8 Video Games That Wasted One Awesome Idea

WhatCulture

Well at least they sound good on paper.

Transcript

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

03:38to staple water to a tree. At the very least, it can be fun to watch the game's wonky ragdoll

03:44physics take 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.

05:094. A City at Your Fingertips

05:11Watch Dogs

05:12If you had a dollar for every story-related criticism levied against Ubisoft's next-gen poster child,

05:18you may very well be able to match the game's staggering marketing budget.

05:22Of course, last it was seen, Aiden Pearce's morally questionable but unquestionably generic

05:28tale wasn't any less unworthy of the technological creativity the game is built on. So here we find

05:34ourselves. Who doesn't want a city at their fingertips? Watch Dogs' mantra is, in many ways,

05:40the epitome of sandbox design. Putting so many ways to manipulate the environment literally in the

05:46player's pocket was a stroke of genius on Ubisoft's part. It boils the fun of open worlds down to

05:51easily 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,

06:11if faithfully recreated city, and equally tired plot. Fortunately, that potential got a second

06:17shot in Watch Dogs 2 and Watch Dogs Legion, which a lot of people would say did indeed make good on

06:23the checks the original couldn't quite cash.

06:263. Cyberpunk Memory Analysis

06:29Remember Me

06:29As was predicted by every gamer with a shred of humor or cynicism to their name,

06:35Remember Me met the grim fate of being forgotten. Curiously though,

06:39the game had plenty going for it. A Cyberpunk rendition of Paris is a new box on the list of

06:44environments, and Capcom's fighting expertise evidently trickled down into the game's developer,

06:49Dontnod 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,

07:11the two are too busy fighting over screen time to do their jobs correctly. Both custom attacks and

07:16custom memories could have carried Remember Me to greatness, but keeping up with them both

07:20proved to be too much for its raw promise to carry.

07:242. A Mature Walking Dead FPS

07:26The Walking Dead Survival Instinct

07:28Telltale Games proved The Walking Dead can deliver a fantastic gamey experience by sticking

07:34to its guns and taking the narrative route. The Walking Dead's survival instinct, however,

07:39proved that even a wealth of backstory and promises to explore one of its more prominent characters

07:44cannot sell a smoldering pile so hideous that even the series' iconic walkers appear more

07:49personable by comparison. Despite being canonically interwoven with AMC's hit series and its source

07:55material, Survival Instinct doesn't know what it is. It wanted to be a shooter, it wanted to be a

08:01mature story with karmic decisions, it wanted to be a stealth game, and it's none of these things.

08:07It's just a repugnant reminder of the soullessness of most licensed games. Far from the grandeur of

08:12its brand, it's better described as the little engine that didn't even freaking try.

08:171. The Big Daddy Backstory

08:20Bioshock 2

08:21How do you follow Irrational Games' Bioshock, an undersea thriller still considered one of

08:26gaming's most beloved shooters? This was the imposing question publisher 2K had to answer in

08:32the roaring wake of the original game's success. To the then-perked ears of many, they came up

08:37with the answer. Let's learn about the Big Daddies. Rapture itself has detail and care dripping out of

08:43every busted pipe, but its lumbering giants aren't quite as characterized. Naturally,

08:49the prospect of delving into their backstory and even playing as a daddy ourselves raised some

08:54eyebrows when first revealed. Then the gameplay happened. Bioshock 2's overly action-reliant

09:00gameplay openly drops the survival and horror infusion, which is what helped establish the

09:05legacy of the first title. Then the story happened. Without lead creative Ken Levine on board for this

09:11sequel, we got a story that claimed to take place several years after the events of the original,

09:15but still cast you as the first Big Daddy. Something that systematically replaced Rapture's

09:21haunting atmosphere with shallow villains, only just clinging to the moral quandaries of its

09:26predecessor. Bioshock 2 not only fails to better the Big Daddies, it doesn't hold a candle to

09:31Bioshock 1 when it comes to gameplay. That's the end of our list, but do let me know down in that

09:36comment section if you can think of any other video games that wasted one awesome idea.

09:42As always, I've been Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me.

09:46If you like, you can come say hi to me on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonald,

09:50but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more gaming goodness.

Category

Transcript

Recommended