Games We Gave Up On – First Half of 2014

We were playing Earth Defense Force 2025 this weekend and we had nearly had enough. Gigantic spiders had defeated us a few times with their unusual tactic of launching webbing at us through nearby buildings. We had almost given up when we were rewarded with some innovative weaponry (plasma cannons and ten-round rocket launchers). Suddenly, we were back in action. Sure, the game’s retro graphics and uninspiring level design will probably catch up with us sooner or later, but for now we’ll persist a few more levels.

Yeah these spiders are cheaters but when you’re launching ten rockets at a time, who cares?

No, not even Patrick Stewart could keep me in this game.

That wasn’t the case for Lords of Shadow 2 earlier this year. Something about returning to that godawful industrial plant to sneak around robots that looked like they escaped from the Super Mario Brothers movie made us feel less like the prince of darkness and more like, well, Bob Hoskins from the Super Mario Brothers movie. Doki Doki, despite all its cuteness, couldn’t keep our attention after a series of game freezes (a game spent picking up objects to look for objects underneath them isn’t a lot of fun but we still rave about the personality tests). And our list goes on: Twilight Princess, Grand Theft Auto 4, Lost in Shadow, Metal Gear Solid 3, Metal Gear Solid 4…all of these games were great but somehow we (or some of us at least) never quite finished them.

Our most regrettable game surrender? Grim Fandango. We just lost our interest at about the second level. Once you take over the nightclub, you are introduced to a very large new world with a variety of characters and potential problems to solve and…well, we just felt overwhelmed. Getting Manny to his Casablanca-like existence seemed as good a stopping place as any. We’ve regretted it ever since and we’re excited that Playstation will be offering us a chance to make it right. If this works out, maybe we’ll even give Zack McKracken another chance.

We’re sorry we let you down, Manny. We’ll give it another try soon!

Why did we play through this whole game after quitting so many others? Was it the graphics? The music? The story? The gameplay? All of the above, actually.

We quit other things too. We’re about to surrender on The Leftovers (the Guilty Remnant is just the dumbest cult ever) just like we did Homeland last year. We’re not sure when exactly a game, movie, book or t.v. show becomes so annoying that quitting is preferable to persisting. Why is it we have these games we gave up on?  How was it that we could we play Ni No Kuni from one end to the other but still haven’t finished Metal Gear Solid 4? We don’t get it either. What games have you given up on this year so far? Let us know in the comments.