Games that devolved into absurdity.

[hazabaza1]

Alright, so I've just been playing a lot of Sleeping Dogs, just did the last few missions and... holy fuck, what happened.
For those who haven't played it, Sleeping Dogs is an undercover cop style game with fistfighting and slow-mo John Woo style gunfights. The only time realism seems to invade is in the cutscenes. Or so I thought.

Spoiler: Big spoilers for Sleeping Dogs, all the way up to end game

Okay, so up to this point, the game's been kind of straight faced about the story. People have had limits, and when someone gets shot, it's normally fatal. Seems realistic enough, it achieves what it's going for.

Then I get to one of the last missions. Through a series of events your character, Wei, gets kidnapped and tortured. Fucking brutally. It builds up this amazing sense of vulnerability in contrast to all the dick smashing you've been doing before.

Wei gets lucky and escapes, and goes through that bit in every modern game where the protagonist is injured and going all slow and stuff, ends up killing a couple of dudes through a massive effort, really building up this idea that you're injured and near death. Feels really good.

Then you enter the next room, and there's like, 8 guys. All of a sudden, Wei springs up, charges in, and starts kung-fu kicking guys and throwing them into buzz-saws despite getting his bones smashed with a hammer and kneecaps drilled about 5 minutes ago.

It gets better. After some fucking free running, you take out the guy who tortured you, steal his comically oversized knife, and basically go on a fucking murder spree with this giant knife. Seriously, nothing can stand against you with this thing, and you just fucking bash dudes with it until Wei is COVERED in blood.

Some more free-running, and you get in a gunfight. Pretty standard for this game, until you remember the aforemention drilling.
So after gunning through a small army of gangsters with apparently the biggest balls ever, you open the next door to the lead antagonist, at which point he shoots you point fucking blank with a shotgun. Apparently he forgot to load it though, because he runs out of ammo.

So what happens next? He runs, you chase him, jump onto his moving boat, he crashing it into a gas station, causing a massive fucking explosion which you're pretty much on the center of. No worries though, you pat yourself off, and have enough time to climb onto the wreckage.

Turns out Mr Bad Guy did too though, and you have to fight him, MSG4 final boss style, with really weak punches and a really hard fight.
Or it would be if you couldn't counter him with full fucking force.

And after all this, Wei still has the energy to show him into some random fucking Ice Chipper. Fuck.

 

[Esotera]

The game that first springs to mind is Modern Warfare 2. The first few missions were vaguely plausible but then it just went completely crazy.

LA Noire deserves a mention as well, that whole sequence of solving riddles towards the end was utter bullshit, and irritated me so much.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Tomb Raider. I will always resent the last level. It even put me off Amnesia a bit because the jam coming out of the walls reminded me of it.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Fahrenheit kind of goes without saying.

Sort of slow, creeping dread and edge of madness skating becomes SUPER SAIYAN BLAST AIR BATTLE.

Also, it's established that the temperate basically drops to a level wherein it's not safe to go outside; so why on EARTH would you undress and *ahem* in a train carriage of all things?

Yeah, there's also that, the unexpected sex scene. Wat.

 

[Vault101]

snip

aaaahhh ah ah...you forgot

[spoiler/]the point blank shotgun hit him [i/]in the shoulder[/i] you should know that only qualifies as a scratch[/spoiler]

funny though I just finished Sleeping dogs today

[spoiler/] and yeah....I see what you mean when he goes back to "normal" after him struggling for a bit..it would have been nice to keep that in but then they had to pad it out for some reason...

I will say though I [i/]was[/i] seriously cringing at the tortue scene[/spoiler]

EDIT: also I should point out it wasnt a comically over-sized knife...it was a machette

 

[hazabaza1]

snip

aaaahhh ah ah...you forgot

[spoiler/]the point blank shotgun hit him [i/]in the shoulder[/i] you should know that only qualifies as a scratch[/spoiler]

funny though I just finished Sleeping dogs today

[spoiler/] and yeah....I see what you mean when he goes back to "normal" after him struggling for a bit..it would have been nice to keep that in but then they had to pad it out for some reason...

I will say though I [i/]was[/i] seriously cringing at the tortue scene[/spoiler]

EDIT: also I should point out it wasnt a comically over-sized knife...it was a machette

Last time I checked, Machetes don't have a giant serrated edge on it

But I'll take that first point as understandable enough.

 

[sextus the crazy]

The game that first springs to mind is Modern Warfare 2. The first few missions were vaguely plausible but then it just went completely crazy.

LA Noire deserves a mention as well, that whole sequence of solving riddles towards the end was utter bullshit, and irritated me so much.

And Modern Warfare 3 just forgets realty exists. Seriously, Russia instantaneously invading all of Europe after and instant retreat out of America? Bullshit.

 

[Vault101]

Last time I checked, Machetes don't have a giant serrated edge on it

But I'll take that first point as understandable enough.

I'm pretty sure in-game it was called a machette

I dont remember the serrations but mabye that was for effect?

 

[Octorok]

I still haven't forgotten Assassin's Creed 2. I can only picture this meeting taking place in the Ubisoft Doom Fortress of Death[sup]TM[/sup].

"Well, it's time to write the plot of the next AssCreed game. We've decided to utterly destroy the interesting (if imperfectly implemented) ideas of the first one, such as actually utilising our rich historical setting, those neat philosophical principles, and the pleasing parkour-and-murder-simulator gameplay. Instead, we've decided to focus on awful "minigames" (DON'T TELL ME CARNEVAL WASN'T MINIGAMES, BECAUSE IT DEFINITELY WAS), nonsensical plot (*just the sound of my brain crying and swigging from the whiskey bottle*), dreadful, hack writing ("Ezio, you need the Golden Mask because the other masks are numbered and cannot be stolen!" Nobody checks your mask, you're the only one IN a Golden Mask, you STOLE the Mask they said couldn't be stolen, etc. That section was just pure, distilled stupidity.) and terrible tone and pacing ("It's-a-me, Mario!", fist fight with the Pope vs. "I am dark and broody and want vengeance for my murdered family", and on pacing; the "plot" happily grinds to a halt so that you can waste HOURS fixing the awful Thieves' Guild and doing goddamn Carneval.)"

And yet, all my friends preferred AC2 to AC. What an absolute fucking waste of a series.

Incidentally, I never played the later AssCreeds. I hear they did not restore the series to quality.

EDIT: I should point out, it starts OK. Not amazing, but it sets up the initially cool setting and structure pretty well, and the plot is alright for the five minutes it takes before tripping over and tangling itself up in its own nonsense.

 

[hazabaza1]

Last time I checked, Machetes don't have a giant serrated edge on it

But I'll take that first point as understandable enough.

I'm pretty sure in-game it was called a machette

I dont remember the serrations but mabye that was for effect?

I can't remember the in-game name. I was just laughing my arse off at this massive fucking thing in Wei's hand.

 

[Beautiful End]

I still haven't forgotten Assassin's Creed 2. I can only picture this meeting taking place in the Ubisoft Doom Fortress of Death[sup]TM[/sup].

"Well, it's time to write the plot of the next AssCreed game. We've decided to utterly destroy the interesting (if imperfectly implemented) ideas of the first one, such as actually utilising our rich historical setting, those neat philosophical principles, and the pleasing parkour-and-murder-simulator gameplay. Instead, we've decided to focus on awful "minigames" (DON'T TELL ME CARNEVAL WASN'T MINIGAMES, BECAUSE IT DEFINITELY WAS), nonsensical plot (*just the sound of my brain crying and swigging from the whiskey bottle*), dreadful, hack writing ("Ezio, you need the Golden Mask because the other masks are numbered and cannot be stolen!" Nobody checks your mask, you're the only one IN a Golden Mask, you STOLE the Mask they said couldn't be stolen, etc. That section was just pure, distilled stupidity.) and terrible tone and pacing ("It's-a-me, Mario!", fist fight with the Pope vs. "I am dark and broody and want vengeance for my murdered family", and on pacing; the "plot" happily grinds to a halt so that you can waste HOURS fixing the awful Thieves' Guild and doing goddamn Carneval.)"

And yet, all my friends preferred AC2 to AC. What an absolute fucking waste of a series.

Incidentally, I never played the later AssCreeds. I hear they did not restore the series to quality.

EDIT: I should point out, it starts OK. Not amazing, but it sets up the initially cool setting and structure pretty well, and the plot is alright for the five minutes it takes before tripping over and tangling itself up in its own nonsense.

Yeah, some missions were really out there. But I do prefer AC2 over AC1. It was probably the nonsensicality (New word!) that attracted me. AC1 was kinda boring and slow. Altair was just too vanilla. he had a reason to seek vengeance and stuff and still...I didn't really care for him up until Revelations came out. Ezio was probably a cliched character ("I'm young and reckless but now I'm serious and dangerous because my family dieeeeeed!") but he seemed more interesting.

The ending was also pretty weird and disappointing but I've learned to see AC as a sci-fi series so at this point, I don't take it seriously. Like the upcoming AC3. I see it more of a "what if" story instead of a "The truth about our precursors!". So I guess most of us are suckers for cool characters and weird plots. I don't blame you for not liking the game.

OT: I'm gonna go with Driver: San Francisco. Driver games have always been down-to-Earth. A simple cop vs. criminal game. So when they introduced the idea of possessing other people in the game, I was a bit skeptical. But alright, the game felt good. It was kinda fun for a while. But then...

Spoiler

Later on in the game, you discover you're in a coma caused by an accident at the beginning of the game. Not only that, but the bad guy also has your same power of possessing other people. Eventually, you outpower him because, well, it's YOUR coma. So you wake up knowing everything there is to know about the bad guy: what he did, what he's planning on doing and so on. He goes and chases the bad guy and the good guy's buddy actually ends up stopping the bad guy because he doesn't want his friend ruining his car. OH, YOU!
The end.

It wasn't a boring game but it didn't feel much like Driver. Ever since Driver 2, it hasn't been the same. But when they introduced supernatural elements to the series, even if it was a lie, it dind't feel right.

 

[Playing The System]

Rise of Nightmares for the 360 starts to go loopy near the middle and then totally goes off the deep end as you end up somewhere that looks a lot like Wonderland, since it makes just about as much sense as that place.

 

[Easton Dark]

Anyone remember True Crime: Streets of L.A.?

Going from cop learning to cuff people on the street to fighting zombies and fiery dragons?

 

[sethisjimmy]

Condemned 1. It really devolved fast straight from the beginning to the end. Still a good game, the story was just hilarious though.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Fahrenheit kind of goes without saying.

Sort of slow, creeping dread and edge of madness skating becomes SUPER SAIYAN BLAST AIR BATTLE.

Really? COOL!! Now I want to play this game (No, not really).

OT: Um... I can't think of any of the top of my head. Let me get back to you.

 

[Tdoodle]

I still haven't forgotten Assassin's Creed 2.

Same for me, maybe different reasons because I'm not sure how to translate "brain crying" but I definitely felt the same way at the end of 2. It was already toeing the line with the "animal instinct" analogy for the fairly ridiculous genetic memory idea, but I could live with that because it meant I got to run around medieval cities assassinating people, but when the ancient civilisation plot was brought out at the end the whole thing got too ridiculous for me to take seriously.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

The Saint's Row series. I haven't played the first, but the second game was a little absurd and wacky, but still retained some sense of reality. The third game goes beyond absurdity, into Charlie Sheen territory and never looks back.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Unreal Tournament , its was rather sad to see all the locked code and textures.....why even bother to make the damn thing editable?

 

[lacktheknack]

Fahrenheit kind of goes without saying.

Sort of slow, creeping dread and edge of madness skating becomes SUPER SAIYAN BLAST AIR BATTLE.

Also, it's established that the temperate basically drops to a level wherein it's not safe to go outside; so why on EARTH would you undress and *ahem* in a train carriage of all things?

Yeah, there's also that, the unexpected sex scene. Wat.

Should we mention the fact that it may or may not technically be a necrophilia scene? At least they didn't attach a QTE to it.

And if anyone is doubting the "gloomy psychological thriller turns 'Dragonball Z'", and dismisses it as hyperbole, allow me to present:

<youtube=x1qUzXduT-Y&start=274>

The entire game is like that - you play a guy who just murdered someone, and have to survive police investigations and bizarre visions that are driving you insane.

Now explain to me how that turns into this:

<youtube=kw2pnkmYIhI>

Yep. At the 4/5 mark, two super-saiyan dudes have a *****-slap catfight while hanging in midair.

What.

WHAT.

 

[Ronmartin]

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I have very little in the way of not-praise to say when it comes to the masterpiece that is Shadow of the Colossus. One of the most talked-about and loved games of its time and now, and I love it to bits. Still, it does get a bit...trippy...toward the end, where the main character

Spoiler: Spoiler tag so people do not yell at me but seriously if you have not played this game you should be ashamed

gets possessed by the spirit he was serving and transforms into a hundred-foot-tall horned blue-fire-breathing slow-as-all-hell demon-thing, but then gets vacuumed up into a pool of magic water powered by his own magic sword. This somehow causes the bridge to collapse and his girl(friend?) to come back to life, only to discover that he'd been turned into a baby.

I still don't know what was up with all that, but was nicely emotional and flowed okay with the rest of the game, so I wasn't mad. Great game, one of the oddest, most strangely beautiful endings ever.