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[Shadowlord]

Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy.

Worst. Gameplay. Ever. Want to watch the cutscenes? You can't! They're interactive and you have to constantly stare at two wheels which each look kind of like Simon but behave a bit differently - as something lights up you have to press the matching key as soon as possible, and it will light up one, then switch to another, light up a tile from both wheels at the same time so you have to watch both and press two keys at once, etc, and if you don't keep up or get confused or hit the wrong keys, your character will mess up and possibly die during the cutscene. It doesn't go slow either, for the most part - most sequences are fairly rapid. And then if you died, you get to do it all over again. Easy mode merely lets you make a few mistakes per sequence (skipping some or pressing the wrong thing, so if you miss some you can ignore it and start with whatever it is showing at the time and hope it doesn't count it as a failure) - there is no "This is terrible and the developers are terrible and they should be ashamed of themselves, turn off the stupid 'interactive cutscenes' and just let me watch them" mode, and you cannot view all the cutscenes separately, either.

[Neonivek]

What is funny is on the PC version they reverse the dirrection of it.

So I had to actually change the controls.

[BurnedToast]

Planescape: Torment.

The game is amazing, and one of my all time favorite games. However, that's because of the story and the writing and the setting. The actual gameplay is.... pretty bad.... And for an RPG there's not really much in the way of loots/upgrades or anything either.

With a generic storyline, in a generic fantasy setting it would have been utterly forgettable in every way with nothing to recommend it, instead of being one of the best RPGs of all time.

[Pnx]

Well there were actually quite a lot of unlockables and hidden secrets, but most of them involved backtracking, and there were very few sidequests that didn't involve the main quest in some way. It was definitely not a Baldur's Gate style adventuring game where you got free reign to wander around killing monsters and doing quests in the countryside.

I did also find myself rather annoyed when I discovered it was actually impossible for my mage to learn the highest level spells before the final battle.

[RedKing]

Birthright: The Gorgon's Crown. Ambitious game that tried to be part strategy game, part tactical combat, and part first-person adventure game. If all three parts had performed up to par, it could have been the greatest game ever made. Unfortunately, the strategy portion has flaws, and the other two portions are just flat awful and buggy as hell.

But the concept of the game still draws me in from time to time, and I really liked the setting.


Iron Seed. Shareware gem that was kind of like Starflight in being a space exploration game. Hinted at having a great story, but the game just sort of...stops. You stop getting any clues or making any real technological progress.

[Virtz]

Another one I remembered was Alien Legacy. It was this grand strategy game with an overarching mystery as to what happened to the colony ship that got there before you and should've already had a thriving colony ready by the time you got there. It was slowly revealed in found landmarks and atmospheric texts and it really pulled me in. But the gameplay itself was really repetetive and ultimately boring. Like despite being the colony leader, you had to personally take control of a flying ship and use it to gather up resources off a planet. And you had to do this like a hundred times per planet. Ultimately it was really awful gameplay-wise.

I never did finish it either. Maybe the ending would've turned out banal and put me off the story, but I dunno.

[warhammer651]

Drakengard. For sheer WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST!? factor

[Trapezohedron]

Breakdown, an old (original) Xbox game.

Game's hard, guns become useless halfway through, controls are clunky, save system is nuts...

But you do get to play as an (japanese?)-american soldier who gains the ability to punch through the impenetrable shields of the T'lan, and the game plays entirely in first person, so kicking and punching is cool and all.

And the plot involves you going through a hospital with a mysterious hypercompetent girl to escape, but you eventually arrive in the elaborate underground lab and into the mysterious world below.

It's very cheesy. Much like a B-movie action flick.

[Neonivek]

Drakengard. For sheer WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST!? factor

Oddly enough I liked the gameplay. The trick was knowing what weapons are genuinly useful and which ones stunk (Yeah the game would give you TERRIBLE weapons and pretend its "magic power" made up for it).

Plus the secret to the dragon levels is knowing when to use homing and when to use ordinary blasts.

Then again what credit can I give to a game that tricks you into thinking useless weapons are good, and doesn't make the times homing and ordinary blasts are useful more logical?

[Drakasin]

I would say Alone In The Dark 5 or Alone In The Dark Inferno, which one you prefer.
The gameplay itself wasn't bad, but the bugs and the shitty camera control ruined it for many people. I managed to get through these bugs and I started to love this game. For some reason, I really love the story (even though the ending is... hard to understand). Developers fixed only the PS 3 version... bastards.

[Man of Paper]

Alpha Protocol. I enjoyed the story, even with the cast chock full o' cliches. I felt like I was playing through a modern American Spy film. You guys remember what they were like in the 60s-80s? I do, since I watch old stuff a lot.
But the gameplay. Ugh. My god. It wasn't too painful until my stealth hax character was forced into boss fights against superhuman opponents.

[BurnedToast]

Oh god, yeah I almost forgot alpha protocol. Fun game but... seriously wtf.

I made the mistake of putting my first playthrough on hard (real men don't need normal... ha ha I'm dumb) and damn, that sniper boss that basically one-shots you with his sniper shotgun(?).... I almost deleted it right there. Or the other boss near the end in the museum(?) who I only managed to beat by turning invisible and throwing fire grenades (he just stood still if you were invisible instead of running out of the fire pool).

The worst part is, there was no story excuse for why this bad guy, who's just a normal guy without super powers or anything, can for some reason take about 10,000 bullets to the head before he dies.

I really don't know what they were thinking, if they had just left the bosses out it would have been a pretty good game (if a bit unbalanced by stealth making you immortal and letting you instakill people by facepunching them) with a great (if a bit cheesy) story.

[Man of Paper]

I found the best way to deal with the old dude in the museum was to just ignore his goons as long as they don't flank you. While they're around he won't charge in and deliver a flurry of blows that utterly decimates your sternum.
Why, Obsidian? Why must the bosses be so OP!? I've recently put the controller down due to Darcy, but I want to see this game to it's conclusion soooo bad! I'm right there! UGH!

I'd say Too Human qualifies for this also. It did a nice blend of futuristic Norse lore with, once again, really fail game mechanics. It was only three dollars, but I still played the christ out of it. The dialog might not have been best, and the only issue I had with their characters was how they portrayed Thor a little too burly bust-headsish with no brains for my taste (though I think it was more to his nature than Marvel has portrayed him).

[Aqizzar]

Anyone else mentioned Final Fantasy 6?  The game is passable, but you think about it if you look past good memories of the game, the more laughable it was.  The esper system was made for pointless grinding, most of the characters' special abilities were too situational or too much of a pain to use, the bosses and many of the later enemies were terribly gimmicky, infamous bugs galore, and the balancing was so out of whack it was reasonably easy to walk through the whole game using nothing but the fight command.

But the story, for a JRPG of its time or any time, was of course worthy of legend.  Operatic, one might say.

Planescape: Torment.

The game is amazing, and one of my all time favorite games. However, that's because of the story and the writing and the setting. The actual gameplay is.... pretty bad.... And for an RPG there's not really much in the way of loots/upgrades or anything either.

Word up.  The gameplay is genuinely terrible, even for a game using that engine, and is a pain in the ass to play.  It is literally a novel that you write while reading, that makes you work for your prize by sitting through the combat.

[Mech#4]

"Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura" can go in that boat too. The setting and themes are great, but I don't really like the combat system.