games with wasted potential

[Ldude893]

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Duke Nukem Forever and Mirror's Edge (though it IS an experimental game so it can be excused)

Half Life. We could have had a story built around a space biker if they stuck to their guns.

Then imagine how awesome Gordon would be in the sequels.

If they stuck with the concept of Ivan the Spacebiker, I would have never laid a hand on Half Life. Gordon Freeman was such a unique character because unlike most video game characters at the time, he was a scientist who wears glasses.

 

[Zaldin]

Brütal Legend, Darksiders. Both already quite good games, but they had potential for so much more.

 

[Raikov]

Has no one mentioned Homeworld 2?

Seriously, have you the slightest ideas what some mods have made that game into? Wish it had been like that from the start though...

Also, Dawn of War 2. It should have been more Warhammer and a lot less Starcraft...

 

[elcamino41383]

Darksiders was way too much of the same thing, like Dynasty Warriors meets Zelda meets God of War, WET was too short, and the last boss fight was "epic fail," (compelete quick time event for a last boss fight, and even then its nothing all that flashy and awesome? come on now...) Protoype had a shit ton more potential, but it felt like a slightly varied Hulk: Ultimate destruction, Bayonetta was a bit stale for me also, I liked a lot of the ideas, but I think the delivery needed work. I'm sure there is more somewhere in my mind, but those are the most recent ones I can think of.


*edit* Golden Axe: Beast Rider...holy shit what a waste of potential.

 

[JEBWrench]

Has no one mentioned Homeworld 2?

I didn't mention it because I bloody well love the Homeworld series. I don't think it's wasted potential at all.

Also, Dawn of War 2. It should have been more Warhammer and a lot less Starcraft...

*confused* So, DoW 2 was a Warhammer game that was similar to a game that started out as a Warhammer game?

 

[soren7550]

Even though I love it, I believe that Perfect Dark Zero could have been so much more. Maybe part of the problem is due in part to the fact it changed platforms three times.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Well, that's easy. There's more wasted potential than not these days.

Final Fantasy 13. They put so much work into developing this big, detailed fantasy setting, but the game and the writing are both pig shit and you never feel like you're actually getting a chance to explore or get to know the world.

Kingdom Hearts 2. The first game was an unlikely gem. The second shit all over everything that made it good, wasted Pete's potential as a villain, and wasted Organization XIII's potential as villains as well. All the conflict in this game is just boring, boring, boring, and the game design ditched all the elements that worked best in favor of a fistful of superficial (but admittedly really appealing) toys.

Brutal Legend. I don't think anybody was looking to Tim Schafer for a half-assed multiplayer RTS. The worst thing about it is that it can be summed up entirely in genre lingo: "open-world action/adventure RTS hybrid." Seriously, if you hear that, you don't even need to play the game. They'd have done better if they made it a hybrid of God of War and Oddworld.

Bioshock. Good enough taken for what it is, but I'm not sure anybody has a lot of praise for the inordinate amount of emphasis that gets put on the Little Sisters in the last part of the game. Right up until then it's a terrific allegory for Paradise Lost mixed with questions of trans-humanity versus subhumanity, and it's beautifully meshed with the political atmosphere of Rapture, and then they pull a switcheroo and go, "nope, it was all about strangling or not strangling little girls the whole time." As a gameplay element they serve their purpose, but otherwise they're a really, really sloppy macguffin that distracts from the real issues of the story. Never mind the fact that the game design of it went in completely the wrong direction. It could have been a game that tempted you, made you ask how much of a monster you'd make yourself into in order to get out of Rapture while you weighed the benefits of using plasmids against the difficulties inherent in trying to avoid using them and depending on your own skills.

I would like to see a game like Dungeon keeper re-done, with this generation of graphics

Agreed. Dungeon Keeper is one of my favorite games of all time, and I miss it to death. It's a pity, because I can't even play Dungeon Keeper 2 on my machine these days...

 

[Tadrith]

Hrmm...kinda surprised no one has mentioned Final Fantasy XIII yet. COULD have been a great game, if they found a way to tie all those Cie'th Stone missions into the plot, provided endings for the two rather obvious alternative resolutions to the narrative and oh yea....gave the player a few choices so that it didn't feel like a movie with combat.

And also, Thousand Arms was a far better game than it seemed...if only the combat system wasn't groin-punchingly bad.

 

[Steppin Razor]

Also, Dawn of War 2. It should have been more Warhammer and a lot less Company of Heroes...

Fixed it for you. I love both those games, but they could've done so much more with DoW2.

On topic: Haze. The story it presented was actually pretty damn good. Soldiers that are hooked up to a drug dispenser that keeps them high when they're in the middle of combat so they don't get to see the horrifying reality of war. Instead we got a total clusterfuck that shit all over what should have been good and put Free Radical out of business. How did they fuck it up so badly?

 

[Superior Mind]

Far Cry 2 was my immediate thought. I mean it could be so much better if only it tweaked a few things:
- Don't make enemies respawn so damn fast
- Don't make weapons disintegrate like they were made out of Sodium...

I mean even with those two it would have been better but then you can include:
- Friendly NPCs instead of that "secret misson" bollocks.
- On the same line of thought not having everyone you meet outside a safe zone attack you. I mean c'mon, even an enemy would sus out a suspicious person at first instead of immediately dropping everything to risk their life and limb to kill the guy.
- Better story that didn't end in a clusterfuck of confusion and uselessness. Or at least made sense.
- Malaria, FUCKING malaria. Hell include it to set the scene if you want but don't give me a mission where I'm forced to destroy the damn cure for it instead of, you know, maybe curing the fucking thing that has me running across the map every now and then to lengthen gameplay time. Annoying.

I mean the environment was fantastic, the basic gameplay elements were there, the travelling around the world was enjoyable. The skeleton for a great game was there, it's just a shame the rest of it was built like the Frankenstein monster's redarded offspring.

 

[Shinigami214]

Overlord 2 - it ridiculously ripped off the original in a way that was blatantly lazy and entirely not amusing.

Fallout 3 - the main story arc felt half-hearted at best - a distraction from randomly running around the wasteland.

Borderlands, Assassin's Creed 1, and Dawn of War 2 also spring to mind.

 

[kahlzun]

Beyond Good and Evil.

So could have used more non-vehicle sidequests.

just a few off the top of my head:

Vehicle Spotting
- Basically like the animal one, but you need to take a photo of every car/vehicle in the game.
Private Eye
- Sneak around following someone to get a photo of them doing something dodgy

 

[Zhukov]

Mirror's Edge - Remove most of the combat, leave just one or two moves for shoving guys out of your way. Get rid of all the air-vent sections. Maybe make the campaign a tad longer.
Dragon Age - Remove all the damn padding. Make the DLC actually work. Don't make my irreplaceable crowd-control mage throw a tantrum and leave right before the climax.
Metro 2033 - Stop ruining the awesome atmosphere with overly chatty NPC allies. (Game was still pretty fun though.)

So many others, but they are the most recent.

 

[psychic psycho]

I actually think Assassin's Creed 2 falls into this category. I don't own the game due to the DRM on the PC version but I did get to borrow my brother-in-law's 360 and his copy of the game. I finished the game and I have to say it still suffers from a lot of the same problems as the first. The only thing that was fixed was that it's slightly less repetitive. I really don't understand the praise it's been getting.

The most annoying thing about AC2 is that most of the problems I have with the game could be fixed by making the game more difficult. The biggest problem to me, is that the game still has that lame auto-platforming, the game practically plays itself. The combat is still easy, in fact they've made it even easier. You can drink potions mid battle to regain health. They've added a bunch more weapons but they hardly differ from each other so they're pointless. You can kill every guard with no problems just by countering. This effectively ruins the aspect of running and hiding from enemies which should have been a large part of the game. The notoriety mechanic is nice but you never have to worry about it, because again the combat is too easy. Why add the money mechanic into the game? You never have to think about it because you can build up a large amount of gold easily and fairly early on in the game.

There's more problems to AC2 but that's just from the top of my head. I think AC2 could have been so much better if they just made it harder. A lot of the mechanics in the game are just underused/overshadowed because the game is so darn easy.

 

[Eponet]

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

Best combat I've played in any game, along with wonderful graphics (Surprisingly), but let down by the fact that any twelve year old could have written a better story.

 

[Ildecia]

FarmVille

Okay, okay, I'll be serious. Daikatana

Let me try that again.

StarFox Adventures. I honestly think it had a lot of potential, but it lacked substance.

took SOME of the words out of my mouth.

I agree with you on starfox adventures, i mean... it was a good game, a great concept. but they just didn't do it RIGHT.
another game i was a little disappointed in was super paper Mario. before any of you eat me alive, get this down. Paper Mario titles were probably some of the best Nintendo titles I've ever played. EVER. but when it came down to super paper Mario, there was a little something lacking.

I was really psyched for star wars: force unleashed, and i got it as a birthday present. I didn't expect to beat it in 1 day. I was pretty disappointed at that, and really shocked at how much that game WASN'T. It could ahve been great

Aion, the new MMO from NCsoft, kinda let me down as well. I was having a great time in the beginning, let me tell you it was awesome. but after i got to around level 34 i was dumbfounded when i realized they had run out of quests and it was quickly becoming a repeatable quest-eqsue grind EVERY DAY. I wasn't happy. because that's the reason i Quit WoW. I would get on, drink coffee, grind for 2 hours, drink more coffee, then go raiding for a couple of hours, then get off, sleep. it became an UNPAYED JOB more than a game i'm supposed to have FUN playing [/b] It could have been great, if the developers had me interested all the way through, same with WoW, or any of the games i've listed so far

 

[Tiesonthewall]

Not that Pokemon is bad.. it's just repetitive, but everyone cannot deny how addicting and how in-depth the game actually is(Breeding nonsense). However, I honestly believe, that if an awesome Dev (i.e. Bethesda [only one I can think of off the top of my head]) were to not necessarily remake it.. but I guess make some sort of 360/PS3/Computer version with awesome graphics and a more in depth 3D sandbox world... Oh man.. Just think of the possibilities.. So it might end up a little gruesome.. pfft, we aren't all kids anymore! =D

 

[Raikov]

Has no one mentioned Homeworld 2?

I didn't mention it because I bloody well love the Homeworld series. I don't think it's wasted potential at all.

Also, Dawn of War 2. It should have been more Warhammer and a lot less Starcraft...

*confused* So, DoW 2 was a Warhammer game that was similar to a game that started out as a Warhammer game?

Also, Dawn of War 2. It should have been more Warhammer and a lot less Company of Heroes...

Fixed it for you. I love both those games, but they could've done so much more with DoW2.

On topic: Haze. The story it presented was actually pretty damn good. Soldiers that are hooked up to a drug dispenser that keeps them high when they're in the middle of combat so they don't get to see the horrifying reality of war. Instead we got a total clusterfuck that shit all over what should have been good and put Free Radical out of business. How did they fuck it up so badly?

DoW2 should have been a Warhammer 40K game with mechanics from Company of Heroes, like Relic said it would be. But they wanted to steal players away from the giant Starcraft 2 that was looming on the horizon. As a result, the lore-based units in the game got thrown out the window in favour of a really dumbed-down version of CoH.

And after the 6:th balance patch, I kinda lost faith in Relics (or whoever it was) ability to balance the game for the amazingly large number of four(4) races. And they could have done it soo much better simply by using stats from the game DoW2 was supposed to be based on!!!

Why do you think they did that 'hero-survival' thingy? Players were leaving, so they figured they'd jump on the Hero Defence bandwagon to keep at least some players around.

 

[Wilbot666]

Brutal Legend. I mean how the hell could Tim Schafer fuck up metal land?

I agree that he screwed up but not in the way you're saying. The game-world itself was brutally awesome in my opinion, it was just the stupid was that they shoe-horned in the RTS levels that annoyed me. Not that they weren't fun in an awkward kind of way but some gamers (like my micro-less self) are useless at RTS and bought the game off the strength of the demo which was entirely a basher.

Basically although I loved the game I felt that it suffered from a little bit of false advertising.

 

[katsumoto03]

Brutal Legend. I mean how the hell could Tim Schafer fuck up metal land?

Damn, ninja'd.

Yeah, I feel that Brutal Legend could have been really awesome (or I could have saved 50 bucks) if only they didn't make it into an RTS an hour or two into the game.

I'm just not an RTS fan.