Results 1 to 30 of 137
Thread: That sucky game that you love
-
2012-06-29, 12:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2011
That sucky game that you love
You know you have at least one of these. That game, that despite it's momentous flaws, you love.
Maybe it has an awesome story. Maybe a cool gameplay mechanic. Or, hell, maybe you have no idea why you like it. All you know is that you the game is fantastic despite what everyone says.
For me, the one that comes to mind immediatly is Rise of the Argonauts, a Bioware style action game. It recieved some pretty mediocore reviews and low sales, and who can blame them.
The combat is repetive and simple. The backtracking in levels is pretty unforgivable The boss fights are nothing special (except for one). It's pretty short, running about 10 hours or so. The companions you pick up seem to lack much in the way of charecter arcs except for maybe one of them, running the gambit of personalities from one-dimentional to *******. There are also a ton of bugs that can royaly mess with the game.
And I friggin' love it. Why? I can't really say. The dialogue trees are interesting, the choices representing the stances and personalities of various Greek gods. Personally, I go with Hermes due to sarcasm. Your charecter, Jason, is actually pretty damn cool. The dude tears across Greece, battling an assassin guild/doomsday cult, in order to save his wife.
While Jason doesn't level up, he does pick up a lot of equipment and weapon sets during his quest. The buffs these give off never seemed to impact gameplay, but they all look pretty fantastic, so there's that. Your companions also make up for being kind of lame by actually being useful. While you don't control them, they always seem to know what they need to do to be effective in a fight. It's always fun to see Herculese come up and rip a saytr in half and chcuk it in two different directions, or Atlanta droping a half-dozen mercs with well placed arrows.
Now, for a lot of people, that's not enough to save the game from being mediocore, if not down-right bad. But for me, it's one of the most enjoyable games I've ever played. Ration? No, probably not. Can't deny the joy, though.
What about the rest of you? What game do you love, even though you probably shouldn't?"How're we doing?"
"The dwarf's on fire."
"So as bad as usual, huh?"
-
2012-06-29, 01:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Up there past them trees!
Re: That sucky game that you love
Rune.
RUNE!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rune:_Halls_of_Valhalla
Famed for some of the worst mono-tone graphics of all time, dull monsters and a a dreadful story, Rune still carried great entertainment value for me. First of all, I am an absolute NUTBAG when it comes to anything Viking-related. Second of all, in spite of the ****ty graphics and basically 4 enemy types, the combat was IMMENSE fun. To date, this game still holds the exclusive lock on the most awesome gameplay feature of all time:
You can cut off a man's arm, then beat him to death with it. SERIOUSLY. Really, what this game was a forerunner of was God of War: A ferociously violent, deeply satisfying 3rd person fighting game, set in a mythic milieu. Granted, it lacks God of War's more varied enemies and far, far better boss battles. Also, the multiplayer was a stone blast, including my personal favourite: Headball. Yep, cut off a dude's head, then carry it back to your hoop and toss it through for points.
So, freakishly prescient indie industry-maker, or horribad 3d adventure game set in a turd-coloured world? BOTH!
-
2012-06-29, 01:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2006
- Location
- Poland
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Avatar by KwarkpuddingThe subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing;
Rush in and die, dogs—I was a man before I was a king.
Whoever makes shoddy beer, shall be thrown into manure - town law from Gdańsk, XIth century.
-
2012-06-29, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2009
Re: That sucky game that you love
For me that sucky game is Earthbound. There are a lot of us Earthbound fans but for anyone who isn't a fan I understand the game is fairly plain, even for it's time.
I just love it because of nostalgia and the humor value.
-
2012-06-29, 02:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2012
- Location
- Iowa
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
For me, I would say...I don't know how sucky it's considered, but I'm the only person I've ever met who actually beat the game. I LOVE playing Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, the one for PS2 where you play as Hector, the devil forgemaster?
I mean I think the game was fairly well made, but it wasn't great for graphics, you ran really slow, and a few other annoying things, but I never heard ANYONE talking about it, so I always assumed it wasn't well received.
-
2012-06-29, 02:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Location
- St. Louis
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Command & Conquer: Renegade.
Technically it looks like a game made by people who have never made a shooter. The characters were facepalm-worthy, had some weird balance issues that made you pistol a tank for money, it looked awful, had features cut for the release.
But it combined so well. It had something that really hasn't been done again in a shooter, the bad characters transcend into parody letting you play as GI Joe characters, and there it just played well in multiplayer as a team game.Ask me about our low price vacation plans in the Elemental Plane of Puppies and PieSpoiler
Evoker avatar by kpenguin. Evoker Pony by Dirtytabs. Grey Mouser, disciple of cupcakes by me. Any and all commiepuppies by BRC
-
2012-06-29, 02:54 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2011
- Location
- Therinos
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Alpha Protocol. Lame, underpowered, numbers-based shooting, sneaking that's broken in half, oddly plastic graphics, AI that's either psychic or dumb as a box of rocks, but it has some of the best character writing and player anticipation I've ever come across this side of Deus Ex:Human Revolution. Of course, if you should ever buy it on special or something, don't-ever- pick anything but pistols.
-
2012-06-29, 03:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Whoah, whoah, whoah. Earthbound has a pretty compelling story, great humour, a good translation, fun music, quirky characters characters and a pretty good, unique graphical look for an RPG.
The gameplay is nothing to write home about, sure, but that's true for games like Planescape: Torment, too. And nobody calls Torment sucky
My pick... it's pretty hard to name just one. Dynasty Warriors would be the most recent, I suppose. I just get a kick out of the Three Kingdoms setting and characters."What can change the nature of a man?"
__
Guybrush Threepwood avatar by Ceika
-
2012-06-29, 03:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Up there past them trees!
-
2012-06-29, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Wha...?? Earthbound doesn't suck!
My guilty pleasure is probably Otogi.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
-
2012-06-29, 06:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
Re: That sucky game that you love
War of The Monsters for the PS2.
Master of Orion II: Let's Play! Of Klackons and Gnolams
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." - Pravin Lal
-
2012-06-29, 07:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2009
- Location
- Canada
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
How is WotM sucky? It's a well-built 3d beat-em-up with good character variety and decent gameplay. IIRC, it got solid reviews when it came out (80% on Metacritic) and was hella fun from the moment you picked it up. I've never met anyone who didn't like the game, so it's pretty much the definition of a good, if not industry-busting, game. Besides, name me one other game where you can rip a 50 foot long replica of Excalibur off of a Las Vegas casino and use it to slice a ten storey giant robot in half? As Godzilla.
Alpha Protocol is probably my pick as well. Good story, amazing nonlinear plotting and dialogue system, some of the best implementation of player agency in an RPG ever. Bad game. The other one I need to mention is Red Faction 2. Nearly killed the franchise, pretty much a step down from it's (Half-life Clone) predecessor in every way, a thouroughly mediocre shooter on a console spoilt for choice. I put in easily 150 hours on it thanks to splitscreen multiplayer that never, ever got old. Why, modern games, why no four player split screen multiplayer? Resistance 1 doesn't let me have bots and I have yet to find another game on the PS3 that offers me it at all.Avatar by the wonderful SubLimePie. Former avatar by Andraste.
-
2012-06-29, 07:27 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2011
Re: That sucky game that you love
I have three.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. The graphics are high-res (for its time) but bland and brown, the gameplay is so imbalanced it's a joke, the level design is a sequence of linear CoD-esque setpieces (long before CoD popularized them, even), the magic system is horrific, and the characters and plot stand as a shining example of how NOT to write a fantasy story.
And yet... it's the only game I've ever played that actually makes first-person swordplay something more than tedious button-mashing (well, so long as you go for a "no kicking" run). That has to be worth something. If only better games like Skyrim could learn from it somehow...
Super Meat Boy. Now, I see this game get a lot of hate, and I have no clue as to why (well, I do). While writing this post I degenerated into a huge rant about why this game is so awesome, so I'll just keep it short: Super Meat Boy is the Portal of its kind. It takes the best elements of platformers and snaps them all together, seamlessly, flawlessly. Really the only serious criticism of the game that holds up is "But it doesn't do anything NEW." This is the game that taught me that doing an old thing a bajillion times better than anything that came before it is worth far more than any experiment; That innovation is seriously overrated. It's the single most compelling argument for the power of genre.
The Binding of Isaac. Yes, another Team Meat project. I wasn't terribly impressed with the game when I first loaded it up, and I'm still not. The Zelda-inspiration elements are mostly there for decoration, as is the random dungeon-generation and permadeath system. The items you find are way too random for there to be any meaningful element in build choices; they're just extra pluses given out like candy to keep you moving to the next room, and ultimately distract from the core of the bullet hell combat that, honestly, other games have already done more compellingly. The horror movie cliches, the gross-out design of the game, and ceaseless internet meme references didn't help.
So, why do I have this here? Well, something happened that first day when I played it. I wasn't really impressed by the game, but I decided I would keep playing until I was good enough to beat it once (being only 30 minutes long per playthrough, I figured that would only take a few tries). After dying twice, I made it up to the final boss. Half a heart remaining, and the screen almost completely filled with enemies and projectiles that would kill me instantly if I grazed just one. I thought to myself "**** no! I've come way too far! I am NOT doing all of that bull**** again!"
Then it happened. Time slowed to a crawl, and every passing second felt like an hour. I weaved around the incoming fire I was having so much trouble with before unthinkingly, effortlessly, as naturally as breathing. The world outside my laptop melted away; My phone even rang 6 inches away at max volume and I didn't notice.
It was... transcendent. Somehow, at 1 hit point remaining and no health pickups, I did it. I could hardly even pay attention to the ending cutscene (which totally sucked, by the way), because I was too busy swimming in a sea of confusion, my heart pounding at a million miles a second, wondering what had just happened. It took two hours after it was over for my hands to stop shaking and my breathing to return to normal.
I played through several more times after that, but I never did get to feel that high again. Never before or since could a game evoke feelings like that from me; It was literally the best 30 seconds of gaming in my entire life. I still don't know how the parts of the game fit together to make that, exactly, but god dammit there was something right going on there, and anyone who can figure out exactly what has found the holy grail of game design. Any game that can do that, even accidentally on the part of the game designers, has earned some serious respect.
-
2012-06-29, 07:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
-
2012-06-29, 09:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2011
Re: That sucky game that you love
Flipped a coin between this and Rise of the Argonauts. I have to add that Alpha Protocol might have one of the best endings I've ever seen in a game, and it can be wildly different depending on your choices all the way through to, and including, the last conversation with the big bad.
"How're we doing?"
"The dwarf's on fire."
"So as bad as usual, huh?"
-
2012-06-29, 09:35 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
While "love" would be too strong of a description, a poor game that I nonetheless enjoy would be Quest 64. Yes, the story is just this side of nonexistant. Yes, the combat is incredibly unbalanced, with water magic being practically mandatory for healing and the SP drain spells, earth having the extremely overpowered barrier and avalanche spells, and wind and fire looking completely unnecessary by comparison to their counterparts. Yes most of the game is continuous dungeon crawling punctuated with random encounters every fifteen seconds. Yes, the macguffins that give the bosses their power do absolutely nothing for you for no apparent reason. But damn it, it lets me play as a pure mage with a variety of spells and kill a lot of different monsters along the way! And I like random encounters! And I even kinda like the design of some of the dungeons and areas.
Probably helps that it was possibly my first RPG (I don't recall whether I played it or the GBC remake of Dragon Quest 1 first), so there's a nostalgia factor too, but in any event I honestly enjoy it.
ZevoxToph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis
-
2012-06-29, 09:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2009
- Location
- In the lab
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
I never really understood the hate for Quest 64 either. Granted, my parents rented it for me when I was, like 7, and I didn't really get all that far in the few days I had it. I enjoyed it while I had it though.
Anyway, I'll freely admit my guilty pleasure of enjoying Final Fantasy X-2. Mostly because, despite the ultra-fanservicey exterior, I genuinely love the battle system. I've always been horrifically indecisive when it comes to classes in RPGs, so having the ability to just pick four of them to switch between as needed was a wonderful concept for me.Avatar by Doran Liadon
-
2012-06-29, 09:53 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Germany
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Command & Conquer: Renegade.
Technically it looks like a game made by people who have never made a shooter. The characters were facepalm-worthy, had some weird balance issues that made you pistol a tank for money, it looked awful, had features cut for the release.
But it combined so well. It had something that really hasn't been done again in a shooter, the bad characters transcend into parody letting you play as GI Joe characters, and there it just played well in multiplayer as a team game.
Sure, forget characters and story, it's basically an action movie, and Nick "I've got a present for ya" Parker fullfils EVERY cliche. You're GI Joe, as you said, but then again, the commando unit in EVERY C&C actually does what you do!
But then again, walking through Command&Conquer is just fun, and you get to look at all your favourite buildings up close, and even blow them up. I liked it, and I didn't even think it was a bad game. But yes, the pistol reigned supreme for most of the game.Si non confectus, non reficiat.
The beautiful girl is courtesy of Serpentine
My S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripjat Let's Play! Please give it a read, more than one constant reader would be nice!
-
2012-06-29, 09:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
Re: That sucky game that you love
Submarine Titans.
For all the bugs in the game and somewhat unbalanced combat, it is a very novel take on the RTS genre that I have not seen since.
-
2012-06-29, 09:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Location
- Crazytown
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Golden Axe 2. Something about being able to play an arcade-quality* sidescroller on my SEGA allowed me to see past its glaring flaws. I'd still play it today if I could figure out where the cartridge went.
*for a given value of 1991 quality.My forum avatars appear to have decomposed in my absence. C'est la vie.Homebrewer's Signature
If you use any of my homebrew, or even if you just have a strong opinion on it, please let me know. Feedback is always useful.
-
2012-06-29, 11:34 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- Hastings, MN
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
I love Rise of the Argonauts too! As a Greek mythology aficionado, it was a must-buy.
The sucky game that I'd say I love the most is the much maligned Neverwinter Nights 2. Poor graphics by today standards, cookie-cutter story, and I loved the whole ride. Sure, people liked Mask of the Betrayer, but most of the rest of the game has been generally regarded as sub-par, especially since Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 are kind of seen as the poor man's Baldur's Gate.Last edited by Archpaladin Zousha; 2012-06-29 at 11:37 PM.
"Reach down into your heart and you'll find many reasons to fight. Survival. Honor. Glory. But what about those who feel it's their duty to protect the innocent? There you'll find a warrior savage enough to match any dragon, and in the end, they'll retain what the others won't. Their humanity."
-
2012-06-30, 12:58 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
Re: That sucky game that you love
Final Fantasy 8.
Oooooh, I just went there.Last edited by Cespenar; 2012-06-30 at 12:59 AM.
-
2012-06-30, 05:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan. First person dungeon crawling much like the recent Legend of Grimrock, except ugly as sin even for its time, completely RNG-based combat (unless you're a spellcaster) which though reasonably quick for turn based combat still demanded little and was viciously unforgiving.
Yet in spite of this, somehow a poster child of "harsh but fair" to me, complete with genuine thrill of exploration in spite of the dungeon being the same every time, constant sense of danger (paralyzed by a slime? Well, tough luck, hope you didn't carry too much money!) and the occasional sound assets and PnP-style room descriptions that were genuinely creepy.
Unintuitive, clumsy character management in both inventory and magic, mechanically weird and sometimes broken, puddle-shallow combat, arbitrary restrictions and limitations (several classes could not even be started in but demanded dual-classing into them after you'd raised your stats which was a mess in and of itself!) and hideous, yet it's eaten so many hours without me ever beating the damn thing.Last edited by Aricandor; 2012-06-30 at 05:59 AM.
Duuuude. I just, like, totally divided by zero!
-
2012-06-30, 07:42 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Gangland a game that crashed the company that made it, and had to be patched like seventy times before it became functional (A point rendered moot since it can't run on anything newer than windows XP, and accuses you of piracy and won't run if you use compatibility mode)
But oh god, you get to be an actual Don.
Do you know how rare that is in games?
In the godfather games you were always just a glorified enforcer, and "gangsters" is basically a board game.
But here you get to place the bouncers on your speak-easys, you get to hire goons to convince businesses to pay "rent", you get to make alliances with other families for special units (Some of them are really dumb though), and you get to raise the sons and daughters who will carry on your legacy.
-
2012-06-30, 10:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
Re: That sucky game that you love
Oh yes. The stiff dialogue, the emo main character, the plot holes...Every authority figure in the plot is quite happy to let a angsty teenager call the shots. Heck, one of your teachers joins your party and will accept being bossed around. The difficulty in improving your weapons, only to find out that the damage increase is negligible. The junction system, where switching GF's to someone else is always a bad decision because they work better when they're attached to a certain person for a long time.
And yet...the dance scene was very good. The NPC's are quite interesting. The draw magic system was original. I'll even throw in the card game as a good point, since it's completely optional.
Perhaps I'll start it up again...
-
2012-06-30, 10:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2007
- Location
- Denmark
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
I really liked Final Fantasy VIII too, though I guess in retrospect I can see some of its flaws. Perhaps it was because it was the first FF game I ever played, perhaps it was because I was 13 and thus an angsty teenager myself when I met Squall, but I still have a special place in my heart for that game.
I also really liked Montezuma's Return, something as horrid as a 1st person, 3d-platformer. It had bad, blocky graphics and no weapons except fists and kicks, but somehow it managed to really suck me in, and I played it a LOT when I was younger.
-
2012-06-30, 12:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Tecmo's Secret Of The Seven Stars!!!
An RPG hated as the worst game ever, made by Tecmo. The first and last RPG they ever made. They also made Deception, which I guess counts as an RPG, but not a classic RPG.
The main characters had little to no character growth, the translation into English was not-so-good, some of the names were either weird or just comical. (BadBad was the name of one of the bad guys). However, the music was awesome, and there are two different role playing parties you control in the same game, and the graphics was perfect for it's time. However strangely, most people hated the graphics.
THe quality of the game was not helped at all by the fact that the players had to discover at least a few ways to advance through the plot that the manual, nor the game it'self would tell you, thus some players would be stuck roaming through the game world for a long time, and this was years before you could get on the internet.
-
2012-06-30, 12:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2007
- Location
- St. Louis
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
You can really say that NwN one falls in the same enjoyable bad games. Out of the box it took *a lot* of work by the community to make it good. It's mostly notable as a prototype for Bioware's later work.
Other than its desire to be a graphical MUD, it can't escape the shadow of KotOR.Ask me about our low price vacation plans in the Elemental Plane of Puppies and PieSpoiler
Evoker avatar by kpenguin. Evoker Pony by Dirtytabs. Grey Mouser, disciple of cupcakes by me. Any and all commiepuppies by BRC
-
2012-06-30, 07:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Ravnica
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds.
It may be a game that's related to the card game in name only, features uninspired gameplay, is critically unbalanced on several levels, totally ruins the characters it does use from the source material, has little plot to speak of, and has graphics that make you wince, but I love it. Probably mostly because I mastered that terrible game and have never lost a pvp match against anyone I know. That, and there's just something very satisfying in summoning huge-ass dragons and gorillas to beat my opponent to a pulp.Much thanks to Ceika for the poketar!
I'll be away from the internet from 1/3-1/8 2019. I swear I'm not disappeared.
-
2012-07-02, 12:43 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Gender
Re: That sucky game that you love
Hitman: Codename 47
I'm a huge Hitman fan, despite getting extremely angry at every game in the series (Plutonium Runs Loose back in the days; Hidden Valley on every single full playthrough; Rotterdam missions in Contracts; and Blood Money, where everything just kinda seems out of place for me; and Absolution, unless they somehow manage to salvage it despite all the production flaws) so whenever I turn it up, it's an exercise in masochism. And lately I've marathoned through all the games on the hardest difficulty levels. With Silent Assassin wherever I was patient enough. (Read: I didn't get that rating on Hidden Valley.)
Back when I played Hitman 1, I got so quickly used to the control that only during a later playthrough I realized how clunky this game is. It aged. It's not "sucky", it just always is unfavorably compared to Contracts because Contracts is a remake of Codename 47. A lot of Contracts is just "Codename 47 Done Right".
Maybe it's nostalgic, but Hitman 1 has just something really charming to it. The way there's no rating for your missions is kind of liberating, since you can just slit throats all over the place or actually get to use the plethora of weapons available in the game. Also, I need to use the bathroom. Also, the theme.
Days were simpler when you didn't throw coins and when you didn't have an infinite stun at your disposal. Or when a disguise gave you a free pass everywhere. In Hitman 2, I would tend to glitch-walk just because the AI was extremely unpredictable about seeing through your disguise. Imagine being a Spy trying to pass through a crowd of enemy Pyros. Sometimes you get spychecked, sometimes they are all AFK, but you never can tell. The red, pulsating meter on the right was scarier than Amnesia.
Hitman 1 is just relaxing. It doesn't make me rage despite being extremely unwieldy.