Shit games that could have been good

[Involuntary Celebrity]

Cyberpunk 2077. How can you fuck that up?

That's an interesting one because its problems are mostly extrinsic. The game itself is good and was never buggier than a lot of other AAA games at launch on PC (which says something about the absolute state of AAA bullshit, but it doesn't stand out at least) but it suffered mainly from retarded marketing that set people up for disappointment if they were expecting a cyberpunk GTA, instead of what it is which is a hybrid adventure game with cars.
That and the base console shit etc which it should never have launched on, but the blame for that partly stems from retarded console policies about not being able to ship/separate base and pro products. It was stupid to go ahead with that but again it was someone's dumb marketing decision.

I had high hopes for Scorn, but it cannot make up its mind on whether or not it wants to be a puzzle game like Myst, or a combat game like an FPS. The game has a lot of very interesting environments, but it feels like the development team spent all of its time on the atmosphere of the game, as it is very short and comes off as unfinished. Plus, from what the concept book implies, 95% of the concepts in it never made it into the game and you would never even know what the story was unless you looked at the concept book.

Scorn could have been great, but it seems rushed and unfinished despite how long it had been in development. The bioweapons were cool, but you only get most of them towards the end of the game and when you get the final weapon, you are forced into using it after one boss battle as you lose your other weapons.

Felt to me like they put all the dev time into rounding off the edges. Like not Valve levels of dumbing shit down, just sticking to some core principle of not explaining shit while trying to make sure even dummies could figure out what they were meant to do. You can see how that'd add a lot of overhead to anything they wanted to expand, so it didn't seem rushed at all (I spent the whole time noting all the little things they'd done to stop you getting confused/stuck anyway), but yeah it was surprising how condensed it is for how long it was in development.

Atmosphere is like 100% of the point of it though so I don't know why that'd ever be a complaint.

 

[Hepativore]

That's an interesting one because its problems are mostly extrinsic. The game itself is good and was never buggier than a lot of other AAA games at launch on PC (which says something about the absolute state of AAA bullshit, but it doesn't stand out at least) but it suffered mainly from retarded marketing that set people up for disappointment if they were expecting a cyberpunk GTA, instead of what it is which is a hybrid adventure game with cars.
That and the base console shit etc which it should never have launched on, but the blame for that partly stems from retarded console policies about not being able to ship/separate base and pro products. It was stupid to go ahead with that but again it was someone's dumb marketing decision.


Felt to me like they put all the dev time into rounding off the edges. Like not Valve levels of dumbing shit down, just sticking to some core principle of not explaining shit while trying to make sure even dummies could figure out what they were meant to do. You can see how that'd add a lot of overhead to anything they wanted to expand, so it didn't seem rushed at all (I spent the whole time noting all the little things they'd done to stop you getting confused/stuck anyway), but yeah it was surprising how condensed it is for how long it was in development.

Atmosphere is like 100% of the point of it though so I don't know why that'd ever be a complaint.

The atmosphere was great. The problem with Scorn is that it is like they spent all of this time building this interesting world, and did not do that much with it compared to what it could have been, and neglected the potential of the gameplay itself.

 

[BiggerChungus]

Mass Effect could've been good, and Dragon Age could've been a good spiritual successor to BG and NWN, but they got fucked over by awful design choices, EA's horrible mismanagement, and genuinely insane people getting leadership roles in development. There's wasted potential in both of them. Bannerlord's another game that could've been so good but turned out to be a rushed failure that can't compare to a game made 11 years earlier on a shoestring budget.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Croc: Have it control like a normal 3d platformer rather than the tank controls it has.

???
Croc does have camera-relative controls*. You just have to activate the analog sticks, which are disabled by default on PSX.

* OK, they're not good camera-relative controls, but the option is there.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Another game is Balan Wonderworld.

Let's start with the name: why not call it Balan Wonderland? It rolls of the tongue easier.

The game looks alright, Balan's design is pretty good, and it would've made a good platformer.

This video's kinda long, but it points out it's flaws:

 

[Shart Attack]

Borderlands 3 could've been good if they'd cut the dialogue by 75%. You can't go two steps without some unfunny asshole rambling at you over your communicator. The main antagonists never stop jabbering at you in a desperate attempt to get the Borderlands 2 Handsome Jack lightning to strike twice, but they're significantly less funny than flossing your urethra with barbed wire. The retarded story, mistreatment of legacy characters, and lackluster gun drops would've been bearable if you didn't have some shrill Current Year stereotype babbling at you nonstop.

 

[Atli]

Not necessarily bad games but the potential for the Mass Effect series was completely ruined. I'm still mad about it to this day. And I'm not just talking about the ending of the third game.

Spoiler: Way too much autism and spoilers for a 15 year old game

I'm mostly talking about the Reapers and the sort of cosmic horror/completely alien vibe the first game had for them which was completely removed come the third game. Originally they were portrayed as completely unknowable, supposedly uncreated god-like machines from beyond the Milky Way which were each so complex as to be compared to an entire nation of minds. The game generally shrouded them in mystery, which some would call "hand-waving" but I think it works with ancient alien cosmic evils. Who built them? Or, perhaps too fantastical for an autistic reddit-tier obsessed with science universe as ME, what built them? What are their motives? Can they even be comprehended? Really, I wish they never tried to fully explain these things. True horror lies in mystery. Instead we got perhaps the most retarded explanation for their existance and motives I have ever heard. "We gotta kill all organics to stop them from making synthetics which will kill all organics!!1!". And the answer to it that the stupid devs wanted was for organics and synthetics to learn to sit around a campfire and sing kumbaya. Unbelievable.

There's so many other things that the first game began to develop that either got dropped completely by the third game or were perverted in just as retarded a way as the Reapers. Despite how much I like ME2 and how fun it is, this degradation really gets started there. For example the Collectors make no sense and ruin what we understand about the Reapers in ME1. We're told they cleanse our galaxy of all sentient life and then leave the indoctrinated to rot, yet somehow when this is explained to us it fails to mention the massive army of bugs that they keep around to do their bidding. Did they do this in the previous cycle? Why would these god-like machines even need these things when they could just indoctrinate sentient beings like they did with Saren in the first game? Why didn't they help in the first game?
Also Cerberus is retarded. They make no sense. In the first game they're depicted as something like if the CIA went rogue: they were a part of the Alliance but are doing their own nefarious activities now, usually engaged in weird science experiments and glow-ops. Where the hell did they get an army like we see in ME2 and 3? Imagine if the CIA/some rogue Army group just opened recruiting stations and putting their agents in brightly covered uniforms and sent them to do odd jobs around the country. They would be arrested/killed by the army or police so quickly. How are they not being actively hunted by the Alliance given that they're essentially an enemy army within Alliance space? Oh, they're in the terminus systems you say? How is a quasi human supremacist group with as much secrecy as the United States Armed Forces able to operate there without getting murder raped by Krogan and Batarian mercenaries, all of whom actually have the means and motives to have army sized forces in the area? It's just stupid. I'm not saying they couldn't have used Cerberus like they did in the games, but they really should've been more like a shadow organization that few people have heard of.

Also, the fact you can't be a racist towards aliens other than in ME1 is disappointing, though admittedly they make Renegade Shepard really funny in the sequals. Basically space dirty harry mixed with zapp brannigan.

Also also, the dialogue for Mass Effect 3 sounds like fan fiction half of the time. That sounds like me just trying to insult it but I'm only half joking, the writing in that game (and the story in general, really) reads like something I found off of Archiveofourown or Deviantart. Not only could I have written a better plot, but I think basically anyone who has ever read a book other than Harry Potter or the Hunger Games could've done the same. SOMETIMES there are good interactions, though, especially between Shepard and the crew. Either there were multiple writers involved or a broken clock is right twice a day.

TL;DR bioware created an amazing IP with Mass Effect 1 but messed up both the lore and the feel of the universe in dumb ways in ME2 and completely destroyed it by ME3. I literally don't know or care at all about Andromeda. It sounds like someone wrote fanfiction and somehow got it made into a AAA game. The moral of the story is SJW's, trannies, and diversity hires will always ruin every IP, and EA is the antichrist of video games.

 

[Atli]

My choice is low hanging fruit, but Destiny. Jeff Gerstmann's rant about it is legendary.

But in short, everything was in place for Destiny to be the next big thing. At least as big as Halo if not bigger. Then management fucked it all up when they decided 5 years into a 6 year project that they didn't like the story. They ripped that out and cobbled together a game with the parts that were left. Some of the DLCs were found on the disc, and the game was still using Destiny 1 alpha leftovers as late as Destiny 2.

The shooting is great, and the remnants of what lore and ideas that remain hint at something truly special. All it was lacking was content and story, both of which appear to have been cut in the name of corporate greed.

And the cherry on top, Activision is mostly blameless since they were very generous with contracts and let Bungie do their own thing. It was entirely a Bungie management fuck up.


Further compounding that is you have two loadouts. You either have a pea shooter and a disguise, or you walk in dressed for the North Hollywood shootout. And some story missions force you into combat.

Shamelessly double posting but my hatred for the managerial class has forced me to do so: there is a special place in hell for every board of trustee member and 40 something year old overweight manager who has never played a game before that was behind Destiny's failure. These same types of people are responsible for why ME went to shit, and probably most good IP's. Everything has to be LCD hollywood schlock made for neighbor cattle or it gets scrapped. Management culture is the death of creativity.

 

[Kheapathic]

Shamelessly double posting but my hatred for the managerial class has forced me to do so: there is a special place in hell for every board of trustee member and 40 something year old overweight manager who has never played a game before that was behind Destiny's failure. These same types of people are responsible for why ME went to shit, and probably most good IP's. Everything has to be LCD hollywood schlock made for neighbor cattle or it gets scrapped. Management culture is the death of creativity.

I'm not trying to get you to 41% yourself; but you should read up what EA/Bioware tried with Anthem. You want to talk about mismanagement and incompetence, Anthem is a shining example.

Also, the best thing to come from Destiny is the Japanese commercial for Destiny 2

 

[Zaryiu2]

Star Ocean 3, DO NOT have the twist of everything until that point be revealed to be a video game within a video game and obviously change the dialect to refflect that

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Alone in the Dark on PS3/360/PC. If that game only had 9-12 months more development time...

It was an open world horror game, with vehicles, side quests and several men's restrooms to explore.


There's often several solutions to obstacles and if you come up with a solution it will probably work. This one just shows metal conducting electricity.

There's also realtime lighting, not that fancy, but some enemies(the ooze) cannot move into the light and this creates an interesting puzzle. In a pitch black sewer environment, how can you use what you have to create light in such a way that you don't cast a shadow? (that's one of the oooh moments in the game)

Fire! Just light shit on fire, fire that spreads!

Is there a wooden door in your way and you don't have a key? Light it on fire! Be careful with that. Like I said, it spreads to other flammable materials...

Or if you have something heavy you can just break the door to pieces, pieces that can then be used as melee weapons. I had a great moment where I got corned by enemies, ran into a bathroom, kicked the toilet stall into pieces and used one to beat the shit out of the enemy pursuing me.
This also works for metal doors except it is a slow process. They don't splinter or break, instead they dynamically deform depending on where you hit them.

Crafting before crafting was gay.


Despite all of this the game is not good... I still love it though, it was almost there.

 

[Gibs]

Fallout 76: Could of been a great rust competitor with better PVE and a roleplaying community. Not to mention the modding potential as well.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

The first Croc could have been a great little 3D platformer. Too bad it has tank controls. Remember the second one being slightly better but I was 6 when I last played it.

 

[YE24]

Dwarf Fortress. After 200 hours of the Premium release, there are just too many rough edges for me to continue to bother. The "rich history" concept is really just spamming random nonsense. The game remembers all this useless garbage but refuses to tell you much about things that actually matter. There's some fun to be had, but unless your autism profile matches the devs, you're gonna have a bad time.

 

[Overcast]

Rayman 1 could have been amazing if you weren't required to rescue every electoon just to get to the last level. I can forgive the dickish level design and limited continues if I could just casually get through the game without having to fucking backtrack through fucking Bongo Hills because Rayman doesn't know how to fucking run or grab onto a fucking ledge without a fucking fairy explaining it to him like a fucking child.

Fuck.

 

[Tren Shapiro]

unless your autism profile matches the devs, you're gonna have a bad time.

That's why they dropped it on Steam after everyone got vaccinated.

 

[Jeff Boomhauer]

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. The reveal trailer was cool enough, with Ryu and Mega Man X fighting Iron Man and Pre-MCU Captain Marvel.

Then a few months later, they finally showed gameplay, and it became apparent how lazy the game was going to be. Terrible character models, no X-Men or Dr. Doom, unnecessary story mode, terrible PR, etc.

It's almost impressive just how much of a downgrade it is from UMvC3. Smaller roster, bad graphics, unmemorable music, VAs not giving a shit...not to mention the obvious Disney shilling.

It's a shame because the actual gameplay was decent enough. The Infinity Stones were definitely a gimmick, but they weren't broken like X-Factor was in UMvC3. There were also a few good new characters added, like Jedah, Sigma, and Monster Hunter...only to be bogged down with boring additions like Black Widow and Winter Soldier.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I want to like Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, enough so that I'm still playing it in small bursts, and it's okay, it's just for the most part not very memorable, but I think there are a number of things that could make it so much better because I really do like the concept.

Basically the big problem is that the game is a walking simulator, but there are glimmers of gameplay that could have been expanded on, and like a bolt from the blue it hit me. The game has you sharing stories in Depression America, and it has this cringey backstory with losing a game of sPoOkY cArDs to a wolfman. But in the New Deal, one thing they did was send out WPA writers (welfare for rich kids) to collect stories, especially from the elderly. There's a huge body of interviews of former slaves, pioneers, and Indians, and probably other groups (those are just the ones I've read, for various history classes/free time) because of it, people whose experiences belonged to the 1800s and would have died if people hadn't gone out and talked to these 90 year old geezers before they expired. The game also has these pointless (like, do nothing) hunger/money/tired/health systems despite having the character be a walking skeleton.

So how do you build a better WTWTLW? Cut out the gay tarot card-wolfman shit and have the character be a WPA worker on a project. Because they're a real person, now you can make drama about their struggles to get from point A to point B without getting raped by hobos. Take inspiration from the Oregon Trail! That game was all about the horrible struggle of managing resources and trying not to die of shitting yourself to death while living through a great period of American history. Now, your challenge is just how you're going to feed yourself and also move from town to town. The resource management can be made more significant when the character is a real person. The game frequently has little events where you earn money, but only a few that get recycled. Make that a major part of the game! Have the player be able to take jobs over extended periods of time, like building up a story in a town (like Walk Across America, autobiography where a rich suburban NY kid decided to learn America by hiking across Appalachia and the South, living with and working with country folks along the way) and getting exposure to the many interesting types of work that exist in this country. Have it be a proper visual novel/RPG, but a nonviolent RPG, have the player character be a character with their own development. Expand the storytelling gameplay by being able to construct stories.

But most of all, even if you're not going do that, add some damn visual chatter to the map. Since playing Anno I've come to realize how important good visuals can be, I like the idea of traipsing across a little diorama of America, but the minimalist aesthetic wears thin real quick. Add shit! Even if it's pure graphics, no gameplay content (and I'd suggest making it interactive in some way), have deer and bears and coyotes running around among the trees, farmers hoeing corn, people partying it up by roadside saloons, Bonnie and Clyde shooting it out with cops. Make the world feel fun, like those maps you see (especially in kids stuff and newspaper cartoons) where people are doing stuff on a tiny little US.

I'll go make my own rip-off of it myself, watch me.

 

[High Level Rad Waste]

Man I love Tenchu but as a kid a lot of the shit was esoteric and hard to figure out. With cheats enabled it's a stupidly fun glitchy mess.

Wrath of Heaven's boss music lives in my head rent free.

 

[Fivehead]

Spore

Man all you had to do was put SimLife, SimCity and SimSpace from one end to the other and it would had been great.

Not sure how you fuck that up. The community was there. The creators were working fine. What happened?

The sad part is that Spore was actually good and then EA ruined it for some reason:

https://youtu.be/T8dvMDFOFnA