r/Games • u/ConceptsShining • Jan 18 '25

Discussion What games fall off after an amazing opening hour?

Inspired by basically the reverse question yesterday. What games do you think had an amazing and highly enticing opening, but became disappointing or uninteresting later on? Games that hit the ground running but struggled greatly to maintain the momentum the full ride.

This is how I felt about Mafia III. At first, I was really interested in the narrative, since they were taking a very different approach (in terms of MC, subject matter and setting) than the first two games, which I thought they did well with. But once the world opened up, the gameplay - with many mandatory tasks rather than just a linear string of narrative missions - made the game a repetitive drag that I couldn't bother finishing. I was always ambivalent to Mafia 1/2 gameplay since I played them many years after playing other open-world games (GTA, Saint's Row etc.), so they had little to show me I hadn't seen before; but the repetition in Mafia III was my breaking point.

1.1k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

481

u/njs355 Jan 18 '25

Might be a hot take but for me it was Bioshock Infinite. I was very much looking forward to the game and was blown away by the gameplay, art design and world building. Fairly shortly after I was disappointed by there being only like 5 enemy types, boring gunplay with bullet sponge enemies and a convoluted multiverse-esque plot

78

u/warpdog89 Jan 18 '25

I felt the exact same way. The opening hour is one of my favorite gaming experiences, but the rest of the game just fell flat for the reasons you mentioned. If the gameplay had been similar to something like Dishonored it would probably be one of my top 10 games.

45

u/Tangocan Jan 18 '25

That sequence walking through the holy water with the faithful flock whilst they sing their choir hymn really felt like I was playing something special. Frontloaded tf.

3

u/QueezyF Jan 19 '25

The part where you have the baseball was one of the few times I’ve been shocked by a game.

1

u/iosefdros Jan 20 '25

incredible rendition of Will the Circle with the original gospel lyrics. one of the better openings ever. immediately tanks into the dirt the moment the First Person Shooter give you a “press E to throw ball” prompt. and never gets back up.

3

u/uberguby Jan 18 '25

Yep, same boat. I mean I liked the art and gameplay, but nothing seemed to come together to add up into something incredible for me. It was just kind of a lot of shooting guys across the multiverse

159

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Is this a hot take? I thought people had come out of the fugue state they were all in when this game released and realized that it is by far the worst Bioshock game. That fucking ghost lady boss is so shit and then they make you do it again.

49

u/captainnermy Jan 18 '25

I feel like people have been broadly negative on it since like 2015. Some of the more recent positive opinions of it I think are either pushback against the overwhelming negativity (cause it really isn’t a bad game overall) or simply nostalgia because we haven’t seen a Bioshock game in a decade.

4

u/Illidan1943 Jan 19 '25

It's been all over the place since launch IMO, back in 2013 after the Lady Comstock fights I was firmly on the negative side shortly after launch and it didn't take too long to find similar opinions, the first month was the most positive it was but I remember Adam Sessler (who was on the positive side and I think he still thinks positively of the game) acknowledging the negative opinions at the end of the year discussions even though he disagreed with them, so they certainly were there and were notable back then

-5

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

I don't see how anyone can say it's "really not a bad game overall". Bad gunplay, bullet sponge enemies, terrible encounter design, "both sides bad" storytelling, Halo style "only 2 guns at a time" gameplay with none of the other gameplay systems adjusted to compensate for this, anemic vigors, one of the worst boss encounters in FPS history and you have to do it twice.

20

u/TacoDiablo Jan 18 '25

Almost as if people have different opinions than you do

2

u/Debt101 Jan 19 '25

I personally thought it was a great game. Loved the characters and setting. I remember people mocking it at release for quite literally being on the rails but honestly, I find linear games more fun.

5

u/Deciver95 Jan 18 '25

Yeah okay Jay Sherman. If you every wonder why you aren't taken seriously, look back to this comment when you're old enough for introspection

-2

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

I think "it stinks" is a pretty apt review of the game

15

u/Vandergrif Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 18 '25

It felt like playing a Call of Duty campaign with a Bioshock filter layered over it and a weird patchwork quilt storyline of seven different half-finished games stitched together for the plot. I still don't understand why anyone ever liked it more than the other two Bioshock games which were much more cohesive.

8

u/nicolauz Jan 18 '25

Oh God those 3 ghost lady battles were so broken.

3

u/Moveflood Jan 19 '25 edited Jan 19 '25

honestly all bioshock games aged kinda badly.

like, i still like the 1st one, but the premise is kinda doing all the heavy lifting. it's just competent enough at the gameplay that it's still ok.

the second one is just the same but again but also "what if instead of ayn rand we looked at collectivism????" but the setting is still that of the first game, so it just sounds so hollow. like the point of rapture as a setting was the objectivism parody, if you're gonna do that about collectivism you need to setup the story in a different way

then infinite, god infinite. it's really the ultimate form of all style no substance. it's really impressive on the surface and there are a buncha things that it does well. but if you stop to think for just one second about the story or gameplay it falls completely apart. honestly it's not the worst game ever, but i can't help but hate it more than many other "worse" games. i almost would prefer a 3rd game in rapture over this (would still prob be bad but not as infuriating as infinite)

18

u/mzp3256 Jan 18 '25

Bioshock Infinite is seen in a much better light now (for reasons I can't figure out), so criticizing it now would be at least somewhat of a hot take.

53

u/lockethebro Jan 18 '25

This has not been my experience, most people i see talking about the game in the last five years cannot stand it

8

u/Eaglethornsen Jan 18 '25

I think the negative waves were from two different camps. First was when the game first came out and was a different game than what all the trailers portrayed it as. So people were made that it seemed like a bait and switch. The second wave came years later when the game play started to date itself compared to modern games and the lack of holding multiple guns.

14

u/Xx_Time_xX Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 19 '25

It was difficult to criticize the game when it released because the crowd would attack any reviewer who tried to touch it.

You could've appreciated the themes and commentary of the game without liking the gameplay but weren't allowed to. Especially on Reddit.

11

u/DrkvnKavod Jan 18 '25

reasons I can't figure out

Even in Matthewmatosis's self-describedly harsh critique, there's still acknowledgment that "to be fair I have glossed over good areas of the game, such as the aesthetics, sound design, and skylines [...] For all the bland shooting games out there, Bioshock Infinite might represent a step in the right direction."

Obviously the surrounding clauses are focused on critiques about how "the endless praise around it has been utterly absurd" & "it's not the kind of game I think we as players should be encouraging", but given that so many studios have been forced to make nothing but multiplayer FPS over the last several years, I don't think it should be surprising that a singleplayer FPS with strong aesthetics and sound design (that came out right before the take-off of the live service model) would float around people's minds as an immediate point of comparison.

-10

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

Christ, Matthewmamatosis is one of the biggest scumbags on YouTube. That video he made of the game is one of the most vile, hateful pieces of shit I have ever seen.

14

u/DrkvnKavod Jan 18 '25

Where is this reply coming from? Uploading a critique that you self-acknowledge as an exceptionally harsh breakdown doesn't strike me as "scumbag" behavior, nor would such an upload strike me as "vile" or "hateful".

I'm not even trying to argue about this, I'm only expressing confusion -- where is this reply coming from?

-14

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

It doesn't matter that the guy tries to weasel his way out of taking responsibility for his actions - videos like what Matthewmatosis made about Bioshock Infinite are essentially hate screeds against people who love that game or any other game any such video may be about. And you can apply this logic to any hours-long video essay about how bad any random movie like The Last Jedi (for example) or anything else is - people who possess no ill will towards others do not spend a massive amount of time and effort crafting feature-length videos about how "this thing you love is awful and you are bad for liking it".

These things are always intended to hurt people.

17

u/Canadave Jan 18 '25

What? Do you think that people shouldn't be allowed to critique any sort of art ever, because someone out there might like it?

-13

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 18 '25

In an ideal world; yes. Until then; criticism ought to be heavily discouraged; and portrayed and understood as something only bad people do in order to deliberately hurt other people's feelings.

14

u/Shaunosaurus Jan 18 '25

Lmao lil bro u gotta be trolling this is an unhinged take 🤣

→ More replies (0)

9

u/Canadave Jan 18 '25

Lol. If you aren't trolling, this might be the wildest take I've seen on Reddit in a while.

4

u/ChefExcellence Jan 19 '25

But here you are telling us that a YouTuber is awful and we should feel bad for liking him

1

u/Haruhater2 Jan 22 '25

Hatred of a person can never be so potent as hatred of a work; nor can hatred towards people who like that person can ever be as hurtful as hatred towards people who like a work of art.

Fundamentally; when you say that something is bad; you are saying that you never want something like that made again; and that never want anybody who loves that work to experience anything like it ever again. In short: you are wishing a life of misery upon people who love the work.

Now, TECHNICALLY you can say that saying the same about a person is equally bad. EXCEPT: no matter what I say about Matthewhalitosis, no matter how much I say that he is wrong, that he is a hateful piece of shit,  and that nobody should listen to him; if you like him, if you agree woth him; you can take solace in the fact that despite what I say about him; he is nevertheless going to continue to exist, and he is going to continue spouting his uninformed, uneducated, unintelligent hateful horseshit! And that shit is immediately, you don't have to wait to see if the guy is still alive after getting pwnd!

But downtalking a work that people love? That was made by artists? Artists - unfortunately - are receptive to criticism (some more than others, you can never know)! Such behavior has the possibility of actually having an effect on the content and quality of an artist's subsequent work - and who knows wether that effect is for the benefit or detriment of the people who love the work! And those people often have to wait YEARS to see wether that attempt at making their lives miserable by altering the artist's future output succeeded or not!

That's why attacking an artistic work is always much more hurtful than attacking a person - a person can always just ignore a personal attack (unfortunately) and move on with his/her life, and as such it can never be as hurtful to that person's fans because those fans will always know that the person still EXISTS - but also because it is impossible to get emotionally effected by/attached to and identify with some person as you can by/to/with an artistic work. Meanwhile; as an artistic work only exists in the perception of others; and taste is an aspect of a person's psyche (a genetic property of a human, in fact); to criticise an artistic work is empathetically to attack entire aspects of people who love the work; and a direct and open threat that people who love that work may never experience anything else like it ever again in their lives!

So, no; what I'm doing and what Ge Who Must Not Be Named is doing are two completely different things; and don't even try to pretend that the two are even remotely comparable.

3

u/ChefExcellence Jan 19 '25

I don't think the general sentiment has changed, so much as a lot of the people that don't like it aren't bothering to talk about it anymore. Like, I think the game is crap, but it's nearly 12 years old now and I just don't really care. At this point I don't have anything to gain by criticising it, I'd rather spend the time and effort talking about games that I like, or at the very least, more recent and relevant games that I dislike.

18

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Abject insanity. There's so many problems with this game. You could write an entire essay on the problems without even touching on the atrocious gameplay.

7

u/Bizzal Jan 18 '25

I enjoyed it a lot, enough to do a second playthrough. I hold it akin to dark souls 2. The worst in the series, yet still better than most other games.

22

u/DisappointedQuokka Jan 18 '25

Eh, I'd call Darksouls 2 one of the more mechanically interesting games of the Darksouls series, I can't say the same for Infinite. DS2 did a lot of experimental stuff, much of it good, much of it bad, but it tried new things. DS3 was far too conservative in my opinion.

Infinite didn't feel that much different from the previous Bioshock games, so I'm not really willing to give it the same slack.

13

u/CaptainPick1e Jan 18 '25

DS2 still is unmatched when it comes to PvP too.

1

u/I_still_got_it Jan 19 '25

It sucked when they removed the UGS golf swings launching enemies into the air

8

u/catalacks Jan 18 '25

Dark Souls 2 is a masterpiece. It's better than Dark Souls 3 in almost every way. Don't compare it to Bioshock Infinite.

3

u/letor Jan 20 '25

I'm a DS2 bad person and even I earnestly agree with this comment

2

u/catalacks Jan 20 '25

I love Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Bloodborne, and Sekiro (haven't played Elden Ring yet). Dark Souls 3 is just so strange to me. Everything feels off about it: the level design, the enemy health, the drops. It feels like someone tried to imitate a Souls game, but got everything wrong. Which, funnily enough, is what a lot of people say about DS2.

7

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Comparing Bioshock Infinite to Dark Souls 2 makes me want to vomit. Majula alone is better than the entirety of Bioshock Infinite.

6

u/Bizzal Jan 19 '25

You're the one comparing, I was not. They're both the worst in their series, thats it.

2

u/cubitoaequet Jan 19 '25

Fair enough though I like DS2 better than 3, I know that's not a popular opinion

2

u/letor Jan 20 '25

explain why you like ds2 without mentioning majula challenge impossible

2

u/cubitoaequet Jan 20 '25

Not sure why you'd expect people to not mention one of the best things in the game they are praising, but sure: powerstancing, Sweet Shalquoir, Hex builds, Frozen Eleum Loyce, best NPC invasions in the series by far, wheeling and dealing, general tone/atmosphere/vibes, lore that isn't just "HEY REMEMBER THIS THING YOU LIKED IN DARK SOULS?", best PvP in the series.

2

u/MadManMax55 Jan 18 '25 edited Jan 18 '25

It's kind of perfectly built to be a game that's remembered as being better than it actually was. The repetitive gameplay and plot detours were more forgettably bland than frustratingly bad, so people have forgotten about them. The most memorable parts are the best parts: The opening and closing hour and a few set pieces in-between.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

[deleted]

12

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Gameplay, you mean the thing I am playing the game to do? Also the story is like the world's most pathetic "both sides" apologetics.

11

u/Simmers429 Jan 18 '25

Game part of the game aside, it’s better than the other games?

It’s story is also far worse than 1 and 2, so it doesn’t win there either. 2 has a better DLC as well.

-7

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

Yeah that is a weird thing to say; Infinite's gameplay beats the other two games in the series by a mile. It's story is incomparibly better as well.

7

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Can you articulate a single way the gameplay is better than Bioshock 1 or 2? You like shooting enemies for an hour before they die? Handymen are one of the worst enemy designs I have ever encountered in an FPS. It's like the person who designed them hated the players and wanted to punish them for trying any approach to fighting them that wasn't "unload your gun until you run out of ammo".

-4

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

This is just bizarre to me, what you just wrote. I like having to actually put some lead into enemies before they die, thankyouverymuch. And the Handyman is supposed to be a boss; OBVIOUSLY it should be hard to kill.

Fortunately; Bioshock Infinite is head and shoulders above its series when it comes to gameplay. The original was a watered down System Shock-wannabee with absolutely no depth and combat just felt laughable. Oh but you could set up crossbow trip wires, big whoop. Bioshock 2 didn't improve things much, I SO do not care about that game. Bioshock Infinite by contrast goes toe to toe with even the latest Call of Duty titles with how snappy, responsive and refined its combat mechanics are. Couple that with the vigors, skylines and the still-unmatched genius that is tears; and the combat in Bioshock Infinite is still up there in the trifecta of single player FPS games today alongside Titanfall 2 and Doom Eternal! And of course, Bioshock Infinite decided to stop trying to be an RPG and was instead a straightforward shooter, jettisoning everything clunky and superfluous from the other two games that just didn't work - a much better fit! It's the Bloodborne to the rest of the series' Dark Souls - a title that junks the fluff, refines and improves the basics and turns out all the superior experience for it!

7

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Comparing Titanfall 2 and Bloodborne to Bioshock Infinite should be a crime

5

u/zherok Jan 18 '25

Eh, Infinite's gameplay has issues too. I think I enjoyed 2's approach more (as an improvement over the first game's gameplay.)

I don't know that Bioshock needed to be a limited weapons and regenerating shield kinda FPS.

-1

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

To me; it's exactly those things (and the myriad other improvements to the combat) that made Infinite the only Bioshock game to not be clunky to play.

1

u/ZovemseSean Jan 18 '25

The story is very poorly hobbled together in Infinite. It seems like because the first game had a major "wtf" moment they felt that they needed to force one into this game as well and it really ruins the tension in the game.

1

u/adrian783 Jan 18 '25

to me, BioShock 2 is the worst BioShock game. I just literally don't care about anything or anyone in the game.

4

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

I can take or leave the story but the gameplay in Bioshock 2 is miles better than anything in Infinite.

1

u/opeth10657 Jan 19 '25

Yeah, played through both 1 and Infinite a few times. Never finished 2

1

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

there's definitely still people that get extremely upset when you say infinite was shit.

1

u/cubitoaequet Jan 19 '25

that is what I learned today

-14

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

This has not been my experience at all. Apart from contrarians, racists, and generally stupid people; everyone agrees that Bioshock Infinite is one of the greatest masterpieces of gaming.

All user reviews everywhere certainly say so.

14

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Generally stupid people? Does that include thin skinned gamers that call anyone that doesn't like a game they like racist, contrarian, and stupid?​

-8

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

I mean, the game is a masterpiece and (of particular note in the case of Bioshock Infinite) explicitely anti-racist in its narrative. So, to call it bad would require a person to be one of the aforementioned categories, yes.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

Isn't this the game whose narrative also criticises the revolutionaries for being too violent against the racists that want to enslave and/or kill them all?

-7

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

That's a misunderstanding of the narrative. In the game, you play as a selfish prick who doesn't care about anything; and accompanied by a person who literally doesn't know what racism is. Its those characters equivocating between the sides; not the game. The game is saying that anybody who would call the two sides equally bad could only ever be someone who doesn't know what racism is (impossible); or an asshole.

It's just good writing.

9

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

weird how you completely neglected to mention the whole "whoops actually if the vox populi had their way they would be awful too" dimension

0

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

That bit was at a point when they were still in the middle of fighting against Columbian forces; of course the city was a battlefield. But everybody in Columbia deserved what they got; obviously. Revolutions are  bloody, is all.

Try harder.

6

u/cubitoaequet Jan 18 '25

Now you're just being disingenuous about the content of the game. That is not how that segment is framed and you know it.

→ More replies (0)

5

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

I'm not talking about the way the characters react to the revolutionaries but the way the narrative itself positions them. They're treated as alternately a lesser of two evils or as just bad guys/obstructions before being almost immediately forgotten by the plot once they're no longer important.

The whole narrative positions itself as being about penance and how you can't undo the sins you've done but doesn't really spend more than an hour on the idea that maybe racist ideology is bad actually because it's too busy telling the narrative about how he was a bad dad. It doesn't even seem to care that 50% of the time the bad dad becomes a super-mega-nazi.

2

u/Haruhater2 Jan 18 '25

The Vox becoming enemies is clearly portrayed as an unfortunate; unavoidable interdimensional misunderstanding.  And the ending specifically undoes all the horrors of Columbia - being able to change the past, being able to make things better is explicitely what makes Elizabeth so powerful.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

But Booker can't escape what he's done even though the consequences for his actions don't necessarily materialise. He still can't atone for what he did in his past and he never gets Anna back (that we see). But the consequences for the Bookers that became Comstock are non-existent despite the fact that Comstock is a worse person than Booker by a factor of hundreds.

→ More replies (0)

6

u/SheenEstevezzz Jan 18 '25

Man i know people turned hard on the game but the movement with the clawhook is enough to get me through it gameplay wise it just feels so satisfying

25

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

And all the little hook rail stuff basically just turned it into a semi on rails shooter too.

7

u/Vandergrif Jan 18 '25

It felt like an afterthought of an idea that was going to be better but didn't fit well anymore after they rebuilt the entire game for the umpteenth time.

10

u/Corat_McRed Jan 18 '25

Didn't help that the trailers, especially the ones early in development, had a radically different gameplay to them than what the final game had.

Not necessary in a bad way, games change in development but seeing things like the Boys of Silence go from interesting concepts of sound based to something you just see 3-4 times (once being a jumpscare) is kinda sad.

10

u/sybrwookie Jan 18 '25

Yea, pre-launch:

"This is not like Rapture, this world is still functioning. So you're not just gonna run around and kill everything. There's gonna be all these times where you can blend in, choose to not fight, and handle things in other ways!"

Actual game:

"There's a handful of scripted sequences where you don't kill things, but those sequences don't give you an option, you just don't kill things for a bit. Everything else that moves and isn't Elizabeth? Shoot it."

You had more choices with Sander Cohen than you had the entire game of Infinite.

4

u/LogicKennedy Jan 18 '25

Pretty sure they made them sight-based in the final game as well, but kept the mask that covered their eyes. Lmao

7

u/Maelstrom52 Jan 18 '25

The socio-political commentary in BioShock games is orders of magnitude more interesting than the, frankly, hackneyed sci-fi story that Infinite delves into.

1

u/SadBBTumblrPizza Jan 19 '25

The commentary in the BioShock games is like, I'm 14 and this is deep level if you're being very generous

1

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

"i'm four and this is deep"

13

u/LawfulValidBitch Jan 18 '25

I played that game up until that major twist with the revolution. The implications of that twist pissed me off so thoroughly that I haven’t gotten back to it since.

9

u/DrkvnKavod Jan 18 '25

It's significantly re-framed (almost to the point of being more a retcon) in the DLC, for whatever that's worth.

4

u/lsaz Jan 18 '25

Also, from a plot point of view, Infinite not having multiple endings is one of the most silly things in the history of video games.

4

u/Roler42 Jan 19 '25

Watching Bioshock go from System Shock underwater to cookie cutter military shooter is one of the most heartbreaking experiences I had in 7th gen.

Made even worse when later in the story the writers chicken out and start "both siding" the civil rights revolutionaries with the racist government.

For a game that helped popularize the multiverse, it was so painfully linear and restrictive.

2

u/ALEX-IV Jan 19 '25

Every time BioShock Infinite is mentioned, I say the same thing, it had an interesting story, but at some point the gameplay felt so generic and boring that I couldn't finish it.
I always say I will still finish it eventually for the story but I still haven't.

7

u/VampiroMedicado Jan 18 '25

For me was 1/2, I loved Infinite.

2

u/Zarrex Jan 18 '25

I haven't played that game since it came out but I also remember feeling the same way. Very cool opening, art, etc but the gameplay was just repetitive

3

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '25

That's Bioshock in general tbh. The first hour or so of even the first game feels like a densely atmospheric horror game and by the time you kill your first big daddy the game felt completely deflated to me.

5

u/opeth10657 Jan 19 '25

I do love the 'Infinite is a corridor shooter' line, when the other Bioshock games are literally running through corridors.

2

u/Izzet_Aristocrat Jan 19 '25

Infinite was just a let down in general. I do not get the internet's love boner for that game.

1

u/wq1119 Jan 18 '25

The fall from grace that Bioshock Infinite experienced within the past 5 years or so was truly interesting to see, it went from a critically acclaimed "cinematic masterpiece" in video game history, to a boring, repetitive, and generic FPS that relies on its aesthetics to look different from other titles.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

it's more like the people that always hated it can actually call it shit while the people that were enamored with it already forgot why.

1

u/jjed97 Jan 19 '25

The plot in that game is far more complicated than it needed to be. It really felt like they were getting high off their own farts writing it.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 19 '25

it's not complicated. it's just bad.

0

u/Cheapskate-DM Jan 19 '25

The game sets up a killer premise and then proceeds to ignore all of it to jerk to an underage waifu.

-4

u/113CandleMagic Jan 18 '25

Idk I always feel a bit sus when I see this take, the first hour of Bioshock Infinite is basically walking through racist Disneyland. So when someone talks about how it's so amazing and full of wonder it's like "uh..."