# My last word about horrible video games **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 30, 2019, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583 "2019-12-30T07:47:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/21 "2019-12-31T06:02:24Z")
The primary blessing of video games is the knowledge that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/22 "2019-12-31T07:23:30Z")
… are you kidding about sid meiers pirates ? it was one of the few nes games worth owning… hell I got into geography because the blockbuster copy didnt have a freaking map… when i finally found a copy at walmart at the bottom of the case i was pissed …it had a map! pirates gold on the Sega was an improvement one you realized you had to change up the sword fighting The 3rd pirates game aka the reboot is the one im iffy on …they took out the silver train and treasure fleet and tossed in a horrible dancing spot when ya romanced the governors daughter … But the WII version redid the town attacking and you actually had to bombard the town which was fun and just felt like a better game than the xbox version … If i won the lottery id buy thr rights from sid and 2k and put it online … ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/23 "2019-12-31T07:44:51Z")
Was I the only one who said “screw the family story line” and went for wenches and riches ? actually it was on pirates!gold i got my highest ranking ever… what happened was I was attacking a town with a war galleon and only had like 10 people after sacking the place and since it was flippin panama i managed to hit the silver train and treasure fleet at the same time So i took as much as i could carry off and made it to port royale and made a very nice profit and then i started trading and actually found out there’s a system to it and having the fleet i did i could buy out 90 percent of the sugar supply for cheap and wait until it went up to 170 + gold a ton I retired with the bishop rating with about 2500 acres married the best governors daughter in the game and a million in a half gold … ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/24 "2019-12-31T07:59:28Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > **Sid Meier’s Pirates** - Remember how much nearly everyone whined and moaned about Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag because you didn’t spend every single nanosecond sacking ships and guzzling rum? Oh my god, the game actually has a _story_, and there are _places_ to explore, _puzzles_ to solve, important _tasks_ to complete! The horror! Well, if they were around in the late 80’s, they could’ve played this instead and spent every single nanosecond _getting a cutlass shoved up their assholes_. First off, you are always on the clock. Your crew is getting more and more unhappy, town defenses are getting stronger, merchants are getting more erratic _literally constantly_. Davy Jones help you if you try to make a living by trading; given the extreme distance between towns and the paltry profits under the best of circumstances, it’s mainly a question of whether mutiny, starvation, or wrecking on the roughly 25,000 fucking shoals is going to do you in first. Let’s not forget this “Spanish Trade Law” bullshit which reduces your profits to roughly that of a fairly successful lemonade stand. Which leaves attacking ships, where you’ll learn the joys of enemy ships either 1. turning tail and escaping upwind or 2. not turning tail and blasting your ship into matchwood, then blasting the matchwood into sawdust. Attacking towns is theoretically more rewarding, and I say “theoretically” because if you succeed you learn that the townsfolk hid about 95% of their stuff, meaning that, yep, your crew of useless slackers who couldn’t fight their way out of a canvas sack is _still_ Unhappy! Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: You ALWAYS have either too many or too few crewmen, and the all-or-nothing nature of recruiting only makes this even worse. Oh right, fencing, which is so goddam clumsy and clunky it’ll make you pine for the elegance of a Guybrush Threepwood duel. And ever notice that every fucking opponent can take about five times as much damage as you? Trying to accomplish anything meaningful in this game is like keeping 50 plates spinning at once while you have a bomb strapped to your chest. Yeah, I found Pirates! to be a bit difficult, but then again, I was never that good at adventure games, so I chalked this up to my own lack of skill rather than the quality of the game. If you want to enjoy much of the Pirates! experience but with adjustable difficulty (but also the lack of an overarching story line), I can heartily recommend _[The Ancient Art of War at Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_Art_of_War_at_Sea)_. This is a 1987 Broderbund game that focuses on sea battles of the 16th to 19th centuries. The gameplay and controls are fantastic, and the graphics are pretty good considering the limitations of CGA. (Make sure you play the game with a composite monitor, or with your DOS emulator set to composite mode, or else your eyes will bleed from staring at all the magenta–cyan water.) > [@](#): > > **Ultima 3 and 5** - Ultima 3 was the only game where I mangled the 5 1/2” disk in rage. _Three times._ I have never been so utterly vexed by a game before or since. The problem is that I proceed at a nice pace, levelling up, discovering things (remember, pre-Internet, so there was a _lot_ to figure out on my own), and otherwise making progress, and then _completely out of the blue_ a fucking dragon spawns, or a fucking devil spawns, or the whirlpool decides to pay a visit to where I parked all the ships. The game doesn’t spawn higher-level monsters like dragons until your party is theoretically strong enough to defeat them. Well, maybe not _consistently_ defeat them, but a properly equipped and healed-up party should stand a chance. If the dragon wipes you out anyway, you can always reload the game from your latest savegame and try again. > [@](#): > > And when I finally got to that damn Exodus (an utter nightmare every step of the way), I got wiped out because I didn’t remember the exact order to put in the cards, the book I read about them was at the library, and again, no Internet. No sympathy from me here—all the clues required to solve the game are in the game itself. The Time Lord is the one who tells you the order to insert the cards. Given that he is a major character in the game, and that finding him is the end result of a much-vaunted and difficult quest, you’ve only got yourself to blame if you didn’t think to write down what he told you. > [@](#): > > Apparently Origin learned from this and in the future decided to cut out the cockteasing bullshit by making _the entire game_ an exercise in agony. The thing that always strikes me about Ultima 5 is how _meager_ it was. Scrabbling and scrounging for every gold piece, having to defeat hordes of foes while wielding dinky little main-gauches and clubs, scraping together enough reagents for a feeble magic missile, clinging to every last key because they broke like toothpicks, and on, and on. So what you’re saying is that the economy is realistic. I think that’s a good thing. Far better, at any rate, than some of the later Ultima games, where gold and equipment are given out like candy. > [@](#): > > Oh, and I got killed all the fucking time. Good thing there’s no permadeath. > [@](#): > > Never figured out that “virtue” garbage. Did you play Ultima IV? Or did you at least read the manual for Ultima V? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/25 "2019-12-31T08:01:15Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > **Sid Meier’s Pirates** - Remember how much nearly everyone whined and moaned about Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag because you didn’t spend every single nanosecond sacking ships and guzzling rum? Oh my god, the game actually has a _story_, and there are _places_ to explore, _puzzles_ to solve, important _tasks_ to complete! The horror! Don’t forget all the exciting office intrigue! Nothing can match the thrill of slowly walking up to a computer terminal and downloading a file! ---
**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:** [December 31, 2019, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/26 "2019-12-31T11:21:36Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The primary blessing of video games is the knowledge that it is never too late to have a happy childhood. Or, if you like _Dark Souls_, a really abusive one with no less than seven different "funny uncle"s. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/27 "2019-12-31T16:42:26Z")
Try jumping! ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/28 "2019-12-31T17:15:45Z")
I beat Puma back in the day with Fighter Hayabusa. Back brain kicks are OP. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/29 "2019-12-31T17:56:53Z")
I didn’t care for Ultima V, but Ultima III was great! Now, I’ll admit, I played the somewhat simplified NES versions of III, IV, and V, but after being introduced to RPGs via Dragon Warrior, it was a huge step ahead in terms of complexity and challenge. I remember it taking a long time to finish and there being a lot of grinding, but that was games those days. I found it thoroughly rewarding and fun, hardly a game that can be categorized as “horrible.” It wasn’t perfect, but I’d give it a 7-8/10. (Ultima IV, though, was absolutely perfect.) Same with Pirates! How can anyone possibly consider that a horrible game? It’s iconic! Of course, I like the Wii and still play it, so my gaming wants seem to be different than the OP’s. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/30 "2019-12-31T18:07:46Z")
I should add, though, that my problem with Ultima V is probably mostly that its graphic stylings and interface differed from the NES versions of Ultima IV and III and Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy-type RPGs, and I could never get used to the choppy way of moving around and the way you interact with the world. Granted, if I started with RPGs on the computer rather than the NES, I would be used to it, but since my introduction to them was via Dragon Warrior, Ultima III, Ultima IV, and Final Fantasy, I’m just so used to that type of interface. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/31 "2019-12-31T18:34:10Z")
I gave up on video games after Bratticus on my Amiga. ---
**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:** [December 31, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/32 "2019-12-31T18:56:29Z")
The OP is going too easy on Ultima III, at least for the NES version (the only version I ever played). There, the only effects of leveling up were that, first, your HP increased, and second, the monsters got harder. To the point that level 1-2 monsters, you could defeat effortlessly, every time, with no risk or expenditure of resources, but level 3-4 monsters, you’d be well-advised to rest up after a single encounter, and level 5-6 monsters (if you got the wrong ones) were a serious risk of a TPK. And if you actually did want to increase your power, the only way to do so was by spending insane amounts of money to increase your stats, at shops that you could only reach by ship, which you could only get by beating 5th-level enemies. And the only way to get those amounts of money in any reasonable amount of time was to rob the townsfolk, which meant fighting guards, who you couldn’t hope to possibly defeat unless you already had high-level spells. And if you did manage, by extreme grinding, to get enough gold, you were likely to discover that you had one of the gimped classes that had lower power for no benefit, or that your race (which otherwise has no impact whatsoever on the game) has attribute limits too low to be of any use in your class, with no in-game documentation whatsoever that either of those things could happen. And even if you did persevere to the point that you had sufficient power to fight high-level enemies, your reward for beating them was the exact same amount of gold as from 1st-level enemies, and _less_ xp than 1st-level enemies. Oh, and then the final boss isn’t even the giant serpent who’s menacing the world; it’s the floor in that boss’s room. Which you can’t see, of course, because it’s the floor, and you can only kill by blindly blundering into them, because heaven forbid that the game give you any way of, you know, targeting enemies. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/33 "2019-12-31T21:26:06Z")
_Sid Meier’s Pirates!_ was awesome. AC4:BF was fun until you ran out of _Pirates!_ stuff to do and instead got to enjoy being yelled at by Human Resources staff and made to play ASCII Frogger to steal computer files. At that point, you might as well turn it off. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/34 "2019-12-31T22:40:56Z")
The smartest thing the most recent AC games did was cut the modern-day stuff down to a bare minimum and make it utterly irrelevant to the story. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/35 "2020-01-01T01:17:38Z")
> [@DKW](#): > > And when I finally got to that damn Exodus (an utter nightmare every step of the way), I got wiped out because I didn’t remember the exact order to put in the cards, the book I read about them was at the library, and again, no Internet. I haven’t beaten the game since whatever time it was in the mid-80s, and this is from memory, Love, Sol, Moon, Death. I’m pretty dang sure of this, and if I can remember it after 35 years, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you not remembering it for a week or so. 5 was my favorite of the top-down era (7 was probably the overall best), though yes, all of the top-down ones tended towards rough starts and a lot of “ran out of food/died to monsters” restarts. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/36 "2020-01-01T02:24:45Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > _Sid Meier’s Pirates!_ was awesome. AC4:BF was fun until you ran out of _Pirates!_ stuff to do I see you have repressed the memory of the stealth ship mission, congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/37 "2020-01-01T02:49:08Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > … are you kidding about sid Meiers pirates? it was one of the few nes games worth owning… hell I got into geography because the blockbuster copy didn’t have a freaking map… when i finally found a copy at walmart at the bottom of the case i was pissed …it had a map! > > pirates gold on the Sega was an improvement one you realized you had to change up the sword fighting > > The 3rd pirates game aka the reboot is the one I’m iffy on …they took out the silver train and treasure fleet and tossed in a horrible dancing spot when ya romanced the governor’s daughter … > > But the WII version redid the town attacking and you actually had to bombard the town which was fun and just felt like a better game than the Xbox version … > > If I won the lottery id buy the rights from sid and 2k and put it online … oh and the strangest thing about the reboot was you have to spend about a year attacking whatever the enemy faction is before the game lets you attack a town … ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/38 "2020-01-01T03:48:51Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > I haven’t beaten the game since whatever time it was in the mid-80s, and this is from memory, Love, Sol, Moon, Death. I’m pretty dang sure of this, and if I can remember it after 35 years, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you not remembering it for a week or so. Yep, that is the order! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2020, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/39 "2020-01-01T08:25:09Z")
My main issue is that the OP seems to overinflate their problems, and mix their personal dislike of something or poor ability to do something with actual criticism. It honestly sounds to me like the OP is bad at certain types of games, and dislikes things that other people don’t mind or even enjoy. I get frustrated that I can’t beat the older Super Mario Bros games, but I don’t argue they are bad games because of it. I know that I am the outlier–though I do take some solace in that Nintendo made the later games easier, and that I actually do well in some games that people say are hard. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583/40 "2020-01-02T23:44:28Z")
After reading this rant google puts this video in my recommended queue. It’s called [SID MEIERS PIRATES IS A PERFECTLY BALANCED GAME WITH NO EXPLOITS - Boarding only challenge IS BROKEN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z81IYZsM94). I really had to laugh here but he is right. It is one of my favorite games ever. Luckily I never found the trick that he found. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-last-word-about-horrible-video-games/845583.md?page=3)