- 4 hours ago
Second chances really are hard to come by, especially in the games industry.
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00:00In the modern gaming industry, it can feel like every other game is a sequel.
00:04The umpteenth entry in a franchise that's been trudging on for years,
00:07refusing to die, sucking up all the oxygen the little guys need just to get on their feet.
00:12The Final Fantasy series alone has over 90 games to its name,
00:16including spin-offs and mobile installments, and that's not even the biggest one.
00:20Gaming needs some more variety, but we don't have to rely on fresh faces and new ideas
00:24when there are plenty of pretty damn good franchises that fell flat on their faces on their first outing.
00:30Releases that may have reviewed well, but that failed to live up to their publishers' lofty sales standards,
00:35or just sold terribly overall.
00:37Even games that simply set up solid ground for that sequel to be the breakout hit that the original outing should have been.
00:42These games show that just because you missed your overly optimistic sales expectations
00:46doesn't mean you're any less of a blast to play, or any less deserving of that big-budget sequel.
00:52I'm Cy for WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 underappreciated video games that deserve a sequel.
00:57Number 10. Enslaved. Odyssey to the West.
01:00You can have everything you think a game would need, star power, gorgeous visuals,
01:05fun gameplay, an interesting story and engaging characters, and success is still not guaranteed.
01:10On the other side of every sale, there's a decision,
01:12and if people don't feel like your title is the best use of their money at that specific time,
01:16then you're out of luck, no matter how wonderful it is.
01:19Take Enslaved, for example.
01:21Slapped together by the talented team of Ninja Theory, it had everything going for it.
01:25With its sharp dialogue and character interaction slap-bang in the middle of when those were at their peak popularity,
01:30thanks to the Uncharted series, it should have been a hit.
01:33The whole world should have been primed to enjoy the adventures of Monkey and Tripitaka,
01:37but on the horizon there stirred a beast, a shambling behemoth.
01:40Its name was Call of Duty Black Ops, and it released less than a month after Enslaved,
01:45meaning it sucked up a lot of the advertising space in the preceding weeks,
01:48as well as saved up pocket money.
01:50To make matters worse, in the very same month as Enslaved we had Fallout New Vegas and Fable 3,
01:55so Enslaved wasn't so much released as kicked out of the door into a firing squad.
02:00And because of this there's almost no chance we'll get a pole-swinging,
02:03Nimbus-riding, piggyback-giving sequel out of our two protagonists.
02:07Ah well, at least we'll always have Pigsy's perfect ten.
02:09Number nine, Singularity.
02:12Starting with a doomed helicopter ride into an abandoned Soviet science facility
02:15with a beefy soldier voiced by Nolan North, you'd be forgiven for mistaking it
02:19for almost any other shooter from an Activision studio.
02:22But if you manage to push past all this, you've shortly have found out
02:26that while Singularity looks like a by-the-numbers grunty muscle-bound patriotic shoot-a-thon,
02:31it's actually a time-travelling grunty muscle-bound patriotic shoot-a-thon.
02:35During development, deadlines caused a big chunk of story content to be removed
02:38due to the technical constraints of having to render the world twice in two different states
02:42while swiftly moving from one to the other, a la the medium.
02:46Many time-travelling set pieces and entire chunks of finished product were excised
02:50just to get it out on time, as opposed to spending the required man-hours to work out the kinks,
02:55leaving Singularity feeling gutted and a little bit rough around the edges
02:58like it never really got to explore its own premise properly.
03:02But with the standardisation of super-fast SSDs and Microsoft's direct storage,
03:07a Singularity sequel could have no problem blasting between 50s Russia
03:10and 2010's Russia as smooth as Sleevich Nirmasla.
03:14That's Russian for butter, don't you know?
03:16Making for a more complete experience, a more enjoyable game,
03:20and who knows, maybe even greater franchise potential down the line.
03:23Number eight, Mad World.
03:25If there's one thing you couldn't call Mad World, it's unoriginal.
03:28Just look at it.
03:29In a dystopian future hell world where people use death and violence as entertainment,
03:33you must take part in the game show Death Watch
03:35and win yourself a fortune through creative butchery.
03:38On top of that, you're not just some schlub,
03:40you're a chainsaw-wielding slab of meat with a hairy chest and a violent disposition.
03:44Mad World then has you tearing through area after area and boss after boss
03:48as two seasoned professional killers commentate your every slash and stab.
03:52Points are awarded for kills with extra multipliers for multi-kills
03:55and how unique your kill is.
03:57It's all very well upper-cutting someone into the air
03:59and slicing them in half from balls to brain,
04:01but wouldn't you rather put a bin over their head
04:03and impale them with a road sign first?
04:05Needless to say, reviewers loved Mad World with its campy humour,
04:09black-and-white comic book art style and extreme violence.
04:12However, being a Wii game,
04:13that last part was probably more to its detriment than its advantage.
04:17The Wii was already considered to be more of a kid slash family console
04:20and so many quote-unquote hardcore gamers
04:22that would be interested in this kind of gore-thon
04:24just didn't own the hardware.
04:26It's not really the type of thing you'd buy your gran for Christmas,
04:30unless you're looking at picking up your inheritance early.
04:32Number seven, Vanquish.
04:33In the distant future, the newly installed Russian government
04:36uses a giant microwave to destroy San Francisco.
04:40Instead of sending a thank-you card,
04:41the USA sends our protagonist Sam,
04:43fitted with an experimental battlesuit,
04:45to infiltrate said giant microwave
04:47to take the fight to those damn communists.
04:50Vanquish is a video game about speed and guns
04:52and shooting those guns at high speed,
04:55preferably while on your knees
04:56and smoking a cigarette while heavy metal blares all around you.
04:59Sam vaults over cover to lay down fire,
05:01gently feeds enemy rockets back into the orifices they were fired from,
05:04and dropkicks crowds of bad guys to death in slow motion.
05:08It's the kind of intentionally over-the-top ridiculousness
05:10we just don't see enough of anymore.
05:13It's got no illusions about being anything more than a fun,
05:15carefully crafted experience about shooting people real good,
05:19and it nails every aspect of the formula.
05:21Critics said it was a blast, but a little bit short,
05:23and sadly a lot of people take a sort of pounds-per-hour approach
05:26to buying games as opposed to just enjoying fun.
05:30You could easily see it as an open-world title,
05:32taking full advantage of the battlesuit for fast traversal,
05:35or even just a larger-scale linear experience
05:37where Sam can spearhead a counter-invasion against the Russians,
05:40complete with hilarious Russian side characters
05:42looking to restore the pre-coup government.
05:44Number six, Never Dead.
05:46With the Souls series at its highest point of popularity,
05:49allow me to introduce you to its total opposite,
05:52Never Dead,
05:52the game where it takes real concerted effort to die.
05:56While our protagonist Bryce may be immortal,
05:58he's not invincible,
05:59and seemingly as part of this immortality curse,
06:02his limbs appear to be attached with sticky tape,
06:04as they'll fly off the moment an enemy brushes lightly up against you.
06:07Lose a leg and Bryce will start hopping around moving slightly slower,
06:10lose both legs and all you can do is crawl,
06:12lose an arm and you're down to only using one of your dual guns at a time,
06:16and so on and so forth.
06:17Getting Bryce's limbs to reattach is as easy as dodge rolling over them,
06:21making them magnetically zip up and back onto your torso.
06:24It may sound like a liability to be so loosely attached to your own limbs
06:27that they constantly drop off,
06:29but Bryce can use this ability to traverse tight areas
06:31by tearing his head off and masterfully rolling it around through vents and the like,
06:35and his immortality allows him to use himself as a human torch
06:38by lighting himself on fire.
06:40It's this unique approach to the gameplay
06:42and tying every element of that gameplay into Bryce's condition of immortality
06:46that makes Never Dead so unique,
06:48and a sequel that expands even further on his abilities and his past
06:51would, at the very least, be interesting.
06:53Number five, Alpha Protocol.
06:55It feels like every other game bills itself as open-ended,
06:58granting the player the ability to play and take the story in many different directions.
07:02More often than not, this is a gross exaggeration.
07:05Alpha Protocol tried to buck this trend
07:07by focusing mostly on the places you can take the story within dialogue trees
07:11by offering as much variety as possible,
07:14while keeping the gameplay itself fairly fenced in.
07:16Dropped into the shoes of Michael Thornton,
07:18the game starts off looking pretty simplistic,
07:20with the only choice of two preset classes
07:22or a complete blank slate to edit to your heart's desire.
07:25But later on, you'll find that the meat of the experience
07:27and the vast majority of the enjoyment people take from Alpha Protocol
07:31is through the wealth of choices you have in story progression.
07:34Depending on the order you take missions
07:36and how you interact with characters,
07:37and at what times,
07:39you can end up with drastically different playthroughs.
07:41And just seeing how Thornton interacts with his cohorts and enemies
07:44as you do very professional things like hang up on your boss
07:47or pretend to have communications problems
07:49so you can execute surrounding bad guys.
07:52The promise of Alpha Protocol is tied into the variability of its story
07:55and a sequel that could deliver a future for every possible endpoint
07:59would genuinely be a step up in what we expect from narrative-driven video games.
08:04Number four, Dark Void.
08:05Sometimes your game just needs a little bit longer to cook.
08:08Get those edges sanded down
08:10and at the very least, finish inserting all the content.
08:13Dark Void is yet another title that got pushed out of the door
08:15before it was ready and into an unforgiving launch window.
08:18An ambitious mixture of arcade-style flight simulator
08:21and third-person cover shooter,
08:23Dark Void absolutely sings once you push past the first hour or so.
08:27In the game, you'll take on, and prepare yourself for this,
08:29Nazi-supporting robot lizards
08:32alongside a ragtag group of human resistance fighters
08:34made up of people who have become stranded
08:36in the Bermuda Triangle over the years.
08:38This includes Nikola Tesla, who introduces you to his latest invention,
08:42only a bloody jetpack.
08:43It's from there that it really picks up speed
08:45and starts living up to its potential.
08:47The inclusion of the jetpack into large open spaces
08:50filled with smaller objectives lets you mix it up,
08:52swapping between aerial combat and ground combat at will.
08:55Dark Void's main issue is that it ends
08:57just as it's starting to reach its peak,
08:59as in it literally cuts from what feels like the midpoint of the story
09:02to the final boss.
09:03The real tragedy is the possibilities of the continued story.
09:06It ends with a return to the real world, jetpack in tow,
09:09just in time to get busy introducing the Allies to jetpack technology
09:13and setting up an alternate World War II rocketeer-style game
09:16that we'll sadly never get to play.
09:18Number 3, Heavenly Sword.
09:20Heavenly Sword was an early PS3 exclusive
09:22that saw players guiding around a red-headed warrior called Noriko
09:26and smacking people with the titular Heavenly Sword.
09:28Taking inspiration mostly from God of War,
09:31Heavenly Sword bases its combat around changing stances
09:33between fast, range and strong depending on which kind of enemies you're fighting
09:37and on quick time events as they were very much in vogue back then.
09:40It's competently put together and tons of fun to play
09:43and sometimes you even get a nice motion control crossbow level
09:46where you can try your best to fit as many crossbow bolts as possible
09:49into one guy's balls before he hits the ground.
09:51Where Heavenly Sword really sets itself apart
09:54is in the quality of the writing and acting
09:56with every single character being distinct and well written.
09:59They all have their own consistent personalities, motivations and arcs
10:03and motion capture is used to make the cutscenes as believable as possible
10:07with the particular standout being Andy Serkis
10:09in his role as King Bohan, the ultimate bad guy
10:11and the means by which we meet most of the colourful
10:14and sometimes terrifying characters Heavenly Sword has to offer.
10:18The characterisation was so strong that it got both an animated series and a film
10:21as well as a sequel that was tragically cancelled
10:24due to the game's poor sales and as part of moving Ninja Theory on
10:28to developing enslaved Odyssey to the West, see previous.
10:32Number 2, Binary Domain.
10:34It's all very well to talk about crowded release schedules,
10:37rushed development, unfinished products and unreached potential
10:40but sometimes the problem is the public.
10:42Sometimes, gamers, you make me so mad.
10:45Binary Domain has it all.
10:46Slick third person shooting, tight controls, a unique art style,
10:50technical innovation, likeable characters,
10:52a future setting where human-like robots have infiltrated society
10:55even beknownst to themselves.
10:57It even has a French robot that does spin kicks and calls you Monsieur.
11:01And to make this game even cooler,
11:03you can give your squad commands, commendations
11:05and just generally interact with them via your microphone.
11:07Characters will react to what you say
11:09and can gain or lose trust in you depending on how you act.
11:13Lose enough trust with the character
11:14and they'll start refusing to do what you say
11:15like an over-leveled Pokemon.
11:17So if Binary Domain is so bloody good in every way,
11:20why didn't it sell well?
11:21Why aren't we on to Binary Domain 4, the robotoning?
11:25Well, dear viewer, I blame you.
11:27You chose not to buy Binary Domain.
11:29You refused to heed all those glowing reviews
11:31and pretty marketing spots Sega bought
11:33to evangelize this masterpiece.
11:34Games fail for all sorts of reasons.
11:36Just be glad that the game's producer, Daike Sato,
11:39expressed interest in bringing it back
11:41after Yakuza's renewed success in the West.
11:43If that ever happens, you'll know what to do.
11:46Number one, Sunset Overdrive.
11:48It's been a common complaint of late
11:49that the Xbox has no exclusives.
11:52Past Halo and you'd struggle to find a title
11:53beyond Gears of War
11:54that you can only play on the Microsoft machine.
11:57It wasn't always this way.
11:58There was once a time when third-party studios
12:00were very interested in bringing games to the big X,
12:03Sunset Overdrive being a standout
12:05from the previous generation.
12:06A member of the barely populated comedy video game genre,
12:09Sunset Overdrive is a colourful, bombastic, violent
12:12and almost obnoxiously tongue-in-cheek experience.
12:15The kind of parody that does exactly what it's parodying
12:17while winking at the camera.
12:19But underneath all these self-abasement and dick jokes,
12:21there was genuinely a fun experience
12:23based completely around bouncing on the hoods of cars
12:25and skating along electrical wiring.
12:27Insomniac brought their A-game here
12:29along with their knack for inventive weaponry,
12:31giving us guns that fire vinyl records,
12:33teddy bears and fireworks, among other things.
12:36The world is vibrant and colourful
12:37and moving through it is so cathartic,
12:39you could spend entire play sessions
12:40just bouncing, skating and wall running around.
12:43As such, Sunset Overdrive sold really well
12:45and everyone really liked it.
12:47So why we've not seen a sequel yet is a mystery.
12:50Interestingly, the likelihood is that if we do,
12:52it'll be a PlayStation exclusive
12:54now that Sony have bought the studio that owns the IP.
12:57So let's look forward to a tense, dour-faced sequel
13:00where everyone communicates in either grunting or crying.
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