This week's big question is about the games you've really, really tried to get into, but you just can't for whatever reason. You know the deal. Everyone you know is playing a game, singing its praises, and sharing tales about how great it i🏅s. Then you play it and it leaves you could. You don't understand what all🎀 the fuss is about. It happens to us all.
Total War
Andy Kelly, Features Editor
I've lost count of how many times I've tried to get into the Total War series. I've watched hours of videos on YouTube about how to master both the real-time battles and the grand strategy layer, but I always get overwhelmed by the sheer complexity and depth of everything when I play them. I've tried every single Total War, but none of them click, even if I'm really into the setting. The presentat💦i𒆙on, atmosphere, and everything else are superb, but when it comes to actually moving soldiers around on the battlefield, I end up just playing it like Command & Conquer—drag-selecting my entire army and ordering them to attack the enemy, hoping they emerge victorious.
Skyrim
Stacey Henley, Editor-in-Chief
Of all the games we write about at TheGamer, the two topics our readers love reading about the most are Skyrim and Pokemon. I’ve played every mainline Pokemon game, most of them multiple times, and several of the spin-offs - but I cannot play Skyrim. The game feels like a magnet, constantly pulling people back year after year, with everyone diving into new 80 hour p꧅laythroughs just because the game added fishing. I think Skyrim and I must share the same charge, because whatever the magical thing is that pulls everyone else in, it seems to push me away. Four times I have played Skyrim, four times I have been finally awake, and four times I’ve gotten bored within a few hours. Stick to the quests or wander off, it doesn’t matter. Skyrim pushes me away. I just hope my shared magnetism with Skyrim doesn’t mean I’ll be stuck getting texts from my ex for the next ten years.
Death Stranding
James Troughton, Photo/News Editor
Death Stranding is a hot topic - some love it, some hate it, some don’t care at all. But it was my first Kojima title, a delivery simulator where you traverse treacherous terrain to drop off parcels while fending off supernatural alien monsters. And you’re cradling a foetus. Weird, eh? It is, but it’s also a slog. The intro is a barrage of cutscenes and lengthy tutorials with little meat - getting into the thick of what Death Stranding has to offer takes time and a criminal amount of patience. Not even Norman Reedus’ gruff edge kept me hooked for that long. So I failed and failed ♕and gave up. Sorry, Kojima.
Horizon Zero Dawn
Jade King, Lead Features Editor
Horizon Zero Dawn. Perhaps it launched too close to Breath of the W🦄ild and thus all of its potential magic was ripped away from me, but Aloy’s debut adventure is a generic open world experience that obeys all of the genre’s tenets that have long grown tiresome. A bland story, forgettable characters, and teething issues that often accompany new franchises like this pushed me away time and time again regardless of how hard I tried. I have high hopes for Forbidden West, partly because it improves upon everything that put me off the first game, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that maybe it just ain’t my thing.
The Witcher 3
Ben Sledge, Features Editor
Some say this is the reason that lead features editor Cian Maher left TheGamer just weeks after I joined, others say there’s only room for one Viking lookalike on this site. Either way, I’ve never been able to get more than a few hours into CDPR’s seminal fantasy RPG, The Witcher 3. I’m a huge fantasy fan and I love RPGs, but itไ’s just never grabbed me. I’ve fought that fuckin𒉰g Griffin more times than I can count, I got to a castle once, and died to some spirit in a well another time, but nothing has ever been enough to make me think, “I want to sink hundreds of hours into this.” Maybe it’ll finally click with the next-gen update?
Skyrim
Harry Alston, Lead Specialist
Like Stacey mentions above, our readers go absolutely wild for Skyrim. The people just love it. It’s provocative. It gets ‘em going. I’ve never been able to get into it. I want to love it. Fantasy is my jam. I even know all the memes. Fus Ro Dah. Haha. Funny. But Skyrim feels like soggy chips, way past its sell-by-date, and I didn’t even get to have a bite when it was fresh out the fryer because I was 16 years old and going through one of my very few “video games are for losers” phases. Jokes on me. I am a massive loser and I’ll never be able to play Skyrim.
Dark Souls 3
Lu-Hai Liang, News Editor
The hype was loud for FromSoftware’s games, like a growing wall of fawns, so I duly bought Dark Souls 3 on the PS3. I’d read reviews that it was the best entry point into the Souls series at the time. It took me a while to get what the game was about. It does indeed teach you how to play and I admired the way the levels joined up and how paths could be so easily hidden until you discovered them. But I couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t enjoyable. I just don’t see the appeal of these Soulsborne titles so I admire them from afar. I’ll get my sense of flow 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:elsewhere thanks very much, but maybe I should finally♍ try Blood💯borne…
The Witcher 3
Amanda Hurych, Evergreen Content Lead
Ben Sledge and I might not share the same Viking aesthetic, but we do share an inability to vibe with The Witcher 3. I tried, okay? I really did. But no matter how many people tell me it is a masterpiece or how many rave reviews it garners, I can get no more than two hours in before calling it quits. Maybe I joined the bandwagon too late to properly enjoy Geralt’s journey. Maybe s𒁏pending hours in crafting menus creating potions and organizing inventory just doesn’t call to me. Or maybe, just maybe, playing Red Dead Redemption 2 before The Witcher 3 rammed home the fact that Roach controls like hot garbage, thus forever spoiling CDPR’s most vaunted title for me.
Spelunky
Justin Reeve, News Editor
As an archaeologist, I should be in love with Spelunky. I mean, just purely in terms of narrative, you can’t get much better than playing as a treasure hunting archaeologist. But so🌃mething about the mechanics never spoke to me. Spelunky is a game that I’ve come back to many times over the years and I’ve always bounced within a couple of hours. I even gave the sequel, Spelunky 2, a completely fair shot, but I couldn’t get into the game. I want to like Spelunky. I really do. I just can’t.
Skyrim
Helen Ashcroft, Evergreen Editor
It’s another vote for Skyrim here, although the Elder Scrolls series in general has all been the same for me. The series has a bunch of things I love: fantasy-based worlds, exploration, dragons, sword fights, a million side quests,🍸 etc. It even has player housing. Despite this I have never managed more than a few hours in any Elder Scrolls game. I can’t even tell you why. There’s just something that stops me being able to get pa🦹st the point of no return. It seems that with The Elder Scrolls you are either unable to get into it or unable to get out.
