Bad games with good aesthetics

[StaceyPowers]

Sometimes I see games which look really cool from an aesthetic standpoint, but which have received mediocre or bad reviews.

I was wondering if anyone here can think of a game you have played which was really cool to look at, but wasn’t all that great from a gameplay standpoint. And if so, were you still satisfied with the experience, or were the aesthetics not enough? What could the game have done to live up to its appearance and deliver an overall better experience?

 

 

 

[The Blackangel]

AOE3 and Twilight Princess make the list for me. AOE had a very eye pleasing look, but the game was just horrible. It was tedious, boring, and just a pain in the ass. And WTF was up with the cheats? A monster truck and a bouncing bust of George Washington?

Twilight Princess was absolutely stunning graphically. But the gameplay was so boring. Hyrule had little to offer, the dungeons were cheaply made, it was overblown, and being turned into a damn wolf was the straw that broke the camels back. Not to mention being forced to get whatever move the game wanted you to learn and not letting you progress in the game until you do get it. I know some are optional, but that’s just bullshit. Link is a swordsman, not a fucking ninja.

[Shagger]

Genji: Days of Blade comes to mind

 

 

I was SO excited for this PS3 launch title one as I loved the original Genji on the PS2. Things started off promisingly as this game was gorgeous for it's time, and would probably still hold up quite well today. Unfortunately it appears that all that effort focused on the games graphics are aesthetic design should have been better split on actual game. The story was boring and didn't lead of its predecessor very well and the combat felt slow and disjointed compared to the previous effort. Then there was the camera, oh GOD the camera! It would pan away putting enemies off-screen, it followed the player's character way to close and just the player had no input on it at all. It was just not intuitive at all and made the game almost unplayable. What a disappointment, but it was the perfect game summarize the PS3's early days. Prettier than the PS2, but worse.