Best Game Premises Ever

[Zetona]

The other day, I remembered Chris Livingston's (creator of the Concerned webcomic) old story of a game whose premise was simply indescribably awesome:

If you follow my Twitter, you already know I?m very excited about a game called Merchants of Brooklyn. [Edit: it's now called Drug Wars.] Here are some excepts from the game?s description:

In 3100 A.D., global warming has caused the sea level to rise and engulf the streets of Brooklyn. The land is gone, but society rebuilds the city on top of existing structures, connecting buildings through a network of sky bridges...

To meet the upper city's demand for laborers, city leaders contract the Brooklyn Institute of Technology (B.I.T.) to clone a new working class.... Neanderthals were chosen as the main focus of the research based on their physical resilience. The city's contract called for far more Neanderthal clones than were required, causing the excess and sub-standard Neo-Neanderthals to be discarded to the dregs of the city?

...You take the role of an elite Neanderthal fighter with a taste for blood. Having had your arm unwillingly detached from your body courtesy of a chainsaw, your new prototype biomechanical arm transforms into different twisted and brutal weaponry to aid you in the slaughter...

That is quite simply the most awesome description of a game I?ve ever read. It?s so fucking awesome I don?t even dare check out the game itself, because in no way could it ever live up to that description. I can?t look at screenshots or videos or read reviews or anything that might take away from the perfect concept of cloned cavemen building sky bridges in future Brooklyn. No matter what the game actually is, it will never equal the images flooding through my brain.

Here's the source.

Another good one is Xenoblade Chronicles. I've never played it, but between the brief description on Wikipedia and the truly phenomenal box art, the game world I've created in my head is just so unbelievably goddamn cool that I don't know how the Wii could possibly render it. I really want to play it, but I also know that there's no way the reality can match up to this brilliant setup:

The setting of Xenoblade originated in a world that was nothing but endless ocean, until two great titans, the Bionis and the Mechonis, came into existence. The two giants fought a timeless battle, until with one final strike, only their lifeless bodies remained, forever locked in combat. Eons later, new forms of life arose on the corpses two titans; organic lifeforms such as the humanoid Homs on Bionis, and mechanical life forms, such as the machina, on Mechonis. Like the respective titans, the Homs of Bionis, and the mechon of Mechonis fight endlessly for their existence.

Credit: Wikipedia

Spoiler: And LOOK AT THIS BOX ART. HOW COOL IS THIS FUCKIN' BOX ART?

So what other games manage, solely through their basic premise and maybe also their incredible packaging, to look like they're absolutely amazing?

 

[Lilani]

I've always loved Psychonauts' premise: A summer camp for psychics.

Lots of good scenery and situations can come from a summer camp: woods, beaches, lakes, caves, campfires, etc. And of course lots of other good mechanics come from the idea of psychic powers being real: telekinesis, pyrokinesis, levitation, psybeams. Combine the two and you've got psychic scavenger hunts that require you to fly halfway across the map to retrieve the item, mutated lake monsters you can hear the thoughts of, and the ability to set squirrels and bears on fire WHENEVER YOU WANT. A perfect storm of nostalgic, fun settings with awesome powers and mechanics.

And Kingdom Hearts just always stirred the fangirl in me. Final Fantasy and Disney. FINAL FANTASY. AND. DISNEY. The badass aesthetics and story under Tetsuya Nomura's direction...PLUS DISNEY. It was like the first time I tasted peanut butter and jelly all over again. Two different things one might never imagine putting together, but then you do and MY GOD. It's a revelation.

 

[FillerDmon]

Lilani, the fact that we can reasonably say that there exists a chance that, in the future, because of Kingdom Hearts, we can cross Final Fantasy, Disney, and Star Wars, possibly even Marvel together.... It sounds crazy as heck... so did Mario vs Sonic vs Snake/Megaman... as did the original cross up in the first place. And -yet-, it -could- happen.

As my response spoils, mine has to be the Smash Brothers series. Some of the biggest names on a Nintendo console, genuinely beating the tar out of each other for our amusement... and it still holds up!

 

[Zetona]

As my response spoils, mine has to be the Smash Brothers series. Some of the biggest names on a Nintendo console, genuinely beating the tar out of each other for our amusement... and it still holds up!

That's a good one as well. Short, sweet, to the point, and an instant hit.

Welcome to The Escapist, by the way!

 

[Racecarlock]

The earth has been blown up by aliens. Are you, the president, a bad enough dude to invade the matrix and hack in super powers to avenge it?

Lampoon the game all you want, but seriously, go into your mind and have a talk with your 10 year old self. Tell him about this game. He will freak out.

 

[FillerDmon]

As my response spoils, mine has to be the Smash Brothers series. Some of the biggest names on a Nintendo console, genuinely beating the tar out of each other for our amusement... and it still holds up!

That's a good one as well. Short, sweet, to the point, and an instant hit.

Welcome to The Escapist, by the way!

The funniest thing about that game is that, for the Nintendo 64 Edition, it wasn't going to involve Nintendo characters at all, if I remember that-off-hand-fact-you-can't-recall-where-it-comes-from-but-feels-so-legitimate. But someone said it wouldn't sell well, so they decided to give us Donkey Kong beating the stew out of Yoshi and the like, and the rest is history.

Thank you for the warm reception!

 

[McMarbles]

Bad Dudes will NEVER be topped.

It has everything. Ninjas. The President. Bad Dudes. Karnov. Everything.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I never knew I needed "Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden" in my life until Two Best Friends Play introduced me to it.

"What is this game?" you ask. Only the most bizarre thing I've ever heard of.

The game takes place within the Space Jam universe in the future far after the events of Space Jam (yes, THAT Space Jam) in a world where the sport of basketball has been made illegal. You play as Charles Barkley, a former professional basketball player and one of the players whose basketball playing abilities where sucked out of him by the basketball in Space Jam. Said basketball is the ultimate weapon of this universe, and is the reason that basketball is now banned, because Charles Barkley used it to perform the "Chaos Dunk" a basketball move so powerful it blew up New York. Now you, Charles Barkley venture through this world, attempting to resurrect basketball and fighting against Michael Jordan, who led the "b-ball purge" which attempted to kill all the basketball players.

This is a JRPG style game by the way, and it's incredible.

 

[RandV80]

Bad Dudes will NEVER be topped.

It has everything. Ninjas. The President. Bad Dudes. Karnov. Everything.

"The President has been kidnapped by Ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to save him?"

All you need in a game right there!

 

[Asita]

"Ok, so you're this little blocky dude, and you're in this blocky world. You start breaking trees apart with your bare hands and from there you start remaking the world as you see fit. It's full of mining and crafting and..."

Ok, that's still kinda "wut". So let's try this again.

"Alright, so you're one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and-" "SOLD!"

Seriously, the game itself wasn't really that spectacular, but come on, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse battling his well through heaven, hell and charred remains of the earth? That's a power trip right there!

 

[Summerstorm]

Yeah, there are some games with titles which just make the kids in us excitedly pushing our adult selves to buy it.

SPAZ - Space Pirates and Zombies -> done.

Well, but it's not titles but concepts... hm... no idea at the moment except: "You are Batman"

 

[FPLOON]

You're a dude who has to choose between two women with the exact same sounding name... all while climbing up a puzzle-like staircase in your sleep while avoiding a mansheep-eating "vagina" at one point...

 

[go-10]

although the game was a horrible piece of crap the original premise of Operation Raccoon City was fascinating

An open world quarantined city infested with hordes of zombies and monsters where you play as 1 of 2 teams. You either play as Umbrella eliminating the survivors or you play as the rescue squad saving the survivors.

that premise alone sounds awesome and yet they managed to mess it up

 

[Scars Unseen]

Starting from a microscopic organism, evolve yourself. Evolve your species. Progress as a society. Establish yourself as a dominant power as you push into space and beyond!

It's such a shame Spore didn't live up to its hype.

 

[sagitel]

In the WW2 a group of nazis are creating an army of undead and you go blasting them to pieces only to have an confrontation with robo hitler.

It cant get better than that

 

[Kingjackl]

You process paperwork for a communist dictatorship. Using the latest in murky 16-bit graphics, control the flow of people entering your horrible country by examining passports and travel documents. You have a green stamp to admit people with the right forms and a red stamp to turn away people who don't follow the bureaucratic rules. You have a strict time limit, and failing to meet your quota can lead to your family getting cold, hungry, sick and eventually dying.

What?

 

[TristanBelmont]

Remember Me, Assassin's Creed, Quantum Break, Heavy Rain (While Quantic Dream games are never great, this is the least dumb of the bunch and it's actually kinda cool), Saint's Row IV, and Super Smash Bros.

 

[Foolery]

Bionic Commando. Hey, let's fight knock-off Nazis who are lead by a revived Hitler by keeping his brain alive in stasis for a couple hundred years. Our best defense? Nathan "Rad" Spencer. A guy who can't even jump. And looks like a ginger Duke Nuke'em with a robotic grappling hook arm.