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Name a good game with "bad" gameplay

MGS1 (and 2, but two is arguably worse) has some of the worst controls ever for a 3rd person action game, and often forces nigh-unusable camera angles on the player. Still pretty fun though.

The gunplay in Far Cry 2 is just plain bad - the bullets are all instant-hit (no actual projectiles except for the rocket launcher), enemies can snipe you from 100 yds away with shotguns, breaking line of sight is nearly impossible, and the enemies are bullet sponges on every level above easy. It also suffers from respawning enemies (a pointless addition, as the game is long enough as is). Still one of the best realized open world environments in any game, and when it works, it's close to brilliant.

Resident Evil 5 should control like Gears of War (only without the ability to move and shoot), instead, it still controls like shit. Like RE4 before it, you get used to it, but it's never good.

All of the PS2 GTA games have terrible gunplay and driving compared to GTA4, yet many would argue that they are better games due to content, mission variety, or setting (not me though).

The Mako sections in the first Mass Effect are BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

Current gen Ubisoft Montreal games

While I do mention FC2 and I appreciate that AC isn't for everyone, this is simply untrue for Rainbow Six Vegas and SC Conviction. They have some of the best cover, camera, movement, and aiming controls of any games this generation.
 

agrajag

Banned
Any traditional JRPG. Turn-based combat is fucking boring, but sometimes they're worth playing just to see what happens next.
 

Codeblue

Member
Earthbound for me. Didn't like the battle system, the movement was super stiff, but it was the most well written game I've ever played which made it worth every second.
 

Grisby

Member
Alpha Protocol- Good choices and an alright story completely shitted up by it's gameplay.

Deadly Premonition- Ok, it's not really a good game to begin with but it has a fun, if sometimes, engaging story. However, no quirky atmosphere could ever hope to save the horrible controls and terrible game design.
 
Another one.

Metal Gear Solid 2

Enjoyed it for the story and the production value, but hated the broken gameplay. Everything related to the camera and controls made me want to throw the game out the window (like every other Kojima game), but I still played it until I beat it, and thought it was worth it.
 

Raoh

Member
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SIREN.jpg
 
Like Brutal Legend? Although that's according to most people probably a bad game. On the other hand, you got people that liked the gameplay.
 
I wouldn't say it's bad at all, but the reason why I liked Alan Wake is certainly not the gameplay. It's kind of dated and flawed, but not bad.
Except from that, usually if I don't like the gameplay, I don't like the game.
 

Dahbomb

Member
Ashes1396 said:
Short campaigns are alright, though it becomes an automatic rent these days, and I guess they are becoming more common due to development issues, consumer time issues etc, but if you are going to produce short campaigns and there are still bugs, shoddy framerates, etc, the fuck were you really doing? especially if there are scenes that look shocking like a resused level from an earlier part of the series...
Not only that but what pisses me off is that these games are being sold at the same high price as other games that have longer campaigns with full features and multiplayer modes. And these games with the short campaign also come with DLC later down the line to "add to the campaign". These games also use 3rd party engines like the UE3 which begs the question... WTF were they doing all this time?

I am looking at YOU Enslaved.
 
Some could argue Space Channel 5 has bad gameplay. It's just Simon Says. Yet it's one of my favorite games ever.

Also, those quick-time event games like Dragon's Lair and Road Avengers can be amazing, though the gameplay is extremely basic.

In the above examples, those games are more like interactive movies, and that makes them fun.
 

Jerk

Banned
hermit7 said:
Gameplay, I think mechanics could be classified differently. ME2 has better gameplay, but the mechanics are worse.

Worse? Nay, just different.

Certainly not what rpg gamers want, but neither gameplay nor mechanics were particularly bad.
 

Baha

Member
The only example I can think of is Sly Cooper 2. There's 2 tank missions in the game where I can see somebody throwing their controller, the controls are terrible. You basically had to move both analog sticks in the direction wanted to move which works fine for forwards and backwards but turning was painful in those sections. I might've been doing it wrong but it felt unintuitive at that point when everything else before and after felt great.
 
j5cw6.png

I played this for the first time recently... as technically solid as the game is, the camera is so unfathomably bad that it sucks most of the life out of the gameplay.
 

Patryn

Member
Yeah, Alpha Protocol and Deadly Premonition fit here.

Two of my three favorite games of this year, but both have serious gameplay issues at times.
 
lulz at anyone saying MGS2. The VR Missions in Substance show how good the gameplay is once you get the unconventional controls down.
 
Fallout New Vegas, if only for the stiff controls and general clunkiness (not a real word, I know) that the Gamebryo engine brings. The rest of the game is fantastic though.
 
nincompoop said:
http://imgur.com/j5cw6.png
I played this for the first time recently... as technically solid as the game is, the camera is so unfathomably bad that it sucks most of the life out of the gameplay.
Wut?

Do you mean you play Ninja Gaiden for the graphics?
 
Ninja Gaiden is a game I would argue has good gameplay that is obscured by a really, really awful camera. Had to stop playing about halfway through as it just got too frustrating trying to pull the camera out of Ryu's ass.
 
Goldeneye was an unplayable mess, but it had some pretty good level design, lots of content and fresh mutliplayer modes topped off by some pretty great music.

I'd say that pretty much fits the profile.
 

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
Foxtastical said:
It's like no one here has ever heard of the saying "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
Not applicable when the quality of the whole is contingent on the quality of one specific part.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I'd probably say FFVIII. If the gameplay was similar to FFVII/FFIX's (characters are "unique"), it would probably be my favorite FF game.
 
def jam icon. just slow and stiff as hell but i enjoy it every time i play it

also greed corps. having to sit thru CPU turns infuriates me but its such a dope game
 

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
Foxtastical said:
Haha, that'd be wonderful if that were an objective truth, but guess what, it's not.

Weeee!
Gameplay over all. Everything else is superfluous. There's your objective truth.
 
nincompoop said:
j5cw6.png

I played this for the first time recently... as technically solid as the game is, the camera is so unfathomably bad that it sucks most of the life out of the gameplay.

Camera is not that bad as are the jump controls, seriously every bit of plataforming in this game ends in fustration.

Also Perfect Dark

I understand console FPS took a step back in level design, but they are 10x better than goldeneye and Perfect Dark in terms of gameplay.
 

Lijik

Member
545871-starshot_manual_large.png

It features some weird controls, a sometimes janky as fuck camera, and the objectives can sometimes be next to impossible to figure out. However as a psychonauts-esque adventure-platformer with a quirky cast, I had an overall great time with it. The final level is pretty fucking bad though.
 
Jive Turkey said:
Gameplay over all. Everything else is superfluous. There's your objective truth.
Haha, what are you talking about?

Fine, I'll step back from simply laughing. What makes a good game is unique to everyone, just like any other entertainment medium. For some people, sure, gameplay is king. For others, music propels the medium to its climax. To each their own.

For people like me, I just play games and see what happens. I put nothing above anything else. I have no standardized list of what's important for any medium. You know why? One day you'll find that some game just clicks with you due to the environment or a character, but it'll be riddled with technical issues and gameplay issues. You'll cherish it for what it is. You'll love it, and then you'll become a hypocrite.
 

Dresden

Member
Torment... mainly because of the lackluster combat. But that wasn't the focus of the game at all, and it was a great experience without it.

Mass Effect 1 goes here as well--clunky combat, clunky inventory, clunky interface. But a great game.
 

Jerk

Banned
icarus-daedelus said:
Planescape: Torment was the first thing that came to mind.

Same here. Deus Ex was the second game to come to mind (mainly for the poor shooting and stealth).
 

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
Any game with bad gameplay is a bad game in my book.

Lots of games that people are mentioning in this thread are games I consider to be either horrendously overrated or bad. Like Grand Theft Auto.
 
Jive Turkey said:
Not applicable when the quality of the whole is contingent on the quality of one specific part.

dj1Sd.jpg


those quotation marks represent everything that's wrong with contemporary video game discussion. don't pussyfoot around your opinion of a game just because it got 6s on metacritic or something.. if you think the GAME PLAY is bad then you're not enjoying playing the game.
 

-viper-

Banned
Black Ops.

When you go through the campaign, it's very fun. Very cinematic, very blockbuster like. It feels epic.

However, the A.I. is fucking retarded - they autoaim snipe you from a mile away and kill in one shot. And they are constantly respawning. The game feels cheap. The vietnam level was a fucking bitch.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Everyone saying Metal Gear Solid hasn't played through VR Missions or Substance, and probably found the Subsistence camera to be better than the original MGS3 camera even though it broke the game's difficulty in every imaginable way.

That's understandable. Learning MGS takes time, and there's nuances you have to learn to get good at the game. It's like watching people awkwardly play RE4 and RE5 without going for headshots and invincible-frame melee attacks, or watching someone play Ninja Gaiden Black without performing on-landing UTs.
 
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