Bad games with great ideas or settings

[Dalisclock]

I've said this before in other threads.

Final Fantasy XIII. The idea of Cocoon and Pulse and the universe the series takes place in is pretty interesting. Sadly, the games that were built to showcase that world were....pretty terrible, linear and shallow. If Final Fantasty XIII were remade so it played like any of the final fantasies before X(and rewrite the dialouge), I'd probably pick it up and give it a shot. As it stands now, I was bored just watching a LP of it.

 

[Abomination]

I'd be so bold as to say Wildstar actually. Lets be honest, the game at launch was a -mess-. Sure it's better now, but at launch half the systems didn't work and you were left with broken PvP or insanely punishing PvE as your only endgame options. That all said, I loved the Ratchet and Clank art design, the sci-fi western fantasy mixup of genres and the quirky humor. Hopefully it's re-release will do better.

Gods, I know right?

Playing Wildstar with any kind of high latency, such as from Australia, made higher tier PvE near impossible. The first proper dungeon was just a wreck with all the split-second dodging you had to do and if you missed ONE catching up was something you or your healer had to blow cooldowns for. It was not a pleasant experience and I was loathe to use the group finder. It's ultimately what turned me off the game, I couldn't just enjoy myself using the PUB system.

 

[Rad Party God]

Brink, no doubt about that.

The setting is fucking brilliant and the SMART movement mechanic was fantastic, I haven't seen many games, beyond Dying Light, that have utilized the parkour mechanics so well and so fluidly.

Although the game looked fantastic, it's level design outright sucked for balance, also not letting you to choose from body types mid match was a big no no.

Many great concepts squandered by a mediocre game.

 

[Yossarian1507]

Pathologic.

On paper it's exactly everything I would want from a video game - action-adventure game, with 3 protagonists having different skillsets, story-arcs (sometimes intersecting between each other) and different set of allies/enemies in the same town... That also seems to live on it's own with a pseudo-real time clock (1 second IRL = 1 minute in-game) and events happening across town at specific time, whether you will be smart enough to learn about them and actually witness them to uncover more plot. Add to that an interesting survival mechanic, and decent enough intrigue (mysterious plague is ravaging a small rural town in Russia. You have limited time to find the truth behind it and find a way to combat it, before it will wipe everyone) and potentially you have an amazing game to play multiple times with lots of choice-consequence interactions and multiple endings depending on your progress based on both narrative decisions and exploration.

What we got was something that looked like shit, played like shit, had a bare-bones conversation options, and to top it off, a terrible Russian-to-English translation, that prevented the game from even reaching a "cult-classic" status. A crying shame, really.

I heard, that the creators got enough money from Kickstarter to make it again. I REALLY hope they won't fuck it up this time.

 

[hermes]

Remember Me. Interesting setting and premise, interesting concept with the whole "recreating memories" bit. It was all brought down by the actual memory recreation being a side thought to bland and mediocre third person beat 'em up action and on-rails, boring parkour.

I came here to say this game as well.

The setting was interesting, but they messed it up by making it a subpar mix of Batman and Uncharted, with the difficulty curve of a cardiogram, and one of the most clueless and insufferable villain protagonists I have seen since Kratos...

 

[someguy1231]

It felt like it wanted to be an MMO, an RPG, and an FPS all rolled up into one... but it only managed to pull off a semi-solid FPS game with a bit of Diablo's random items and multiplayer tossed in as a lazy afterthought.

It could have been so much better than the epitome of Mediocre.

Yeah, Destiny is pretty much a textbook example of the perils of trying to appeal to too many different people at once. In a marketing course, one of the first things you learn is "If you try to appeal to everyone, in the end you won't appeal to anyone." Whoever did marketing for that game apparently forgot that most basic rule.

Halo succeeded because it knew it was an FPS, plain and simple, and never tried to be anything else. And it was very, very good at being an FPS.

 

[Evonisia]

The setting of BioShock Infinite was really interesting. What with it being a utopia quite literally in the sky built on racism and heavy religious influence. They secluded themselves away from the world but still brought the world's problems with them. While I wasn't a fan of adding the multi-dimensions thing to the BioShock universe, it still made the setting of Infinite quite peculiar and intriguing to look at.

If only the gameplay wasn't so stiff and awkward to manage in gunplay, zipline play and the health system which did not fit the game's pace at all. Which is weird, because I never had issue with the gameplay beyond the enemies just not being satisfying to kill unless I used the not-plasmids the firs time I finished it. My attempted replay of it a few months ago to it was a disaster.

The story is all building to an ending which was utterly limp and reliant on us caring about its unlikeable cast. Which I didn't because none of them do anything to deserve it. I would give credit to the opening, but it's just BioShock 1's opening except less effective, awe inspiring, and it's uglier despite being made six years later.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

I don't play many games that I'd consider completely bad, but... Wild ARMS 5.

Wild West setting like the rest... except that high-tech aliens invaded decades ago and WON, becoming the government of the planet and bringing people far more advanced things like television to keep them content, including creating a 'fake' human hero to promote joining them to hunt for buried technology (read: slave labour usually ending in death).

Too bad these aliens look exactly like humans (not even a lumpy forehead like Star Trek) and nearly all the reasonable members of the species are killed off in a cutscene within the first 2 hours. I've made the setting sound about 10 times more interesting than it ends up being.

 

[FPLOON]

Past me, I know what you're going to say, so juts say it already...

Virtua Quest... A gem so flawed that barely anyone knows about its existence...

But seriously, outside of some questionable control choices[footnote]The C/Right stick to use the game's version of a grapple hook that only goes in the direction the character's facing instead of just using the L/L1/L2 buttons... Then again, the L/L1/L2 buttons only moves the camera to the default "behind the character" camera position instead of just using the C/Right stick to control the camera more freely... So, I only ask this one question: Who the fuck thought that kind of control scheme was a good fucking idea?![/footnote]as well as a basically pointless "level-up"-type system[footnote]Why have it if the game's going to force me to "level-up" anyway?! It's not like it increases my stats or anything like that because only the upgrade tools as well as which fighting type I end up adopting the most can do that... Just because I can't do certain sidequest[footnote]which are only there to, hopefully, get a rare upgrade tool for your stats or "lost data" for you collected Virtua Souls...[/footnote] because I'm not at the right "level" story-wise doesn't mean it counts by any stretch of the meaning in this situation and you know it, game...[/footnote] due to plot reasons (just to name the major flaws), its use of both stats and fighting style customization options gave this game potential to be a good spin-off to the Virtual Fighter series...

Too bad it was a ~10-hour repetitive/mediocre game with an ending that will remain a cliffhanger for the rest of its life, basically... and I keep going back to it either on GameCube or PS2 because I have both versions...

Thank you... I could not have explained it better that that, basically...

Other than that, Sonic 06 could have been the next-gen equivalent of the Sonic Adventure games... right? Right? RIGHT??

 

[Callate]

I'm sure there are better candidates, but looking over my recent list of late, I'd have to go with Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. The setting and atmosphere are well done, but to encourage the players to tear it up in gritty hand-to-hand combat (in part by under-powering all the projectile weapons) and then periodically throw the effective equivalent of suicide bombers into the mix... Ugh. Not even frustrating so much as tedious, and it's a shame.

 

[thewatergamer]

SAW the video game, ok hear me out, pushing aside opinions on the films, the Saw game was surprisingly saddening to me, it's a bad video game the graphics are mediocre and the combat is terrible but they absolutely nailed the atmosphere of the films and Jigsaw's character, really makes me sad because if they brushed up the graphics and removed the combat entirely it could have been a decent and fun little horror game, but...yeah game is mediocre at best real shame imo

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Ride to Hell: Retribution.

The only good thing about this piece of shit is the whole 1%MC theme it got. And it messes up even that. Still, it's a pretty novel theme with the only other game I know about bikers being Full Throttle.

 

[Kyrian007]

Tecmo's Deception Series: It's SUCH a good idea that it is still a good game despite usually dealbreaking flaws like...

Horrible controls without customization that could fix it (it's stuck on an uninverted X axis)
Worst voice acting since Zero Wing
Awful and pointless story
Pretty forgettable characters and designs that could have come from google images page 1

But the gameplay is such a good idea and still so fun that all of those things could be forgiven. Now if only someone would take the franchise and fix at least half of those problems.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

I'm sure there are better candidates, but looking over my recent list of late, I'd have to go with Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. The setting and atmosphere are well done, but to encourage the players to tear it up in gritty hand-to-hand combat (in part by under-powering all the projectile weapons) and then periodically throw the effective equivalent of suicide bombers into the mix... Ugh. Not even frustrating so much as tedious, and it's a shame.

Needs more Melta Gun and Lascannon. Sure, the Plasma Pistol wasn't worth using, and many of the other secondary weapons fell flat, but I never had a problem with projectile weapons.

But as for OP, Final Fantasy XIII would be my choice. It's an interesting twist on the bog-standard crystals thing that Final Fantasy tends to do. Unlike other games, there is a stigma attached to being chosen, a time limit to complete your focus, and tangible consequences attached to success or failure. Too bad that whole thing was dragged down by the game's terrible characters and script.

So much wasted potential. As much as I wanted to see them get it right, Square never could, even over the course of three games.

 

[SmugFrog]

I can't think of any that I've played lately, but there have been a few over the years that you can see the excellent concept buried within. Even a diamond covered in poop is a diamond - but do you really want to dig through poop to get to it? How big does the diamond have to be?

Spore. It will always and forever be Spore. The void in my heart will never be be healed.

Amen. I have delved so deeply into that game's creation and history, both in the pre-release hype, videos, galactic simulation software apps (which no one really paid attention to, but simulated star and planet creation, water, erosion, biological processes), the demo at E3 when everyone's minds were blown - and then the release and fallout and hate for... what was his name? Chris Heckner? Some of the rumors say that he wanted the cell stage creatures to be wearing sneakers and such and have expressive faces. It was dumbing down of gameplay and cuteness for the sake of hoping to increase sales. My kids like some aspects of the gameplay (the cell stage) as well as the creature creator; but that game really is one of the biggest "what could have beens". Even the way the servers loaded player created content into other people's games is an amazing concept that I think games like Minecraft could learn something from (but no one wants to think about or listen to that idea).

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

So, there was a game that came out that...I can't remember the name of, but it was apparently a game that turns your computer into a battlefield against viruses on said computer, that you can wage war with directly. I liked the idea, but I was disappointed in one very important thing: This wasn't a game that allowed you to interactively clean up your computer and make it both an effective and fun way to do that. It was just a simulation. A simulated virus would get released into your system and blah blah blah... I wanted a game that actually allows me to personally crush real computer viruses. So, good in theory, but not in execution.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about <a href=http://www.sdispace.com/index.html>Operation: Inner Space, which uses your harddrive(s) file structures as the battleground for what was essentially a top-down Asteroid-style shooter. Great game, still got it knocking around on one of my older rigs.

OT: An old Bullfrog favourite of mine - Gene Wars. Again, this was another 90's game trying to cash in on the success of C&C and Warcraft, but the premise of this game was that you were tasked with repopulating the ecospheres of planets wiped clean of life during an interstellar war. You would reseed forests, raise herds of livestock, and "accidentally" splice together mutant crabs and veloiraptors to create agressive, armour-plated dinos and then "accidentally" encourage a group of them to nest near your opponents base. Great idea, but it just couldn't contend with the offerings from Westwood and Blizzard.

 

[THM]

Nevermind the whole "canon" ending of TFU2 was completely batshit crazy and absolutely tossed the entire Star Wars universe into chaos...

I dunno; IIRC, they were going to a base that by Episode 4 was abandoned (and ruined, I think). So all TFU2 does is answer the question 'Why was that base abandoned?' with 'Because Vader got loose, and the following fight with him and Fett completely wrecked the place.' What really disappointed me about TFU2 was how short it was. Oh well.

OT: Haze. The deconstruction of the idea of 'treating war like a video game' was done pretty well, although it was more subtle than it should have been. That, plus the weapons were meh.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I'm going with one of my flawed gems Arcanum again.

While it isn't really that bad of a game, purely as a CPRG it's definitely not as good as classics like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. The combat particularly is...questionable, even more so than Planescape's. Graphically it's not exactly a looker either, outclassed by most older CRPG's.

But the setting, man, I love it to death. The awesome mix of steampunk and magic makes for an awesome setting.

 

[Muspelheim]

Hmm... Valkyria Chronicles is the only one I can think of. It's honestly not what I'd really call outright 'bad', but it's got a neat general idea.

I like the presentation (mostly), the general gameplay and the basic parts of the story. But it's the weirdly overdone, cutesy animoo-thing that spoils it. The tone is alright (although the holocaust references felt particularly cringy) for the most part, but sometimes, it just spikes into this odd, sugary charicature of itself, it feels like. Much like the characters; good enough at the basics, but inflated into charicatures as well. The weird haircuts, the one-note character traits, the whole ADOPTED sister bit, the apparent average age of 12 in the ranks... It might just be something I don't understand, something that isn't part of my sphere, but I somehow felt... Embarrased, I suppose, like I don't want to be caught playing it.

It's perfectly fine to stylize, and that's what the game's got going for itself; the style. I rather like it, as well as the broad strokes of the story. But it just gets spread on too thick, with the mini-skirt BDUs, the haircuts (and the very liberal hair regulations of the Muminvalley Militia), the one liners, the Pokémon-esque poses... It's a very nice aesthetic on a pretty solid gameplay foundation, but I'd wish they'd pack it in a bit here and there.

But then again, this is just because I felt like thinking about the question. It might just not be something for me, something that I don't really get. Still, was fun to think of again.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

mars: war logs.

but that is cheating, the game was fun, and I enjoyed it. but it was squandering the setting and lore for such a short game with a rushed 3rd act and no follow-up.

couldn't agree more, I went into the game not expecting much at all and had a really fun time with it, but as soon as I got done with it I reflected back on how rough of a game it was and how much more it could've been.