How Much Have I Enjoyed the Games I’ve Played?
Apologies for the long post.
I haven’t been playing much of anything new for several months now. However I thought upon reviewing my list of played games that I might try a different way of rating them. Mostly when I slap a rating of 1-10 on a game it’s a combination of enjoyment plus how well I feel the game is designed. That way I don’t pan a good game that doesn’t personally appeal to me.
So I took my list of beaten games and rated them solely on enjoyment on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the lowest. I also marked my SteamGifts wins .
There were a few surprises in each category. “Dust: An Elysian Tail” in the lowest group. “Papo & Yo” and “Stacking” with only a 2. “Never Alone” and “Valiant Hearts” with a 3. “Hatoful Boyfriend” with a 4. And “Dark Dreams Don’t Die” and “Dead in Bermuda” with a 5.
For reference, I also track the games I abandoned out of lack of fun or interest: My Abandoned Games
Do you find yourself playing games you don’t like but seeing them through anyway instead of abandoning them?
Rating 1 - Can I have these hours of my life back?
| A New Beginning - Final Cut | Call of Duty: Black Ops | Call of Juarez: Gunslinger |
| Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller | Deadlight | Dust: An Elysian Tail |
| Five Nights at Freddy’s | Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 | Human Resource Machine |
| Maize | Mars: War Logs | N.E.R.O.: Nothing Ever Remains Obscure |
| Rolling Sun | Subject 13 | The Journey Down: Chapter One |
| To the Moon |
Rating 2 - Meh…
| A Bird Story | Animal Lover | Blameless |
| Broken Age | Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons | Collisions |
| Cross of the Dutchman | Epistory - Typing Chronicles | Fire |
| Grey Cubes | Hexcells Plus | klocki |
| Layers of Fear | LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 | LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 |
| Masochisia | MIND Path to Thalamus | My Name is Mayo |
| Nihilumbra | Pandemic: The Board Game | Papo & Yo |
| Particulars | Project Temporality | Q.U.B.E: Director’s Cut |
| Scribblenauts Unmasked | Stacking | STASIS |
| STORM VR | Strata | The 39 Steps |
| The Cat Lady | The Fall | The Silent Age |
| The Stanley Parable | The Walking Dead: A New Frontier | Toby: The Secret Mine |
| Universe Sandbox | Vanishing Realms | Windward |
| Zenge |
Rating 3 - Pleasant Distraction
| Alan Wake | Among the Sleep | Amphora |
| Batman: Arkham Knight | Between Me and The Night | BioShock 2 |
| Blockwick 2 | CONSORTIUM | Contrast |
| Dear Esther | Euclidean | Game of Thrones - A Telltale Games Series |
| Glass Masquerade | Goat Simulator | Gone Home |
| Hexcells Infinite | Hive - Complete Pack | Kentucky Route Zero |
| L.A. Noire | Little Nightmares | LYNE |
| Mass Effect 2 | NaissanceE | Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna) |
| Obduction | Of Orcs And Men | Portal Stories: Mel |
| Refunct | Remember Me | That Dragon, Cancer |
| The Bridge | The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav | The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed |
| The Novelist | The Swapper | The Talos Principle |
| The Town of Light | The Walking Dead: Michonne | Typoman |
| Valiant Hearts: The Great War | Year Walk |
Rating 4 - Enjoyed
| ABZÛ | Alice: Madness Returns | Borderlands |
| Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel | Botanicula | Braid |
| Deus Ex: Mankind Divided | Dishonored | Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator |
| ENSLAVED: Odyssey to the West | Eufloria | Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture |
| Half-Life 2: Update | Hand of Fate | Hatoful Boyfriend |
| Hero of Many | Hexcells | Hook |
| Journey | Kona | LEGO The Lord of the Rings |
| Life is Strange: Before the Storm | LIMBO | Little Inferno |
| Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes | Paws: A Shelter 2 Game | Pillars of Eternity |
| Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire | realMyst: Masterpiece Edition | RiME |
| Spate | Spec Ops: The Line | The Banner Saga 3 |
| The Unfinished Swan | The Vanishing of Ethan Carter | Thomas Was Alone |
| Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception | Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End |
Rating 5 - Loved
| Alien: Isolation | Bastard Bonds | Bastion |
| Batman: Arkham Asylum | Batman: Arkham City | Batman: Arkham Origins |
| BattleBlock Theater | BioShock | BioShock Infinite |
| Borderlands 2 | Child of Light | Cities: Skylines |
| D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die | Dead In Bermuda | Deadpool |
| Deus Ex: Human Revolution | Firewatch | Half-Life 2 |
| Half-Life 2: Episode One | Half-Life 2: Episode Two | Horizon Zero Dawn |
| INSIDE | Life is Strange | Mad Max |
| Mass Effect | Mass Effect 3 | Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain |
| Metro 2033 Redux | Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor | Mini Metro |
| No Man’s Sky | Ori and the Blind Forest | Oxenfree |
| Portal | Portal 2 | Quantum Break |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider | Saints Row IV | Shadowrun: Dragonfall |
| SOMA | South Park: The Stick of Truth | Tales from the Borderlands |
| The Banner Saga | The Banner Saga 2 | The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim |
| The Last of Us | The LEGO Movie Videogame | The Room |
| The Room Two | The Walking Dead | The Walking Dead: Season Two |
| The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings | The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | The Wolf Among Us |
| This War of Mine | Tomb Raider | Transistor |
| Trine | Tyranny | Valley |
| What Remains of Edith Finch |
Poor Dust, I am sure he did not deserve that. :P
I really like it very much, both the story and gameplay, also the graphic is adorable. Shame that you have not enjoyed it.
I thought for sure I’d like it, but I hated the story and a majority of the characters. (I liked Fidget!) It all felt very derivative to me.
That’s a lot of beaten games, gratz :)
I’ve only played very few of the listed games, but still, there are too many games to comment on. I’ll pick one game of each rating that sticks out for me!
1/5: Mars: War Logs is a strange game for me. I too really disliked it while playing, but looking back to it after a few years, it left a much deeper impression than a lot of other games. I never know what to make of this fact and always ponder about it, when I read the game’s title.
2/5: Very interesting to see Stanley Parable there, I never played it myself, but I always assumed everybody loves it. It’s intriguing to see another opinion on it.
3/5: But…but… How can you rate any Mass Effect title lower than 5? :( jk, I loved all three games, but to each his own ;)
4/5: Pillars of Eternity is in my backlog as well, good to see you enjoyed it.
5/5: Ah, at least the other Mass Effect titles are where they belong ;)
Anyhow, inspiring list, great work!
My Steam review of Mass Effect 2 kinda summed up my feelings on that one. ;)
Well agree on dust and new beginning. I am surprised by a couple of the other 1s though since ive heard great things for cognition, to the moon and journey down
Personally I stick with games as much as I can even if I hate them. This has been especially true with play or pay where pretty much each month (except lego marvel which I have played on xbox) my long game has been horrible! Why cant it be the short ones that are bad. As an achievement hunter the idea of not getting 100% just bugs me so much so in the end the games may be terrible but the satifaction of getting all its achievements and then deleting it is just worth it. I will however gladly drop them if I dont have achievements since I dont have time for those games!
I’m an achievement hunter as well, so a lot of the lower rates titles I stuck with when I knew I should have added them to my Abandoned list.
Like Vito, there are many I have and haven’t played, so I’ll also pick out some that stood out for me from your personal picks!
Your 1/5…
Bang on! Five Nights at Freddy’s – finally tried it to see why it had so much hype that it had figurines in stores, and was severely let down…
Vehemently disagree! Human Resource Machine – I really liked Little Inferno, too, so I was already in it for the visual style, and then it’s a super simple version of a Zachtronics style programming puzzle game, and I love those, so for me it’s an obvious win, but I definitely get that it’s not for everyone!
Your 2/5…
Bang on! Scribblenauts Unmasked – Yeah, I found the Scribblenauts games to be a really cool technical achievement, but also… lacking somehow in creativity without feeling like that was my fault. They’re almost good, but only for the first few minutes, and then they fail to really build on their innovation.
Vehemently disagree! Stacking – It’s simple and delightful, has a unique style, and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Your 3/5…
Bang on! Contrast – A good game. Not as deep or compelling as it hopes to be, but still worth the playthrough and you can see what they were shooting for, and they didn’t miss that by much. It’s… solidly middle-tier goodness.
Vehemently disagree! L.A. Noire – it was tough to find a “disagree” in this one, especially since there’s a lot of them in the 3-of-5 that I haven’t played through to the end yet, but L.A. Noire was really a bit better than a pleasant distraction for me. Lots of innovation, pretty decent world and driving fun, and interesting cases. Lackluster ending, but I can forgive it that one misstep for all that it does right.
Your 4/5…
Bang on! Alice: Madness Returns – Just finished this one recently, and it was great, but… not quite to the greatness of being something I really loved, so yeah, bang on with a 4/5.
Vehemently disagree! Braid – I think for me, this one gets bumped into 5/5, but really – great picks all around for your 4/5 choices
Your 5/5…
Bang on! Ori and the Blind Forest – yes. Loved this one. Hoping Will of the Wisps doesn’t harm my memory of it.
Vehemently disagree! The Walking Dead: Season Two – unfortunately, though I really liked the first season, I felt that Telltale didn’t do enough to build on having your choices matter. There were many story moments that felt forced upon me when I didn’t want to follow the narrative they’d already planned, resulting in the feeling (true or not) that my choices were mostly useless, unlike my experience with the first season. While I wouldn’t drop this down to a 3, it’s one of the few titles in your 5/5 list that I’d definitely argue against a 5 for me, personally.
All in all though, really cool to see your more personal ratings – so far the only mainstream game critic I’m usually right in line with is Yahtzee. And, it’s surprisingly great to see that many of the games you’ve bothered to play through are games that you’ve enjoyed. I’m sorry you couldn’t find the fun in a couple of them, but then we shouldn’t all like the same things!
P.S. Great to see Deadpool in the 5/5. I haven’t played it yet, and a large part of my hesitation is that I’m expecting it to not even come close to the movies in terms of fun. Hopefully I’m way off there.
I can respect the differences on Walking Dead, but it was “A New Frontier” that grated me the wrong way for that series. I have the final season but haven’t started playing it yet.
Deadpool is fantastic! The humor is hilariously spot-on for the character and the game is crazy mayhem, just without the Ryan Reynolds interpretation.
I like this idea. I don’t write updates anymore (just make annoying comments on others’ updates), but maybe I’d do a post like this.
I also like godprobe’s idea from above. Here’s my quick gander at it:
Your 1/5… Bang on! Rolling Sun. To be fair, I probably just really sucked at it. But I ragequit pretty early on and abandoned it.
Disagree! The Journey Down: Chapter One– I enjoyed this game, and the whole series. Actually, the first might have been my favorite of the three.
Granted, I love point-and-click games. I didn’t think I was going to like it because I didn’t love the artstyle (the faces). But the dialog and voice acting was just great. And I played it with my kids and they loved it, too. Honorable mention to Dust: An Elysian Tale. Maybe not a great game, but I enjoyed it. I’d give it a high 3 or a low 4.
Your 2/5… Bang on! A Bird Story. I liked To the Moon, but didn’t love it. But A Bird Story was very meh.
Disagree! Oh, quite a few…I’d give a 4 to Zenge, Fire, 39 Steps, Epistory - Typing Chronicles, and STASIS.
And I’d give a 5 to Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, Papo & Yo, and LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 and 5-7.
Your 3/5… Bang on! The Walking Dead: Michonne and Year Walk. The former probably takes a hit because the only other TT game I’d played was TWD Season 1, and Michonne just couldn’t compare to it…but it was still okay. And Year Walk was just fine, but not much more than a Pleasant Distraction.
Disagree! Remember Me, The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav, Gone Home. I loved all three of these. Chains of Satinav used to be my favorite point-and-click (at least that I’d played on Steam, not the old Sierra games from the 90s). Gone Home was so new and awesome and different at the time, and I love all of the little details if you really set yourself to exploring the house. And Remember Me is really the only fighting game I’ve ever loved (and one of the few I’ve wanted to play)…just one of my favorite games of all-time, and one of my proudest 100% games.
Your 4/5…
Bang on! ABZÛ, Botanicula, LIMBO. Enjoyed them all, but didn’t truly love any of them.
Disagree! None! I haven’t played many of your 4’s, and there weren’t any I’d have more than 2 classifications away from (ergo, no 1s or 2s).
Your 5/5… Bang on! Ori and the Blind Forest, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Portal, Portal 2, Firewatch, Life is Strange, The Walking Dead, Tomb Raider. All truly great games IMO.
Disagree! Bastion…it’s the only one of your 5s that I would give a 3 or less. It just didn’t grab me, and I abandoned it early on. That said, this was a long time ago, and it’s my very worst Completionist Downer, so I’ll probably revisit it at some point…
Thanks for the update– this was a fun exercise! :D
My biggest problem with Journey Down was that almost nothing happened in the first episode. Like 90% of the game was just the guy trying to repair his ship (or something, it’s been awhile). I decided against going further even though I had the second chapter in my backlog.
I can see how someone might not like Bastion, but I was told to play it before Transistor and I was so glad I did. I loved Bastion and loved Transistor even more. Unfortunately I couldn’t get into Pyre. It ended up on the abandoned list. I was absolute crap at the peculiar basketball game they came up with for that one.
ZOMG you abandoned one of my favorite games of all time! Dreamfall Chapters was basically custom-made for me. It looks like you got through Book 2 and decided you had enough. Oh well *sniff* I guess I can continue living. ;)
DC was such a huge disappointment. Whatever interesting story lay inside was going so slow I couldn’t bear it!
Huh, quite a lot of your 1s and 2s are games that I personally really liked (To the Moon, Nihilumbra, Stanley Parable, Epistory, The Silent Age to name a few). I’m sorry to see that you didn’t like those.
Can’t say much about your higher rated games as I didn’t play many of them, but for example Life is Strange, Hand of Fate and LIMBO would be much lower on my list. Especially LIMBO, that’s a stupidly overrated game in my opinion.
There are quite a few games in my lowest ratings here that I rated much better in my generalized view. For example, I gave Dust an 8 out of 10 after finishing it. The funny thing about rating for enjoyment is that there are so many psychological factors that can modify your experience – like if you were having a bad week or something while playing.
Quite a few ratings I disagree with, but interesting to read regardless. Would’ve loved to have gotten some insights with each entry as well though :D
What I should have done was post my general BLAEO/Steam rating alongside each game that had one. I think it would have demonstrated that my enjoyment versus trying to be objective could vary widely depending on the little.
Except for “A New Beginning”. Seriously, no one should be proud of having wasted their life on that shit. I only did it because it was my first win from my first private SG group, and I figured I could tolerate it for the achievements. (hangs head in shame)
I find it very interesting that If I were to do something similar, most of my SG wins/free games would also tend to concentrate in the lower tiers. Not sure if it’s psychological, as I gravitate towards overlooking more flaws in games I paid money, than “free” games or if it’s just a consequence of having lower standards to enter a GA/grab a freebie, since it’s “just a click”. Maybe a bit of both, I guess? xD
What happened to To the Moon? Such a good story T_T
Like many SG first-timers I was less discriminating about the giveaways I entered at first, so on the balance I won many games I would have never paid for. Once I joined BLAEO I tried to get most of the wins I thought might be passable out of the way first. There are still about 5-6 wins I haven’t played yet that I think could land in the 4-5 range. On the whole, however, I don’t think spending money necessarily makes a game more likable to me. My biggest fail in that regard was paying full price for Destiny :-P
“To the Moon” just … didn’t grab me. And I found I didn’t like that whole RPG Maker style. I kept playing though hoping it would be worth it. Alas, no.
Oh my god, that’s totally me as well. The first giveaways I won were mainly for games I just didn’t want at all, but was happy to get since it was a free game. But once I got into the site and the community, I became wary of entering random giveaways. Most of those first won games are taunting me with their terrible reviews and uninteresting concepts. :D