Lionheart: Legacy of The Crusader. 10 great, but boring games

It was supposed to be a great success for Black Isle. The studio known for such gems as Baldur's Gate, Fallouts and Planescape: Torment was supposed to usher a new era of RPGs. And it for the longest time, it looked set to be just that with Lionheart's release. Graphically, the game looked good, and the original idea for an alternate version of the 16th century, where magic intertwines with technology, allowed us to believe that one of the last isometric RPGs of that era will become a springboard for further success of Black Isle. Meanwhile, it became more of a nail in the coffin.

At first, Barcelona stuns you with its distinct aesthetic style and inhabitants – the ones we know from history lessons, and with whom we can not only talk, but also cooperate in the game. Unfortunately, the further into the woods you go, the worse it gets. The lack of markers on the map makes it difficult to complete quests. I remember that during the course of an altogether simple quest to cure lycanthropy, I had to traverse the entire vast underground several times over to find a single rat. And then, the game required me to travel the same route again. And again, and again. And since the protagonist moved really slowly (modding wasn't on anyone's mind at the time of release), it lasted so long that the charm of 16th-century Barcelona would completely evaporate.

And this is still just the tip of the iceberg. Terrible optimization of the game mechanics meant that life points on almost every path regenerated awfully slowly and often the only solution turned out to be pulling aside one of the opponents, killing them, and then leaving the game for a few dozen minutes to repeat the procedure. Unfortunately, this strategy also failed later on – the plot was reduced to a bare minimum, while Black Island developers populated the maps with hundreds of enemies. So, in the end, despite being an extremely ambitious project, Lionheart turned out to be a game so boring that it was almost impossible to finish it. It didn't click, for me at least. How about you?

1. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader in our encyclopedia

The Sims 4 without mods and expansions

"The Sims on this list? Madness," you might think. But I am not kidding, and I actually know quite a few people, who play The Sims vanilla. EA is famous for trimming the basic versions of games so that it's almost impossible to play without a dozen, or – in the case of the last part – tens of smaller and larger additions. Modders also do a tremendous work, adding more skin tones, more realistic hairstyles, dialogue options, and sometimes even completely new races, mechanics (the enchantment mod – better than the original!) and some more nudity or very expanded adult content.

If you don't take advantage of any bonus materials created by producers or modders, you won't experience changing seasons, won't take in any pets, conquer the business world, nor even properly pursue your own career. There will be a few meals waiting for us in the house, familiar decor elements from previous installments, and sims with whom we can talk about merely a few things.

And sure, the best thing about The Sims is that you get to call your family your own and then remove the stumbling blocks from under their feet (unless they're the equivalent of your worst enemies and you plan to end their lives in a spectacular way), but if you decide to buy just the vanilla game and don't get any help from modders, you may find that the game will bore you to death before any of your sims have time to meet the Grim Reaper. The Sims is still the best life simulator ever made, but it also has no competition apart from Paralives, which is still in production. Maxis together with EA mercilessly exploit this, stripping the basic version of part four of almost everything we enjoyed so much in all the previous games. Will this change in the next installment? Personally, I am rather skeptical about this. But even if that were to happen, we'd still have to wait at least two years for the release of the next installment. In the meantime, there's nothing to do but look out for the next 45th (sic) addition (including all expansions, game packs, and accessories).

1. More about The Sims 4