I said any Call of Duty from the past decade as answer to the original comment, and I still think that is a solid candidate. However, another game I played recently that qualifies I think is Sleeping Dogs. Perfectly cromulent 7/10 GTA clone but ultimately not pulling up any trees.
The first Call of Duty game I played was Ghosts, and it may have coloured my perception of what the series is about. Bombastic popcorn munching action that goes in one ear and straight out of the other. I was like “eeeeh it’s okay”. After playing some older ones I was like “well I’m sure it was groundbreaking at the time”. (Hm. Did I ever finish MW2? And I think I put Black Ops 2 on hold after the first mission. Loved Advanced Warfare tho!)
I like shooters, so I got the full bundle and I tried hard to like it.
None of the games gave me a lasting impression. The plot didn’t stick with me, the enemies were weird, the guns felt weak and flimsy, the rooms kept repeating in some sections and it got very boring. There were some fun bits with the vehicles, etc., but overall the experience was… pretty much average.
I was expecting something like the Half-Life series, but this wasn’t it.
I never had an Xbox, so really only grew up playing Halo Reach (I think) co-op when I’d go to a friend’s house. But I recently played through most of the halo games with a friend and I have to say, I agree. I can’t remember any particular moments or scenarios, no part of the story that stands out in my mind, etc. It was fun enough to run through most of them (though we did get tired of it, which is why I said “most of the games”), and I can certainly see why for when they came out, they received the attention they did but can’t say I think the reaction would be the same if it came out now or that it really holds up to the standards it seems to have set.
Thank you! I felt like I was the only person on the planet to think that those games only hit the dizzying heights of "okay, fine at a push". They're perfectly serviceable and not much more.
Halo was best when it was Halo:CE played 4v4 on two linked systems, with the teams on two screens in an undersized dorm room in 2002. Alternatively, two people playing through the entire game in co-op mode and finishing at 3 in the morning.
I kinda agree. It was fun playing with my SO but they’re pretty boring on their own. The multiplayer is fun, but the actual story mode just kinda exists.
I rented Superman 64 as a kid, never knowing it was a universally hated game. We had fun with the weird multiplayer mode where you fly around in weird pod things. I remember flying through the rings too. The whole game makes zero sense in hindsight.
The game became that shitshow because Warner Bros execs got pissed that a “no-name” yuropeean company got the rights to make a licensed Superman game (because they were the only company that bothered to bid), so they did a lot of time-wasting requests to the developers.
The original Mass Effect was great, a classic, but 2 and 3 had less and less of what I’d loved about the first game. By the time I got to 3, I was playing because I felt invested in the story and characters, not because I found the gameplay enjoyable. Andromeda wasn’t quite as enjoyable as ME1 to me, mostly because I didn’t connect with the characters as much, but the story was surprising and original, fights were exciting, and the gameplay had a lot of interesting new elements that made the scenario feel immersive. It’s really too bad that so many people didn’t like it.
I really wish this had been one for me, but I’ve never been able to make it more than halfway through despite a few good faith attempts. I am really glad you had a great time with it, though!
The beginning of the game is really bleak, but it makes the scenario of trying to colonize a lifeless planet feel all the more real IMO. After you meet aliens and start terraforming planets, it starts to be more what people wanted out of it, I think.
Oh, Cattle Crisis seems to be right up my alley!
I bought Wednesday some time ago, but haven’t gotten to playing it yet - not in the right mental state either I guess.
And thanks for the Random Bundle Game mention, I hadn’t heard of it and usually have a hard time going through the bundles I own.
This is a tough question because it's like asking "What's the most forgettable game you've ever played?" I can remember some of the best and worst games I've ever played, but mediocre games are explicitly not interesting.
That said, the first one that came to mind for me was Starshot: Space Circus Fever for N64. It's just a very generic late-'90s collectathon platformer. It's hard to be mad at it, because it's not terrible or anything, there's just no reason to play it. If you've got an N64, there's Mario, Banjo, Rayman, even B- and C-tier stuff like Gex and Chameleon Twist. There's hidden gems like Space Station Silicon Valley or Rocket: Robot on Wheels.
That last one is the only reason I played Starshot, I saw it clearanced at a used game store and was like "Oh yeah, I remember hearing this game was good," but it turned out I was thinking of Rocket. That game actually is good, while Starshot is just fine.
It also makes people say things are mid to them. Honestly, rdr2 was that way for me because I hated the pseudo-rpg elements. But long after I put it away, I started playing actual RPGs. So I may give it another shot, but I have so many on my to-do list.
The multiplayer is supposedly incredible. But I remember being extremely whelmed by the main game.
But it’s hard to remember the mid games. Because it is very likely that they didn’t leave any lasting impression.
And especially if previous titles in a series or from a studio were great a mid game would feel disappointingly bad. Although compared to other games they might actually still be considered great.
The original single player is so bad I’m certain it was just cobbled together as a demo of the engine and for inspiration for user content. Then the team had time to develope proper story with the expansions
Wizards of the Coast spent lots of time in meetings with Bioware to make sure every damn detail of D&D 3e was implemented according to the book. And even longer time micromanaging the campaign design. A lot of the scenarios are essentially repeats of the others - “do these four smaller thingies and then go kick the main baddie” - because getting that approved by WotC was easier.
Why are there so few D&D games these days? Why do video game dev houses want to make their own RPG systems instead? Well, they don’t want the headache of dealing with WotC.
Neverwinter Nights is the best PC game I’ve played, all thanks to the custom content the players made.
Bioware made the toolset and modding support a big part of the prerelease interviews and live demos. The message to the tabletop RPG crowd was “hey, you can finally build and run your D&D modules as a real DM-led multiplayer group experience online”. Probably the only problem with that marketing was that making modules from scratch was still an involved process and making usually needed scripting skill, so maybe the TTRPG crowd didn’t end up as enthusiastic as they could. But people still ended up making boatloads of great singleplayer and multiplayer-capable adventure modules! And the multiplayer persistent worlds were essentially like MMOs but in small scale.
I think the built-in campaign was more of a hindrance in retrospect, because if you hadn’t heard this, you probably expected another game like Baldur’s Gate 1/2. A lot of people went in thinking that the official NWN campaign was the main offering. The campaign was incredibly mediocre by Bioware standards because Wizards of the Coast was incredibly needy. They wanted high level of control, and essentially only approved a committee-built pile-of-meh plot, leaving Bioware to build something around that.
This, by the way, led to Bioware swearing they’d not work with needy licensors anymore and ended up designing Dragon Age instead.
(And if anyone is saying “wait, didn’t this just happen again with Baldur’s Gate 3?” Yes. Yes it did. WotC is basically impossible to work with.)
In my opinion ( haven’t played or really seen the DLCs, so I’m just talking about base game ), Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
Definitely had ups and downs when I did my only playthrough. Absolutely middle of the road compared to the official games ( completed gen 3, part way through gens 4-7 ) I have played and still even middle of the road compared to some of the fan games I’ve played over the years.
If you’re an adult Pokemon fan, these days fan-mades or rom hacks are the way to go. Nintendo/The Pokemon Company/Game Freak are pretty damn risk averse with this property, so the really cool stuff comes from fans (at least until they get the cease and desist).
Had all the individual makings of an exceptional game (with input from Todd Macfarlane, R A Salvatore and Grant Kirkhope), and while it was definitely enjoyable enough - it lacked any wow-factor whatsoever, winding up an otherwise forgettable 7/10.
At the time of its release, it’s wow factor for me was simply some fucking color, compared to PS3 Skyrim which had released mere months earlier.
I love both games, but there’s something about Amalur that I think I love more that I can only think of as it being just medium, average, mediocre but not bad. It’s just something kinda fun. Comfortable.
Oh no doubt, my (vague) memories of it are definitely in vivid bright colours.
I originally got it as I was looking for a single player World of Warcraft-like experience, and I did play through a significant portion of the main story - but eventually went back to WoW as it didn’t quite scratch that itch enough.
I probably should revisit it sometime in the near future - hopefully on the Steam Deck (haven’t checked compatibility).
Sort of. Their funding was also tied up in the state of Rhode Island. Reckoning was purchased by 38 Studios, who were making a Kingdoms of Amalur MMORPG, and then the game was made to be in the same universe. The MMO burned through cash and never released, and the sunken studio brought Reckoning’s developer down with it.
Yes, it was developed by Curt Shilling’s 38 Studios - but it was actually largely financed by the state of Rhode Island, and the studio ended up defaulting on payments!
Honestly, the story of the game’s development was more interesting than the story within the game itself!
7/10 to me is a good game. I hate how people rate games. I’ve always hated it. A 6/10 game is enjoyable. A 5/10 game is absolutely mid. A 4/10 game is okay. 3/10 has huge flaws but is worth playing if you’re into that.
Subnautica is an 8/10 game for me. I thought it was amazing. I loved it. Below Zero was a 6/10 game. I thought it was good. I enjoyed it, and I would not call it “absolute mid.”
In a world where games are scored across a full spectrum 0-or-1 to 10, then yes - anything 4-6 would be considered middle of the road.
However, due to a number of factors - that’s unfortunately not the reality we find ourselves in.
Firstly, “mid” is hard to define as it can mean anything from ‘mediocre’ to ‘fine, but forgettable’.
Secondly, ratings/scores tend to skew upward as people tend to reserve 1s for outright scams, broken games and review bombs. With 2 & 3 often used for ‘asset flips’ and similar non-games - so we end up grading on a curve from 4-10.
This also works well for mainstream outlets as it keeps advertisers happy, due to arbitrarily inflated scores.
Lastly, in a world of cumulative media (new releases don’t cause older ones to stop existing) - even ostensibly good games will fall by the wayside as players have access to 10/10 titles from previous years.
So all things considered, a 7/10 is well and truly “mid” in this topsy-turvey IGN-eque world
Hell no, Mad Max was way more fun than it had any right to be. I’ll agree that on paper it didn’t look like anything special, with mechanics we’d seen lots of times in other games, but in practice everything came together as much more than the sum of it’s parts.
Hmm… sure, but ima die on the hell Mad Max should be a linear game with sole focus on vehicular/melee combat. I don't really think it needs to be an open world game.
Fair, although it’s less open than it appears at first glance. The world is divided in parts that you unlock as the central story progresses, much like most RPGs.
I bought it quite cheap because it looked like a fun time, and have over the years since played through it 3 times. The gameplay mechanics are a blast.
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