Five Games Never Completed

To finish some games, no matter how highly acclaimed, regardless of just how damn gorgeous they look, can be analogous to getting a root canal in your eye balls.  The following is a list of five notable games I just couldn't make myself complete.

1.  Grand Theft Auto - every damn one

Obviously, the modern GTA series spans several games and two generations, but they’re so damn similar that they only count as one (not to mention that this would be a shitty list otherwise).

Initially, players are introduced to a vast world and interesting story.  About eight to ten hours into any of these titles, I cease playing.  Every time I begin in awe - and end up quitting.  After the first of the narrative intrigue wears off, every subsequent addition to the story is some stupid scrap of “Go kill him!” “Set that on fire!” and “Run enemy X from faction Y off the road!”  My, that’s a lot of exclamation points.  The problem is, who gives a shit?  After watching another vacuous cut scene in a hyperbolic vernacular, undertaking the “10-hour-trip-to-Grandma’s” simulator, and completing the same mission for the seventy fourth time, the story has progressed the whole length of a Chihuahua’s wang.  Unlike with games I want to keep playing, GTA has a tendency to lay out everything the game has to offer in thirty minutes flat.  Now, what’s $60.00 divided by 30 minutes?  Too damn much for me to ever buy another GTA installment.

2.  Far Cry 2

This game mostly offends by adhering to the template of the above: I think I’ll call it “Who gives a crap?” syndrome.  Far Cry 2 is one of the most visually delectable games I've ever played.  To further its credibility, it did ditch the completely out of place Hulk Rage mechanism that plagued previous iterations. However, beauty is only skin deep - at least when it comes to video games.  Overall, this one is just plain tedious.

Want to hit the roads?  Forget it.  Every fifty yards you hit a “guard post” filled with mercenaries ready to get in their cars and hound you until you have to stop what you’re doing, kill them, and try to remember what in the hell you were doing in the first place.  Sure, you can kill guards and get a rewarding message that keeps track of how many posts you've cleaned out.  But if all the enemies respawn the next time you pass through, who the Hitler’s Ghost cares?  Where’s my in-game reward?  Why am I having to fight the same dicks over and over?

Technical glitches abound as well.  First, hit detection is terrible.  Too many times does the fun you could have had ditch you and instead go home with Ted Kennedy.  I’ve had many an unaware bastard in my sight before letting lose a bullet barrage.   Then, instead of a great death animation, the AI just looks up to see what the noise was.  He’s not filled with holes, bleeding, and trying to desperately crawl away!  I lost count of how many times I just had to walk up to a hostile and butcher it with my machete.  For whatever reason, AI responds much better to that and dies more appropriately.  

My last gripe is a combination of my first and second:  respawning and technical glitches.  I experienced so many erratic AI spawning glitches that I almost began to think I lost my marbles.  Did anyone else bitch about enemies respawning out of thin air?  I once had an enemy jeep, complete with driver and gunner, drop out of the sky right in front of me.  At first I thought, “Amazing!”  Where can I find this vehicle?  Unfortunately, I played for a few more hours, never found this superb hovercraft, and turned the game off for good.

3.  Assassin’s Creed

Goodness, are we recognizing a trend in this list?  For the readers with learning disabilities, the trend is an obsession with creating incredible environments but populating them with chore-like activities.  Playing Assassin’s Creed was like shaving ten years off my life.  And not in a good, youthful exuberance way.  Playing this beautiful pile of my dog’s puke was like being transported back to my childhood - and getting grounded.

To be fair, this game is much more enjoyable than the above two.  For whatever reason, there was just a lack of motivation to keep playing.  I’ll say no more about this one.  I’ll buy the sequel.  And then not finish it.

4.  a single Final Fantasy game

I enjoyed playing Final Fantasy III on the DS immensely;  it rocked serious spiky-haired protagonist.  There were a multitude of unique classes from which to choose and mix in any combination.  Hell, you could create a quad of Super Ass-Kicking Bards if you wanted.  It was freedom!  However, I didn’t finish it, but I’ll come back to that. 

I bought the next installment, Final Fantasy IV, with high hopes - only to be blindsided by regressive game design.  At first I couldn’t put my finger on it.  It looked identical to FF III (ignore reviewers who claim otherwise).  I began recognizing that something was terribly wrong when my party’s classes kept changing (without my consent) in the middle of cut scenes.  After three hours I realized the problem.  I was no longer playing an RPG.  I was playing some piece of crap game of calculus.  Choices?  nope.  Creativity or experimentation?  Forget about it.  The rocking free will of FF III was long gone.  If you’re a fan of predestination as opposed to role playing, go get your rocks off with FF IV.

Even though I adored FF III, it still suffered from the fate of every other FF game I’ve ever played: the numbing knowledge that comes with the encounter of the last boss.  You can’t beat it.  You’ve spent countless hours tweaking your party’s attributes and strategies, but you’re never going to beat the finale unless you go back and level up for five freaking more hours.  Hell, no.

5.  Battlefield 2’s single player campaign

If you want the worst gaming experience ever devised, pick up an old copy of BF 2 and play the offline single player campaign.  Christ, it was terrible.  I won’t dignify this game with the effort of ripping it a third anus; BF 2 obviously already had two to begin with.