Bad games with great ideas or settings

[Muspelheim]

Hmm... Valkyria Chronicles is the only one I can think of. It's honestly not what I'd really call outright 'bad', but it's got a neat general idea.

I like the presentation (mostly), the general gameplay and the basic parts of the story. But it's the weirdly overdone, cutesy animoo-thing that spoils it. The tone is alright (although the holocaust references felt particularly cringy) for the most part, but sometimes, it just spikes into this odd, sugary charicature of itself, it feels like. Much like the characters; good enough at the basics, but inflated into charicatures as well. The weird haircuts, the one-note character traits, the whole ADOPTED sister bit, the apparent average age of 12 in the ranks... It might just be something I don't understand, something that isn't part of my sphere, but I somehow felt... Embarrased, I suppose, like I don't want to be caught playing it.

It's perfectly fine to stylize, and that's what the game's got going for itself; the style. I rather like it, as well as the broad strokes of the story. But it just gets spread on too thick, with the mini-skirt BDUs, the haircuts (and the very liberal hair regulations of the Muminvalley Militia), the one liners, the Pokémon-esque poses... It's a very nice aesthetic on a pretty solid gameplay foundation, but I'd wish they'd pack it in a bit here and there.

But then again, this is just because I felt like thinking about the question. It might just not be something for me, something that I don't really get. Still, was fun to think of again.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

mars: war logs.

but that is cheating, the game was fun, and I enjoyed it. but it was squandering the setting and lore for such a short game with a rushed 3rd act and no follow-up.

couldn't agree more, I went into the game not expecting much at all and had a really fun time with it, but as soon as I got done with it I reflected back on how rough of a game it was and how much more it could've been.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm going with one of my flawed gems Arcanum again.

While it isn't really that bad of a game, purely as a CPRG it's definitely not as good as classics like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. The combat particularly is...questionable, even more so than Planescape's. Graphically it's not exactly a looker either, outclassed by most older CRPG's.

But the setting, man, I love it to death. The awesome mix of steampunk and magic makes for an awesome setting.

I tried to get into Arcanum, but maybe I came at it way too late. The movement and combat just seemed so dang awkward, but agreed, the setting seemed like an amazing idea.

That being said, I remember reading somewhere that one big issue with the game was that even though a big part of its story was having to choose between technology or magic, magic was horrendously OP.

 

[Fallow]

Warlords Battlecry. Super-awesome idea combining classic RTS (with 9 races!) with a classic RPG style hero that levelled up across battles.

Spoiler: Naughty dark elf wallpaper

The hero brought a multitude of abilities, as well as command/aura bonuses to combat units and production/gathering bonuses to the economy.
You could turn your hero into a merchant prince able to squeeze out 16 armies of golden knights on a shoestring budget, or an unstoppable killing machine that would part the sea of combatants like Moses, or a powerful mage that could rain molten badass from the sky while morphing lousy cavalry into magical hellbeasts made of rape and lemon juice.
Oh, and everyone has a mega-super final boss to build for those truly epic late-game clashes.

Spoiler: Druid hero in WBC

Spoiler: Paladin in WBC2

So why isn't this the best game ever made?

Spoiler: Overland map in WBC2

Because SSI, the devs of the game, had little to no experience with real-time stuff. The game is buggy, animations are bad, graphics are poor, and the netcode is unstable.

It's an absolute shame, because I've never played an RTS that came close to this much fun. Warlords Battlecry is a series of 3 games currently, though the third installment takes a different (worse) route than the first two.

Spoiler: in-game

 

[1981]

The Void has some interesting mechanics, but falls short on execution.

Vampire®: The Masquerade - Bloodlines? wasn't bad, but the glitches, performance issues and clunky combat dragged it down. Also, WTF is up with that title?

 

[CaitSeith]

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. The idea of the game adapting itself to your psychological profile to give you a personalized horror experience sounds pretty intriguing. SH: SM gave it a try, combining psychological tests and following of your in-game actions. But I don't know what went wrong. Maybe the pacing wasn't good enough, with the tests interrupting the story. Was it too subtle? Or maybe not subtle enough? Maybe people expected it too be a remake of SH1.

 

[Dalisclock]

I tried to get into Arcanum, but maybe I came at it way too late. The movement and combat just seemed so dang awkward, but agreed, the setting seemed like an amazing idea.

That being said, I remember reading somewhere that one big issue with the game was that even though a big part of its story was having to choose between technology or magic, magic was horrendously OP.

I'm currently in my third attempt to play through this game. I've gotten farther then I ever have before, actually making it to Tarant this time. The problem is....I'm getting easily distracted by other games because while I like the idea of Arcanum, it's so clunky and hard to get into that I kind of have to force myself to play it.

I'm hoping it'll hook me soon, once I get more information on that mcguffin ring and find out why I'm supposed to care about it.

 

[kuolonen]

Alpha Protocol can be likened to a scratch-off ticket that has two Jackpots and one Cherry. I love how your character is the biggest asshole in the world, I love how you can specialize in a ton of skills, I love how if you don't train in a skill you're basically useless with that skill but the game needed more time in development. The plot was interesting and I liked the spy angle but again, the gameplay was buggy and laggy and just...not very good.

Star Wars the Force Unleashed was a mediocre game with an amazing idea: Star Wars Anthology based around force users who lived on the fringes of the official time-line. Starkiller was neat and the first game was a good proof-of-concept but the next game could be about anybody like Exar Kun, Ulic Quel-Droma, the resurrected Darth Maul...It's too bad that idea was scrapped to make way for a useless direct sequel based around a love interest that didn't fucking exist in the original game.

Despite the bugs, I still remember AP quite fondly. Rare is a game where you can be such an utter sociopath. Good times.

Force Unleashed I had mentally forced myself to forget, along with many other disappointments I believe. What the hype led me to believe: You are a very much dark side force user, fighting black op wars under Vader in the empire. What was the reality: After about 2 hours into the game, starkiller is fighting for the rebel cause, occasionally saving kittens from trees, all the while casually throwing force lighting around. Because dark side of the force apparently really just makes you frown a lot, instead of turning you into a sith.

 

[Dalisclock]

Because dark side of the force apparently really just makes you frown a lot, instead of turning you into a sith.

I got the same vibe from the guys at the Sith Academy on Korriban in KotoR. They would do dick things to innocent people for no particular reason, other then being bullies and jerks. It just felt like such a lazy way to write dark side characters and seems inexcusable when it's not hard to write an evil character with understandable motivations. It's possible to write a likable facist character who has understandable(and even sympathic) motivations, even they do terrible things because of such motivations. Hans Landa from Inglorious bastards is a great example of a likable Nazi.

Hell, even though the PC from Tie Fighter was a blank slate, that game actually showed WHY people would want to fight for the empire instead of the rebels and did it beautifully.

 

[DementedSheep]

mars: war logs.

but that is cheating, the game was fun, and I enjoyed it. but it was squandering the setting and lore for such a short game with a rushed 3rd act and no follow-up.

couldn't agree more, I went into the game not expecting much at all and had a really fun time with it, but as soon as I got done with it I reflected back on how rough of a game it was and how much more it could've been.

That seems to be a problem with that developer. I get the impression from playing a few of their games that they are a little bit over ambitious with the resources they have so they end up with rough half finished games that was clearly set up to be more.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

mars: war logs.

but that is cheating, the game was fun, and I enjoyed it. but it was squandering the setting and lore for such a short game with a rushed 3rd act and no follow-up.

couldn't agree more, I went into the game not expecting much at all and had a really fun time with it, but as soon as I got done with it I reflected back on how rough of a game it was and how much more it could've been.

That seems to be a problem with that developer. I get the impression from playing a few of their games that they are a little bit over ambitious with the resources they have so they end up with rough half finished games that was clearly set up to be more.

from what I know from a couple years ago, they are a small AA team (I think based out of eastern europe? not too sure) and they are definitely over ambitious, but at the same time I almost prefer it that way, rather than them making small games that have been licked and polished 800x

Sure it'd be nice if they were given the proper resources to "finish" their games, but I still have fun with them and don't think I'd have that same appreciation if they made smaller games.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Dante's Inferno. Pretty generic hack/slash game, but OH man the visuals. Burning corpses, giant black daemons, tens of millions of damned souls. Destroying the city of Dis on a giant rat kaiju daemon was pretty neat too.
Also there's something appealing about evil without any qualifiers. No misunderstood antagonist, or a well intentioned mad scientist or even just another country. This is pure 'skin you alive then rape you every day for the rest of time simply because they can' evil.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Dante's Inferno. Pretty generic hack/slash game, but OH man the visuals. Burning corpses, giant black daemons, tens of millions of damned souls. Destroying the city of Dis on a giant rat kaiju daemon was pretty neat too.
Also there's something appealing about evil without any qualifiers. No misunderstood antagonist, or a well intentioned mad scientist or even just another country. This is pure 'skin you alive then rape you every day for the rest of time simply because they can' evil.

I actually played through Dante's Inferno multiple times, and I hear you: the setting is just so damn GOOD. It's one of the few video games I would actually call 'disturbing'. Lust Demons that shoot tentacles out of their vaginas, unbaptized babies that attack you, glutton demons that shit and vomit on you, the game really went full bore with the whole idea of just how awful Hell is supposed to be.

I liked the fact that you couldn't unlock everything in one playthrough (unlike God of War).

But what killed me were the QTEs that you quickly realized literally never changed, and the last 1/3rd of the game, which definitely felt like a serious drop in quality over the first 2/3rds. Also, the difficulty spike between normal and hard felt too extreme: normal was way too easy and hard was way too hard. I think it definitely could have used more weapons too.

Finally, it was sort of a real bummer when you got to the end and realized that choosing holy or unholy didn't actually affect the ending.

 

[ZeroFarks]

Spore. It will always and forever be Spore. The void in my heart will never be be healed.

You win the thread. Yes, I think Spore will forever hold the record for "Biggest Chasm Between what was Promised and what was Delivered."

 

[SweetShark]

I will be frank here....

Please, like some other user said, let me explain:

Yes, I know this game is bad, plus it is from a terrible movie [I didn't saw it myself, I take the others words to make a point], but the idea behind the gameplay is GENIUS!!!! F*CKING BRILLIANT!!!!

You had the ability any time you wanted as a commander [I think] to control the ships of your army at any point you wanted, so not only to defeat the enemy alien ships, but help you with your battle on the ground.

If we could get this game's idea and put it in some original game, it would be brilliant!!!

- Like, be inside a giant robot and trying to find a weak point inside so you disable it's armor, give order to your ships to strike, leave the f*cking robot immediately, BOOM!!!! The Giant Robot go DOWN BABY!!!!!
- Or even better!!! Alien Troopers invide one of your ships and you are on it!!! You must escape with a plane, but at the same time you musts decide: Shall I leave the ship like this, or I shall sacrife my fellow soldiers to kill an important part of the Alien Army by giving order the other ship to bomb the fallen ship?
I am sorry.....

MOTHER F*CK!!!!!! MAKE A GAME LIKE THIS!!!!

 

[Zen Bard]

I'm going with one of my flawed gems Arcanum again.

While it isn't really that bad of a game, purely as a CPRG it's definitely not as good as classics like Fallout and Planescape: Torment. The combat particularly is...questionable, even more so than Planescape's. Graphically it's not exactly a looker either, outclassed by most older CRPG's.

But the setting, man, I love it to death. The awesome mix of steampunk and magic makes for an awesome setting.

Yep. Think we have a winner here. It was such a cool idea and world concept. But the gameplay was just...so...awful.

OT: The Darkness: It had a lot going for it; interesting characters, unique Darkness powers and shadow mechanics and a fairly unconventional story.

But it was such a clunky shooter. Jackie Estacado moved like he was constantly mired in molasses. You have enemies that can sprint, jump and duck for cover while the player sort of...can't.

However, I loved the Urban New York setting (though I've never seen the city that empty in my life). It had a dirty grit that was reminiscent of LA from Vampire:The Masquerade:Bloodlines. So much so that the whole time I was playing it, I kept thinking how much more fun it would have been as an open world RPG.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

OT: The Darkness: It had a lot going for it; interesting characters, unique Darkness powers and shadow mechanics and a fairly unconventional story.

It's funny, the thing I disliked most about "The Darkness" was Jackie's look. I know they were trying to stay faithful to the comics, but Jackie looked like '15 year old Goth kid in the 90s' idea of what "super bad-ass" looks like.
-Long black hair? Check.
-Long trenchcoat? Check.
-Grim demeanor? Check.
-Hot, kind-of goth girlfriend? Check.

It just seemed so out of place when he then starts talking in a thick Italian/New Jersey accent. Besides that though, loved the game (even though I thought it became too easy once you unlocked the black hole ability).