# Games/game genres you will never touch with a 100 foot pole **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 6, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913 "2011-05-06T01:37:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/41 "2011-05-09T23:15:02Z")
I don’t like racing games, or puzzle rpgs like Zelda. “Soft” puzzle games like tetris or scrabble are good. I find most sports games boring, but I dont automatically exclude them because occasionally I enjoy them. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/42 "2011-05-10T19:18:12Z")
Here’s a weird one and not really a genre. Sci-fi environment games. I’ve just never had an interest in futuristic stuff, I love my historicals and fantasy. You could give me two similar games like Warhammer/40k or Warcraft/Starcraft and I will just choose the fantasy one. Hence, I don’t play a lot of FPS games. If there was a really good, polished one where you ran around the countryside with a crossbow I’d try it. Ugh, I’ve just really scaled down my gaming. What happened to my childhood, where I somehow balanced a bajillion video games, books, movies and TV shows at once? ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/43 "2011-05-10T19:40:51Z")
Ah, see, I recently bought the first Crysis because it was on sale, and it’s kind of annoying me. I’m just in the first part, and it’s a weird slog of having more and more enemy soldiers show of seemingly from nowhere; I apparently have to kill most or all of them before moving on toward more plot. I’m not sure whether I should be annoyed that I spent ten bucks on a game that I’m not too enthusiastic about, or be glad that I spent ten bucks to reaffirm that I haven’t been missing out on games I’d actually like out of sheer stubbornness. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/44 "2011-05-10T20:11:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Hence, I don’t play a lot of FPS games. If there was a really good, polished one where you ran around the countryside with a crossbow I’d try it. Well, there was the Heretic/Hexen series, but I don’t know of any recent ones. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/45 "2011-05-10T20:30:10Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > I think the only genre I haven’t found any fun games in is horror. Horror games fail to scare me. And even if they didn’t I cant see why being frightened is fun. But worse their attempts to scare usually just make me impatient. Few things bug me more in a game than slow pacing which seems to be pretty much a prerequisite for horror games. It all depends on the kind of horror, and how well handled it is. I think Ben Yahtzee said it best when he said that there were three types of horror games: - one where you’re in a dark room and a guy in a spooky mask suddenly jumps out of a cupboard and goes abloogywoogywoo - one where the guy in a spooky mask is across from you in a brightly lit room and slowly crawls towards you while making abloogywoogywoo before smacking you in the face - one where the guy in a spooky mask is not in a cupboard but right behind you and you just know he’s going to go abloogywoogywoo at some point but he never does and you don’t want to turn around because he might just stick its cock in your eye. The third kind is great when it’s done properly (I’m looking at you, haunted hotel from _Vampire:Bloodlines_. You asshole hotel you.) - but I can never play them for any length of time. Because I’m a pussy and I hurt myself on my desk and make squeaky little girl noises whenever something even remotely abloogywoogish happens. _he’s heeeere_ Wait, did you hear that ? I could have sworn… ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/46 "2011-05-10T20:34:18Z")
-RTS games (with some exceptions like World in Conflict) -Diablo-type games -Sports games, although the Wiimote or Move games are fun. Occasionally I’ll play a football game. -Those sort RPGs where combat consists of everyone standing around and taking turns whacking at each other. -MMOs - I generally refuse to pay ~$50 for a game and then pay another ~$10 a month to play it, while being tasked with collecting 10 badger pelts by a beggar. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2011, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/47 "2011-05-10T21:24:13Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Ugh, I’ve just really scaled down my gaming. What happened to my childhood, where I somehow balanced a bajillion video games, books, movies and TV shows at once? I’m guessing you didn’t have a full time job. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/48 "2011-05-11T00:33:37Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > I don’t play a lot of FPS games. If there was a really good, polished one where you ran around the countryside with a crossbow I’d try it. Have you tried any of the Mount & Blade games? ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/49 "2011-05-11T03:16:17Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, there was the Heretic/Hexen series, but I don’t know of any recent ones. I just got a horrible flashback to an issue of Gamefan reviewing the port (don’t remember if it was N64 or PS1). The screenshot used was a pixellated brick wall with a green blob. I do recall admiring that there was actual colour and light instead of a dark corridor. > [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Have you tried any of the Mount & Blade games? Never heard of it, looks cool. My PC gaming has been limited to WoW, I was always a console girl, which probably contributes to my FPS focus being on Quake, Unreal and whatever popped up on the Xbox like Halo. ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/50 "2011-05-11T06:59:42Z")
The sim games where you do stuff and then wait for awhile until you can do more stuff. Farmville and the like. BOOOOOOOORRRRIIING. That said, the earlier games were fun. SimAnt, SimEarth, anyone? I love FPSs, and am a bit surprised by all the dislike of them here. To each his own and all that, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/51 "2011-05-11T07:31:38Z")
Part of the problem with FPS games is that they can be very disorientating for people. A friend of mine would dearly love to play FPS games but they make him sick within about an hour, to the point that he physically throws up. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/52 "2011-05-11T16:18:10Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Part of the problem with FPS games is that they can be very disorientating for people. A friend of mine would dearly love to play FPS games but they make him sick within about an hour, to the point that he physically throws up. Not to bash the genre, but FPS games are also: [ul] [li]Difficult to learn to control (serious barrier to entry for new players)[/li][li]Thoroughly non-immersive for many people, because they claim to be simulating a 1st person experience, you have no peripheral vision and no real sense of “being there”; It’s been described as “looking through blinders”.[/li][li]Generally violent as few other games are these days. Yeah, there’s Mortal Kombat and God of War, but neither of those is emblematic of its genre. In FPS games, you have to point out the exception - Portal.[/li][li]Pretty much 100% innovation free these days. They are catering to a specific (large) market that doesn’t want to see their games change, they just want a few new guns and some new maps and whatnot. This leads a lot of people to feel that if they’ve played one, they don’t want to play a different one.[/li][li] Generally “All about the multiplayer” these days - multiplayer that is generally filled with people who are better than you, and prone to cursing and racial slurs. The whole image of the potty-mouthed 13 year old on Xbox Live springs almost exclusively from this genre.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/53 "2011-05-11T16:29:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Part of the problem with FPS games is that they can be very disorientating for people. A friend of mine would dearly love to play FPS games but they make him sick within about an hour, to the point that he physically throws up. Yeah, I have this problem (not to the extent of literally throwing up); I loved Portal, but could only play it in bursts of half an hour or so at a time. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/54 "2011-05-11T16:44:12Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > Have you tried any of the Mount & Blade games? > [@kushiel](#): > > Never heard of it, looks cool. [Here’s an exellent summary of the original when it was in beta.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10018210&postcount=37) Mount & Blade: Warband should be of most interest to you; the most recent in the series (With Fire and Sword) is set some 300 years later and includes firearms. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/55 "2011-05-11T16:53:36Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The third kind is great when it’s done properly (I’m looking at you, haunted hotel from _Vampire:Bloodlines_. You asshole hotel you.) - but I can never play them for any length of time. > Because I’m a pussy and I hurt myself on my desk and make squeaky little girl noises whenever something even remotely abloogywoogish happens. > > _he’s heeeere_ > > Wait, did you hear that ? I could have sworn… Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a _fantastic_ example of this. There were points in the game when I actually did a hard power-down just to avoid the Very Scary Thing I was sure would happen next. The brilliant thing the game did, besides very thoughtful and deliberate pacing, was that it deprived you of any means at all of defending yourself. If a monster found you, _you would die_. Scary! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/56 "2011-05-11T17:26:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Part of the problem with FPS games is that they can be very disorientating for people. Oddly, I have a friend who has this problem with every FPS _except_ Portal. I don’t know if there’s something about the Portal engine which makes it more tolerable, or if he just enjoyed the storyline enough to overcome it, or maybe the fact that it’s _supposed_ to be disorienting made it more tolerable. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/57 "2011-05-11T19:15:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oddly, I have a friend who has this problem with every FPS _except_ Portal. I don’t know if there’s something about the Portal engine which makes it more tolerable, or if he just enjoyed the storyline enough to overcome it, or maybe the fact that it’s _supposed_ to be disorienting made it more tolerable. Maybe it’s the fact that Portal is less dependent on fast, erratic movement? Certainly, the pace of the game is different from your average Call of Modern Gears of Duty. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/58 "2011-05-11T19:17:41Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a _fantastic_ example of this. There were points in the game when I actually did a hard power-down just to avoid the Very Scary Thing I was sure would happen next. The brilliant thing the game did, besides very thoughtful and deliberate pacing, was that it deprived you of any means at all of defending yourself. If a monster found you, _you would die_. Scary! Not quite. While you were pretty much boned, you could escape if you were close enough to a stage-transition door or a large dark area (of course, the dark areas made you go insane, but it’s better than death). Also, you could throw things at the monsters, which while not doing any damage to them, did seem to give them a moment’s pause, which sometimes was all you needed to get away. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/59 "2011-05-11T19:24:56Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oddly, I have a friend who has this problem with every FPS _except_ Portal. I don’t know if there’s something about the Portal engine which makes it more tolerable, or if he just enjoyed the storyline enough to overcome it, or maybe the fact that it’s _supposed_ to be disorienting made it more tolerable. > [@Airk](#): > > Maybe it’s the fact that Portal is less dependent on fast, erratic movement? Certainly, the pace of the game is different from your average Call of Modern Gears of Duty. It definitely helps that you can step out of the way and just chill for a while if you want to without worrying that something is about to come around the corner and blow you away. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913/60 "2011-05-11T19:32:14Z")
While we speak about shooters and perception, I’ll hijack the thread further: Dead Space, did anyone have trouble with the viewpoint? I literally cannot play it because almost 3/4 of the screen is taken up by Isaac’s body. I couldn’t see anything around me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/games-game-genres-you-will-never-touch-with-a-100-foot-pole/580913.md?page=4)