Here's The Example of a fairly good idea which was poorly executed. Despite the graphics, especially the poor facial expressions that tried to kill my immersion like an annoying bug flying across the room, the idea of a vampire slowly discovering his powers felt appealing and I really liked it in my first session. Then I went to sleep and came back the next day ready to spend hours playing it and I did, but not exactly doing interesting stuff but talking to EVERY SINGLE NPC trying to discover why the bartender doesn't talk about his friend or that the ambulance driver has an affair with a nurse, aaaaaaand that's it. (a pause here: am I getting too old for this? Does anybody REALLY like to wander around talking to uninteresting people? Seriously, aren't your real lives full enough of it?) It felt shallow and I totally lost my interest after 3 or 4 hours of gossip, small-talks and some occasional dodge-and-counter fights (hi, Dark Souls! I love you but I hate you for narrowing down hard games to dodge-hit-dodge-hit-rinse-repeat) against zombie-like, souless (literally and artistically) vampires. Oh, did I mention it takes FOREVER to load map transitions? I really mean it, I'm talking about a minute or so evey time you travel to another discrict or sewer and it's simply unacceptable for a game with these graphics. But wait, there's more! Do you know those screens presenting the producers, studio and distribution offices at the very beginning of the game? You can't skip that - at least I couldn't in an intuitive way like, say, pressing enter, esc or the buttons on my gamepad?!) and it's another minute of your life you'll never get back, If only we were vampires with an eternity to toss at these kind of things...
I've tried to play Diablo 2 a couple of months ago and it just feels old - mainly for the mechanics: it feels repetitive and boring after spending about 10 years playing the series. Diablo 1 might feel even worse in this aspect. Buuuut... ...if you haven't played it yet, you should. Diablo 1 has a GREAT story. It's simple, but the right word for it is ADULT: the plot in Diablos 1 and 2 are just gold - no, I'll NEVER FORGIVE Blizzard for not making a cutscene to kill Deckard Cain, so Dablo 3 is not in this list. The Butcher is still one of my favourite enemies of all time. Kill him with a dagger and you'll know what I'm talking about. Wait for a sale though, the full price is just not fair for it's age.
I've played the xbox version of this game for more than a hundred hours so I think I can add something to the game itself, not the port. I remember having mixed feelings about Dragon's Dogma: the pawn system was fresh (or it was at that time) but sometimes it's AI could be annoying. The items, at very high levels, practically forced me to use this armor or that sword... but but I've spent a hundred hours of my life playing it, so it's d*** good. Good in a manner you can play it casually, or one-hit-killed by a mob. The controls, ahhh the controls... I don't remember any game being so fluid like this. It's like Dark Souls having a baby with Dragon Age 2. A wonderful, funny and very well-crafted baby. It's worth even at full price if you've never played it. Oh, and you can backstab a griffon with dagger while it's flying.
