Just bad enough for a remake...

[Mercen-X]

I feel that Chaos Legion had some good ideas going for it. I liked the characters, the plot, the battle mechanics, the overall concept... there were just a LOT of shortcomings. I feel the game needs a remake or a sequel which drops clues about the first game... either way, it'd have to be an upgrade so the idea of Chaos Legion isn't left as a swing and miss.

Anybody else feel that a bad game can be remade or have a redeeming sequel?

[KentaRawr!]

Sin and Punishment comes to mind. It really didn't have very good story presentation! Perhaps I'm just trying to appreciate the game for the wrong things, but the game's story really did interest me, and I had to look up pieces of the story online to figure stuff out. The game doesn't tell you where the ruffians come from, the relationship between Kachua, Brad, and Radan, why there's a resistance fighting against the Armed Volunteers, why the resistance was stealing a transport, how the characters "passed their blood" to one another, how Brad or any of the characters know Achi, and finally, why the only insult any enemy can think of is "You're toast!"

It would be nice if there was a remake that could explain these in more detail.

[Depression Moon]

Well the sequel to sin and punishment might answer your questions. I played Chaos Legion one time back in the day. Never had the chance to beat it, got stuck on one part. I enjoyed most of it though.

[Mo-Nercy]

Killzone 2.

Granted, Killzone wasn't terrible, but it certainly had a lot of issues. I think that the sequel did what sequels, in an ideal world, should, correct the problems and leave the good stuff be.

[Polnareff]

I second Chaos Legion. Good premise but so many things were wrong with the game, including parts of the gameplay. Unfortunately I can't see Capcom remaking it; it wasn't that popular, not to mention it was based on a Japanese novel.

I'd like to throw Forever Kingdom into the fray too. For those not in the know, Forever Kingdom was the sequel to a PS2 game called Evergrace. But like Evergrace, Forever Kingdom has a lot of things wrong with it, most notably gameplay and story. If there was a remake of it I'd like to see less stilted combat, a more forgiving Palmira system (Palmira is what you use to do specials), and maybe a little more thought put into the storyline.

[Mercen-X]

I own both Evergrace and Eternal Ring which both have a similar graphic style I'm guessing is shared by Forever Kingdom. Yes, a remake would be nice for each of them. But, these games were made by companies with slightly smaller budgets and a huge package of pride so it's unlikely they'll try to remake their games or leave it in the hands of skilled craftsmen like Square or it's loyal comrades.

[qwertysaur]

Any bad game can have a redeeming sequel if the developers take the time to see what was bad in the original and take the time to improve or rework it so the finished product is better. However, it's kinda discouraging when you work hard on a game and it flops, so often there is little drive to revisit the project, and instead focus on a new one that you hope does better.

[Psychotic]

BioShock. Great setting and feel, pity that as a game it was a pretty mediocre FPS. Would love to see what Valve would do with Rapture.

We'll see how BioShock 2 turns out.

[Madame Adequate]

BioShock. Great setting and feel, pity that as a game it was a pretty mediocre FPS. Would love to see what Valve would do with Rapture.

We'll see how BioShock 2 turns out.

:aimkiss: Agreed 100%. Never understood the fuss about the actual gameplay part of it.

There have been examples in the past of bad or average games with good sequels. Hell, Street Fighter is a pretty good one. If you've played the original, it's a pretty unmemorable side-scroller. SFII is one of the most important and beloved games in history which is still played today.

Or derp, I forgot GTA. The first two were fun top-down affairs, but aside from the already-extant controversy were not that big a deal. Then GTA III comes along and holy poo rest is history etc.

Or consider Assassin's Creed, though I did like the first one. As Psy said, if they carry on with that level of improvement, ACIII is going to be the best game ever made.

[KentaRawr!]

If you've played the original, it's a pretty unmemorable side-scroller

Street Fighter was not a side-scroller. :|

[Iceglow]

Too Human.

I had and do have quite a bit of fun in Too Human still, the games premise was actually great however I feel the team behind it kinda forgot, not everyone knows the tales of Ragnorak (sp? never remember if it's o or a in the end of that word) and the end of the world (according to the Norse myths)

The control method used was innovative if flawed. It was not the best possible layout for a hack and slash adventure game to use I agree. However it was not as terrible as some people made out either it certainly was not what I would call "broken" I played several games with what I'd call broken controls and Too Human though unusual and quirky was far from that. Once the player through some persistence at the game got used to the techniques used to control the character and camera and how to pull off the flashier moves well, then the game was actually very simple and enjoyable to control. It was interesting to not have gone on with the usual mash the X and Y button controls either, they're tried and tested it's true they're also boring as smurf to boot.

They obviously spent a long time invested on the visual styling of enemies and characters however the view given to the player is usually one from about 60 ft away, it feels like you're viewing the character and the battle around them through some kind of floating cyber drone camera. Given the fact considering the amount of time spent modelling the characters a more over the shoulder or about 10 ft away view point would have improved it vastly, showing off the relatively great if a little stale graphical work. Actually building the game within one console's lifetime rather than spreading the game development out from the original Xbox through to what is near the Zenith of the 360's projected lifespan was not a good move either though the late release of the Unreal 3 engine by Epic something used to make Too Human also did not help, the developers had little time to actually work on the engine tweaking it for the right visual style and graphical representation, as an Xbox original title the game would have looked amazing, the graphics would have been out of this world however as a 360 game after the release of such behemoths as Gears, Halo, Mass Effect the game suffered from it's strung out development time and looked stale in comparisson to the games that came before it as evidenced in the following image:
http://www.siliconknights.com/images/too_human/wallpapers/wallpaper_10_800.jpg
There is nothing overtly wrong with the graphics in the above image, I chose this image of Freya because it feels to me a great deal of work went in to this character, far more so than other characters such as Hod who crop up only a couple of times. However, I feel that in a post gears world the graphics could have turned out slightly more "real" the textures and shading fall a little flat at times.

Too Human is a big shame really as the game is quite fun despite it's numerous flaws and stale graphics (and unlike some games such as left 4 dead this is definitely a game where graphics are key) In a way altough it is not mechs the game had the prospect of becomming the 360's own Zone of the Enders series. A trilogy of games where the scope and ground breaking game play controls, graphics and sound changed the way people made hack and slash for the 360.

I don't know if the Sillicon Knights studio team intend to finish the trillogy off or not. If not I guess it's because Microsoft have dumped the product (in house publishing has it's downfalls as much as it's triumphs and microsoft can be very unforgiving if you fail them after a long time in development) However I would love to see the game studio come back and finish the story. The second installment should imho have the following changes added to it:

1) update the graphics and change the player perspective. Although the view point allows a wider reach with the weapons and view of how the overall battle progresses I feel out of touch with the character as if watching the battle on CCTV. I want to feel in the fight as much as possible. Changing the perspective to closer to the player and giving them a radar or other way to discern where enemies might be attacking from is generally the best idea here. Perhaps lessons from FPS games such as MW2 where the radar is primarily visible when the game is paused should be heeded here.

2) Either improve upon the analogue attack controls or else do away with them and implement a more standard fare of controls set up however to prevent the game being all about mash X give the game a more god of war, zone of the enders, feel to it where different attack types flow from different buttons this combined with the various different weapons would create varied game experiences. I thought the experiment in to analogue control was valid and a good experience however the over all control of the game did not flow as it should in hack and slash adventure games imho. The more I think about it, the more I do think that the controls should be more standard however I don't like the fact that all action games are becomming so samey to play. Innovation such as Too Human's brave attempt to break the mould need rewarding.

3) Include a minimum of 4 player co-op to the game. Each co-op player should add more enemies to the levels and also increase the health of the enemies too so it becomes harder. I think a few new character classes wouldn't go amiss too so that the player might experience a new perspective, perhaps for classes such as a "Norn" we could take control of a female character such as Freya rather than Stoic warrior type Bauldur.

4) Explain the background of the Norse mythology in the story better, this would add length to the game in extra levels and quests it would also give the player some much needed insight in to why the machines want to destroy human life, where the machines come from and what the Aesir hope to achieve in the final victory.

5) Explain Loki's role in the game a lot more, so far he seems like a 2d badguy in a 3d world. Loki is not genuinely evil, he is merely mischevious and although in the Norse myths he does play a pivotal role in the bringing about of the end of the world, he is not purely evil in his role. Actually I suppose this goes with point 4 but heck I feel he's important enough to warrant his own point.

6) In the game we're offered the chance to fight alongside Thor and several other Aesir during the later parts. It is a shame however that some of the Aesir are severely underwritten merely there to provide someone to die instead of the main character and someone who at the same point will elict a response of rage from the main character of Bauldur or simply at times it feels like they crop up to die merely because the background story of norse mythology requires that they do. I would actually love to see maybe only as an co-op option the ability to play as other members of the Aesir, perhaps even with access to other non-Bauldur character classes as well meaning a player can level up a character purely for co-op purposes such as playing as Hel or Freya or Thor even.

7) This is probably the killer, Instead of game over when you die, the game merely re-spawns you some way back out of the fight so that you can go in, the re-spawn animation is however very, tediously long especially when at higher levels on the later part of the game you die a lot. Now, I've played CoD: 4 and Halo 3 on legendary enough to know a lot about respawning. To be fair, it's a different kettle of fish I know, however how about this: Single Player games, if you die, reload to last check point. Multiplayer games, if you die you're respawned but the respawn takes time, this way there is little to not abuse from the respawn and players must be more careful when exploring the game on their own but have the advantage of anything they find is theirs and theirs alone and at the same point the death animation doesn't become something detested in higher level single player games.

Edit: Before adding this edit, the post was at 1400+ words. nearly 1500 words long. I have actually got more games I could write equally expansive posts about however I feel writing a dissertation on one game in under an hour is enough for one night. :P A pity it's not over 9000.

[Shoeberto]

BioShock. Great setting and feel, pity that as a game it was a pretty mediocre FPS. Would love to see what Valve would do with Rapture.

We'll see how BioShock 2 turns out.
Yeah, truthfully I was fairly disappointed at how dumbed down it was. There were slight homages to System Shock but too much of what made SS2 great was completely thrown out the window.

The gameplay wasn't terribly compelling, but I do think that the story and environment were outstanding.

[G13]

BioShock. Great setting and feel, pity that as a game it was a pretty mediocre FPS. Would love to see what Valve would do with Rapture.

We'll see how BioShock 2 turns out.

I like BioShock but there's no chance a Valve Bioshock wouldn't be better. Damn that's a nice thought.


There have been examples in the past of bad or average games with good sequels. Hell, Street Fighter is a pretty good one. If you've played the original, it's a pretty unmemorable side-scroller. SFII is one of the most important and beloved games in history which is still played today.

Do you mean Streets of Rage? I confused that with Street Fighter for years.

[Slothy]

BioShock. Great setting and feel, pity that as a game it was a pretty mediocre FPS. Would love to see what Valve would do with Rapture.

We'll see how BioShock 2 turns out.

I like BioShock but there's no chance a Valve Bioshock wouldn't be better. Damn that's a nice thought.

Indeed. If Bioshock's gameplay actually matched the level of it's story and setting I'd gladly call it one of the best games I ever played. If there's one developer who could hammer out the FPS gameplay to match and not rest until the interesting new ideas the game introduced were a lot more compelling and useful, it'd be Valve.

[Madame Adequate]

Hmmm, apparently I played a cheap knockoff which called itself Street Fighter. It had Ken and Ryu and the right moves but it was a side-scroller. Discount that particular point, but the rest stands xD

Also haha holy crap Steve massive essay on Too Human. xD I agree with it though, the game is far from great but it got a lot more flak than it deserved.

[Iceglow]

Also haha holy crap Steve massive essay on Too Human. xD I agree with it though, the game is far from great but it got a lot more flak than it deserved.

I figured if I was going to do it I might as well do it right. Now can people see why I would like to have a degree in games journalism?