Games I'd like to unplay

I had an interesting if slightly odd thought the other day. I like pondering about ‘what ifs’ and considering things like ‘what if this piece of hardware had been around 10 years ago?’ What difference would it have made? I realised that games are actually even more diverse than hardware when it comes to working and being good value for money or even enjoyable. [break]

Hardware generally tends to work. Yes, we’ve had a few prototype bits of silicon grace our lab over the years, not all of which worked, but generally, hardware does do its job, even if it’s not 100% efficient or particularly good value for money.
However, some games we’ve played here at bit-tech have literally not worked. They’ve been so buggy or poor of lifeless that playing them was excruciating. On the flipside, some games have given me hundreds of hours of sheer awesomeness and the £30 I spent to own them is probably some of the best-value entertainment one could wish for.


These games made me feel good, sometimes awesome if I had a particularly good round in Battlefield. The bad games have made me want to do something else, even if that involved cleaning the floor of our lab with my tongue. With the good ones, many usually give a special moment than you remember for long afterwards as the defining moment in the game. It might be something to do with the graphics, or the gameplay or a particularly good storyline.

It might even happen a few hours or even days into a game and not the first time you play it. Something happens that makes you think wow, that was epic. Sadly, these moments come and go in an instant, and while you might continue to have great moments of ownage, the wow factor you get when you play a good game for the first few times does fade while the memory lingers on. Likewise, you might have a game that was so poor, something in particular stuck out as being complete and utter fail.

So, if you could ‘unplay’ a game to re-play those awesome moments, to have your mind wiped of those first experiences so you could bask in them all over again, or otherwise get your time and money back from that terrible game purchase, which games would they be?

For me the most prominent good gaming moment was playing Battlefield 2. I’d been playing it for a few days when I stumbled into the enemy camp while bailing out of a chopper.

Just as I thought the coast was clear to steal a jeep and get back in the game, I heard something that made me jump out of my skin. It turned out to be a Tunguska anti-aircraft vehicle having a pop at a jet overhead. The noise of its rapid-firing 30mm canons and the sheets of flame they spewed out made me curl up like a girl behind a wall till it moved off. Combined with the fact I was still in awe of the game’s graphics, it was an awesome moment that I’d love to relive again.


I've played a few poor games over the years, but Ship Simulator Extremes tops the lot. One moment in particular stood out as particularly bad; I ventured on a walk round the deck of a large ship, to be met with a hail storm of poor graphics and visual glitches that set my teeth on edge. Thankfully, I was reviewing the game at the time so I lost no money but I really feel for anyone that bought it.

For good or bad reasons, which games would you unplay? Were there any epic win or fail moments that stood out? Let us know in the forum...