Poll: No Room for "B" Games?

[saintchristopher]

Games and films are compared often--too often, I admit, but I ask your indulgence for the sake of discussion.

Both industries have their triple-A blockbusters, and happily enough, each medium is seeing increased attention paid to indie darlings. And obviously they each have more than their share of bombs, as well; from overblown high-profile clusterfucks to simple box office flops to obscure low-budget stinkers. However, when it comes to some bad or failed movies--usually from that latter category--they sort of unofficially get passed down into their own little subgenre: "B" movies, where a whole new subset of fans, genre nerds and cinephiles will watch and enjoy them, however ironically.

With games it's different though; when they're bad, they're bad. They are to be avoided in stores and ridiculed on the web.

I find this unfair. I say that there is room in gaming society for a "B" Games genre!

Now obviously I'm not asking for a complete re-assessment of every bad game ever produced, but maybe some games deserve more than the out-and-out dismissal the community at large bestows upon them.

The difference between a "B" game and a regular old bad game are naturally going to be subjective. But usually it's going to be the game that in spite of all its flaws either tried something innovative and worthy of acknowledgement, or somehow managed to still be entertaining or hold your attention.

Any recent releases or classics you can think of that qualify for "B" status?

 

[Road_Block]

I was thinking this same thing earlier today.

To me it seems that gamers are very polarized in their opinions on games, with a game either being excellent or complete garbage. As a result, very rarely do you actually see someone say a game is "ok" and then give strong points about what the game does right and the things it does wrong.

What exacerbates this, I think, is the fact that games are expensive and few people ever want to spend the money on a game that's only going to be ok or just a plain shot in the dark. Meanwhile, when these games are released, no one buys them, studios gets closed, publishers decide to stick to "safer" game models, they're forgotten, and everyone complains about how their are never any original games. But that's a different discussion!

A recent "B" game I can think of is Red Faction: Armageddon. Now, I admit, I have not played it (spent all my spare cash on the steam summer sale and Catherine). But, based on the Gamespot review, it sounds like a standard corridor shooter except for two points. One being the destructible environments Red Faction is known for and the other being the "magnet gun", which the GS review spends a good portion of the review describing. From the sound of it, it seems the guys at Volition were on to an interesting idea, too bad the rest of the game failed to distinquish itself from the rest of the pack.

link to the review:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/red-faction-armageddon/video/6316485/red-faction-armageddon-video-review

 

[Cogwheel]

As I always say in discussions of so-bad-it's-good games, there's Metal Wolf Chaos.


This video MAY cause brain damage. You have been warned.

 

[JB1528]

I think there's a room for "B" games in the Gaming market, just not in the console market. In the Console market almost all games are $60 with used games being around $40, that's WAAAAAY to expensive to spend on a game that you know probably wont be that good. But in the PC market with all these digital downloads services that can sometimes sale games for as low as .75 cents I believe there is a market for it. I've seen plenty of low budget slightly flawed games still thrive in the PC market, thanks to outlets like Steam buggy games like Arma 2 or games with mediocre graphics like Mount and Blade can still thrive in the PC market even though those games would utterly fail in the console.

 

[TheDooD]

As I always say in discussions of so-bad-it's-good games, there's Metal Wolf Chaos.


This video MAY cause brain damage. You have been warned.

man I STILL want to play this game, it was so over the top it had to be good

 

[Silver Patriot]

The Earth Defence Force series.

Spoiler: Earth Defence Force 2017

Better known as B Movie: The Game.

and it's sequal

Spoiler: EDF: Insect Armageddon

Yes I do think it is possible.

Also I think that Indie Games could also fit that area as well.

 

[Tanakh]

Also I think that Indie Games could also fit that area as well.

If one listen to wikipedia and goes thinking that a b movie is "a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film", yeah, Indie Games are our equivalent. And some of those have amazing high quality production.