Gaming genres you try to like but just can't

When it comes to some gaming genres no matter how much I try I just can't get into to some of them. It comes down to personal tastes obliviously, but that doesn't mean I haven't tried to expand my gaming preferences. Even then there are some genres I can't seem to find the right game to hook me into it. I have nothing personal against these games or genres and will always be willing to try them out once I find the right game.

Horror games like amnesia and outlast are some games that look like fun to play. Every time I play them I end up getting bored quickly. This is partly due to the fact that I don't like the horror genre in the first place. It's because I'm always expecting a scare or I'm not particularly not playing the game in the right settings. When I first tried Outlast it was with a couple friends watching and one of them gets scared a lot easier than I would and so her getting freaked out by the jump scares I could see coming didn't really help at all. I want to get into the horror genre because being scared and freaked out is fun I don't want to have to dumb myself down so to speak to be scared though. Not saying people who are scared easily are dumb I'm just not that person.

RTS games are another genre I want to get into because from what I played of Civilization and from what I watched of games like Total War and Starcraft on youtube they look like a blast. This is just a problem of me not having access to a P.C. good enough to play those games in optimal fashion. I always heard good things about Halo Wars, but alas I don't have an Xbox One at the moment to try out the new beta that I hear has been going on. The second thing with RTS is they are kinda intimidating to play. There is so much info thrown at you and a lot you have to learn before you can get good at it. Hopefully someone I will get a laptop that will be able to play some P.C. games decently and I can dive into this genre that looks fun and engaging.

The final genre I wanted to bring up was the survival sandbox games like Minecraft and 7 days to die. I have friends all the time trying to get me to play games like this and I'm willing to give it a try, but I always run into the same problem. I find them really boring to play and it's not because it's open world. I have fun with tons of world games because I feel you have a end goal in them and that's something to strive for. When it comes to something like Minecraft you really just survive and after a while I end up just wondering why I'm doing anything. I have come to understand that this genre is not for me out of all the genres I've listed.

I have said this and will keep saying that out of all the games out there and all the genres that we have to choose from there is game out there for me to play. I'm not trying to force myself to like them by any means and it is more so me trying to get a better understanding on what makes these games fun and how it makes the gamer feel overall to get a better understanding of games. Are there any game genre you aren't particularly into no matter what effort you put into it? Do you enjoy playing anything or are there you can suggest for me to try in the genres I have talked about above. Let me know and thank you for reading folks.

MOBAs. I just don't get it. I tried League of Legends with a friend even talking me through it and it just didn't click.

I can't do micromanaging at all so I can't do anything with rts games. Everything else I'm pretty much open to though.

MMOs. They seem like they could be an absolute blast in the long run, but man... I just can't.

I'm having some fun trying out Star Trek Online, but I can already tell that my interest will only last as long as the novelty of playing a Star Trek MMO lasts.

Civilization isn't an RTS - it's not real time, for one, and even if it were, it would still be a 4X game. And that's a genre I've never been able to get into. I like those kinds of games from a distance, but when I sit down to play one I just can't get into it.

i like fighting games but suck shit at them, does that count?

like with SFV i spend an hour or so trying to learn a bunch of karin's moveset, then i pretty much have to repractice every time i start, and haven't even worked up courage to try going online (though i'm 100% certain i'll get trounced) and then i feel like i have to devote hours upon hours to it and it just feels daunting. but they're cool and i like my fightstick and i WANT to learn but ugh.

real answer is probably adventure games. i appreciate them being a good outlet for humor which seems rare in gaming (besides laughing at emergent gameplay situations), but the game part just gets in the way of me enjoying the story, to be frank. at once i feel it is too simplified, but at the same time too frustrating as (in my opinion, i stress) it ends up just being trial and error trying to solve the puzzles/finding out which item works. maybe i haven't played enough of them, but i really don't have a desire to either.

this probably carries over to more purely puzzle games ala Myst and The Witness, but i can appreciate those. i just feel too stupid to play them.

Pure stealth games. They seem super cool conceptually, but I just don't end up having any fun when I can't just murder fools upon discovery. I love Dishonored and MGS 5 but that's about as stealth as I can stand.

@justin258: Your right about Civ I guess I would lump RTS and 4x games together then. I've never heard of the 4x genre and had to look it up. Shows how much I know about that genre all together then.

Driving games. I think the only driving games I've enjoyed were Stunt because it was one of the first polygonal games in existence and horribly broken and whichever one of the Burnouts it was that had crash mode where the only thing you did was try to make the biggest crash possible. Paradise did nothing for me. Oddly enough, I enjoy the driving in GTA, but pure driving games bore and frustrate me. I have to drive often enough in real life, and I don't enjoy it much there either.

You still can't lump Civilization into any genre that has "real time" right in the name. Civilization is turn-based, and 4X games in general are (from what I know - not an expert on the genre). You can stop and think about what you're doing at any moment without fear of losing. In an RTS, if you stop and think for a few minutes about what you want to do next, you're going to get crushed.

Puzzle games. God i hate puzzle games so much I tried to like portal but i just couldnt

MMORPG's, they just take too much time and they're honestly kind of boring to me. They're probably better if you play with friends.

It might seem odd, but I think there's at least a few examples in every genre of games that I like. I would've said MOBA's a couple of years ago, but I tried Heroes of the Storm and I liked it a lot. It was perfect for a MOBA noob like myself that thought games like League and DotA seemed impenetrable.

Horror games-I just don't find any of them scary and they mostly play like garbage

JRPGs-i can probably count on one hand the jrpg games I liked and finished. It's mostly the writing and storytelling that puts me off and how tedious the gameplay can get

I can appreciate horror games for other aspects and, when it does hit, it strikes hard. I scratch my head at those that bottle it during horror playthroughs, though. It's a game, man. Get on with it.

I can pretty much enjoy whatever. However, there are certain themes that generally wear on me over time and make it difficult to continue.

1) Games with an emotional message: It's hard to represent something if the person who is (playing) the game has never had to overcome or defeat said subject in the game. It ends up just making me sad, or depressed, and I don't think that is the intended feeling they were shooting for. Not to mention it's just not enjoyable (for me).

2) Over complicated or difficult games: Stuff like Super Mario World hacks, or aggressively difficult platformers. I play games to enjoy them, but there are far too many out there that shroud the solution to a puzzle for the sake of difficulty. I'm all for a feeling of accomplishment, but by the time I've knocked my head against the wall however many number of times, all I feel is the sweet release of never having to do it again.

3) Visual Novels: This ones pretty easy, and sort of plays off "Games with an emotional message." They tend to be very hard to take seriously, and are filled with interesting perspectives at times, but generally bog it all down with filler or embarrassing segments that make me want to hide what I'm actually doing.

* I just want to point out that these are my opinions. I feel like I have to do this now after every post just so people realize I'm not calling out specific genres as "bad." They just do nothing for me, or tend to have elements that either put me off, or drag down my experience.

RTS is more action and immediacy focused and requires tactical expertise on a different level. Losing a battle might lose you the war. 4X is more drawn out. Losing a battle very rarely will lose you the war. It's also more focused on exploring, randomness, tech-trees and long term planning. There is no real randomness in true RTS. It's more map knowledge without even having been through the fog of war.

How come you can't get into Civilization though? It is so good. Is it because it dumps so much on you at once that it seems impenetrable?

Fighting games and puzzle games.

1. Horror games- basically the scare factor doesn't do a whole lot for me so the games have to have a whole lot more going on to be appealing. Exceptions: RE1 remake (ridiculously pretty and good lore) and Eternal Darkness (just a really creative and interesting game).

2. Multiplayer shooters- for the most part they just feel sort of insubstantial, samey and often sort of frustrating. I'm also the sort of person who really values a good story and characters in a game and these games don't typically try very hard in that respect. Exceptions are Overwatch(great characters and emphasis on things other then shooting) and Halo 2 (no idea).

3. XCOM and Fire Emblem games- not sure what you'd call these sorts of games but they definitely feel like a genre (tactical roguelikes?). Perma death and RNG heavy combat just seems like a match made in hell, I don't really enjoy redoing levels over and over hoping I get lucky or scrapping by after losing all my favorite dudes. I've never gotten more then 2 hours into one of these.

Platformers ... I didn't grow up with Mario and Sonic so that genre never really captured me, I am more fond of the genres that have their origins in PC gaming. I did play Ori and had fun, but thats about it.

Turn based tactical games like Final Fantasy Tactics or Ogre Battle. I'm just really bad at thinking more than one step ahead in those situations. I tend to just react to whatever is happening at the moment, and that always gets you killed in those kinds of games.

I like games in pretty much every genre, but there are genres where Iike considerably fewer games than others. The racing game genre is okay and I like the Dirt series, some Mario Kart games, and other Cart racers, but I usually can't stick to finishing a racing game. I find them boring and they honestly start to make me feel sleepy. I like cars a lot, and driving fast in real life is a blast, but going around in circles to the sound of crappy music and monotonous engine sounds is seriously my idea of background noise to fall asleep to.

I do agree about those horror games listed in the original post as well as Minecraft-type games. Although I do like Don't Starve, which has some similar stuff going on.

MMOs and fighting games, both mostly because I don't like looking for friends to play with. I've *tried* a million of free MMOs, but usually get to the same 4-5 hour mark and give up...

Sort of.

It's not the amount of information the game is constantly feeding you, it's that I never feel like I have a good grasp on what I want to do with it. Every time I start up a game of Civilization, I hit a point where everyone else in the game - AI or other people - have surpassed me to the point where I'm never going to catch up because I've been busy making decisions whose repercussions I don't really feel like I grasp. Basically, something just hasn't "clicked" with me. I've played Stellaris a few times and that seems like a really cool game but I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit the same point pretty soon.

My little brother has tried to help me several times before, but every time he does so he just winds up telling me what to pick. It's pretty much the same story with RTS games for me. That's just as well, I manage to do way better than him in pretty much any FPS or racing game or RPG - generally, he's better at something on a macro scale and I'd rather play a game with a single character whose boots are on the ground.

@justin258: I see. It's too bad Civilization is so vast, because I honestly would love to tell you how to approach it, but that would probably be a giant bookwork. I still would like to give it a try. If the AI has surpassed you, it is probably a resource management issue. You need to generate science to be able to research technologies faster. Often done by constructing certain buildings in your cities or picking certain perks. You also need to try to increase the population of your cities so you can work more tiles. This'll give you more food, gold and production which speeds up the construction of buildings. If you get a good balance there, you shouldn't fall behind since you'll build everything as fast or faster than the AI.

Every now and then I get it in my head I want to play a Madden game, particularly when they do the collectible card thing, which seems neat to me. Then I play about three games and realize I've footballed out for the next few years. It's too repetitive for me. Video game football needs a wheel of fortune for some random-ass shenanigans. "The Patriots will be taking on the Saints today, and what's this, Bob? A tsunami is hitting?"

Anything that just moves slowly and has a lot of downtime like civ/dayz or minecraft. Pretty much grand strategy and survival/simulator games. I'm a very arcadey guy, and I like keeping the front of my brain occupied and my concentration locked. "Relaxing" games tend to just make me restless and have the opposite effect. I do think a lot of those games are cool, and I've been invited plenty to do a multiplayer session of Civ or EU4, but goddamn I just can't care for that long. I can sit and invest a lot of time into something, doing like a 10 hour day. But it has to be engaging for 90% of those 10 hours.

Sports games

I don't mean fun ones like NBA Jam. I have some friends that play Fifa all the time and I don't get it at all, it's one of those genres where I would rather play the actual sport in real life than waste my time playing it on a console with a ton of obtuse button combinations.

I try to like RTS and card games but most of them are way to complicated for me so i usually don't bother with them.

MOBAs

Honestly, anything that is turn-based other than XCOM is dreadfully boring. I've tried so many times to get into turn-based RPGs and man they are just boring to me.

Some like fighting I do not care about. But lord I'd like to get more into CRPG's. You know, the Pillars of forever and such......

It's not a genre, but Civ is a series I just can't get into. I generally like 4x games. I played the everlasting hell out of Civ 3. But since then, the series just hasn't clicked for me. I can't figure out why either.

As an actual genre, online shooters. I'd like to get into more multiplayer stuff, but those games always end up having too much of an asshole to fun person ratio and once the meta gets going, the skill cieling gets too high for an occasional player like me.

I am with you on platformers which I realize may be blasphemy to some. I was born in '87 so I definitely grew up around them. At least from the SNES era and beyond (SNES & N64 more specifically). I had an NES but it was still an "older" console by the time I was old enough to understand what it was. While I had those consoles, I never played or gravitated toward them. At least not the typical Mario games to the point of completion where many fell in love with them. I also did play Ori for awhile. I enjoyed it but there came a point where it became fairly difficult and lost interest.

Horror games would also be on the list. Its never been something I've been drawn to in any way.

Also, and I don't really know if its a specific genre, but I don't enjoy games that are purposely very difficult. Its just not why I play games.

Probably horrorgames. I like watching other people go through it, but it doesn't really appeal to me personally. It's not that i get scared, i might twitch at a jumpscare or have an overall sense of dread, but nothing that actively makes me quit the game. It's just that you often get stuck in rooms that are hard to see, and you need to interact with something or get the right item to activate a thing. It just turns into a hassle.

I do like a point & click game at times though, which can be argued have the same problems. It's just that with most point n click adventures moving around between screens is not an issue, and you can relax and do everything at the pace you like. You don't have to be afraid that you have to repeat a sequence because you got attacked by a monster while you reached over to drink something.

I'm also still waiting on a first survival game that gets to me. I can see how i can be interested in them, since i liked Stardew Valley quite a bit, and i tinkered with Rimworld but i haven't seen the one to hook me for double digit hours yet.

Point and Click adventures just bore me to tears. I can see the appeal and totally love that people can enjoy them...I just can't.

Survival horror. Anything that jump scares or makes the protagonist run away from it have me scrambling for the Esc button :(

Lately, 2D platformers.

I used to love them but they've gone pale and quite boring. I tried Thomas was alone thinking it would be a fresh breeze. I felt it was pretentious and the main reason why I think can be related to its praises. I was expecting to be blown away but ended up frustrated and annoyed because the physics and level design was so unforgiving, I hated the mechanic of switching characters. I just couldn't get into a flow.

I am eyeballing Ori and Inside though mainly because of the art style and because I loved Limbo.

MOBAs. The single day I played LoL wasn't bad, but it's nothing I'll go back to. I like having permanence with the characters that I play as in games.

Point-and-click adventure. I rather watch someone play them, mainly the Sierra ones.

Multiplayer shooters because I'm asocial.

And puzzle games that aren't Bejeweled and HuniePop.

@slowpork: If you loved LIMBO then you should theoretically really enjoy INSIDE. I also enjoyed Limbo quite a bit and thought that Inside was a much more refined and a lot more atmospheric version of that game. It's not very long, but I feel like were it any longer it would outstay it's welcome.

As for the topic at hand, it's fighting games for me. I want to play them, but simply don't have the manual dexterity for that genre. I've tried with many different games and I can never get the flow down, the moves to come out, and generally tend to panic and completely goof up.

@humanity: Only fighting games I've really liked is the Tekken series. Feels easy to pick-up and play. Otherwise fighting games seems too complex.

As soon as I hear the term "Roguelike", my eyes immediately glaze over. I have tried to like them in the past but I can never get into the gameplay loop of starting from the beginning every time. The game I really wanted to like was Rogue Legacy but I put about 5 hours into it and it did nothing for me.

CRPG's.
I always want to like time more than I actually do.
I'm going to give Pillars of Eternity another shot this week though. We'll see what happens.

RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment and such on the PC, RPGs on consoles like Final Fantasy and Persona. Just because I'd like to enjoy some of those stories and have a game that'd last longer than a few days to play through. But seeing how my taste is seemingly growing more casual each passing day, I kinda feel like I should have got into the genre as a teenager and shouldn't really even think about trying them now.

Good topic! I have a hard time explaining when I feel this way about a game or genre to my friends. The "I don't think they're BAD, just I know I'll get nothing out of it" feeling seems to be interpreted as "This game/genre is awful and has no redeeming qualities".

Anyways, the most evident one for me is survival/building games such as Minecraft and DayZ. The ambling pace and having no goals means I'll never be able to sink my teeth into this. The other big ones are what some (not me) will call "Walking Simulators". Gone Home, Firewatch, etc. I just like my games to be mechanically and tactically challenging. I'll watch LP's of these over playing them everytime.

My final one is Borderlands or any shooter where damage numbers pour out of bullet-sponge enemies. In a shooter I want the guns to feel impactful and nothing takes that away like having an enemy swallow a thirty round clip to the face without even reacting. In addition, I find the writing here to be godawful and unfunny so the whole package really doesn't have any appeal to me. Haven't touched one of these since the first game in the series.

I guess Borderlands is one where I really don't think there's anything appealing. The others I understand, but they just don't engage me personally.

Turn based strategy/tactics.

Games where you click on the ground. (MOBA's, RTS's Diable style rpg's)

I don't like clicking on the ground. Dunno why.

Anything apart from shooters, sports, driving and GTA. So can't do adventure, RPG, anything like that. I'm much more just pick up and play these days. No time to really get into stuff.

Grand strategy games. It's the only genre I havent been able to get into but I sincerely wish I could! I KNOW Crusader Kings 2 should be an interesting experience with the potential for great stories but every time I try to play it... I don't really know how to describe it. It feels like I'm incredibly hands off. Just waiting for the game to present me with a random event so that I finally have someting to do.

Fighting Games and Racing Simulators

I can't really think of anything that i've never been able to enjoy, i don't like open world crime games that much but i loved sleeping dogs and saints row 3. I haven't actually tried a moba yet. I have found that i do love Arpg games, i had never really played one until diablo 3 for ps4. Also found out i really like 4x games, basically a lot of games that i couldn't play with a controller before the steam controller.