What are your "guilty pleasure" games?
Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2012 10:40 am
You know you have them, games that are "terrible" in the eyes of critics and the general public, and yet, they're one of those games you can't put down. So, share your "guilty pleasures" with the Wolfire forums. Maybe you can convince someone to try it and suffer with you.
I'll start with one of my favorites:
Operation Darkness (Xbox 360) -
I guess Operation Darkness is technically a dueling game with Valkyria Chronicles. Which also, unfortunately didn't sell well, even though it got decent ratings. However, Operation Darkness is not one of those sleeper hits. No, this game got 2.0 and 3.0 ratings from IGN and Gamespot and has a a Metacritic rating of 46. Why did this game get terrible reviews? The camera controls are terrible, the game doesn't explain half the mechanics and the ones it does explain aren't always described correctly. About half-way through the game the difficulty spikes and unless you already know what you're doing, you're going to get destroyed by the AI. Also, there's a permanent death system with all your units that really wouldn't be that bad except that there is one character who can revive and he's not narrative important, so if you already have no idea what he can do and let him die, you have no way of reviving anyone else. Ever. The game is also pretty damn ugly.
So what makes this game awesome enough to play? The characters and plot are taken so seriously by the game that its an utter joy just to see what happens next. And once you figure out all the game mechanics the tutorial doesn't tell you about, it becomes much easier to play.
The "heroic" lead character is this British SAS soldier named Edward (you can rename him) and this is about his ventures in World War II. The game starts off as a regular game about a regular World War II.
SERIOUS DRAMA.
I'll start with one of my favorites:
Operation Darkness (Xbox 360) -
I guess Operation Darkness is technically a dueling game with Valkyria Chronicles. Which also, unfortunately didn't sell well, even though it got decent ratings. However, Operation Darkness is not one of those sleeper hits. No, this game got 2.0 and 3.0 ratings from IGN and Gamespot and has a a Metacritic rating of 46. Why did this game get terrible reviews? The camera controls are terrible, the game doesn't explain half the mechanics and the ones it does explain aren't always described correctly. About half-way through the game the difficulty spikes and unless you already know what you're doing, you're going to get destroyed by the AI. Also, there's a permanent death system with all your units that really wouldn't be that bad except that there is one character who can revive and he's not narrative important, so if you already have no idea what he can do and let him die, you have no way of reviving anyone else. Ever. The game is also pretty damn ugly.
So what makes this game awesome enough to play? The characters and plot are taken so seriously by the game that its an utter joy just to see what happens next. And once you figure out all the game mechanics the tutorial doesn't tell you about, it becomes much easier to play.
The "heroic" lead character is this British SAS soldier named Edward (you can rename him) and this is about his ventures in World War II. The game starts off as a regular game about a regular World War II.
SERIOUS DRAMA.
I remember this...