Games that have lost their way Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
I disagree with you about Fallout. Fallout 3 did a very poor job of capturing what made Fallout... Fallout. Even by your criteria... it threw a lot of the world-building and lore under the bus, or just retreaded it in a wholly underwhelming manner. But then Obsidian came and went "No, no, no... if you want to do a first-person, real-time Fallout, it's supposed to be like this". They even made it infuriatingly buggy, just like Fallout 2! | |
Well heres to hoping LP3 delivers. I really like what I've seen so far, it doesn't seem to be relying too heavily on jump scares. | |
The irony being that even while the Sentinel is more support-focused than it is any actual combat, I can easily take down even a Geth Colossus with my Sentinel. And all I've got is a pistol(no extra weapons training as of yet). Pistols are beyond broken in ME1. Although my biggest problem is why give us access to guns we effectively couldn't use to begin with? Sniper rifle has a targeting reticle that covers the entire screen. You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. Literally. Assault rifles also have a far larger reticle than necessary and Shotguns are worthless at anything other than close to point-blank range. That's one of the better changes(among others) in ME2. Our weapon screens aren't cluttered with weapons we couldn't use if we wanted to. As far as I'm concerned, from a storyline point, ME1 is much better than ME2. But ME2 is vastly superior to ME1 at a gameplay point of view. Especially considering the ridiculous number of bugs you encounter ALL THE TIME in ME1. I haven't had more than an hour with ME3 so I have no comment on that one. | |
Clearly you didn't play United Offensive. | |
Devil May Cry: It's a shame cause it pretty much hit the nail on the head by the 3rd game and just died from then on. May we now pray they return to glory. One day... | |
Excuse me but how has pokemon lost it's way? And don't say its because the new pokemon designs are bad since that's "just your opinion man" | |
masse effect gets a pass, it was always meant to be more action, have you actually tried ME1, its a clusterf33K of RPGness. everything is a chore. | |
Dragon Age. Went from fucking masterpiece to trying to emulate Mass Effect..... I cry a little every day for the series. | |
i'm sorry, i also dont want to offend you, but you have really low standards. if i make a half assed game with a retarded and contradicting story to the lore and reduce one of the key aspects of a franchise to a lower extend, you are ok with it as long as you get a weak gimicky weapon you can only unlock/find later in the game, hidden behind a wall or get unlocked after you sit throught the pain inducing and brainmass reducing story? okay.. now i know what is holding back franchises. damn gimicks. | |
I'm quite baffled how nobody mentioned Black & White. It started as a one-of-a-kind god-simulator that looks like an RTS and plays completely differently. Then, after the first island it turned into an RTS. I was so disappointed that I uninstalled it after the second island. | |
You can modify your save files. I couldn't stand certain parts of red faction so I replaced mine with someone who had the fortitude to finish it. I enjoyed the magnet gun and the unicorn anus-laser. | |
so you enjoyed it because you cheated. | |
While I actually agree with your point whole-heartedly, there are a couple of places where it makes sense. I never played Mass Effect, but the first one seemed to run like a more "fluid" version of KOTOR. After that it only got more fluid, so I can see the logic, but without playing it my opinion on it's not worth much. More to the point tho, look at Resident Evil. I've played the original, the Gamecube remake, and some of RE 2 and 3. In all honesty they controlled HORRIBLY and while the survival horror aspect was great, it remained so because of some glaring inconsistencies with the control scheme. Namely, headshots. When you can occasionally take down a zombie with a headshot, that's great. When you have so little ammo that you rely on headshots to conserve any ammo, that's good survival horror. But when you include a headshot system and you make it almost impossible to lose, it's just frustrating. Haven't played Dead Space yet, but I do also agree on the FF front. FFXIII was pretty... linear. Maybe it gets better after the first 20 hours, but if it's not worth playing that far in the first place it's not gonna get a lot of love. | |
That's because if a game is only good for an hour until it's not fun anymore, it's not a good game. So Black & White didn't lose its way, it's just shit in general.
In general, I'm blaming Ninja Theory for that one. Seriously, I think they could've handed Philips the franchise like they did with Zelda and it wouldn't have been such a disaster. Here's hoping that if Nintendo decides to ditch another of their franchises, they'll choose at least a decent studio. (can't go wrong with Retro Studios) OT: For me personally it's the Mario RPG franchise (not the handheld ones, aside from Partners in Time, which was only 'good' the others are awesome). It started to feel flat with Super Paper Mario but now we have Sticker Star and it's just... UGH... no charm, no spark, even the humor feels just... token at best. | |
Well Assassins Creed has become less about stabbing people and more about chasing pigs around to get them into a pen, sending convoys to make money and of course being a naval captain! The Castlevania: Lords of Shadows games also stray from the originals a lot, but I loved the first one so much and I'm looking forward to the second too, I find it hard to criticize. | |
Remember when Call of Duty were WW2 games? Yeah neither do I. | |
I didn't really say that I enjoyed the game. It was a bad game, with a bad story and some interesting weapons. Enjoying oneself for a half an hour firing a laser from a unicorns anus doesn't mean I enjoyed the game itself. Just some cheap fun that partially redeemed itself, hence why I can't hate it. | |
but still, the only small percentage that makes you not be dissapointed with it (not hate it) came due you firing up some cheats and squeeze the small things that would get a small smirk on your face if it would have been in any game regardeless. red faction was literally going down (in quality) | |
I kind of filed this away mentally but I agree completely. I ended up grabbing the ultimate edition of Origins and really, any of (or perhaps an amalgamation of) the DLC quests that spun off from the first game would have made for a better sequel than what ended up being shat out. I don't mind the game centering around Kirkwall and the surrounding area but it would have been far more interesting to play as a Dwarven or, Elven refugee; not just a human of questionable skill and gender. --- On the other side of the spectrum, Castlevania has definitely strayed from what it once was and it was better off for it. Castlevania was originally a linear action-platformer after all, up until about Symphony of the Night (and those two unspeakable N64 games) when Castlevania respectively took some notes from Metroid from the former and, shat itself inside-out as the later. The thing is Symphony of the Night and, Aria of Sorrow, are my favorite titles in the series. The last time Castlevania went back to a more linear format (like the original title) it turned out to be...well, pretty terrible (though not bad enough to stop more Lord of Shadows from spawning). It looks like Lord of Shadows on the 3DS is going to go back to the Metroidvania style which makes me very hopeful that it will be worth playing because I had more fun with Simon's Quest than I did with Lord of Shadows. | |
To me, Mass Effect was always an action-RPG. While I do agree that more emphasis has been placed on shooting stuff rather than puzzles and roleplaying but, come ME3, a full-on Galactic War happens, which will always require weaponry. Yes you can talk the Geth and the Quarians to pack it in but that's not really going to work with the Reapers. Trying to reason with Reapers is like trying to reason with a devout religious person - it's a pointless exercise in futility - so you are going to need to shoot them. I noticed the lack of dialogue options in ME3 and, while the response "In war, there really aren't many grey areas." was reasonable, it also smacked of making excuses. However the addition of "modes" irked me and neatly proves your point that, for the sake of gameplay and final polishing, it has been made to appeal to all comers and their lovely money. At least for ME3 they beefed up the combat system so it flows better. ME1's combat was like Fallout 3 / Fallout: New Vegas' combat but with a half-arsed cover system and ME2's combat system was designed by someone with a fetish for sticking himself to walls with Araldite. At least with ME3 they made an effort - if they are going to place emphasis on action then they might as well try and get it right. If I were to say how Mass Effect has lost it's way, it is not so much the swing towards shooting as the swing away from "traditional" RPG elements. In ME1, there was a lot of shooting but we also had the Mako and the planet exploration, which I liked. If you wanted the good shit, you had to earn it by putting in the work to earn them or the money to buy them. Sometimes the item you just scavenged and pawned half the guns in the Galaxy for was not in stock - well that's life! It happens and if they just dumped all the good shit on you right away then the game would be tediously easy. That said, the inventory system was a bit of a pain but at least you couldn't fill it with random crap like teddy-bears and spoons. ME2 cut the inventory system and weapon mechanics right down to the bone and then threw all the challenging puzzles in the bin. Some hailed it as a relief but to me it was overkill. Yes by cutting down on the faffing around and selling half a million unwanted guns after each mission was all well and good but what's the point of doing that and then giving us that woefully boring planet-scanning mini-game? Yes the Mako could be a bit of a bugger to drive sometimes but it could also be insane amounts of fun when you got the hang of it. The only thing I had to get the hang of when plannet-scanning was making sure I didn't fall asleep - there was absolutely no challenge at all! Still, when you're trying to get as many people as possible to give you their money, who cares, right? Also, why was access to the Citadel so limited in ME2? In ME1 we had a good slice of one of the Wards, C-Sec and The Presidium. In ME2 we got part of another Ward, which was fine, and a balcony on The Presidium - woo. Omega was pretty good but also very limited and so was Tuchanka. Also the stock didn't rotate / replenish, thus killing the need for exploration / repeated visits...because that stuff bores non-RPG fans and they will not give you their money again if they are bored! The Paragon / Renegade interrupts were a fun addition, though! ME3 sought to redress the balance a little bit with the better weapon-mod system and making the alternative armours for your crewmates have different bonuses and attributes. They also got rid of resource-mining, which was fine with me, but why leave in the planet-scanning mechanic for artefact / salvage operations? There's no point to it at all now! I like how you have to be careful when activating your scanner or the Reapers will come and see what's making all that noise, that is good, but why do they then utterly ignore you when you start to scan the planet for the artefact once you've identified which one it's on? It takes away all the urgency and renders it all pointless. How about they take a leaf from a great old game called Nomad in where you drop the probe and have to wait while it does it's thing. You can either leave it and come back later or wait, which would be dull but you can always upgrade them to make them faster / more efficient and, if the Reapers are around, waiting could be a tense affair if you didn't wimp out and run away! Another utterly incomrehensible decision was to break the journal. It worked just fine for 2 games so why break it to the point to becomes useless to ME veterans and newbies alike? It says a lot when I have to have a pad of paper and a pen handy to track my mission progress in ME3! They also binned all of the hubs, bar the Citadel. You'd think that in a war, there would be more need for them than ever! I'm not saying that they should be available from the get-go but the chance to unlock them would be nice! After you sort out the shroud on Tuchanka, why not have that open up as a hub? As the game shows, there are places the Reapers haven't touched or ignore that could be utilised as "secret" hubs or safe-zones. It's all very well cutting all this out to appeal to a broader audience but in breaking the side-quests and journal mechanics so comprehensively, all they did was get on everyone's nerves! I still enjoy the games and each one has it's own reasons that make me want to play it again but, like many, it seems that more emphasis has been placed on a wider market than crossing the t's and dotting the i's. I'm not talking about the ending, although that was pretty bad, but there are other, more subtle things that irk me, most of which I have already mentioned. Here's hoping that the proposed Mass Effect 4 returns to it's roots. | |
No, the satisfaction came from a developer taking the time to put something utterly ridiculous into a game that had a pretty serious tone. Done for the sake of fun I might add. Mr Toots is a weapon I won't forget for a good while, I'd like to see more ridiculous weapons designed for either a laugh or just to be generally fun more often. | |
I can totally see that. Fallout 3's pretty iffy like that, but to me it had enough retro 50's vibe and sense of desolation to remind me a lot of Fallout 1, whereas New Vegas reminded me way more of Fallout 2. I share some of the complaints about how different Fallout 3's tone is (and stuff like the new FEV, which don't fit well with established lore), but at the end of the day the idea of having an entire world devastated by nuclear war allows me to accept that games and DLCs can have a range of tones, themes and content. If they announced a DLC for Deus EX: Human Revolution that was set in a creepy swamp full of hillbillies I'd take umbridge with that, but with a world as big and varied as Fallout I buy that Point Lookout, Rivet City, Caesar's Legion, the Enclave, Primm and New Reno can all coexist in the same world. | |
More or less, but not entirely. The biggest factor was Sonic's speed and having to translate that from a 2D platform to a 3D plane. Sonic Adventure introduced Sonic's speed with 3D platforming. It was good; however, there were a few tweaks that needed to be fixed (i.e. finding a way to make Sonic accelerate without loosing control and having some shorthanded invincibility like the Spin Dash). Modern Sonic has had his share of bad games developed with terrible mechanics and ideas (i.e. Sonic '06, Sonic Unleashed's Nighttime stages, The Storybook Games, etc.), but many of the handhelds incorporate the classic Sonic 2D feel while tweaking the mechanics slightly to deliver a familiar experience while feeling fresh at the same time. Sonic Generations has proven that they can get 2D and 3D done right, and hopefully the next title will deliver a similar experience while incorporating something new and not broken. | |
I still find it funny that Conviction was the ONLY Splinter Cell game I have enjoyed, I get why fans of traditional Splinter Cell weren't fans of Conviction and missed what had been sacrificed (disposing of bodies for instance, cut to get the game out on time) but I enjoyed what it did and I think what it did do, it did well. It was a fast paced stealth game, more of a hunter stealth game. I hope Blacklist makes both sets of fans happy, I hope Blacklist has the depth of the old games without the crazy redundant maneuvers and unintuitive (is it even a word?) controls and I hope it retains Conviction style of fast paced play (if you want it) and intuitive controls. Anyway, OT I feel Final Fantasy has to be my pick. Since 11/12 the series has been in decline and I was insulted by 13 on many levels but especially characters. FF has not had great or even good characters (or at least that appeal to me in a meaningful way) since 10 | |
Oh yeah and Lost Planet... Man I was such a fan of LP1, but Lost Planet 2 just killed the franchise for me, it's horrible attempts at co op, the stupid lobby, the dumb slot machine to upgrade your guns/unlock new ones, the way multiplayer felt...off and THE ACHEIVEMENTS, they were just hellish. I probably won't bother with LP3 at first, maybe pick it up down the line cheap :( so sad | |
I don't know if this has been said before, but I would like to talk about how Simcity has lost its way. It is a shame that Maxis was sold to EA. EA has a generally bad reputation as a publisher, and the series has done downhill since it was fully under EA's hands. I started being a fan when Simcity Societies came out. I liked it, but then I got access to Simcity 4, and MAN WAS THAT AWESOME. The only two games that have can suck out hundreds of hours is the SIMS 3 (also by Maxis, but without losing the way yet) and Team Fortress 2. Now I see Societies as a game with potential but basically falling apart. It was even worse than LEGOLAND for PC (anyone remember?) which had the same flaw, but it was still enjoyable and was able to suck in 50 or so hours of gameplay. And if you don't know that game it is like controlling a GIF that resembles LEGOLAND made out of LEGOs. Back on topic. Now that Simcity 2013 is coming in 2 months and there is a closed BETA, I am worried that Simcity will end up like Sonic or Spore: A good idea turned bad. What do you guys think? Is the Simcity franchise doomed to fail, or does the series still have hope? | |
a little suprised to see such a lack of mentions of Saint's Row, which went from above average GTA clone, to excellent GTA game (far more so than GTA 4 anyway, which could also be argued to hold a place on this list), but then decided it was in it's best interest to leap giddily over the shark flailing a dildo bat, abandoning the foothold in reality (well the series' version of it anyways) that made the occasional wackiness work, combined with strip-mining the customization options, characters, side quests, and just about everything else fun about the first 2 | |
You didn't like Return to Dreamland? It wasn't perfect, but was pretty solid overall - certainly didn't suck. Same can be said for Donkey Kong Country Returns, IMO, although I think that was better than Kirby. Anyway, as tempted as I am to say Banjo Kazooie, Nuts and Bolts feels more like a spinoff than a continuation of the main game. Also, as much shit as that game gets for not being like its predecessors, I think it's a really good game... well, a really good tech demo at least. The vehicle creation is awesome and works really well, but the levels and most of the challenges were just uninspired. It somewhat defeats the purpose of having a large open world when your minimap tells you exactly where you need to go to see everything the level has to offer. | |
That's like saying these two cars* are the same because they're both green. Here's a post by Shamus Young that he made about the transition between developers between Fallout games: Also Shank. That series went from wonderful to shit in a single game. A case could also be made for Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft, although they're still hardly bad games. | |
Agreed. Also, Elder Scrolls was surely mentioned before, but it gets a pass from me because it still feels like Elder Scrolls- that thrill of exploration is still there. | |
Well, actually the original Metroid and Castlevania games were quite similar to begin with, even coining the phrase "Metroidvania" to describe those types of platformers. If anything, Castlevania's mistake was to move away from that style into hack'n'slash: Medieval Edition, and Metroid moving into shooter territory (Hunters and Other M, the Prime Series was amazing) | |
What about poor Spyro? I only saw him mentioned once and briefly. I mean after the first trilogy, they couldn't get spyro right again. Don't get me wrong I liked the TLoS trilogy but it wasn't really Spyro at that point anymore. Skylanders is pretty amusing, but it's more of a cameo for Spyro and Cynder not really a Spyro game. | |
have i said paper mario yet? cause if not. paper mario EDIT: seriously nintendo sticks the mario name on every second game the put out. couldn't they at least not hi-jack the paper mario brand for a 1% increase in sales on whatever piece of shit they happen to release that year? | |
Wow, few things I definitely disagree with in this thread. First being about Resident Evil, namely, that its the cool thing to pile on the franchise (even after the much undeserved thrashing that RE6 got in the media). My issue has always been, "Survival horror" is a vague genre. "Survival" in its strictest term refers to inventory management and resource management. The "Horror" aspect is down to individual interpretation. Some people swear Dead Space is an action game, meanwhile other people like my girlfriend can't even play through 3 levels of it without having to take a break. The thing to remember however, is that the turn from traditional "slow plodding" survival horror to "tension action" started earlier, in RE3 with Nemesis. RE4, by the above terms, can't be classified as "survival horror" either. That game, however, gets a free pass. (and its one of those games I can go back and play and go my god this control scheme is terrible compared to more recent games). Maybe I'm not making much sense, but I don't think Resident Evil's current gamestyle, and the older style of the original games is as far removed as people seem to think. | |
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A lot of the comments here seem to be discussing a change in genre, which I don't think should be an automatic qualifier. Personally, I don't think Mass Effect, Dragon Age or Fallout lost the core of what they were about when they decided to ease up on the RPG aspects, because to me the core of those games is their world-building and lore. I do have some small problems with those series, but I'd say they've stuck true to what they originally were, or have changed in ways that don't detract from that original core.
However, I do agree that Final Fantasy has gone down the pan. The franchise seems to be trying to streamline & quicken everything and give it a shiny coat of graphics to make up for it. But when I play a JRPG, I want a game where I have to wait in combat and manage an entire group of characters, not just manage one and trust the computer to handle the rest. Final Fantasy has always shifted wildly in tone, setting & story, so it was always the mechanics that were the core of those games for me. Given that they've been shifting the focus of the mechanics towards simplicity & speed (not very well, in my opinion), it feels to me like Final Fantasy has drifted from what made me love it so much.