Broken games you keep playing.

[Captain Wrong]

Everyone likes to bitch about games that are busted, games with fatal flaws, rushed through production, bad ports, etc., etc. But how many people find that one game that in spite of it's flaws you just keep on playing? (And I'm talking here about busted games versus just plain bad games. It's a fine line, I know.)

For me, it's the PSP port of Midnight Club 3. Terrible load times, framey as all get out, graphics kind of blah and I even own it on Xbox. But, I keep playing it on the PSP. Why? I don't know.

So, who else has a guilty pleasure in a busted game?

[Slimedog]

Well I've been sticking with Phantasy Star Universe (single player) even though it stopped being fun for me at Chapter 2. This game has been a real disappointment for me. And I loved PSO.

Does anybody else think that the Phantasy Star franchise has been slipping into Disney territory? PS 1 and 2 were pretty dark games overall. Evident corruption themes, main characters dying off and I thought the ending of PS2 was almost morbid. PS3 was a bit lighter but not exactly bright and fluffy. PSO had mood of despiration with the Rico messages and a very strong feeling of conspiracy. Episode 3 kind of lost that and its part of the reason why the story didn't draw me in much. But even Ep3 was better than PSU. Everything is wrote and by-the-numbers. None of the characters do anything to draw me in. Everything is as bright and shiny as possible. The towns are small and feel very fake. And even though the gameplay is similar to PSO, PSO didn't feel this tedious. Half the stuff you buy is strictly cosmetic. Synthing seems to serve no purpose (as least so far). The interface likes to play cruel jokes on you. Bleh!

But I'm gonna beat it anyway.

[Daria]

I was playing literally a copy of Tales of Phantasia (SNES) that was riddled with bugs. Garbled text, dupped items, outragous monster drops. I found the second best sword in the game in the first dungeon. Game was cake. Until the glitches prevented me from continuing. Opening chests sometimes caused the game to crash, and there was a mandatory chest I couldn't avoid. I switched roms, but was able to keep my save file. Worked fine and I kept my sword. :P

[FantasiaWHT]

Well I've been sticking with Phantasy Star Universe (single player) even though it stopped being fun for me at Chapter 2. This game has been a real disappointment for me. And I loved PSO.

Does anybody else think that the Phantasy Star franchise has been slipping into Disney territory?


No, it's been slipping into Sonic territory. Playable maybe, but a pale shadow of former glory. Not surprising from Sonic Team, after all. I agree with you though. The voice-acting in PSU is so unbelievably awful I can only consider the game broken. Ironically, the best voice acting in that game is done by the secondary characters... the main character sounds drunk-slurs his words horribly.

[Kroogah]

NBA Ballers on the PS2 has outrageous load times. Didn't stop me from playing it.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2 is the most prominent example I can think of of a HORRIBLY UNBALANCED GLITCHY EXPLOITABLE BROKEN fighting game that I love.

Tony Hawk's Underground has that lovely glitch where if you do a darkslide it resets the rail balance meter. Fun fun stuff, especially in the levels like New Jersey and Moscow with enormous looping robot grinds. I remember playing this online, everybody knew about it, everybody always played in Moscow.

[Funk Buddy]

Flipnic

The sound on my copy gets so bad I have to turn the sound off all together. Don't know if they are all buggy, but it's bad.

[Ed Oscuro]

Me? No. I'm not even able to play games that would've captivated me for hours as a teenager anymore. Like Major Stryker for PC.

[calthaer]

For me, there are two games that come to mind: Diggles and Uplink: Hacker Elite (both by Strategy First). Both of them had bad controls, really crappy interfaces, horrible tutorials and such – but the concepts were just so great that I kept at them. I never finished either one, but I hope to some day.

[googlefest1]

robocop on the xbox - the AI is not right in that game and there is an enemy that is way too powerfull. I felt that was a make or break point with me. I thought that if i gave up on this game i would not have the patience to play totaly through any other game for along time. Finaly i beat it and i feel i walked away with a new skill in patience -for playing through one game at a time.

[bangtango]

Mostly older games:

Atari Jaguar's "Fight for Life"
NES "Double Dragon"
Genesis "Jurassic Park"
32X's "Doom"

[AMG]

Mortal Kombat Trilogy - N64
Test Drive 6 - Dreamcast


Both games got bad reviews for a great number of reasons, but I enjoyed playing them regardless.

[Ackman]

Don't tell anyone esp the HARDCORE fighting gamers but I really like SNK Vs Capcom Chaos, it's terrible but I seem to play it every now and then..... once or twice a month maybe more : )

[exit]

The Futurama game was glitchy as hell, I barely made it through that game without destroying it. I always have the worst luck on hitting every bug possible, in a already buggy game.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Shadow Madness for PSX, horrid graphics and enemy AI was a joke, but music and story kept me in to the finish.

[Daria]

Shadow Madness for PSX, horrid graphics and enemy AI was a joke, but music and story kept me in to the finish.

That game's great for dialouge alone.

[theshizzle3000]

My copy of Shadow of Collosus freezes 75 percent of the time, but I continue to play till it freezes just because I enjoy the game that much.

[diskoboy]

Well I've been sticking with Phantasy Star Universe (single player) even though it stopped being fun for me at Chapter 2. This game has been a real disappointment for me. And I loved PSO.

Does anybody else think that the Phantasy Star franchise has been slipping into Disney territory? PS 1 and 2 were pretty dark games overall. Evident corruption themes, main characters dying off and I thought the ending of PS2 was almost morbid. PS3 was a bit lighter but not exactly bright and fluffy. PSO had mood of despiration with the Rico messages and a very strong feeling of conspiracy. Episode 3 kind of lost that and its part of the reason why the story didn't draw me in much. But even Ep3 was better than PSU. Everything is wrote and by-the-numbers. None of the characters do anything to draw me in. Everything is as bright and shiny as possible. The towns are small and feel very fake. And even though the gameplay is similar to PSO, PSO didn't feel this tedious. Half the stuff you buy is strictly cosmetic. Synthing seems to serve no purpose (as least so far). The interface likes to play cruel jokes on you. Bleh!

But I'm gonna beat it anyway.

I agree. Phantasy Star anything are one of the rare RPG's I normally look forward too. PSU was no exception. I bought it the day it came out, and I too, have been really disappointed with it. I have yet to even go online with it. What's even more weird is I really enjoyed the beta....

And just like Sonic - the franchise is getting a little too 'Japanese' for my tastes.

I also gotta vote for Oblivion. Everytime I play it, I get 30 minutes into it, and the game crashes or the disc becomes 'unreadable'.

[Kamisama]

I have both Homeversions of Soukyu Gurentai, for Saturn and Playstation. I like the playstation version a bit more although the Saturn Port is technically better. Dont know why, maybe because the PSX Version is the one of the few games that got me into collection :P

[RARusk]

"Perihelion" - Commodore Amiga

This game was blatantly unfinished (complete with two fatal design flaws that would force you to restart with a new party). But it had some cool concepts, music, and a very interesting color pallette (grays and oranges). The ending wasn't bad either.

[Fear The Turtle]

I'll have to second Shadow Madness. There's just something about that game...

[geneshifter]

Vanguard, lol.