ended up really, really liking them.

Divine Divinity: I started this one about 6 times and never got out of the starting area. I found it too... tedious? Boring? Not sure exactly what it was, but it wasn't clicking with me for some reason. Finally, last year I had a hankering to try it again and ran through the whole thing. Ton of fun.

I don't have a good history of second chances:
Witcher - tried 3 times, always stopped after prologue (too "open world")
Baldur's Gat - tried 3 times, stopped at different points, all pretty early (didn't enjoy RT battles)
Fallout - tried 3 times, always gave up at the Hub (too much dialogue)
Sword of the Stars, The Pit - tried 3 times, stopped at different levels (teens), always because I was disillusioned with crafting
Two Worlds - tried twice, always stopped early on (too "open world" and died way too often)
Divine Divinity - tried twice, never left first village (too tedious, but Coelocanth is giving me hope...)

I did manage:
Half-Life - finished it on a second playthrough, was OK

My big success:
Etherlords - got stuck in one of the first missions and gave up; played again (from the beginning) a few months later and loved it. Immediately continued to Etherlords 2, which was even better (one of my all-time favourites)

Looking back on this list, I guess I'm no longer much of an RPG gamer. I used to be in the 80's and 90's, but appaently times have changed.

Suikoden. I played the first one for a while, found the intro a bit stale, and abandoned it in favour of a game that grabbed me right away.

A few years later, I randomly bought Suikoden V on a whim, absolutely loved it, and after losing my save a few hours in, decided to go back to the start of the series and play from the beginning. I've since completed (and loved) I, II and IV, and am half way through III. I still haven't got back round to playing V again.

I'm a big fan of RPGs and I used to play Baldur's Gate all the time, it was the only game I played when I wasn't in school. I really enjoyed the world and that pure role playing, exploring, meeting different kind of creatures that you only do in a fantasy world. I spent a lot of time in the Bioware forums because I pretty much loved every game they made.

After playing Baldur's Gate for a couple years a new game came out called Neverwinter Nights. I was extremely exciting to explore a new world again, meet interesting creatures with a impressive story. At first impression I was disappointed because it was in 3D and I really hated everything related to 3D graphics, found it so ugly. I played the main campaign and I began to wonder, am I really playing a Bioware game? What is this?

I decided that this game is worthless, waste of time, because it was nothing like Baldur's Gate at all. I uninstalled the game and didn't touch it for months and months. As time went by, I was hoping a new RPG would come, something with a great story, a fantasy world I would truly enjoy. But nothing new came.

After about 1.5 years of no rpg gaming I thought I could give Neverwinters Nights a second chance. I saw it and tried to play it once again but couldn't handle it, it was too much. I couldn't understand how Bioware could have made such a crappy game, they weren't the dedicated RPG studio I thought they were. Uninstalled it again and started playing Baldur's Gate. But then I realized how refreshing the UI felt in Neverwinter Nights, it was so much easier to navigate and issue commands. I was also a bit tired of playing same game over and over again.

So I gave it a third chance. I decided I'm going to play through the entire campaign no matter how bad it is. After finishing the campaign I tried out some user-made ones and that's when I fell in love with Neverwinter Nights. I ended up playing this game more than any other game, probably put in at least 1000 hours. I would recommend this game to anyone if you can appreciate the game for what it is, not for what you want it to be.

Today, I'm still waiting for a RPG that caught my interest and enjoyed the story as much as Baldur's Gate did. Thanks to crowdfunding that might happen but I don't get much hopes up too much these days :)

Bioshock 2

It was the first Bioshock game I played, I didn't like it at all, probably because I wasn't used to using plasmids during combat and was playing it as a standard FPS.

So, I got the Bioshock Ultimate Rapture Edition, played Bioshock 1, loved it - played Bioshock 2, absolutely loved it. Played Biohshock Infite as well, and liked it.

Bioshock 2 is actually my favorite of the three.

I actually did this with Mass Effect 1. I must have started and stopped 3 times before I finally saw it through and was very glad . Now I've had ME2 sitting on my steam account for about 3 years, practically untouched, because for some reason the data from ME1 wouldn't transfer over and I lost interest.

Similar story with me. The first few times I played the game, I left the healer's town and went to the first city and I just felt overwhelmed by the size of the map and stopped playing. It was only this April that I finished the game after buying it here more than 3 years ago, and I loved it so much I bought Dragon Commander and now Original Sin here full price just to support Larian, even though I don't even have a computer that can run those games.

Another one for me is Boiling Point: Road to Hell the game was extremely buggy and the gunplay is not the best. The first half-dozen times I tried it I only made it to a mob boss's villa, learned I needed a heck of a lot of money to proceed with the plot and I lost interest. I finally sat down and finished the game, and while it does have its share of issues, I still enjoy many of the things it does right. I love the concept of an open world with different factions to work for and play against each other, but that feature doesn't quite live up to its full potential.

Amnesia a Machine for Pigs. I heard so many bad things about this one I was going in with a negative view. It doesn't help that the start of the game lagged a bit. But after a while I started it back up and loved it. You just have to play it for the story instead of the gameplay. It's very similar to The Chinese Rooms other game Dear Esther but with a great and horrific story with awesome little details.

There were these S&M type beds with cages around them in the very first chapter. Towards the very end you find a journal entry that explains what they were really for.

hm, maybe the OP idea could also work with aliens colonial marines?

For me, the biggest thing about RPGs is I want to know the mechanics and general info on the quirks of the game, the abilities, and the skills (I absolutely loathe the thought of wasting valuable skill or attribute points) For Drakensang, I looked at the sections in a few walkthroughs that dealt strictly with character building and mechanics. I can't recall all of them, but I did use the Drakensang wiki (note especially the info under the 'Dark Eye RPG System' heading). I also used the general tip info Here. I think I found some info on Gamebanshee as well and I know for sure I used an English forum on dtp entertainment's site, but I'll be damned if I can find it now.

Thanks for this! The guide on gamepressure will be especially helpful (I always forget there are really good walkthroughs and guides there sometimes.) I have a feeling knowing things like which order to approach fights and such may really help me get a grasp on the early part of the game, while I get used to the rule set and such. I got the impression when I first played that either the difficulty varied pretty greatly, or it just got ultra-hard really fast. Bookmarking these and hoping to add these to my "second chance" list soon. Thanks again! :)