I think Halo Infinite qualifies, I played the multiplayer waaay back when it released so things may have drastically changed (haven’t heard of it being the case);
it didn’t / doesn’t do anything that no other game does, nor did / does it do anything particularly well nor better than its competitors (including every Halo from Bungie).
I did watch a walkthrough of the campaign, and it doesn’t look particularly engaging either.
The thing that gets me the most is they dont push the story forward. It felt like they said “lets slap some shit together so we can focus on competitive multiplayer”
I wouldn’t know what the thing that gets me the most is, there is so much that Cyberpunk 2077 corpo ass studio has done to ram the franchise into the ground after digging it up from its sacred resting place.
Other than brand loyalty (which at this point shouldn’t even exist anymore), I wonder how H:I ended up lasting years more than Concord.
Yes really. I played it all the time as a kid and didn’t think it was any more difficult or abstract than the rest of the 2600’s catalogue. Granted, we kept the manual, which made a huge difference in understanding and enjoying its bizarre logic, but still. I had no idea it was so hated until at least a decade later.
it was actually way ahead of its time, for a game. One small bug (the workaround for which was in the manual) ruined its reputation. But I genuinely think it was a good game.
Also written in 6 weeks by one guy. Freaking impressive
when climbing out of the pit, it was very easy to immediately fall back down (due to the pixel-perfect collision detection).
And here is an excerpt from the manual: “Even experienced extraterrestrials sometimes have difficulty levitating out of wells. Start to levitate E.T. by first pressing the controller button and then pushing your Joystick forward. E.T.'s neck will stretch as he rises to the top of the well (see E.T. levitating in Figure 1). Just when he reaches the top of the well and the scene changes to the planet surface (see Figure 2), STOP! Do not try to keep moving up. Instead, move your Joystick right, left, or to the bottom. Do not try to move up, or E.T. might fall back into the well.”
he was forced to release it quickly to coincide with the film’s release. For comparison, it used to take a team of devs a couple of months to make a game. He had 6 weeks.
Also, if you read the manual, this essentially never happened to you. It was easy to avoid.
You also needed to read the manual. The game did stuff that other games at the time didn’t, for example, a contextual button. You couldn’t know what would happen unless you read the manual to learn what the icons meant. A lot of people never did and so decided that the game was bad.
Yeah, I played it as a teenager on emulation and was pretty mystified at why it was considered so much worse than the other things available on the system. Why would people love Adventure but hate this?
Well, when it comes to video games, despite being foundational, Mario Bros. At the time, it was mids, but there were a lot less truly great games, and less abysmal ones so it looked better than it was. The series got better, but that first one was kinda meh. It’s all timing jumps, which is fine as far it as it goes, but there were both better and worse options on that console.
Away from video game, Life is about as meh as it gets. No real strategy, no depth. But it’s a good time killer and you can play it with a table full of people drinking and not get bogged down or into arguments because of the game (unlike monopoly lol).
If you are actually talking about Mario Bros., i.e. the game that’s only about kicking turtles, crabs and flies coming from pipes, yeah, I’d say that one was hardly a new thing.
Super Mario Bros. though? Hard disagree. Back then, that’s a scrolling platformer with controllable jumps, inertia that let you do sliding tricks, and relatively complex physics (acceleration, positional damage, shells, …)
Also very good readability with mechanics that were easy to learn on the spot.
Look at what most platformers played like around that time, and even what basic design errors a lot of them kept doing long after that. SMB was lightning in a bottle.
I didn’t think it was terrible in and of itself, but it also wasn’t very good. It was just missing that certain something Bethesda RPGs had before it. Just a meh experience the whole way through.
I think it was the way that exploration felt like a grind that made it so “meh”. A whole universe to explore, and you’re either going to come to a barren rock planet, or find the same enemy base/outpost 5 times in a row.
For a game where space exploration was one of the main selling points, it felt remarkably unlike exploring at times.
It always felt to me they wanted to create what star citizen is supposed to be someday (press x to doubt) and the. Looked at no mans sky and were like, we should add that too! And then realized the scope of that was ridiculous and half assed both of those parts.
I personally judge that game as plain bad with decent shooting and ok loot. The main story, and the game universe in general, are memorable for how stupidly thought out they are, even for the low standards of Bethesda post Oblivion. The citizens and assorted non-hostile npcs feel less alive than the people you run over in GTA games. They also managed to take the fun basebuilding of Fallout 4 and make it bad AND pointless - very little customization and freedom of certain objects’ placements, plus you’re better off just buying resources from vendors.
I modded it with the ‘no purchasable resources’ and it became a totally different game; It was all spreadsheet/logistics and organizing galaxy wide shipping to central hubs where I had to fabricate all my own materials to be able to upgrade equipment. I found that far more enjoyable, but the game is still meh. Not worth the replays like skyrim was.
While I enjoy some logistics management, I’d never punish myself with that in Starfield. Most gear upgrades aren’t worth it and you can’t even craft your own weapons or suits. This isn’t Fallout where advanced machinery can be considered “lost tech” ffs
Star field was just mediocre enough that it pissed me off, the loading screens and menues are egregious enough to make me go ballistic. It’s hilarious because instead of criticizing the game for actuall gameplay, at launch it was lambasted for “pronouns”. Then normal people got to playing it and actually explained the issues.
Starfield faked me out for a bit when I took the character creation perk that gave my character living parents that I could go visit and would show up from time to time. They were funny and adorably charming, and I thought it was an inspired touch. Little did I know that was the absolute best part of that game…
Dead Space is one of those series where the first 2 games set the expectations UNBELIEVABLY high. So high, in fact, that the developers were actually terrified they couldn’t live up to the legend, and were terrified they were gonna make a bad game that ruined the series. But they were gonna try their damndest.
And then EA executives came along, and they saw that “”“all the rage”“” those days was in Co-Op action shooters a-la Resident Evil 5/6 and Army Of 2, or Gears of War, and they DEMANDED that Dead Space 3 be “”“more like that”“”, or else. So they did it, and were also forced to shove microtransactions into the game with crafting materials.
The end result? Dead Space 3 was an… alright 3rd-person action-horror co-op shooter. Not great, not terrible, but… alright. An above-average shade of mediocre, certainly worth playing on its own merits, both mechanically and plot-wise, but not much more than that. A perfectly OK game.
And an absolutely TERRIBLE Dead Space game. Previous installments sold millions on multiple platforms. DS3… didn’t, and it ended up killing the studio.
dead space 3 took Isaac and Ellie from the previous games, made them kinda stupid bimbos, and put them into a high school slasher with a love triangle. they also had to sell 5 million copies to be considered profitable by EA, which was more than the previous two games’ sales combined
Same, as a kid i had no idea if the controversy to and was still waiting on a sequel for some time after. I thought it was a novel idea and it was my first proper foray into Norse mythology.
I made a post not all that long ago about Lords of the Fallen after discovering it myself, only to find that nobody else seemed to like it as much as I did (which, fair; it’s probably why I hadn’t heard of it until recently).
It’s not as good as a Fromsoft game, or Lies of P, but, to me anyway, it’s like the 2nd best soulslike that isn’t a Fromsoft game. The major disappointments are minimal enemy variety, and the story is just kinda shit. The highlights are the combat and build variety, and unique aspects like tying item descriptions to your actual skills so you can’t read some descriptions unless you invest in “knowledge” of it. It just sucks that you don’t really get much from it because, again, the story is kinda shit.
Also it’s the only non Fromsoft soulslike I’ve played that has PvP. I got into Dark Souls and the rest because of the invasion system more than anything else, so LOTF having that was a big plus for me.
I spent a lot of time playing Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts alone and online with friends. A lot of people I’ve talked to view it negatively and are surprised when I say it was one of my favorite 360 titles. It’s one of the main reasons I want to try out Xbox 360 emulation.
Sonic Adventure 1. I love the hub worlds and how the stories of the different characters intertwine in the shared areas. And I love the variety of characters and being able to freely choose which one to advance (unlike Sonic Adventure 2…)
and off topic, but why the hell do the SA2 treasure hunting stages only do radar for the “next piece”?? SA1 has the radar active for all 3 pieces, so there’s way less back and forth
I bet it was to artificially increase the difficulty of those levels, if not, I can’t explain why. It is the single detail that makes the Knuckles/Rouge levels less enjoyable.
I didn’t know this one wasn’t well received until just now. To me it’s one of the few good 3D sonics. The plot, stage design, intersecting stories with varied play styles. All of that made it feel like playing in a full world.
That being said, I’m hit or miss on sonic in general, so maybe I like it for not being a traditional sonic game.
This is an oldie, but Lords of the Realm II. I loved the first two, but had trouble with the third and ended up giving up, assuming it was a me problem.
Nope, the community pretty much unanimously hates it. It’s not a terrible game per se, it’s just very different from the first two, throwing out everything most people liked about the predecessors and not exactly succeeding at the new mechanics.
I’ve decided to build my own take on the best parts of all three, we’ll see if I ever finish it.
Oh man I loved that game as a teen but I had to give up somewhere near the end cuz I was in a sneaking section that I tried for hours but kept failing. I ended up dropping the game and just reading the story online. Up until then, it was a really fun game though.
It has literally been about 20 years since I played. I can’t say I really remember which part you’re talking about. I just remember about halfway/three-quarter into the game things get fucking weird.
I loved this one, too. Super weird story, but I was hooked. I didn’t even object to what I sort of remember as a deus ex machina kind of ending. Seemed fittingly weird for the vibe.
If I remember right, both Legend of Zelda Windwaker and Mario Sunshine were either rushed to an end or released early, leading both to come out unfinished. I the details on why are hazy, but I think they were pushed to try and make up for poor sales of the Gamecube at large or to make up for other gaps in the schedule.
Windwaker had a ton of content cut. The ice island and fire island were both supposed to be full dungeons. Both of those incomplete dungeons later ended up being used in Twilight Princess.
Tap for spoilerHyrule Castle was supposed to be a full dungeon.
Personally the movement mechanics and the tropical overworld were amazing in this game.
While the water jetpack may seem like a gimmick, I thought it really changed the platforming in a good way.
Additionally, I’m a sucker for a good overworld and the amount of things you can unlock or discover in delphino plaza turns it into its own sort of level.
There is definitely some jank and padding (blue coins) in the game, but it holds up better than Mario 64 in my opinion (just due to the camera issues IN Mario 64).
I never played the others. I play with my friend overseas every Monday. He chooses the games. He may have chosen it because it is cooperative, online and not PvP. IDK.
But we also play, Aliens, Grimm Dawn, all of the borderlands games, like literally ALL of them including Tiny Tina’s Wonderland. Two is my favorite.
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