Bad/mediocre games with something amazing in them

[Specter Von Baren]

So I want to know if any of you guys have examples of games that you've played that were either bad or mediocre but that in spite of this still had something about them that stuck out in your mind as something good or exceptional.

I'll open with my own example from a game called Daniel X: The Ultimate Power.

(Using an in game image since I can't find a box image that isn't too big or too small)

So this was a licensed game for the Nintendo DS based on a book series about a half human half alien teen with incredible powers that fights aliens. In terms of gameplay it's a competent if somewhat bland Metroidvania. It's not bad but there's nothing about it particularly exceptional in its gameplay or story.

So what is it that I find exceptional? It's movement. This game has the best feeling of movement I've ever had in a 2D game. Moving around the world feels fast and fluid and fighting an enemy while doing this will often also feel pretty fast and smooth. It's hard to describe in any exact terms but you move fast, jump high, and wall jump so smoothly that it makes the journey back to older areas feel just as fun to me as the reward for going back to them.

So now I ask you again, what games have you played that have a similar thing to them? Some gem hidden under the surface of an otherwise mediocre or bad game?

 

[Hawki]

Hmm, okay. Remember, I'm doing "mediocre," not "average" (they're separate things).

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight

While Tiberian Twilight is easily my least favourite CnC game, and pretty much killed the franchise, I'm actually fairly sympathetic towards it for a number of reasons. But one thing I think is 'objectively good' is the soundtrack. While it's in a different style than past CnC games (more orchestral, while previous ones were more heavy metal), it really fits the game, and is pleasant to listen to in its own right.

Doom 2016

This is hard to quantify, because both the gameplay and story are mediocre. That said, I guess I appreciate D4 for its...potential, I guess? It hints at an interesting setting, it just squanders it. But as much as I dislike it, I've written more stuff for Doom 2016 than probably any other Doom setting, so similar to Tiberian Twilight (which I've written for more than the entirety of Red Alert or Generals), it must have done something right, even if I'm really not fond of the game.

Gears of War: Judgement

This game is just all around average, borderline mediocre - it's easily the weakest Gears installment IMO. That said, there are some things I like. The optional difficulty spikes are a nice idea, if rarely executed well, and there's that new Locust enemy that's fun to fight (like the berserker, but smaller - forget its name).

Halo 4

For everything this game does wrong (and that's a lot of things), one thing it absolutely nails is the John-Cortana dynamic.

Enter the Matrix

Remember when the Matrix was a thing? Someone's farm remembers.

But that aside, while the game didn't live up to the hype, it did kind of flesh out the universe, in that it shows side characters doing side things aside from Neo and co. So, there was that. Worldbuilding is always good.

Metroid: Other M

While not the worst Metroid game I've played, I can't think of any redeeming features for Hunters. That said, for Other M, while it's very flawed, I will say it has a few things going for it. One is its version of the Ridley theme. Second, and more notably, is its combat sections. As finnicky as the controls are, if you can get them to work, these sections can be quite fun. The game certainly sells Samus as being the superhuman she is, rather than the walking tank crap Metroid Prime used.

Path of Exile

It has good lore...as far as I can tell. Shame that the game's so lacklustre that it doesn't even matter.

Perfect Dark Zero

As flawed as this game is, it set the stage for the Rucka novels/comic, which flesh out the Perfect Dark setting more than anything else, and are all around solid. Basically, if Perfect Dark Zero is Attack of the Clones, the EU material it spawned is the Clone Wars TV series.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006

The soundtrack. 'Nuff said.

I'm sure there's more that'll pop up over time.

 

[Dalisclock]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

It looks really good, has a good soundtrack and an excellent gaming engine. There's a lot of fun to be had fucking around with all the toys and harassing the guards with them and the fact the guards adapt to your tactics as the game goes on.

Unfortunately, the plot(which starts promisingly enough) loses it's way after a bit and never finds the way back, Snake might as be a mute blank slate, the big "twist" robs the game of some of the significance it could have had, the game generally fails to capitalize on it's main premise(The Fall of Big Boss, revenge on XOF for the loss of Mother Base), most of the interesting story and character stuff is relegated to the audio tapes. It's not a good place to jump into the series because you have no idea who most of these people are and why they are important, and if you're a series veteran, you'll probably be annoyed how unlikable a lot of the returning characters are(Miller, Huey). Hell, if you didn't play Peace Walker, you don't know why Snake has a base in the middle of the ocean, who a bunch of the characters are(such as Strangelove, Chico, Paz, Huey) and if you did play Peace Walker, you'll notice just how much MGSV ripped it off.

And of course the fact that as a sequel to Peace Walker/Snake Eater, it fails to follow up on a lot of the potential and it doesn't work as a prequel to the rest of the series because it tries to retcon so much that wasn't mentioned in any of the later games(Magical Bullshit Parasites being a big one) or was "covered up". You could remove it from the timeline entirely and it would affect nothing.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Vampyr
-Great musical score

Medal of Honor: Warfighter
-Great multiplayer. Really great controls that include both leaning and a slide mechanic making for dynamic gunfights not found in your CODs or BFs. Good balance with regards to guns and classes. Also, just the right TTK with 5-6 bullets required for a kill.

Binary Domain
-Great B-movie action/sci-fi story. Easily one of the most enjoyable stories from last-gen.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Vampyr
-Great musical score

Medal of Honor: Warfighter
-Great multiplayer. Really great controls that include both leaning and a slide mechanic making for dynamic gunfights not found in your CODs or BFs. Good balance with regards to guns and classes. Also, just the right TTK with 5-6 bullets required for a kill.

Binary Domain
-Great B-movie action/sci-fi story. Easily one of the most enjoyable stories from last-gen.

Could you describe why the games are bad/mediocre in spite of these good aspects?

 

[Casual Shinji]

This is certainly gonna end well.


I guess I'll go for Dragon's Dogma, as it's the least likely to piss people off when I say it's overall a bit lame. However, the character creator is probably the best I've seen in any game, it has the best controls of any action-RPG that I've played, magic spells feel amazing and powerful and like you're actually harnessing the forces of the universe, and fighting big monsters is a thrill that's unrivaled by any game other than Horizon; Zero Dawn. And yes, despite all these pro's the game is still bad-ish.


Also, Red Faction: Guerilla. Bad game, great destructo fun (while it lasts).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Vampyr
-Great musical score

Medal of Honor: Warfighter
-Great multiplayer. Really great controls that include both leaning and a slide mechanic making for dynamic gunfights not found in your CODs or BFs. Good balance with regards to guns and classes. Also, just the right TTK with 5-6 bullets required for a kill.

Binary Domain
-Great B-movie action/sci-fi story. Easily one of the most enjoyable stories from last-gen.

Could you describe why the games are bad/mediocre in spite of these good aspects?

Vampyr is a real poor-man's Bloodborne in terms of combat. The story has some good ideas at points but the core plot falls off the rails at the end and overall writing is definitely below average. The interesting concept of normal citizens as EXP is pretty much completely wasted along with hardly any interactively with said NPCs as well.

Warfighter is kinda universally known as a shit game just from its Metacritic. The campaign sucks complete ass but the multiplayer is amazing. Barely anybody gave it a try due to critics shitting on it even though most people buy that type of game for the MP.

Binary Domain is a very average-y TPS with some pretty poor gameplay sequences that drag out way too long.

This is certainly gonna end well.


I guess I'll go for Dragon's Dogma, as it's the least likely to piss people off when I say it's overall a bit lame. However, the character creator is probably the best I've seen in any game, it has the best controls of any action-RPG that I've played, magic spells feel amazing and powerful and like you're actually harnessing the forces of the universe, and fighting big monsters is a thrill that's unrivaled by any game other than Horizon; Zero Dawn. And yes, despite all these pro's the game is still bad-ish.

Haha, there's quite a few very well-regarded games that I find to be bad/mediocre games like certain GOAT RPG that I could say the writing was the standout in an overall mediocre experience.

Yeah, Dragon's Dogma really just does combat awesome (easily the best dragon fights) and that's really it. The hydra fight in Dark Souls or the griffin fight in Witcher 3 are just so ridiculously lackluster for anyone that played Dogma first. The story and questing are so bad and the open world is small and rather boring too. It does do a rather nice day/night cycle where at least early game adventuring at night makes you feel uneasy.

 

[Pyrian]

Western Outlaw: Wanted Dead or Alive, a kind of pathetic FPS, has some of the most realistic period weapon handling I've ever seen in a game.

 

[Squilookle]

While Shadows of The Empire is almost universally a shit game (quiet you- it is), it does remain the only game on the N64 that allows you to have an OG Star Wars trilogy era dogfight in space, because Rogue Squadron always seemed to have you flying just above a surface. The fact that SotE had a cheat that could transform you from the Outrider into an X-Wing or even a TIE Fighter and allow you to hunt at will without penalty was just the absolute icing on the cake.

[sub]Shame this is the only uploaded footage I can find of the dogfighty action...[/sub]​

Then there's Driver 2- widely seen as a disappointment after the first Driver but in my opinion that's only because it tried to do too much and pushed the PS1 to the limit. I had it in my mind that Driver 1 had the most utterly perfect car physics in gaming history, but then Driver 2 tweaked it just ever-so-slightly and made it better. Cars were a bit quicker off the mark, could be rolled (and righted) better, and were just a joy to throw around. To this day I'm still waiting for a game featuring cars to have handling as good as Driver 2.

 

[BrawlMan]

Lollipop Chainsaw. As much as I enjoyed its story, writing, unlockable costumes (some are locked behind pre-oder DLC that is not available anymore), and characters, the gameplay is average at best. It feels like a game from the early mid PS2 era. Combat is functional and stages have better pacing than No More Heroes 2, but there are other elements that don't work. Anytime the gameplay changes in later stages gets annoying on a first and subsequent playthroughs on harder modes, QTEs, the harder modes just buff the zombies health and that's it, and once you unlock Holy Chainsaw Combo, there is no reason to use any other attacks. I've heard people like Matt from Super Best Friends, say that LC shouldn't be compared to games like Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, because it's an "old-school" beat'em up. But even back in 2012, I thought that was a huge cop out argument for the game's gameplay flaws. LC still has an end of level rank and grades you on your performance, so any defenses like that for the game are bullshit. And there is really no replay value after beating it. Hell, Onechanbara Z2: Chaos has better replay value, despite being a lower budget game.

Killer Is Dead is the better game despite some of it's characters and storytelling issues. And I enjoyed the world of the KiD more than LC. It feels like a true spiritual successor to the No More Heroes series, and is Grasshopper's best gameplay to date.

 

[sXeth]

The Surge

One of the few Souls-Clones to really stand out as something original (I loved Salt and Sanctuary, don't get me wrong, but it was just Souls flipped 2d with way better platforming).

The limb chopping, while not totally unique to it, was a pretty interesting mechanic, and organically tying it to getting loot was nice touch over the obnoxious RNG farming in most similar games.

But yeah, the plot/environment is just the 999999th iteration of post-incident space/science lab traversal, that was already stale by 1995 or so. Enemy variety is not particularly great, dodges are awful. Upgrades are overly straight linear improvements instead of options.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.

It looks really good, has a good soundtrack and an excellent gaming engine. There's a lot of fun to be had fucking around with all the toys and harassing the guards with them and the fact the guards adapt to your tactics as the game goes on.

Unfortunately, the plot(which starts promisingly enough) loses it's way after a bit and never finds the way back, Snake might as be a mute blank slate, the big "twist" robs the game of some of the significance it could have had, the game generally fails to capitalize on it's main premise(The Fall of Big Boss, revenge on XOF for the loss of Mother Base), most of the interesting story and character stuff is relegated to the audio tapes. It's not a good place to jump into the series because you have no idea who most of these people are and why they are important, and if you're a series veteran, you'll probably be annoyed how unlikable a lot of the returning characters are(Miller, Huey). Hell, if you didn't play Peace Walker, you don't know why Snake has a base in the middle of the ocean, who a bunch of the characters are(such as Strangelove, Chico, Paz, Huey) and if you did play Peace Walker, you'll notice just how much MGSV ripped it off.

And of course the fact that as a sequel to Peace Walker/Snake Eater, it fails to follow up on a lot of the potential and it doesn't work as a prequel to the rest of the series because it tries to retcon so much that wasn't mentioned in any of the later games(Magical Bullshit Parasites being a big one) or was "covered up". You could remove it from the timeline entirely and it would affect nothing.

Yeah, you know I think it actually worked to my benefit that I had not played any of the previous Metal Gear games before MGSV. I wasn't aware of any of the contradictions or retcons and the story was so impenetrable that I gave up on having any hope of figuring out what was going on. That freed me up to play MGSV purely as a game, just enjoying the mechanics, world, and toys it gave me.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Most recently Here They Lie. It?s barely a walking_jogging/flashlight simulator in terms of gameplay, with dashes of half-baked stealth. The story is told through bits of discovered audio logs, odd notes and cryptic pictures as you meander your way through a mostly linear mental hell in an effort to reconnect with a lost love.

What could be considered amazing is:

A. The truly fucked up setting and characters within, as well as the way a few of them try pulling you into their madness.

2. The art style, which yields a surreal blend of both claustrophobic and imposingly immense environments, then finishes with something completely different, a bit trippy and oddly uplifting near the end.

It?s something that shouldn?t be spoiled for anyone willing to give it a go. The plus side is it?s incredibly brief. I had no idea what I was doing and I think the whole thing took about as long as watching one of the various movies that likely influenced it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on the Xbox360.PS3. In terms of gameplay, Enslaved is about as bland as dry oatmeal; combat is samey pretty much from beginning to end, even with the upgrades, there?s nominal difference at any given point. Enemy variety is about as sparse as they could get; you fight robots, some are bigger than other, but that?s it. Overall, this game would have been perfectly suited on the Xbox/PS2 generation. However, the characters are incredible. The voice acting, the writing, the way their faces are animated, it all helps to really bring them to life and pretty much carries the game. It wasn?t a blockbuster by any stretch, but it got pretty much all favorable reviews because Monkey, Trip and Pigsy are just such memorable characters.

?That freed me up to play MGSV purely as a game, just enjoying the mechanics, world, and toys it gave me.

Off-topic, but Splinter Cell is one of my favorite franchises and every, single one of them I enjoy this exact same way. Geopolitical intrigue isn?t my thing, so I?m never able to follow the grander story of each game beyond the first mission or two, but the pure stealth gameplay and amazingly well-crafted missions just makes for the best badass sneaky-sneaky fun.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII.

Over all it wasn't such a bad game, as it was not enough to actually stand out on its own.

But there was something amazing about it ... and it was the fact that your character could just veg out in a city, doing odd chores, just be a free officer ... and be the greatest troll in history.

See, periodically you'll have 'duels' ... whether in combat, or just random officers wanting to talk to you. And in both it was a mix of stats plus a rock-paper-scissor style affair, with tactics thrown in. Basically my super-academic officer was a free officer, considered a genius, and basically Isuper specced them in 'insult' (a debate fightingstyle/mechanic.

And I'd just fucking mash that constantly, and in combination with my skillsand abilities would win every 'debate' challenge.

And it just struck me as funny that my character was just a roaming adventurer, travelling around China and everytime an officer wanted to talk me into something, or challenge my 'intellect', I'd just spam insults at them and make them flee in 'embarassment' and 'shame' ....

Basically the mouthiest troll of the Three Kingdoms just releasing torrents of insults at people wherever I went. You could even make officers 'sick' from the 'shame' of losing a debate. They'dactually take debuffs and status modifiers. So I was literally wandering around China giving people migraines with my foul mouth.

It just struck me as a really funny thing, especially given that they had these really super cheesy arenas for duels and debates, with excessively flashy animations for each technique.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Firewarrior. It had some great 40k lore at the end of the tutorial in the Tau library. Also to date has the best Bolter in 40k games/movies. Actually felt like a rapid fire rocket launcher, literally causing enemies to explode or catch fire.

sunless sea I'll begrudgingly admit looks pretty and has a nice soundtrack.

 

[Erttheking]

Valkyria Chronicles is a disappointing mess of a game with piss poor writing and gameplay that is adequate but not much more. Credit where credit is due though, it's very good at coming up with interesting designs for soldiers, weapons and tanks (it's actually really good at designing tanks) so the game looks quite interesting. Honestly I'm more frustrated with it than taking active glee in ragging on it, because I feel like there's an interesting story to be told in this world.

 

[Saelune]

Firewarrior. It had some great 40k lore at the end of the tutorial in the Tau library. Also to date has the best Bolter in 40k games/movies. Actually felt like a rapid fire rocket launcher, literally causing enemies to explode or catch fire.

That game was way too hard. I managed to get to, I dunno, some big space hallway surrounded by snipers that one shot you. I am surprised I even got that far.

 

[Mikejames]

Deadly Premonition's a beautiful mess. Janky animations, stiff combat, awkward driving mechanics, mismatched sound design, etc. But I love the way Swery writes bizarre characters. The whole setting is filled with weird comedic charm, and every step in the story is marked by another optional chance to sit back and go get lunch with your police friends as they discuss the Twins Peak-esque styled murder mystery as it progresses.

 

[COMaestro]

The Order: 1886 was a mediocre TPS. Your character felt rather slow and a bit clunky to control, the weapons, while some of them were neat, didn't get all that much use beyond the basic guns, and the boss fights were not very exciting.

However, the world created for the game was exquisite. I loved the aesthetics of the setting, the story of the Arthurian knighthood still in existence, the threat of the werewolves and vampires, etc. I want a GOOD game in that setting.