This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor’s note: See, this is why I like this website. A bunch of Bitmob members got together with a feature idea, and boom, here it is. Although I still can’t understand how someone can not like Geometry Wars — that just doesn’t make sense. -Demian
With a little bit of fancy technology, the Bitmob community pitched in on a collaboration — via Google Wave, I asked everyone to write about the worst but technically sound/well-developed/fan-favorite game they’ve ever played. By definition, some people won’t be happy. That includes you, Halo fans, Shadow of the Colossus fans, Metroid fans…the list goes on.
Missed out on your chance to contribute? It’s not too late to jump in on Jeff Grubb’s “2009 was the year of…” topic! If you have a Google Wave account, add and ping me at andrewjhiscock@googlewave.com. If you’re not on Google Wave, email me at andrewjhiscock@gmail.com for your Google Wave invitation (just include your real name, so I can keep invites to Bitmob community members).
And without further ado, here’s the Bitmob community taking it to some of your favorite games….
Patapon
Alex R. Cronk-Young says: Patapon toyed with my emotions. I wanted to love it so badly, but once I got a good chunk into the game I hit a wall. So began the grind, but after hours of leveling up my patapon, I still couldn’t progress. I really, really want to love it. I still bought Patapon 2, but I’m worried it’ll end in the same way. Still, some part of me wonders if I just didn’t get the first Patapon. The level I couldn’t get through was one in which I had to summon rain, but every time I tried the song failed. I took this to mean that I was under-leveled, but maybe I just screwed something up. Let’s hope I don’t have the same frustrations with the second game.
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Brian Petro-Roy says: Let’s get one thing clear from the get-go: I loved Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. I loved everything about it — the lush environments of the castle, the platforming, the sand powers, the combat, and especially the hilarious, witty banter between the Prince and Farah.
I bought Warrior Within on release day, brought it home, popped it in my Xbox and said, ‘What the hell is this crap?’ Gone were the colorful settings, the witty banter, and the Persian-rock fusion of the original game’s soundtrack — replaced with drab environments, growled one-liners, and generic metal, with the added ‘bonus’ of an increased focus on unnecessarily gory combat and painfully ridiculous outfits (and figures) on the female characters.
After a couple hours, I was so fed up with the art direction and over-emphasis on combat that I brought the game back and traded it in (only the second time I’ve ever done that). The series thankfully redeemed itself with The Two Thrones, but I’ve never regretted giving up on Warrior Within.
Shadow of the Colossus
Jon Shults says: I wouldn’t call Shadow of the Colossus a bad game — it was interesting, and the boss-fights-only mechanic was certainly something that hadn’t been done before. I enjoyed most of the colossus battles. However, it just didn’t grab me as amazing. People fawn over the subtle way your character changes each time you down a colossus, but I never even noticed. The game has such minimal direction — ‘Well, I must be here to bring her back to life, and I guess I have to do it by killing these colossi, because the game doesn’t present any other challenges.’ It makes assumptions that at this point I should be feeling X, and have a desire to do Y, when in fact I have no other option if I wish to progress in the game. This is not necessarily a fault, as most games won’t let you proceed until you achieve the arbitrary goal at hand, but I don’t think Shadow of the Colossus deserves credit as some fantastic milestone in gaming.
It’s just too subtle for its own good. Another example: the lizard tail collect-a-thon. The game never explains what the lizards do for you, or even hints at their existence; you’re supposed to just feel that you should kill them and get their tails.
Call of Duty: World at War
Ultan O’Connell says: I was a massive Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare fan, and I eagerly awaited the release of World at War. I didn’t mind that it was a return to WW2; I just wanted more CoD action. I bought it day one, but the game felt dull and samey to me. I yearned for the same tension-filled, action experience that I got from CoD4, but it just wasn’t there. My friends raved about the game, and magazines and websites delivered great reviews, but I just couldn’t bring myself to like it. Oh boy, did I try. I played the majority of single-player but ultimately quit due to boredom. I turned to online multiplayer to satiate my hunger, but I found that sorely lacking, too. It just didn’t have the same magic as CoD4. To me, it was an empty experience.
Metroid Prime
Daniel Feit says: I remember bringing Metroid Prime home from the store, booting up my GameCube with anticipation, then drooling over the title screen — the title screen, of all things — before finally pressing start. After nearly a decade of inaction, Samus Aran was back, only now in 3D! What was not to like?
In my case, the answer proved to be ‘everything.’ Scanning every little data port was a horrible chore, the FPS combat wasn’t as fun as the straightforward 2D variety, and Samus’ distinct jump and somersault were hopelessly lost in the translation to 3D. I know people herald Metroid Prime as an evolution, but for me, taking a favorite franchise and turning it into yet another FPS almost killed my interest in all video games.
Thankfully, I recovered…six years later. But that’s another story.
Grand Theft Auto 4 and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Rob Savillo says: I was pretty disappointed with Grand Theft Auto 4 and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the same reason — they’re boring. The introductory parts of the games are a bunch of uninteresting fetch quests. I don’t really care about setting up a date — I’m playing GTA to blow shit up! Oh, you lost your cat? So where are all the dungeons I need to crawl through to liberate Hyrule, anyway?
Each game took too long to engage me, and after a few hours with each I put them down, never to return.
The Mega Man Franchise
Jeff Michael Grubb says: Prepare your flogging instruments (floggers?). I don’t really get Mega Man. I mean, I get why other people like it, but it never really stuck for me. Not being able to shoot up was always my biggest gripe. I like the character and the music, but Mega Man just didn’t move and jump right. I guess Mario ruined me for all other platformers.
Geometry Wars
Jay Henningsen says: Everyone loved Geometry Wars when it first came out. It had style and it was pretty, but annoyed the hell out of me. I wanted to like it, but I couldn’t stand playing it. I guess I’m just not a big fan of games where the only goal is to amass a lot of points.
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Chris Davidson says: The gameplay in Red Faction: Guerrilla was solid, but I play open-world games for the side stuff, and oh boy, did they fuck up the side stuff. The collection system in that game is horrendous, with over 300 ores to collect, 250ish supply crates to smash, and some unknown number of propaganda posters to destroy, and no map or menu tracking system to let you know which ones you’d already collected. I came damn near close to smashing one game disk instead.
Also, I feel like the normal rule of thumb for racing missions in open-world games is to take the testers’ average time and add about five seconds. Instead, they took the average time, subtracted 15 seconds, and then subtracted 30 seconds for the pro time. Maybe if the driving was solid and fun it would have been a different story, but it’s wonky and unpredictable. This is easily the worst game I’ve played all year; I’m never buying a Volition game again.
Halo: Combat Evolved
Jasmine Maleficent Rea says: I’ve made a few wild claims about Nintendo titles, but it’s easy to stomp on them these days. Halo has to be the most well-received game that I have absolutely no desire to ever finish.
The level design is unappealing, the vehicle control distasteful, and the overall plot uninteresting. I’ve heard every defense on the planet, but my opinion stays the same. The later installments feel like excuses for new multiplayer maps. Still, I totally understand why people love the Halo series, and will never discourage someone from playing it — I’m simply tired of people trying to convince me of its awesomeness.
Halo 2
Chris Cosmo Ross says: It was weird, because I knew Halo 2 was good, everyone was telling me so, but the lack of physics on vehicles (one of my favorite parts of Combat Evolved’s multiplayer), the unbalanced dual-wielding weapons, and the Kojima-esque main character switcheroo seriously left me wanting more. Multiplayer was fun, but it just wasn’t the same. Not a terrible game by any means — just not what I expected.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Travis McReynolds says: Here’s the thing about first-person shooters — my heart belongs to Halo. I like playing as a space cyborg from the future. In CoD:MW2 (an acronym that’s nearly as long as the fucking title), you play as a series of regular dudes. Dudes that must stop, plant their feet, crouch, and look down the sights of their guns in order to make an accurate shot. I’m already that guy in real life. If I try to three-pointer a piece of trash from across the room while walking I’m about as deadly as Soap with a throwing knife.
I guess I get why people might want to play a realistic shooter, but I’d prefer to snipe people mid-way through a 20-foot vertical leap. Call me old-fashioned.
No More Heroes
Andrew Hiscock says: All in all, No More Heroes was fairly well-received, but every single bit of content in the game insulted me. Whether it was the bad dialog, the campy violence, or the otaku leanings, everything was in complete contravention to my tastes. Suda 51 may be the anti-Andrew Hiscock. And the worst part? The game flaunts its terrible design choices as if they were all friggin’ awesome. I didn’t find a single redeeming piece of content in the whole game.