Good games that are actually rubbish.

[Eridger]

The music was something that really provoked my love for the game, and though many would disagree with me, I think that Sephiroth was the ultimate villain.

Ah, Sephiroth. The villain you could relate to, understand and even feel sympathy for. Not to mention fear, of course. That's one of the many reasons I like this game. When a game can make you feel sympathy for all of the characters in it ('cept for freakin' Yuffie...) you now it's a good game.


I'd like to say that I disagree with your assessment of FFVIII, I really can't. I've been replaying it again, and I guess it never occurred to me just how shallow the characters are. There is really no connection whatsoever that I feel towards any of the characters. And the sudden personality change in the main character - from emo whiny bitch-boy to emo, whiny, suddenly passionate bitch-boy in love - just made no sense. The battles got really easy about halfway through the game with the ability to draw as much magic as you needed from an enemy that could literally just sit there for five minutes doing nothing at all.


The graphics were pretty nice, though. I just wish I could find more games like these.

 

[SOLGarion]

If it weren't for my dad's now-defunct (Pizza) business, I wouldn't have ever known shit about computers or gotten anywhere close to where I am today.

Reminds me of Lewis Black. If it weren't for my horse I wouldn't have spent that year in college.


Wait what? Did he ride the horse? Would he have starved without the horse? Did the horse tell him to go to college? Did he win a horse racing scholarship?


ANEURYSM!

 

[Sugar_Kane]

I had a pirate copy of captain planet, I remember talking to my school friends about it. It's amazing that we actually seriously sat down and watched that cartoon in the first place. Also, that kid with the heart ring got seriously short changed.

 

[DavidBowman]

The music was something that really provoked my love for the game, and though many would disagree with me, I think that Sephiroth was the ultimate villain.

Ah, Sephiroth. The villain you could relate to, understand and even feel sympathy for. Not to mention fear, of course. That's one of the many reasons I like this game. When a game can make you feel sympathy for all of the characters in it ('cept for freakin' Yuffie...) you now it's a good game.


I'd like to say that I disagree with your assessment of FFVIII, I really can't. I've been replaying it again, and I guess it never occurred to me just how shallow the characters are. There is really no connection whatsoever that I feel towards any of the characters. And the sudden personality change in the main character - from emo whiny bitch-boy to emo, whiny, suddenly passionate bitch-boy in love - just made no sense. The battles got really easy about halfway through the game with the ability to draw as much magic as you needed from an enemy that could literally just sit there for five minutes doing nothing at all.


The graphics were pretty nice, though. I just wish I could find more games like these.

You are absolutely correct about Sephiroth. His theme music, both the normal theme and the One Winged Angel theme during the final battle are simply awesome. And because we watch him transform from a fairly normal SOLDIER into the monster he becomes, you almost feel bad for him. Almost. We'd probably feel worse if he didn't kill Aeris.


And yes, screw Yuffie. She added nothing to the game but a frustrating side story. I'm glad she was optional. Vincent, on the other hand, I always got. Granted, I never used him as a main character, but I always got him. He did add a lot to the background of the story, in particular by seeing the "conception" of Sephiroth. I love the guitar music in the basement of the Shinra Mansion too.


The graphics for FFVIII is the only thing I can say it had going for it, much like everyone else at the time of its release. But it really wasn't that much of an improvement over FFVII. The character models were better (fixable in the PC version of VII via a hack), but I don't remember the pre-rendered backgrounds or the FMVs being better.

I had a pirate copy of captain planet, I remember talking to my school friends about it. It's amazing that we actually seriously sat down and watched that cartoon in the first place. Also, that kid with the heart ring got seriously short changed.

Ha ha. The only thing I remember about Captain Planet was when the bad guys made an evil version of Captain Planet. I think they named him something lame like Captain Pollution. I remember rooting for Captain Pollution.

 

[bzar]

Ha ha. The only thing I remember about Captain Planet was when the bad guys made an evil version of Captain Planet. I think they named him something lame like Captain Pollution. I remember rooting for Captain Pollution.

Hey, I remember that as well! Also the almost-always-useless heart ring. And the moral parts at the end of each episode.

 

[Prometheus]

Do we already have a thread of rubbish games you enjoyed? I'm sure, you, like me, bought utter crap when you were a child and played it until you damn well enjoyed it!

Sort of. Not sure if it counts, though.

Also, that kid with the heart ring got seriously short changed.

Ah, but he already had a pet monkey. The other kids actually got better powers to make up for this fact.

 

[second exodous]

I had a pirate copy of captain planet, I remember talking to my school friends about it. It's amazing that we actually seriously sat down and watched that cartoon in the first place. Also, that kid with the heart ring got seriously short changed.

Yeah, if I was the one who got the heart ring I would have just thrown it right back at them. But. . .I guess that would have proven I was not the kind of kid to be 'heart'.


Also, the population control episode struck me as propaganda even when I was a kid. Cartoons like that irk me, like on the 'Proud family' when they talk about the evils of illegally downloading music and make it look like all the artists are starving because of it. Yeah, kids just shouldn't learn that kind of stuff from big corporations. . .

 

[Batou456]

I don't understand the Doom 3 hate, and am not seeing the legitimacy in it. The "predictable" example mentioned has no known application in the game as I remember from recently playing it. It's certainly a sight lot better then System Shock 2, and particularly its love of spawning that was more obnoxious then anything else while having none of the charm of the original.


-Half Life 1


While it was a good quirky shooter at the time, with amusing wordplay references and nice controls the actual product had practically nothing to do with the massive marketing campaign/reviews around it. SiN 1 was much more advanced in most aspects having a branching storyline, voice acting, quirky antics, and solid gameplay. While buggy it's bugs at least were fixed, unlike the semiroutine stuck to floor bug of Half Life 1. Naturally due to the Half Life marketing blitz it was portrayed as a throwback verse the more "enlightened" Half Life.


Half Life really has no more story then Wolfenstein 3D or Doom 1, which while tongue in cheek at least have a actual plot. Even if it did involve Zombie Nazis and a pet rabbit that vengeance had to be enacted for respectively. Or Quake 2's story if we want to be contemporary which had a nice cutscene intro, manual introduction, and a real sense of direction in your actions in an environment that at least had the illusion of not being linear right off the bat. Yes, it was a tongue in cheek story about techno-zombies who invaded and screwed over the counter invasion thus leaving you to have to sort things out and eventually duel the Leader, but at least it was there.


Half Life, even with the attempts by the expansion packs to correct this, has no plot. It's never really explained what's going on or is there any reason given for you doing anything beyond characters basically pointing in a general direction and telling you to go that way, where you'll find someone else who'll do the same after a lot of intermediate action. It's particularly obnoxious because there were games like Dark Forces 1 or System Shock 1 which did make a point to have an actual story and strong characters with a lot of real writing effort instead of a bumbling quartet of scientist copied and pasted everywhere, a silent protagonist, and sparse thinly veiled list of go-there objectives.


Valve itself admitted that the AI, that was hyped to the point they were basically claiming all the enemies were Skynet writ large, was nothing particularly noteworthy beyond getting the human enemies to use cover who there was never really a good reason why you're fighting in the first place. Indeed it's utterly moronic as the situation involves an out of control phenomena, and this would involve slaughtering the only people theoretically capable of providing an intelligent answer to the "how do we fix this?" question.


And then there are the numerous Jumping Puzzles which make Half Life less the Smart Man's shooter and more the Platformer FPS.


-Half Life 2


So having completed Half Life 1, and been led around the nose by allusions with no follow on and thus the writer equivalent of baiting via bluff, you move to Half Life 2 perhaps expecting that some of what you were promised in the way of explanation would be delivered. To which Valve not only failed to deliver, but continued the trend of leading allusions and references, with you largely doing things for no other real reason then it's a rail shooter, contrary to marketing claims of sand box.


Now Vampire: Bloodlines demonstrates rather clearly that even a early release modded Source engine can handle interactive environment and conversational coding. Did Valve use that? No. Instead we have lame jokes about their lazy silent protagonist approach, and a co-character that can be played as being literally out to kill you. To make it all the worse Alex is a child who reached "adulthood" while you were in deep freeze, as it's rather clearly explained, and Valve is determined to try to cram her into a romantic relationship mold that is fundamentally disturbing. All the more because as already mentioned it's trivial to play it as she's working for the Combine as a double agent to try to take you out of the picture.


The engine itself was nice, but not really that noteworthy verse the contemporary Far Cry or Riddick:EFBB engines/games which are in many respects both more sophisticated and more enjoyable. They at the very least do not think gameplay should revolve around the equivalent of piling up lincoln logs to work a teeter totter. And then there's Episode 1... where we have a sequence where you're on a open platform and you need to nail multiple falling platforms just right or it's instant death in a long sequence I doubt anyone can get through without brute force quick save abuse.

 

[Batou456]

*Double post*

 

[Zelest]

Need for Speed is a roller-coaster with highs and lows. Meanwhile I love the first 4 games, those following NFS: Underground are very iffy for me. They keep removing and readding features which I like and dislike until the final result is some sort of mud. Also, the storylines are so bad it makes my grade-school skits look good in comparison. And in the last instalments... I mean.. levelling up?! I want a car, I want that car to perform to specs, I want to grow as a player, not level up and get better grip though that or get skills and what not. If I wanted that, I'd play Mario Cart or Sonic Racers.


The only one I like of the last few games is "Most Wanted" since it had the least of the features I dislike, the most of those I like... and you could press escape to skip the bad story.

 

[Jourdy288]

I had a pirate copy of captain planet, I remember talking to my school friends about it. It's amazing that we actually seriously sat down and watched that cartoon in the first place. Also, that kid with the heart ring got seriously short changed.

Yeah, if I was the one who got the heart ring I would have just thrown it right back at them. But. . .I guess that would have proven I was not the kind of kid to be 'heart'.


Also, the population control episode struck me as propaganda even when I was a kid. Cartoons like that irk me, like on the 'Proud family' when they talk about the evils of illegally downloading music and make it look like all the artists are starving because of it. Yeah, kids just shouldn't learn that kind of stuff from big corporations. . .

You mean this one?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUBbFn1T4o

 

[Asiyura]

Lol, even in the opening, all the other "planeteers" or whatever are displaying their awesome powers, while the heart boy is only there to invoke the captain planet

It's like screaming "I'm completely and utterly useless".

 

[Prometheus]

And bringing the Captain Planet references even more on-topic than they already were, we have this;

 

[DavidBowman]

^ That was disturbing and awesome.

 

[lulzfish]

I didn't know Valve had marketing. Glad I missed it, they would have given me the wrong idea of HL2 entirely.

 

[TrashyMG]

I don't know Half Life is still pretty awesome in my books.. Although I admit while I loved the single player.. The regular Deathmatch and it's user mods like CounterStrike, Team Fortress, Science and Industry, Action Half-Life... etc made it a LAN party favorite for a long time.

 

[iprice]

Beyond Good and Evil HD (which I've just completed). Absolutely sub-par in every department.


Nights into Dreams on the Sega Saturn. WTF? How on earth did that game gain such good reviews? Even with the 3D analogue stick it's a chore to play.


Both of these games are STILL regarded as classics. Why?

 

[Nintendo]

IMHO, COD: W@W and COD: BO are both rubbish...And Treyarch aren't as good at developing COD games as IW.

 

[Prometheus]

Nights into Dreams on the Sega Saturn. WTF? How on earth did that game gain such good reviews? Even with the 3D analogue stick it's a chore to play.

Finally! Someone else who sees through this!

 

[Nintendo]

Nights into Dreams on the Sega Saturn. WTF? How on earth did that game gain such good reviews? Even with the 3D analogue stick it's a chore to play.

Finally! Someone else who sees through this!

At the time, it's graphics and music were beautiful though.