Games That You Think Are Unplayable Or Are?

[oldgamerz]

I hate when a video game glitches out and you can't finish it, and believe it or not some games will corrupt a memory card or even have a virus attached to them. What brought this up was me watching some videos online or (game breaking glitches) like Donkey Kong for the Super Nintendo when a glitch occurs on a barrel and then makes the rest of the game session unplayable.

Another one could be because of a door that is impossible to open because you saved at that spot and then you need to replay the entire game like on this Metriod game.

It's hard to deal with these because usually their is no way to fix this issue also this thread is also for games that are too difficult or you could never finish.

[totallycrushed]

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[dharmajones93]

I remember a certain spot in Final Fantasy Tactics. I was overwriting my save file on every floor of a dungeon, only to get to the bottom and find a massively overpowered boss fight that I couldn't back out of. I think everyone knows what I'm talking about...

I fought that dude no less than 12 times, and finally miraculously won. Sadly, even though I finally triumphed, I put down the game and haven't gone back to it in over a year. I've heard there is another section shortly after the one I've described that does the same thing.

This just seems cheap to me. I'm not the kind that likes to game the system, and I don't have the time to replay every few chapters a dozen times. This was just bad design in my opinion. I'm sure FFT fans are about to rip in to me, but it really spoiled an otherwise amazing game for me. I'm sure I'll come back to it eventually or maybe restart my save file and create an OP party just to get through the story. Sigh 

[realpoketendonl]

Half of games available on pc perhaps? Seriously, if there's one thing I absolutely hate about pc gaming it's how so many developers and publisher just don't seem to care about optimization. SO often I've had games not boot, crash on startup, crash randomly, have messed up graphics, have a blank screen, run like it's running on a microwave, the list goes on. And always I need to get online, scroll through pages and pages and pages of people having either the same or other issues looking for the most ridiculous solutions ranging from changing data within the game files to even having to download fan patches just to run the freaking game, and of course the first solution so rarely is the one I need. Seriously, once I get them running they're typically fine, but I shouldn't have to spend hours trying endless lists of random fixes to try and get it to run in the first place. I guess because they usually can be fixed they don't count as unplayable, but whatever, many of them do deserve a spot on here for just how broken and poorly optimized they tend to be.

[tripredacus]

Castlevania: Lament of Innocense on PS2.
This game has a forced tutorial section at the beginning and for some reason I could never complete it. There is a section where you have to do a jump over a pit, but it was either the controls, their responsiveness and/or the in-game camera that made this impossible for me to get past. So I never got to actually play this game.

[oldgamerz]

Half of games available on pc perhaps? Seriously, if there's one thing I absolutely hate about pc gaming it's how so many developers and publisher just don't seem to care about optimization. SO often I've had games not boot, crash on startup, crash randomly, have messed up graphics, have a blank screen, run like it's running on a microwave, the list goes on.

yes I agree a lot of PC games are like this,  and it is a good thing when you have a community dedicated to fix them most times. However older consoles games like @dharmajones93 and @tripredacus  and also @totallycrushed said usually stay unplayable. But yea I grew up on PC games and I didn't always have an internet connection growing up in which is why sadly I didn't play all the PC games I've had growing up with. Usally consoles are more reliable but not all the time

[tripredacus]

I've had all those PC game problems also... but I've also seen the same games work as well without problems. PC is a different animal and it isn't a baby's toy like a console is where you just put the game in and away you go. Here are some examples based on my experiences.

- Games not boot: One example I can think is that some installers will let you install on incompatible systems, but then when you try to launch the game, it will crash. Cities Skylines has 64bit binaries, but the installer is 32bit and will allow the game to be installed onto a computer with a 32bit OS installed. This is because the installer incorrectly uses CPU architecture detection to determine requirements instead of the OS. Then of course, if you try to run Cities Skylines afterwards, it will not launch.

- Crash on startup: I've had this happen for sure, but I do not think I can clearly recall a game that did this all of the time. I have definately seen it happen a lot in modded games, but that would be the reason right there.

- crash randomly: Sure this happens for a lot of different reasons. The most notorious for me was Oblivion, but I've also had Pinball Arcade crash as well. One interesting game I remember not being able to play due to crashes, initially was Heroes of Might and Magic V. The crash would occur on a Radeon 9800XT but not on a GeForce N220GT.

- messed up graphics: Again, changing a video card fixes this.

- blank screen: Typically this happens when trying to run a game on a display that parts of the game do not support. There are various games where the UI and the game run on different engines, and the UI either will only run on specific resolutions or will only run on 4:3 displays, even though the game engine will run on any. This was a problem in the NHL series, starting with NHL 08 (and going back to at least NHL 06), which originally did not support widescreen monitors in the UI. So when you launched the game you would have no video. The "FE" had to be edited to allow the game to launch with video. This problem also exists for older games that used full-screen shells... most games do this now, but there was a time when it was definately separate. Those were games that did not support windowed mode. Sometimes these would not show video for similar reasons (resolutions or color depth incompatibilities).

- games running badly: all to do with system optimization. Some games will allow you to run them below specs because they do not check or check the wrong things. Notable Examples I can remember are Unreal Tournament running on Windows 2000 with 16MB RAM and no video card, getting 10FPS in the tutorial level. Obviously this game will run fine on appropriate hardware. Another example is Watch Dogs, which will run on a PC with a dual-core i3 and 16GB RAM, but it runs very badly. Change to a quad core and problem solved.

[pizzasafari]

Skyrim can be. I can't even count the number of saves I've had where a quest important for the character I'm making has been unfinishable because of a glitch. I love Skyrim as much as the next guy but they've barely even TRIED to iron out the bugs.

Also not quite the same as unplayable but Yu-Gi-Oh: Forbidden Memories on PS1 is moreorless unfinishable without using guides to break the hell out of the game. And it came out before internet access was common so yeah. For some reason a huge number of cards programmed into the game are unobtainable to the player, including the strongest cards in the game, and all of these strongest cards are used by opponents towards the end of the game. There are no cards you can get that are stronger than them meaning they will beat you every time they use them.

The only way you can combat them is by getting incredibly specific cards which are near impossible to find without knowing exactly where to look via online guides because only specific opponents give you them for beating them and you normally have to beat them 100+ times before they'll finally give you one (the reward card you get from duelists is randomised and the 'drop' rates for some are pathetically rare) and even when you get them, when you put it into your deck there's still only a random chance that you'll draw it out of your deck early enough in the duel for it to make a difference, whereas your opponent is able to use WHATEVER CARD THEY WANT FROM THEIR DECK AT ANY TIME. So whereas you have to burn through your deck while the enemy's wailing at your life points hoping to god that you finally draw that card before the opponent kills you, your opponent is able to just immediately summon their best cards during their very first turn. The game shows them having a hand of 5 cards just like you but it's only for show, they just use whatever cards they want. And when your opponent is able to summon a Blue Eyes Ultimate Dragon every turn for their first three turns you probably aren't going to last long enough to see the card you need.

I broke a lot of controllers playing that game as a kid.

[tripredacus]

Skyrim can be. I can't even count the number of saves I've had where a quest important for the character I'm making has been unfinishable because of a glitch. I love Skyrim as much as the next guy but they've barely even TRIED to iron out the bugs.

On PC, the "Unofficial Patch"es do a good job of trying to fix nearly all of the known bugs. They do tend to still happen, however. I figure it is OK because it gives me a list of things to do whenever I get to replaying the game to choose the other faction.

[pizzasafari]

Skyrim can be. I can't even count the number of saves I've had where a quest important for the character I'm making has been unfinishable because of a glitch. I love Skyrim as much as the next guy but they've barely even TRIED to iron out the bugs.

On PC, the "Unofficial Patch"es do a good job of trying to fix nearly all of the known bugs. They do tend to still happen, however. I figure it is OK because it gives me a list of things to do whenever I get to replaying the game to choose the other faction.

I play on PS4/Switch so that isn't an option for me sadly.