Try to stay away from games that became boring after so many hours played.
Rebuild 3. I thought this would be a great building and zombie simulation. But I found it extremely monotonous. Kept waiting for things to pick up and get interesting and after way too many days of trying had too shelve it. In fact it’s the only game I can think of in decades that hit me hard with a “why am I playing this, I’m bored out of my mind!?” thought pattern.
I can’t think of any negative experiences in recent memory where I had to force myself to finish a game. The closest was Divinity: Original Sin (boring forgettable story, goofy cartoon art direction), but that had several redeeming qualities too.
I hate to say it but, Dragon Age Inquisition.
I want to like it so bad…it has potential…but have tried playing it recently for the second time and it’s just not doing anything for me.
The first time (2 years ago) I put something like 30 hours into it and was still only in the first area. Played again recently with the intention of only spending a little time there and just moving on but I was bored to death a few hours into the game. I enjoyed the combat far more in DA: Origins and DA II. It’s a great looking game and I like the scale of it and that it’s not just a series of corridors, but something is missing.
Just about any FPS or RTS (with the exception of Paradox titles).
Oh, and Rebuild 3 is excellent
Skyrim. I’ve tried to get into it several times, but it only takes a dozen repetitions of “enter the tunnel, fight some dudes, find some treasure” for me to get utterly bored and shelve it again.
Stallaris. I tried it at release, and I tried it again more recently. While it has improved, the game forces you to spend way, way too much time with micro management and boringly/repetitively painting the map in your color. And then after a 40 hour game, it’s like “Oh, did you want to see some sort of end game content/crisis? Too bad. For whatever reason (bug? RNG?) that is not happening in this play through. Maybe if you spent $80 on DLC this game would be interesting?” I’ve dumped so much time/hope into this game without it once paying off.
I think for me it would have to be XCOM. Actually, this has happened to me twice - back when the original was released, I tried it out on PC and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it, but I knew I wasn’t feeling this game that everyone else thought was a staggering work of genius. Then I played the newer release and found it easier to get into but it still didn’t do much for me.
The older I get, the more this becomes the norm. There have been very few games I haven’t been bored with pretty quickly in the last 5 years. I’d have to second the Skyrim thing especially. Amazing world, horrible character models, horrible loot, horrible combat. Enter zone, open chest, find some incredibly un-inspired loot, repeat x 1000…zzzzzzzzzz. One day, I will get Skyrim with Diablo level loot, which is the game I’ve wanted to make since 1999.
Far Cry 3 and 4. I don’t know why it just seemed so boring after the first few missions.
But that’s a rare circumstance for me. Usually it’s the other way around. Like when I started up the Ubisoft game Zombi, just because it was free with Games w Gold, and I found myself going back to it again and again, because it was so great. Same with lots of other games. Like Dragon Age: Origins, for example. I was expecting another Baldur’s Gate, and yet, the characters really got to me, they were so interesting I ended up playing the game all the way through, despite not liking the art, music, gameplay.
Crusader Kings 2 for me. I just can’t get into it.
Most recently would be Iconoclasts. I love konjak but the game was just too slow and boring for me. I didn’t hate it at least.
Civilization V: Beyond Earth
I went in with self-deluded visions of an Alpha Centauri successor crossed with my favorite entry in the Civ series, Civ V; but instead all I got was a b-b-b-BORING case of BOREDOM crossed with busywork and messy visuals.
Dragon Age: Origins
Holy crap did I not care about the stupid story or any of its stupid characters in this stupid, boring game. I had high hopes going in, thanks to KotOR, but by the end of my first couple hours I’d long forgotten what those hopes were and found myself wondering how much more fun I’d have been having if I’d spent my $50 on pogs.
Seconded. Every time I play it, I think, “I could be playing Distant Worlds, or anything else.” And close it.
Oh, wow, I forgot about Mass Effect! (That’s how boring it was!) I did manage to finish it, but can’t make myself start Mass Effect 2.
+1 to all of these: Skyrim, Stellaris, Civ 5: Beyond Earth, Dragon Age: Origins
Pillars of Eternity dumped way too much lore on me early on. If you make up a fantasy world, you’ve got to get me interested in it as I play the game. Don’t assume I’m going to immediately care what the difference is between the Al’ii’oul’a elves and the Ol’ee’i’oa elves and be willing to read walls of text about it. I ended up just skipping through the dialogue, and then I pretty quickly realized there’s no point in playing the game if I’m going to do that.
PoE2 looks more interesting though. At least it’s not just another generic fantasy setting, so maybe I’ll be willing to put more effort into it.
This for me too. And Stellaris.
Try and try as I might, after seeing so many other people have the time of their lives with the game, I just keep failing to find the fun with this game too. I’m convinced I’m missing something, it’s too popular for it not to be fun somehow, but I’m not sure how to find and appreciate that fun.
Mass Effect 2 The characters where great for the most part but the overall game & story I found super boring.
Dragon Age Inquisition: Could never get past arriving at the castle, so boring.
I was never bored with the main plot of ME2. I was infuriated at how stupid it was, but I was never bored.
Can we just argue about the definitions of “fun” and “boring” instead?
The problem with Rebuild is that you’re not truly playing it until you’re playing it on the hardest difficulty level. It’s one of those strategy games that’s a bit timid about pushing back at you, so it offers lots of lower difficulty levels that are perfectly fine for learning the game. But to fully appreciate it’s appeal, you need to dial the difficulty all the way up and learn to live with the defeats, deaths, setbacks, shortages, and inevitable collapses. Such is a zombie apocalypse.
In other words, you weren’t playing it right. Yep, now I’m that guy.
-Tom