Since I was thinking of Far Cry 2 the other day, I thought of games that were ruined by one or two elements that may have seemed minor but really screwed up the whole game.
I was a HUGE fan of the first Mercenaries and in that game, you could steal any vehicle you wanted by pretty much just running up to it. The game was still pretty hard and took me a while to beat. Then they made Mercs 2 and had these (impossible at times) button combos to take vehicles. If you wanted anything decent, you had to have ninja reflexes and hit four buttons. The slightest screw-up and you couldn't take it.
Any other games that may have been great but some little mechanic ruined them?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Halo 2 dual-wielding really messed up a whole lot of stuff I think. It introduced an unnecessary mechanic while creating the illusion that there was more at work behind the scenes, when there really wasn't.
ReplyDeleteI might be the only one up here with this thought as well, but the "final smash" technique in Smash Bros. Brawl really ruined the balanced gameplay that was present in Melee on the cube. It turned the game into an item fight. Melee was unbalanced in it's own ways (read: Sheik) but it didn't have a move that ruined the game for everyone involved.
This one is easy: Gears of War 2.
ReplyDeleteWhat ruined it: The Unreal Engine and constant multiplayer mechanics updates that completely changed how the game was played.
Is that fair though? At one time (before the internet) we may have had some valid complaints about glitchy gameplay, but now updates and patches are at your finger tips, allowing the creators to stay with their creation throughout the whole process. I feel like there are parts of Gears 2 that changed that I didn't like, but weren't those changes made to improve the game overall?
ReplyDeleteAmateria... when the updates completely change the way the game is played. THAT is when I have a problem. I will not ever say the game wasnt faulty from the beginning, but serious now... they completely changed the game. Not only did they do this once, they did it 3,4... maybe even 5 times!
ReplyDeleteYeah the updates in GOW/GOW2 are over the top. I've been saying it since the first GOW that Unreal Engine 3 ruined it as well as UT3. Not to mention just about any game that uses the Unreal Engine looks like a GOW game. Yikes! I'm playing Lost Odyssey now and I keep thinking, "they got GOW in my Lost Odyssey." Only game to use it really well was Mirrors Edge.
ReplyDeleteAs far as games that were ruined....Sonic. Poor poor raped out Sonic.
Far Cry 2 definately gets my nod, painful game to play thru with all those attacks, some of this discussion reminds me of something i've previously read/discussed about games coming out "incomplete" what i'm getting it is lazy dev's who'd rather ship the game faulty and patch at a later date than nail it first time and have minimal updates, it seems alot of games these days have a day 1 patch which just seems a bit unreasonable. it's a bit of a double edged sword really, great they can update the games willy nilly get rid of bugs etc but this can also drastically alter the way a game plays, eg GOW2.
ReplyDeleteSonic just didn't age well. I'm not convinced that the newer Sonic games are intrinsically bad, but since they all have our favorite blue rodent's name tagged on, they're a bigger let down than any normal bad game would be.
ReplyDeleteOne company that does it well right from the start is Blizzard. Primarily doing PC and Mac games, they take FOREVER to finish their games and the TBA release date is ALWAYS attached to their titles. But when the games come out, they are amazing with very few glitches.
ReplyDeleteJuniper: Didn't you say Huxley was bug free?
ReplyDeleteLOL! Yeah, I forgot about that one... HORRIBLE!
ReplyDelete