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.
01:12It 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 and the last vestige of life on Earth is an interesting one. The reasons for it
02:07are vague, 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
02:36acting while remaining flat as hell throughout. It's almost an achievement.
02:42Number 6. Jetpack Cover Shooting
02:44Dark 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.
03:02Obviously. Somewhere in Dark Void is the exact sort of diverse gameplay that shooters are crying out
03:08for. The ability to switch effortlessly between ground and air combat is, at its best, truly
03:14exhilarating and rife with creative approaches to otherwise linear confrontations. Unfortunately,
03:20it's a nigh-unplayable train wreck at its worst. The game's physics engine takes an even more
03:26questionable approach to gravity than inversion, alternating randomly between the surface of the
03:31sun and the far side of Pluto. The problem isn't helped by flight controls, which can make gliding
03:37about feel like trying to staple water to a tree. At the very least, it can be fun to watch
03:42the game's
03:43wonky ragdoll physics 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 and
04:23photographs as often as it does conventional cutscenes. A delightful score featuring some
04:27of 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
04:43upon such undertones as maturity, self-sacrifice, and Chopin's own romantic struggles,
04:49quickly devolves into the crock of ass-pulls you would rightfully expect from a JRPG.
04:54There is no definition of avant-garde capable of justifying its absurd ending, which is completely
05:01detached from every decision leading up to it, and sends a therefore-too-brilliant story frame
05:07into a stiff nosedive.
05:11If 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.
06:15Fortunately, that potential got a second shot in Watch Dogs 2 and Watch Dogs Legion,
06:20which a lot of people would say did indeed make good on the checks the original couldn't quite cash.
06:263. Cyberpunk Memory Analysis
06:28Remember Me As was predicted by every gamer with a shred of
06:33humor 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 effectively
06:59rewrite 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 promise
07:22to 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. The Walking Dead Survival Instinct, however,
07:39proved that even a wealth of backstory and promises to explore one of its more prominent characters
07:43cannot sell a smouldering pile so 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,
07:56Survival Instinct doesn't know what it is. It wanted to be a shooter, it wanted to be a mature story
08:02with
08:02karmic decisions, it wanted to be a stealth game, and it's none of these things. It's just a repugnant
08:08reminder of the soullessness of most licensed games. Far from the grandeur of its brand,
08:12it's better described as the little engine that didn't even freaking try.
08:181. The Big Daddy Backstory
08:19Bioshock 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,
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, but its lumbering giants
08:47aren't quite as characterized. Naturally, the prospect of delving into their backstory and even
08:51playing as a daddy ourselves raised some eyebrows when first revealed. Then the gameplay happened.
08:57Bioshock 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.
09:08Without 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 Daddy.
09:18Something that systematically replaced Rapture's haunting atmosphere with shallow villains,
09:23only just clinging to the moral quandaries of its predecessor.
09:27Bioshock 2 not only fails to better the Big Daddies,
09:30it 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
09:37if 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 JessMcDonnell,
09:50but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more gaming goodness.
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