The worst moments in PC gaming

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Hearing that EA is looking at purchasing Popcap got me thinking. What where the worst moments in PC gaming history.

This could be a game that was so bad that you nearly gave up gaming

It could be terrible game concept that was done to death by clones and sequals

It could be the advent of 12 year olds on Multiplayer games honing their skills in English

It could be that perferial that you purchased for 100 bucks that never left its box

So what is your worst moments in Pc Gaming?

(you can now begin your ranting)

EA buying Origin. Over and done.

IMAGE(http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/daikatana_john_romero_make_you_his_Female Doggo.jpg)

Daikatana is the first thing I thought of.

Yeah Daikatana and it's modern equivalent Duke Nukem Forever are my thoughts.

Voice chat drove me away from online gaming. I used to play TF2 every night until 3AM. I wasn't great but I was okay at it. Then UT2K3 had people shouting at me over the microphone to do what they said because they could say it. It wasn't until the XBOX 360 that I toughed up and tried any kind of online multiplayer again. Now I suck at aiming.

imbiginjapan wrote:

The creation and subsequent brilliantly executed support of the Games For Windows Live system.

Shadowrun...sigh.

The creation and subsequent brilliantly executed support of the Games For Windows Live system.

And let's not forget the Ruins of Myth Drannor , for which an uninstall would wipe out critical Windows system files.

yep, Games for Windows Live for me too. Especially when GFWL insists on slapping itself on top of my Steam games (in Dawn of War II, for example).

But I'm pretty new to PC gaming, so my bad experiences don't go very far back.

The closing of CGW/GFW Magazine and the Brodeo.

KingGorilla wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

The creation and subsequent brilliantly executed support of the Games For Windows Live system.

Shadowrun...sigh.

Remember when MS released a 3 year old Xbox game and tried to market it as a showcase for both GFW and Vista? Yea, those were the days.

Installing a mod to adjust how fast Saints Row 2 runs, installing another mod to time how long it takes to hit the first checkpoint of a race, adjusting the cpu percentage based on that time, repeating until the time is right, uninstalling the timing mod, installing one more mod that fixes multiplayer bugs, and finally getting to play the game right.

LouZiffer wrote:

IMAGE(http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/daikatana_john_romero_make_you_his_Female Doggo.jpg)

Classic.

MOO 3 is yet another one that nearly drove me to drink

The moment we started running full-screen games INSIDE of Windows.
Sure, it's handy to be able to tab out and check that e-mail... but gaming has suffered in my opinion.

imbiginjapan wrote:
KingGorilla wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:

The creation and subsequent brilliantly executed support of the Games For Windows Live system.

Shadowrun...sigh.

Remember when MS released a 3 year old Xbox game and tried to market it as a showcase for both GFW and Vista? Yea, those were the days.

I do NOW, dick!

Stardock's recent track record with games not made by Ironclad and then selling Impulse.

/sigh

I'm really hoping the new expansion (the first of my 2 free Elemental expansions) is good. Hoping as hard as I f-in can.

And in full disclosure, I think Impulse might be working better now that gamestop took it over. I downloaded Sins at 3 MB/sec last week. 3! I'm just having a hard time overcoming my distaste for gamestop. Time will tell, I suppose =)

Rezzy wrote:

The moment we started running full-screen games INSIDE of Windows.
Sure, it's handy to be able to tab out and check that e-mail... but gaming has suffered in my opinion.

As opposed to... Running them in a DOS-like environment still? (and every game needing to implement basic things equivalent to directx) A multiboot to a gaming OS when it's perfectly able to do it in a generic multitasking OS? If you're not talking about the technical side, but that you can't resist hitting alt-tab to run another program, that's not really the game's fault.

I can think of several lost opportunities for PC gaming, that with hindsight would have improved PC gaming greatly, but no real massive setbacks.

The day nameless a-holes with power tripping complexes declaring PC gaming dead! God knows they tried their hardest to make it a self fulfilling prophecy. And today we know they were morons, but not before they did unbelievable amounts of damage to the PC gaming at large.

For me it was the release of the original Xbox.

Up to that point, PC gaming smoked consoles in both complexity and feature sets.

Then Xbox launched with increasing additions to the platform that included demos, patches, custom soundtracks, DLC, online, Western-developer focus and more.

Suddenly I found that the console platform had reached a parity with what PC gamers had been enjoying for years. All on a closed system that required no hardware/software tweaking.

It marked the beginning of my drift away from PC gaming.

ubrakto wrote:

EA buying Origin. Over and done.

Aaron D. wrote:

For me it was the release of the original Xbox.

Up to that point, PC gaming smoked consoles in both complexity and feature sets.

Then Xbox launched with increasing additions to the platform that included demos, patches, custom soundtracks, DLC, online, Western-developer focus and more.

Suddenly I found that the console platform had reached a parity with what PC gamers had been enjoying for years. All on a closed system that required no hardware/software tweaking.

Are you sure?

Definitely for the 360, but it was nowhere near as widely used for those things on the first xbox. A stepping stone to the current state, but at first it wasn't all that hot.

Yup, I'm talking about the original Xbox.

I know the platform has made great strides between Xbox and 360, hell even 360 launch and 360 today, but for me the original Xbox was the turning point that made me gravitate away from PC gaming.

The biggest hooks for me were seeing standard PC genres make the leap over to console (FPS, Western RPGs, etc.), hard-drive applications, and game demos (albeit through game-magazine discs).

The list of feature sets only went up from there to what we enjoy today on 360.

mcdonis wrote:

MOO 3 is yet another one that nearly drove me to drink

I came here to post this. MOO3 will always be my biggest personal gaming disappointment.

mcdonis wrote:

MOO 3 is yet another one that nearly drove me to drink

God. I'd actually blocked out the memory of MOO3. I've played hundreds of hours of MOO2, maybe 1 hour of MOO3.

Budo wrote:

The closing of CGW/GFW Magazine and the Brodeo.

This, along with the Idle Thumbs podcast being discontinued. There are really no good PC Gaming centric podcasts anymore.

I would actually go back to when just to get basic functionality you had to monkey with how much RAM you had allocated to the low-level computer function and how much would be available to the program you wanted to run. I remember having to make an entire menu system in my config.sys file so that I could boot my computer with the right settings for what I wanted to do. Computer is running, and I want to play Quest for Glory? OK, but if I want to play TIE Fighter after that I need to reboot and pick option 2 (Games), then 5 (TIE Fighter). That way I could have both sound and my joystick.

Between technical improvements like graphics, memory, operating systems and modernizations that allow things like on-line voice chat, giant downloads and marketplaces, it has been all uphill since those days.

Maq wrote:
mcdonis wrote:

MOO 3 is yet another one that nearly drove me to drink

God. I'd actually blocked out the memory of MOO3. I've played hundreds of hours of MOO2, maybe 1 hour of MOO3.

MOO3 made me extremely cautious of following brand lines/sequels ever since. I suppose that's a good thing overall but I lament that MOO3 was the game to really beat that lesson into me.

Although admittedly when I first saw the thread title Daikatana instantly came to mind for me as well.

Jurassic Park Trespasser

Kingpin

Trying to configure those damn Diamond Monster Voodoo 2 SLI cards

X-Com 3 : Apocalypse

Star Trek : Bridge Commander

ubrakto wrote:

EA buying Origin. Over and done.

A lot of EA history qualifies for this thread. It's an epic rise-and-fall story -- the company that originally set out to make game developers into the new rock stars, but turned into the corporate Borg.

Trying to install TIE Fighter on 5 floppy discs. I get all the way to disc 5, and it's corrupted. I bought this game from a buddy. I try installing many times. I have no recourse. And I'm 13, so I can't just go out and get another copy. I never did get to play it.

misplacedbravado wrote:
ubrakto wrote:

EA buying Origin. Over and done.

A lot of EA history qualifies for this thread. It's an epic rise-and-fall story -- the company that originally set out to make game developers into the new rock stars, but turned into the corporate Borg.

And for the last 2-3 years has made a strong push to shirk that reputation.

Activision is the new evil. Ubisoft is also somewhat of a dick company. Most large corporations do things that make them seem uncaring and protectionist.

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