Second try

[JSR]

There are games I've tried, that didn't quite gel with me. Games I often think I should enjoy. Either because they seem to be my kind of games in genre, setting etc. Or because the rest of the world seems to think they are the best thing ever. So after I've tried and given up, I often think about the game sometime later, thinking I should give it another chance, that if I were in the right mood it would be really enjoyable.

This has happened to me on several games. The best example would probably be Mass Effect. Loved the KotOR games. Spent much time drinking the hype before the game got released. But when I played it, it felt a bit barren. There was too much focus on action, and not enough NPCs, towns and sidequests to do. And I didn't love the action parts either. The framerate was subpar and the aiming at somebodies head didn't necessarily mean you would hit the head. RPG shooting was kind of new at the time. So while I completed it, I did so pretty ambivalently. Rarely did any more tasks than required to progress. Last year I tried it again. I embraced the action parts of it, spent time configuring my gear, using the telekinetic powers at the same time. Did everything I could in each town, really thinking about my choices. I loved it.

Today I think I want to try Chrono Trigger again. Got it for my GBA a few christmases back. I think I was put off by its open ended nature and the lack of a clear path (how modern games have ruined me). Reading about it, I see no reason not to love it, so it definitely deserves at least a second chance.

Have you tried a game you first didn't like, again with different results?

[Brad]

I'm on my third stab at Mass Effect. Everything says I should be all over it but somehow it's on the back burner again.

[Dogg Thang]

Doom 3 was a huge one for me. I hated it on first play. It was cramped, cheap, had nothing that I loved from Doom. I was just funnelled down dull skinny corridors with poxy teleporting enemies and no-effort jump scares.

And then I tried it again a few years later and loved it. It required me leaving behind any desire for it to be Doom and to embrace it as a skinny corridor shooter. All those things I didn't like initially were still in place and yet they ceased to bother me. I enjoyed it for what it was rather than disliking it for what it wasn't. I find it's pretty rare that I bring much baggage to a game but I definitely did with Doom 3.

[briareos_kerensky]

It's unlikely I give a game I don't like a second chance and in fact I can't remember any. However, I have two games I try to play once in a while despite not being my cup of tea.

I've never liked the first MGS on the PSX, played at a friend's house, but some years later I bought a used version of Twin Snakes for the GC...and dropped the game within the first hour of play. Every one or two years I fire it up to see if I'm able to progress but, no, I always stop at the endless radio comunication when Snake enters the airducts. It's not the game per se, the dialogues is what kill me.

I played REmake and RE0 on the GC but found out both games became uninteresting after you get enough ammo for the shotgun and never really enjoyed the controls. So I skipped Resident Evil 4 but later bought the Wii version: never went past the initial village. I'm not a fan of insta-deaths and the run button in the era of analog controls immediately put me off.

[Brad]

To be fair though, Metal Solid Gear was a pale imitation of the Kokima game of similar name

[briareos_kerensky]

To be fair though, Metal Solid Gear was a pale imitation of the Kokima game of similar name

It's Rogue all over again.

[Neon Ignition]

There's been a couple but the 3 biggest ones of the last few years would be:

Mass Effect 2: Not so much the sequel but I played the original and hated it, always struggled with Biowares games and found them to be overrated and ME was no different. On a whim I picked up ME2 and it was amazing. Bought ME1 to retry but not gotten around to it yet.

Burnout Paradise: Didn't gel at all at first so sold it on, when the later DLC was hitting I bought the PSN version one summer and the fixes were spot on. Shot straight to being my fave racer this gen.

Borderlands: Seemed like bland mindless grinding one first play so sold it. Saw the GOTY version cheap one day so thought to retry and it just clicked off the bat second time around. Brilliance.

[charlesr]

I was the same with REmake on the GC - I must have played the first hour 5 times before getting bored and then coming back to it later only to have forgotten all progress so deciding to start again. I = lame.

[Brad]

Borderlands: Seemed like bland mindless grinding one first play so sold it. Saw the GOTY version cheap one day so thought to retry and it just clicked off the bat second time around. Brilliance.

I am considering doing this. Played it on PS3, didn't gel. Meant to get it on PC when it was cheap but forgot. Next time.

[mr_sockochris]

Mass Effect for me. I got it on launch and kinda laboured my way through about half of it before moving on to something else. 2 years later (just before ME2) I decided to play it again and was totally hooked on it til the end.

Then i got Mass Effect 2 and finished that in 5 days

Edit - Street Fighter 3. I bought SF3 & Double Impact on DC but it wasn't until I played 3rd Strike on PS2 that I fell in love with the game. Before then it never really clicked with me.

[Charlie]

I'm usually too stubborn, narrow-minded and selfish with my time to give games I don't like a second chance. Saying that, I did write off Dark Souls within a few hours of playing it, sold it, then bought it again a week later and eventually decided it was the best game of 2011.

[J0e Musashi]

DMC4 and Bayonetta are prolly my worst culprits.

[Kaido]

Demons Souls was great on second try after insta-death quitting at last boss first time around, and I'm falling in love with X-COM all over again, 15 years (and a lot of math) later

Alan Wake and FF13 recently blew their second chances though...

[Flabio]

Had to think quite hard about this, as I'm usually pretty unlikely to give something a second chance at all.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 I didn't take to at first. I didn't like the 'school manga' setting and the smaller less interesting combat arenas compared to the PS3 original, but playing it again later I've come to appreciate it has more tactical options in it through the different unit types, and that the plot isn't quite as straightforwardly dull as I'd thought it was.

I think I might give the newest Ace Combat a second chance at some point, maybe Hunted: The Demon's Forge as well. No idea when though, Feb and March are *rammed* with new stuff I want to play.

[bwi]

Bioshock

Got to the second encounter with a big daddy and would get battered each time, gave up for a year. Then tried again when 2 came out, failed again. The xmas after B2 came out i went for it again and played it solid all weekend.

Reason for third time lucky? i realised the different ammo types and how to use them duh!