What games or genres make you "yawn".

[Deleted]

Alrighty... I'm not very picky and I'll play any game if I've heard lots of good about it. In every genre, there's at least one game that I'm real fond of.

With that being said, I must say that I agree with quite a bit that has been said here, especially the analysis on RPGs. Thus, I'll say that RPGs are a genre that barely get me excited anymore. Without any question, their golden age was the 16-bit era, with the SNES being the more famed of the two when it comes to the genre, but the Genny certainly had its strong titles too. Back then, ideas for the genre were fresh and enterprising, and they went everywhere with creativity and innovation. My three favorite RPGs are Super Mario RPG (for such awesome graphics, music, an active battle system, and a rocking good challenge), Earthbound (simple as the combat system may be, it's the extremely unique design and characters that win me over), and Final Fantasy VI (agreed by many to be the best of the series, I'd say it's for the most original plot, stellar graphics and sound, and FOURTEEN individual characters). Though... to be fair, the very first game that got me into RPGs was Final Fantasy VII, so it still holds a place in my heart. But the best FF games were the ones on the SNES, if you ask me. But today... RPGs just can't get me active. I am rediscovering some classic RPGs that I missed out on, such as Shining Force and Live-A-Live (the latter of which was never released over here, but is certainly one of the most original games I know of). However, RPGs released in this modern day just don't withhold the same alacrity and briskness of those of yesteryear. I honestly cannot think of any RPG released over the last three years because I don't really care.

Okay, that turned into a bit of a rant there. Heh... other genres I'm not so fond of? Well, sports is a bit of a given. Sure, sports fans like them, and while I have taken a slightly greater liking to actual sports as of late, I couldn't be considered a fan of them, and 99% of all sports games today just warrant a big Cheat-like "Meh" out of me. Maybe it's the fact that I think sports games actually had merit back in the 8 and 16-bit days with absolute classics like Tecmo Super Bowl and Blades of Steel, and every sports game today just seem so freaking similar. Is the Madden series ever going to die? I'm sorry, but to me, the series is growing staler than the cake that Kate Moss never ate.

... yikes, that may have been a little harsh. Well... my brain's never in the greatest spirits after just waking up. Other genres? Definitely Strategy. Not because they're necessarily bad games, but it's just that they're not my personal pick of the apple tree, and I REALLY suck at them. Turn-based or real-time, you'll be more than able to kick my ass at them, I'm sure. It's not because they're too cerebral for me, but I prefer fast and hard-hitting action than maintaining troops, waiting around for an attack, et cetera. But I will play a strategy game if it's a good-un. Exceptions do include Shining Force, Military Madness/Nectaris, and Herzog Zwei. I can certainly hold my own in those games.

I rarely play online, and I just stay the hell away from MMORPGs. I just have a personal grudge against them. I'd rather spend 1000 hours on 1000 games than the same amount of time on just one game. I can't really say I hate them for attempting to replace real life for most people... don't games usually do that anyway? Heh... but I mean that MMORPGs take matters to a whole new echelon of insanity. Ebay sales with actual money for virtual items? Online romances and weddings between a berserker and an elf?! Suicide over a harsh breakup with that hot spell-casting chick?!? I'm a video game freak, but even I admit that there are more important things in life. Now I'm not saying that's the case for everybody. There are some strong souls who maybe only decide to play for half and hour and move on to more important things that they have to do. More power to them. But I'll just keep on hating MMORPGs in the way that I do.

... a couple of years ago, I would have ranted about FPS games, but I've rather taken a liking to them as of late. They may not be the most original titles (though Blood gets mucho style points from me), and I do prefer blasting aliens in 2D, but they can be fun every now and then. I... still have to get Half-Life 2. Oh snap.

However, one thing I will say against them... I cannot tell the freaking difference between Call of Duty and Battlefield 1942. There are too many FPS games based from World War II! They were original back when Wolfenstein 3D was out, but now they've just grown to proportions that my mind can't comprehend. They're starting to become as unoriginal as the Boy George imitator from the Wedding Singer!

Whew. Went on a bit longer than I expected it to. I think I'm out of things to say. Every other genre not mentioned are ones that I love to death, and games that don't really have any genre? Oh yeah, they receive heap big brownie points from me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go roll off and gather some food in the great big ball that is my stomach.

*Na-naaaaaah, na-na-na na-na-na-na-na Katamari so hungryyyy...* I produce little sense or sanity early in the morning.

[shido]

megamoronx, mabey you just played the wrong RPGs
Have you tried Suikoden 3 or Disgaea or Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2? those are really great games with originals plots. You should play them, not Grandia 2 or Fire Emblem POR with their sucky plot.

[necromaniac]

Or the YS series, with their simple but efficient plots and superior focus on gameplay.

[jameseightbitstar]

Or while we're recommending RPGs that don't suck: King's Field.

[Weasel]

Personally, I can't get into sports games or real-time strategy games. Sports games are fairly obvious - I just have no interest in football, soccer, or baseball or anything like that (unless it's a hilarious glitch, like the infamous Madden 2006 "seven-inch-tall player" bug). As for RTS games: I don't so much yawn at them as get completely overwhelmed. I like to think I'm a quick thinker (after all, that's how I managed to "beat" Standard mode on Tetris DS), but I can't concentrate on maneuvering squads of troops while simultaneously mining for resources and defending my base. Games like Warcraft 3 make it even worse for me, since you have to worry about keeping your heroes alive.

[shido]

Oh, forgot about RTS. I hate this genre.
When I was younger I LOVED C&C, WC2 and the others but after few years this genre become so boring. Whatever RTS I played I had the feeling I'm playing the same game all over again. Yes some games concentrate more about macro and some more about micro, and some games showed us some really minor change that just SOUNDS sophisticated but the feeling is the same game again and again and again. Today the only RTS I can enjoy are Majesty and Dungeon Keeper beacuse they are trully original. All others putting me to sleep

[klatrymadon]

Call of Duty would be my choice, or any military FPS since the first Medal of Honour, which never floated my boat for long even then.

I tend to be very cynical towards anything that has a military theme these days; even the ones that try to treat their subject matter with care and aim for historical accuracy. I'll admit to having a bit of a double standard though, because I absolutely adore Under Defeat. I'm also suspicious of anything with obtusely slick or 'badass' art direction (but am currently enjoying DMC3 with its nice self-parody and sense of humour... it almost feels like an early 90s beat 'em up; they were always quite proud to be cheesy and 'OTT'). I just hate the way these 'cool' games sell themselves. Most modern games in general try to offer you the world (and rarely deliver on anything), whereas 2D games tend to be very unassuming and often deliver immeasurably in the gameplay and audiovisual stakes. I say that all the bloody time, though; I'm like a broken record.

Oh yeah, MMOs can fuck off too.

[kyouki]

I'm going to repeat a lot of what has been said already...

I can't stand MMORPGs. I understand why they require you to pay a monthly fee, but I just don't like it. Beyond that, playing them seems like playing Morrowind or Oblivion but 60% of the NPCs talk like assholes. So why play online?

I hate RTS games. I sort of enjoyed Warcraft II at first but it seemed like it was the same thing over and over. There's very little sense of progression.

I hate linear JRPGs. I enjoyed DW 1, 2, and 3 on the NES, and Final Fantasy 1, 4, and 6. However, JRPGs are no different than they were back then, so it seems silly to me to pay $50 for one, and then spend 80 hours getting through it. Talk about a genre that has stood still! I think that improvements in graphics have somewhat ruined the appeal of RPGs. Because of the primitive graphics of Ultimas 1-5, the old NES DWs, etc, a lot of the game was using your imagination to visualize how things "really" looked. So everything seemed a lot more mysterious and epic. You had to fill in a lot of the details yourself.

Sports games generally don't interest me because I don't understand sports at all. I tried playing one of the NFL games on the Xbox and it just made no sense to me. I like how these games tend to have detailed season/career modes, but I can't get into them. I enjoyed the NHL game I played.

Racing games, with the exception of Outrun, don't do anything for me. Games like GT are way too realistic, and the Ridge Racer series just seems really generic to me.

I hate the so-called "sandbox" games. From what I can tell "sandbox" means "poor game design." Does it matter that a game has a dozen different minigames and driving and shooting and hand-to-hand combat if they all suck? Most of these minigames are just poorly designed messes that wouldn't even be fun a cell phone, never mind on a PS2. Can you really call GTA a "sandbox" game, if the definition of sandbox is "you can do whatever you want to?" No, because in GTA and all the other games like it you can't. You have to follow the missions and do what your told, but if you want to kill some time you can drive around shooting people which contributes nothing to anything. True Crime (the 1st one) was a much better "sandbox" game in that your actions could determine how the story played out. But it too sucked.

I also hate FPS, especially WWII FPS. There are way too many of them, and they all seem the same. My secret reason for hating them is my fond memories of going to computer software shops in the late 80s/early 90s and seeing shelves and shelves full of unique games of all genres. And now when you go to check out PC software you see shelves of WWII FPS, shelves of MMORPGs, and a few budget games.

I hate dance/rhythm games. They seem too much like playing a musical instrument to me... and if you're going to do that, you might as well actually learn an instrument.

I think that's it.

[YourAverageJoe]

I used to hate FPSs, but then I discovered Unreal Tournament 2003, it had everything war FPSs didn't: original weapons, competent bots and good map design, along with the ChaosUT and Excessive Overkill mutators.

[ma201]

I don't really hate rhythm games because most of them are pretty solid (even though I don't usually play these games), but I hope it just doesn't become any more overabused than the genre is already (DDR, Karaoki Revolution, Get up on dah Mic, etc.)

Since I grew up on a console, I'm not too good at managing the Keyboard for FPSs, but I still like the genre (especially Battlefield 2, which is fun for a few quick games as long as you have the friends around).

I don't like MMO's because you either have to pay for them or you don't really have any true control over the game. I do, though, want to get into Oblivion...

[Deleted]

Gah! Definitely forgot to mention racing games above... I tried to get into Gran Turismo. I really did. It just fell flat. They just grow to be so redundant over a while, and I'm just not a big car nut in real life. Far from it. Not to mention that I really suck at most of them... just throw me one hairpin and I'm more boned than Jenna Jameson.

Exceptions do include Outrun, Outrun 2, any Mario Kart game, any F-Zero game, aaaaaaand... well, that's really all I can think of.

[Scylla]

If I wanted to be broad, I could simply say that I don't like most Western-developed games in general. Call me biased if you want, but they seriously have a distinct feel about them that's wholly different from Japanese-developed games. If you pick out any random game, one that I've never heard of and isn't obvious in its country of origin, I can with great accuracy tell you whether it was made in Japan or elsewhere. That said, I was a huge fan of Rareware back in the day, and I'm still fond of most of their games from the 80s and 90s. However, I believe they were influenced A LOT by the Japanese. I find the older a Western-developed game is, the higher the likelihood that I may enjoy it because the differences weren't so large back then. The chasm is much wider these days.

So it's no surprise that most of the genres that don't appeal to me much are largely the territory of Western developers.

While I love Japanese RPGs (as a genre, but I'm still rather picky about them), Western-developed RPGs don't even feel like they belong in the same genre, and I have pretty much zero interest in them. Of course, this extends to MMORPGs (and online gaming in general).

I almost never play first person games since they tend to make me feel sick, disoriented, or plain freaked out. That eliminates FPSs and most flight sims, but I do enjoy watching others play certain first person games like King's Field (take note, a Japanese-developed game).

I don't like sports period, so sports games are both unappealing and utterly confusing to me. I used to play Tecmo Bowl as a kid, though, and Baseball Stars on Neo Geo Pocket is pretty fun (also, both Japanese games).

I don't like RTSs, but I do like Japanese strategy games, especially strategy RPGs, as long as they're not exceptionally wonky and more than my brain can handle (see Carnage Heart).

I'm actually quite fond of racing games at times, but I stay away from the realistic ones (since I don't find them much fun and I'm not into cars in the first place). I like stuff like Mario Kart, F-Zero, or even semi-realistic arcade-y racers like Ridge Racer 4 (love spazzing out with the NegCon). Cruis'n USA was a guilty pleasure as a kid, and Beetle Adventure Racing is actually quite cool, but I largely stay away from Western racers.

[kal]

I'm Definately not in the target market for any sports title ever. I use to enjoy a few arcadier sports titles but really I don't find them interesting at all.

Racing titles definately have never held any real interest for me. I'll admit on the Genesis two titles slipped in as considerable games for me, Rock and Roll Racing (Yes I now know it's a port) and Lotus 2. One thing about what's being said here is I'm noticing is a lot of people are mentioning the F-Zero series yet haven't talked about the Wipeout series which is at least imho just as good and has more visually appealing tracks.

Racing games and Sports games tend to be what I hate playing.

I don't despise Sandbox games (like a lot of people here apparently) I think something that's being missed is Sandbox should at best be an after thought. Though no ones mentioned The Getaway or Mercanaries, two of the better examples of Sandbox gaming avaliable.

I can't stand realistic FPS's were it seems everything results somehow in your dying instantly in a single shot, I know it's real, but it's annoying as hell.

[YourAverageJoe]

My terrible memmory kept me from mentioning WipeOut. I've been looking for some titles in that series for a while now.

[klatrymadon]

succubus said:

If you pick out any random game, one that I've never heard of and isn't obvious in its country of origin, I can with great accuracy tell you whether it was made in Japan or elsewhere.

Same here. By extension, I can always tell if something's been ported over from the PC. I'm not sure I'd put it down to a lack of polish, but PC games (especially FPS) often feel much more bare-bones and 'just functional' than console games, especially in terms of animation.