Here’s a list of pretty terrible games that I, for whatever reason, seem to get a kick out of. I wouldn’t call them guilty pleasures as I don’t derive much pleasure from most of them. And honestly. in the majority of cases, it’s probably multiple afflictions of Stockholm syndrome which have led me to believe that I actually like some of this guff. Think of my inclusion of some of these titles as an acknowledgment of their existence rather than a recommendation.
What else can I say? What other excuses…
Rogue Warrior
The best thing I can honestly say about Rogue Warrior is that it wasn’t quite the worst gaming experience I’ve ever had. That being said, whenever my mind decides to torture me with flashbacks of my time spent playing it, all I can do is laugh. I laugh at how obscenely unaware the MURICA v the pesky Soviets story seems to be and how much dumb swearing they managed to get out of Mickey Rourke. If only we lived in a world where the quality of dialogue was measured by Primary school level “creative swearing”.
“Suck my balls, my hairy fucking big balls, wrap them around your mouth”
Ahh bliss, tis poetry to my ears. Say it again Mickey….
Truly, truly awful to look at, listen to and play.
Heavy Rain
I’m aware that it has become the done thing to shit on David Cage’s work and his aspirations of making emotional and artful games. But honestly, after having played through the remastered version of Heavy Rain and having really wanted to like it, sadly I can’t say it’s much good.
The writing that it was so highly praised for is genuinely awful more than once and the performances range from passable to porn acting levels of atrocious. The whole QTE, choose your own adventure style gameplay wasn’t even a particularly novel idea at the time, seeing as Cage had already done it with Fahrenheit and it was a mess then too.
I worry that someone might see fit to use this as a means of convincing naysayers of the power of good storytelling in games. And really, it’s just a bit sad that the equivalent of a Michael Madsen starring, straight to DVD disaster was considered by some to be one of the high points in video game storytelling last generation.
It’s not like a David Fincher film where you get a sense that he knows the material is trashy. Fincher is occasionally playful and always finds something of interest in the weirdness of his stories, he makes it work because he’s a great director. Cage on the other hand…
That being said, I can’t deny that I loved my time playing through it on release and perhaps even more so now, both for quite opposite reasons. It’s so much goofy fun and its self-seriousness is strangely charming considering how ridiculous most of the goings on are. Everything from the big twist to the Rambo style mansion assault seems so weirdly handled and out of place that all I could do was laugh when those moments reared their head. And then there’s the sex scene which is still one of the most awkwardly funny things I’ve seen in any entertainment medium. The only real, genuine positive I can think of is the late Normand Corbeil’s fantastically somber score which elevates individual scenes until you realise that it’s the music that’s making you feel that way and nothing else the game is doing.
If I were to mention everything that Heavy Rain does that made me laugh then this segment would easily go on for a dozen more paragraphs, so for my sanity, I’ll just end it here.
Saw
I’ll admit I don’t have much reason for liking this one other than the fact that it was the first 18 rated game that my family knowingly allowed me to buy, without having to make a song and dance about how my friends, friends cousin had it and he was a whole month younger than me or some other nonsense. I was happy when I didn’t have to lie to get my hands on it. I just said that it was a puzzle game to which I got the standard British parent response “as long as there’s no bad language… or sex”. No, no mother of course not, only a light smattering of crushing other folk’s skulls underfoot.
As is the case with most of these games, the only thing I see as being praiseworthy here is the way in which it manages to build a palpable sense of atmosphere. As a fan of the first film, I liked how it largely managed to capture the oppressive and grimy look of its source material, even if this does lead to all of the locations being a different shade of brown. Sadly, the puzzles are mostly a bore, even if they are occasionally well thought out and the aforementioned combat is clunky beyond belief. Its budget (or lack thereof) shows itself at every turn, but I’d still count this as one of the more bearable movie tie-in games of the last generation.
Deadly Premonition
I’m not even sure why I’m including this one because it may perhaps be the most obvious bad game that everyone seems to love, so I’ve nothing new to say about it. But even after it has amassed such a wealth of devoted and loving fans, I still can’t convince anyone I know to actually play the damn thing. They just like to point out that it looks like a horrible game which they can’t imagine anyone genuinely liking. To which I’d say…
It’s bad, of course it’s bad. It’s basically a straight up Twin Peaks rip-off with controls that would make the original Resi seem buttery smooth in comparison, and it all looks like utter arse to top things off. Saying it’s technically awful and ineptly designed is dumb, look deeper! Enhance that image! Because once you free yourself from the shackles of traditional game criticism, the brilliance of Swery65’s Deadly Premonition becomes crystal clear.
Lost Planet 3
This is a weird one because it’s not a bad game at all really it’s just a very bland game on the surface, that came and went without any fanfare.
I’m hard-pressed to say quite why I like this game. The third person combat is functional but unremarkable, as is the setting and the added ability to roam around in a big old industrial mech. It’s a sizeable departure from the previous two games (which I really didn’t enjoy) and it’s a much slower experience with a focus on story and characters over co-op mayhem.
You play as Jim Peyton who’s the sort of everyman that often gets flagged up as instantly boring, but here he’s actually a likable guy who spends a lot of his time having well-written conversations with his wife who lives off-planet, raising their newly born son.
You see, Jim isn’t away from home to kick monster ass and save the world, he just wants to raise money for his family by doing actual boring work stuff. Incredibly enough, I actually cared about the busywork that I was doing because the game gave me a reason to beyond some arbitrary in-game reward. I got the same thrill from wandering off to do some dull busywork for insultingly low pay that I imagine Farming Simulator fanatics get out of their chosen means of self-inflicted torture.
Even later in the game when things go full Pocahontas/ Dances with Wolves/ Avatar I still cared about Jim and wanted to see him get the happy ending that he deserved.
This isn’t to say that the game is great. It becomes annoyingly repetitive by the end and not all of the writing and characters are convincing. However, I think there’s an actual beating heart here that lifts proceedings from just being another shooter slog to something that I can actually remember a week after I’ve finished it.
And finally, here are some other bad games that I don’t think are completely devoid of merit:
Murdered: Soul Suspect – Nice atmosphere and setting but half-baked gameplay, a lack of polish and poor storytelling killed it.
Silent Hill: Downpour – The best of the recent Silent Hill games even if that isn’t saying much. A somewhat creepy jaunt with some cool puzzles, but terrible combat and a weak story made people forget it quickly.
Yakuza: Dead Souls – A lot of mindless zombie head exploding action with everyone’s favourite orphanage owning Yakuza member and friends.
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified – Hated before it even released when it’s actually a pretty solid shooter which carries over a few neat ideas from the main games.
Noby Noby Boy – Weird… a lot of phallic stuff going on there.
Brink – The game was dead on arrival thanks to the multiplayer not functioning but it had decent, albeit unfinished ideas.
Wheelman- Big and dumb. The car stuff was fun, the rest wasn’t… at all.
Prison Break- Another not terrible licensed game. A bit stiff and repetitive but a nice placeholder for the Shawshank simulator that we all know we want.
The Godfather II- A lot of cool stuff going on here, from the empire building to extorting innocent shopkeepers for their last dollar. Sadly, it was outdated before it even released; with poor car physics, glitches, weak third-person shooting, and hand to hand combat.
And that’s all I can think of. I know there’s a lot of other guilty pleasure games like Lollipop Chainsaw and the Dynasty Warriors series, but I personally can’t stand either. Not my kind of mindless fun, sadly. I’d much rather play as a giant, multicoloured, man-eating “worm” than a chainsaw swinging cheerleader any day of the week.