8 Video Games That Wasted One Awesome Idea

Australian Cinephile

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,

00:50Inversion flies in the face of Isaac Newton every chance it gets. In an almost dead space-like

00:56manner, you bounce around zero-gravity zones like a moth in a jar, the game letting you turn ceilings

01:02into paths and buildings into stairs. This could easily have injected some much-needed zeal into

01:07its cover-based shooting. Ironically, however, Inversion just couldn't get off the ground.

01:13It treats its much-touted gravity mechanic like a throwaway gimmick. Promises of perspective-swapping

01:18battles were not met, and gravitational warfare is, in most cases, replaced by an obsession with

01:25cover so strong, you'd need a crowbar to pry hero Davis Russell off those chest-high walls.

01:30Gravity Rush meets Gears of War, this was not, but that would have been awesome.

01:357. An Incredible Setting

01:37Residents 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 in 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

02:57else, Dark 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 than

03:28inversion, alternating randomly between the surface of the sun and the far side of Pluto. The problem

03:34isn't helped by flight controls, which can make gliding about feel like trying to staple water to

03:39a tree. At the very least, it can be fun to watch the game's wonky ragdoll physics take your airborne

03:45corpse for the ride of its not-life. Number 5. Dissecting One of the Greatest Artists of All Time

03:52Eternal Sonata If Resonance of Fate was a dash of cayenne pepper in the otherwise bland collective

03:58plots of Japanese role-playing games, Eternal Sonata was a bowl full of the stuff. It casts you as a

04:04fantastical incarnation of Polish piano prodigy Frederick Chopin on a colorful romp through his

04:10own super-ego as he lies on his deathbed. It's an unorthodox and introspective depiction of the

04:15tuberculosis-stricken artist that is commendably true to its history. This is a game that makes use of

04:21authentic paintings and photographs as often as it does conventional cutscenes. A delightful score

04:27featuring some of Chopin's finest pieces played in rare form accompanies its action-heavy gameplay,

04:33which itself 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 upon

04:43such undertones as maturity, self-sacrifice, and Chopin's own romantic struggles quickly devolves into

04:50the crock of ass-polls you would rightfully expect from a JRPG. There is no definition of avant-garde

04:56capable of justifying its absurd ending, which is completely detached from every decision leading

05:03up to it, and sends a therefore-too-brilliant story frame into a stiff nosedive.

05:094. A City at Your Fingertips – Watch 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 tale

05:28wasn'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

05:45the player's pocket was a stroke of genius on Ubisoft's part. It boils the fun of open worlds

05:51down 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,

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

06:17in 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, the game had plenty going for it.

06:41A Cyberpunk rendition of Paris is a new box on the list of environments,

06:45and 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.

07:10In practice, the two are too busy fighting over screen time to do their jobs correctly.

07:15Both custom attacks and custom memories could have carried Remember Me to greatness,

07:19but keeping up with them both proved to be too much for its raw promise to carry.

07:232. A Mature Walking Dead FPS

07:26The Walking Dead Survival Instinct

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

07:34to its guns and taking the narrative route.

07:36The Walking Dead Survival Instinct, however, proved that even a wealth of backstory and

07:41promises to explore one of its more prominent characters cannot sell a smoldering pile so

07:46hideous 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,

07:56Survival Instinct doesn't know what it is.

07:59It wanted to be a shooter, it wanted to be a mature story with comic decisions,

08:03it 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.

08:11Far from the grandeur of its brand, it's better described as the little engine that didn't even

08:16freaking 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

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

08:37they came up with the answer. Let's learn about the Big Daddies.

08:40Rapture itself has detail and care dripping out of every busted pipe,

08:45but its lumbering giants aren't quite as characterized. Naturally, the prospect of delving

08:50into their backstory and even playing as a daddy ourselves raised some eyebrows when first

08:55revealed. Then the gameplay happened. Bioshock 2's overly action-reliant gameplay openly drops the

09:01survival and horror infusion, which is what helped establish the legacy of the first title.

09:06Then the story happened. With our lead creative Ken Levine on board for this sequel, we got a story

09:12that claimed to take place several years after the events of the original, but still casts you as

09:17the first Big Daddy, something that systematically replaced Rapture's haunting atmosphere with

09:22shallow villains, only just clinging to the moral quandaries of its predecessor.

09:27Bioshock 2 not only fails to better the Big Daddies, it doesn't hold a candle to Bioshock 1 when

09:32it comes to gameplay. That's the end of our list, but do let me know down in that comment section if

09:37you can think of any other video games that wasted one awesome idea. As always, I've been

09:43Jess from WhatCulture. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. If you like, you can come say hi to me

09:47on my Twitter account where I'm at JessMcDonald, but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more

09:53gaming goodness.

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