[buddi]

I usually finish what I start, I don't know why it's so hard for me to walk away from a bad game, I'll sit there with a walkthrough just to get it over with faster and verbally abuse the characters and the developers mothers as I put them through their paces.

Some games I finished with a walkthrough, merely out of perversity:

Paradise Nothing about this game appealed to me. The graphic style was so muddy, I had no idea what things were, the puzzles were idiotic and poorly clued, the characters annoying and the story lame.

Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express A lot of to-ing and fro-ing, some poorly designed puzzles and hot spot hunting.

Runaway 2: the Dream of the Turtle The puzzles were nonsensical and farfetched, but mostly I found the story stupid and the main character really, really annoying.

Secret Files: Tunguska Same as above. The male character in particular was smarmy and rude to everyone.

Gabriel Knight: the Beast Within I really didn't like the FMV sequences in this game and I thought they made Grace too whiney and matronly. Despite this I enjoyed it pretty much until the end but the maze puzzle with the wolf was one of the worst puzzles I have ever encountered. I printed out a detailed walkthrough and followed it step by step, R, L, L, R etc etc. I never would have gotten through without it, and it seems mean to cut people down so close to the end of the game.

Overclocked Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive... oh yeah, did I mention repetitive?

Games I couldn't finish without downloading saves:

Dreamfall I hated the stealth and action sequences. I have a video game phobia about being chased through underground passages by diseased or deformed creatures, as well, it was my first 3d adventure so I had trouble with the controls. I'd pretty much figured out the solution, but I couldn't get past the nasties so I downloaded a save. Ditto for the evil twins, I just couldn't run fast enough. I tried to replay the game recently with a game pad, to see if I could get through those sequences, but I don't have the patience to replay games and I never got that far.

Next Life I managed the first mini game by turning the sound all the way off, but the others were impossible for me, in an otherwise fairly easy game.

The Experiment I just couldn't get the tribunal puzzle, I would be sure I was doing everything right and then he would say I had to go back to the beginning. I tried for days and finally had to download a save. Unfortunately, it's part of a long no save sequence, so I missed the following puzzle.

Grim Fandango I kept getting stuck on the conveyor belt, apparently a processor issue. I tried running CPU killer but still couldn't play it through. I used a save to get past that part and the rest of the game played fine.

Some games I started but never finished:

80 Days, Dead reefs, Bad Mojo Redux These games were intriguing, but the controls bothered me too much to play. I bought 80 Days online, not realizing it came with Starforce protection, so that was just one more reason I was happy to have it off my computer. I can see myself returning to Bad Mojo Redux one day, I liked the graphics and the idea of it, I just died a bunch of times in a row and put it aside for a bit and I just haven't gotten back to it.

Amerzone, Aura: Sacred Rings, Faust - 7 Games of the soul, Last Express, NiBiRu, Sherlock Holmes: the Awakening, Ankh, Undercover: Operation Wintersun, Missing: Since January, GK 3 These are all games I started, but they just couldn't hold my interest. I was happen to abandon them when something better came along.. like dirty dishes, or watching paint dry. Missing was a real let down, as I loved Evidence: the Last Ritual, but the arcade games were too twitchy for me.

Finally, my heart break category: games I got into but what unable to finish for whatever reason:

Broken Sword: Angel of Death. I've played the first few scenes of this one a bunch of times. I originally tried to play it on my lap top but the graphics card wasn't up to snuff and it would crash after about 20 mins of play. I then tried to install it on my desk top, but my old CRT monitor was in such crappy condition, I couldn't see into dark corners well enough to play. I put it aside until I upgraded, only to find out that it is unplayable with a quad core processor. One of these days my roomates will go on vacation and I can hook up their CPU to my monitor and find out what I have been missing all this time.

Riven A similar story. The graphic didn't look good on my old monitor, so I upgraded, only to find it wasn't Vista compliant. It starts off okay, but then crashes when I try to click on a particular object, making it impossible to continue.

Myst IV: Revelations Started out great with this one but then I got stuck. I refuse to look at a walkthrough since I had so much fun figuring things out until I got stuck, eventually I will get back to it.

Penumbra: Black Plague I'm stuck in a control room with an infected zombie trying to gnaw my brain out. I know what I am supposed to do, I have the graphics turned all the way down and difficulty set to lame n00b but when I try to slam the door in his face, my mouse goes all stuttery and I can't respond in time. I'm the first to admit I am not an action gamer, but I really like the aesthetic of this game and the physics based game play, so I'm still holding out hope that someone will post me a save game.

**EDIT** Oh yeah, Psychonauts I played the demo on my PC but I found the gamepad/keyboard combination a little distracting so I ordered it for PS2. It doesn't look as good, but the game is freaking brilliant. The only platformer I've ever played before is LEGO Starwars, so maybe its a lousy platformer, but in terms of story and characters and just plain fun, I love it. My only problem with it is that my roommate is WAY ahead of me so I've had to banish myself from the TV room to avoid spoilers.

[Strok]

Hello folks! First time poster here, so I'll start with chiming in.

For me, I recently purchased Sherlock Holmes, Case of the silver earring (or was it curse? I forget...). After hearing the accent of Holmes it nearly made me gag. His voice is simply atrocious... You could instantly tell it wasn't written by people who speak English very well. The voice actors were all terrible and it rendered any possibility of me playing the game to completion very much naught.

Which is a damn shame too because it looks really good!

Also, Malcom's Revenge. I started playing it off the back of finishing the masterpiece of Hand of Fate. I can't for the life of me understand why they put in a, admittedly removable, laughter track and it's really hard to parse in my brain the colourful 2d sprite with the early nineties rendered 3d landscape. It just didn't work for me and didn't have any of the catchy music that the second one had...

Oblivion, like one of the previous posters said, was jaw droppingly good looking when you first play it but it gets incredibly old when you level up and level up and level up and, because of the stupid ability of the enemies to level up with you, renders all of this completely meaningless. If you can't kill a rat at level 1, you won't kill the rat at level 20 because the rat is doing roids.

Midnight Nowhere was another adventure that I just couldn't finish. It's not that it was a terrible game, it looked great, but it was so very... very sterile. You can't look or do very much at all. I was raised on adventure games where you could look at nearly everything, even if it had no relevance. This game had nothing like it. My faith is rekindled by starting to play Longest Journey finally.

A game that should teach me not to play the sequels is Broken Sword. The games are great but they really cannot end any of the games. First one, crap ending. Second one, AWFUL credits tune. (Happiness is an inside job?!). The third one was the worst and... well... I've not finished the most recent one as I gave up after that scene (it's been a while, bear with me) where you're underground and there's been a machine gun fight and... and (-struggles to remember-) there's some rotating wheels on the wall. I just lost all interest. My partner reliably informs me that I'm not missing anything and the ending is utter poo.

I believe her.

Anyway, hello once again and goodnight!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Strok

Oblivion, like one of the previous posters said, was jaw droppingly good looking when you first play it but it gets incredibly old when you level up and level up and level up and, because of the stupid ability of the enemies to level up with you, renders all of this completely meaningless. If you can't kill a rat at level 1, you won't kill the rat at level 20 because the rat is doing roids.

I don't think that's true. I'm currently level 45 (or higher, don't remember), rats die upon a single strike by my blade (pending weapon damage stat) or flame spell. One thing actually never changes, though - the rats stay annoying no matter what level you are.

[stepurhan]

Welcome to the forums Strok. Hope you enjoy yourself here.

Having completed Midnight Nowhere I'd say that you haven't missed out on anything. It is one of those games I finished more from sheer stubbornness rather than because I enjoyed it a great deal.

[ssa]

Midnight Nowhere (shivers)
Horrible game! I remember finishing it also through shear stubborness and thanks to a walkthrough with warnings of where not to look.

Two games I couldn't finish even with a walkthrough:

80 days - because I couldn't get him to jump on to a boulder or something, wich was the only way to advance in the game.

The Experiment - I couldn't pass the plants in the Tyriades area. Just the last straw in a game full of similarily frustrating parts. If I would have had the game developers in front of me then, I probably would have needed to be restrained. No game has ever made me as mad as that one.

[MdaG]

I've been holding off of Odin Sphere for over a month now. I'm at the end of the second book. Somewhere along the line it just occurred to me that the game keeps repeating itself in an absurd way I've not seen since the days of NES. It's basically the same cycle over and over again. The graphic style had me mesmerized in the beginning, but now that the effect has faded I'm pretty sure I won't return to it any time soon. It's too bad though the story build up was pretty neat with all those separate side stories filling in gaps in the larger picture.

[youfightlikeadairyfarmer]

Myst - I liked the game but I had no idea what to do at all for anything. The game seemed like it was completely mind-blowingly impossible to my young mind.

Bioshock - The graphics were good and I did love the setting, but it got boring to me fast, especially when I'd recently played Half Life 2, arguably the greatest game ever made. I bought a new graphics card to play the game and now I lost all interest. Maybe I overhyped it.

Metroid Prime: Corruption/Super Mario Galaxy - I loved this, but Brawl came out before I could beat it, so other Wii games were ignored. Also I never make the effort to unplug my DVD player to play Wii anymore. I love my Wii and it's sitting there so lonely .

Tomb Raider: Any - I like shooting stuff but I don't like searching for pully switches. Cheat codes FTW!

Broken Sword 3 - This depresses me because I was really liking it and I can't get it to work on my PC.

I fail to finish so many games, it's sad.