Forum > Gaming Discussion > The Current Gen thread of Gaming FLOPS - What failed to make the grade this gen?
The Current Gen thread of Gaming FLOPS - What failed to make the grade this gen?
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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:33:56
+1

Please post boxart and info.

I'll get the ball rolling with Dark Void from Capcom.

Has a 59 on Metacritic

The reviews said "Dark Void has a generic and tedious part with the third person shooter levels but it is almost as solid in the other part: the jetpack areas. Poor use of the Unreal Engine 3, last generation visuals and the deficient AI unfortunately hurt this new project."

About the game:

Dark Void is a sci-fi action-adventure game that combines an adrenaline-fuelled blend of aerial and on-foot combat set in a parallel universe called "The Void". Players assume the role of Will; a pilot dropped into incredible circumstances while on a routine air cargo flight crashes in the Bermuda triangle leading him to be trapped in the Void. This unlikely hero soon finds himself swept into a desperate struggle for survival at the head of a group called The Survivors. Trapped in the Void, these resistance fighters are battling to hold off a mysterious alien race that plans to threaten Earth. Dark Void's unique combination of in-air and on-ground combat creates a thrilling new gameplay dynamic to the third-person shooter experience. Taking 3D action to a whole new level, Dark Void's vertical combat system allows players to dangle from thousand foot drops as they take cover and drop enemies from above and below, bringing a whole new sense of vulnerability and thrill to the player. Defying gravity in vertical combat is only half the battle as, over time, Will is upgraded to a powerful rocket pack which allows for fierce in-air combat as gamers are able to fly through the void at unparallel speeds shooting down anything that gets in their path. Blasting away at massive bosses has never been this much fun as Dark Void offers a unique grip system made up of a variety of grip-based mini-games including skyjacking UFOs mid-flight.

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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:07:44
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I wouldn't give Dark Void even the time of day.

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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:59:00
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Has a 55 on metacritic.

"To be blunt, the actual gameplay of Haze is mediocre mixed with a side order of boring and I have to say this is really disappointing because we know the developers, Free Radical of Time Splitters fame have done much better games with far superior gameplay."

The poor game play matched with the great expectations of a Free Radical game  (The Time Splitters guys  -- who are also given credit for Golden Eye N64 when they were at Rare).  What went wrong?

I can personally vouch for this games crapitude. The worst part of it is, there are flashes of brilliant gameplay here and there in the game, but they are never acknowledged and exploited by the developer, they just keep ploughing on with generic or broken segments drizzled with a juevenille story with a holier-than-thou theme.

"Summary: Twenty-five years in the future. Governments have outsourced military operations to private multinational corporations. As Jake Carpenter, a newly enlisted soldier in the Mantel army, you are seeking fulfillment and thrills by fighting for a good cause. Thanks to their high-tech arsenal of vehicles, deadly weaponry, and performance enhancing bio-medical support, the Mantel Corporation's ruthlessly efficient soldiers are the most feared by terrorists, dictators, and the corporation's political enemies. Your conflict begins in a war-torn country in South America, where you have been sent to fight a vicious rebel faction, The Promise Hand. At first glance, all is well, but things quickly begin to look a little strange..."

Edited: Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:43:17

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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:13:08
0

Whatever happened to this game? 57398_0_org.jpg

Edited: Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:15:06
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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 22:36:54
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I grabbed Dark Void for $10 and it was a somewhat fun game at that price. I guess you could put Duke Nukem Forever on that list but it's probably not fair to call it a current gen game.

1176413.png

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Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:22:01
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I don't know if I'd go so far as to call this a flop, but I don't think there's any question that Epic Mickey was a high profile let down.  Everyone was expecting this to be a GOTY contender, and what we ended up getting was a slightly better than average 3-D platformer wrapped around with excellent fan service.  I liked it, but I never had a difficult time putting down, and it just wasn't the Disney game that  was dreaming of.

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Fri, 08 Jul 2011 09:22:45
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aspro said:

Has a 55 on metacritic.

I can personally vouch for this games crapitude. The worst part of it is, there are flashes of brilliant gameplay here and there in the game, but they are never acknowledged and exploited by the developer, they just keep ploughing on with generic or broken segments drizzled with a juevenille story with a holier-than-thou theme.

So sad. I was LMAO when I heard it wasn't even HD resolution either.

Archangel3371 said:
I grabbed Dark Void for $10 and it was a somewhat fun game at that price. I guess you could put Duke Nukem Forever on that list but it's probably not fair to call it a current gen game.

Would you call it a last gen game?

robio said:

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call this a flop, but I don't think there's any question that Epic Mickey was a high profile let down.  Everyone was expecting this to be a GOTY contender, and what we ended up getting was a slightly better than average 3-D platformer wrapped around with excellent fan service.  I liked it, but I never had a difficult time putting down, and it just wasn't the Disney game that  was dreaming of.

Sales wise it did very well, it must be near 2 million or something by now. Critically yeah you could very well call it a flop. Most sites hated it but a few gave it 8/10 reviews and that pattern was matched by gamers I hear too. I liked it a lot and completed it twice, but I do love bright N64 platformers.

It has a 73 on metacritic

travo said:

Whatever happened to this game? 57398_0_org.jpg

I've heard nothing but bad things about it. You would think that Factor 5 and flight games could do no wrong.

It has a 53 on metacritic

"It certainly sounds like an awesome game, but the execution is so terminally flawed in almost every way that a game can be flawed that it isn't worth anyone's time."

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Sun, 10 Jul 2011 03:03:16
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gamingeek said:

Sales wise it did very well, it must be near 2 million or something by now. Critically yeah you could very well call it a flop. Most sites hated it but a few gave it 8/10 reviews and that pattern was matched by gamers I hear too. I liked it a lot and completed it twice, but I do love bright N64 platformers.

Yeah it did 2 million and still has yet to hit Japan, where it's practically guaranteed to get another 1 million sales (Disney properties are as feverishly treasured as Nintendo ones in Japan).  And that's one reason I hestitated to call it a flop. Financially it probably hit its marks, but critically it didn't live up to what it was expected.  The heightened expectations were probably unfair, considering that Junction Point has done neither a console game or a platformer before, but this game really got  people's attention. To this day I wonder how much better the reviews would have been had the camera been halfway decent by today's standards.

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Sun, 10 Jul 2011 09:44:14
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I want a sequel, multiplatform of course. Sadly Disney doesn't seem interested in core gaming anymore and closed Black Rock, reportedly because they wanted out of console gaming.

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Mon, 11 Jul 2011 21:27:59

^Not reportedly.  They said it outright.

We've seen a pretty big shift in games from console to what I'll call multiplatform – everything from mobile apps to social networking games,” CEO Bob Iger explained.

“It's our goal not only to be profitable, but obviously to get there by shifting our investment and reducing our investment too. We probably will end up investing less on the console side than we have because of the shift we're seeing in consumption and have a presence, albeit with probably less investment, in terms of game manufacturing on some of the newer platforms.

“We felt for a while that we should be both a licensor, which we do in some cases, but also a publisher. And I would say the shift that we've made in terms of personnel and ultimately in how we invest our money and how we distribute this product is going to continue to reflect that philosophy, but in a slightly different manner.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/disney-losing-its-console-appetite

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Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:20:25

That certainly doesn't bode well for a Duck Tales game.

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