This isn't a thread about the worst games you've ever played.

This could be a thread about the best games you ever played - games that nevertheless had a fault.

This is a thread about the games that had the longest learning curves - that were the least user-friendly. Games that perplexed you for bloody ages before you started getting good at them.

My choices?
Well here're two:

Europa 1400 (possible because all English manuals for that bastard of a game were written in broken English)

Kohan: Ahriman's Gift (mainly because I just wasn't ready for anything more complicated than age of empires)

Incidentally, both of those games, Kohan especially, turned out to be great games once i got the hang of them.

Civilization IV / Colonization.

So i finally can SURVIVE 1 match in deity, and they decide to release Colonization thus totally changing the game mechanics..... *sad face*

Title is a little bit misleading to be honest.

Richard Groovy Pants:
Civilization IV / Colonization.

So i finally can SURVIVE 1 match in deity, and they decide to release Colonization thus totally changing the game mechanics..... *sad face*

Title is a little bit misleading to be honest.

The thing I hate most about Colonization is the pace. I was playing the game for a good while, when I get a message saying I have 80 turns left to declare independance, when I had like 4 soldiers and a scout.
Suffice to say, you need to play on marathon to actually accomplish anything.

Alas, I must be the old fart here and point to Western RPG's back in the early nineties. You walk outside in Ultima IV before you're ready, that's a stabbing. You don't have some graph paper when you're walking around a dungeon, stabbing. Go inside the goblin village in Heroes of Might and Magic II? Stabby stabbing.

Back in the day, we didn't even have learning curves. You just got punched in the face. AND WE LIKED IT!

Well...sorta.

Baldurs Gate 2. It took me about 5 attempts of playing, giving up and going to play other Bioware games before I finally understood what was expected of me from it. Fantastic game, but it really needed a much deeper tutorial.

EDIT: Just remembered Jagged Alliance 2. No tutorial, no real instructions on how to play, permanent deaths for members of your team if you weren't careful and battles that could easily last for 5 hours. Great game, but by God it makes you work for your fun.

RSV2... Just a tough game to get the hang of quickly for a shooter. Playing shooters that I thought were just like it all of my life made me feel like an idiot when I realized it was more splinter cell-y than anything else... Rather than Halo, UT, Quake, Doom, or GoW...

Just took a bit to understand the AI...

Strafe Mcgee:
Baldurs Gate 2. It took me about 5 attempts of playing, giving up and going to play other Bioware games before I finally understood what was expected of me from it. Fantastic game, but it really needed a much deeper tutorial.

Too right mate, I had trouble with baldurs gate as well - In the end i said 'screw it' and played neverwinter nights.

I also want to add Operation Flashpoint. I loved that game from the second I got the demo, but the demo was hard in itself - I did not successfully complete the mission Ambush until I came back - very determined - a year later, memorized all the enemy positions and all the most likely things for the AI to do, and grew enough balls to go charging at the tanks when I had to.

It was so hard to not get shot - flying planes was rough, tanks was rough too - even though the game was pretty intuitive - and, call me a noob, but to this day whenever I play resistance, red hammer, late cold war crisis or a mission putting me in a position of command over a squad I just tell them all to stay low and look out, then go kill everything solo. Oh the shame :(

EDIT:
OH and tropico. The sim where you lead Cuba. It wasn't such a bad game - I'd play it in waves; come back every few weeks and relearn it - and when you got your island hoping along it was great, but it was really not very forgiving. Even when I got badass enough to build an airport i still had economic and social difficulties up the rear.

Also, sadly, the graphics got old before it was a year on the shelves.

But it had a great, almost surreal 'game over' screen, in which you suddenly find yourself watching a cut scene of your avatar in a boat, being rowed away from Cuba. Cuba itself is so small that it is all visible in one horizon... but isn't that just a sharp, witty metaphor? Isn't it?

I'm going to mention the original C&C here.

The GDI planes had the power to completely destroy a construction yard in one pass. It was ridiculous just how many SAM sites I had to build to shoot down ONE of those bastards before it dropped its smelly load.

The 'Europa Universalis' games. That game only respects you when you play as a large nation. If you're a minor nation bordering France/Ottoman Empire/Muscovy/Austria, your time is pretty much limited. It has no respect for your independence and your weakness. You are a pitiful province to those nations. You are doomed.

Of course, making a defiant (and some times succesful, if lucky) stand made the game all the more sweeter.

I am going with Civ 4 here as well. You can play half the game on you're own continent building up a larger empire than anyone else, trading and generally keeping out of trouble for most of the time and then suddenly everyone will just turn round and declare war on you all at once.

I've played all the Civs and this game still throws curve balls at you even when you have what you think is a died hard winning strategy you can still get a pasting.

Battlefield 2 is a great game that can wind me up beyond belief. The biggest rage inducer in this game is the hit detection. Seriously I parachuted in behind a sniper, the guy was totally unaware of me. I snuck up behind him took aim using my own sniper rifle sight. Had his head dead in the cross hair pulled the trigger and watched as the bullet some how missed. The guy turned round and shot me as I stood there in open mouthed dumb founded amazement.

I think my pic must be SSX Blur for the wii (the one that got bad reviews because of the controls). First I had a little trouble learning just to steer. I eventually masterd all except for one thing in the tutorial: uber-tricks. You were supposed draw shapes on the screen while holding a button but it never worked (and I tried really many times). I became mad at myself from buying the game, but after around an hour, I learned how to do them (yeah, it was that hard to draw shapes in the air). You have to move the remote while holding it diagonal, and you have to release the button at a specific time.

Now I think of it as the ssx game with the best controls. Or, the snowboardgame with the best controls. It feels so much better to steer by leaning with the nunchuck (and it is responsive).

Meat. Circus. *twitchtwitch chucks Raz out a window*

Microsoft vista; for the simple fact that it wont let me play Civ 4. I love the game even with its many bugs, but vista when ever ive installed pops up with its "vista has a problem with this game and so wont play it" message.

The star wars force unleashed. I've rented the game because i love star wars but didnt feel the need to buy it. I was happily laying the game on Sith Lord mode (2nd hardest) struggling here and there against Jedi's/bosses in general and after a few days hard work i finally get to the final part of the final mission. When they decide to put after one saving point a 5minute unavoidable cutscene followed by fighting two AT-ST's at once, once thats done another cutscene followed by being attacked by 4 mini-bosses and a boss at the same time with no savepoint, before the final boss(es).
After 3 hours failing at this i gave up admitted defeat and lowered the difficulty, which then made it a complete walk-over and ruined my fun.

It would have been fine if they'd made a checkpoint before the mini-bosses + boss, saving me going through 10 minutes of gameplay to die again.

Gormers1:
I think my pic must be SSX Blur for the wii (the one that got bad reviews because of the controls). First I had a little trouble learning just to steer. I eventually masterd all except for one thing in the tutorial: uber-tricks. You were supposed draw shapes on the screen while holding a button but it never worked (and I tried really many times). I became mad at myself from buying the game, but after around an hour, I learned how to do them (yeah, it was that hard to draw shapes in the air). You have to move the remote while holding it diagonal, and you have to release the button at a specific time.

Now I think of it as the ssx game with the best controls. Or, the snowboardgame with the best controls. It feels so much better to steer by leaning with the nunchuck (and it is responsive).

I loved SSX, I started playing that with SSX tricky and I was a total nubcake at it - soon enough though I figured out how to do Uber tricks. I think that game series needs to get awards for level design. SSX3 was my favorite, and remains my favorite sports game of all time - i guess you could call it 'sports'

D.C.:

After 3 hours failing at this i gave up admitted defeat and lowered the difficulty, which then made it a complete walk-over and ruined my fun.

I hate unavoidable cut scenes, they should at least give a 'are you sure?' option. For me the hardest star wars game to learn was Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, not because it was difficult but because it was such a puzzle-heavy game, i never actually got past the first level - skipped it with cheats.

This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title.

Anyway, besides the obvious learning curves of Devil May Cry, I found that Vagrant Story had a very complex system of game mechanics, with very limited guidance. They basically give you a pointy stick and tell you that it *can* become a killing machine, but then they expect you to figure out how to do that yourself. Finding new spells is even worse, half of which you may not even know exist until an otherwise ordinary monster drops a spellbook at random.

OH MY GOD! No one mentioned Super Contra(I have actually beaten it without the Konami code)

Eiseman:

Finding new spells is even worse, half of which you may not even know exist until an otherwise ordinary monster drops a spellbook at random.

Speaking of which, whatever tutorial morrowind thought it had, i never actually figured out how to imbue soul gems with souls (probably pretty easy - I'm talented at overlooking the very obvious) or how to make spells -not- cost 99999 gold. Or how to actually -use- those spells; once there was a healing spell i learnt from like a warrior quest and all i did when i waved my hands around was waste mana and get a sound that, if it had been a word, could have been used in a 'that's what she said' joke.

EVE Online: the game that hates gamers.

I loved dead rising but the shitty time limit conflicts with my natural gamer OCD. Yes I know the Wii version doesn't have said time limits, but it doesn't actually have any zombies in it either.

Hate time limits... how strict is the time limit on Dead Rising?

TsunamiWombat:
Hate time limits... how strict is the time limit on Dead Rising?

Pretty tight. It's impossible to save everyone and saving the maximum ammount of people requires you to adheer to one route and one route only.

haruvister:
EVE Online: the game that hates gamers.

can't believe i didn't mention that, yeah - i still don't get it I've had it a good two months now (granted i only play about two hours a week)

XIII. I don't have a specific reason, I just couldn't play it for more than 10 minutes before getting bored.

Manaan from KoTOR

I thought Crackdown was a fun sandwich, but then they released that patch which gave you all the cheats, it also wiped your savegame. Pain it the arse, now I can't go three feet without encountering gang members (which isn't so much bad as tedious. I'd already killed all the bosses).

And Warcraft 3. Single player skirmishes are just impossible.

GODHAND! It had like no tutorial, easy mode kicked your ass, and it's learning curve took me forever because i suck! Then you die and start all over again! #!@$%!@%@!

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Its realistic, you die alot and can't aim for shit.

Eiseman:
I found that Vagrant Story had a very complex system of game mechanics, with very limited guidance. They basically give you a pointy stick and tell you that it *can* become a killing machine, but then they expect you to figure out how to do that yourself. Finding new spells is even worse, half of which you may not even know exist until an otherwise ordinary monster drops a spellbook at random.

I was going to say this. The last boss was virtually impossible unless you knew (i.e. figured out) how to forge the best weapons and where to find the right dummies. I didn't even know there were any dummies during my first playthrough. Still a brilliant game though.

Since ppl have got me on a tandem today about two games I will mention them again:

Jurassic Park: Trespasser
Red Orchestra Ostfront 41-45

I got a pack of Sim games and amongst them was 'Sim Isle'. It provided no instructions and i found myself only able to look up one persons opinion on my progress and stare at a poorly animated island....and this was just about the extent of my experience with the game. sharp learning curve? I couldnt work out one thing in half an hour of trying to decript the game.

Team Fortress 2 having no tutorial

urprobablyright:

EDIT:
OH and tropico. The sim where you lead Cuba. It wasn't such a bad game - I'd play it in waves; come back every few weeks and relearn it - and when you got your island hoping along it was great, but it was really not very forgiving. Even when I got badass enough to build an airport i still had economic and social difficulties up the rear.

A storm wiped out half of my island once. Then I began to rebuild. Then another storm destroyed all the stuff I had rebuilt and lots of buildings left over from the first storm.

I stopped playing it after that.

TsunamiWombat:
Hate time limits... how strict is the time limit on Dead Rising?

That time limit is the reason I dind't play the game.
It pissed me off to no ends.
You make killing zombies super fun, then you tell players that they can't spend any time doing it unless they agree to fail the game.
Hated it.
Oh, and back then, I didn't have a HD TV so I couldn't read shit.

D.C.:
Microsoft vista

you mean Windows Vista?

Anyway, the most bang-your-head-against-a-wall frustrating game for me was Super Mario Deluxe. Bane of my life. Fun, though.

Spore why did they make your space engine so bad?

Bored me stiff