Goafer Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 I was just thinking about how Test Drive Unlimited just missed it's potential and wondered if anyone else has any similar views on games that had a great idea and totally cocked it up. Here is a few of mine: Test Drive Unlimited It could have been perfect. An almost MMO game where you could cruise around and see other players and challenge them to races or just go to a set race and participate. You could buy new cars from showrooms dotted around the island, houses from estate agents and clothes for your avatar. It was essentially a millionaire simulator. It could have been epic. But someone decided it would be a good idea to include dreadful handling that didn't know whether to be arcade or simulation, a crap map that had too many bumps in the road to make things even harder to control and making the avatar clothes pointless by having them hidden in the cars all the time. Imagine a mix between Playstation Home and a decent racing game. I would never stop playing that game if it were to exist. It can be done and I can't think of a genuine reason why it shouldn't be. Sonic Unleashed The Sonic sections were pretty good, but why did they add in the Werehog bits? They were terrible. If they insist on a slower section (which is a stupid idea anyway), they at least should have made the controls precise enough to cope with the platforming bits. I stopped playing around about the bit where you have to jump the infernal werehog across some small platforms. Burning Rangers The game was awesome. But it had some atrocious mistakes. Spelling errors ("Sense a spilit second" character name spelling mistakes and I'm sure the completely wrong voice at one point). It felt so half arsed. Any more for any more? Ideally some more retro ones!
Emasher Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Go watch all the AVGN movies. About 90% of the games he reviewed had good concepts and could have been good, but had some problem(s) that broke the game.
Dyson Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Trauma Centre on the Wii. I'll be damned if I ever play that game again, you try drawing a fucking star in the air and getting the Wii to register in the heat of the moment. Bloody hell that frustrated me. Hotel Dusk. Too much text, not enough anything else.
Patch Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 (edited) Another Code: Trace Memory (DS) A great control method, an interesting story, some neat puzzles. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's just a shame the game ends shortly after getting off the boat. More length and a bit more variety would have made it quite special. Final Fantasy VII Skippable cutscenes and battle sequences would instantly have made this 12% more enjoyable. Perfect Dark Great gameplay, lastability, but would it have killed them to include more multiplayer options? Edited May 7, 2009 by Patch
Jonnas Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Twilight Princess had plenty of room for improvement. I know they spent a good chunk of the developing time trying to implement Wii controls, so I know it could've been better if they had stuck with a single console until the end. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series: Finally, we have a game where Pokémon talk and have personalities. And it's a very boring dungeon crawler. I really hope they use the setting idea for another genre, one of these days.
Roostophe Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Fahrenheit This was going to be a trilogy or something, wasn't it? They should have let them do what they wanted rather than saying "No, you got to make it as one game only" or whatever... Point is; the ending was rushed and rubbish. The game was so promising, it started off so brilliantly! Absolute shame. Halo Didn't really enjoy this and has put me off ever playing Halo 2 again or starting Halo 3. Turok 2 Just too long. Should have been shorter, I just couldn't be bothered. I used to get to the Primagem boss battle right at the end by using the master cheat code: Bewareoblivionisathand Memories.
tapedeck Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Perfect Dark Great gameplay, lastability, but would it have killed them to include more multiplayer options? :shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead Really? MORE!? Your SO greedy! :
dwarf Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 There's tons but I remember hating the GC Waverace despite the praise. It was just boring and if you look past the decent effects there wasn't that much fun to be had and little meat to the gameplay. Sold it after a few days.
tapedeck Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 There's tons but I remember hating the GC Waverace despite the praise. It was just boring and if you look past the decent effects there wasn't that much fun to be had and little meat to the gameplay. Sold it after a few days. Yeah, wasn't a patch on the N64 original. Shame. I liked it but there just seemed something missing.
Roostophe Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 I enjoyed the GC version. But I never did play the N64 version so I can't make comparison. I'll go now.
Retro_Link Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Donkey Kong 64... Clearly!! Starfox Adventures, Starfox Assault, Super Mario Sunshine... actually thinking about it there are LOADS!...
Patch Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 (edited) :shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead:shakehead Really? MORE!? Your SO greedy! : What can I say? I like my FPS games to take more than a single lifetime to try everything with. Your sig reminds me of another one actually. I remember thinking Cool Spot looked really good and original, but the gameplay was a little too shallow IIRC. That could have been a classic game. Edited May 7, 2009 by Patch
darksnowman Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Yep, DK 64 springs right to mind. After the lofty heights of the DKC trilogy, I anticipated that DK 64 would be something pretty special... alas, I was mistaken and Nintendo swiftly sold Rare to Microsoft.
Zechs Merquise Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Starfox Assault, The first level was soooo good. Then you got out of the arwing...
STOOPIDDITTIES Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Pokémon Colosseum... Is it so hard to ask for a 3D version of the handheld titles?
Grazza Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 There is only one title in the history of gaming that I think should have been a lot better, and that is... Zelda: Twilight Princess As Jonnas says, it would have been better if they'd stuck to a single format (the GameCube, in my opinion). The New Play Control version of Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat shows just how much certain games have to be modified in order to make a Wii version. Unlike DK though, Zelda's modifications were ported back to the GameCube version. It just doesn't control like OOT, MM or WW and, as such, feels like an itch I can't scratch. This is most bothersome when I pull R to try and get my shield out. I've no problem with games appearing on the Wii, but Twilight Princess should have focused on the GameCube, with a New Play Control version later (if they wanted). Only trouble is, that would have shown just how much the game would need to be changed... After all, I don't see an NPC version of Wind Waker... Some of the other design decisions were remarkable (in a bad way) like the rupee explanations/putting rupees back, and it generally just felt like they'd forgotten all the ways they'd advanced the series technically (like 3D towns, 1st-person view any time, optional camera control all the time). It's a great game, but it could have been near-perfect - a 10/10 rather than a 9/10. We only get a console Zelda every four years or so, and this just wasn't close enough to perfection (like they normally are).
dwarf Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 TP I thought was a great game but there were quite a few dungeons that were annoying and sometimes hard to navigate. Overall it was a good game but sometimes annoying. Plus I think items became redundant after 1 use in a dungeon.
Emasher Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 I've no problem with games appearing on the Wii, but Twilight Princess should have focused on the GameCube, with a New Play Control version later (if they wanted). Only trouble is, that would have shown just how much the game would need to be changed... After all, I don't see an NPC version of Wind Waker... This would have left a massive hole in the Wii launch line up. I mean, Red Steel is the only other decent enough hardcore launch game I can think of that launched in all regions. Excite Truck did in North America, but I think even those 2 games together wouldn't really be enough. Especially since Red Steel was a disappointment. It was either port Zelda, or rush Mario Galaxy. And I'm rather glad they spent the time on Galaxy.
Dyson Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Turok 2 Just too long. Should have been shorter, I just couldn't be bothered. I used to get to the Primagem boss battle right at the end by using the master cheat code: Bewareoblivionisathand Memories. Hahaha man that cheat code! I would always use it. What an insanely long game that was.. but the Cerebral Bore made up for it for sure. One of the best weapons ever
Roostophe Posted May 7, 2009 Posted May 7, 2009 Aw, man, the Cerebral Bore... The sound when you fired it and it homed in on your target. The sound when it caught your target and began to bore its way through their head. And then, it exploded. Destroying the enemy's head completely. Leaving a headless corpse on the floor with blood gushing like a waterfall out of the stump that was once the enemy's neck. My GOD was that awesome!
Chris the great Posted May 8, 2009 Posted May 8, 2009 madworld it just had so much potental i may be alone in being unimpressed, but meh devil may cry 4 why make me play the game again at half way? why leave dante till half way? outher then that pretty awsome. far cry 2 it managed to be amazine and boring at once. oakmi ok, controversial but it REALLY dragged later on. and the final boss was gash. and the digging bits were hell. outher then that a realy really good game starfox adventures did i upset rare? why did they make this game so utterly awful? why did they decide to make every voice actor sound like a prat?
dwarf Posted May 8, 2009 Posted May 8, 2009 (edited) Farcry 2 only managed to be boring for me. I didn't get what was special about the environment... It was like uncharted but just not as enchanting or good. I'm so glad I only borrowed it Edited May 8, 2009 by dwarf
Nolan Posted May 8, 2009 Posted May 8, 2009 >_> <_< >_> All games should have been better. Ok, in seriousness. Fallout 3, I love it and it's a great mix of old and new but there are some things that I'd like to have been different. No More Heroes, like FO3, I love it but it could have used a bit more substance. Metal Gear Solid 4, it was a backwards step from what MGS3 achieved but still 20 steps above MGS2. May just be my preference rather than not as good as it should have been. Call of Duty series, needs real challenge rather than endless enemies and instant headshots. Skies of Arcadia, the random encounter rate is off the charts high.
dwarf Posted May 8, 2009 Posted May 8, 2009 Fallout 3? That game was amazing and even surpassed my expectations!
Nolan Posted May 8, 2009 Posted May 8, 2009 How familiar are you with the old ones though? Comparatively it's not as good in terms of content amount of content and story. I understand the reasons for my complaints though, like in the previous ones a character with low intelligence would say relatively stupid things. They wouldn't use complete sentences and often times be hard to understand. A low intelligence character in Fallout 3 would have the same dialogue choices other than the rare occasion the skill was used in conversation. If the dialogue was different though, they couldn't reuse the same response for 'How are you' if it was asked as 'How you is' it would seem lazy for characters to not respond in some way to speech impediments. I can see the reason for this though, everything is voice acted and having multiple conversation branches is quite a lot already, add in new branches varying on intelligence that becomes a monumental amount of dialogue. As for content, well the originals had multiple cities large like Rivet City and small like Megaton. Fallout 3 has Rivet City, the Museum, The Citadel, Megaton(possibly :p), That big hotel place, Bigtown, Little Lamplight, Paradise Falls, and that group that moved from the wastes to the Lincoln Memorial. Then there are various other places(and other bigs ones I'm sure I missed) spread out everywhere. Fallout 3 probably has more locations, but they all feel so small with little to do, and few quest givers each. The originals had many large locations and all of them had so much to do. New Reno for instance was divided up into 4 sections each controlled by a separate "Family" you can help any one family to control the whole town and neighboring towns(by post game happenings) or you could play them against each other and rise to the top of one of them or kill them all and leave the town practically empty. There was also two side stories out of reno, one was either stopping/helping the manufacturing of Jet, and the other led you to a military base full of robots. They just felt like they had so much more, but once again similar to voice acting, the wonders of today are the downfall of these things. Fallout 3 is in a much smaller game world than the first ones, they had an overview of the world map that just allowed you to go from place to place without a map like that the world would be too large to completely render in the way of Fallout 3. In a way it may actually be larger, but it doesn't feel like it.
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