We don't talk about that Fallout, because it never existed.
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You mean an open world FPS with a Fallout like theme, doesn't ring a bell.
Unfortunately the franchise has a few of those. You could easily be referring to 4, 76, Tactics, or Brotherhood of Steel. Depending on how much of a Fallout purist you are, you could also extend it to 3, and there are some people who (incorrectly) insist that Fallout 2 was the first and last good game in the franchise.
Incorrectly? As if there’s some objective measurement?
This is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but Elder Scrolls peaked at Morrowind. Oblivion was a pretty big step down in quality, and Skyrim was a completely washed out shell of former Elder Scrolls games. I absolutely hated Skyrim and I don't understand why it gets such universal praise from gamers.
I love Skyrim as a modding platform but I really feel you. So much has been lost on quest design from even Oblivion, much less Morrowind. I think Bethesda hedged their bets on exploration being the selling point way too much and it's becoming more and more apparent this has resulted in their quest design and stories suffering. First it was Skyrim, then Fallout 4, and then 76. I am not looking forward to the writing of quests in Starfield.
I am sure that it will do well, because most people love the sandbox exploration of it but imo an rpg lives or dies by its quest and story and I honestly feel as if Bethesda just doesn't have that in them any more.
100% agree.
Morrowind was the peak, oblivion burned me so bad I slept on fallout 3 until after new vegas came out.
I enjoyed all 3 even though they were all very different. I will say that I spent countless hours in Morrowind, many hours in Skyrim, and less in Oblivion (but I beat that one on purpose just not to feel addicted to it).
Do you hate Skyrim in general? Or as an Elders Scrolls game?
Both. It held the players hand way too much, literally quest markers leading you straight where you needed to go which I know is a modern gaming thing but I actually loved that in the older games the quest giver just kind of hinted at where you might find the quest resolution and you had to use your knowledge of the game to piece it together. The story and side-stories of Skyrim were subpar, Morrowind had a ton of side stories that were interesting. One that sticks out in my mind is that every once in awhile you'd see this Orc just racing around at super high speeds non-stop. If you managed to catch up to him, or kill him, you'd find that he has magical shoes on. If you put them on, you find out that they give you super speed, but they're cursed so that you can never stop. Just great, interesting and/or funny stuff like that that rewards your curiosity was simply non-existent in Skyrim afaik.
for me, mods make it better. i do remove quest markers for that more morrowind feel. i play in VR now though and since i beat the game i mostly sit at inns, get a menu and order food. all because of mods
Saying Andromeda for Mass Effect seems too easy of an answer but it's the first one that comes to mind. I didn't even mind the technical and graphical issues (most of them were fixed by the time I played it), but the whole story is just so... bland and soulless. Quests designed by a committee, one-note companions, the most predictable cliche alien species ever, boring and predictable villains (they literally recycled the story from the original franchise)...
I've played the original trilogy a plenty but I can't make myself play through Andromeda a second time for the reasons you've stated. Plus there was a severe lack of my favourite race in the game, Quarians! Boooo
Dark Souls 2: SotFS. I actually kinda like Dark Souls 2, but I think I'm upset the most at how it could've been potentially much better without making radical changes. When they announced the remaster (scholar of the first sin), I was excited that they'd go back and fix it. Hot take? They just made it worse.
They made enemy placements a lot worse and more spammy than ever. They hid the DLC keys in annoying areas. They changed a lot of item placements for no reason other than make the game feel fresh, and some of the new placements made little sense. They also didn't remove adaptability or go for any low-hanging fruit fixes.
It was just a bummer. DS2 could've been a lot better.
Don't necessarily agree that SotFS made it worse, but I agree that DS2 is my least favourite of the series. Which makes it one of my favourite games of all time.
DS2 is my least favorite of the series . Which makes it one of my favorite games
Couldn't have said it myself. I like to diss on DS2 a lot, but that's only because I love dark souls so much.
Agreed, The enemy placements in SotFS were deranged at times. The changes to Heide Knights were a mistake, changing them from cool wandering enemies like the Black Knights to being rarely encountered outside of Heide. Iron Keep got absolutely swamped with Alonne Knights in the upgrade making it a nightmare. Idk how anyone was meant to find the DLC keys without looking at a guide. Why exactly you find the key to the Brume DLC in that random pit with the Flame Lizards in the Forest of the Fallen Giants and not from the Old Iron King befuddles me.
Iron Keep got absolutely swamped with Alonne Knights
Haha yeah the Iron Keep turning into a conga line of knights running after you was a popular meme at the time. Glad I'm not the only one who remembers in this thread!
I also miss old faith builds when DS2 first released. At the time you'd get 11 lightning spears for 1 spell slot, and in one of the updates they reduced it to 3 and nerfed its damage. I had to do a triple take on the patch notes because that was my current build. Still hurts.
Man so true, as decent of a game as it is, it hurts playing DS2 because of the untapped potential. It says something about the "bones" of the game that even with all of its issues it is still a memorable experience.
There is supposed to be some modder developing a total conversion that tries to deliver on that potential but as with any total conversion mod you never know whether it will release or not. But I hope it does so that the potential can finally be done justice.
Thief: Deadly Shadows. A soulless console adaptation of an OG immersive sim.
I agree it doesn't quite catch the flavor of the first two, but do you actually think it's worse than Thi4f?
No, that is worse. I actually lumped them both into one abomination in my mind.
Dragon Age 2. For some reason it gives me anime vibes and I hate anime. It didn't look, sound or feel anything like the previous game at all.
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth. There are other less then stellar games in the Civ franchise that I haven't played like Starships. Beyond Earth, though, was a day 1 purchase for me, and it wasn't -terrible-, but it left a lot to be desired.
Half-Life Alyx, because they made me wait a lifetime for another HL game and it's a VR game. I'm sure it's the best VR game money can buy, but playing it as intended would cost me a fortune and all I'd get out of it is motion-sickness-induced projectile vomiting.
So you haven’t even played it?
Lot's of people can't play VR, including me. I'm not going to force my way through feeling like shit day after day to enjoy something.
I previously commented about Dragon Age and Borderlands but screw that. THIS is the answer I'm going with. Half-Life: Alyx.
I played it under best possible conditions - with a Valve Index, in a full room VR - and absolutely hated it. Cumbersome, slow, and survival horror instead of running around killing stuff feeling like a badass. It doesn't feel like a Half-Life game at all. HL1, HL1:BS, HL1:OF, HL2, HL2:E1, HL2:E2, HL2:LC, Black mesa all were same and all were fun. HL:A? Not so much.
Halo: Infinite. Why oh why did they have to give Spartans cat ears?
Yeah that was very upsetting. I'm not a hardcore Halo fan but Infinite was a game I wanted to like, during that first holiday period I convinced nearly a dozen people to play with me...
The game was so crashy, parties didn't work half the time, the store and battle pass thing was disgusting (they were planning to make it even more money-grubbing) and I barely got to the first BP level after several days. I had some fun during those times but after a few months I stopped holding out hope and lost interest. Forge came a year too late... I don't even feel like going back to it anymore.
I just never could get into BOTW/TOTK, they never felt or played like a Zelda game
Dragon Age: Inquisition just didn't hit the spot for me. The combat somehow managed to get worse than DA2. At least the DA2 combat was visceral.
I played through DAI - and indeed, played through the whole Dragon Age series properly - for the first time quite recently.
I've got incredibly complicated feelings about the game. There's lots of things I really love - if you think of Skyrim as a competitor & DAI as BioWare's answer, there's a lot to like! - and many things that were annoying and very nearly game-ruining. It's the bugs that got me down the most.
Lots of console titles in the comments here. Easy answer there is Zelda 2.
To answer the question as posed, though, Star Control 3 was a massive disappointment after its amazing predecessor.
i have watched zelda 2 playthrough and it actually looked really fun, even if it was very different!
Fuck the haters, Zelda 2 is the only game in the entire series I’ve played to completion.
All the other ones are super boring. I gave up on Zelda completely on Ocarina of Time.
I loved Zelda 2 as a kid. I loved the lore, reading the background story over and over and imagining what it would be like to be Link, fighting to keep your blood from being back Ganon. My brother and I would cheer each other on while taking on the dungeons. Dark Link had us horrifically surprised and it was the first RPG we beat. Great memories around that one.
~~Borderlands 3. The writing just murders it, and the combat doesn't carry it for me. 1, 2, TPS, Wonderlands all have better stories, so I enjoy them more.~~
~~EDIT: aw, shit, you said favorite franchise... hm... Dragon Age: Origins then? I enjoyed DA2/DAI way more, because of the story/quests.~~
EDIT 2: you know what, Half-Life: Alyx. I actively hated that game despite playing it in best possible conditions. It's cumbersome, slow, and too much "survival-horror" instead of an FPS.
oh really? i though people really enjoyed alyx
most people do. i loved it. but OP said he doesnt like survival horror and i do.
First Uncharted, because of the jet ski and nazi zombies.
Oops not PC. My bad.
Half-Life Alyx. It doesn't play anything like the older titles, and I mean that even in terms of VR games. Boneworks is more of a Half-Life game than Half-Life Alyx, while Alyx feels more like a Resident Evil game. It's slow, movement is limited, there are a grand total of 4 weapons (all one-handed, no melee), and enemy variety is incredibly downgraded from prior titles. It's not necessarily a bad title or anything, but after twelve years it's not what I wanted and I had a lot more fun playing games like HL1 or even Resident Evil 4 on my Quest 2 because the ports of these games were trying to introduce more freedom to great games instead of taking freedom away for fear of making a lesser game.
Deus Ex: Invisible War. It might have been a symptom rather than a cause, but it was a clear example of how the PC was sidelined as a game platform throughout the 00s, and the simplification of genres traditionally found on PC for console hardware.
Also, on an individual level, the game sucked! The original didn't have the best voice acting, but it was hammy and endearing. Invisible War's was somehow just wooden and boring. The levels were cut up into tiny chunks separated by loading screens, but even as a whole were smaller and more claustrophobic than almost anything in the original. The weapons were less fun (universal ammunition??), the inventory system was gimped, menus were all big and slow to navigate, stealth mechanics were oversimplified, there were fewer notes and logs and books and news articles in the game world... You get the idea. It's honestly a miracle that the franchise ever recovered.
Do the DOS Mega Man games count?
Those were my first Mega Man games. Turned me off the franchise for years.
Bioshock Infinite, felt more like a shooter with uninspired gameplay elements.