games with wasted potential

[tzimize]

Bioshock 1. (and 2 for that matter).

When I was done with this game I was AMAZED at the wasted potential. Dont get me wrong, bioshock is a great game, with an artistic style that is almost unmatched, but as I continued the game after part of the plane crashed into the starting corridor I was annoyed that we didnt get more of that.

Rapture is a city on the bottom of the ocean, yes there is water everywhere but apart from the scene at the start with the plane, and the one after that with the water starting pouring in I just got the impression that rapture was a place without plumbers...not a city where the VAST OCEAN was pressing in from all sides.

Think of the amazing sequences that COULD have been, with walls collapsing...windows creaking...water sploshing in through doors or holes in the ceiling and rooms actually filling UP instead of the water just running away somewhere...WHERE DOES IT GO!?

Bioshock is imo the biggest wasted opportunity of modern days. The story about Andrew Ryan and the brainwashing or whatever could just as well have been told on the surface. The Ocean should have been the major player in such a setting...as it was it was barely a bystander.

 

[mikekearn]

Ditto to Darth_Dude. Spore had such an amazing potential, and the years it spent in development promised some really fantastic things. Then Maxis went belly up and EA came in and EA-fied the game. A bunch of stuff was cut, and we were delivered a gutted experience that was a shadow of it's former self.

The expansions look like they might offer to fill out some of the missing experiences, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay extra to complete the game experience I was promised to begin with.

 

[Ricotez]

Spore. The editors are absolutely amazing; it's never been easy to create some wicked creature with nine legs, three arms, seven eyes, two beaks and five horns, not to mention the Vehicle-, Building- and Adventure editors.

But the gameplay... The whole evolutionary path, where you have to aid a creature in achieving galactic domination from their very beginnings as unicellular blobs... It's so... Shallow... The only stage with any kind of depth is the Space Stage, and it quickly grows tedious because of the fact that everyone and their dogs need you to solve their problems for them. Ecodisaster here, pirate invasion there...

So much potential, and it was all wasted in an attempt to make the game more accessible to a younger audience. I doubt even the youngest audience want a game so shallow as this.

 

[ethaninja]

Dragon Age: Origins. I'm not saying it was a bad game, hell no. But in terms of BioWares games, it doesn't even compare to things like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights.

 

[Nazulu]

Umm... I have to say the Wii. I know that it is a console, not a game, but when I think good Wii titles, I think Mario Galaxy. That's it. I know that I'm bound to get some hate mail for this, but if Nintendo had created more quality games, a la the Gamecube and the 64, then Nintendo might not have started to go the way of Sega. They could have also done something slightly more than the Wiiware channel thing. I couldn't make heads or tails of that thing. No patches, no demos, and that fun points system. *Shudder*

You may get some hate mail but your never alone. I disagree with hardly any good Wii titles though, I agree N64 and Gamecube had some better games but games like No More Hero's and Metroid Corruptions are pretty good.

I have a few issues with my Wii and the really big one is the Wii-motes and the fact I have to use them all the time. I don't find them comfortable and I hate charging battery's, I should be able to use any remote (particularly the Gamecube) to access games. Also most mainsteam games only work with the Wii-motes as well.

Brawl is a big one. New characters, new levels, new options, new interesting idea's, etc. Then they cut the speed in half, removed all the advanced techniques, killed the basic combo system, unbalanced it even more somehow, made a giant tedious adventure you need go through to get the other characters including Sonic and Snake who were some of the big fucking selling points and plenty more things.

 

[little.09]

Every Spider-Man Game, i mean come on how can you screw up Spider-Man, give it a story from the comic and give the webs a sense of possibility (MOMENTUM) and make it more detective-ey. if they do that they will have an epic game.

 

[gibboss28]

Spore
Brutal Legend
Spore
Final Fantasy XIII
Spore

 

[Acaroid]

over the last two days I have started my first two threads, and both times loved the responses I've been getting, today I ask you 'what should have been, but never was?' it could be an old game you want remade, a more recent game redone with less retarded design decisions (cough mirrors edge cough) or just part of a game that you endured the rest of the game just for it I await your suggestions

Star Control 2 should be remade

because if you haven't played it you should.
go download it now!

 

[N.Manth]

got to be Dawn of War II. the first game was a good start and then the second one seemed to miss the point of 40K completely. it should have gone the supreme commander route, not company of heroes.

 

[AtticusSP]

Just Cause 2. Considering it is fun as hell, not having any form of Co-op is a pretty missed opportunity.

 

[weker]

APB really epic game but sadly the game could easily wipe out wow if it pushes towards social gaming and more diverse experiances

didn't you read the NDA?

yer i did but there is a mix of i dont care and also that im not reveiwing it or anything im just saying i like it and it could turn out well

 

[antigodoflife]

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.

LIAR! thatgame was perfect in every... -twitch- ... way ... -twitch- ... TEST OF FEAR YOU MOMENTUM KILLER!!!! AND ANDROSS YOU'RE TOO HARD!!!!

ok it was better than most games... it was made by Rareware after all... Pre-Microsoft!




OT; Any JRPG by Square Enix, need better gameplay to go with your epic graphics and storytelling.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Red Faction Guerrilla. I got it in the THQ pack for PC so I decided to try it out and the camera is shaky, the missions are repetitive, and even the destruction is boring. The destruction engine is really cool, though, and I wish more games would do something like that but every mission is the same and it's hard to watch through the terrible controls and the shaky camera. Although I did play the demo on the 360 and the controls and camera were a lot better, but that doesn't make the missions any better.

 

[Silver]

All Bioware games, the old ones have gotten old, the new ones are far from as good as they could, and should be, with their potential.

And like everyone's already pointed out Spore, but more because only the cell stage felt finished, and the other stages more felt like an early beta. There shoud be some stuff to actually do in a game, interactivity, and choice, and all, and not just cosmetic. The cosmetic is nice too, sure, but it should have some effect. Most of the game feels like a (few) flash game(s) from Newgrounds. One of the biggest developers out there should be able to do more than that.

The UFO trilogy, remade as a squadbased fps, and with the graphical design taking the opposite direction. The games were really fun, sure, the combat was decent, the research and weapons and story were incredible, but it lacked immersion, and it was just repetition all the way through.

Sacred, it was pretty, it had horses, and flying characters, and lots of shiny things, but while there was a lot to do, nothing felt engaging, or important.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

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.

I still don't understand how you think they were trying to make DoW II like StarCraft. There is almost no macromanagement to speak of and micromanagement is heavily dictated by the squad system. Even the original Dawn of War was more similar to StarCraft then DoW II.

EDIT: Fable had a lot of potential, but it was bogged down by poor execution, imbalances and overambition. If they had focused their efforts a bit more, it could have been a great game. As it stands, it was a run-over-the-mill adventure game.

 

[regallmighty]

Darksiders had an amazing story with some killer charaters but no origanality!!!!!! It could have been a lot more amazing

 

[Evil the White]

Far Cry 2 is a very fun game, but a save anywhere system for the console version and a better fast travel system would have made it excellent. As it stands, it's the only game I own for my 360 that I haven't finished.

I didn't mind that too much. It was more that I finished the first area and found that most of the second area was exactly the same.That and half of the outposts where broken because you could be staring the ammo pile in the face and using it and it still wouldn't register. But then again I liked driving around in the buggy killing zebras.

My all-time top for this sort of thread is Mirror's Edge. With a bit more work, they could have fixed all the smalls bugs that stopped it from being truely great.

 

[DreamByJoev1]

Any sonic the hedgehog related game since the Sega Mega Drive went out of business