8 Bad Games that Severely Damaged Great Franchises

camazotz

New member
Jul 23, 2009
480
0
0
Ironically RE6 was later patched with an easy mode (or as I call it Old Dad Mode for myself) which let you auto-succeed the QTEs. I ended up playing all the campaigns through--twice!-- and enjoying the game quite a bit, despite also being very annoyed with the direction it took the franchise. The Revelations games are better successors to the RE spirit, but RE6, without the annoying QTEs, was like a fun, weird actiony spin-off. But hopefully RE7 will be more like Revelations 1 and 2, with actual puzzles and gameplay beyond QTE cinematic scenes and non-stop run and gun.
 

camazotz

New member
Jul 23, 2009
480
0
0
Starke said:
immortalfrieza said:
Starke said:
I'm honestly surprised BoS didn't make the list. I mean, that's a big part of why Fallout 3 didn't come from Black Isle. General incompetence from Interplay is also a large part of it, but still.
It resulted in Fallout 3 coming out and redefining the entire series for the better while keeping all the lore and themes intact, so I'd say having to deal with such a craptastic game was more than worth it.
But, that's the problem isn't it. Fallout 3 never came out, the license passed to Bethesda and they turned out a brain damaged simulacra of a once fantastic RPG setting reduced to the simplest level for the grade school crowd.
Fallout 1 and 2 have their places in history but Fallout 3 remains and always will be the only truly decent game to come out of the '00s. I appreciate that you are far too complex a person for it, and humbly ask that you excuse all the rest of us lesser mortals for enjoying such a title. If you are truly the esoteric, dedicated fan you suggest then I humbly recognize that your praise for F1 and 2 is probably tempered by the admission that they were merely rip offs of the one true great Wasteland.

I remember when Fallout was going to initially be licensed as a GURPS-powered engine. That game never did come to pass, unfortunately. Every iteration since has been great, but I can only imagine what might have been had they managed to produce a GURPS-powered engine. Despite that, Fallout 1 and 2 turned out alright, but Fallout 3 is a different sort of game from its predecessors, and stands on its own as a significant addition to the genre of RPGs.
 

Squilookle

New member
Nov 6, 2008
3,584
0
0
It's a testament to just how good Driver: San Francisco is that we've all forgotten just how horrific Driv3r was...

..still loved the car handling though :'(
 

TheSYLOH

New member
Feb 5, 2010
411
0
0
This is the first of these list I didn't have major issues with. Usually I rail against the contents, but this one really nailed it.
Seriously, Fuck EA and what they did to Command & Conquer.
It's one thing to have never played a C&C game, but C&C4 made me think that whoever made it never even saw an RTS, maybe never even played a game before. The damn thing played like an hour-long rock-paper-scissors tournament. You could never really gain a lasting advantage over your opponent. The whole resource and base building thing is there to ensure an unstable equilibrium, meaning that the match eventually ends with someone winning. Rather than quitting from boredom. Also the thing had the worst acting in all of C&C, and thats saying stuff. Half of the actors were practically screaming "I AM ACTING IN A VIDEO GAME CUT SCENE!!!". Seriously, C&C 3 had two of the hot BSG Cylons, Lando Calrissian and Michael Ironside in it. That was quality video.
I used to love Command & Conquer. I even like C&C: Generals (though I had to replace the words "Command & Conquer:" with "Age of"). C&C 4 killed the franchise stone dead.

Also Duke Nukem: Forever was not a 90's throwback. I would have like a 90's throwback, those were fun and would have been a change of pace.Rather this game took the worst aspects of 90's shooters and wedded it to the worst aspects of 2000's shooters, and gave birth to that abortion of a game.
 

StatusNil

New member
Oct 5, 2014
534
0
0
Vendor-Lazarus said:
Dungeon Siege III & Sacred III would probably fit in this list as they too veered far of course from previous gameplay and received quite a lot of criticism for it.
Cool, as I've never played Dungeon Siege I or II, I didn't have to be disappointed in III and could enjoy it as a passable game that had some interesting bits and some issues. Like the mindnumbingly dull loot and the just-woke-from-coma voice acting of my protagonist (naturally I played as the floating naked woman). As for Sacred... I played the first one on and off for years. At least III is manageably limited, from what I've heard.

OT: I guess Mass Effect 3 goes without saying. But I'm going to say it anyway. Mass Effect 3. And everyone will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Being that guy is a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
 

StealthLesbian

New member
Mar 25, 2015
5
0
0
I'm gonna second the person who was surprised that Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness didn't make the list. It was a buggy unplayable mess so bad that it practically sank Core and to save the series Eidos had to allow Crystal Dynamics to reboot the entire thing. (Of course on a side note i seem to have been in the minority on really liking the first reboot trilogy as evidenced by the other reboot. It doesn't make AoD any less of a colossal mess.)
 

09philj

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 31, 2015
2,154
948
118
StatusNil said:
Vendor-Lazarus said:
OT: I guess Mass Effect 3 goes without saying. But I'm going to say it anyway. Mass Effect 3. And everyone will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Being that guy is a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
I liked Mass Effect 3. It didn't have as good a story as Mass Effect 2, but good nonetheless, and the combat was much better. However, I never experienced the original ending, only the extended cut.
 

Dango

New member
Feb 11, 2010
21,066
0
0
I actually really enjoyed RE6 as a co-op game, probably more than 5. It helps that the designers stopped caring about how absurd the game got.
 

Starke

New member
Mar 6, 2008
3,877
0
0
immortalfrieza said:
Starke said:
I'm not even going to bother breaking down everything you said and responding to each bit, simply because all of it boils down to the same thing "This game is not a carbon copy of previous games in the series therefore it is bad." It's the No True Scotsman fallacy at it's most painful and blatant.
Yeah, if you're going to accuse someone of Invoking the No True Scotsman Fallacy, it might, and I'm just thinking here, might be somewhat important to have a vague grasp on the conversation that's going on.

immortalfrieza said:
Fallout 3 does NOTHING to defy the lore in any way, it expands on that lore while replacing it's combat and exploration systems with something far more detailed and involving.
It actually throws the setting's lore under the bus, then backs over it a couple times. That stray, "well there's jet there, so that makes sense," crack isn't random. Jet is a product of a chemist in Reno area just prior to the events of Fallout 2. It's absurdly addictive (I think the in game rate is 90%) and very big business for the New Reno families. Depending on the player's choices in Fallout 2, it's distinctly possible there's no way to produce more, as Myron is dead and the facilities have been destroyed. Failing that, there's no way to stop production of the stuff.

Fallderp has it scattered all over the DC area as if it was another pre-war chem. The problem with this... aside from it being in the loot tables for vaults and ruins in DC that haven't been looted in Myron's lifetime, is lore breaking. I get that you didn't realize that at the time, but it isn't a fallacy to say, "waitaminute how does this make sense?"

And that's one of the minor things that Fallderp fucks up. The Supermutants, Enclave, how water works, the Vault project, aliens, FEV, nearly every single thing Bethesda tries it hands at in Fallderp... they botch up the details, or don't understand the words coming out of their own mouth.

immortalfrieza said:
DOOM 3 is still a game about shooting demons in the face with a shotgun but now that they decided to update it to more modern standards and thus put a little atmosphere, atmosphere and give the player something to do besides shooting demons in the face just so you can find more demons to shoot in the face thus making the still many many times the player does shoot demons in the face all the more enjoyable instead of becoming repetitious it's a terrible DOOM game.
No, Doom3 was a game about trying to see the demon you were wanting to shotgun in the face, not about simply mowing through the hordes of hell.

I get for someone born after 1998 how that distinction wouldn't make sense. But, the original Doom games were a lot more in line with titles like Serious Sam or Painkiller. It's a specific kind of shooter. Doom3 was, "oh, we cans be system shock 2 now!" Well... no, that's not fair, it was "we can be half-life 2 now" right down to a baddy implemented gravity gun in the expansion.

Now, Half-Life 2 is a pretty good shooter, but it's not the same kind of shooter as Painkiller, and it's certainly not the same kind of shooter as Doom 2. But, here we are with Doom 3 trying to be something it's not.

immortalfrieza said:
This sort of insane attitude is the reason why so many samey follow the leader copy and paste games come out these days.
Actually, the problem with Doom 3 was that it tried to be that samey "follow the leader" drech.

Doom had it's own identity, independent of the, "well we're going to tell a serious story now," shooters. And, Doom3 screwed up. It chased after the leader and sacrificed it's own identity in the process. So instead of a good Doom game we got a mediocre Half-Life style shooter in a market that was already being pumped to the gills with mediocre Half-Life style shooters.

In fact, part of Painkiller's success can probably be attributed to Doom3 abandoning it's home in order to go try and compete with the cool kids.

immortalfrieza said:
Lore has to be followed exactly to the letter or it's wrong, no matter the wiggle room that lore should logically allow. No series or genre is allowed to innovate and improve upon itself in any way or it is not a real game in the series or genre. Why should developers bother making something better and fresher when everybody screams bloody murder precisely because they did?
Wow, talk about fallacies.

Okay, so here's something about Fallout you might not realize: The Enclave isn't in Fallout. It's not. It first popped up in Fallout 2.

There's expanding a setting. A good example of this in Fallderp is The Institute. It doesn't conflict with existing lore, it's a new thing, out there, with implications for the world.

Here's a bad example of expanding a setting: The Enclave has their brains replaced with dogshit and decide that the best course of action is to head for the east coast, en mass, after their home is nuked and they all died, because a long arduous trek across a radioactive nation is safer than finding someplace like NORAD or another facility closer to home that they can defend.

Bethesda made a terrible decision to import a lot of West Coast elements from the setting that just don't freakin' belong. Including the Deathclaws, Supermutants, Enclave, Regulators and Brotherhood of Steel. If they behaved consistently, so it wasn't just, "hey guys, remember this? *wink* *wink* You loved this, right?" That would be one thing. But, aside from the Deathclaws, nearly all of the imports that shouldn't be on the west coast are egregiously out of character.

However, if you suddenly turned out a Batman game where after a night of heavy drinking, Batman gives up his "no killing" rule, and took to the streets with a standard shooter arsenal, I doubt you'd be making the argument that, "it expands the lore." It doesn't, it flat out contradicts it, and doesn't add anything. Could Fallderp have used the Brotherhood? Yes. But, if they were going to use them maybe they should have behaved like The Brotherhood of Steel and not just The Random Good Guys Local #368.

immortalfrieza said:
I grew up playing both of these series.
Okay, this explains so much.

Here's the problem. Playing the original Fallout games as a child will not make sense. I mean, yes, you can look at it and go, "oh, cool." But you wouldn't be able to understand what you're looking at. With Fallderp, not so much. It's the coloring book sequel to something legitimately intelligent and sophisticated. If you were treating the original games like coloring books, I wouldn't expect you to see the difference.

immortalfrieza said:
However, unlike many I am able to look past blind nostalgia and recognize just how limited those games were and how much better they've become as a result of this retooling for both of them. BOS damaged the Fallout franchise there's no doubt about that, but DOOM 3 is not the reason it took so long to make the new DOOM. DOOM 4 was stuck in development hell for a variety of reasons, none of which had anything to do with DOOM 3, if anything 3 renewed interest in a franchise that had been really stagnant for a long time.
Yes, Doom 3 renewed interest in the franchise. Right. Which is why Doom titles were releasing every couple years before it, and then... the franchise died for a decade. Right, that's what we call "renewing interest" now? I don't think those words mean what you seem to believe they should.

Just like how Doom3 managed to update itself to "modern standards," by chasing after Half-Life as hard as it could... Even though literally every other shooter for the last two years had been doing the same with terrible results.

In a lot of ways, Doom3 was the turning point for ID. Where they went from turning out their own things, with their own identities, to playing follow the leader with their game design. Which is a crying shame, the old ID games had a real identity. Now, to get games with that kind of flavor, you need to look at their games that got passed over to other developers, like Raven and Machine Games.
 

Starke

New member
Mar 6, 2008
3,877
0
0
camazotz said:
Fallout 1 and 2 have their places in history but Fallout 3 remains and always will be the only truly decent game to come out of the '00s.
Wait, so Half-Life 2 didn't come out in 2004? ALL OF MY LIFE IS A LIE!
 

Starke

New member
Mar 6, 2008
3,877
0
0
09philj said:
StatusNil said:
Vendor-Lazarus said:
OT: I guess Mass Effect 3 goes without saying. But I'm going to say it anyway. Mass Effect 3. And everyone will know exactly what I'm talking about.

Being that guy is a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it.
I liked Mass Effect 3. It didn't have as good a story as Mass Effect 2, but good nonetheless, and the combat was much better. However, I never experienced the original ending, only the extended cut.
Yeah, looking at the extended cut, it was actually more patronizing than the original.

The ending for Mass Effect 3 was stupid. It did manage to sour the game... Honestly, it managed to sour the entire franchise for me. But, I'd be hard pressed to say it was a bad game on those scenes alone.

That did, arguably, damage the franchise. Since there were some serious suggestions that Mass Effect would be done after that. And then there was the leak where EA was considering rebranding the franchise. Which would have been crazy on all kinds of levels.
 

grimallq

New member
Aug 25, 2009
26
0
0
gigastar said:
One addendum to the C&C saga, there was the reboot that was scrapped in the closed alpha phase. The one whose entire existence ultimately served as salt the wound for the fans and the final death knell for the longest running RTS franchise.

ShakerSilver said:
Command & Conquer 4
Saved the "best" for last I see. I still can't understand why they went with that direction. Nor will I ever forgive EA for it.
Its really simple when i think about it. EA execs wanted more income, so they ordered the niche spinoff be billed as the next big release in order to increase thier profit margins.

Guess its been a while since ive burned an effigy of Mike Glosecki. Who, by the way, was also responsible for Army of Two: The Devils Cartel.
"Niche spinoff" nothing.

EA was working on a MMO RTS for the Asian pro-gaming market that went nowhere in the end. But they were left over with a mostly finished engine.

So they foisted the engine off to the Westwood remnants (EA Los Angeles) to cobble together something under the C&C license. In other words a quick cash grab with salvaged assets.

I suppose it says something about the studios former quality that they managed to tack on a workable story to the concept. A horrible story, yes, but at least workable.
 

Las7

New member
Nov 22, 2014
146
0
0
For me DA2 is definitely a game you should add to that list, literally broke the franchise for me and made me lose my trust in Bioware.
 

webkilla

New member
Feb 2, 2011
594
0
0
Oh C&C4

I wept when that came out.

It so utterly shat on the C&C franchise.

Gotta wonder how it got so bad. I mean, its clear that the devs were aiming for a quick-action team-based online multiplayer RTS, likely to rival Starcraft...

And to be frank: The game mechanics and whatnot aren't bad - it was just packaged wrong. If it had been launched as a new IP, not a C&C game, then I think it could have worked

But as a C&C game it just shat all over the brand
 

Starke

New member
Mar 6, 2008
3,877
0
0
SupahGamuh said:
I liked, nay, I loved Resident Evil 6. Come at me.
I don't know, Piers constantly spouting off, "my captain," struck me as friggin' hilarious. Or was that just me?
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
3,560
0
0
Starke said:
SupahGamuh said:
I liked, nay, I loved Resident Evil 6. Come at me.
I don't know, Piers constantly spouting off, "my captain," struck me as friggin' hilarious. Or was that just me?
Oh, of course!, 90% of the dialogs were utterly stupid and sometimes downright hilarious. I think my enjoyment came at approaching it like I would with a "so bad it's good" film.