8 Video Games That Wasted One Awesome Idea
Well at least they sound good on paper.
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00:00You wouldn't know it from the overwhelming popularity of some genres and franchises,
00:04but gaming is always striving to innovate.
00:07It's that drive that makes us look forward to a new generation of potential.
00:10Unfortunately, that same ambition is all too often unruly and too much for one project.
00:16I'm Jess from WhatCulture and here are 8 video games that wasted one awesome idea.
00:228. Gears of War in Space – Inversion
00:26Shooters in particular are constantly trying to break out of the mold.
00:30From various approaches to cover, to health and weapon management, to the creative freedom
00:34of increasingly fictitious sci-fi settings, putting bullets into things has been dyed
00:39at least half the colors of the visible spectrum.
00:42When 2012 rolled around, Namco Bandai's Inversion strolled up promising that it had
00:46the next big color, gravity manipulation.
00:49Aptly titled, Inversion flies in the face of Isaac Newton every chance it gets.
00:55In an almost Dead Space-like manner, you bounce around zero-gravity zones like a moth
00:59in a jar, the game letting you turn ceilings into paths and buildings into stairs.
01:04This could easily have injected some much-needed zeal into its cover-based shooting.
01:09Ironically, 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
01:25with cover so strong you'd need a crowbar to pry hero Davis Russell off those chest-high
01:30walls.
01:31Gravity Rush meets Gears of War this was not, but that would have been awesome.
01:357.
01:36An Incredible Setting – Residents of Fate Presumably due to having exhausted much of
01:41their creativity on the fantastic Valkyra Chronicles two years prior, Sega rolled out
01:46a typical JRPG for Residents of Fate.
01:49After just dodging, use the power of friendship to save the world, the plot landed on a post-apocalyptic
01:55future with a killer steampunk aesthetic and tone.
01:58Indeed, the game's central locale, Bersala, towering achievement of human engineering
02:03in the last vestige of life on Earth, is an interesting one.
02:07The reasons for it are vague, but mankind retreating into what is effectively a giant
02:12air purifier to escape a cancerous poison which has overtaken the planet is at least
02:17a far cry above your run-of-the-mill nuclear apocalypse.
02:20At least it could have been were it not for, in practice, an absurdly convoluted and messy
02:26story that has more characters and hanging plot points than it does bullets.
02:30Things only get worse when you add in a boring main cast which somehow manages to hit every
02:35extreme of forced acting while remaining flat as hell throughout.
02:40It's almost an achievement.
02:426.
02:43Jetpack Cover Shooting – Dark Void
02:45Right after grappling hooks, jetpacks make everything better.
02:49It worked in Star Wars Bounty Hunter, Dead Space 2, Elex, Ratchet and Clank, hell an
02:54airborne Kratos might be better with one.
02:56If nothing else, Dark Void had the right idea when it began development.
03:01Jetpack plus guns equals fun, obviously.
03:04Somewhere in Dark Void is the exact sort of diverse gameplay that shooters are crying
03:08out for.
03:09The 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.
03:19Unfortunately, it's a nigh-unplayable trainwreck at its worst.
03:24The 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.
03:34The problem isn't helped by flight controls, which can make gliding about feel like trying
03:38to staple water to a tree.
03:40At the very least, it can be fun to watch the game's wonky ragdoll physics take your
03:45airborne corpse for the ride of its not-life.
03:475.
03:48Dissecting 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
03:58of Japanese role-playing games, Eternal Sonata was a bowlful of the stuff.
04:03It casts you as the fantastical incarnation of Polish piano prodigy Frederic Chopin on
04:08a colorful romp through his own super-ego as he lies on his deathbed.
04:13It's an unorthodox and introspective depiction of the tuberculosis-stricken artist that is
04:18commendably true to its history.
04:20This is a game that makes use of authentic paintings and photographs as often as it does
04:24conventional cutscenes.
04:26A delightful score featuring some of Chopin's finest pieces played in rare form accompanies
04:31its action-heavy gameplay, which itself is punctuated by history lessons chronicling
04:36the 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 quickly
04:49devolves into the crock of asspulls you would rightfully expect from a JRPG.
04:55There is no definition of avant-garde capable of justifying its absurd ending, which is
05:00completely detached from every decision leading up to it, and sends a therefore-too-brilliant
05:06story frame into a stiff nosedive.
05:094.
05:10A City at Your Fingertips – Watch Dogs
05:12If you had a dollar for every story-related criticism levied against Ubisoft's next-gen
05:17poster child, you may very well be able to match the game's staggering marketing budget.
05:23Of course, last it was seen, Aidan Pearce's morally questionable but unquestionably generic
05:28tale wasn't any less unworthy of the technological creativity the game is built on, so here we
05:34find ourselves.
05:35Who doesn't want a city at their fingertips?
05:37Watch Dogs' mantra is, in many ways, the epitome of sandbox design.
05:42Putting so many ways to manipulate the environment literally in the player's pocket was a stroke
05:47of genius on Ubisoft's part.
05:49It boils the fun of open worlds down to easily digestible bites, drops you in a playground,
05:55and lets you run free.
05:56Things rapidly grow less fun, however, when you realize the jungle gym only has two tiers
06:02– one of the swings is broken, and some annoying gravelly voice is narrating your
06:06every move.
06:07For all its potential and hype, Watch Dogs is crippled by its uninspired, if faithfully
06:12recreated city, and equally tired plot.
06:15Fortunately, that potential got a second shot in Watch Dogs 2 and Watch Dogs Legion, which
06:21a lot of people would say did indeed make good on the checks the original couldn't
06:25quite cash.
06:263.
06:27Cyberpunk Memory Analysis – Remember Me
06:30As was predicted by every gamer with a shred of humor or cynicism to their name, Remember
06:35Me met the grim fate of being forgotten.
06:38Curiously, though, the game had plenty going for it – a cyberpunk rendition of Paris
06:43is a new box on the list of environments, and Capcom's fighting expertise evidently
06:47trickled down into the game's developer, Dontnod Entertainment, enough for them to
06:52churn out a proper combo-building system.
06:55Then there's the game's namesake – a clever game of memory analysis which allows
06:58players to effectively rewrite personalities.
07:01Much of Remember Me is, in fact, memorable – especially its story.
07:06However, 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, but
07:19keeping up with them both proved to be too much for its raw promise to carry.
07:242.
07:25A Mature Walking Dead FPS – The Walking Dead Survival Instinct
07:29Telltale Games proved The Walking Dead can deliver a fantastic gaming experience by sticking
07:34to its guns and taking the narrative route.
07:37The Walking Dead's 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,
07:57Survival Instinct doesn't know what it is.
07:59It wanted to be a shooter.
08:00It wanted to be a mature story with comic decisions.
08:03It wanted to be a stealth game.
08:05And it's none of these things – it's just a repugnant reminder of the soullessness
08:09of most licensed games.
08:11Far from the grandeur of its brand, it's better described as the little engine that
08:15didn't even freaking try.
08:181.
08:19Big Daddy Backstory – Bioshock 2
08:21How do you follow Irrational Games' Bioshock, an undersea thriller still considered one
08:26of gaming's most beloved shooters?
08:29This was the imposing question publisher 2K had to answer in the roaring wake of the original
08:34game's success.
08:35To the then-perked ears of many, they came up with the answer – let's learn about
08:39the Big Daddies.
08:41Rapture itself has detail and care dripping out of every busted pipe, but its lumbering
08:46giants aren't quite as characterized.
08:48Naturally, the prospect of delving into their backstory and even playing as the Daddy ourselves
08:53raised some eyebrows when first revealed.
08:56Then the gameplay happened.
08:58Bioshock 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.
09:07Then the story happened.
09:08Without lead creative Ken Levine on board for this sequel, we got a story that claimed
09:12to take place several years after the events of the original, but still cast you as the
09:17first Big Daddy.
09:19Something 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, it doesn't hold a candle to Bioshock
09:321 when it comes to gameplay.
09:34That's the end of our list, but do let me know down in the comments if you can think
09:38of 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 JessMcDonald,
09:50but make sure you stay tuned to us here for plenty more gaming goodness.