Draven

I recently got to the end of Dead Space 2, and died 6 or 7 times at the end boss....or what I assume is the end boss. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of extra health, it's an annoying fight and I was getting tired of it. I was on Amazon later that night and saw they were offering some decent trade-in value and I wanted to send a few more games in anyway, so I just sent it back.

You'd think I'd want to see the end but I don't play games for stories. So once I feel the gameplay part is over, I really have no interest in seeing how it wraps up. The 5 extra minutes of the game I would have seen had I won that fight...eh, don't really care.

I also did the with the first Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox. I was so proud of myself for learning how to play that game well and fighting my way to the end boss on normal difficulty. But after dying many, many times...I just said fuck it and never played it again.

I almost did this with Borderlands too, but managed to get myself into a glitchy spot where the boss couldn't hurt me and just wore him down. Took forever though and wasn't really worth the trouble.

Just wondered if I'm alone in giving up even though you're close to the end.

starseed1981

Really? You basically just Izuna drop him non-stop. He's actually easier than most normal enemies.

Anyhow, only three titles come to mind. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and Need For Speed: Underground.

Groucho

I do this a lot. Some examples:

GTA IV -- No checkpointing on the final mission

FF XIII -- got to the final boss, realized I needed a few more levels to beat him. Didn't have the heart to grind up.

Dead Rising -- went back a couple years later, leveled to the cap, and tried again.

foxdvd

Pac-Man...for the 2600...

I am not sure how close I was to the end...but I had to be close because I had played for hours...I just gave up..

devilshalo

I never finished Shadow of the Colossus. I got to the final guy and made it up to his head, but that was it. Then it became repetitive and frustrating. And now that I sold my PS2 and the game, I'll never finish it. It was the one time I didn't finish a game.

foxdvd

Same here...not on the final mission..but I played for many hours..was close to the end, and just gave up when I realized I was not having fun. It was an easy game, but when you made one little mistake, you would not only have to start over, but sometimes it would take 20 minutes to get back to the spot that you needed to start the mission....

Michael Corvin

Metroid Prime

Not sure why. Spent a ton of time on the game and gave the spider boss a few attempts and decided I was good. I have since played through the Wii remake and finished the game. I didn't know at the time how close I was to the end.

Adam Tyner

I know this is lame, but I did that at the end of Beyond Good and Evil. I couldn't do the reversed controls on the last boss. After something like my twelfth attempt, I figured I felt as if I'd accomplished enough.

UncleGramps

I'm pretty sure I was near the end of DQ9 when I gave up. I enjoyed the game, but decided that leveling up for hours and hours just to beat a few final bosses wasn't worth it. I wasn't invested in the story, so I didn't see the point.

murray731

I got to one of those last bosses in Final Fantasy X and couldn't beat him. I must have tried 30 or 40 times. I think that's the only game I've done that with, usually I will stick it out.

spainlinx0

GTA San Andreas. I really enjoyed the game, except for taking over territories. When I realized I would have to go section to section doing it, I said fuck it.

DJLinus

Yep. Last year I made it to the last stage in "Conan" for the 360. I was enjoying the game up until then. That last boss fight, though, was frustratingly endless. I was no longer having a good time so I just gave up with no regrets at all.

shumway

Phantasy Star II back in the day. I could NEVER beat Dark Force. Also, I quit playing Kingdom Hearts I at Bastion Hollow due to boredom and never went back. The only games I have finished lately have been DQ games on DS.

MrX

I took a break from Fallout: NV right before you chose who to side with because I was feeling burnt out, that was back in December, and I still haven't gone back to it yet.

lopper

I do this a lot. In fact, I think I quit most games before I actually finish them. I just get bored with them.

I did make it all the way to the final boss (I think) of Demon's Souls before quitting. I was ready to move on to something else at that point.

I also recently gave up on Fallout New Vegas as well, although I have no idea where in the main story I was.

TheKing

The best example I can think of for me was a game called The Fantastic Adventures Of Dizzy back on the NES. I played that game quite a bit, and got close to the end of it, but couldn't figure out how to beat the damn thing (this was before you could look up a walkthrough).

Anyway, I stopped playing once I got my SNES, but picked it up a few years ago through an emulator and finally, after about 15 years, I beat the damn game!

The only other examples I can think of would be involving PS3 trophies. I beat GTA to 100% completion, and have almost every trophy. But I'm missing two of the online trophies because of the tedium involved in obtaining them. I will go back and finish them off eventually to get my platinum though.

brainee

Too bad ... you missed one hell of cinematic cut-scene!

Not quite at the end, but I bailed pretty late while playing Final Fantasy X-2. Just wasn't enjoying it the same way I had other FF games. Though far into the game, I saw a bit of level grinding left and the story wasn't interesting enough to push me forward to find out how things turned out.

Decker

Final Fantasy VII. Fuck you, Sephiroth!

Gideon68

Fracture - I think I came close to beating him but kept dying and finally gave-up.

fujishig

I do this a lot with JRPGs (like Final Fantasy), because I usually get pretty invested in them, then get to the point where the world opens up (via blimp or whatever) right before the end so you can go finish all the sidequests and level up, then put it down for a while... and have a really hard time picking it up again, either due to having to relearn the gameplay or not understanding what's going on in the story anymore.

Anubis2005X

I'm stuck on the last Battle Stage of Brutal Legend. It's really annoying, and I hope to beat it one day. But after a few tries I just say eff it and play another game for awhile.

Anubis2005X

I don't ever really give up, but I'll take a break for a long period of time. It took me months to beat the last level of Far Cry. I don't know what was up, it was just really friggin' hard for me for some reason...

EDIT: Though I should probably change my vote, because even when I played Ninja Gaiden 1 (NES) on emulation, i STILL couldn't beat it. That was years ago. I definitely gave up on that one, hahaha...

asianxcore

Only once with Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time (PS2)

Put about 55-65 hours into grinding all my characters, getting the best weapons I could find and so forth. When I got to the end I realized that it was near impossible to beat the final boss.

Why? The Alchemy System in the game nets you some pretty ridiculously powerful weapons, which I didn't use at all during my playthrough

FatTony

I think I was really close to the end of Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker when I had to put it aside due to finals. When I tried to go back to it a couple weeks later, I just couldn't get back into it, so I never finished it.

Recently, I almost gave up on Dead Rising 2 because I was on the last boss and hadn't leveled up very far, so I was getting my ass handed to me repeatedly. I restarted the campaign and by the time I got to the end again, I was at a much higher level and beat him on the first try.

T-bone22

Did the exact same with Dead Space 2. Also, with Final Fantasy 13.