Longtime listeners of the old podcast might remember that Metroid Prime is my number one game of all time. While it isn’t a title I’ve had a lot of occasion to talk about publicly, Prime was actually what made me start to approach videogames as something more than toys, and it ultimately led to me finding GameCritics.
HIGH It’s Monkey Ball!
LOW I cried over Monkey Ball.
WTF I only want to talk about Monkey Ball.
I've learned a few things after reading about what's happened during the DICE Summit and Awards event that's taken place this past week. The industry seems to be crying out desperately for maturity. David Cage (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) says that games need to grow up. Warren Spector (Epic Mickey) says that games like Lollipop Chainsaw shouldn't be made. The industry wants more Journey and The Walking Dead experiences, as evidenced by these games winning 99.5% of the awards given out. The definition of "fun" is changing.
Adult Swim takes the innocent act of a child trying to make his NES cart work and makes it dirty… and funny.
Caution: Crude content
And you thought the worst that could happen to a Pokémon in a fight was that it might "faint." No sir, in fact there are repercussions that could come back to haunt you.
Caution: Crude language
Bastion made a name for itself thanks to its beautiful aesthetic and the use of a narrator. But what other games could benefit from someone giving essentially a play-by-play of the action on the screen? Dorkly tries it with just a few popular franchises.
It took nearly a decade, three console generations, and some "epic" help for gamers to get their hands on Too Human. This flawed gem from developer Silicon Knights was anything but a watershed moment for the developer. I believe this game failed with the core gaming demographic is because of two things: Denis Dyack and combat controlled by the right stick.
Folklore received heavily mixed reviews upon its release back in 2007. Though it was praised by many for its dark atmosphere and emphasis on lore, it was hit hard by some for its incessant back-tracking, messy storytelling, and hit-or-miss Sixaxis controls. Though it was never deemed a complete failure (and surprisingly, got more than a couple 9/10's) there was something about it that doomed it for the bargain bin.
Dynasty Warriors wouldn't generally be considered broken, but it has been negatively seen by a large portion of critics out there. This series saw its best ratings early on, but as time passed, the ratings continued to drop. Warriors (as a whole) isn't safe from the ire of the gaming masses, but it's still a game that I love to call my guilty pleasure.
If you play games with any regularity, it's inevitable that you'll eventually come across a roughly-made, unbalanced, unpopular, or straight-up broken title that you grow attached to regardless of how low the score on Metacritic drops. Whatever the reason, I'm betting that every gamer out there has at least one of these awkward, ugly ducklings that they hold dear—and I've invited a group of guest writers to kiss and tell.
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