What Game Had the Most Wasted Potential

[MrBaskerville]

I think Skyward Sword could have been a great game, if they hadn´t padded it out so much. There´s so much wasted time in that game and it´s easily 20 hours than it needed to be. There are moments of greatness (most of the dungeons) but it just feels like you are wasting most of your time running errands and retreading the same path over and over again.

 

[TG MLPDashie]

Brink... nuff said

 

[Victim of Progress]

Good to hear that "Spore" is being mentioned a lot. It truly was a disappointment. They dumbed it down to oblivion and made it 6+. Also the recent Sim-City games. Why can't anyone make a proper sequel?!

 

[Cerebrawl]

Have you played Last Light? Because if there's ever a game that picked up on the missed potential of its predecessor, it's that. I thought 2033 was mediocre as well, but Last Light's easily one of my favourite games.

Last Light would've been so good if the save system wasn't a painful joke.

Huh, I usually hate it when save systems are bad (nearly ruined the Metroid Prime series for me) but I thought Last Light had one of the best systems I've played. What was wrong with it?

Checkpoint only, far apart, and the game has stealth based achievements.

So after crashing my cart, then trading with the refugees, saving the girl who's about to be raped, and the guards at the next intersection spot me, I have to replay about 45 minutes of play. When that happened twice I basically ragequit and never ran the game again.

 

[CriticalMiss]

I'll bring out my stock answer of Too Human. How could a game about techno Vikings be bad in any way? Simple, let Silicon Knights make it. It was made worse by the developers claiming they had a trilogy planned before the first game had even been finished, so that's two games that we will never get now and those who could just about bare with the horrible controls, repetative gameplay and kind of dull combat won't get to see what was to come.

 

[darkstarangel]

Id hate to say it becaus its such a beloved classic but, Shadow of the Colossus.

The concept of slaying different varieties of monsters, like boss battles, was awesome. But thats all there was too it. There was an entire open world to explore on your horse but nothing in it. It was literally just filler for the game so as not to make the "secret" locations of the colossi so blatantly obvious.

However, for me, that was forgivable. But when the game first came out & I read the back of the box it gave me the impression that you had to search & discover the colossi yourself in this open world, which got me hooked. When I finally got it & played it thats when I discovered that you could only fight them in sequence. Even worse, you had to use your sword to find them. Well, you didn't have to. You could have just searched without using your sword to spoil it for you but thats beside the point anyway. You're encouraged to use it & its easy to depend on things when games present a challenge.

So, yeah. The game was awesome because of that one great element, but the rest truly was wasted potential. Even the guy who created it said it was just an idea he was toying with & wanted to make it a game before moving onto bigger & better things. Clearly this attitude was reflected in the design of the game during development.

 

[hermes]

1...2....3....

Final Fantasy 13.

Yeah... On a personal level, I have to agree with you.
After all, one of the reasons I chose to go for a PS3 instead of a 360 on this generation were the next iteration of the traditionally exclusive games. Specifically, Final Fantasy and God of War... Neither of them ended up being more than mediocre.

 

[gargantual]

Daikatana. A lot of ideas in a horribly pasty misfire with confused supporting characters.

Even though we have an unreal 3 version of Shadow Warrior, I think this old IP should be redone for a new generation. It would be nice if a developer that was good with FPS design and strong character development just went and talked to John Romero, and said, lets repair this old jalopy. Maybe the kids'll forget about the first one.

 

[Emaruse]

Yay! I get to say one game that no one else has mentioned!

Anarchy Reigns. That's my pick, and why?

It's not a bad game, multiplayer-wise. But the Single-Player is just so BLAND, and this came from SEGA/Platinum Games for goodness sake! Nothing but a pure beat em' up, no variety other than a few instances, the storyline was passable, but forgettable, and going thru place to place was kinda drab, although fun because of the soundtrack.

Multiplayer wise.... I'm guessing Platinum Games & SEGA used their C-Team on this one, it seems that way. Because despite everyone having a somewhat specific throw & special move, almost everyone in their weight class plays the same (Hell, the Rin Sisters nearly play the same!) And speaking of the Rin Sisters, along with Bayonetta, the DLC Character, they are the main lag-&-glitch to win characters that can really anger people, and back in the day (Heck, even now) some of the players there were really lag-&-glitch abusers, as well as using cheap moves to win, and personality wise, made the fan-base look like jerks, when there were actual good people in that game, which was sad.

I said it once, and I say it again: Anarchy Reigns may not have been the best game, but it should have, at the very least, had won an award for it's soundtrack, but no one will ever throw them that bone because certain people say (And I put this in quotations) "All Hip-Hop is repetitive gutter trash, so this soundtrack is too", and to those people, I ask them what their kind of music is, and when I normally get that answer, I tell them to leave the room.

If each character played differently, if the camera was done better (Considering the Video Game Industry has had 20+ Years to get it right...), if the missions in story mode had more variety, if the story was more epic, if there were no lag-and-glitch to win instances, this could've been the definitive Multiplayer 3D Fighting Game... But nope, now it's on the bargin bin next to Remember Me. And that saddens me.

Final Words: The Final Boss Fight Theme of Anarchy Reigns - "Find You" is better than Sephiroth's One-Winged Angel. That's all I have to say. And now if you excuse me, I have a bunker to find for just saying that. You want an explanation for my words though, come at me then.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Kane and Lynch. I found the characters to be so interesting and cool. The story COULD have been amazing and the gameplay should have been at least decent. Even the second one had so much potential. Nothing is more upsetting to me than wasted potential in a game. I really hope the series makes a strong come back but its probably not going to happen.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Too Human could have been a great launch of an awesome series. Who doesn't love an ultra techno future Viking robot murder game?

What we received was... man was that a let down. That game had no reason to suck that badly.

This. A great concept wasted on shitty gameplay, ugly graphics and terrible writing. Too Human is bar none the worst game I have ever played, but I'd say it had the potential to be one of the best. It makes me sad to see how much wasted potential it really had.

 

[the December King]

Spore

I followed development since its announcement in Wired magazine in 2005.

What we were promised was a scientific evolution game spanning from cell to galactic empire.

What we got was six disjointed minigames that catered to underage creationists.

For months people kept saying "Spore has such potential!" But that potential was never realized.

Oh, I totally second this, Spore. I wanted so much for this to be the game we had been shown in the demos...

As a small plug, I started work on a flash game that combines elements of 'Spore' and 'The Binding of Issac'. It can be seen on Steam Greenlight, with the temp title 'Monster':


The demo is still incomplete (it's just me at this point, and I need to eat, so I had to take paying jobs for now).

 

[Blitsie]

Timesplitters 2 & 3. The perfect arcade shooter with multiplayer, Map making and sharing in an age where only a small portion of console owners were playing online

Now would be the absolutely best time ever for the series to make a proper return, with online play actually being a very popular thing and whatnot. Such a pity the whole of Crytek's head is too far up its own ass to see the potential they're sitting on.....then again its not that bad, they'd make it a free 2 play disaster anyway with their current mindset on gaming.

I wonder how its going with that fan made sequel that's supposedly being developed since last year was it? Hrmm...

Anyway, Advent Rising for me. It was a rough game, there were lots of bugs, animations looked beyond zany and gameplay was a mess at times with the dual wielding system and powers and whatnot. But man, the plot was fantastic (humans worshiped as gods by all aliens? Hell yeah!) and once you got a hang of how things worked you really could have one hell of a fun time jumping about the place blowing stuff up in ways so stylish even Neo would blush. Overall, what you had here was a game that had all the right things to make it truly stand out, basically the perfect foundation for what could have been a masterpiece of a sequel but alas, the trilogy got cancelled and all that immense potential will never be realized.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Spore

Finally, an EA game that is probably the epitome of wasted potential has been put on this board!

I'll throw in the sister game or wasted ambition from EA, which was also in development around the same time as Spore:
Hellgate London.

This was the last game I bought published from EA, and it is one of the very strangest games I own.
And more than anything, Hellgate London proved to me that EA's could never hope to kick its worst habits.

What was released, needed at least another year in development, less focus on the half-assed MMO model and more focus on the gameplay because WOW is it wonky.

There are SO, SO MANY good ideas in this game that just went completely to waste.
(many of them would later be used and redeemed by Borderlands 1 & 2)

 

[Hochmeister]

Here's one that hasn't been mentioned yet: Sword of the Stars II

It had the potential to be a combination of Paradox strategy and Total War gameplay IN SPACE! Plus it had a very good prequel to build off and an excellent fanbase. Instead, it was released so buggy and incomplete the publisher made a formal apology for it. Even now, the questionable design choices and poor AI prevent it from being fun to play. Seriously, who the hell thought it was a good idea to replace 1's freeform strategy map movement with an outrageously restrictive fleet management mission system that forces you to base fleets from a planet and sortie from them and back?! Almost every step they took with 2 was one in the wrong direction.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

oh yeh and obviously SWTOR is $200m of wasted potential.

 

[laggyteabag]

Dawn of War II

Dawn of War was great, it allowed me to play out some large scale Warhammer battles without me having to shell out £100's on models, and as an RTS it was plainly well thought out. It also had a modding scene which made the game even better (Check out the Annihilation mod for Dark Crusade, made the game universally better). But Dawn of War 2 was a gigantic disappointment for me, ruining everything that I loved about the first game, and entirely changing how the game played. First to go was the massive battles comprised of legions of infantry and armour, replaced for small scale battles with only a couple of units as well as the occasional tank. Next went the base building (which I consider to be a staple for RTS games) in favour of a single building with linear tech upgrades. Hell, the only real upside was that the campaign for Dawn of War 2 and its first expansion Chaos Rising were kinda' cool story wise, although I hated the way that the game played. And the majority of the modding scene had disappeared, and I hate it when that happens....

 

[Trunkage]

ME2 - one fantastic mission a great game does not make
You have to wade through 40 hrs of blandness (except for the mission on Horizon) to get to a fantastic mission. One mission, no development on reaper threat, no real progress on genophage (as its irrelevant if you go after Maelon), no progress with the rachnii, pointless develop of the Geth (or really anything). Utter pointlessness. May as well just gone straight from ME1 to ME3.

Crysis 2. Cyrsis 1 was great, felt like I could play exactly how I wanted. Sometimes sneak, run fast to flank them or hunker down behind cover. It had a pretty good storyline, including the building of impending doom from your allies being wiped out. It had hard to kill aliens because they were difficult to track. They could easily outflank, pushing you to use you suit in creative ways. Crysis 2 totally changed the way the aliens moved, to something totally boring. They moved so slow, the action changed dramatically. Also, ALIENS are attacking, yet a stupid paramilitary force keeps focusing on you. For a vendetta. Its aliens, the vendetta can be put aside for a while.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Dawn of War II

Dawn of War was great, it allowed me to play out some large scale Warhammer battles without me having to shell out £100's on models, and as an RTS it was plainly well thought out. It also had a modding scene which made the game even better (Check out the Annihilation mod for Dark Crusade, made the game universally better). But Dawn of War 2 was a gigantic disappointment for me, ruining everything that I loved about the first game, and entirely changing how the game played. First to go was the massive battles comprised of legions of infantry and armour, replaced for small scale battles with only a couple of units as well as the occasional tank. Next went the base building (which I consider to be a staple for RTS games) in favour of a single building with linear tech upgrades. Hell, the only real upside was that the campaign for Dawn of War 2 and its first expansion Chaos Rising were kinda' cool story wise, although I hated the way that the game played. And the majority of the modding scene had disappeared, and I hate it when that happens....

Beat me to it, loved the original Dawn of War, loved the fact that it had large scale battles, and allowed base-building, but also had the sense of lots of tactics and needing to be aggressive to capture tactical points. Also enjoyed how it had "hero" units who, while powerful, were far from invincible.

DOW2 threw so much of this out the window. Ridiculous "boss battles", tiny 'squads' of 3-4 guys, incredibly small unit cap, only having 1 building. It's so disappointing because the graphics and sound effects were absolutely awesome, and the game did a better job with cover and hiding out in buildings than the original did, it just didn't seem to know what to do with it.

Also agree on Crysis 2. Whoever thought it would be a great idea to move a fairly open-ended game set on a jungle island to NYC and make it much more linear should be fired.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Final Fantasy XII

It had the most interesting and three-dimensional villains...

some fantastic dialogue-writing...

Wait, what?

On a less baffling note, I nominate Shadow Hearts: From The New World.

The original Shadow Hearts was a flawed game. The graphics sucked and the combat was nothing special. However, the story, the characters, the setting, the atmosphere, the horror, the humor, the soundtrack - the game might not have had the biggest budget, but it definitely had the biggest heart.

Then Shadow Hearts: Covenant came along, fixing all the problems of the original while simultaneously improving on everything that made the original so appealing. The only complaint I have, is that they downplayed the horror aspect that was so prominent in Shadow Hearts (and Koudelka) a bit too much.

And then Shadow Hearts: From The New World happened. What could have been one of the best trilogies ever, ended with a sad little whisper instead of a glorious bang. The characters had no charm, the fusions were reduced from 23 to 5, the gameplay hadn't evolved and the Stellar Chart system was a step back from the Key of Solomon. The soundtrack still had its moments, but it wasn't as memorable as the previous titles. Also, they finally get to America and they completely forget to give a cameo to Koudelka? A proof the series had completely forgotten its roots at this point.

Such a waste...