Great games you own but don't like or never even installed

[econ21]

Good to know I am not alone. I just want to put in a plug for Ghost Recon I - not a great game, but well worth perservering with.

Ghost Recon - Huge stinker. Hated this, it paled next to Operation Flashpoint, which was a bugfest. It was installed for maybe an hour total before being promptly uninstalled, never to see the light of day again.

The first mission is not that great and you probably need more than 1 hour to get acclimatised to the unforgiving stealth based game play. The strengths of the game are:
(1) the tactical aspect - things like carefully setting up your three squads to perform a deadly cross-fire assault on the enemy camp in the first mission are fun.
(2) the variety of missions - it really is extraordinarily good, from night time prison break to urban evac to armoured assault to night time recon etc etc. The first mission is perhaps the most bland and not characteristic of the game.
(3) selecting, upgrading your squad after XP and kitting them out with gear makes a nice SP hook to the campaign.
The more recent Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter sacrifices all these virtues.

Ghost Recon (PC)
The original was an interesting game that built on the pretty successful formula from the rainbow six series. The only problem? The AI was a cheating . Instant headshots from over 500 yards with an AK is not my idea of a fun time. The only way you could make it through a mission without casualties would be to get extremely lucky. I heard the later expansions fixed this, but honestly I didn't care by then.

The later expansions made it worse, to be honest. The first game is easier. You have to play it like a stealth game - he who sees first, wins. The AI is no more accurate than you, I think. It's just very accurate and bullets are very lethal. The one shot one skill aspect of the game is the worst feature, IMO, as it just makes it not fun for most mortal players like me. You have to save and reload. And you eventually learn the map, so that you predict the AIs position. These things are particularly egregious in the timed missions and similar where you need quick and near perfect play to progress. Both things are bad and stop the game being great. (As does never being able to see your gun, grrr). Still it is one of the few games on my shelf I would consider replaying in the near future.