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ArbitraryWater

Internet man with questionable sense of priorities

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Jumping the gun: My worst impulse buys

I'll admit. I occasionally have a problem buying things on impulse. Sometimes this ends well, such as in the case of Devil May Cry 3 and Resident Evil 4. Sometimes this ends poorly, which usually results in me losing money because I will never play these games or have sold them back already. Hopefully, this doesn't lead to me buying expensive cars and houses that I can't afford like the rest of America, but that's a few years away. List is in no particular order. Note that some games I haven't even gotten super invested in, such as Gothic and STALKER are not on here because they at least still have the potential of not being a horrendous waste of money. I guess Final Fantasy Tactics also goes in here, even though I bought that game like a year ago and never got anywhere with it.

Also note that Arcanum is not on here. For whatever reason, I feel like I at least got my money's worth out of it, the fact that it's not great aside.

List items

  • Cost: around $8 for Freedom Force and Sequel.

    One of my earliest Steam purchases, I was honestly surprised how much I hate this game from the 2 hours or so that I played of it, considering the universal critical praise it received. Maybe I'm playing it wrong?

  • Cost: $20 ish Resold for around $10.

    I like old RPGs. You know this. What I don't like are games that deliberately attempt to be like they were designed in 1983. I'm sure it gets better the farther you get in the dungeon, but the initial difficulty was simply way too much.

  • Cost: $40 Resold for around $25.

    I hope this is self explanatory, if not, Far Cry 2 is not a good game, and it's one I spent plenty of regretful hours in. It's a big open world with nothing to do in it except drive and fight enemies, all which makes the game longer than it has any right to be. AND IT'S SO BORING

  • Cost: $6 for ROA 1 and 2.

    Yeah. Just read my DOS blog. I actually think the 3rd one is of genuine value though, crazy german ruleset aside.

  • Cost: $30, resold for around $10.

    The DS port of JA is not good. The controls for one are awful. Oh, and it's also JAGGED ALLIANCE. I also have the PC version. (cost $10) It's slightly better. BUT IT'S STILL JAGGED ALLIANCE.

  • Cost: $7.50 (on sale).

    Ugh...

  • Cost: $3 for all 3 Ishar games (thankfully, on sale).

    See: 3rd DOS blog. Everything that is bad about RPGs from that era.

  • Cost: $12 Resold at around $6.

    I don't like Dead Rising. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why.

  • Cost: $10.

    Yo, it's like Disciples 2. Except not nearly as good.

  • Cost: $7 (on sale)

    A curiosity piece, that I will NEVER play again.

  • Cost: $10 for Battle Isle platinum, which is all 3 battle isle games, their mission packs, as well as the squad shooter Incubation.

    Sadly, none of the many games in the pack are actually good. Battle Isle is basically a more primitive version of Advance Wars with bad UI, and Incubation is a X-COM wannabe that is almost baffling in its trial and error nature and general mediocrity

  • Cost: $6 for Castles and Castles II.

    While I wouldn't call Castles II bad in any sense, though the early CD-ness of the entire affair is laughable, I don't like games that give no real strategy for how to play, and then let you get savaged by the AI at the lowest difficulty, which is an excellent way for me to not like any game Castles 1 is just kind of old and confusing.

  • Cost: $6

    Lionheart may be the single most inoffensively bland game I have ever had the privilege/misfortune to encounter in my entire old game playing "career". It's clearly not a good game, as the premise is squandered as are half the gameplay mechanics within an hour of the beginning of the game, yet there's nothing actively awful about any part of it either. Don't believe me? Try for yourself. Or don't.

  • Cost: $3 for this and it's sequel Deus (on sale)

    From the developers of Ishar comes... a really bad and extremely confusing game. Who woulda thunk? This one at least has the novelty of really, really, really bad FMV. That's cool.

  • Cost $3 (on sale, thankfully).

    A game developed by everyone's favorite off-year Call of Duty developer Treyarch, Die By The Sword may be the perfect example for why they don't make PC exclusive 3rd person action games anymore. It's kind of hilarious how bad everything is.

  • It's like if XCOM sucked.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater

There are probably some other games I've forgotten, probably a few on XBLA (although, other than maybe Braid because it's not my type of game, none come to mind.), and probably a few from my younger years. Basically, all these purchases were made in the last 2 years.

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Mento

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Edited By Mento  Moderator

I can feel your pain for some of these specifically, as well as having too many impulse buys in general. A lot of times for me, though, it's more a case of "I know this'll probably suck because it's so cheap, but maybe it'll be worth what little I'm paying?" (Answer: Usually not).
 
Also, I'm with you on Freedom Force. I neglected to find out if it was turn-based or not. I can only imagine how much better it would've been if that were the case, and also had a hero creation system with any complexity to it. It's a little discouraging that the new DCU Online thing seems to have borrowed that underdeveloped system wholesale.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater
@Mento:  There was just something so half assed about the way the game worked, not to mention the part where you have to make sure everyone is always doing something because there is no auto attack or AI scripts to help pick up the slack a la Infinity Engine. I guess the Silver Age stuff was neat, but a neat aesthetic isn't enough for me to care about a game that I find an absolute chore to play. Once again, I just assume I'm playing it wrong, but if not: Why the hell did everyone like that game so much?
 
And yeah. Being someone without a steady source of income, I usually buy games on the cheap in order to lessen the blow if anything like this were to happen. I think I've paid the full $60 (or more) around 5 or 6 times in the past 2 years. The rest I bought when the price dropped or obtained as gifts.
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gla55jAw

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Edited By gla55jAw

I'm totally with you on The Dark Spire. I picked it up on sale for $5 New! I was strangely addicted to it for a few days and then gave up because it is BRUTAL. I don't know about it getting better the further you get in, seems to me like it would just get harder. Playing it has strangely made me want to try out the Etrian Odyssey games. I'm guessing it would be basically the same except colors and some actual graphics haha.

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ahoodedfigure

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Edited By ahoodedfigure

Of course I don't agree with some of the sentiments here but I'm glad you even talk about some of these games. Even the fans of these games don't talk as much about games they love as much as you do the same ones you hate. I'm not sure how complete your survey of old RPGs is, but you're doing pretty good at sounding more cantankerous than I ever do, and I actually could have experienced a lot of those when they first came out!
 
I like the concept of Deus Ex, but if the new one holds to the old one's flexibility I'd rather just play that, since the first one's in that uncomfortably gross 3D place for me.
 
Ishar suffers from some pretty bad choices, so I'm not sure it makes sense to lump it in with the era. Purchase a save game?  Get out of the garage, you wankers.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater
@ahoodedfigure: My writing tends to skew towards the negative inherently. Generally speaking, me shit talking about a game I don't like is a lot easier than talking about a game I do like, because I can easily explain why I don't like some games and it's harder to explain what I like about good game. I dunno why, but it's something I've noticed recently.  I find the implication that I'm cantankerous on this subject to be an amusing one, I'll give you that.
 
Maybe I should make a list of old games I like, just to balance it out. It's not like most of the stuff I've blogged about has been negative per-se (mostly because, unless I have some sort of vendetta to fulfill with a certain game that really gets my ire a la Alpha Protocol/Arcanum I don't play enough to feel comfortable blogging). Yo, that X-COM? That game is alright. Temple of Elemental Evil? Yep. Wizardry 8? You betcha.
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ahoodedfigure

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@ArbitraryWater:  Well, you don't have to pee in your pool of evil. You could, for instance, have a list of salvageable ideas, or something, where you list what you think was good about an old game, while allowing that there was x, y, z that you still hate and wish was more modern/better.
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Skald

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Edited By Skald

You must really like Jagged Alliance.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater
@extremeradical: It's a sick problem I have in regards to impulse buying. There are concepts behind those games that I like a lot, but the actual part where I play it and get totally destroyed because of some fluke shot doesn't endear them much to me.