IT'S A PRICE TRAP! EVADE EVADE! Ugghh...
 

[From journal entry]

Yes, I've done it, you may have done it, but when you're out shopping and a price tag of 50% off jumps out right at you, or if the game is selling for less than $10 and such, it doesn't always justify actually BUYING the damn thing.

Well I did it again, this time with Max Payne 2 for the PS2. Yes, I admit I was "blinded" by the $9.95 price from Best Buy, and said to myself I played MP1 on the PC years ago, and loved it. Surely I'll love this too!.

Um yeah, no. Well EB games, you keep boasting your trade and save, so it looks like I'll actually use this again, despite it being a total rip off. But oh well, at least I can get perhaps $3-$5 back if I'm lucky. And what's funny is my card expired, so I'll just be turning in a game for a new card.

Other "OMG so cheap deals that ate my ass":

1) Dark Cloud 1 - $13 or something like that used. Played it until the 3rd chapter - Queens, then traded it because I was damned bored.

2) AIR COMBAT - PS1 - $5.99 or something like that, just because. Don't ask.

3) King of Fighters '95 - PS1 - $2.99, again, I was like, herm, a fighting game. Certainly my gaming collection would like some fighting games.

4) Suikoden III - PS2. This one actually I got kinda ripped off, $35 for a used copy. =/ I played maybe 2-3 hours of it and hated it, despite it getting "superb" scores from various game sites. Sorry to Sui fans, this was my first Suikoden game, and I'm not too inclinded to try anything much else. I just couldn't get the hang of the "3 parties of 2 people each" battle deal. Traded this for a surprising $14 credit, I guess this is a sought after PS2 game, but better for it to go to someone who can appreciate it more than I do.

5) Game already mentioned to start this journal entry off.

HEY SPATULA, YOU DO REALIZE THEY PRICE THESE THINGS AT DIRT CHEAP BECAUSE NO BODY ELSE IS IDIOTIC TO WASTE THEIR MONEY ON IT! EVEN A LOTTERY TICKET IS WORTH MORE THAN THIS!

As "inspired" by my journal entry, in this thread, discuss games that you bought pretty much on impulse because of super cheap prices, and ended up REGRETTING the purchase. Also share the price if you remember and if you read the reviews or not. =/ Ya know, so I don't feel so bad for myself, and take that others have fallen into the same 'price trap'.

I guess the moral of the story is: SAVE YOUR MONEY! (for better games :tpg: lolololol)

I'm a big fan of those older gamers that come in big boxes. Most of them are cheap, but suck too.

Bode Miller Alpine Skiing-$10. Not bad for the price...Until I actually decide to sit down and play it. It IS worth it for the terrible announcing, especially on wipeouts.

Invasion from Beyond-$10 again. Little known game for PS1. Great framerate, horrible gameplay. I don't enjoy receiving an automatic gameover for not "staying in fucking formation"...I prefer getting blown up.

Gran Turismo 2-$20. Figured I'd take a chance. It only taught me: A) I loathe driving sims B) I loathe driving sims with license tests even more than average driving sims and C) the sim disc breaks a lot easier than the arcade disc.

Megaman X8-Good thing I waited for the price on this one to drop to $20 (didn't take long)...It's not even worth that, thanks to atrocious level designs, which seem to be the norm for the series now.

Metroid Prime 1-$10. I can see where people like this one, but I couldn't get into it. I ended up trading it in and got about 80 cents for it.

Legend of Mana-$20 new. I've had it for 6 years, I've been able to stay awake long enough playing it for maybe 8 hours.

Tiny Toons Wacky Stackers-$10 new. Horrible puzzle game. Braindead AI, awful mechanics and the license is barely used.

That said, I generally do pretty well buying cheaper games...I probably wouldn't have tried games like Ace Combat 4 or Burnout 3 if hadn't gotten them after their price drops, but I'm definitely glad I did.

Edit: Of the ones I listed, the reviews for Prime, GT2, X8 and Invasion were glowing and it played a minor role in my purchase decisions. The others were either not rated or just considered so-so in reviews I saw.

Glad to see I'm not the only one getting suckered in with CHEAP CHEAP prices. They had a sale at Canadian Superstore liquidating very old PS1 games. The only good ones were FFVII and FFT for like $5.99. Other than that, you've got your PS1 FORD RACING EXCITEMENT, Crash Bandicoot 1, and some misc tennis game extreme .

Hell, I bought Crisisbeat for €9.95, which isn't even that cheap =/

http://www.robson.pl/image/gry/PSX/b...Crisisbeat.jpg

The game is a completely awful scrolling beat 'em up with completely awful controls and collision detection, but my inner wap gets a boner because they retained the Japanese dialogue. WHY THE HELL CAN'T BETTER GAMES DO THIS ;_;
Not that I could really play beyond the first level because it was just that awful.

I like to keep it on my shelf to remind how even I can be a complete idiot when it comes to sales (and I generally like to think I have good judgement). Then there's the camp value of course, I like to have the few oddities in my shelf, like Ephemeral Fantasia.

well when I got my ps2 (like 1-2 week after the release date) I was really deperate to get new game for it and everybody know how awful the first batch of games was, and I ended up buying Fantavision for 5$can. You know this weird game with the fireworks? well it's not that bad, it's just that I played one tiem with it and never touch it again in years XD (but sometime I play just for the pretty fireworks effect XD)

but beside this game, i never actualy buy a game only because it was cheap...

Again, Fantavision for a mere 9.99 looks really good, but I really didn't know better. I was bored stiff, especially with the initial difficulty being very steep for me. I don't appreciate playing through the first stage every time and not being able to save. Being one of the first PS2 games, I think I should have watched out for sure.

Beyond Good or Evil did seem all right for 9.99 or so. However, I regretted it because the brand new disc would freeze for some reason after the part right at the start where Jade faints. Gee, more like a problem with the disc somehow, so I didn't play it enough to see what all the hype was about. I never bothered to purchase BG&E again, despite having traded it in for about the same value.

$4.99 for Gearheads, a really old Windows 95 game I saw in my first gaming magazine, Gamepro's December 1995 issue. I was going by the fact that it was apparently dirt cheap and that I had wanted this game for a long time until I forgot about it a couple of years further. I realized that there's a reason it's cheap, and there's a reason it wasn't very popular. I haven't so much as touched the game since I played it many weeks ago.

D2 (Dreamcast) - $7.99. I had the first game for Playstation. D was interesting because of the puzzles, so when I saw the sequel, I thought the game would be similar. It was very different and too many elements had been changed.

Ephemeral Fantasia (PS2) - $19.99. Looking back, that's still expensive for a game I regret owning. I played for about six hours and realized that I couldn't go on further.

Threads of Fate/Dew Prism (PSX) - $8.99. I remember getting this one on my way out of the store. I finished Mint's story only and didn't bother with the second character. The game only lasted about ten hours for me, and except for a few challenging bosses, I haven't picked it up again.

hey quarky, i got this g4me calld ico for liek $13 dollars, and its really ...liek stupid your this dude wit horns on teh h34d that has to like drag this b1tch around and i dont like it so y3ah wh4t4 waste of tim3. needs moar rockety luanchers amirite.


___________


Seriously though, another game I just thought of was Sly Cooper 1 for $9.99. This game itself wasn't too bad, but I bought it purely out of the cheap price. I didn't get past the first stage, as at the time I wanted a more "mature" title that involved killing with more conventional weapons, not so much his swiping cane thing. =/

First, before I begin, I just have to say that you suck. Go play in traffic. :p


Ok, now that I'm done with that, onto the topic.

Games I regret?

Beyond the Beyond (PSX) - $9.99 at some used games store. Between the crappy graphics and boring storyline, I lost interest fast.

Darkstone (PSX) - $9.99 new at Kmapart. Horrific loading times, 6 blocks to save, boring gameplay, crappy music (what little existed)

Parasite Eve 2 (PSX) - After having loved the original, I thought this would be an awesome game. It was...for about 5 minutes. Then it proceeded to suck more than Monica Lewinsky.

Final Fantasy Anthology (PSX) - Got this used at a rental store. I liked FF VI, really. But the loading times and awful music quality PAINS ME SO. And makes my ears bleed. Give me the SNES version anyday please. And FF V was plagued with the same problems and a boring overall game. ;_;

Ya know, I was considering getting this since I wanted to see the CGed stuff they did for FFVI, but NOW I KNOW (and the less I'll have to lament in this very thread).

I looked everywhere for this one and although the loading times were indeed slow, I played through both games. I don't regret getting the PSX version, but at the time, it was the only one available. The same can be said about the Greatest Hits copy of Xenogears I have.

Just have somebody rip them. The CG stuff was indeed nice (much nicer than FF Chronicles), but just leave the rest of the game alone.

To each their own. But I own the SFC versions, because I'm crazy. ^^;;

I very rarely make these kind of mistakes. Usually when I go to the videogame store, I know what I'm going to buy, and I pick it up, pay, and leave. Sometimes reviews, previews and other such things have helped me make that decision months in advance. However, there were a few games that I bought because they looked appealing and cheap, so I can't say I've never done it.

1) Final Fantasy X2: I've never played this for more than a total of four hours. It just bores me that much. My roomie last year loved it though. Go fig.

2) Max Payne 2: I just don't play this type of game that much. Despite it being cheap, this one has been no exception. The first one was an exception, hence the purchase.

3) Phantom Brave: I thought that because it was by Nippon Ichi, and cheap to boot, I couldn't go wrong. I have been more mistaken in my life, but not by much.

4) Enclave: It sucks. When I first got my xbox, I was looking for some cheap games to fill out the collection. This game has sat on my shelf constantly ever since the first day.

There is also that short list of games that I intended to buy which turned out to be utter dogs, but that's not what this thread is about. Those are my four big "impulse buy" regrets.

Ya know, I could expand this thread to games that we planned to buy, but after reviews, STAYED CLEAR AWAY ( a lesson the Titanic could have used, LOL)

Also, I learned about FFX-2 the easy way (playing it at a friends house). :saves $20:

The Lion King (MD/Gen) don't remeber the price but it was dog cheap too: ... just don't ask.

Nightmare Creatures 2 (DC) around 10€ (bought before money change): Boy this game looked like it has coded in QBasic :D Plus it was dead boring.

Waverace (GC) 9.90€: Not a bad game, just not my style but I bought it anyway since it was so cheap... ended up hating it obviously.

Viewtiful Joe (GC) around 15€: The worst game I ever bought, not only is repetitive to no end (complete game walkthrough: dodge skull -> SlowRHOH) but it goes further by bastardarizing the awsome game genre that it side-scrolling beat-em-up. If that wasn't enough it ungodly hard! Worst game ever and not worthy 0.01€ (I don't care about you Viewtiful fans, so don't bother)

I was interested in getting Viewtiful Joe as I was looking for a side scroller beat em up. Now my hopes are dashed to pieces. ;_;

Legend of Mana sucks balls, VG. It's repetitive, and a fucking raping of the Mana name. It is nothing but a sidescrolling slasher with no innovations or entertainment value. Too fucking bad for you. Figures you'd like it though, it, like a lot of the things you like, is meant for people under 14.

And also, a Lewinsky joke? Thanks a lot for the topical reference there, Leno. God, you just suck so hard.

I was also looking for one and I got VJoe once I found it out... after 30 minutes of play I knew I was up to something frustrating instead of fun.
The entire game is like this:
- Go near a baddie
- Dodge the skull (it show if the baddie will do a high or low attack)
- Hold R trigger (slow), press B (zoom) and then hold Y (punch)
- Repeat

This is the same for every enemy in the game be it a weak baddie or the final boss.... plud the game in insanely hard if you try to beat it 'freestyle', instead you have to learn the patterns of the bosses and baddies. And that's pretty much it, the enemy's AI is nothing but a set of repetitive patterns, even SoR1 has better AI (MisterX anyone?)
And that special power while dies loads of damage it's really annoying since the zoom will restrict the 'camera' to Joe, ie. Joe will occupy the whole screen and you won't be able to see anything asides him.

To make things worst the replay value is none, if you manage to finish it in normal (adults) dificulty you gain access to a even harder (!) dificulty (V-Rated) and to a new character, Sylvia, that instead of being stronger to even the odds with the new harder dificulty she is twice as weaker, each attack makes the double of the damage it did to Joe making the game twice as hard!
Every new character is weaker than Joe meaning there's no drive to use any of them, realisticly most of us won't even bother to unlock Sylvia left alone the other where you need to beat the game in hard and ultra hard!!!!!!! WTF were they thinking?

Unless you like insanely hard games based on strick, repetitive patterns VJoe isn't for you, stick with Comix Zone and Streets of Rage instead.

Right, because a member named devilmaycry thought it's crap (and who apparently thought it was too hard and felt it was repetitive because he kept using the same move over and over). I suppose if xcloudiroth6 posted here and said San Andreas sucked, you'd immediately need to stop playing it, right? Or did that already happen with Vagrant Story? >=0

I personally wouldn't touch the PS2 version (which you obviously planned on doing), but the GC version of VJ is an awesome game. It's inventive, it's hard as fuck but still hilariously entertaining, with a bold and wonderful aesthetic design and superb controls.
I guess you can get tired of it eventually, but then that will happen with any game. And when is a scrolling beat 'em up not "repetitive"? VJ certainly didn't feel tired to me, though Fire Leo makes me weep.

Cloudakilraa666 said it sucked balls and you can only do 1 damage to regular enemies so I stopped playing it yes, and he also said ICO was made of devil and lose so I stopped playing that too oh wait. So I should go get a game cube then okay Q. >_> God of War is pretty rinse and repeat, but strangely fun. And also Q didn't catch my sarcasm, after reading it and it only got a 88% so I dunno. But oh wait the GC gets over 91%.

Although I regret buying it, I can't find it in me to begrudge my roomie the endless hours of fun he got from it. He's the type who plays like two games a year, but plays them about 8 hours a day. On that basis, although I regret spending the money on it, I don't entirely regret possessing it. He has a bizarre taste in games.

Then sell it to him! Then both parties should be happy.

Any game that sucks is a price trap, at any price. Unfortunately, low prices lower our barriers of resistance to picking up crap. I've learned my lesson, but I am still definitely a cheap ass gamer. It's a dangerous job, but somebody's gotta do it. :D

Ah shit man you certainly can't go wrong with these fine racing games!

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...A/00142727.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...176A/42330.jpg

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...A/00136364.jpg

C'mon, Ford always wants the best for the gamer.

So awesome, even 3 year olds can enjoy them! :tpg:

I rented often, so most of the time I didn't buy bad games.

http://img334.imageshack.us/img334/8656/spot18wc6ew.gif

OH HELLO. If you bought Rayman, you could purchase Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood half price. I purchased this along with a Saturn back in the day, and instantly I was smacked in the face with a "sequels aren't always better" sign. There were no refunds on special deals so I was stuck with it, and in the end it just sat around while I played Alpha 2. (Which cost like $95 US)

I still love the original Cool Spot though.

Oh man, I've got Spot Goes to Hollywood on Saturn, too. But it was only $8 so I can't really complain. Oh wai- that $8 could have bought a kebab and chips. Saturn cases aren't as tasty! It really is a massive punch in the testicles after the original, but at least the pirate level music is awesome!

I buy (TERRIBLE) games because of the price all the time. ;__; But it's also how I discover some great unknown mystery stuff!

I take it as that's how you spoted the bikini - helicopter game. That's actually a pretty neat concept, Japanese of course. :tpg:

It's my opinion, he can get the game for 15€ and try it himself but I'm sure he'll regret it, at least I've regreted it. Better yet, rent it if he like's he buys if he doesn't he won't.
But that doesn't make my opinion any less valid, and especially to someone who owned both Comix Zone and the three Streets of Rage for Megadrive it's hard to swallow what Capcom did to a such awsome game genre.

That game kinda sucks, the battle system is nice and all but the story made me sick in 3 minutes. I was playing and then... movie clip: "What? Again the wife and son gets killed and the dude gets traumatized and loses his memory or whatever?"
*Power Off*

:lolsign: No dice with me, go do a better story Square.

Fair enough, an opinion is an opinion after all.
However likening Viewtiful Joe to more traditional scrolling beat 'em ups is pretty silly.

That would be like judging Shadow of the Colossus or Super Monkey Ball purely as typical 3D platformers or judging Resident Evil 4 in comparison to normal third person action games like Max Payne or something like Syphon Filter.

Almost all Simple Series games are bad budget titles, except for Oneechanbara, Zombie vs. Ambulance, and Double Shinryu.

After countless hours I still come back to these titles.

Eternal Ring. I got it for like 6 bucks at Toys R Us. It's a really dull and lame first person RPG from From Software. It had some interesting stuff in magic rings but after awhile the enemies just over power you and the graphics are sub-PSX quality and it's for the PS2.

I bought South Park Austin (You know, the FPS game) for like $17, and it was so damn horrible I regretted even owning the game. I convinced the nice store man to let me return it (after saying that the game must be broke, because of stuttering sound and jarring graphics. It wasn't broke, just designed likethat...)

To this day I still curse at that game for being the most horrible game I've ever owned and I hope that I'll never get one as horrible.

I don't mind the interweaved cut scenes in Vagrant Story, it's found in quite a few other recent games. Take a look at MGS1, 2, and especially 3 during the Virtuous Mission. The thing I just find difficult to grasp with VS is the rather difficult learning curve in terms of weapons and knowing exactly what to use. Q has told me about it, but perhaps this game is more for the REAL H4RDK0R3 RPG players and the like.

And I'll probably just see if another one of my friends have a copy of Viewtiful Joe and try it for free, just like how I did for FFX-2. :cool:

Hey lix/Infernal Monkey Machine, are these bikini babe games actually any good as in entertaining? Of course I'm not expecting a polished product here like say.... FFXII (God, why do I keep saying this game ;__; ) but at least would it be worth your $? Seeing as lix has spent countless hours, I wonder if the babes do anything more than just sit there waiting for a Katamari to roll them up. Delicious.

To me VJoe is a plain traditional side scrolling beat'em'up with the added gimmie kick of of Slow/Mach speed and Zoom. The game wouldn't be so bad if they had:
- Made the game easier and less repetitive, just give us the freedom to beat up the baddies the way we want by making all moves with a similar level of damage instead of the SlowRHOH >>>>>>>>>> any possible move
- Made the bosses fight way less based on patterns and far more based on randomness
- Drop the Zoom effect, you can't see anything but Joe with it on.
- Give us powerfull characters/powerups when you beat the normal mode instead of weak cheap characters.
- Bigger!! I want VJoe to be 4 times bigger! (28 levels goodness! Weee!)
- Decent soundtrack! King Charles III music was nice but that's about it.

That would make VJoe great putting it almost at the level of Comix Zone. Maybe on VJoe 3?

Ya know, I really miss the old side scroller beat em up like Final Fury where you just walk up to a guy and pound his/her sprited-ass into the pavement and pick up hot chicken on the side of the road to get health again. Sure I could go get an emulated version, but the only good side scroller I can think of now is the Metal Slug series on the PS2.

Whatever, we're kinda getting side tracked in this thread, it's not about games we're missing for the PS2, its about games we're missing our money on because of the POWER OF THE IGNORANT CONSUMER! :kitsune:

Unfortunately, my obsession with getting cheap games sometimes backfires on me. While I sometimes end up getting games that I absolutely love and are more than worth what I paid for them (Phantom Dust, Breakdown, Monster Hunter, Shadow Hearts Covenant), I also end up getting stuck with quite a few duds. Most notably:

Commandos 2 (PC) - Saw it was on sale at Best Buy for $20 a number of years ago right after it came out, and the concept sounded interesting and it got quite a bit of praise...after playing it for 30 minutes, I realized it was not a game for me in any way, shape, or form. I don't think I really got any enjoyment out of it, except for seeing the trees blowing in the wind in the title screen.

Star Fox Assault - Ugh, I'm sorry, but this one just sucks. The first mission was fairly fun (not as good as the earlier Star Fox game's shooting missions, but not bad), but then the rest of the game is just terrible. The ground combat is just poor, level design is atrocious, controls are frustrating no matter which control method you use, and the rail shooting sections were far inferior to those in games like Panzer Dragoon Orta. $15 down the drain, but I have to say that the soundtrack was excellent and would've been well worth the price had it been released as a music CD. Instead, it was wasted on a terrible game.

Metroid Prime Pinball: WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I SAVE?!? It wasn't really a bad game, as I did have a bit of fun with it, and it did have the rumble pack which was kinda cool, but omg, why in the world would they make an "objective-based" pinball game where there is no way to save your game? The biggest problem is that most of the deaths are going to be due to random chance: maybe your ball slipped right between the pedals or your ball got cornered and an enemy took away half your health. This, combined with the fact that the game has objectives AND no saving system is just a recipe for disaster. I can handle games that force you to play through it in one sitting, just...not ones where your success is measured by random chance. Plus, I was informed that Pokemon Pinball lets you save at ANY point...so why not Metroid Pinball? But as I said, I did get a DS rumble cart with it, so at least my $15 wasn't a total waste.

But anyway, I'm pretty sure I have a ton more games like this, these were just the most prominant ones I could think of right now. Thankfully, my list of games that I've gotten for extremely cheap and ended up enjoying is longer than me "games I never should've bought at any price" list.

I think you just forfeited the right to have opinions of your own. Vagrant Story has one of the most intelligently written storylines of any RPGs, and you turned the thing off after 3 minutes? I mean, did you actually go anywhere in the game?

You are so stupid you warp space and time around you with the colossal mass of your stupidity. I now blame you for all the poor purchasing decisions I have made by altering the past and sucking the intelligence out of my head with your time-warping stupidity.

Speaking of which; I picked up Star Ocean 3 during a closing sale at Media Play for real cheap ($15, I think), but I have yet to even put the thing in my machine. I don't even know why I bought the game. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it, from all indications, and I wasn't even going to buy it to begin with. But all I saw was SALE! so I just had to grab it anyway.

Around the month before Metal Gear Solid 2 was released, I was bored. INCREDIBLY bored. So I was at Ames and saw this game with stylized anime-graphics. I figured, "Hey, the chick on the cover looks pretty cool", and it's only $12.99! How can I lose?"

Well, this is how:



Fuck you Bungie, just fuck you.

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b1..._of_elrond.jpg

Seriously, mate. You just went after a game with one of the most intricate story lines that Square has ever done. You're going to argue for what, FF VII, maybe VI if you want to seem old school? The only Square game with a story line even beginning to approach that of Vagrant Story in terms of complexity and depth is Final Fantasy Tactics. If you want to say you don't like the game, fine, that's your call, but don't go after its strongest point you fucking prat.

Dude, I don't have patience to listen to boring stories about a dude how lost his memory and saw his family being killed... I mean, couldn't it be more cliche? Damn I must have heard a story like that in 4232123 games, 22432 comics and 443234 movies.
The moment I saw that scene I powered off the console and returned the game (it was borrowed), yes the story further down maybe be the best ever but I just didn't feel like listening to it... probably related to my FF8 story trauma :lolsign:

Anyway if you payed attention to my posts you should know that I don't care about stories that much, IMHO most games shouldn't have a story to begin with, that's why I like old school so much, it's fun play with no nonse and the story resumes to a screen saying 'Press start button'. For one I bitched VJoe like hell but I haven't said a word about the story 'cause... well... I don't care, it's lame but a side scroller doesn't need a story it only needs a lot off ass kicking!! VJoe is one of those game that would've got away with a 'press start button' story.

Of course other games absolutely need a story like Shenmue (lame beggining, the cliche bad dude kills dad but god like after it) or MGS.


EDIT: Same goes to you Denicalis, I don't care about stories that much. You can argue that if I don't care then I have no problem playing Vagrant, but somehow seeing such a lame scenes just made me sick... argh looks like watching Titanic all over again. (I bet someone will come after me because of the Titanic movie reference.)

You want to save in the middle of a score based game? That seems pretty silly to me. Just close your DS, sleep mode can last days. Plus, if you don't want to be playing for half an hour or so just don't do the multi mission mode.

Funnily enough Metroid Prime Pinball is the game I recently found at a bargain price that turned out to be an absolute gem in my collection. I got Pac Pix, Kirby DS, Kirby Air Ride as well (all pretty much for the price of one game), and they all rock, but MPP is the best. I wouldn't buy a crap game just because it's cheap though (unless it's $1), but that's just called common sense.

OH yeah! I finally remembered the bargain game I got that left a stain in my collection, Star Wars Rogue Leader. It's a nice graphical showpiece but it would have been nice if they included gameplay worth playing. Not even worth $15 AUD (basically $1 US)
Get it! That guy doesn't know what he's talking about, VJ is awesome

PS1. Blockbuster used game sale. "Defcon 5." $10.00.

Not worth ten fucking goddamn cents.

Donning my flameproof vest for a minute here...I also saw Metal Gear Solid 2 for $5.99 at a game store, but then remembered that I actually like playing games more than sitting through days-long radio conversations where people spew pseudo-political terms I couldn't give a shit about.

SIX HOURS SOLID.
[RADIO BOREDOM ACTION]

Fuck you Hideo Kojima, just fuck you.

Nah, mate. If you don't like stories, than stuff like VS really wouldn't grab you. It's very narrative driven. I thought you were slicing on the story of VS on the basis of you being a story fan. I disagree completely with you on the concept of stories in games, as they're my main reason for playing, but that's just personal taste, and there's no use squabbling over that.

Games should be more fighting, less yapping. MGS 2 story is great... but it should be resumed!! Before the last boss fight you have to endure 15 minutes of talk.
I stop reading it after 2 minutes and then after beating the baddie I went to GFaqs to read that part of the script :lolsign:


EDIT:
Ah, no I'm not bashing Vagrat Story story, it might be good but I don't feel like going through it. Like I said in this post, MGS 2 story for one is great but they just fill the game with it, and after 3 or 4 minutes of it you (or at least I) not reading it anymore, I'll just skip it and read/print (on real paper) the script so I can read it when I can be bored to.

See, the first game I cut my teeth on was FF for the NES. I fell in love instantly. This was narrative, it was fantasy... I'm a huge RP nerd. My collection is expansive and almost all RPG. I play -for- the story, though a bad battle system will ruin the experience, I won't lie.

What's RP?

Role Playing

Oh the problem isn't that you can't pause in the middle of a game, it's that you have to go through the whole random collecting artifact thing every time you play it. It's just annoying as all hell having to go through the task of collecting the artifacts over and over again, even if you get as far as the last boss and then lose because of random luck. Checkpoints or savepoints would've made the process flow much more smoothly. If it weren't for the fact that you can lose so easily because of bad luck (even after collecting every single artifact), the lack of save points wouldn't have been so bad.

I still don't understand why they decided to turn an adventure game into a pinball game. There's a hell of a lot of better ways to make a pinball game than "hey, lets stick a bunch of vaguely familiar elements into a game about hitting a ball with paddles and slap a name on it". Adventure games where you can save are fine. Pinball games are fine. Adventure pinball games where you can't save are not fine.

See, I actually like Vagrant Story and even after the first cut scene of Sydney taking down the man, I was actually interested in knowing more of this, dare I say, "Sephiroth"/Liquid Snake-like figure. It seems Ashley and Sydney may have had an interesting past, but don't spoil for me.

The only thing I find a bit frustrating of VS is that you must possess an almost god-like appreciation for each of the weapons abilities to do some damage, or no damage at all. The story I don't mind one bit, and as I said earlier I'm really inclinded to know what happened "during that week"- says the back of the jewel case.

Also, Mr, Ingram, I actually sorta liked the PC version of Oni. The only reason why is that it was my very first 3D type game, since all my previous PCs sucked ass in terms of graphicaly power. So I was willing to play the most shittiest games to see how it worked out. I actually bothered to beat the damn thing, twice, to see both final bosses. :kitsune: On reflection now, Fuck you Bungie, fuck you for making me look so fucking pathetic for actually paying $5 from a friend for a burned copy in high school. Of course all the cool kids back then already had PS2s and MGS2s. Fuck my lack of 2 brain cells to bother reading any of the reviews. But then I like how I got Deus Ex for PC. BEST INNOVATIVE FPS EVER.

(We really need to settle this thread back to its original intention)

I have another one: Dragon Warrior VII. I heard great things about this and decided to pick it up since it was half off at Toys R Us (originally $30) and I had some cash to burn. Man I got sick and tired of it 15 minutes in. There was nothing new about it. The graphics are painfully old school (I was aware of that fact and could overlook the fact if the story was any good). The story was bland and predictable. Maybe if this was released in 1992 I might've enjoyed it more. But I expect just a little bit more from my PSX RPGs.

They're only $14.90 brand new from play-asia. Some of them are really bad (like The Daibujin and The Friendship Adventure), then some of them are good. They're more fun to laugh at, and nobody really takes them seriously outside of japan. I just find them different from the other games I've seen.

This guy has a decent amount of trailers for them. Zombie vs. Ambulance, Oneechanbara and Double Shinryu (probably the best Simple Series title, since it's basically the Saturn games reprinted for PS2) are all pretty fun.

I have many games that I've bought before because they were on sale, or difficult to find elsewhere, only to find that I wasn't exactly thrilled with what they ultimately offered.

$19.95 - The Longest Journey. Hard to find in retail stores, I bought this last summer, and was practically bored to tears by the lackluster plot and overall performance of the game. For being five discs, it also seemed really short as an adventure game, and furthermore offered up little in the way of challenge, except for a few puzzles that were so arbitrarily written that the only thing you could do was wander around and hope that you were going in the right direction to trigger whatever sequence you might need in order to get it done.

$4.99 - Primal. It looked like it would be fun. It seemed to have a lot in common with Soul Reaver, first and foremost, and the heroine could transform into various hybrid forms, which appealed to me as well. The art direction was pretty good, but when all was said and done, the combat, (sadly, the main part of the game) was really weak and glitchy, even more so than I found Prince of Persia's combat to be, and I heard a lot of complaints about that game's combat. I suppose it was worth 5 bucks, just for being pretty, and having some interesting characters, but the combat was so tedious that I had to shelf it after a couple of weeks of avoiding playing it.

$9.00 - Colony Wars: Vengeance. Seemed like it would be neat to go back and reminisce about the PSX days, and this game had many people lauding it for the story, of all things. It's decent, but the aging technology only reminds me how much better the experience is playing X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter or something similar on a newer system.

$9.99 - Dragon Quest VIII I heard lots of rave reviews, and I longed for a return to the old-school RPG style, but I have been pretty much nonplussed thus far. I haven't played but an hour or so of it, but the combat seems so simplistic next to something like Shadow Hearts 2 that I may have to give this copy away to a friend or something.

I find it unique how people can judge games that they haven't played for even a single hour.

God forbid they make a game that only lasts 45 minutes.

I am proud to say I've never made an impulse game purchase because of it's price. I only buy games I want, and don't get sucked into buying a crap game like Mario Kart: Double Thrash because it's 50 cents. (Oh wait, I did buy that game, but because I thought I would like it.)


So, ummm yeah, I'm good at saving money to buy chocolate cookies.

Fuck off. Double Dash was AWESOME.

I find it interesting that you feel as if you have me all figured out despite my giving a perfectly acceptable reason for disliking the game.

BUT IT'S ONLY THE COMBAT YOU KNOW
THAT THING THAT POPS UP EVERY FEW SECONDS
MAYBE MORE
DEPENDING ON THE WEATHER
AND WHIMSY OF THE CODE-WRITERS

I'm with you, South Park version of Kevin Smith. Story is number one for me, but when a battle system just sucks, it's impossible to really enjoy the experience.

There is such a thing as giving a game a chance, which you can't do if you're singling out a certain aspect of the game which you don't like, and focusing on it.

But it's the onest aspect that pops up again... and again... and AGAIN. It's a constant.

Well, IGN was saying that the story was really poor, as well. I can't speak much for that, because the game length is supposed to be about 100 hours total, but I haven't given up entirely on it yet. I just hope the combat gets more diverse as it goes.

I haven't liked a Dragon Quest game yet, so I didn't bother picking it up.

lolololol

Not it wasn't. 7.9

Every mario kart game has been a blast. Also, 8 out of 10 is a damn fine score. That's 80%.

*sigh*

I was referring to IGN's 7.9 score joke.

I'm aware. I was continuing said joke. Though the mirth is somewhat dead at this point.

:lolsign:

*cough Suikoden III cough*

I got to thank Deni for making me avoid wasting god knows how many hours to play this game. I'm not going to call this game crap, because I know theres the Suikoden fans who find something appealing about this. Honestly Suikoden III could have been much more, but why the hell with the 3 parties of 2? Not only that, but they MUST make each party "mutually exclusive", ie, one party cannot use a potion on another party.

But Q says S II is good. LOL if I could actually find a copy.

Suikoden II is godlike, mate. Which is why III was such a disappointment. Suikoden I is also really good. III and IV are both pretty damned shaky, though.

So yesterday I walked into EB games and got rid of that Max Payne 2 for PS2, all for a whooping $3 credit, along with some other DVD for another $3. Woohoo! That's the quickest turn around I've had for a game I bought, got it last Friday and taking out the trash Tuesday.

I almost dropped 10€ today for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for GC but then I remembered this very topic and said: "Nah! I'm gonna read a review first..."
Turns out the game sucked ass, so thank you Spatula

I bought Empire Earth II and SpellForce: Gold Edition in a 2 for £25 promotion. Wish i hadn't now. The first Empire Earth was really good (well i thought so) so i thought that the second one would be just as good if not better, but how wrong i was. I don't what it is about this game, but i just can't seem to enjoy it. Might be they forgot to put the gameplay in, but what do i know.

And as for SpellForce it looked rather good from the back of the box, but i now know that boxes can be mis-leading. I was hoping that this would be good, but it wasn't. I really didn't enjoy this one, i was hoping that it would be like LoTR:Battle for Middle-earth, but i couldn't have been more wrong. Ah well.

Serving the community is what I strive to do*

occasionally.

Yeah I was at Video Game Trader today (this is their site) and sure they have pretty rare stuff there, like Secret of Mana for SNES (only a measly $200) and Valkyrie Profile for $174, and the like. Of course since they're just composed of 2 stores, they have to jack up the prices to cover the costs. What a helluvanexpensive place. It'd suck to get a "RARE" game there and blow off the same as what you can get for a PS2 nowadays only to find it sucks like shit.

So there's this game, DEATH CRIMSON OX (Fo' Dreemcas' yo'). Its probably one of the worst rail shooters of all time. The scoring system is pretty different I guess, but crap, the game just sucks balls. While you are shooting some monsters, some people run around like retards and you just end up shooting them. Not to mention the whole fight in the plane. I forgot what happened, but it was retarded as fuck. Got this for about $10.

I have another ripoff:

Nintendo Gamecube (49€): When I saw a GC being sold at that price I didn't even though 2 times... I should've. 2 moths later I'm already selling it because I've run out of games, litaraly. It's not like I'm with money problems or anything but there's simply no more games from the GC library that I want, I have 8 games and I'm done with it! From these 8 most of them are available for other consoles as well... d'oh I guess I've been had this time pretty bad.

Yeah, damn you Nintendo for releasing a console http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/im...cons/icon8.gif

I see, so you giving 3D games like Metroid Prime and Zelda a chance = ?

I've never played Metroid Prime and I've never judged it.

How is it not judging when you claim "GC has no games worth playing"? You've obviously judged the game unplayable at that point.

Where did I ever say that? That would be kind of moronic considering I own a Gamecube. I can think of a few worth playing, and ones that I'd definitely buy if they were available (you know, they have the "Nintendo being dead in the southern hemisphere" thing going on, and I can't find games unless I import) but the majority of them don't interest me.

I'll admit, I do favor the PS2 over the Gamecube, and that's due to a larger variety, but it's also personal preference. Whatever you want to play is entirely your business.

I just went down to Galeria Mall today to see if I could pick up anything at the technically cheaper US prices, when I spotted:
Unison (PS2, $2.99 plus tax, used obviously)

Wanting to experience something similar to Bust A Groove, or Space Channel 5, I was sorely mistaken. Surely, I was fooled by the bright cartoony world in all the cutscenes, but gameplay is hard and unenjoyable! It's basically memorizing the entire dance sequence for both analog sticks by playing the poor, poor covers over and over again!

When I saw the first stage was forced onto you as YMCA, I was sorely disappointed, despite being able to beat it. Then there was the "real thing", because that was apparently practice. So I had to play it again to actually beat the stage. Now I feel bad for wasting my mom's $3.25 USD :(

Good to know of another $3 some I can save. Not that I was going to pick it up anyways.

Jade Empire (Xbox): I've been had, AGAIN! I saw this game for 16€ and I thought: "I'm gonna read the review first". Off I went to IGN.com and saw that this game got 9.9 out of 10!!!!!

OMG I rushed and got the game..... well D'OH this game has excelent graphics and all but it filled with tech problems that make it near unplayable. The frame rate drops every 20 seconds, the loading times are LONG as in 30/40 seconds of loading! ARGH!
I alomost thought my XBox was broken!!
The music and sound are _far_ from great and I'm the kind of person who doesn't care much about the sound!!
And the yapping is immense, damn these morons talk for hours! You can sleep while watching a dialog and when you wake up they're not done yet. The controls and the combat are also far from great, it feels like Legacy of Kain... GONE BAD, WAY BAD!

Oh well I've learned my lessons:
1. You can't evade all price traps no matter how hard you try.
2. IGN sucks ass, Gamespot rated this game 8.4 out of 10, a much fair score.

So you bought an RPG made by Bioware and are complaining about there being a significant amount of dialog.

Ok.

-----------------------------------

Keeping on topic. I picked up a copy of Spy Hunter 2 for cheap a number of months ago. Didn't hold a candle to the first remake. Odd, all things considered. It's not HORRIBLE by any stretch but it sure was a let down.

I'm not sure, but I think any memory card that costs more than the gaming system itself just might be a price trap: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?...00&source=0613

$4.99, Time Stalkers for the Dreamcast. Wasn't worth the money because I only played the game for about three hours in one session before totally hating it. I guess I was excited to see an RPG for the Dreamcast, because I had long since beaten Shenmue. I think this was the only bad purchase I've ever made, but it was a pretty big one. What a horrid game.

DUDE!!!!!!
Significant amount of dialog? I haven't seen so much yapping in a game since Metal Gear Solid 2 and I've played Final Fantasy 6 to 9! Plus the dialog isn't even intresting... BORING!


I had that game, pretty lame indeed. And have you played Evolution for DC too? Boy that sucked ass, fortunly I had borrowed it instead of buying.

You mean there's an RPG out there that has more dialogue than a two hour Hideo Kojima productions present a Hideo Kojima film starring a Mortal Kombat character created by Hideo Kojima for Hideo Kojima productions? Unpossible!

Well, at least it saves you from reading. So why isn't it an instant-win with you?

Belive me there's at least the same amount of yapping in Jade Empire than there is in MGS 2. Infact I would dare to say that if I didn't skip some portions of the dialog it would twice the yapping of MGS 2.


You mean skip all the dialog? Fisrt you can't skip all, second I wouldn't understand squat of the story.
What game devs need to learn is the art of resuming.

God forbid you read books.

On topic: saw another budget game today, basically an arcade game with pin ball and the likes, but can't remember the name for the GBA/DS for like $4.99. Um no. Still the only game I (my sister) has for the DS is the Nintendogs. LOL.

But it's soooo cute, like you wanna smack it with a spatula.

I got Rogue Ops for $1.96 a while back at some clearance Christmas sale. Yuck.

And what can you credit it in for at EB? So far I think they give a minimum of $3 credit at EB, but US might be different.

I got fucking ripped-off by Killzone... Picked up a sealed copy for 15$ (counting shipping) and I'm having a horrible time with it....

Did you check the reviews first? Just curious.

Not really. I only heard it was to be the ZOMG Halo Killer and for that price, I believed it was a bargain...

$15 isn't too too bad. So would you say this is a down right piece of shit horrible waste of time/poor excuse for what they call a game? Or is your $15 justified? Well, actually since you're posting in this thread, I'd say the former, given of the content of your post.

Well I am FPS fan, especially on the PC. So it is always annoying for me to use a gamepad... more natural with a keyboard combo.

But Killzone is nowhere (even though I am not fan of) Halo 1 or 2. The graphics are lacking and suffer some major slow down in certain areas. The weapons are uninspired and there is no variety in in the enemies.

Levels are bland and suffer HORRIBLE lightning. One of the biggest beef right there. Some locations are so damn dark it i difficult to distinguish walls, enemies and entrances.

OMG THE controls. Slow. Sloppy. Unresponsive. Sniping is a pain and even aiming enemies straight ahead is a chore. Let's forget about strafing and circling the enemy....

I need to say more?

What I don't seem to like, is the Helghast seem to be drawing on quite a bit of Mamoru Oshii's JIN ROH, which have the Wolf Brigade as the special police squad. I don't know if this was intentional or if this is the source of inspiration for the Helghast, or just coincidence in character design, but now when I think of Jin Roh, KZ comes to mind. >_>, despite me never playing KZ.

JIN ROH - Wolf Brigade
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...76A/JINROH.jpg

Kill Zone - Helghast
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i6...A/KILLZONE.jpg

I personally like the Wolf Brigade design better. The Brigade looks more menacing.

I don't know about EBs here, but that's not true of Gamestops here (though I imagine it should be the same since they are owned by the same company). I tried to trade in my copy of River City Ransom EX, and all they would give me for it is $1.50. I told the lady behind the counter 'Screw that, I might as well keep the game.', since that was a freaking ripoff. I've seen people selling it on ebay for like $10.00, so I may try my luck there (never used it before, though, to buy or sell).

Can't say I bought many games for cheap that I ended up regretting. In fact, most games I buy are in the normal price range.

Star Ocean 3 - I got this game because 1) it was cheap, and 2) I wanted to play a new RPG. Unfortunately, the more I played it, the more things I found wrong with it. Bad things include endless backtracking, some crummy voice acting, hideous dungeons, 90% of the game taking place on crummy backwater planets (I thought this was supposed to be a sci-fi game?), crummy characters (with crappy names), a lame plot twist, and probably lots of other stuff I'm missing.

The battle system was pretty cool though. Too bad it's overshadowed by all the bad stuff.

Oh, and someone lent me Star Fox Assault and it was hideous. Glad I didn't buy it :D

I also got SO3 for much the same reasons, only to end up playing it half time total time I've spent on Vagrant Story (which is a cool game, just bloody difficult). It's actually a good thing I know about the stupid plot twist. Was that actually supposed to make the game "good"?

Backtracking? Ugghh....

I'm sure Q has his share of what to say about this game. Not quite your Ico there, eh Q?


You can even make a little profit on the shipping. Just don't charge them outragous amounts for shipping in Canada/US. One time I paid $10 shipping and it really only costed like $6.00 on the stamp, so yeah I got suckered, but heh, it can work both ways eh. I still gave him a good rating though.

Price trap? What's that? That's why I have HD Loader... bootleg the games and if after a few hours they're worthy of money, purchase them... otherwise delete the ISO because it's wasteing space on your damn HDD!!! :biggrin:

Are you Megalith.

Anyways, I'm putting my finger on FFVII Dirge of Cerwhatever that it will be one of those games where die hard fans will purchase the first minute it's out, be sorely dissappointed in the first hour of gameplay, and be the first ones to post in this very thread. There, you heard it here first. Then it'd REALLY be a price trap, paying $50 instead of the cheap cheap $5 game and being dissappointed.

At least that's the vibe I'm getting from gamerankings.com.

Emulation's nice like that. I've played a few games that I considered buying that way and after a while was glad I didn't buy them. Of late, that's included stuff like Metal Slug Advance.

....says the gamer who probably could've bought Metal Slug 3 with all the quarters he spent playing it in the arcade. :ashamed:

The Fire Leo fight is cake with Captain Blue. Anyway, the games I kinda regret buying is Metorid Prime. I've been meaning to try it but I haven't gotten around to it and it's still sitting on my shelf.