PC Games you shouldn't buy/download

[dangel]

Max Payne 3

Bored me to death - lasted about 15 minutes before I uninstalled it. Weird huh?

[Deadbolt]

Rage - now this may well be a good game but I haven't been able to play it long enough. Not because of bugs but because something about the movement in the game makes me feel nauseous. I have still only played it for a grand total of less than 60 minutes. £15 quid well spent there...

While it seems to be a pretty decent game, I have to say it was a waste of my money. For some reason this game loves to crash for no reason. It will happen randomly, anywhere from 30seconds into the game to 30mins, haven't managed to play it for longer than that without crashing.

[Pob255]

A word on motion sickness and FPS games, a lot of console ports suffer from it because of small FOV (field of view) most console games have an FOV of around 60-70degrees which is fine for a tv, a larger screen you sit at a greater distance from, but stick that on a monitor around 1m from your face and it generates motion sickness.

Now the problem with many bad ports is that when It's moved to pc they don't change the narrow console FOV, a good port (or any game) will allow the FOV to be changed, at the very least it should of been changed to the 80-90 region.

All games, not just ports, should have FOV sliders or some sort of FOV adjustment.


saints row 2, I think they did fix quite a few problems later, I didn't have performance or engine issues on mine (from steam), just control issues, they did a really bad job putting the car control on keyboard.
the bad controls made races far harder and one storyline mission near impossible on mouse&keyboard, I played it for quite a while, great fun just messing about and exploring in that game.
I'd play mainly on mouse&keyboard, swapping to controller for races (ps2 type)
then I hit "that" mission, a gang on bikes heading to your main gang crib, you have to shoot them down while chasing them, I can drive ok on keyboard but not race, I can race ok with a pad, however I cannot shoot down bikes from a car and race at the same time.
Auto aim isn't on or it was massively tuned down for the pc port, so a controller is harder to use for shooting on a pc than the console version and I'm bad with a controller for shooting to start with.
There's no cheat you can use to help or even auto complete the mission, so after a week of trying and failing I gave up, it's a shame I loved it up untill that mission.

[kalniel]

Yup, for Rage add "+set g_fov 95" or whatever your chosen FOV is in the steam launcher.

[dangel]

If you haven't seen this, you should:

https://www.widescreenfixer.org/

Doesn't work for everything but it's a great idea.

The other thing I find a problem in games is motion blur - I really don't like it and will turn it off if possible. I'm not sure if it's because of the implementation or my duff brain but I just find it incredibly annoying.

We are seeing more of a trend towards seeing decent FOV on games now - publishers do seem to have woken up a bit and are providing options to fix it - but we should at least get a config/ini style hack if we can't have a menu option for it. Massively important.

[Pob255]

How about the majority of iOS games that has been converted for PC, most of them have been near total garbage, flaky control that are fine for touch screen but aren't great on a mouse, terrible graphics options that often look bad scaled up (as often that's all that's done) and simple casual game play that doesn't work well on a pc as it's designed to be picked up and put down not sat in front of.

Not to mention overpriced, 10 times the price for a lack luster port? I think not.

[RikDangerous]

I concur with the 'bad PC ports'.
I'm also guilty of buying old games (especially from GOG) that I have find memories of - they never seem to hold up as well I espect them to.

[kalniel]

The other thing I find a problem in games is motion blur - I really don't like it and will turn it off if possible. I'm not sure if it's because of the implementation or my duff brain but I just find it incredibly annoying.

Complete agreement. Just doesn't work for me apart from at the lowest possible levels.

[fishf00d]

It's even worse when the blur effect is a hit on performance. Only games I think are okay with blur effect are racing games, for perception of speed and I mean the stuff off the road, not in front of you where you need to see.

[george1979]

A word on motion sickness and FPS games, a lot of console ports suffer from it because of small FOV (field of view) most console games have an FOV of around 60-70degrees which is fine for a tv, a larger screen you sit at a greater distance from, but stick that on a monitor around 1m from your face and it generates motion sickness.

Now the problem with many bad ports is that when It's moved to pc they don't change the narrow console FOV, a good port (or any game) will allow the FOV to be changed, at the very least it should of been changed to the 80-90 region.

All games, not just ports, should have FOV sliders or some sort of FOV adjustment.

Thanks, I had no idea that's what was causing it. To be honest after an hour playing it I felt so crappy I just didn't want to look at it ever again. Might give it another try now though.

[MattEvansC3]

Going to put my neck on the chopping board but here goes;

Skyrim.

As an open world experience and mod tool its good but as a game its extremely sub-par.

Its not even an improvement over Oblivion, yes the graphics are better but the game has been "dumbed down". The combat has no feedback, the RPG elements are paper thin, enemy and friendly AI is awful, decisions made have no consequences so you are playing in this big world but having no feedback on it until the game tells you you can. Your skill tree choices have more impact on the playable world than the choices and actions made within that world and the game as a whole lacks any form of creativity.

Considering that Oblivion plus all its expansion packs are less than half the price of Skyrim there's no real reason to purchase Skyrim.

[spoon_]

A word on motion sickness and FPS games, a lot of console ports suffer from it because of small FOV (field of view) most console games have an FOV of around 60-70degrees which is fine for a tv, a larger screen you sit at a greater distance from, but stick that on a monitor around 1m from your face and it generates motion sickness.

Now the problem with many bad ports is that when It's moved to pc they don't change the narrow console FOV, a good port (or any game) will allow the FOV to be changed, at the very least it should of been changed to the 80-90 region.

All games, not just ports, should have FOV sliders or some sort of FOV adjustment.

Ohh I love my FOV, playing Unreal Tournament on 120 but agree if FOV is too small the game just drags and you're getting sick...

[GTX Matt]

Max Payne 3

Bored me to death - lasted about 15 minutes before I uninstalled it. Weird huh?

+1 on this one, I bought it from Steam in the summer sale for £14.99 and I still feel like I've been ripped off.

[EmeraldClaws]

Some, if not most of the simulator games. I recently bought a triple pack of them; digger, crane and fork lift truck, for about £7.50 so no big loss.

Crane simulator was by far the best, but still not a great game. Their main downfall is the length of unique play. They're all based on very repetitive actions.

[Pob255]

Some, if not most of the simulator games. I recently bought a triple pack of them; digger, crane and fork lift truck, for about £7.50 so no big loss.

Crane simulator was by far the best, but still not a great game. Their main downfall is the length of unique play. They're all based on very repetitive actions.

But the question is are they games? Also what you want to get out of a game.
You can say that all games are repetitive actions, most sim games are based to trying to recreate the most accurate simulation of something, not around game play, although often it can be game play because if it was too close to real it would be overly complex and overly boring, there's also the limits of the complexity of the recreation.

You have to really really like the subject and the minutia of normal daily operation of them to be really interested and absorbed by any sim

[kalniel]

And you'd have to know what you were getting into before buying something like a crane simulator no?