Games you didn't like but thought had potential

[Erttheking]

The very sad thing about some video games is that they're not very good, but the idea behind them was so good that in the right hands they could've been groundbreaking. That's the really depressing part, a bad game that was always going to be bad is one thing, but bad games that could've been good hurt even more.

I personally can't help but feel that Brink could've been an amazing game, and while Lost Planet 2 wasn't a bad game and IMHO was more of an ok game, I feel like in the hands of better writers, the countless factions on EDN III could've been more developed and we could've been given a deep rich world. Sadly though, the only thing that's really different about the various factions are their uniforms (which are admittedly nicely designed) and the toys that they have.

What about you? Which bad or mediocre games have you played do you wish had been more well developed or better programed.

 

[hazabaza1]

The more I play Anarchy Reigns the more it's becoming one of these games.
It's great fun, and the combat is satisfying, and all the characters are cool, and it's Platinum for christ's sake, it must be good!
But then the lag starts (PS3) and the camera gets buttfucked and Baron gets random 1 hit kills due to latency and people keep on spamming Spin Master which horribly slows down the game and it takes about 20 minutes to connect to a game...

Fun when it works though.

 

[Euryalus]

I can't help but think DA2 could have been an incredible game. It had a setting with a dark history, It had political intrigue, interesting if barely fleshed out characters, and a great potential setup for DA3 in the Qunari... It was just sooo underdeveloped. I hated it, it was boring as all get out

It had a few moments, but for the most part it was really disappointing.

I can't even say it was a bad game on account of its sheer potential, but it certainly was an unfinished one.

 

[scorptatious]

Mirror's Edge. The concept was pretty interesting, and I felt it had a lot of potential to be great.

Execution wise, I found it to be a mess. You're set on a single path, and often times, it's pretty hard to figure out where you're supposed to be going. This wouldn't be so bad if cops weren't chasing me half the time. I got killed numerous times just trying to find my way through the level.

And yes, I have tried to use the thing which has Faith look in the direction of where you need to go. But it only shows where the goal is and not how to get there.

The combat is also kinda finicky too. By the looks of the loading screens, hand-to-hand combat was supposed to be pretty interesting and useful for when you're in a tight spot. But I could never get it to work right and I usually ended up either running from enemies or shooting them.

Story wise, there really isn't that much to it. Something about a conspiracy and Faith's sister getting framed for murder. Probably would have been interesting if the animated cutscenes didn't remind me of the annoying E-Surance commercials that keep popping up on TV at the time.

While I certainly didn't like the game at all. I feel there is a lot of untapped potential, and it could have been great in the right hands.

 

[Lazy]

Mirror's Edge. Loved the first level, liked the second, hated the rest. The mechanics are all about flow, but there's no flow to be found when you're hunting around for the next climbable ledge while constantly being shot at.

Also, the story blew goats, and the e-surance ads cutscenes were awful.

-MIRROR'S EDGE-

Damn, I got ninja'd to hell and back on this one.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I liked Far Cry 2, but it could have been so much more. The Jackal makes like Col. Kurtz and only shows up for a little bit of the story. It's mission decisions lacked the patronizing moral absolutism of most games and let the player make grown-up decisions, but there was little consequence to your choices and you weren't given much background for your choices. The interesting jamming mechanics were undermined by the fact that you could get a new version of your weapon for free at any store. The interesting weapons & planned combat was undermined by repetition and quick checkpoint respawns.

 

[shrimpcel]

The Assassin's Creed series. All of it.

 

[Darquenaut]

I realize I'm going to probably get some flack for this, but I'm going to say 2012's Syndicate. Yes, I know it is an unforgivable sin for them to take a beloved strategy game and turn it into a fairly brainless FPS. But after playing other games that came out at the end of the year (Dishonored, Far Cry 3, XCOM), I can only wonder if they allowed this game to cook for a bit longer, worked on the story elements, gave the main lead some depth of character, expanded on the mental hacking ideas, turn down the goddamn bloom lighting, how much better it would have been. No, it probably wouldn't have been as good as the original, but at least it would've had SOMETHING.

 

[skywolfblue]

I can't help but think DA2 could have been an incredible game. It had a setting with a dark history, It had political intrigue, interesting if barely fleshed out characters, and a great potential setup for DA3 in the Qunari... It was just sooo underdeveloped. I hated it, it was boring as all get out

It had a few moments, but for the most part it was really disappointing.

I can't even say it was a bad game on account of its sheer potential, but it certainly was an unfinished one.

I'll second this. Well, partially (I like DA2 a little despite it's oh so huge flaws).

The story-within-a-story and a-day-in-the-life-of-hawke were pretty nifty departures from the standard hero's tale. But it's raw, unfinished, lacking in polish and punch.

The idea of the city changing as time passed, if only they had actually implemented that instead of shuffling a few wooden barricades around. To see the city change, buildings burned down, shops moved, landslides and seasons like winter/autumn/spring. That could have been oh so cool, but instead they just recycled everything.

The combat was vastly superior to DA: Origins... But they added stupid waves of enemies popping out of nowhere.

The mage vs. templar conflict could have been interesting... If anyone actually bothered to pay attention to the choices you made. If you could have sided with the mages, and persuaded Orsino and the other mages not to go "Hurga-blurga BLOOD MAGIC! DEMONS!" at the last second. If you could have sided with the templars and gotten them to stand down. If outcome actually affected the fate of the next game (they proved they could do this with Mass Effect, they could have done so on a much grander scale here). That would have been so sweet. But they chose not to.

I think it could have been a truly awesome game if they'd just taken the time to fully realize their idea. But instead it will have to settle for being rather mediocre.

 

[thiosk]

Sins of a solar empire.

I don't care about combat, you see... I want to play sim-city-with-spaceships-and-the-occasional-nuclear-bombardment

 

[kazann]

This might stir some shit up, but... Skyrim!

Bethesdas model of, "creating a wide open world and throwing the player in to create their own story", to me, is severely out-dated - this isn't 2002.

They NEED to start hiring good writers and learn how to weave together a good narrative and story to go along with the world they create.

- zero character development
- garbage story


Far Cry 3 is a PERFECT example of this executed perfectly. [yes, i realize they are totally different games, but they share similarities]

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Diablo III.

Rune system in place of a skill tree? Okay, I get it. That's nice. Auction house where you can sell stuff online for real money or in-game currency? Not a bad plan. Main character gets lots of dialogue in a more even-driven story? Sounds good.

The problem is that while all of these things sounded good on paper, they failed to deliver an interesting experience. Blizzard really wanted players to use the Auction House, and since you only ever found gear that was 10 levels below you, you kind of had no choice. Rune system ended up being terrible, with only one or two runes per ability being useful. And that fancy story we were promised? I don't think I've ever been more let down.

Diablo III had the potential to be a wonderful game. My beef with it isn't even that it's not like Diablo II. I think Diablo III had some great ideas, but they didn't really pan out. Plus, always-online DRM... No thanks.

I think the hype behind D3 is what makes me put it here. Other wise, I was gonna go with Alpha Protocol; terrible game, but lots of potential to be great.

 

[endtherapture]

This might stir some shit up, but... Skyrim!

Bethesdas model of, "creating a wide open world and throwing the player in to create their own story", to me, is severely out-dated - this isn't 2002.

They NEED to start hiring good writers and learn how to weave together a good narrative and story to go along with the world they create.

- zero character development
- garbage story


Far Cry 3 is a PERFECT example of this executed perfectly. [yes, i realize they are totally different games, but they share similarities]

I wish Skyrim would have a dynamic, in depth story that affects the game world. With loads of different paths and choices, like Guild Wars 2 (which has a giant giant story). It would make the game so much more fun to play.

 

[Zeckt]

TERA, this game had EXCELLENT potential to capitalize on the lack of actual openworld combat in the MMORPG relm only to completely fall falt with the fatal Korean Grinder errors that blew up the games chances for being a legitimate alternative to games like WoW.

I definitely second that. You have to play it like an action game and focus entirely on the gameplay because the story is non existent and the npc's could be replaced with cardboard boxes that spout walls of text and you would not be able to tell the difference. But the gameplay is good!

 

[Neonsilver]

Diablo III.

Rune system in place of a skill tree? Okay, I get it. That's nice. Auction house where you can sell stuff online for real money or in-game currency? Not a bad plan. Main character gets lots of dialogue in a more even-driven story? Sounds good.

The problem is that while all of these things sounded good on paper, they failed to deliver an interesting experience. Blizzard really wanted players to use the Auction House, and since you only ever found gear that was 10 levels below you, you kind of had no choice. Rune system ended up being terrible, with only one or two runes per ability being useful. And that fancy story we were promised? I don't think I've ever been more let down.

Diablo III had the potential to be a wonderful game. My beef with it isn't even that it's not like Diablo II. I think Diablo III had some great ideas, but they didn't really pan out. Plus, always-online DRM... No thanks.

I think the hype behind D3 is what makes me put it here. Other wise, I was gonna go with Alpha Protocol; terrible game, but lots of potential to be great.

I second that, the worst thing in my opinion is the oversimplification of the stat and skillsystem, which makes the random item drops kind of pointless. Most items are useless, especially the legendarys. The worst part of the system is that the damage is tied to the weapon damage.
And not only is the rune system flawed because only a few are actually useful, the same goes for most of the skills, some skills are useless while other skills are so useful that there is no point in not using it.


And I also second DA2.
Stupid waves during battles.
Would have been great if the mages noticed that I was always supporting them, instead a lot of them attacked because they thought I was helping the templars and almost every mage was a blood mage. The blood mage thing alone made me feel kind of stupid after I finished the game.

 

[the clockmaker]

All of the hearts of Iron series,
I love the in depth strategy, the potential for alt-history scenarios, the ability to play as Australia (fucking finally) and just the all round grand scope of the thing. There are few moments in gaming where I have felt more engrossed than when I was organising Kriegsmarine landings in Florida.
But then there are the issues,
Terrible pacing (if you want to start a game on your terms, you have to start at the earliest timeframe, which means real-time hours of just watching a clock count down)

Broken politics (I crushed the soviet union as germany, held the Caucasus, moscow, basically everything east of Kamchatka and then the soviets surrendered... to the italians, who annexed the entire country leaving me with nothing. There was, so far as I could see, 1 italian armored brigade in the whole USSR)

Instability (I had so many crashes which then corrupted my save)

Terrible supply pathing (I had units starving to death in the middle of germany. I was germany and I had supplies all around them and yet they were still without food or ammo)

Hamstringing of choices (You are limited by what would be 'realistic' for your nation, so in order to declare war on germany, Poland has to spend real time hours convincing the people, making germany seem like a threat, etc etc, at no point does the game say, okay, you can do this if you want, but you will deal with the consequences. )

Broken diplomacy ( I wanted a facist US on the side of Germany, so I spent all of my spies bringing the US around to the axis, they were all the way over, dozens and dozens of points towards the axis, and then they instantly jump over to the allies.) ( you cannot offer an alliance unless your scores are high enough, which, again, I don't care if it doesn't work, adding greyed out options to my menu just takes away from player agency.)

Overall, I wanted to like it, and a similar game done by a competent developer would be awesome, but I refuse to touch the series anymore.

 

[AJvsRonin]

The one that usually comes up in these discussions (and I'll back it too) is Alpha Protocol
I actually quite enjoyed it for what it was, and the decisions actually made a difference, piss off a guy and he'll tip off your enemy making the mission harder etc and the conversation trees were pretty impressive and impacted the story.

I saw on a wiki that my love interest was the daughter of the bad guy or something? Played through 3 times and never found that out, turns out she can betray you too...

But the game had serious balance issues, you can choose to be a stealthy spy or a james bourne fighter or a james bond gadget freak but there's no way to be a good guy without going for stealth and some of the stealth perks are fucking insane, theres one perk that lets you slow time and line up like 6 head shots. Very fast way to end a boss fight. And another that lets you go invisible for like 40 seconds meaning you can clear a whole level by just sprinting through.
If they took Alpha Protocols story and the impact your decisions make and Deus Ex's game play/level design it would make a very good game.

 

[Haxxle]

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. This game had so much potential to be so much more than it currently is. Its combat mimic those of the Fable series in terms of same button mashing techniques, despite the numerous skill branches. In terms of story and how it is narrated, it was lack luster and very boring. The story could have been more if it weren't for the fact that it delivers itself plainly with bad voice acting. If anything, the delivery of it was on par with guild Wars 2 narration, and that's an MMO and Kingdoms' was a single player game.

It...it really could have been more.