Games I Never Finished... And I Feel Bad About It

Edit: I apologize for how sloppy this looks. It looked way better in the preview but I don't have time to try and fix it. Try to ignore if you can please. Thanks!

There are a few games that I genuinely really like ,damn near love, that for one reason or another I just stopped playing. Maybe another game came along and stole its thunder. Maybe you put it off for a little too long and have trouble going back. Maybe you have ADD and something more new and shiny distracted you. Either way, some of these games when you see them in your library you stare longingly at them and think "why not you? Why out of all the other questionable titles that I chose to spend my time with I somehow, for some reason left you behind? You need love too video game. But not now... not from me... I'm sorry"....

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, abandonment issues. Right! Okay, so this is a list of games I feel bad about not finishing. If you have a few why not share them with us and we can wade through this river of disappointment together.

My List of shame

1. Bastion

This is probably the most upsetting of all the games I list here today. I know its fantastic but I burnt myself out on it but trying to do everything all at once and I hate myself (figuratively) for not finishing it all the way. I think I got to the part where you save the girl that sings that awesome build that wall song.

2. Alan Wake

I liked the story, the writing, the Twin Peaks weirdness, the characters, I liked it all but the game play. The combat is fine for the most part but there is just way too much of it. If Alan Wake was maybe a few hours shorter I think maybe I would have finished it. Instead I'm left here thinking of what could have been.

"I liked what you had goin for you Alan but Energizer's are shitty batteries"

3. Alpha Protocol

Man what a rough, promising, sloppy, cool game this is. The concept is awesome, the characters were cool, the dialog and branching story stuff is all a really good idea... Too bad everything about the way it played was terrible. I sunk about six hours into Alpha Protocol and I'll never forget that good time I spent trying to fall in love with it. If only you could actually shoot at what you were aiming at.

4. Borderlands 2

I love you Borderlands, with your devil may care attitude, your suave sleek good looks, all your loot (so much loot!). If you weren't so much like your older brother we may have had more of a chance. But I've been with games like you already and I just want something different. We can still be friends though right? Right? Where you going? Come on, don't be that way. Okay one more time...

Alright, see ya!

5. Bully

Bully was always a game I was interested in. It had violence, slingshots, romance, firecrackers and everything a growing boy needs. For some reason I didn't pick it up when it was new. I ended up not getting until about a year or two ago on the PC. I heard all the hype around it but never really gave it a true shot till then. And hey, what do you know its good. Though all the charm in the world cant detract from the fact that it hasn't aged as well as one would hope.

"I never thought I was a shallow person but you've shown me who I really am inside, a judgmental "Plastic" and you... well, your just an old bully."

6. Grand Theft auto 4/5

Yup, got a twofer for ya. I'll be the first to tell you how much a I really enjoy the GTA series of games. Though I feel they all suffer from a similar problem. They are way too god damn long! Don't get me wrong, I love longer game experiences, It feels like you get your moneys worth, but if you can't hold my attention throughout your 40 hour or over run time than you're just gonna get left behind.

"I'ma on the move type of gal and you can't just expect me to wait around forever for you to show me what you really are. I gotta move on"

#RIPPlayBoyX

7. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Sexy vampires? check. Cool RPG game play? check. Good story? check. Awful goth club music? double check. Vampire is just a cool, decently well put together game. Couldn't tell you why I didn't finish it but I kind of wish I saw everything it had to offer. Maybe in the next life.

8. The Witcher

Ah yes, The Witcher. I love that this game exists. Right when when we thought there was no more room for a complex western (Swedish? I don't own a map) style RPG the white wolf shows up to force push it's way into our hearts. It is a little rough around the edges but that's part of its charm. Still though it's charm wasn't enough for me to see my way all the way through its mature, stylish, flawed journey. Good thing Wikipedia exists is all I'm say'n.

9. Mass Effect 3

Oh Mass Effect 3, you controversial S.O.B. (rhyming is fun) Unfortunately I never got to see what was so controversial about you because I couldn't bring myself to finish you. You weren't bad by any means but you just weren't the Mass Effect game I was looking for. Maybe, It's me. Maybe I've outgrown you. Maybe, I was over you before you even came into my life. It's not that I don't love you I just love the idea of you more.

10. Saints Row IV

It played well, it was funny, and I liked the way it it looked at me like I was the only one in the room but Saints Row the fourth just didn't draw me in the way I hoped it would. The first hour or so was pretty promising but after an hour or two of running around the city, collecting every blue fuzzy thing I saw while singing the Outkast classic B.O.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad) at the top of my lungs. somehow along the way it lost its muster. Maybe, one day I will return but today is not that day.

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So there you go Internet, ten games I wished I finished. What are some of your's and why did love steer you wrong?

Honorable mentions: Gunpoint, Darksiders 2, Company of Heroes, Far Cry 2, L.A. Noire, Final Fantasy 3/6?,Ni No Kuni, Tomb Raider (2013), Persona 3

Whelp, this doesn't look like it did in the preview.

man this hit home. I think about this all the time....

Saints Row 4, Assassins Creed 4, Bioshock Infinite, Dead Space 3, Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Portal 2, Rogue Legacy, Shadow Warrior (2014), Singularity, Tomb Raider, The Witcher 2, and at the moment I'm actually chipping away at The last of Us ........ big list growing longer....

My biggest shames:

The Legend of Zelda series

The Sonic the Hedgehog series

Was thinking about starting up some streaming/YouTube gig so I could devote at least 6 hours a weekend to chip away at my ungodly large backlog.

Yup, I'm kind of in the same boat as you when it comes to Alpha Protocol. Seems the big tip was to put all of your points into pistol and stealth and you're good to go, which I started to do and started to have a better time with the game, I just never quite made it back to it yet. It's been about a year, so I might restart it one weekend and start over with a clean slate since I probably can't remember much of the story now.

Metal Gear Solid on the PS1. I've started that game so many times but for some reason or another the Gods always intervene and cause something to go wrong with that plan. Which is a shame because I enjoy that game and it's atmosphere a lot.

Yeah I'm on the last mission of Bastion and just can't be bothered. And Alan Wake, I agree with almost everything you said about that game. Its setting and characters is great but that combat I don't find enjoyable.

I know that feeling. There are times in which I looked back at games I never finished and get the urge to just drop what I'm currently playing and go back to them. But the problem is that I've got a lot of games that I've just stopped playing halfway through despite me enjoying them. Suikoden 2 comes to mind. I really should go back to that game one of these days.

I KNEW Witcher 1 would be on this list before I clicked. What a damn shame.

And Mass Effect 3 as well ? These are two of my favorite games!

The Witcher is so damn hard to get into. The first chapter has some major pacing issues. It's totally worth forcing your way through them, though, as the game just gets better as it goes, but I know a ton of people who never made it past the swamp. Took me something like four attempts before I finally managed to get far enough into chapter 2 to want to stick with it.

@raven10: This. The Witcher 1 has such a slow beginning, but once you reach chapter 3, this game freaking rocks socks. It took me a while to gain the moxy to trudge through those first two chapters, but it's very rewarding in the end.

Bloodlines is probably my favourite RPG of all time.

Its a shame that the last 20% is all action, so if you got that far you saw enough.

Although the game rewards separate playthroughs as the characters get significantly different dialogue, especially the malkavian (traffic lights talk to Malks).

I'm actually trying to fix my list this years, I'm doing the 50/50/50 challenge (watch 50 movies read 50 books beat 50 games). I'm currently working on Yakuza 4.

I felt like that about Skyrim, I kept hearing about how amazing the world itself was yet whenever I played I became so preoccupied that I never got far in the story. Though I would eventually find out that all my mates who played Skyrim never got far in the story either.

Right now I have Ni No Kuni on the backburner, I have played so much of that game that I WILL complete it. It's deserving of that cause it's one cracking JRPG but there's a lot of games I never get around to completing.

Right there with you regarding Bastion. I have the soundtrack on my phone, and every time I listen to it I just end up reminding myself that I still haven't beaten that thing.

I also never really got very far in Skyrim, though seeing as most people I know didn't really bother with the story either, I don't feel quite as bad about that.

I'm sure there are gigabytes worth of games in my Steam library I should really get back to a well...

You're really not missing much by not finishing Alan Wake, I can sure tell you that much.

Also, you really ought to play the Witcher, or at least just skip to the second game. They are FANTASTIC. I love that series so much. Bastion is also amazing! One of the best indie games I've played.

Dragon Age: Origins. Especially after listening to the podcast from a couple weeks back. I like RPGs, I like "big" games, but I didn't like DA and I feel bad about it. I just thought it was so boring. I couldn't shake the feeling that every tiny choice I made (esp in dialogue options) was gating me out of something else in the game, which made me agonize over every (boring) decision.

It may be the only story-based game I started and will never finish. But I wanted so much to like it...

I've finished 8 of those. You are a monster.

Love that game, but I keep looking at it and deciding to put it off.

@random45: yeah, I think I got to about chapter 3 but ended up just stopping reading a wiki page and calling it a day. Played 2 and loved it. there still a part of me that wished I finished one though since I was only a few hours or so away from the end.

I hate to say it but Persona 3 is currently on the backburner for me. I loved what I played of that game but I got 45 hours in and just kind of stopped. I have so many games I want to play right now so it could be a while before I go back, but I will beat it someday!

My biggest regret in not finishing a game is The Witcher 2. I really need to get back to that game. I love that game. But every time I try and get back to it, something new and shinny comes out.

Also like the OP I never finished bastion or borderlands 2. And I have accepted that I never will.

@ezakael: same here I got pretty far into P3 but the grind of it all wore me down and I quit. Maybe I'll go back to it someday.

pretty much every game I liked that I didn't finish.

mainly Final Fantasy Viii because it started the trend for me of burning out on games by overdoing the completionist stuff. I was trying to draw 100 Ultimas for every party character. That was dumb.

I'm right there with you on GTA games. Love them, been playing them since the top down days. Never finished a single one. I dive head first into each game and play the hell out of them for a few weeks, then stop cold turkey. And every time a new one comes out, I buy it at full price within the first few days of release.

I played GTA 2, 3, Vice City, and 4 and finished none of them. I probably would have finished Vice City, but there was a game-breaking bug on my PC version that would not allow me to get pass one mission that was stopping all progress (flying a plane and dropping porno ads over the city). It's why I didn't even bother with GTA5. Generally I love Rockstar games in concept, but find them lacking in execution. The only ones I finished were Red Dead Redemption (good but vastly overrated), LA Noire, and Bully...which I would say is actually the best of the bunch. You should play that one to completion.

The Witcher 2 and Rouge Galaxy. I don't know why I never finished them but I really want to.

I've become a lot better about clearing out the games I want to finish (that being the key word) over the past few years, but even now Vampire the Masquerade is in my pile of shame. And while I successfully slogged my way through the boring, confusing early parts of The Witcher 1 to get to the creamy nougat center, I somehow haven't set apart the time to play the second one yet.

I have plenty of games I'm glad I didn't finish, several recently but one I didn't finish that I regret....Wind Waker only because I was near the end and gave up and now years later I will have to play the whole damn game again, that's why I feel bad for not finishing the game the first time.

How about the question what games have you finished and felt bad about it, mine is DA 2, wish I stopped 12 hours earlier instead of wasting my time.

Company of Heroes, I love the game but I can just never make it all the way to the end no matter how many times I start. Why oh why did I get the expansions?

Dragon Age: Origins, I just suck at the game and my save near the end of the game is near impossible to get through, but I put so much time into it..

Honorable Mentions include: Braid, Doom 3, GTA 4, Dead Space.

Un-Honorable Mention: Psychonauts, played so much of this on steam collecting everything as I went, until it got updated to add achievements and my save was wiped. Doubt ill ever go back to it.

The Witcher: Not surprised to see it popping up in this thread a few times as I know people had a lot of problems with the first couple of chapters. The thing is, I didn't have much of a problem with the first two chapters, and I made it to the third chapter (where everybody says it gets heaps better) and stopped. Simply because I got a new game at the time and started playing that, which lead to another new game and another. And here I am, about 4 years later, still haven't finished it but pretty intent on doing so at some point.

Half-Life 2: I was enjoying my time with this. Got to the part where you drive along the coast in the car and couldn't figure out where to go. I bought this with the Orange Box in 2008, have never gone back to it. A couple of months ago I thought of it and looked up a walkthrough, and realised I only had to drive a little further and I would have been at the next point. Now it's just a matter of going back, and I don't know if I can be bothered anymore. I also never got into TF2, so basically the only value I got out of the Orange Box was playing Portal about 3 times.

Company of Heroes: I don't know about this. Not sure if it's just that I'm not as into RTS games as I thought I might be, or I just wasn't a fan of the micromanagement.

Prey: Got stuck on a puzzle at some point in the first few hours of the game. I was liking it, but I don't think I'll ever finish it.

Fallout 3: Promised myself I would get back around to it. I got out of the vault at the start of the game and then got distracted by other games. Didn't help that I didn't really like the way the combat felt I don't think. But I'm sure one day I'll try again.

The Walking Dead: This is still a temporary one. I played the first two episodes. But just haven't set aside the time to play the next episode. It's been a couple of months now, so I should really get back to it soon before I forget what had happened so far.

I actually think Act 2 and 3 of the first Witcher game are kind of weak - they drag on WAY too long, but the high points in them are definitely pretty great. The rest of the Acts are great though, and have much better pacing. Act 4 is a bit odd though, since it kind of takes a bit to adjust to the new setting after spending so much time elsewhere.

The vehicle sections in Half-Life 2 definitely dragged on for too long, and you just wanted it to get over with.

Man, I played the first mission of Company of Heroes and knew it wasn't for me. I LOVE RTS games, but I really just can't get into the sub-genre that Company of Heroes is in. I prefer Starcraft or Age of Empires over that.

I actually played Fallout 3 for the same length of time - got out of the vault and just never played it since. It's just not my kind of game at all.

You stopped at the high point of The Walking Dead IMO. Episode 3 is by far the weakest episode, so if you feel a bit put off when you get back into it, just hold out, episode 4 and 5 are both improvements, but none of them reach the heights of episode 2.

I played Prey a couple years ago (when it was already old) and while I liked it fine, it's definitely not worth finishing if you don't feel like it. The story is kind of bland and while there's cool stuff later on in the game, none of it is particularly must see and the game feels decidedly dated. I would say the game is still worth playing if you're interested in a retro style shooter with some cool weird mechanics that haven't been copied, but it's B-tier for sure.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. Me & my brother almost finished it on SNES but I forgot what happened and we didn't go back to it. Then, when it was re-released on VIrtual Console, we both played it again...and didn't finish it. We went back to the save a couple months ago, but we couldn't get our groove back (much like Stella) and just haven't gone back to it.

One day we will...one day...

I never finished GTA San Andreas or Saints Row 2 (got like halfway through San Andreas and most of the way through Saints Row) and I probably never will since I started playing those games years after they came out and I don't think they've aged particularly well so it's pretty difficult to go back to them. I finished GTA 3, Vice City and 4 back in the day but I think it may be too late for me to finish these games. In Saints Row 2's case, it doesn't help that I played Saints Row the Third right before (which is a huge improvement in the gameplay department).

I'm actually playing through Borderlands 2 right now but I think I'm gonna stop since I feel like there's a number of other games in my (ever-growing) backlog that I'm more interested in playing.

oh man, people call me crazy but I really love Dong Kong Country 2 It's probably my favorite DK. The last boss I remember being a bitch but I'm glad I finished it.

@nightriff: Fortunately for me I listened to me senses and stopped about 20 hours into DA 2. Thinking about that game still depress me hopefully they learned their lesson with DA 3.

It's worth it. I haven't touched the post-game content since the game came out though. I do understand there's a lot of it though. I love that game so much.

Right now Demon Souls. I am on the last boss, and if I just get tired of him I know how to cheese him. I did a short run the other day, and he never the f**k turns around! Ludacris. But I feel bad about it. I am simply tired of Demon Souls, and Diablo 3 has been taking up my time. I truly like my character/build (for both, same name).

Do not think I will be jumping on the Soul train this April 27, though I will have the game(PC/steam preorder).

For me its Kingdom Hearts. I should replay it..