Genshin Impact.

Yeah, I know, F2P doesn't count as "buying". But I've spent in the game, and I regret it, because now I can't stop playing it. And it's not even because of the "sunk cost fallacy" thing. It's legitimately a decent base game, and at least half the regular content updates during the year are decent.

Last edited by cybik on 11 June 2023 at 7:27 pm UTC

Artifact

Fall Guys is prolly the one with the most regret. It was the one time I caved in to FOMO and bought it at full price, only to not be able to play it anymore mere days later with the addition of EAC. Now it's not played as much back then, since matchmaking takes much longer.

Halo 4 for me. Such a let-down.

I would say "Ghostwire Tokyo" because a week after I bought it they added Denuvo to it. Too much playtime to refund it at that point as well. And of course, it's in the Humble Choice now, so I literally wasted my money by not being more patient and got shitty crapware bundled with it as the shittiest present ever.

Amnesia Rebirth - easily the worst Amnesia game made by Frictional

Super ultra deluxe whatever edition of Paradox' Surviving Mars for like 100ish bux, played like 3 hours bcs it is really boring.

Couple here:

Imperator: Rome, even though I love the theme and idea of it and some of the mechanics, it's pretty much one of the games Paradox admitted was a bit of a flop and they stopped updating.

Rust, because the creator turned into an asshole. :p That one actually got the 'hide this game from my library' options ticked in Steam.

Ion Fury, again, studio/creator issues, though I'd backed it well before that happened.

In recent years, none, because of refunds. There are games I've never finished because they've switched gears mid game (e.g. substituting ramped up difficulty for content) but I won't call it a failure if I thorougly enjoyed part of the game. A recent example for that is The Callisto Protocol.

However, in the past there have been games I have spent a lot of money on, purchasing DLC content that I never got to see because I just can't or won't play the game. I regret wasting that money.

Battlefield games from EA
Jedi: Fallen Order

Another game I regret buying, but it's my fault, is Hitman 2. I bought all the content for it and couldn't so much as complete the first mission. I would say the reason I gave up on it so soon was because it was too rigid in how you approach things. Assassinations don't go like that, you need to plan your infiltration, but you also need to be able to improvise.

Terminator Resistance. Mad Max. Deus Ex Mankind Divided. These are other games I regretted buying, that I didn't want to claw back because they were Linux ports.

Actually there is one very recent example that fits here. This is probably the angriest regret for buying a game. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands!

Substituting repetitive, tedious grinding for content. There really isn't much to that game and the DLC isn't even new story missions, but tedious encounters. I literally have thousands of hours into the Borderlands franchise and I was finished with this one in 44 hours (that's doing everything, including the DLC encounters twice but the loot was just repetitive so there was no point in grinding those anymore either). There's no second playthrough with your character, they took away "True" and "Ultimate" modes of replaying characters. All the shit I did, stats, gear, money... all for nothing because the character is done. That's what was motivating me to endure the tedium... "second playthrough soon!", and at that point I didn't know they took it away. The game is just not interesting enough for me to want to play a new character.

I regret buying Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. That's my answer here.

Last edited by Grogan on 11 June 2023 at 8:42 pm UTC

The Witcher 2. I really liked the rhythm-based fighting mechanic in the first part and that you could use potions during combat. The second part turned fighting into a rolling around simulator and introduced a save&reload to use a potion before a fight starts mechanic. And the difficulty curve is all over the place. Such a disappointment.

I liked Witcher 2, but I play all the witcher games with cheats because I can't stand tedious sword play type combat. Silly, scripted sword strikes. That doesn't make me feel special in any way. Failure is arbitrary, that doesn't really feel like "combat" to me, just timed key pressing. Instead I'd rather watch the entertaining scripted events (decapitations, dismemberments etc.) without frustration.

For me those games are about the story, the graphics and ESPECIALLY the acting for me. In the Witcher 2, that's the Dwarves lol. Good character establishment for later too.

I would not have gotten past Chapter 2 in The Witcher 2. It was either find a cheat or abandon the game. (I think it was that Kraken fight that made me do it).

Last edited by Grogan on 11 June 2023 at 8:41 pm UTC

Amnesia Rebirth - easily the worst Amnesia game made by Frictional

The only reason I didn't list that one was because I refunded it, TWICE (tried it again years later, native didn't work and neither did it with Proton. Horrible OpenGL programming on any platform)

I probably have more, but the four that come to mind are Borderlands 2, NieR Automata, the System Shock remake, and Cyberpunk 2077.

Outside of the art style, I disliked everything about BL2. For Automata, literally the only thing I liked is the character design for 2B, 9S, and A2. Cyberpunk's character creator was incredibly limited and gender-locked, which went against the "you can be anything/anyone" tagline marketing loved repeating. And in the case of the System Shock remake, it's because Nightdive clearly didn't care about proper keyboard support (which was exacerbated by the fact Unreal Engine still uses layout-dependent key labels for bindings instead of layout-independent scancodes).

Thankfully, I was able to get both the SShock remake and Cyberjunk refunded, so at least the regret for those didn't last long.

I liked Witcher 2, but I play all the witcher games with cheats because I can't stand tedious sword play type combat. Silly, scripted sword strikes. That doesn't make me feel special in any way. Failure is arbitrary, that doesn't really feel like "combat" to me, just timed key pressing. Instead I'd rather watch the entertaining scripted events (decapitations, dismemberments etc.) without frustration.

Always funny how people experience things differently. I played all Witcher games on the highest difficulty (excluding the permadeath one) because I need my failure to hurt for immersion. Considering the hundreds of hours I have in those three games, no complaints from me. :)

As for real purchase regrets, I'm not sure I have any strong enough to fall under the topic title. Most probably relate to crowd funding stuff. I suppose the most regrettable one would be "Crazy Justice". Apology for reminding people about that one. :D

I'm going to really show my age with this one, because the game I most regret buying is likely to be older than a bunch of people on GOL!

I most regret buying The Flintstones: Yabba Dabba Doo! for the Commodore 64. I picked it up because my cousin had the other Flintstones game for the C64 (simply titled "The Flintstones"), which I found fun, and thought that this one would be similarly good. IT WASN'T. It has awful gameplay with unclear goals and loads of cheap hits from enemies that you can't defend yourself from (some of whom are friendly characters in the show, meaning that the game also makes no sense), and the music is dreadful, too.

Worse, it was what we called a "full-price" game back then, costing a whole £10. I was only 8 years old, and I begged for an advance of my £1-per-week pocket-money from the next couple of months, and I sorely regretted it, because this game was an absolute steaming pile of Yabba Dabba Doo-Doo. As with all of my C64 games I still have it, and seeing the box-art alone still really irritates me. Lesson learned! Luckily, it taught me to make better purchasing decisions going forward.

For those on GOL who might've seen me mention in a news-thread that I was one of the idiots who backed the notorious disappointment that was Mighty No. 9, the reason that I didn't name that disaster here was because I at least had the good sense to only back that for about £5, which meant that I was never subjected to the game itself. (Though, that said, even the Kickstarter freebie of a small promotional 3DS game was a huge and disappointing botch - they only let US-based backers have that one, and never reversed that decision.)

Duke Nukem Forever: Balls Of Steel Edition

G'Day fellow tuxers......

I splashed out and got the Balls of Steel Edition and all I got was regret........

The graphics are...... Well...... They arnt good...... Even in 2012 they wernt good....... Everyone has a weird sheen to them..... Like they are made of wax...... The environments dont look too bad...... But they all still have a very lifeless feel about it...... Like a dolls house..... It looks real enough but you know its not.......

Sounds....... This is were it falls down..... Hard....... The sound work in this game is terrible....... John St. Jon is always good as Duke Nukem....... Thats not the issue....... Its everyone else....... All the women sound like college girls.... With really high pitch voices and giggling all the time...... The guns sound limp and the the environment sounds are lacking to say the least......

Controls are....... Fine....... On foot........ But the car controls...... Yes there are driving sections...... It is 2012 after all..... Are terrible........ The cars are very floaty and feel like they have no weight to them at all.......

Storyline is super simple........ April O'Neil has been kidnapped and its up to Ninja Tur....... Wait..... Wrong game....... *shuffles papers*........ Oh here it is....... Aliens have kidnapped Dukes two favourite groupies I cant Believe Its Not The Olsen Twins..... And its up to Duke Nukem to rescue them......

Gameplay is........ OK........ At times....... There is a lot of doing nothing in this game........ Where Duke trudges from point A to point B without much going on....... When there is shooting its not to bad..... Of course..... Being 2012.... There is a limit to the number of weapons you can carry at one time..... Which was the style at the time........ And there is a lot of mocking of other games....... Halo, Doom, Half-Life........ Which doesnt work since the game is so crap........

This game gets the official rating of CC...... Not the CC's corn chips sold in Australia...... CC stands for C.Rap Clowns....... The worst rating a game can get...... This game is pure trash and should not be played........ If you want a Balls of Steel box set....... Get the DVD box set of the Balls of Steel TV show....

If you enjoyed this review and want to see more of them....... Please visit the Weekend Players Club forum threads...... A new thread is posted every Saturday morning Australian time........

Duke Nukem Forever is terrible. It's insultingly stupid. That's the only reason I like it even a little, because it's so bad it's good. It's like, "the joke's on me". Highly offensive... I wish I was 12 years old for that game.

I don't see it often, and never get far if I do install it again. (I finished it once when it came out, just because it was completable)

I haven't bought many games in my life but that one that stands out is not the fault of the game itself.

Command & Conquer: Generals

I never like EA. My friends that I game with were all hyped about this game. Emailed me articles and what not. It was going to be the next game we all pick up and play. Prior to this we was playing Quake 2, UT99 and Myth II: Soulblighter pretty much every week.

So my entire crew got a copy and was playing it but I did not have a copy and at the time. Then at one of the LAN meet a good source was talking about how he got it up and running via WINE. So I get a copy and tried to get it up and running...brought the game and my rig to a LAN meet. Source dude could not get it working. Brought it back to Staples to get a refund but they gave me in store credit only, so I got a bunch of candy....gave it to my kids when I got home.

Bards Tale 4, which I backed on Kickstarter. I had just backed Torment: Tides of Numenera, which I found very satisfactory (eventually, wasn't out yet) and another game by the same team, with some cool ideas and a discount from backing the other one, seemed attractive.

Torment was a really good game despite failing to meet all the promises and stretch goals (and being delayed, but that I didn't even mind), but BT4 was a big disappointment in many ways and I haven't ever played it. The ridiculous delay in the Linux port, the Microsoft acquisition, the much higher system requirements... even the basic gameplay mechanics turned to be not quite what I expected from the pitch, they stuck with many things I didn't quite like and I vastly overestimated some things.

For a crowdfunding project, it wasn't a failure - delivered and wasn't horrible. But it was a game I should have known I wouldn't like, and I disliked their release priorities.

(No need to come tell me about the dangers of crowdfunding. I back stuff with knowledge of the risks and ready to accept a full loss, with the goal of helping cool projects happen, and I don't regret it any more than buying a game at full price)

Payday on the PS3. My friends insisted that I had to get it for multiplayer with them, which didn't work, and the AI were entirely brain dead, so it was complete crap as a single player game, too.