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  • 2 months ago
Put some respect on New Vegas' name.
Transcript
00:00Now it's a sad fact of the video game industry today that games tend to come out in a, well to
00:04use the most generous term possible, utterly broken, insultingly unplayable state that makes
00:09you want to tear your own brain out with a plastic spork. Don't ask me what the least generous term
00:14is, some things are best left unsaid. But you know what, sometimes these games do get the love they
00:19deserve from a dev team that wants to deliver a quality product, and after patches and so many
00:25updates, they end up being something so utterly amazing that they are undeniable. And that is
00:31what we're here to talk about today, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 broken
00:36games that are God-tier now. 10. Street Fighter V
00:40Now it's hard to imagine a bigger bag fumble than Street Fighter V when it first released,
00:46mainly due to it being a follow-up to Street Fighter IV, which many fans consider to be the
00:50saviour of an entire fighting game genre. So anything less than saviour of the entire genre
00:56was bound to be a bit of a disappointment. But even with that olive branch being extended,
01:00that doesn't change the fact that Street Fighter V was just flat out not finished upon its release.
01:05On the single-player front, Street Fighter V shipped with no campaign, no arcade mode,
01:10and a survival mode that one would call bare-bones if they felt inclined to be insulting to bones.
01:15And then there was the multiplayer, which was the most egregious insult to fans. The standard
01:20number of players hosting for multiplayer lobbies in a fighting game is around 8, but Street Fighter
01:24V could only host 2, and that's if the lobbies worked at all. This was a bit beyond what a simple
01:30day-one patch could fix, and sure enough, Street Fighter V took 3 entire years before it entered a
01:36state that fans consider to be decent. Nowadays, Street Fighter V has an entire fanbase who,
01:41shock of shocks, are absolutely willing to pay money for it now that it's in an actual finished state.
01:469. Halo Master Chief Collection
01:49Halo has been around as long as the Xbox, so it was inevitable that Microsoft and 343 Studios would
01:55try to make sure that the current-gen players could access all of the previous games without having
02:00to spend hundreds of dollars on multiple previous-gen systems. Unfortunately, Halo,
02:05the Master Chief Collection, really could have used a little more time in the oven. Upon release,
02:09the game was panned across the board by both fans and critics for being virtually unplayable.
02:14The game came out of the gate riddled with technical issues, both on the single-player
02:18and multiplayer front. Trying to improve the frame rate for the original trilogy from 30 to 60 FPS
02:23ironically made the frame rate worse, if you were playing co-op but weren't the host, because you'd
02:27get a full second of input lag, and that's on top of all of the usual stuff like constant crashes.
02:33But the multiplayer, the thing that Halo fans buy a Halo game for, was the part that got hit the
02:38hardest. Matchmaking was an absolute nightmare, with teams being obscenely uneven,
02:43and that was assuming matchmaking even connected you to a game at all. It wasn't until the PC port
02:48that things began to improve, and after that, and a heavy bunch of patching, the Master Chief
02:52Collection has finally seen the success that it should have had from the very beginning.
02:568. Fallout New Vegas
02:59Obsidian's reputation is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they're known for being
03:03one of the best Western RPG developers in gaming history, making RPGs that stand the test of time,
03:09but on the other hand, their games can often come out a little undercooked. And one of the
03:13funniest offenders of this, ironically, is their magnum opus, Fallout New Vegas.
03:18Now, Fallout New Vegas was definitely not unplayable upon its release, but it was
03:21damn close to it in some ways. Even looking past the occasional glitches like the infamous rotating
03:27head, the launch version of New Vegas also suffered from obscenely long load times, low FPS,
03:32and constant crashing. The CTD problem still being an issue for many players to this very day.
03:37Fortunately, after a ton of patching, the biggest holes in Obsidian's proudest ship
03:41were plugged, and New Vegas has since gone on to be widely accepted as the best Fallout game
03:46in the entire franchise. While it may have had an incredibly rough first year, barely anybody
03:50remembers that anymore, allowing New Vegas to thrive as it deserves.
03:547. Sea of Thieves
03:56When you're making a purely online game, the first thing, the primary thing, one could actually say,
04:02that you have to get right is making sure the connection remains stable across the board,
04:06especially for an online game like Sea of Thieves, which requires you and your friends
04:10to be working in tandem to keep your ship running. Unfortunately, this was the biggest issue that
04:15many players had with Rareware's pirate title upon release, but even beyond that, the game was just
04:19flat out empty for the first few months of life. The primary goal of becoming a pirate legend required
04:24months of boring grinding through repetitive battles, meaning that Sea of Thieves was just not
04:28interesting enough to commit to it for the first stretch of its life. Fortunately, the game has more
04:32than turned things around in that time since. Now, not only are the connection issues basically
04:37fixed across the board, but the updates have stuffed this game to bursting with things to do
04:41with your pals as you traverse across the seven seas. It also helps that the core gameplay loop of Sea
04:46of Thieves was always solid and fun, unlike the more recent Skull of Bones, which is missing many
04:51features that Sea of Thieves had at launch. With better online connection and loads more stuff to do,
04:56Sea of Thieves is one of the most fun online games out there right now.
04:596. Battlefield 2042
05:02Okay, so 2021 was not a good year for Battlefield, and this game is unfortunately why. Upon release,
05:082042 almost immediately took the crown as the worst Battlefield game in the entire franchise,
05:13and for a series that stretches back to 2002, that is an accomplishment.
05:17Now, Battlefield 2042 drew eye almost immediately for that most unforgivable of sins of SPF games,
05:23and that is Awful Online. Not only were the maps way too big and the combat not as interesting as it
05:28could have been, but those two critiques require you to even be able to get into a match at all,
05:32which most players couldn't. It was also missing multiple industry-standard features at launch,
05:36such as a f***ing scoreboard. And then, there were the glitches. Oh god, the glitches. Many of which
05:42screwed up the player XP progression. And if you wanted to give the single-player campaign a try
05:46instead, well, too bad, because there wasn't one. In the two years since, though, Battlefield 2042 has more
05:52than turned it around. Not only is its online play stable, it's a marked improvement over previous
05:56entries in quite a lot of ways. A single-player campaign has actually been added, and online
06:01matches are made infinitely more fun, with a variety of quality-of-life improvements. Battlefield 2042
06:06has gone from one of the worst entries in the entire series to one of its best by a considerable
06:11distance. 5. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
06:15Pokemon games, though as financially successful as they've ever been, have definitely seen a decline
06:20in quality over the last decade, mainly due to Game Freak's stubborn refusal to use that money to
06:24expand their development staff. And then, Scarlet and Violet came along. While not materially worse
06:30than Sword and Shield, it wasn't a marked improvement either, and on a technical front, it was even worse.
06:35Upon release, the game was plagued by graphical and performance issues from top to bottom. Some of
06:40them were just annoying, like the inconsistent draw distance, while others were actual game-breaking
06:44bugs. Fortunately, in the two years since its release, Game Freak has implemented multiple patches
06:49to fix the worst of the issues. As for the lack of content, the game has seen multiple expansions
06:53with new areas, battles, storylines, and, of course, Pokemon. Plus, Scarlet and Violet have
06:58just released their last DLC expansion earlier this year, bookending a rocky beginning with a
07:02rock-solid finale. 4. Star Wars Battlefront 2
07:06One of the most reviled game releases of all time, Star Wars Battlefront 2 was ironically mostly solid
07:12from a gameplay standpoint. It was basically all down to the microtransactions where this game fell over,
07:17sh**ed itself, and then died in a puddle. Every online game has some form of microtransactions,
07:23that's for sure, but Battlefront 2 went over the line by locking incredibly powerful characters and
07:28weapons behind its loot boxes. This one tiny detail more or less broke the entire game over its knee,
07:33as it allowed players to essentially buy their way to victory. This not only turned the entire fanbase
07:38on the game, but even got EA in trouble with the lore on accusations of gambling. As you can imagine,
07:43backtracking was inevitable. The loot box system was completely reworked, and hero characters were
07:48unlocked for everyone. The tide turned in Battlefront 2's favour practically overnight, because shock
07:53of shocks removed the thing that's keeping this game from being fun, and it becomes fun. Who could
07:58have guessed? 3. No Man's Sky
08:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know this story by now. It was bad to begin with, he promised too much,
08:05and then it did a load of updates. Look at it, it's the best game you've ever played. Trust me,
08:09like, the VR mode alone is worth downloading this game. I've got a script in front of me, right,
08:13that just goes through all of the tumultuous ups and downs of this game, but you know the story by
08:17now. Just look at what it was, this is the footage of what it was, and this is the footage of what it is
08:21now. Ooh, yeah.
08:23Number 2, Cyberpunk 2077. Oh god, I could just do the exact same thing, but I've just done for
08:30No Man's Sky for this, and you know what? I will. CD Projekt Red delivered an absolute stinker early
08:35on, right? But look at it right now. Look at the amount of effort that's been put into updating it,
08:41to expanding this already vibrant world, but making it so... ugh, just, you want to live in this place.
08:47I mean, it's pretty scummy, and you'd probably die just walking down the street, or going to get
08:51groceries, but still, I want to be in this world, because it looks so beautifully crafted.
08:58Plus, the latest DLC, Phantom Liberty, is just, oh, chef's kiss, my friend.
09:03And number 1, Final Fantasy XIV. So all of the previous entries pale in comparison to the utter
09:09disaster that was Final Fantasy XIV when it first launched. A bomb so complete and overwhelming that
09:14the president of Square Enix admitted to it having done great damage to the brand. The worst major MMORPG
09:20on the market by some considerable distance, Final Fantasy XIV definitely needed some work.
09:25So how did we get to today, where not only is Final Fantasy XIV still going, but running rings
09:30around whatever MMOs are still standing over a decade later? Well, simply put, they burned the
09:35whole godforsaken thing to the ground and started again. Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 just had too many fires
09:41to put out, so the best plan was to just start from scratch. And so, 1.0 died in a glorious cutscene
09:47fire, and what came after was 2.0, better known as A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn relaunched the
09:52entire thing with a brand new UI, a brand new storyline, and completely overhauled combat.
09:57From there, Final Fantasy XIV is only built on itself, until it has just become the epic,
10:01fast-paced action MMORPG that it is today. Final Fantasy XIV Online is now the most profitable game
10:08in the franchise, and if we're being honest, probably the only thing that's really keeping
10:11the lights on over at Square Enix these days. I'm sorry, but yeah, they've delivered some stinkers.
10:16And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 broken games that are god-tier now. I hope that you
10:20enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comment section below.
10:23As always, I've been Jules. You can go follow me over on Instagram at retrojbidoisazero,
10:28or you can swing by FGS on the Future Games Show, where I'm doing all my daily gaming content going
10:32forward. Hope to see you over there. Take care of yourself, you big ledge. Remember, you deserve all the
10:36best things in life, like love, happiness, and success, and do not let anything or anyone else
10:40tell you otherwise. Now go out there and smash it. As always, I've been Jules. You have been awesome.
10:45Never forget that. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.

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