I am shamelessly stealing this topic from my buddy — and Kotaku reader — James Mac. Late last week he asked this question: now that we’re rapidly approaching the release of next generation consoles, what video game do you most regret not playing on current generation consoles? Or even games you regret starting but not finishing?
It’s a difficult question for me. I think I’ve probably played most video games I was ‘supposed’ to play, but there are plenty of those games I didn’t have enough time to play ‘properly’. There are games I regret not sticking with, but for the most part I feel pretty comfortable with what I have played and what I chose not to play.
My major regret is not sticking with Dark Souls through to the end. But the problem with this job is that you feel the pressure to be across all of the games, meaning that ploughing 100 hours into Dark Souls might not be the most efficient use of my increasingly limited gaming time. That sucks. Definitely a regret. I actually regret not playing it when it was first released.
But I think for the most part I’ve played all of the games I really wanted to play over this generation of consoles. How about you?
Comments
103 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Last Gen Regrets”
Yeah, I’m pretty content with what I’ve played this generation. Can’t say there’s any thing standing out as a regret. Maybe would’ve liked to get the PS3/Wii sooner, but I’ve got ’em now and played all the good stuff. Actually there’s lots of indie stuff I haven’t played like Braid and Limbo.
Braid, Limbo and Fez. I enjoyed those more than the AAA titles out there…
Got Fez covered! Liked it until I got lost in a maze of levels! XD
That’s the joy! Getting lost in it! I miss all the games where you had to search and have your patience tested! Haha.
I’ve done pretty well this gen, but I never played the PS3 Ratchet and Clank games, which I loved on PS2. The 3D platformer seems to have dropped out of focus the last 5-6 years.
Does the Last Guardian count?
Probably Demon’s Souls.
I finished Dark Souls recently and it would be nice to be able to finish both but I just can’t see myself going back.
Oddly enough, I wouldn’t have finished Dark Souls if I didn’t start watching speed runs of it. Santzo84 (world record holder for killing all bosses) is streaming right now.
It makes the game a lot less intimidating if you know what’s coming but that also does take a whole lot out of the game. It’s a weird balance and I can definitely understand why people would want to go in blind. I couldn’t. That’s just the kind of coward I am.
EDIT: On the other side of the coin, there are actually some games I regret finishing. Homefront and Spec Ops: The Line were both terribly mediocre games that tried to save themselves with hamfisted plots. I know Spec Ops is well loved but I just didn’t like it. When people try to defend the game by saying that the game was deliberately mechanically bad to drive home “the point”, you know there has to be something wrong.
The only thing finishing those games has done for me has made it slightly harder for people to dismiss my bitching of them.
I don’t think Spec Ops is deliberately bad at all and never understood that defense. I just think it’s really solid in story telling, structure, level design and the like. One of my favourites from this generation, but you know how I feel about Spec Ops… fanboy’s gonna fan to use your quote about Journey. XD I still haven’t played Journey, btw. 😛
The shooting mechanics are pretty meh. Some fanboys have tried to argue that’s deliberate so that the combat is frustrating and unenjoyable to reflect the mood of the protagonist.
I didn’t like the story telling because it was too heavy handed. George Orwell could pull that sort of thing off, the guys behind Spec Ops could not.
I agree that the mechanics weren’t any thing spectacular and were mostly just serviceable, but this game really was more than the sum of its parts for me at least. I can understand why you didn’t like it though. And respect that. 😀
Actually… I thought Spec Ops was one of the finest moments this generation. So much so that I sought out ‘Killing is Harmless’ a 200+ analysis of the game. Worth checking out even if you didn’t like the game.
Mainly just regret not playing games in general. I kept buying a tonne of them, but they’d mostly just sit there on the shelf. Then every now and then I’d get back to playing things, and it felt rad! But I’d fall back out of the habit again just as quick.
This! A thousand times this!
I regret not playing “the Last of Us”. Looks like a true stand out.
There’ still time!
But I’d have to buy / borrow at PS3. (PC and Xbox for me)
Oof, that’s unfortunate. I’m genuinely interested in what exclusives the 360 has that piqued your interest? The only one I’ve ever wanted is Lost Odessey.
If you’re a PC gamer, it will probably look blurry and dirty to you. Sure did for me.
Probably my entire pile of shame, spanning all consoles/PC and towering 200+ high. :'(
You should build a throne out of it or something.
Throne of Games.
That set up..
There’s a couple indie game I regret not having played, Journey being the major one. I also regret not playing Limbo sooner, but I did play it in the end so that’s okay.
As for major releases, I guess the major one would be never finishing FF13. There’s other games I never finished (Dark Souls, The Witcher 2), but FF13 is the one that bugs me the most.
Otherwise I’m pretty happy with what I’ve played.
I fill up on indie/downloadable games, not just because they’re really good, but because they’re short. It feels nice to finish a game, whereas 40 hour epics just get abandoned.
Take the time to play Journey! It’s sublime – It’s like the first time you taste chocolate or hear the Beatles.
Journey is definitely worth playing.
I’m not just saying that because I’m a massive fanboy, that’s only maybe 90% of my reason for pushing it on others :p
I really liked FF13. It broke my PS3’s blu ray laser, but I rushed out the same day and picked up a super slim from EB Games so I could finish the game that night. I’m looking forward to playing FF13-2 and Lightning Returns.
This sounds weird, but I kind of regret not being part of WoW when it was in it’s heyday. A lot of my friends were there, socialising and having fun together, but I was too busy (I actually had a subscription, but didn’t have time to play it, what a dope!)
Oh, and Red Dead Redemption. It came bundled with my 360, and it sits there still, unopened. I think secretly I was always waiting for a PC version to come out, but alas, t’was not to be.
Take solace in the fact Red Dead is just as amazing still as it was then!
PLAY RED DEAD. Seriously it’s one of, if not my favourite Rockstar game.
So much atmosphere as well, a thing that a lot of games claim to exude but never quite hit the mark.
Do yourself a favour, take the plastic off and play that sucker. Fantastic game, I logged in to the Rockstar Social Club to make a crew for GTA: Online and had a look at my stats while I was there, I was surprised to see that I spent 190 hours on RD:R. I mean I knew I spent a lot of time on it, but I didn’t think it was anywhere near that much.
Read Dead is cool, but..
I can’t help but feel it’s let down by the tech. The environment is pretty much identical everywhere. The game fills in time by making you use a slow as shit horse and trails, and then fills in this time with a lot of cheap voice acting (GTA equivalent would have you drifting cars around and rocking out to music). Otherwise, it’s a damn good game. But it gets annoying when every single mission requires you to gallop for 5 mins somewhere, turn around, gallop back.Ha ha I thought the spoiler would be a pun based on your typo, so disappointed.
I’m sorry. 🙁
I felt that it reflected what riding around in the desert would more or less be like. Fast travel compensated enough for the tedium I think.
I had the opposite feeling: I think I fast traveled maybe once in the whole game. If I had to go from Blackwater all the way down to Mexico, I’d ride there. I loved watching the scenery change, taking pot shots at birds or animals, seeing the weather and time of day change. By the end of it I’d amassed about $50K more than I needed to buy every gun and horse, simply from riding around and hunting animals.
Red Dead and Skyrim are comfortably my favorite games of this gen. I (along with all the other replyers) thoroughly recommend you cutting that baby open and getting involved.
My biggest last gen regret?
Finishing FFXIII. I want my 43 hours back!!!
Honorable Mentions include Resident Evil 6 and only Resident Evil 6.
I heard it got pretty okay, almost enjoyable even… after the first 20 hours or so? 😛
Man, imagine if they went back to old school graphics, or at least simplified, and put all that energy and effort into making an amazing game experience and rich story, instead of just cool looking hair. A new 2d top down FF could be cool… I blame Spirits Within and all that other movie nonsense.
It never gets better.
You’ll think it does because the words labelled ‘Final Fantasy’ are etched into the game. But it doesn’t. The story is absurd, the writing is a joke, the characters have zero depth, zero exploration, repetitive gameplay.
But you’ll feel compelled to play it because it’s ‘Final Fantasy’
No more, my friend. No more.
People say it gets better when you get to those open plains with Titan overlooking you. It really doesn’t make the game any less linear, more forces you to retrace steps back to old areas to fight enemies you’ve already seen. Plus you don’t get to fight Titan at the end of his challenge anyway. I felt ripped off from that as well as from the actual game being a POS
And the best part about all of this?
It spawned 2 sequels.
And Square Enix is wondering why they’re losing money. They haven’t made anything worthwhile since FFVII: Crisis Core.
I think they must be making money from FFXIII, otherwise why would they do not one, but two sequels?
Because the spent a tonne of money developing the engine they planned to use for this generation… and, as is standard Square practice, they generated an enormous amount of assets for the first game before they decided on what was actually going into the game.
I’m not suggesting that FF13 didn’t make money, but with the losses incurred with FF14, they decided that both DE:HR and the new Tomb Raider games didn’t make enough money.
Yeah, FF14 was a fiasco that must have really bled money. DE:HR was profitable. I think you are thinking of Hitman Absolution. That and Tomb Raider pretty much broke even.
I think their Q1 loss this year of $134 Million is telling enough.
They should have focused their time and energy on something else on other projects.
Most of my regrets involve unfinished PC games. Skyrim is probably my biggest. I burned out on the side quests, but never finished the story. I may yet see it through one day.
I still haven’t played Tales of Xillia though, so maybe that can be my PS3 regret for this generation.
That’s not as big a deal as you think. If you’ve done a lot of other stuff you are probably high level and will romp it in. It’s quite short, I had done so much side questing there is one point where the main quest giver sends you out on various fetch quests that I had already done, so it was *drums* new quest, dialog: I already have it *drums* quest completed, quest giver: go do this *drums* new quest, dialog: already done it *drums* quest complete lolz. It really isn’t very in depth on its own, but combined with all the other stuff like Civil War/ thieves guild etc it’s epic
No games I regret not playing.
Plenty of games I regret playing.
Ooooh! I regret not buying Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on launch. I played it eventually and rank it among my favourite games of all time. Would’ve loved a sequel and the fact so few people bought it at launch hindered that. (Here’s hoping imminent PC release will fix that!)
I started it, but somehow got distracted? Maybe when i’m not so busy with work GTAV i’ll get into it.
One of the few games to really blow me away unexpectedly. Had never heard of it prior to finding it secondhand for less than $10.
Dishonoured, but I’m planning on getting the GOTY edition soon.
Tomb Raider, looks awesome, still really want to play it.
Remember Me, played the demo, seemed cool.
Still got to finish a whole bunch:
Darksiders 1+2 (about 75% through 1, haven’t started 2)
Enslaved
Borderlands 1+2
Dead Space 2+3
Bioshock Infinite
aaaand probably a whole lot more. Hey I’m busy, give me a break.
Tomb Raider is easy-playing (easy-listening equivalent..?) because it’s pretty heavily scripted with QTE events and stuff. I found it a really nice game to just relax with and get it done (since I dont finish many games these days).
Not getting a PS3 sooner. Though I couldn’t really afford one until recent, but still!
This. Mined all the exclusives and Naughty Dog titles. Good times.
Regret not playing? Wow. I regret wasting so much time playing games!
Some games look great and I think “there’s no way I’m playing that because it’s another 50hrs of my life I’ll never get back”.
The Last Guardian…
As a serious response, something I actually had control over, I regret not upgrading to PC sooner. It was affordable and it’s better in almost every way. It’s not like I’ve gotten rid of my consoles either, so I can still play the few exclusives that trickle out. But multi-platform games? Better on PC.
My only true regret is putting down RDR so quickly. I’m waiting until the GOTY edition gets super-cheap.
How cheap are we talking? I don’t think you’ll get much better than this.
http://www.ozgameshop.com/ps3-games/red-dead-redemption-game-of-the-year-edition-goty-ps3
$31 with free postage, what are you waiting for?
That’s standard cheap – I want super-cheap! OGS often do a 2 for $XX and RDR GOTY hasn’t been in one of them yet. The problem is my Piles of Shame (notice the plural) are growing faster than I can keep up. Both Steam and PSN+ are trying to ruin me!
How’s this for cheap?
https://webshop.cashconverters.com.au/item/1808439/red-dead-redemption-ps3-game
The GOTYE has been $34 at JB quite often of the past few months. Sits at $39 everyday price. Go get it now!
I picked it up for 18 bucks at EB Games on PS3 when I got my PS3 last month.
Not played/finished- portal 2, red dead, bioshock infinite, dark souls, nier.
Regret finishing- every Assassins Creed and Final Fantasy XIII series.
Portal 2 was a game I’d try to stop and have breaks from so I didn’t finish it too fast. Still only took two days. XD Such an amazing game. Be sure to play the coop with a real life pal too!
Thanks! It’s still sitting in my cupboard. I’m hilariously playing GTA4 for the first time now. I still think the PS2 generation had the most variety in games. There still hasn’t been a ‘wow this is out there’ experience like ‘killer 7’. Most of the indie titles seem to be the most interesting
how good is the verticle split screen coop? More games should do this.
One regret was not starting Disgaea 4 when I had the chance, now it’ll forever be in it’s shrink-wrap, never to be opened. I know too well how many 100s of hours that thing will suck from me…
I regret not finishing:FF13-2,farcry 3
Battlefield 3, not getting rank 100 only managed 79
Boarderlands 2, not playin’ the DLC after buying season pass for $40
Skyrim, kept getting to the same point (finding the wall with the dragon shout) and then just starting a new with totally different character build/skill tree but still have massive amounts of fun
I regret buying CoD:MW3,medal of honour:warfighter
My excuse for Borderlands 2 was that I was waiting for all the DLC to drop before doing one grand final run. I think it’s time…
Demon’s Souls
Always felt wrong to not pay homage to the Dark Souls predecessor.
Also for not finishing half of the Borderlands 2 DLC.
Regret not playing? I haven’t finished this generation. I’m putting a year between new console release and considering purchasing one.
I regret not playing Braid or To The Moon… and I regret not finishing Alan Wake.
The love those games get online really makes me feel like I’m missing out.
To The Moon. Yeah I regret not playing that properly. I played five mins I think.
It’s an interesting one. I found it more frustrating than anything. It’s a game with some interesting ideas and a decent story to tell, held back by some clumsy and occasionally incredibly jarring writing. It feels like the script needed at another draft to clean up the tonal inconsistencies and occasional awful dialogue line.
I bought To The Moon about 6 months ago, I installed it and it’s just been sitting there ever since. I really need to get to it one day, that and Limbo, Binding Of Isaac, Unwritten Tales, and Sanctum (bought all of them the same day).
My pile of shame is growing way too large. Top of that pile is Last Of Us and Bioshock Infinite.
Bioshock Infinite, whilst awesome, was not as long as I hoped it would be.
Nor as interesting and edgy as IT thought it was. Good but not great.
Agreed.
I have a tremendous pile of shame but mostly I probably regret not getting into Red Dead Redemption in it’s heyday. I know it’s still a good game now and people still get excited about it when you bring it up, but I feel like it’s one of those games I should have played when everyone else was playing it. I started it about a year ago and kind of got sidetracked a few hours into it. I keep telling myself I’ll restart it, but then other stuff comes up.
Other than that, I think I nailed everything major from this gen. I kind of wish I’d finished Arkham Asylum and Arkham City but I guess I could restart them, besides I feel like I got far enough into them that I basically get the gist, and I saw the endings anyway because I saw my wife finish them. There’s other games I haven’t finished that I’m curious about, but only in a general kind of way that makes me feel sad I didn’t do as much gaming as I wanted to.
Well, I’m only getting two games for my Xbone at launch with no idea how long until I’ll get something else, so it’s not like this gen ends on november 22nd. I still plan to revisit my pile of shame. Hell, I’ll probably buy a backup 360 so I can continue to play and replay those games in the future, something I kind of still want to do with my PS2 stuff.
Ok, let’s see, I regret not finishing Puppeteer, finished the first 4 or 5 levels then GTA V came out, and Batman tomorrow, so I won’t be going back to it at least until I’ve finished with that.
Also, not finishing Dead Space, Dead Island, Dead Rising, The Darkness, Dishonored, Just Cause, Blue Dragon, Metro 2033, Borderlands 2, Crackdown 2, Hitman: Absolution, Heavy Rain, Ghostbusters: The Game, There’s tons more, but I think you get the picture.
Too many games I haven’t started/bought yet too, Rage, Bioshock: infinite, Red Faction: Armageddon, Journey, ZombiU, Assassin’s Creed III, I could go on all day.
I feel my regrets are not playing games that I could of, I have about 10 games on my PS3 I haven’t opened or touched. I feel like I could have played more indies as well But alas I didn’t. Looking at it I’m content with what I played but at the same time abit sad I didn’t play more..that’s life but isn’t it..we push hard to do something but we miss the little things along the way..never miss the little things, live your life without regrets!
I regret not playing Monster Hunter.
I play it now on my Wii U, but I regret not playing it when I first bought a PSP back in 2005.
I haven’t played any of the Uncharted games, but biggest regret for not playing yet is The Last Story.
About half the DLC I bought…
Always buy DLC when it’s on sale but get so caught up in new games that I never go back to play it.
Ballad of gay tony. Brigmore witches (dishonored). The metal gear revengence, skyrim and borderlands DLC to name a small fraction.
Since it did get a PS2 release as well as Wii and PS3, I’m not sure it counts as this gen, but Okami.
One of those games I’m always hearing great things about, from a great publisher, but I still haven’t gotten around to.
I bought this the other day, over a 6Gb download though =/
One of my biggest regrets of this generation was giving a damn about trophies and achievements. Life is better forgetting that these things exist. (For me, atleast.)
Achievements and perfectionism ruined the enjoyment of many games for me. I should go back to DA:O now.
a lot of people will disagree, but Final Fantasy XIII, i really liked the combat, but the story was dragging me down, and my friends who did beat it said that XIII-2 was a much better game, i’m thinking of giving it another shot when lightning returns releases, so i can play the 3 games in succession.
Dude, a lot of people won’t disagree with you about FF13 😛
have you seen the internet?
a lot of people hate that game 😛
Yeah, that’s what I was saying.
oh… OHHHHHH that s what you meant. *whoosh noise*
yeah, but most people would tell me to not even try play it again haha
I, urgh, never finished The Last of Us or Ni No Kuni. I plan to get around to them though! …Eventually!
I regret not finishing Skyrim. 200hrs and I still don’t know how it all ended. Nor did I finish Red Dead. Got to the final missions and just gave up. Not sure why… Gave up on Dead Space 2, and Assassins Creed 3. Didn’t get any of the Mass Effect 3 DLC, which sucks because it seemed so compelling.
Still… There’s time yet!
I regret buying WWE13 and Skullgirls.
Regret not finishing Castlevania the most recent one.
Regret not yet playing any of the Uncharted games and The last of us.
I regret not getting a bigger HDD for the 360 – my 60GB is over-maxed
I regret not buying a PS3 a few years back – they’ve had some good exclusives but I’m past the point of no return on that question now
I regret buying Mass Effect (not the sequel, that was good) and Skyrim – I got those games because people raved about them – your mileage may vary!
I regret not playing Red Faction Guerilla, Bionic Commando but the moment has passed.
I don’t regret my pile of shame because a) I’ve finished more games this generation than any previous gen and 2) I still have 18 months or so to finish em before owning a new console becomes economically appealing
Ask me again in 2 years when I leave current gen. Until then, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!
I regret waiting until late 2009 to get my PS3 – my pile of shame could have been considerably smaller!
I regret buying a second PS Vita purely for ad hoc play, but kind of justify it now by saying that it is a spare OLED version in case my first Vita packs it in. Not feeling the LCD revamp…
I regret saying that I was going to finish Sonic ’06 for real real. I also regret lending my copy of GTA V to my younger brother. I believe I’ll never see it again.
Started but didn’t finish (these are the main ones):
Mass Effect 3
Arkham City
Skyrim
Spec Ops
Borderlands 2
Deus Ex: HR
Mark (Serrels) Of The Ninja
Bought and never started:
Witcher 2
Darksiders 1&2
Dragon Age Origin
Dark Souls (Will be starting it this weekend)
Never Bought:
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
Xcom Enemy Unknown