That sounds like a terrible idea!

[Chrono180]

There are plenty of games that people hate upon release once all the flaws are exposed for the world to see. Spore, Two Worlds, and Hydrophobia were all examples of games that were hyped up massively and turned out to be awful after the release. But what about games that sounded like a bad idea from the very beginning?

Yes, there are some games that sound like a bad idea on paper but turn out to be great but I'm talking about games that both sound like a bad idea in theory and turn out to be terrible in practice as well. For example, take most movie based games. Everyone knows movie based games are almost always terrible, yet they keep being produced for some reason, and the only reason I can think of is that people buy them anyways.

I would like to point out "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" in particular because it is a game based on a terrible movie and extremely overrated book series with kinect sensing. Considering how buggy normal movie based games are, would anyone be really surprised if the kinect sensing was totally broke? Admittedly, I have not played it so I am not sure if the kinect was really broken or if the terrible reviews were based around the other problems, but my point is that it sounded like a bad idea from the get-go and, sure enough, was a terrible terrible game.

What other games can you think of that were bad ideas from the beginning and lived down to expectations?

 

[tlozoot]

I've been thinking about this for a few minutes, and I can't really come up with anything.

Could be that any root concept, no matter how stupid sounding, can make a good game if handled right.

 

[Lukeman1884]

Neither, but I'm sure there are plenty of games that fit your category, I'm just unable to remember any, probably because I mostly just forget about bad games.

 

[Verlander]

Well, DJ Hero I guess, the concept is very flawed

 

[jakko12345]

Playstaion move sounded terrible from the start. But i suppose that's not really a game

 

[[.redacted]]

I don't have a game, but I do have a a quote from the "better than it sounds" page of TVTropes on one of my favourite things:

"A surly woman with a giant sword wanders around a laboratory seeking revenge on a little girl"

Edit: Lived down to expectations...

I have to say, I don't know. It's odd to think that it's difficult to find things that were never expected to be great, and weren't.

The all other subversions are easy, with great -> great, bad -> great, great -> bad...
But this stumps me, I don't think I've ever gone and bought a game I expected to be bad.

 

[KuwaSanjuro]

I remember in a Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee says that Ico sounds like an utterly rubbish idea on paper: Horned kid leads girl who can't do anything about. And yet it is absolutely amazing.

 

[Dexiro]

I thought Kinect sounded like a terrible idea even before I gave myself time to think it through in detail. I just couldn't see it working well at all.

I really can't think of anything else. If I don't think a game will work I don't tend to remember it :3