Thirith on 11/11/2015 at 10:34
As much as I have been heavily into games since 1983 or so, I can't think of many things in gaming history I'd consider actual tragedies, at least not to the same extent as Deadwood being cancelled after three seasons when its overall story had been planned for four seasons. Most of the gaming disappointments I've had (Invisible War, Ultima 8 and Ultima 9, the lack of a present-day X-Wing or TIE Fighter, the never-ending wait for Beyond Good & Evil 2) simply faded too quickly, whereas I'm still ticked off at HBO for cancelling Deadwood. Perhaps the deaths of Origin and Lucasarts, but both of these were long, drawn-out processes, where the actual end was less painful than what came before.
twisty on 11/11/2015 at 10:36
* Second Son. Their decision to have three mutually exclusive skill trees and force these on you at certain points was incredibly frustating. Probably would have been close to Game of the Year for me had it not been for that, a couple of annoying bosses and in particular the final boss who I gave up on trying to beat as I hated the final skill tree.
* Ultima 8. While I really liked this game, it could have been much better. My main gripes with this was that far too much time was required to be spent in the catacombs and unlike other Ultima's there was little to no variety in the atmosphere apart from gloom, gloom, gloom.
* SAIS 3. I really hate to say this as I'm a fan of Digital Eel and backed this on kickstarter, but this sequel is very disappointing. The first two Weird World's were casual, simple games that were a lot of fun to play. While the general premise of the game is still the same, unlike the first two the player now travels between worlds on a 3D map. Unfortunately this adds nothing to the gameplay as it is only used to navigate space between planets, which like many aspects of the new interface is somewhat confusing and cumbersome to use. However, when you enter combat the game switches back to a 2D plane which is odd considering that this is the one area where the additional dimension could have made for some very interesting tactical combat.
* Far Cry 1. Loved the first half; didn't like the second.
* Dark Messiah. Great game, shame about the first part.
* Temple of Elemental Evil. The best isometric turn-based combat of its day and I've replatyed it several times with the various Co8 patches (which are awesome), but very lacking in a number of other ways (story, voice-acting, inapproriate music score etc.).
* Wing Commander 4. Not so much a bad game but without the Kilrathi it just didn't feel right.
Manwe on 11/11/2015 at 13:12
If we want to talk consoles, then Nintendo. Yeah, some people would say Sega is the biggest tragedy. But they actually did the right thing, at the right time. They cut their losses and focused on what's important: the games. More importantly they made them available to all platforms. Which means we now have most of the Dreamcast classics on PC (maybe even Shenmue soon?). I say it's high time Nintendo did like Sega and made their IPs available to other platforms, instead of locking them up behind (really steep) paywalls. I'd be willing to pay good money for their games, just not for their shitty hardware.
And if we talk about hardware, the last (worthwhile) innovation from them was the analog stick on the N64 (19 years ago). Since then it's just been useless gimmicks that never caught on. They litteraly wasted two console generation's worth of games with the Wii and Wii U. Well, Mario and Zelda games mostly, as that seems to be the only two IPs they're willing to churn out. They've been sitting on the Metroid franchise for just as long. The last Metroid Prime was released 8 years ago. And I still haven't played it since it was released on that useless console. The last classic side-scrolling Metroid was released 13 years ago! Although I did get to play that one thanks to emulators. Metroidvanias are all the rage these days on PC, imagine the success of an actual Metroid metroidvania game! And yet not a single fucking Metroid game on the horizon (except for some shitty mutiplayer cash-in).
Other contenders for biggest tragedy on consoles:
-Rare (Banjo-kazooie, Perfect Dark, Conker...). I mean what the fuck happened to them? They were once one of the greatest studio on earth. And the last thing they did was, what Viva Pinata? A free to play Killer Instinct?
-The Timesplitters franchise. Remember that one? It's weird how some hugely successful franchise can just vanish instantly for no reason.
-The Legacy of Kain series... The recent leak of a canned sequel was the final nail in the coffin for me. So tragic.
DiMarzio on 11/11/2015 at 15:54
Decline of Final Fantasy series.
Malleus on 11/11/2015 at 16:49
I'm gonna just throw Cryostasis in here. It's easily one of my favorite games, but the developer who made it moved on to make mobile games and apps, and later disappeared, and due to some legal bullshit, the game has been pulled from everywhere. You simply cannot buy this game anymore, which is a crying shame.
By the way, if anyone nabs this game from "somewhere" these days, it's most likely the english version. If anyone needs the russian files for it (voices or text), just PM me.
Thor on 11/11/2015 at 17:30
Eh this post ended up being more about reminiscing than anything else but whatever.
Quote Posted by unn_atropos
- Pyro Studios makes mobile games now. Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines and the addon Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty are a amazing. I also played Commando 2 but it wasn't the same and so I never checked the following game(s). I desperately need some new old-school Commandos mission packs. There are some good fan made ones like Strike in Narrow Path though.
Oh yes, man, absolutely. I did like Commandos 2, however, as it improved upon some things like story (although the Commandos 1 classic narrator was better) and some of the gameplay mechanics (like bringing in the Thief operative), but yeah Commandos 1 had a nicer feel to it overall. The problem with those games was that it too often boiled down to baiting the enemy by throwing cigarettes (BTCOD and Commandos 2) or throwing yourself in their line of sight (commandos 1 mostly). Commandos 3 had some nice things about it, but parts of it were less about tactics and more about mouse agility. I never did complete it...
I've been fantasizing about making a Commandos-like game myself sometimes, but I don't know how I would escape the "baiting solves all problems" mechanic, among other things...
I never knew about any fan campaigns though, I'll be sure to check them out :thumb:.
Ok, so maybe it's not a "tragedy" (well, almost nothing here classifies as that anyway), but I always wanted a Jedi Knight 4 (or 3, if you count JKA as an appendix to JK2) and a Forcemod IV for that game. Jedi Outcast had a really good campaign. Jedi Academy had improved upon Jedi Outcast's gameplay in some nice ways and a few mods (like the stellar Movie Battles and Forcemod) really brought them to a whole new level. And besides that, I wanted a new adventure with Kyle Katarn. But that never happened... instead some convoluted thing with the words "Force Unleashed" came out which went in the wrong direction... What I wanted from a sequel would have been (as mentioned) a nice Starwarsy adventure with Kyle Katarn, but more importantly, an improved physics model of the forces, with more customizability, more engaging gameplay and more factions with classes (they kind of did that with Forcemod and Moviebattles, which is why those mods were the only way of playing the multiplayer). I loved lightsaber duelling with some heavy force trickery just as much as sniping those duelers from far away on a mountain. Sometimes I loved my mandalorian jetpack for flying away from my problems (until some powerful force user pulls me back down) or mining the whole place and waiting for people to explode. Or camping like an asshole an pushing innocent bypassers into an abyss. It was fun times. That's why I want a Jedi Knight 4. (Dishonored was like a steampunked singleplayer version of that. If they did that for Star Wars or, hell, maybe even Warcraft, I would like to see it.)
Sulphur on 11/11/2015 at 17:33
Speaking of which, while it's not the worst tragedy ever, a tip of my glass towards Raven Studios, and their undeserved fate at the hands of Activision. I was never a fan of most of their games, which came off as competent, polished, and bland, but they'll always have a special place in my heart for JK2. Here's hoping they moved away from Activision and to a studio that actually cares about people who're good at their jobs.
Nameless Voice on 11/11/2015 at 17:55
I'm going to summarise with: The studios that made awesome games nearly always didn't sell enough copies and ended up going bankrupt.
As others have mentioned, Looking Glass, Troika, Black Isle, Ion Storm, MuckyFoot, Headfirst Productions.
Meanwhile, those who did sell enough copies tended to devolve into making stupider games with much worse design values (e.g. Irrational.)
I also find it sad that Bethesda have been making RPGs for decades, and while they generally have a lot of rich world lore and many good things going for them, every single one of them always ends up with unrealistic worlds, poor writing, and terrible balance leading to dodgy and repetitive gameplay. I love these games, but they could be so much more.
icemann on 12/11/2015 at 04:59
* The Phantasy Star series being reduced to mmo's for the most part after the 4th game.
* The Mechwarrior series fizzling out after the 4th game. That said, it hit it's height with the 2nd games expansion "Mercenaries".
* The Gran Tursimo games sucking after the 4th game.
* Final Fantasy's fall from grace ever since the 10th game.
heywood on 12/11/2015 at 11:46
So many good candidates mentioned in this thread. Thief 4, DNF, Daikatana, Unreal 2, the final boss battle from HL1, the second half of Far Cry 1, the lack of another Half-Life game, closing of LGS, etc. Surprised nobody mentioned Bioshock. I went from the most anticipation I've ever had for a game to feeling gut-punched.