The Most Generic Game Ever

[Dexiro]

Not sure if this counts but EVE at least gets the award for the dullest game in existence.

You're in space. And that's just what it is, a lot of space. Empty space at that.
The core mechanic is to make or join a business and basically do jobs for people like farming for hours a day to earn money - it's practically a second job.

 

[Erana]

It makes me sad that no one's made a post in here that's not just a dig at something they don't like because said thing is popular.

Personally, I have to vote that Oblivion is one of the most generic games out there. I love the game, but I can't think of a single thing that I found original. The most interesting things out there they wrenched from previous TES games, really.
Its like a world-class ballerina; doing the same thing for years, but at its very best.

 

[Becoming Insane]

Just roll with me here...

But I'd have to saw Borderlands. right of the bat people think fallout when they play because in trailers they look similar and people are stupid sometimes. The story isn't SUPER generic but by god. The gameplay is horribly generic. It copy and pastes most main controls from a lot of different games and a lot of creatures look like other creatures from different games. The skill point thing is pretty fresh. I'd have to say this game really is ba-

CATCH A RIDE!!!

Oh so that's why I like it. Humor. Huh.

Hah. I freaking love Scooter. Especially
THIS IS WHERE THE CARS LIVE! GIT 'CHOO ONE!

OT: Okay. here's my generic idea pitch.
You're an Ageless Faceless Nameless Gender-Neutral Action-Adventure Person born in the faroff country of Generica. Something happens, and you're called upon to do stuff. Game is first-person perspective; people never refer to you by name and there are no mirrors. After defeating the final boss, you finally get a look at yourself and you find out that you're just another average Joe who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Too generic?

EDIT: @Assassincreed548: Oi! Lay off the Gamecube hate, 'kay? That generation of console war is over.

 

[clzark]

most people are missing the point of this thread...

 

[jubosu]

WOW PLAYER:THE RPG
You play a character, playing World of Warcraft.
You have to raise your stamina, endurance, and whatnot by doing menial tasks around the house.
Then you sit and play WOW whilst monitoring your health levels.
You have to roll to keep your eyes open as the life drains from your body while playing the game.

 

[troth]

WOW PLAYER:THE RPG
You play a character, playing World of Warcraft.
You have to raise your stamina, endurance, and whatnot by doing menial tasks around the house.
Then you sit and play WOW whilst monitoring your health levels.
You have to roll to keep your eyes open as the life drains from your body while playing the game.

Or, you know. This:

http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-play-a-character-playi,14240/

 

[Becoming Insane]

WOW PLAYER:THE RPG
You play a character, playing World of Warcraft.
You have to raise your stamina, endurance, and whatnot by doing menial tasks around the house.
Then you sit and play WOW whilst monitoring your health levels.
You have to roll to keep your eyes open as the life drains from your body while playing the game.

Or, you know. This:

http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-play-a-character-playi,14240/

That's actually rather not generic. Really boring, yeah, but not generic.

 

[jubosu]

Or, you know. This:

http://www.theonion.com/video/warcraft-sequel-lets-gamers-play-a-character-playi,14240/

Damn well...
Checkers

 

[weker]

PN 03, one of the worst purchases I ever made for my GameCube...

WTF how is PN 03 generic u dance to kill ppl

(edit) what the hell why are there so many games in this list that ppl say are generic
paper mario, fable
how do ppl think these are generic games????

 

[Vie]

FPS-RPG With RTS elements and plenty of QTE's, set in a post apocalyptic former soviet republic where everybody speaks with either an American accent, a badly faked Russian accent and the very very British badguy. All signs are in English and have very poor jokes built into them. Obligatory vehicle sections handle badly, with the steering set up firmly for consoles only, oh and if it rolls over you either have to use a QTE or a motion sensing flailing action to recover it. Main character is an armor plated space marine with stubble and a bald head, complimented by an inexplicably fake scar covering at least 2/3 of his face on one side. Support character is a busty and skimpily dressed woman who appears to be legal only in Victorian England, she claims to be a tuff fighter but gets captured by everything and its dog and needs you to go rescue her (after going to a nearby druggies house to get a special brand of sledgehammer to get into the room she is held in.) Firearms are your weapon of choice, though the portal/gravity/lightning/skeleton-removing-thingy-that-you-only-use-in-one-level is HEAVILY promoted. Plot resolves around you being the "only one" who can save the world from... ..aliens, yes Aliens - Communist Aliens who eat babies because there just that evil. Occasionally you will have allied NPC's fighting with you who are coded to run in front of you and moan when you shoot them. Enemies run towards you at top speed and some of them explode when they get close enough to deal incurable special damage upon you for the rest of the level. Endgame occurs at the top of a scifi tower built out of greyish blue metal, where you shout your enemy to death between using QTE's to save the Orphans from falling off (Oh did we forget to mention the Orphans, yeh you have those on each level - save enough and you get a cake at the end of the level!)

And some how it turns out your reliving the memories of one of your ancestors.

 

[Jekken6]

Early games in any genre fit in here as later games tend to build upon and improve what little innovative content that they had. For example-

Wolfenstein/Doom ( is every Nazi shooting/space marine FPS ever but without an interesting gimmick such as hyper-realistic/brown visuals or a nifty physics engine)

Dude, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom were pretty much the FIRST FPS games. They INVENTED the generic FPS, therefore not making them generic,since they were first.

 

[ZeroDotZero]

I'd say Wolfenstein, but it has the Particle Cannon, so it wins.

The plot would be that there is an alien warlord, and you (the nameless, faceless, macho space marine), has to single-handedly destroy the alien fleet using standard machine guns and a laser. The alien warlord sounds foreign, and any humans you meet are go-getting Americans. You have to rescue a few British prisoners too. There's also a section where you get bullet time. Then it ends on a cliffhanger.

 

[The Great Zegrool]

But wouldn't the most generic game be unique because of it's incredible genericness, thus becoming not generic?

 

[Tristan Sjet]

ummm..

level 1: hero meets henchman. they fight. hero wins. pretty much an after tutorial-tutorial

level 2: hero finds his hidden past. fights weak boss. hero wins.

level 3: hero realises that the villan is his/hers mother/father/'dead' sibling/evil twin/doppleganger/etc.. boss fight. hero wins but loses mentor/best frend.

level 4: steath level, our hero must sneak into the villan's not-even-remotely-secret-lair. may or may not be a fight with the villan's subordernate.

level 5: main villan boss fight. overly long, the villan may go into a hyper/demigod/one winged angel/perfect/monster mode/form. you win. long "how did you defeat me?..." speach. may unlock a bonus level with little to no story.

credits.

 

[Jaranja]

How about any movie game ever?

I'm too scarred to list any examples, but feel free to think of any GOOD movie games.

EDIT: Misread. Movie games... Um, Lord of the Rings.

OT: Ummmmm, Killzone.

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Early games in any genre fit in here as later games tend to build upon and improve what little innovative content that they had. For example-

Wolfenstein/Doom ( is every Nazi shooting/space marine FPS ever but without an interesting gimmick such as hyper-realistic/brown visuals or a nifty physics engine)

Dude, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom were pretty much the FIRST FPS games. They INVENTED the generic FPS, therefore not making them generic,since they were first.

My point was that the first few games of a genre have the traits or lack thereof one would look for when trying to figure out how to devise the most generic game ever. It isn't a shot at their quality or status as classics or what have you. 'Pyramus and Thisbe' lacks luster compared to its adaptations such as 'Romeo and Juliet', 'West Side Story' or even 'The Sea Prince and the Fire Child' but that doesn't mean that the original play/legend/myth was rubbish to start with.

A game based directly upon the book 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' (or on Joseph Campbell's research notes for the book itself) would definitely win the title of most generic game ever...maybe. Its definitely a possibility.

 

[HarvesterofSorrow]

But wouldn't the most generic game be unique because of it's incredible genericness, thus becoming not generic?

My brain just exploded.

To answer the question, a game where the government is doing some top secret thing to create super soldiers but the super soldiers turn against them and you have to fight them and then you uncover all these government plots and experiments. That, or someone releases a virus that turns people into zombie-esque creatures. Or anything with zombies actually. I don't care how original you think your zombie idea is, it's been done.

 

[HT_Black]

Gears of War. Angry space marines team up to hide behind walls and destroy everything that looks slightly different from themselves.

But that game gave us cover-based shooting, didn't it?

For the record, my vote for most generic game ever goes to The Saboteur, for building a game completely out of tried-and-true gameplay and story elements and somehow making them suck.

 

[DustyDrB]

Boy (let's call him Ragamuffin Naturesby) is raised by a humble farm family of a small village the edge of the Kingdom of Blandonesia. He's always felt out of place in the town, and the other kids (except for one girl - her name's Growsuptobehot) have always helped him feel even more unwelcome. One day, when helping his family out in the field, a band of raiders come in and tear apart the town as if they are looking for something (we'll call it MacGuffin). They interrogate Ragamuffin's father, asking him where the MacGuffin is, but the father refuses and is slaughtered, along with everyone else in the town. It just happens that at this time Ragamuffin and Growsuptobehot were out in the forest playing when the tragedy struck. Once he returns and finds the villagers all dead, he sets out to find the man responsible. That man turns out to be a trusted aide of the king (the villanous Andy), and wants the MacGuffin to secure his power over the kingdom so he can have everyone serve him. Ragamuffin slowly takes out henchmen of the aide, and ends up finding that THE MACGUFFIN IS WITHIN HIM (cue orchestral music! Pixies! Flashy lights around our hero!). Soon after this revelation, Ragamuffin sets out for a final battle against Andy (who fights using a mix of styles of ever major henchman Ragamuffin previously faced ? the ultimate final boss cop out). The battle is hard, and Andy nearly wins. But the MacGuffin power within Ragamuffin allows him one last big push against Andy. Using the Sword of Eternal Omnipotence (the blade never goes dull! Never!!), Ragmuffin drives a killing blow through Andy?s heart, and harnesses all remaining power of the MacGuffin to seal the evil one into the Forbidden Realm until the next game in the series. MacGuffin returns to his home village to rebuild and start a new life with Growsuptobehot, and they live happily ever after.
No offense to anyone named Andy here. You?re probably a power-hungry scoundrel, though.

 

[Noone From Nowhere]

Let me try again. Tossed-Salad: The game. Consists entirely of random events shuffled before each playthough using elements that either worked or were rejected from other games.

Example:Mean guy/gal does bad stuff to another guy/gal and maybe someone/thing connected to the guy/gal (all 3 are randomly generated with each successive playthrough)somewhere (also randomly generated maps). Second person does stuff back to settle dispute (gets revenge, convinces him/her/'hir'/it of the error of said person's ways,joins in because it looks like fun. It's up to the player.). Random abilities given to player without rhyme or reason to settle this dispute or not. Unforeseen development complicates matters (introduced by the random event generator. Maybe it's a drag queen looking to imprison anyone more beautiful than him and your pretty boy protagonist amd rival alike fit that bill so they must team up for now until the threat is passed. Maybe it is more profittable to marry said rival then bump him off for his life-insurance policy or to get in on a wealthy relative/yaoi fangirl's Will. Maybe Carrottop has come to town and it will take every once of power that you have to overcome his Prop-Fu, making your previous quarrel seem petty.)You fight monsters and thugs to get stronger. You romance someone for some reason. You have a high altitude duel with someone who threatens your happiness/is ugly/is cuter than you/because you wanted to jumpkick someone through the moon.

Actually, now that I think about it, the sheer randomness and possibility to download more random events would probably make it fresher than a lot of games out there now(and make as much sense, oddly enough). I'll fall back on that 'Hero With a Thousand Faces' thing, then.