00:00You wouldn't know it from the overwhelming popularity of some genres and franchises,
00:04but gaming is always striving to innovate. It's that drive that makes us look forward
00:08to a new generation of potential. Unfortunately, that same ambition is all too often unruly and
00:15too much for one project. I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 8 video games that wasted
00:20one awesome idea. 8. Gears of War in Space
00:25Inversion Shooters in particular are constantly trying
00:28to break out of the mold, from various approaches to cover to health and weapon management to the
00:34freedom of increasingly fictitious sci-fi settings. Putting bullets into things has been dyed at least
00:39half the colors of the visible spectrum. When 2012 rolled around, Namco Bandai's Inversion
00:44strolled up promising that it had the next big color, gravity manipulation. Uptly titled Inversion
00:51Flies in the Face of Isaac Newton Every Chance It Gets. In an almost dead space-like manner,
00:57you bounce around zero-gravity zones like a moth in a jar, the game letting you turn ceilings into
01:02paths and buildings into stairs. This could easily have injected some much-needed zeal into its cover-based
01:08shooting. Ironically, however, Inversion just couldn't get off the ground. It treats its much-touted
01:14gravity mechanic like a throwaway gimmick. Promises of perspective-swapping battles were not met,
01:19and gravitational warfare is, in most cases, replaced by an obsession with cover so strong,
01:26you'd need a crowbar to pry hero Davis Russell off those chest-high walls. Gravity Rush meets
01:31Gears of War this was not, but that would have been awesome.
01:357. An Incredible Setting
01:37Resonance of Fate
01:38Presumably due to having exhausted much of their creativity on the fantastic Valkyra Chronicles
01:44two years prior, Sega rolled out a typical JRPG for Resonance of Fate. After just dodging
01:50Use the Power of Friendship to Save the World, the plot landed on a post-apocalyptic future with a
01:56killer steampunk aesthetic and tone. Indeed, the game's central locale, bestseller, towering achievement
02:02of human engineering and the last vestige of life on Earth is an interesting one. The reasons for it are
02:08vague, but mankind retreating into what is effectively a giant air purifier to escape a
02:13cancerous poison which has overtaken the planet is at least a far cry above your run-of-the-mill
02:19nuclear apocalypse. At least it could have been were it not for, in practice, an absurdly convoluted and
02:26messy story that has more characters and hanging plot points than it does bullets. Things only get
02:31worse when you add in a boring main cast which somehow manages to hit every extreme of forced acting
02:37while remaining flat as hell throughout. It's almost an achievement.
02:42Number 6. Jetpack cover shooting. Dark Void.
02:45Right after grappling hooks, jetpacks make everything better. It worked in Star Wars Bounty Hunter,
02:51Dead Space 2, Elix, Ratchet & Clank, hell, an airborne Kratos might be better with one. If nothing else,
02:57Dark Void had the right idea when it began development. Jetpack plus guns equals fun. Obviously.
03:03Somewhere in Dark Void is the exact sort of diverse gameplay that shooters are crying out for. The
03:09ability to switch effortlessly between ground and air combat is, at its best, truly exhilarating and
03:15rife with creative approaches to otherwise linear confrontations. Unfortunately, it's a nigh-unplayable
03:22train wreck at its worst. The game's physics engine takes an even more questionable approach to gravity
03:28than inversion, alternating randomly between the surface of the sun and the far side of Pluto.
03:34The problem isn't helped by flight controls, which can make gliding about feel like trying to
03:39staple water to a tree. At the very least, it can be fun to watch the game's wonky ragdoll physics
03:44take your airborne corpse for the ride of its not-life.
03:48Number 5. Dissecting one of the greatest artists of all time. Eternal Sonata.
03:53If Resonance of Fate was a dash of cayenne pepper in the otherwise bland collective plots of Japanese
03:59role-playing games, Eternal Sonata was a bowl full of the stuff. It casts you as a fantastical
04:04incarnation of Polish piano prodigy Frederick Chopin on a colourful romp through his own super-ego as he
04:11lies on his deathbed. It's an unorthodox and introspective depiction of the tuberculosis-stricken
04:17artist that is commendably true to its history. This is a game that makes use of authentic paintings
04:22and photographs as often as it does conventional cutscenes. A delightful score featuring some of
04:27Chopin's finest pieces played in rare form accompanies its action-heavy gameplay, which
04:33itself is punctuated by history lessons chronicling the pianist's short life.
04:38As you may suspect, though, what begins as an intriguingly metaphorical adventure predicated
04:43upon such undertones as maturity, self-sacrifice, and Chopin's own romantic struggles quickly devolves
04:50into the crock of ass-polls you would rightfully expect from a JRPG. There is no definition of
04:56avant-garde capable of justifying its absurd ending, which is completely detached from every
05:02decision leading up to it, and sends a therefore-too-brilliant story frame into a stiff nosedive.
05:09Number 4. A city at your fingertips. Watch Dogs. If you had a dollar for every story-related
05:15criticism levied against Ubisoft's next-gen poster child, you may very well be able to match the
05:20game's staggering marketing budget. Of course, last it was seen, Aiden Pearce's morally questionable,
05:26but unquestionably generic tale wasn't any less unworthy of the technological creativity the game is
05:32built on. So here we find ourselves. Who doesn't want a city at their fingertips? Watch Dogs' mantra
05:38is, in many ways, the epitome of sandbox design. Putting so many ways to manipulate the environment
05:45literally in the player's pocket was a stroke of genius on Ubisoft's part. It boils the fun of open
05:50worlds down to easily digestible bites, drops you in a playground, and lets you run free.
05:56Things rapidly grow less fun, however, when you realize the jungle gym only has two tiers,
06:02one of the swings is broken, and some annoying gravelly voice is narrating your every move.
06:07For all its potential and hype, Watch Dogs is crippled by its uninspired, if faithfully recreated
06:12city and equally tired plot. Fortunately, that potential got a second shot in Watch Dogs 2
06:19and Watch Dogs Legion, which a lot of people would say did indeed make good on the checks the original
06:24couldn't quite cash. Number 3. Cyberpunk Memory Analysis. Remember Me. As was predicted by every game
06:32with a shred of humor or cynicism to their name, Remember Me met the grim fate of being forgotten.
06:38Curiously, though, the game had plenty going for it. A Cyberpunk rendition of Paris is a new box on
06:44the list of environments, and Capcom's fighting expertise evidently trickled down into the game's
06:49developer, Dontnod Entertainment, enough for them to churn out a proper combo-building system.
06:54Then there's the game's Namesake, a clever game of memory analysis which allows players to
06:59effectively rewrite personalities. Much of Remember Me is, in fact, memorable, especially its story.
07:05However, both this and combat are at their best as fond memories. In practice, the two are too busy
07:12fighting over screen time to do their jobs correctly. Both custom attacks and custom memories could have
07:17carried Remember Me to greatness, but keeping up with them both proved to be too much for its raw
07:22promise to carry. Number 2. A Mature Walking Dead FPS. The Walking Dead Survival Instinct.
07:29Telltale Games proved The Walking Dead can deliver a fantastic gamey experience by sticking to its guns
07:35and taking the narrative route. The Walking Dead Survival Instinct, however, proved that even a wealth
07:40of backstory and promises to explore one of its more prominent characters cannot sell a smoldering pile
07:46so hideous that even the series' iconic walkers appear more personable by comparison.
07:51Despite being canonically interwoven with AMC's hit series and its source material, Survival Instinct doesn't
07:58know what it is. It wanted to be a shooter, it wanted to be a mature story with karmic decisions, it wanted
08:04to be a stealth game, and it's none of these things. It's just a repugnant reminder of the soullessness of
08:10most licensed games. Far from the grandeur of its brand, it's better described as the little engine
08:15that didn't even freaking try. Number 1. The Big Daddy Backstory. Bioshock 2. How do you follow
08:22irrational games as Bioshock, an undersea thriller still considered one of gaming's most beloved
08:28shooters? This was the imposing question publisher 2K had to answer in the roaring wake of the original
08:34game's success. To the then-perked ears of many, they came up with the answer. Let's learn about the
08:39Big Daddies. Rapture itself has detail and care dripping out of every busted pipe, but its lumbering
08:46giants aren't quite as characterized. Naturally, the prospect of delving into their backstory and
08:51even playing as a daddy ourselves raised some eyebrows when first revealed. Then the gameplay
08:57happened. Bioshock 2's overly action-reliant gameplay openly drops the survival and horror infusion,
09:04which is what helped establish the legacy of the first title. Then the story happened.
09:07Without lead creative Ken Levine on board for this sequel, we got a story that claimed to take
09:13place several years after the events of the original, but still cast you as the first Big
09:17Daddy. Something that systematically replaced Rapture's haunting atmosphere with shallow villains,
09:23only just clinging to the moral quandaries of its predecessor. Bioshock 2 not only fails to better
09:29the big daddies, it doesn't hold a candle to Bioshock 1 when it comes to gameplay.
09:34That's the end of our list, but do let me know down in that comment section if you can think of
09:38any other video games that wasted one awesome idea. As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture,
09:44thank you so much for hanging out with me. If you like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter
09:48account where I'm at JessMcDonald, but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more gaming goodness.
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