Irrelevant game titles

[lacktheknack]

So I just realized that my favorite game, Mirror's Edge, has a kind of stupid title.

The realization came from a friend of mine seeing it, and asking "Is that some kind of puzzle game?" I told them that it was a story-driven parkour chase sequence. "Then why is it called that?" I explained the aesthetic and that it was symbolic of where the runners were in society, and they got it, but in retrospect, it's a weird title, isn't it? You'd think that a more accurate and enticing title would be "The Runner" or "Framed", I don't know, I'm not very good at titles.

Same story with Half Life. As an experiment after thinking about Mirror's Edge for a bit, I asked my Mom "If I told you there's a game called 'Half Life', what would you think it was about?"

To which she replied "Boring chemistry edutainment. Maybe you have to build molecules?"

Which is kind of exactly opposite of what Half Life is really about.

Have you guys noticed other games with odd titles like this? Got any better suggestions?

 

[Catfood220]

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a really stupid name. Its not actually a word, its two words that mean the same thing squashed together. I would of loved to be a fly on the wall in that planning meeting, I think it went a little like this:

9.30AM in a game developers office.

"Ok boss, I've thought of a name for this game, get this, what if we put revenge and vengeance together...Revengeance. GOD I'M SO AWESOME!!! Right, my work here is done, I'm going down the pub."

 

[shrekfan246]

Many, many indie games. Probably more than I could bother to actually mention.

Going for the bigger targets, then...

With no prior knowledge of the franchises?

Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Sins of a Solar Empire, Crysis, Far Cry, The Witcher, Demon's/Dark Souls, any numbered Final Fantasy, Resonance of Fate, Okami, Devil May Cry, Brutal Legend, Mass Effect, Sleeping Dogs, Prototype, inFamous, Killzone, Just Cause 2, any game named after a mascot such as Sonic or Mario, Halo, BlazBlue...

Of course, that's being a little disingenuous. But really, to a complete outsider of the gaming industry, none of these names alone would really convey what the games themselves are actually about.

EDIT:
[HEADING=2]The list of titles is me being facetious for the purposes of a joke, pointing out the inherent irrelevance of titles in gaming - and by extension media - as a whole. Because names alone are meaningless without context to go with them.[/HEADING]

 

[CManator]

I find the Tales games to be oddly named.

Tales of Destiny - Straightforward enough, but does little to differentiate itself from every jrpg ever.
Tales of Symphonia - There is no place in the game called Symphonia, nor is anyone in the game musically inclined.
Tales of Legendia - Same as Symphonia, and really? Legendia? W hy not Storyville or Anecdotia?
Tales of the Abyss - Fair enough, ther is indeed an abyss and a strong focus on it.
Tales of Graces - What graces? Can you even pluralise grace? Cheria and maybe Richard are the only ones i considered graceful.
Tales of Xillia - Haven't played it, but unless it features a person or place named Xillia, i'd say they're not even trying anymore.

I also found the Legend of Zelda games to be odd, since they primarily featured Link.

 

[oplinger]

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a really stupid name. Its not actually a word, its two words that mean the same thing squashed together. I would of loved to be a fly on the wall in that planning meeting, I think it went a little like this:

9.30AM in a game developers office.

"Ok boss, I've thought of a name for this game, get this, what if we put revenge and vengeance together...Revengeance. GOD I'M SO AWESOME!!! Right, my work here is done, I'm going down the pub."

It...it is actually a word.

http://www.webster-dictionary.net/definition/Revengeance

http://www.wordnik.com/words/revengeance

Knowing that already though, I thought it was a fun title for a game. It stands out anyway, calling it Metal Gear Rising: Revenge would have been boring. Or Vengeance.

OT: I think Dragon Age is what springs to mind immediately. It's not really an age of dragons. It's just..an age were there are a couple of dragons? They definitely aren't new. They don't have a lot to do with the game or the era. I guess dragons just summon images of awesomeness? I don't know, but you could have named the games something else, and it probably would have been okay.

 

[DoPo]

With no prior knowledge of the franchises?

I don't think that's really fair - many titles do not actually convey what the work is about until you get more familiar with it. Let's see - from the top of my head Basic - a movie that is the opposite of it's name - plot twists be everywhere; Primer - ha-ha, if basic is complicated, then I don't know what this actually is, but it's about time travel - you know, easily guessable from the title; Nightmare on Elm Street - "supernatural ghost serial killer who haunts you in your dreams" is NOT what somebody unfamiliar would immediately think; Friday the 13th - is also not a good title to tell you that it's about a different undead (or whatever) serial killer; Mogworld - if anybody can get something like "the adventures of an undead NPC in a fictional MMO" within three guesses, they actually know the book; The Gods Themselves - what, isn't it obvious that it's about humanity making contact with beings from a parallel universe creating a link between the two and using it for free energy...also there is not actual godhood or the like at all; Dracula - it's a name - might be something historical;

You get the idea. Games should hardly be singled out.

With that said: Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines - there is Vampire, there is Masquerade, too, but the bloodlines are a bit lacking. There are three in total - the Gargoyle (who is...a gargoyle), the Sheriff (who is a Nagloper), and Pisha (a Nagaraja). Well, technically, one could make the case about the Giovanni, but that's nitpicking. At any rate, the Sheriff is never revealed to not be a "normal" vampire (aside from the "Oh, he's big" comments), Pisha you'd normally only find out if you attack her ("Nagaraja" comes up under her health bar), and the Gargoyle...well, I don't think you actually find out he's a vampire in the game.

 

[BrotherRool]

Metal Gear Solid is a ridiculous title, probably only beaten by Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater. It's like someone was blindly stabbing at Metallica lyrics and stuck them all together.

But as for titles that are actively misleading as to the type of game Superbrothers: Sword and Sourcery EP made me think it was some sort of sprite RPG (although since it's even got EP in the title, that was probably more my fault). ICO doesn't conjure up any sort of image at all (it'd hard to think of a fitting name), I still don't relate it with the game it is, it sounds like some sci-fi or business acronym.

With no prior knowledge of the franchises?

Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Sins of a Solar Empire, Crysis, Far Cry, The Witcher, Demon's/Dark Souls, any numbered Final Fantasy, Resonance of Fate, Okami, Devil May Cry, Brutal Legend, Mass Effect, Sleeping Dogs, Prototype, inFamous, Killzone, Just Cause 2, any game named after a mascot such as Sonic or Mario, Halo, BlazBlue...

Of course, that's being a little disingenuous. But really, to a complete outsider of the gaming industry, none of these names alone would really convey what the games themselves are actually about.

I don't really agree with a lot of those examples. Silent Hill sounds pretty horror to me and Sins of a Solar Empire has the word Empire which is a fair clue to an empire building game (although the 'Sins of' part is confusing.) Final Fantasy is a fantasy game, Mass Effect sounds Sci-Fi. I guess making a stab at genre would be hard, but I don't think they carry impressions of genre's they're not.

I don't think the OP meant titles which can't be fully understood without knowledge of the game, but names which give an incorrect impression of the game. Okami suggests some sort of weird Japanese thing and thats what it turns out to be, but someone hearing Mirrors Edge and thinking of a puzzle game is a bit different. Killzone makes you think of a game about war and killing which doesn't mislead you at least.

I think if you see Brütal Legend without the umlaut that might give entirely the wrong impression of the game and Sleeping Dogs still doesn't make me think of anything like what the game actually is.

(Unrelated, did you ever play/finish Resonance of Fate? I got 20 hours into but the game seemed so long and I wasn't sure if it was going anywhere and couldn't finish. Does it go on for a lot longer?)

 

[King Billi]

Call of Duty.

Back when the series was set during World War 2 that title felt much more appropriate as it gave a sense of noble intentions and unsung heroes fighting for more than just their own lives...

Anyway that title is little more than a brand name now as the modern direction of the series really doesn't reflect what the title used to signify in any way... I think so anyway.

 

[piinyouri]

Red Dead Redemption
Totally get the redemption aspect, but the rest makes me think I'm going to be fighting undead monsters. Which is it turned out, I did......butthatsnotthepoint

Far Cry
Possibly they were saying "You're a far cry from kansas" or just any safe place in general, highlighting the very hostile environment you are placed into.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Hmm, this is a fun little thread.
Looking through my collection, I see a couple.

Vanquish. I mean I guess you "vanquish" enemy robots but you also vanquish enemies in plenty of other games. Might as well just call it "Defeat" or "Destroy". It's a shame too because the game is way better than the odd name implies.

Resident Evil. OK this one isn't totally irrelevant, but it is odd. Yes there is evil, but there isn't always a particular residence, and the name seems backwards, like wouldn't it make more sense as Evil Residence? I actually think the Japanese name Biohazard is far more suited to the series, because it's something that is consistently in the series, a biological hazard, whereas the residence in Resident Evil seems to come from the mansion, which appears in only some games.

 

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

OT: I think Dragon Age is what springs to mind immediately. It's not really an age of dragons. It's just..an age were there are a couple of dragons?

Did you find the codex entry that explains how the Ferelden calendar works? It actually makes the name really meaningful.

 

[lechat]

sleeping dogs?
i get the reference but if you asked someone what the game was about they might assume it's about cute puppies.
really think they should start naming games "splody shotgun boom boom" so we can decide whether to buy them without reading reviews or looking at screenshots

 

[Catfood220]

Snip

Well God damn me, I actually Googled to see if it was a word so I could save myself this embaressment and all I found that game.

 

[Dethenger]

Assassin's Creed.

The Creed itself hasn't really been relevant since the first one, and assassinations themselves are actually rather scarce lately. I can only think of two in Assassin's Creed III.

 

[Auron225]

I've only ever played Fallout 3 so maybe there was a reason with the first one or I just missed it in 3 but...

I cannot for the life of me figure out why its called Fallout. Is there a reason or did Bethesda just think "Fallout... that's a cool word! Let's call it that!"

EDIT: Nevermind, I just googled it - I hadn't heard of the term "Nucleur Fallout" before... nothing to see here, carry on =)

EDIT 2: I just thought of another one though. It always puzzled me that Zelda games are even called "Zelda" games. Imagine if it was a real legend. Link goes around doing all this crap and single-handedly saving the world - and its the princess that gets remembered. "The Legend of Zelda the PRINCESS, and her pet igor Link that does some stuff too I guess". I mean, how many people think his name is Zelda until they've played one?

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

DmC: Devil May Cry

Utterly pointless. What were they thinking?

There's no colon.

It's "DmC Devil May Cry".

Eurgh.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

lol, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, they weren't dead, I played as them!

 

[fwiffo]

Looking through my installed games most of them seem to work except:

planetside...so, it takes place on a planet right?

exceed3rd jade penetrate black edition...so, its Japanese right?

everything else seems right on like lone survivor, cthulu saves the world, and don't starve.

 

[Jennacide]

Many, many indie games. Probably more than I could bother to actually mention.

Going for the bigger targets, then...

With no prior knowledge of the franchises?

Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Sins of a Solar Empire, Crysis, Far Cry, The Witcher, Demon's/Dark Souls, any numbered Final Fantasy, Resonance of Fate, Okami, Devil May Cry, Brutal Legend, Mass Effect, Sleeping Dogs, Prototype, inFamous, Killzone, Just Cause 2, any game named after a mascot such as Sonic or Mario, Halo, BlazBlue...

Of course, that's being a little disingenuous. But really, to a complete outsider of the gaming industry, none of these names alone would really convey what the games themselves are actually about.

Half the games you just mentioned have perfectly fine titles that are pulled from the game. OP's question was about titles that have literally nothing to do with the game. (Though Half-life sort of does, but whatever) Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Dark Souls, Okami, Mass Effect, Prototype and Halo all make perfect sense, and who doesn't know who Mario or Sonic are these days?

And it's not like this issue is only a gaming one. How many movies or books have titles that make no sense as to what you are reading?