Roundtable: Games That Took Multiple Attempts To Love

When you think about it, we all have those games that took us a while to come around on. This could be due to general misconceptions, a bad experience when first playing the game, or even just not being able to progress that well. So we here at VGUTV are going to give the games we love that took us multiple attempts to love.

Allan Muir – Site Admin/Co-EiC/Jester of Craggy Island

Resident Evil 4

Ah, Resident Evil 4, one of, if not the best video game ever made. To think that I once hated you with a passion makes me want to rethink my views on video games. While you saved your franchise from further getting “Code Veronica’d” you did cause some bad things indirectly. But that is a tale for another day. This is my roundabout tale of getting to enjoy Resident Evil 4.

So let’s go back to the year 2006 when I was an Al Jr. and I was unironically enjoying the first two Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil films. It was a weekend so that meant a trip to the local Blockbuster or “game time” as I so often put it. I rented two games that could not have been more different, “Family Guy: The Game” for my Xbox, and “Resident Evil 4” for my Nintendo GameCube. Through osmosis and the Paul Anderson films, I knew the game was notorious for gore, zombies, and more gore. With it being 2006 I wasn’t that great at most videogames that weren’t first-person shooters or baseball games. Some say the same about my videogame skills to this day nearly fifteen years later. The first part that had gotten me angry was the opening fight for survival in the cult-like village. (For more on those three key words check episode five of W.I.N here) The scenario of having only a pistol and a shotgun against overwhelming hordes of enemies gave me a panic attack before I knew what panic attacks were. But things weren’t about to get better…

After facing off against Del Lago, which is the giant lake monster boss you encounter with the harpoon and the boat. As previously mentioned, I was not at my best and I was not as good I would become at mashing a button at this time. What I didn’t know was that button-mashing is very integral to Resident Evil 4 whether it is running from boulders, slashing at the Los Plagas Ogres, or even the sequence that has you running away from a giant mechanical statue. It wasn’t until 2014 with Resident Evil 4: Ultimate HD Edition on PC (for more of my thoughts on that remaster listen to this episode of Players Club), where I finally got the chance to, as the youth say, “Git Gud”.

Josh Miller – The Family Man

Mass Effect

In my opinion, Mass Effect 2 is one of the greatest games of all time. I fell in love with that story, the world, and the characters aboard the Normandy during my time in that game. The gameplay complemented it well and the ending left me eager to see the conclusion. However, I’m not sure I would rank it so highly had it not been for the original Mass Effect. Which brings me to my part of this roundtable, and how the original Mass Effect took numerous times for me to love.

Four times. It took me four times of starting Mass Effect from moment one to finally see the ending credits. Each of the three times prior to completing it on attempt four all ended in the same place: The Citadel. Why anyone loved this game was beyond me. These missions were such a drag and after spending what felt like hours doing them, I was bored out of my mind. It wasn’t until I saw on either a forum or heard on a podcast my solution. Someone was having similar trouble but finished the game by just….moving on. They didn’t bother bogging down in the Citadel missions but instead went about their merry way to stop Seren. So I did the same thing. OH MY GOD! That did it. That broke the curse. That fourth start-over where I didn’t strand myself on the Citadel allowed me to finish the game. I loved it. I hadn’t played a game like Mass Effect before so the team aspect and choices that would affect people surviving were completely new to me. All of which I was able to experience after that dreadful Citadel opening section.

Beating your head against a wall is never fun in a game. Especially one that you feel you would love if you could just move through that point. Sadly, it’s not always as easy as just “move on” as I could with Mass Effect. Sometimes it involves overcoming a difficult section which is why I imagine many people dislike the “Souls” games. Thankfully Mass Effect wasn’t that and instead kept me on the hook for the sequels that would come out and become one of my most favorite game series. Hopefully when the inevitable Mass Effect trilogy releases (please EA!), I’ll get to experience them all over again. And if that Citadel section stops me again, at least I’ll know what to do this time around.

Graydon Webb – The Contrarian American

Halo

Of course the moment I’m asked to think about the games I’ve attempted over and over again, I forget about the most prominent ones in my mind. I feel like I’m constantly haunted by the spirits of games I couldn’t bring myself to continue playing. Yet in my time of need? Whoosh! All gone. Thankfully, one franchise stands out among the rest in terms of “games that didn’t get a fair shake by Graydon,” and that would be the almighty Halo.

When I began playing the Master Chief Collection with my Halo stan of a best friend last year, I could only recall visions of Halo 3 from my past. I’d played a level or two with either my dad – or the very same friend I was playing with now – back at its launch, and I immediately disliked it. The controls were all wonky, there was no gravity, the guns felt identical to each other, and the plot was bland. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to the Halo that started it all, and I was pretty much hooked in by its HD glory. As we moved onto Halo 2, 3, and my personal favorite, ODST, I just remember sitting back and basking in the beauty of it all. Not only is the series visually gorgeous, but it’s genuinely smart. Once you realize you can alter your control scheme to feel like every other shooter on Earth, and you allow yourself to be immersed in the space war happening around you, Halo truly begins to grow on you at an alarming pace.

I’ve been a Halo apologist for over a year now and have recently finished Guardians around February-ish, I must say I cannot contain my excitement for the upcoming Infinite news this summer. If I wasn’t already planning on buying an Xbox Series X, Halo Infinite would easily be a system seller for me. That, in itself, is one of the wildest statements I have ever put in writing. Halo, a series I swore off for the majority of my young adulthood and tried to enjoy on several occasions, has become the crux of my future console purchase. Let that sink in.