Games you wish that were better

[mjc0961]

Fallout: New Vegas. Good game, but they could make it better by not having it be so damn buggy and prone to crashing. Shit, 9 times out of 10 the fucking LAUNCHER crashes, so I have to sit here in Steam clicking the "play" button over and over hoping that the launcher will be stable this time so I can click the damned play button. And then the random crashes every now and then.

It would be so much better if it was more like Fallout 3. I've only had it lock up three times on PC, and it was when it was supposed to go to a loading screen. 3 times in 40-50 hours of playing. Granted, New Vegas on PC is nothing compared to Fallout 3 (and probably New Vegas) on PS3 where it's always freezing, locking up, or crashing every 3-5 minutes once you get late-game (people think it has to do with the save file getting too large or something). But after playing Fallout 3 on PC, it's obvious that New Vegas could be a lot better than it is.

Borderlands. Such an awesome concept, and potential for a great story if 2K Games hadn't cocked up the execution. Holding E to pick up ammo? Walls of text instead of dialogue? Shit driving and collision detection? (sigh) Come on, don't you play test your games?

Maybe it's different on PC, but on PS3 you can just press the pick up button to pick up one thing. Holding the button is for when you have a group of stuff and you want to pick it all up at once.

I also had no problem with driving in the game, but that's probably thanks to good ol' twin analog sticks. I have yet to find a vehicle in a PC game that didn't handle like shit using keyboard and mouse.

 

[Biosophilogical]

Dragon Age: Origins. I never could finish that game. I never felt connected to ym character in combat.

 

[ankensam]

assassins creed 2 more and brighter colours in the palette, better controls and a better voice actor for ezio

 

[mjc0961]

I completely agree. If Alpha Protocol was only a little better, it may have been a force to be reckoned with, I sincerely hope they make a sequel.

Sadly, SEGA is too busy putting out things that are total shit like Sonic the Hedgehog to give Alpha Protocol another chance:

http://kotaku.com/5580412/average-reviews-mean-no-second-helping-of-alpha-protocol

Of course, that was a year ago. Maybe SEGA will remove head from ass someday and give Obsidian another try. They are supposed to be working on that new engine that lets them get detailed bug reports for easier fixing. Or maybe Obsidian can find a new publisher... Who owns the Alpha Protocol IP anyway? *looks around Internet* Looks like Obsidian does, so maybe they can just find someone else later.

 

[Amaror]

Dragon Age 2.
It was just a huge pain in the *** playing this game with this disturbing repetitive Landscapes, the endless spawning enemies, making every positioning tactic useless, and the constant feeling that you should be able to change some things, but you couldn't because the developers hadn't enough time to finish the game!

 

[thenamelessloser]

I don't believe in wishing since wishing turns up badly in fantasy and sci fi stories but NWN2's original campaign (haven't tried the expansion packs yet really though) should have been so much better I think. Just shitty, full of bugs like Obsidian's other titles but the gameplay and story are just blah. BTW, I actually LIKED ALPHA PROTOCOL and have very little problems with it and found it to be an incredibly underrated game. I always thought I was an Obsidian fanboy but then I played NWN2. (Actually before playing NWN2 I played the Dungeon Siege 3 demo which I found boring but that was only a demo)

 

[Hot Madness]

I agree completely with Alpha Protocol, such a game of contradictions; so many things done spot on it's hard to reconcile all the giant missteps in design.

Red Faction Guerrilla, When the destruction worked, it was great. Too bad Volition couldn't remember how to make a compelling open world, which is baffling considering Saints Row...

Resident Evil 5, I am a huge Resident Evil fan and 4 was one of my favorite games of all time; but 5 was a huge step back. I was so disheartened, I sold my copy back. Which is crazy if you know me, cause I still play my original copy of Resident Evil 2 Dual Shock Edition for PS1 from time to time.

 

[not_you]

Duke Nukem forever....

at LEAST give us back no weapon limit..... Use a weapon-wheel if you have to, just that is the most basic thing they could do to not make that game suck so badly

 

[RuralGamer]

The Force Unleashed (both 1 and 2); when I heard about the first one when it was still in development and all the cool tech demos they showed promised something awesome was going to be at the core of the game... but it turned out that was all there was to the game. Seriously I can't help but feel the TFU series is a massively under-performing gold mine; if they'd stuck even a dozen choices in the game that affected the story and let us be someone other than this whiny little kid, it could have been so much better. I can't help but feel they have zero replay value, little enjoyment factor (hey, why don't we have nothing but hack-and-slash sequences in which you can use Force powers too; that'll not get old fast!) and a plot which should have never been(if they wanted something to link the two trilogies, they should have made it so that ultimately the endings, regardless of what they were, didn't deviate from the canon).

 

[The Hero Killer]

Final Fantasy XIII, a decent game on its own but for how long it took to make I expected WAYYY more. It also had the Kingdom Hearts problem of wasting great villians (organization XIII) such as Yaag, Jihl, and Cid.

Dragon Age 2, another decent game but the lack of locales really hurt the game.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, the biggest disappointment this entire generation. It felt like I was playing a demo rather than a full game.

 

[Naeras]

Duke Nukem Forever. It had so damn much wasted potential lying around, all of which went completely down the drain after two hours of gameplay. If they just kept the tone consistent to how it was in the beginning, let ego regenerate by shooting stuff instead of hiding behind cover*, let you carry more weapons, smoothened out the controls and made the variation from regular shooting actually fun, the game would've been great. But it isn't :<

* this bugged me to all hell. The execution mechanic is implemented, but it's discouraged. How about you get some ego back by shooting things and all ego back by executing stuff? There you have depth and better characterization. As it is now, the only way I can think of Duke regenerating ego while cowering behind cover is by thinking "okay, they shot me a few times, but at least my dick is bigger than theirs".

 

[Spud of Doom]

Mercenaries 2. The first was one of my favourite games on the Xbox, the second was really not all that good.

 

[Vibhor]

Trespasser. I absolutely adored the whole concept of pick anything and kill anything with it. Only if the hand mechanics were done well.

 

[Frybird]

Alpha Protocol, easily. It wasn't terrible or bad or even mediocre, really, but to see such an incredibly promising title get pounded into the dirt because of its frankly weak gameplay and the bugs is downright heartcrushing.

The story was so good that I could overlook the gameplay being not up-to-par. This could've been a direct competitor to Mass Effect - no fucking karma system, choices actually matter, varied and interesting settings, great characters... but no, it had to be awkward to play and laggy as shit.

Very well, Obsidian. Not a bad try. Please, make another one, I beg you.

This is exactly the same as i think of the title.
Especially the Way Choices affect every mayor NPC differently instead of just a broad-stroked Karma Meter was great and should've been "stolen" by every other game that still uses Karma.
And it was funny as hell due to Michael "Archer" Thorton

Other than that:

Alone in the Dark (The new one):
Pseudo Episodic Narrative, the way you could use and pick up items, analogue Controls, Fire Physics, and the way you used Adventure Mechanics for Combat were great ideas.

The horrible Script, clunky Controls, boring Setpieces and pointless Free Roaming, not so much.

Psychonauts:
Great Game, but not really great gameplay. More like passable with a bit of horrible sprinkled here and there. With better Gameplay, i wouldn't play anything else ever, i think.

Brütal Legend:
Should've been either an Openworld Game OR an Hack & Slay Action Adventure OR an RTS. Not ALL of it in a kinda-sorta way. Shame since the game has much things going for it and the RTS parts can be actually Fun if you read the Postscript Tim Schaefer Released because no one knew how to play the RTS parts.

Far Cry 2:
Also had a lot of good stuff, but somehow i felt the game was actively trying to prevent me from having fun thanks to tedious regular enemy encounters on Checkpoints, long, boring walks/drives (and a laughable Quick Travel System), a badly told story and those Stupid Fetch Quests for Medicine.

Brink:
Yeah, i have the feeling i don't need to elaborate

 

[amucha98]

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[Xerosch]

Final Fantasy XIII, a decent game on its own but for how long it took to make I expected WAYYY more. It also had the Kingdom Hearts problem of wasting great villians (organization XIII) such as Yaag, Jihl, and Cid.

When I saw the trailers I seriously thought Jihl would be the main villain, an idea that was fueled by her showing up rather late and being much more organized than the rest. I was really surprised when she... you know... didn't realize what happened at fist.

 

[Salopian]

The STALKER "trilogy".

Talk about a rough diamond(s). There's a fantastic game locked away behind terrible and utterly frustrating combat mechanics, bugs, flat characters and some lots of unexciting and meaningless missions. I've still played them all extensively, though, I just hope the development of STALKER 2 pays attention to everything that was wrong about SoC, CS and CoP without sacrificing everything that was right about them.