A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
Last of Us.
When the first one came out everyone was ranting and raving over it so I picked it up for my PS3. Granted the beginning of the game was an absolute gut punch and I thought I was hooked, I was not. I found the rest of the game so damn boring. I didn't like the story, I felt it was forced fed to the player, and honestly I just never bothered finishing it. for me it wasn't fun.
For me it suffered from "show, don't tell" problems. There are numerous weeks long skips between scenes and you're just supposed to understand that Joel and Ellie became close during that time. But as a player, you're basically being asked to babysit someone you've known for 10 minutes. It was basically one long escort mission and the "OMG SO AMAZING SCENE" is.... giraffes walking by. Like really? That's what it takes to wow people? Some giraffes walking outside the building????
The world was a generic apocalypse setting, the "story" can be described in a few bullet points, and the big "emotional gut punch" at the end is so cliche.
I'll die on the hill that it didn't do a single groundbreaking thing. Nothing about the game wasn't already done before and better. It's the equivalent of a summer blockbuster movie: a fun mindless take on an idea but otherwise generic.
I ended up giving up at one of the clicker sequences.
The game lore says they’re blind and navigate by hearing. The game code does not.
Hotline Miami. Frustrating and tedious.
I generally don't take gaming recommendations from people I know because I've been burned too many times.
There's a lot of games people recommend me based on cozy things which is good cause I do like them.
Then they get confused when I'm going deep into the Warhammer or the rogue likes/lites cause those are not very cozy.
And I do not like visual novels despite being in the demographic.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines I didn’t get around to playing this game until about a decade after its release, and I seriously don’t understand who could find that game enjoyable except 13yo edgelords.
Dragon’s Age Origins. Had a friend tell me how it was their favorite franchise and that specifically was the best game, such amazing lore, gameplay, etc.
Couldn’t even make it past the first quest before I hung it out.
This is kind of tangential to the question, but an incredibly irritating former friend would not shut the fuck up about Elden Ring for months after it came out and kept telling me to get it. I told him I didn’t like souls-like games and he said ER was “different” without explaining how. I still haven’t played it, even with recommendations from other people I trust. Same guy ensured I’ll never play Death Stranding, too.
Both of these games are very well made, but they both cater to a special type of gamer.
Elden Ring being incredibly well designed as an introduction to souls-likes, it still has the mechanics and difficulty like most of From Software's games, with slight variation. If you're not a gamer who likes overcoming a challenge, the game is likely not for you.
Death Stranding I think is quite the unique game, but much thanks to its weirdness. It has a lot of curious elements to it, but its incredibly story heavy. With different difficulty options you can make it a very casual experience, but it can be quite slow at times still. If you don't like several dozen hours of cutscenes, the game might not be for you.
Have a friend who is obsessed with the borderlands series. Played through the pre-sequel with him. Was not a good time
He wanted to play through 3 with me after, and I noped the hell out
Undertale was zero fun. Interesting story and I liked the graphics and music but the combat got extremely annoying, and I say this as someone who plays 8 bit (heck even 4 bit) combat games. I quit it.
I beg to differ. It was a lifechanging game for me. I can trace a half a dozen major life decisions and events to the people I met through the Undertale fandom. It has some deep personal sentimental value, too.
I was the main marketer for "weird, different games" to my friends, back in school. I was the one that first found out about Harvest Moon on PSX and recommended it to another friend, he loved it - mind you, this was back in 2004. In 2006, I got 3 into World of Warcraft, I even printed a "beginners' guide" I made myself just to help them understand the game.
Two games that I experimented from word of mouth were Tibia and Ragnarok Online. The former I gave up the same day - there were like 10 players for each rat in the sewers, the respawn took forever and you were supposed to grind them until you reached level 7, which would take over a week of real playtime at that rate.
RO was an interesting situation, the dude who first started it was bragging about having lots of hours to play, when I disdainfully replied "Why pay when you can just play for free"? He didn't like the reply, but we didn't get along anyway, so I took every chance to jab him, and he did the same to me. Anyhoo, I went online, looked around for a private server and started playing, free of charge. The others didn't join in.
During school and college, none of my friends were interested in RTS or even turn-based strategy games. I already knew about Civilization thanks to my dad. In the internet years, I always lurked around some talks about strategy games and that's where I found Supreme Commander, which is still one of my favorites. Total Annihilation is still on my "to-play" list.