"Damn, I wish I could play a good version of this"

[Smooth Operator]

Mafia 2 - finish the damn game
GTA 4 - bring back the fun, cut out the crap
Fallout: NV - how about you fix atleast a couple of bugs, and a proper inventory system wouldn't hurt
Crackdown 2 - you already had a good formula in C1, so wtf is this sh*t
Overlord 2 - very good ideas, now implement them properly

 

[FinalHeart95]

Mirror's Edge. Mind you, I still like the game, it's just that I felt it could've been great. If it was less trial-and-error based, had some sort of replayability and had a decent story, it would've been an extremely good game.

I still enjoyed it though.

 

[TerranReaper]

Pokemon, I think. The games were good when they were new, but taking a formula with so much potential and making exactly zero changes to it is a terrible waste. I'd be all over a Pokemon game where you could create teams of Pokemon that complement each other, or if they made it a turn-based strategy game or something. Why would you make a game with over 400 playable characters, and limit you to using one at a time? It just doesn't make sense to me.

You haven't seen that much if you think the formula has zero changes to it or have seen the competitive scene to it. I rather not get into detail but just saying.

 

[purf]

Not talking about bad games here, but my #1 for the category Wasted Potential has to be Mirror's Edge. The game has a really hard time to reveal its moments of when it is allowed to shine through all those layers of uninspired-ness.

Also, FUEL. Now I'm not a big fan of this kind of racing anyways, but how they managed to create this beautiful, stunning world and then did not bother to give ANY incentive AT ALL for exploring it is surely remarkable.

 

[SmilingKitsune]

Folklore. Don't get me wrong, the game isn't actually terrible, it's just mediocre, the art design however is actually amazing, as are a lot of the characters and the basic idea to the game.
I felt so frustrated with the developers for wasting such potential with dull, incredibly repetative gameplay.

 

[Ice Car]

Fallout: New Vegas is a great game, but it loses a lot because it's so buggy. If only they had better QA, it would be my game of the year.

This. I encountered at least 50 bugs on my first playthrough. Most of them were progress blocking or left quests stuck in my log for eternity.

 

[mornal]

Mafia 2. There was so much more that was going to be in here, you could tell just by looking at. There was even a wiki site devoted entirely to cut content. Buying cars (not stealing them), doing jobs for Mike and Derek, melee weapons, public transportation, etc. Stuff that would've had turned a good game with flaws into a great game.

 

[Netrigan]

God Of War...

I just rage quit the damn thing, deleting the thing from my HD because I thought it was just so damn tedious. I loved the spectacle of the game, but the actual game mechanics were just shit. Combat was pretty solid, except after the first couple of levels, they just start throwing endless QTE bad guys at you. The big boss fights are just repetitive, as you figure out the pattern, then just endlessly exploit it... the tedium only broken up by shitty QTEs.

 

[Netrigan]

Alpha Protocol.

Why was the gameplay so terrible, Obsidian? Why? Couldn't you just have ripped off Mass Effect or any given James Bond game and be happy?

If Alpha Protocol's gameplay would've been as good as that of ME2, I would've had a different GotY this year.

Alas.

ME:2 was a shooter. Alpha Protocol was a Stealth/Action-RPG. The two are not compatible.
Alpha Protocol needed to be more like Classic Splintercell, a greater emphasis on stealth and far, far, far less emphasis on shoot outs.

I played AP as a shooter.

So, yeah. It can be a shooter, in fact, most both battles kind of assume it is.

If you played it as a shooter, then you were playing it wrong.

I tried playing it as a stealth game and that quickly morphed into shooter. Pretty easy as a shooter.

I think the big flaw in the game is that the story was just too open-ended. Since you can make anyone like or dislike you and just about everyone can end up dead by the end, I didn't feel like there was any sort of pay-off. And way too much of the conversation system early in the game.

 

[WittyInfidel]

JRPGs in general, Skies of Arcadia Legends stands out in my mind because it was a great story with fun characters but the game play >.< oy vey, the ship battles were funnish but it'd be more fun if I had loading times on the guns and had to evade and maneuver to avoid damage and line up shots like a real naval battle.

The Resident Evil games come to mind too, and... damn some Dinosaur survival horror game that played and looked like a half breed between jurassic park and resident evil... the concept sounded fun but dammit all those games I was wishing for the magic "make it better" button to appear.

You're thinking of Dino Crisis. I remember those games. I think they went as far as to make a 3 or 4 in the series, even. I agree. Another case of cool concept, horrid execution.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

JRPGs in general, Skies of Arcadia Legends stands out in my mind because it was a great story with fun characters but the game play >.< oy vey, the ship battles were funnish but it'd be more fun if I had loading times on the guns and had to evade and maneuver to avoid damage and line up shots like a real naval battle.

The Resident Evil games come to mind too, and... damn some Dinosaur survival horror game that played and looked like a half breed between jurassic park and resident evil... the concept sounded fun but dammit all those games I was wishing for the magic "make it better" button to appear.

Dino Crisis. It was made by the same people I believe.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior. Great concept, terrible execution. It was glitchy as hell, and the animations were very shoddy. With all the kinks worked out, it could have been an amazing game.

Play Sniper Elite then, it's like a good version of Ghost warrior.

 

[Trogdor1138]

Alone in the Dark (Game issues prevented this from being a unique horror/adventure)

Mirrors Edge (Especially this, so much promise and innovation ruined by being half assed)

Alien vs. Predator (Had high hopes for this, but it just didn't deliver)

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (It just wasn't MK to me, a cluttered/bloated broken mess of a game)

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Alpha Protocol.

Why was the gameplay so terrible, Obsidian? Why? Couldn't you just have ripped off Mass Effect or any given James Bond game and be happy?

If Alpha Protocol's gameplay would've been as good as that of ME2, I would've had a different GotY this year.

Alas.

Ooph, Alpha Protocol is just about the poster-child of wasted potential.

Though one thing I have to say is that I wish Obsidian would rip off Bioware LESS than they already do. If their games had lived up to their predecessors then I'd support them but as it is, it just doesn't do it for me.

Anyways, Alpha Protocol. The game could have been quite good, but they just did so many things wrong.

The dialogue system sounded nice on paper, but ultimately, as Yahtzee pointed out, it was like a shot in the dark, you may think you're saying one thing then end up saying a completely different thing. Another thing that bothered me is that the +1 Like or -1 Like thing was really annoying. First of all it shouldn't be THAT obvious, subtlety please. Secondly, it's really distracting, I'm occasionally a perfectionist(as odd as that sounds), so when I see a -1 Like every 3 seconds, rather than just go "oh, second playthru" I reload, and it ends up wasting a lot of time. Maybe I'm being too overbearing but I don't want every little uttered comment to make someone get pissed at me.

The skill system, I wanted to be stealthy, and it was shaping up nicely but ultimately there are two points why it failed. First, it's IMPOSSIBLE to be stealthy without the abilities. Second, the abilities are complete bull. Instead of assisting your stealth, it's a magic 'turn-invisible' spell for a little while, which removes all difficulty. On another aspect of the skill system, it was rather unbalanced. Yet another example of referencing Yahtzee, Deus Ex had a wide, varied skill system and it really worked well... Alpha Protocol, if you don't specialize in a gun, maybe even a good gun (assault rifle) then your experience of this game will suck. In boss fights, even if you sneak up behind them (being invisible and all) you can't do jack, they're magically invincible to having their neck broken. I somehow managed to take out the drugged up douchebag with dual golden SMGs (which was actually kind of a cool boss fight other than the fact that it wasn't balanced well in the slightest, the background music was fun though) but it took a looong time, a lot of running, and a lot of abusing the time that he's stunned from the 3 bullets from my assault rifle to punch him for bonus damage... all-in-all boss fights in this kinda flopped.

The game really did have a nice setup, but if they had taken the time to revise it and see what worked and what really didn't it could have been quite a game, rather than a failed experiment. Hopefully they'll learn from their mistakes and go on to make better games that they put more thought into in the future.

[PROTOTYPE]

It fell just short of working in almost every way, and if it had worked, it could have been a truly amazing game.

Actually don't know what you're referring to. I didn't beat it but I got rather far and I didn't find any particular aspect to not work as intended. The timed minigames can go to hell though.

 

[wammnebu]

Rise of Legends, that could have been an amazing rts, if they had a bit more balencing, and the game wasnt so linear

KoTOR 2, if it had had one more year lucasarts, ONE MORE YEAR to clean and polish it

Spore, focused on creature stage and put more depth in it

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Bad games. We've all played them, or at least heard of them. They waste your time and you feel like you've thrown your money into the shredder. But sometimes, there are games that are not just bad, but they annoy you with how much wasted ideas and potential they have in them. So, list those games that you've played (or even heard about in great detail) that you would love to play a good version of.

And please, put the flamethrower away beforehand.

Muramasa: the Demon Blade. They took out most of what made Odin Sphere awesome (Structured narrative, alchemy, and likable characters.).
OP: Awesome avatar is awesome.

 

[Chelsea O'shea]

spider-man:shattered dimensions.

love the idea of different game play for each spidey,in practice it was kinda like "wtf,why am i not having fun?"
plus alot of the writing for spidey's 2-4 was pretty horrible,seemed the only one they got right was amazing spidey and kinda like went "eh who cares" with the other 3.

 

[Ashcrexl]

i wouldnt say red dead redemption is bad. its actually pretty good. but it was pretty boring to play. a shame because the old west setting was done perfectly and the writing was superb. horse riding time should be reduced and missions should definitely be more than cover-based shoot fests or horse riding shoot fests. just saying.

 

[varulfic]

The way you exaggerate how easy it was is just disgusting. For one, some enemies were a ***** to attack. In fact, hearts wouldn't even be worth mentioning if there really was no damage; so you're obviously lying there. Not to mention they rarely appear out of anything (usually grass, because there's so much of it) and it's usually just 1 heart. Hey, maybe the game recognizes our behavior and allocates random item drops to balance difficulty. You probably know that kind of programming is out there, I've seen it in Resident Evil 4; and it would be the only alternative to you being a liar. I, for one, died a few times during boss battles, most notably because I hadn't fully utilized the bottle fairies until (probably) that same part where you needed 3. Have you ever considered that you're very skilled? Don't think I'm kissing up, either; keep in mind that I think you're an ass. The over-population of rupees is the closest you have to a legit argument, but half the things that you can buy with them being available for free are pretty much a(n admittedly bad) benchmark of the series; which makes me wonder why you're singling out this game, remember the girl that laughed about it during the Ocarina tutorial? As for the expensive maps, you obviously don't know the basics of economics: supply & demand. The fish near that island specifically described Tingle as very talented, which means he can get away with charging up the ass because his talents make him more valuable, which is saying a lot because this is Tingle we're talking about and some people would pay to avoid him. If sailing annoys you so much, why not use the teleport song to jump around the map? It ensures that no voyage lasts more than 5 minutes as long as you've aligned the wind to carry you and you're less likely to run into the many dangerous sea creatures that you seem to be oblivious to.

Edit: corrected some wording in the part about Ocarina of Time.

First of all: Wow man, you're taking this way too personally. I hate your favorite game, deal with it. It's not like I insulted your mother.

I never got less that three hearts from an enemy (I'm talking about those glowing orbs that every moblin drops). In battle, I lost at most three hearts if I was sloppy, and since you often fight more than one enemy, I got full life at the end of the battle. Every time. And no, I'm not that skilled, I've never completed a game without dying before, but this game just showers you with new upgraded fighting moves and tons upon tons of healing without ever making the enemies any harder. Maybe there was some RE4-style difficulty balancing (don't know), but if there was, it's the worst implented balancing system ever devised. There were a couple of clever puzzles though, I give you that. Some of the dungeons had me for a while, pretty much the only enjoyable thing about the game.

And why I'm singling this game out? Because you get much, much more rupies in this game than any other Zelda game. In Ocarina, you had to struggle, finding a bunch of hidden golden spiders to be awarded a bigger purse; in WW, I stumbled upon a 5000 rupy purse just cruisin' around. Every cave or hidden island seems to contain rupies, but since there isn't anything to spend it on, I feel cheated every time I explore. If a game makes me sigh every time I find a huge pile of cash, it has failed.

Oh, and I'm calling bullshit on your "supply and demand" excuse. Here's a better one: "padding". The only reason the maps are expensive is to force you to go do more tedious exploring, and it's the only part of the game where you have any use for money. It's just plain lazy. Speaking of which, that whole part of tracking down the maps and the tripieces was boring, just more sailing and a couple of caves. The biggest anticlimax is the ghost ship, which had been hyped by NPCs the whole game and took me a long while to figure how to get into, and then I find it's just another room with some enemies. Could they have put in a little more effort maybe making this interesting? There's even one part where you're going down a hole, fight of some enemies and then continue down another hole to another room that looks just the same to fight more enemies, which goes on for like ten floors. That part was so repetitive that I thought the game was bugged.

This game just plain sucks, and I hate it. It should have been the greatest game ever, but it implents every good idea badly. With the exception of some of the puzzles, there's not a single part of this game that I don't find seriously flawed.