Put some respect on New Vegas' name.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Now it's a sad fact of the video game industry today that games tend to come out in a, well to
00:04use the most generous term possible, utterly broken, insultingly unplayable state that makes
00:09you want to tear your own brain out with a plastic spork. Don't ask me what the least generous term
00:14is, some things are best left unsaid. But you know what, sometimes these games do get the love they
00:19deserve from a dev team that wants to deliver a quality product, and after patches and so many
00:25updates, they end up being something so utterly amazing that they are undeniable. And that is
00:31what we're here to talk about today, as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 broken
00:36games that are God-tier now. 10. Street Fighter V
00:40Now it's hard to imagine a bigger bag fumble than Street Fighter V when it first released,
00:46mainly due to it being a follow-up to Street Fighter IV, which many fans consider to be the
00:50saviour of an entire fighting game genre. So anything less than saviour of the entire genre
00:56was bound to be a bit of a disappointment. But even with that olive branch being extended,
01:00that doesn't change the fact that Street Fighter V was just flat out not finished upon its release.
01:05On the single-player front, Street Fighter V shipped with no campaign, no arcade mode,
01:10and a survival mode that one would call bare-bones if they felt inclined to be insulting to bones.
01:15And then there was the multiplayer, which was the most egregious insult to fans. The standard
01:20number of players hosting for multiplayer lobbies in a fighting game is around 8, but Street Fighter
01:24V could only host 2, and that's if the lobbies worked at all. This was a bit beyond what a simple
01:30day-one patch could fix, and sure enough, Street Fighter V took three entire years before it entered
01:35a state that fans consider to be decent. Nowadays, Street Fighter V has an entire fanbase who,
01:41shock of shocks, are absolutely willing to pay money for it now that it's in an actual finished state.
01:469. Halo Master Chief Collection
01:49Halo has been around as long as the Xbox, so it was inevitable that Microsoft and 343 Studios would
01:55try to make sure that the current-gen players could access all of the previous games without
02:00having to spend hundreds of dollars on multiple previous-gen systems. Unfortunately, Halo,
02:05the Master Chief Collection, really could have used a little more time in the oven. Upon release,
02:09the game was panned across the board by both fans and critics for being virtually unplayable.
02:14The game came out of the gate riddled with technical issues, both on the single-player
02:18and multiplayer front. Trying to improve the frame rate for the original trilogy from 30 to 60 FPS
02:23ironically made the frame rate worse, if you were playing co-op but weren't the host, because you'd
02:27get a full second of input lag, and that's on top of all of the usual stuff like constant crashes.
02:33But the multiplayer, the thing that Halo fans buy a Halo game for, was the part that got hit the
02:38hardest. Matchmaking was an absolute nightmare, with teams being obscenely uneven, and that was
02:43assuming matchmaking even connected you to a game at all. It wasn't until the PC port that things
02:48began to improve, and after that, and a heavy bunch of patching, the Master Chief Collection has
02:53finally seen the success that it should have had from the very beginning.
02:578. Fallout New Vegas
02:59Now, Obsidian's reputation is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they're known for being one
03:04of the best Western RPG developers in gaming history, making RPGs that stand the test of time. But on
03:09the other hand, their games can often come out a little undercooked. And one of the funniest
03:14offenders of this, ironically, is their magnum opus, Fallout New Vegas. Now, Fallout New Vegas was
03:19definitely not unplayable upon its release, but it was damn close to it in some ways. Even looking
03:24past the occasional glitches like the infamous rotating head, the launch version of New Vegas
03:28also suffered from obscenely long load times, low FPS, and constant crashing.
03:33The CTD problem still being an issue for many players to this very day. Fortunately, after a
03:38ton of patching, the biggest holes in Obsidian's proudest ship were plugged, and New Vegas has since
03:43gone on to be widely accepted as the best Fallout game in the entire franchise. While it may have
03:48had an incredibly rough first year, barely anybody remembers that anymore, allowing New Vegas to
03:53thrive as it deserves.
03:547. Sea of Thieves
03:56Now, when you're making a purely online game, the first thing, the primary thing one could actually say,
04:02that you have to get right is making sure the connection remains stable across the board,
04:06especially for an online game like Sea of Thieves, which requires you and your friends to be working
04:10in tandem to keep your ship running. Unfortunately, this was the biggest issue that many players had
04:15with Rareware's pirate title upon release, but even beyond that, the game was just flat-out empty for
04:20the first few months of life. The primary goal of becoming a pirate legend required months of boring
04:25grinding through repetitive battles, meaning that Sea of Thieves was just not interesting enough to commit to it
04:30for the first stretch of its life. Fortunately, the game has more than turned things around in
04:34that time since. Now, not only are the connection issues basically fixed across the board, but the
04:38updates have stuffed this game to bursting with things to do with your pals as you traverse across
04:43the seven seas. It also helps that the core gameplay loop of Sea of Thieves was always solid
04:47and fun, unlike the more recent Skull of Bones, which is missing many features that Sea of Thieves
04:52had at launch. With better online connection and loads more stuff to do, Sea of Thieves is one of the
04:57most fun online games out there right now. 6. Battlefield 2042
05:02Okay, so 2021 was not a good year for Battlefield, and this game is unfortunately why. Upon release,
05:082042 almost immediately took the crown as the worst Battlefield game in the entire franchise,
05:13and for a series that stretches back to 2002, that is an accomplishment. Now, Battlefield 2042 drew
05:18eye almost immediately for that most unforgivable of sins of SPF games, and that is Awful Online. Not only
05:25were the maps way too big and the combat not as interesting as it could have been, but those
05:29two critiques require you to even be able to get into a match at all, which most players couldn't.
05:33It was also missing multiple industry-standard features at launch, such as a f***ing scoreboard,
05:38and then there were the glitches. Oh god, the glitches, many of which screwed up the player XP
05:43progression. And if you wanted to give the single-player campaign a try instead, well, too bad,
05:47because there wasn't one. In the two years since, though, Battlefield 2042 has more than turned it
05:52around. Not only is its online play stable, it's a marked improvement over previous entries in quite
05:57a lot of ways. A single-player campaign has actually been added, and online matches are
06:01made infinitely more fun, with a variety of quality-of-life improvements. Battlefield 2042
06:06has gone from one of the worst entries in the entire series to one of its best by a considerable
06:11distance. 5. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet
06:15Pokemon games, though as financially successful as they've ever been, have definitely seen a
06:19declining quality over the last decade, mainly due to Game Freak's stubborn refusal to use that money
06:24to expand their development staff. And then Scarlet and Violet came along. While not materially
06:30worse than Sword and Shield, it wasn't a marked improvement either, and on a technical front,
06:34it was even worse. Upon release, the game was plagued by graphical and performance issues from
06:39top to bottom. Some of them were just annoying, like the inconsistent draw distance, while others
06:43were actual game-breaking bugs. Fortunately, in the two years since its release, Game Freak has
06:47implemented multiple patches to fix the worst of the issues. As for the lack of content, the game
06:52has seen multiple expansions with new areas, battles, storylines, and, of course, Pokemon. Plus,
06:57Scarlet and Violet have just released their last DLC expansion earlier this year, bookending a rocky
07:01beginning with a rock-solid finale. 4. Star Wars Battlefront II
07:06One of the most reviled game releases of all time, Star Wars Battlefront II was ironically mostly solid from
07:13a gameplay standpoint. It was basically all down to the microtransactions where this game fell over,
07:18sh**ed itself, and then died in a puddle. Every online game has some form of microtransactions,
07:23that's for sure, but Battlefront II went over the line by locking incredibly powerful characters and
07:28weapons behind its loot boxes. This one tiny detail more or less broke the entire game over its knee,
07:33as it allowed players to essentially buy their way to victory. This not only turned the entire fanbase on
07:38the game, but even got EA in trouble with the law on accusations of gambling. As you can imagine,
07:43backtracking was inevitable. The loot box system was completely reworked, and hero characters were
07:48unlocked for everyone. The tide turned in Battlefront II's favour practically overnight, because shock
07:53of shocks removed the thing that's keeping this game from being fun, and it becomes fun. Who could
07:58have guessed? 3. No Man's Sky
08:00Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know this story by now. It was bad to begin with, he promised too much,
08:05and then it did a load of updates. Look at it. It's the best game you've ever played. Trust me,
08:09like, the VR mode alone is worth downloading this game. I've got a script in front of me,
08:13right, that just goes through all of the tumultuous ups and downs of this game, but you know
08:16the story by now. Just look at what it was, this is the footage of what it was, and this is the
08:21footage of what it is now. Ooh, yeah. Number two, Cyberpunk 2077. Oh god, I could just do the exact
08:28same thing, but I've just done for No Man's Sky for this. And you know what? I will. CD Projekt Red
08:33delivered an absolute stinker early on, right? But look at it right now. Look at the amount of
08:39effort that's been put into updating it, to expanding this already vibrant world, but making
08:44it so, oh, just, you want to live in this place. I mean, it's pretty scummy, and you'd probably die
08:49just walking down the street, or going to get your groceries, but still, I want to be in this world,
08:55because it looks so beautifully crafted. Plus, the latest DLC, Phantom Liberty, is just, oh,
09:01chef's kiss, my friend. And number one, Final Fantasy XIV.
09:05So all of the previous entries pale in comparison to the utter disaster that was Final Fantasy XIV
09:10when it first launched. A bomb so complete and overwhelming that the president of Square Enix
09:15admitted to it having done great damage to the brand. The worst major MMORPG on the market by
09:21some considerable distance, Final Fantasy XIV definitely needed some work. So how did we get
09:26to today, where not only is Final Fantasy XIV still going, but running rings around whatever
09:31MMOs are still standing over a decade later? Well, simply put, they burned the whole godforsaken
09:36thing to the ground and started again. Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 just had too many fires to put
09:41out, so the best plan was to just start from scratch. And so, 1.0 died in a glorious cutscene
09:47fire, and what came after was 2.0, better known as A Realm Reborn. A Realm Reborn relaunched the
09:52entire thing with a brand new UI, a brand new storyline, and completely overhauled combat.
09:57From there, Final Fantasy XIV is only built on itself, until it has just become the epic,
10:01fast-paced, action MMORPG that it is today. Final Fantasy XIV Online is now the most profitable
10:07game in the franchise, and if we're being honest, probably the only thing that's really keeping
10:11the lights on over at Square Enix these days. I'm sorry, but yeah, they've delivered some stinkers.
10:16And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 broken games that are god-tier now. I hope that
10:20you enjoyed that, and let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section
10:22below. As always, I've been Jules. You can go follow me over on Instagram at RetroJBTheO
10:27is a zero, or you can swing by FGS on the Future Game Show, where I'm doing all of my daily gaming
10:31content going forward. Hope to see you over there. Take care of yourself, you big ledge. Remember,
10:35you deserve all the best things in life, like love, happiness, and success, and do not let anything
10:40or anyone else tell you otherwise. Now go out there and smash it. As always, I've been Jules.
10:44You have been awesome. Never forget that. I'll speak to you soon. Bye.