Games We Hate

“Love is in the air…” Screw that. Following Alan Wake developer Remedy’s assertion that everyone should go and play PS3 thriller Heavy Rain, we felt there was a bit too much love going around the video game industry. So, we’ve decided to address the balance by bringing some much-needed hate to this oh-so sickening love-in. Here, we reveal our most hated games. But there is one proviso: each hated game must be loved by the vast majority of people. That should make it interesting.

Tom Orry, Editor – Counter-Strike, PC

Usually I love first-person shooters, but I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of online shooters. If there’s one game I really can’t understand the love for, it’s Valve’s Counter-Strike. At one point, I’d guess around seven years ago, I tried to play it in a somewhat serious fashion. I had a group of friends to play with, we got together online at roughly the same time each evening, but did I enjoy it? Not one little bit. It’s such a demoralising game. I spent most of those evenings over a period of about two weeks being shot in the head by someone I couldn’t see, hiding behind or on top of strangely large boxes, and worst of all being made to run around as a chicken. A chicken. Some might say my dislike of the game is simply down to my lack of skill, and those people might have a point, but that doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t get what all the fuss was about.

Wesley Yin-Poole, Deputy Editor – Grand Theft Auto IV, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC

Yeah, not for me. I guess I don’t get it or something. I love open world games, but only those with traditional RPG elements, such as Fallout 3. What I love about Fallout 3 is the that you can go anywhere, do anything, and it’ll have some consequence. In Fallout 3, if I go into a town and act like a complete anus, people will usually get very upset, possibly even attacking me en masse. And, get this: they’ll remember what I’ve done. In GTA IV, if I kill lots of people, blow up lots of cars and steal a whole bunch of stuff, no-one cares beyond the moment. If I leave and return a bit later, it’s as if my actions never happened. Sure, I can appreciate the technical achievement that is Rockstar’s virtual New York, but for me it lacks proper cause and effect. This is why the recently released Red Dead Redemption is so much more interesting: it’s got a quasi-karma system and your play style affects a change in the way people react to you. This, for me, is true next-gen gaming.

Neon Kelly, Previews Editor – Halo

Right, before you all start screaming for me to be tarred and feathered, I want to explain myself. I don’t actually hate Halo itself; I just hate the fact that it’s hailed as the second coming of gaming Jesus. I played the first two games quite a bit and dabbled with the third, and I appreciate the fact that the series did a great service to console shooters, both on and offline. It’s a good series – but personally I’m still mystified by the widespread, unwavering love for the franchise. Aside from the Needler (which is admittedly very cool) and some of the human guns, I’ve always found the weapons to be very unsatisfying to use. They’re all pew-pew-pew when I want BAM-BAM-BAM!. The floaty jump and comparatively slow combat have always bugged me too, though I understand that some people will prefer this to the insta-death of Modern Warfare and co. Personally, I’d rather play Half Life 2’s single-player (still an amazing campaign), and Counter-Strike for multi. But I know I’m alone here: Reach is already at the beta stage, and soon I’ll have to listen to everyone banging on about how great it is… even though it looks exactly the same as all the other games. Bah. Also: MasterChief is a rubbish gaming icon. He’s just a faceless bloke in green suit, with no personality.

James Orry, News Editor – World of Warcraft, PC

I’ve tried. I really have. First came a stint on a beta for Guild Wars – a period which saw the birth of my Magic Minton character – then a fortnight on Codemasters Online’s Lord of the Rings Online – again reviving the Magic Minton character – but the worst of them all was Blizzard’s enormously successful World of Warcraft. Having been told, mainly by Wez, how great WoW was I signed up and created my Tauran shaman ‘Hornstar’ – yes that is a fantastic name for a horned character. Thanks. My fun stopped there, though. Wandering around in search of 10 tusks or 15 feathers from slaughtered animals doesn’t sound like fun and it wasn’t; the painful drop rates made me wish one of the wild boar would sink its prized spikes into my torso and make the suffering end. Still, I actually managed to drag myself onward with the promise that things would get better. It didn’t. The final straw was a quest which had me looking for a secret opening in some mountain range. Five hours later I pulled the plug on an experience likely to put me off MMOs for life.

Sebastian Ford, Video Producer – Resident Evil 5, Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Lame, lame, lame. Lame. LAME. LAAAAAAAAME. Lay-Miserables. That’s what Resident Evil 5 is (lame).

I haven’t finished it, and I never mean to, but I have sunk many hours into it. Hours I will never get back. It starts bad, and if possible, gets worse. Resident Evil 5 suffers from a crippling identity crisis; is it a survival horror? Is it a third-person shooter? Really it’s both, and none of these things. There’s far too much gung-ho action to just be a survival horror, but being a Resi game the moment you draw your weapon to lay down some pain your character stops moving, you can’t even step towards an infected with your blade drawn, leaving you slashing hopelessly at thin air. It doesn’t fit the game, and doesn’t fit the characters either. Then there are the enemies themselves, all four or five of them. Seriously, you begin to recognise the same infected over and over again, often in one fight sequence. They don’t even mix up the clothes to change things up a bit! I can’t remember how many times I fought corn-rows guy, or how about burlap-sack headed guy with chainsaw? For a horror game, there is not a single tense or scary moment – there is only lousy action and face-palming frustration. Just to guarantee I would never play it again, there is barely a shred of story, and the relationship between Sheva and Chris is bland at best. I truly cannot see what people loved so much about this diabolical experience.

Jamin Smith, Staff Writer – Mario Kart series

A surprising choice, you might surmise, because Mario Kart is such a harmless, ‘fun for all the family’ kind of game. But here’s the thing; I’m better than my family at games. Much better. And in my heart, I know I’m better than them at Mario kart, too. Yet, and this is what really yanks my chain, they’re still able to beat me at it. Why is that? It’s because Mario Kart is a game completely devoid of skill, which punishes good players whilst rewarding the bad. Whilst I had a moderate amount of fun with the balloon based battles in the 64 iteration of the series, I’ve never taken a shred of enjoyment from any of the race modes. How people can remain entertained in the face of such injustice will always boggle my mind.

What games do you hate that everyone else seems to love? Are we completely wrong about our choices? Let us know in the comments section below.