The Worst Video Game Plots

[NeedAUserName]

Resident Evil and to quote Yahtzee "what's so cute is that it still takes its self seriously" I mean come on it is now basically, "No we aren't racist look you can kill black people now to, not just spanish" and eventually it will boil down to "oh look a village populate entirely by mixed race hermaphrodites, lets kill them (Ha now we definitely aren't racist"

 

[n01d34]

Soul Calibur 4

How they tried to make a story where Yoda actually fit in with the soul calibur world

"So he was chasin Darth Vaduhhh through a force fingy...then suddenly Kablamawow!"

Lets not forget that he never actually fights Darth Vader. At the end there I was wondering if poor Yoda had gone senile, its like he traveled all this way to stop Darth Vader but kinda forgot what he was meant to do.

 

[mrnelsby]

You know, I kinda agree with Daikatana, but the thing is about that game: it was so absolutely a train-wreck that it goes to the opposite end of the spectrum and is kinda funny good.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

Most of these have been listed, but some bear repeating, so I might as well.

Army of TWO
Two military soldiers get fed up with the nature of no-options, follow-orders nature of the military, and move to the private sector. Minor mid-game spoilers ahead.

Spoiler

By the second mission, the larger of the TWO questions "Oh hey, here's some obvious and very valid points as to why the mission and company we're working for are evil people." for which the reply was, "You're Stupid." (From here on out, the name of the the larger of the TWO).

Next mission, we learn Stupid was right. So he calls 'em out on it, which earns him the reply, "No, you're paranoid. That's not true."

Sure enough, with each progressing mission, Stupid was freakin' right. Not to mention the dialog was copy-pasted from just about any war/solider movie. That's really it. It's pretty sad.

Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit
Enter Regular McGee, main character of Indi-giggles Rip-off-cy, a regular guy carving his arms up and going to knife town on a bald dude in a diner before slipping out of his trance and realizing he's just graphically murdered someone. You then take control, and have the option of all kinds of things, from throwing the knife away to hiding the body, cleaning up, all kinds of things. Ultimately, none of this has a lot of bearing on the overall story, but tweaks some dialog later on. On the opposite face, you take control of the two detectives examining this murder. They're both fairly well-rounded characters with believable and likable dialog. The game all leads to the Detectives figuring out who did it, and going to shake down his apartment. Spoilers ahead, kiddies:

Spoiler

Until you learn that John Q Doe turns out to be a hard-freakin'-core badass who's strong in the ways of the Force (life energy, mana, Chi, chakra, the One, whatever you want to call it) and got mentally abducted by the Mayan overlords to enact the power of immortality. Unlike the predecessors, though, you end up resisting instead of offing yourself, and turn out to be able to fly and dodge cars and shoot lasers. Soon you learn that the antagonists are actually the Mayans *And* hyper-advanced super technological creatures. You shack up (very unbelievably) with the lead female detective, and avert the non-nuclear winter by getting into countless The Matrix Revolutions inspired (read: Ripped-Off) fights. You save this little girl, the Indigo Child, to save the world. The game's so-called 3 endings are stemmed from how you go about winning or losing in the final battles, and the last two missions are completely independent of anything else that happened in the game. What a let down.

Crackdown
Genetically enhanced super-soldier owned by the Agency set forth to destroy the three major super-evil-genki-dama crime lords in the game's fictional city (read: the whole world). You upgrade skills by using them or getting floating badges, which in turn upgrade your character to unreasonably powerful levels. Spoilers ahead, children!

Spoiler

By end-game, you learn that the agency which set you loose on this criminal infested mess was actually the backers for the very crime lords it sought to destroy. The point, in the grand scheme, was to establish a dictatorship by the Agency. The premise for the a dictatorship which was fronted in it's entirety, by you, the main character. Good job, prick.

More to come later, maybe. If I remember to update.

 

[Jumplion]

Huh, I thought I posted in this thread.

Anyway, Kingdom Hearts wins for me. It seems good when you look at it but then you go in deeper and then you discover it makes absolutely no sense. Despite that I still love the game :<

After recently played Soul Calibur 4, I have no clue what the hell is going on. I know it's a fighting game and it's not really required to have a story, but they could atleast do better than putting up a black screen with words saying "And His/Her name will be remembered for all eternity" or "And the powers of the swords bought new terror to the Empire" or even "And then they created a new world". It's so funny though.

And I will never understand why people find the MGS storyline confusing or bad, I understood almost everything and the MGS Database helped that even more.

 

[Me Am Greatest Warrior]

How about pong?
Or Pac-man?
Or even worse... Gears of war?

About time I find someone that agrees with me. Gear of War's plot was just so awful.

 

[Dalisclock]

Mass Effect...
Anyone see a connection with that and Hellboy?
ex. tenticaled super destroying god with crazy infected guy as his herald

Well, I know that Mike Mignola(who created Hellboy) is a fan of HP Lovecraft, and when the revelation on Illios came up, I couldn't help but wonder if one of the Mass Effect writers wasn't as well.

 

[masterem243]

Sonic '06. It's just the same shit over and over again. At least Mario's got enough brains to shut his mouth when he reuses the same idea.

 

[yourkie1921]

Resident Evil and to quote Yahtzee "what's so cute is that it still takes its self seriously" I mean come on it is now basically, "No we aren't racist look you can kill black people now to, not just spanish" and eventually it will boil down to "oh look a village populate entirely by mixed race hermaphrodites, lets kill them (Ha now we definitely aren't racist"

I think them saying anything other than "go fuck yourself" to people claiming racism proves that the game will not be awesome.

 

[SilentHunter7]

Ace Combat 6 - It just hurts that the idea of telling the stories of the people "on the ground" is perfect for the AC Series, but not only the Execution, but the Plot is just Bad.

And YES NAMCO, i fu**ing get what "Dance with the Angels" is supposed to mean, you don't have to repeat it every 5 minutes!! That does not make it clever!

Oh god, dont remind me. Ace Combat plots started going down hill after 4. Except Zero; that game was actually pretty deep for an Ace Combat game. Of course I still cant help but feel some things got lost in translation.

 

[Jindrak]

I'd say Final Fantasy 10, but that makes me think of Final Fantasy X-2, which so so terrible thinking about it gives me nightmares. Don't get me wrong, I loved 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9, but 10. Good God.

 

[Wolfwind]

Damn near any fighting game.

I really don't see why they even try to come up with stories anymore.

It's like, Dead or Alive has a story somewhere in there, but is anyone really playing it for that?

Oh, and Devil May Cry 2. What an assload of crap.

 

[Shadefyre]

Pariah anybody?

 

[malestrithe]

For me, it would be Valkyrie Profile, (or Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth). This game was fun to play, but it got kind of stupid on the second disc. The way to get the A ending is so fiddly that it is almost impossible to do without a guide book or a Faq in your hands. On top of that, the three endings are really just logical progressions of your actions. I guess that the game lost me when I realized that Valkyrie (Lenneth, Silmera, and ?) were just programs that attached themselves to the deceased woman and nothing more than that.

Xenogears had the best plot, but the worst execution. The paceing on the first disc was good, tell the player where to go and allow him to get there on his own volition. There were some puzzles that were exercises in controller breaking frustration. But there were many nice reveals in the couse of the game, like what Fei and Elly really are, what the world is and so on. Then 4/5ths of the way in the first disc, the game goes into railroad format and you see scene, play a bit, see new scene, and repeat until 3/4 of the way in the second disc. I still think the game had a great plot, but the execution was terrible.

 

[Eyclonus]

wtf gears had an awsome storyline if u read up and studied the game first, he was in prison because he failed to complete a set of orders which killed fenix's father santiago was in there on a mission and freed him. any way it doesnt need a story line everything fucks up and u pritty much play to deploy the resinator which fukes up. i think the games trying to tell u not everything goes as planed and can get screwed in every direction.

A good storyline should not require prior study to understand. Plus the characters themselves are jokes; look at the scene with the chick in uniform next to all those big manly steroid munchers...

PS: Learn fucking spelling and grammar retard.

I would say that Brothers In Arms has a lack of story. Between each level in the first, the monologue is mostly Baker saying "...FUCK!!!". Albeit an accurate depiction of war, you can't see where your going, everyone starts off happy till the fourth guy eats lead and then everyone is PTSD angry, the enemies ambush you and pin you down at every corner.

And it all matters for naught in the grand scheme of things.
A realistic story which proves that Realistic stories are boring, and mentally unhealthy.....

 

[Jumplion]

wtf gears had an awsome storyline if u read up and studied the game first, he was in prison because he failed to complete a set of orders which killed fenix's father santiago was in there on a mission and freed him. any way it doesnt need a story line everything fucks up and u pritty much play to deploy the resinator which fukes up. i think the games trying to tell u not everything goes as planed and can get screwed in every direction.

A good storyline should not require prior study to understand. Plus the characters themselves are jokes; look at the scene with the chick in uniform next to all those big manly steroid munchers...

Says who?

Although that is a really weak story regardless.

I know what you're thinking Indigo (I think), the difference between Gears and that "other" game that "requires you to study prior to understand" is that the "other" game makes you want to study the world that you're in. Apparantly Gears doesn't.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Xenogears had the best plot, but the worst execution. The paceing on the first disc was good, tell the player where to go and allow him to get there on his own volition. There were some puzzles that were exercises in controller breaking frustration. But there were many nice reveals in the couse of the game, like what Fei and Elly really are, what the world is and so on. Then 4/5ths of the way in the first disc, the game goes into railroad format and you see scene, play a bit, see new scene, and repeat until 3/4 of the way in the second disc. I still think the game had a great plot, but the execution was terrible.

The most solidified reason for this because Square threw the game aside ad began production on Final Fantasy VIII due to the immense success of its predecessor; definitely unfortunate given how fantastic Xenogears was up until the second disc.

Spoiler

It did somewhat drop when you are on your way to Shevet but redeemed itself with the Solaris explanation. Disc Two was an absolute disater. It was almost entirely narrative, Elly turned into Mother Theresa for no adequately explained reason other then she is the reincarnated version of Sophia. The love story between Fei and Elly ended up being based almost completely on the fact their ancestors loved each other and beyond the massive amount of plot holes and nonsensical scenarios (Krelian releasing a poison to mutate humanity just in time to counteract the heroes? I mean come on...) the remaining cast had no role whatsoever; even Citan was reduced to minor character status in disc two, despite him being the driving point for much of the game. Bart was barely a minor character and the rest were nothing more then two liner NPCs. Rico never did have a purpose after Kislev though. Furthermore they repeated the same arc twice! (mutating humanity)

My apologizes for the rant, however I just finished this game and needed to ***** about it. One the plus side the ending theme is probably the best I have heard to date; rivaled only by Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy X.

Speaking on the latter, what is this hate toward FFX? Also anyone care to explain how Cloud isn't emo?