Interesting looking games that are actually a bit boring

[Clownbaby]

I've just been playing Bendy & The Ink Machine. I fancied giving this ago when it got a bit cheaper because it looked like there had been some effort made to make something fairly distinctive looking. The big black ink splatters and old-timey cartoon characters gone deformed in a sepia maze of animation studio corridors sounded and looked like it could be a bit tasty, a bit different, but that is pretty much all there is to it and they don't even get that creative with all that, never mind the actual playing of the game.

I read up on it before hand and went into it knowing there's a lot of mixed reviews about so I wasn't expecting much, and I'm still a bit disappointed. Fuck, it's boring to play. Flip this switch. Flip that switch. Find this switch. Find that switch. Find these things. Place these things. Hit this ineffectual enemy once to kill it. Hit that ineffectual enemy once to kill it. Aimlessly look for this and get lost because everywhere looks the same. Aimlessly look for that because everywhere looks the same.

Many games have you looking for things, endlessly retracing your steps, flicking switches, unlocking doors etc, yeah, but somehow they'll find a way to not draw attention to how plain this is. Bendy is missing that special something that makes me care about memorising routes to places and finding lost objects, and I don't know what exactly is missing. I actually think the storyand the tape recordings are fairly intriguing. Maybe it's the heavy sepia of everything. I think I got a bit of eye fatigue.

The looming threat at the start of deformed black and white cartoons works at first, then you realise they're all a bunch of fannies who die with one or maybe 2 clumsy weak hits from a pipe and that's it. I haven't finished the game yet but it's kind of babyish in how easy it is. It wants to be genuinely sinister but it doesn't deliver. It could have been so much freakier. I hope they do a sequel and completely unrestricted themselves because there's a disappointing feeling that they held back, for whatever reason. Think about how stretchy, bendy, squashy cartoons can be as deranged and disconnected from our natural laws as the cartoonist chooses, and take all of that away for some reason. That's Bendy And The Ink Machine.

[Dewt]

I suspect Miegakure might be delayed because they can't find a way to make it fun. It looked polished and nearly-finished six years ago, and yet is still in development: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhbUvoxjxIg

[Ferris]

I'll throw The Council in here.

It sounded intriguing ("ooh, mystery, story game, RPG elements!") but I gave up after an hour or so when the lady character's tits became beyond pastiche. It just felt absurd.

I'm sure it's great, but I don't have hours and hours of free time to get past the initial "ooh not sure about this" stage of video games these days.

[Blue Jam]

>OBSERVER_. Described here. Had so much promise but ultimately it's just a walking sim. It seems like 99% of the budget went on Rutger Hauer's fee. Good concept though and with some proper money behind it the ideas could have been developed into so much more.

[bgmnts]

90% of games i've played in the last decade.

[evilcommiedictator]

Underrail. A Eastern Europe designed RPG in the style of Fallout 1&2. Looks good, plays OK, but remember to read a guide first or you'll have an unwinnable character because you didn't know to min/max everything. And of course it has bloody pointless crafting in it too

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

As I've whinged many times over the years, Shadow of the Colossus manages to take epic giant fights and make them as dull as humanly possible.

[Huxleys Babkins]

We Happy Few. This game made me genuinely furious at how badly they wasted the potential of the world they'd created.

Just look at this announcement trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqWZkCqI6NM

And this creepy vignette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxdt2Y0Ias8

Everyone thought they were getting something akin to Bioshock, but what we ended up with was a procedurally generated barebones survival sandbox. What a dreadful, dreadful waste.

[peanutbutter]

Haven't played Sayonara Wild Hearts yet but Simogo seem to have form for this; Year Walk and Device 6 both just felt like chores

[Ferris]

We Happy Few. This game made me genuinely furious at how badly they wasted the potential of the world they'd created.

Just look at this announcement trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqWZkCqI6NM

And this creepy vignette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxdt2Y0Ias8

Everyone thought they were getting something akin to Bioshock, but what we ended up with was a procedurally generated barebones survival sandbox. What a dreadful, dreadful waste.

God it was bad. It was sub PS1 RPG when you got to the village. Absolute toilets.

$80 as well.

[bgmnts]

Didn't they also commit the cardinal sin of crowdfunding but then going onto to take publisher money anyway?

[Blue Jam]

We Happy Few.

OH FUCK YES.

[Clownbaby]

We Happy Few. This game made me genuinely furious at how badly they wasted the potential of the world they'd created.

Just look at this announcement trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqWZkCqI6NM

And this creepy vignette:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxdt2Y0Ias8

Everyone thought they were getting something akin to Bioshock, but what we ended up with was a procedurally generated barebones survival sandbox. What a dreadful, dreadful waste.

There's so many like this that obviously had a lot of enthusiasm put into the concept and look, then they seem to realise they've got to construct the actual game and just fall to pieces. It's a shame how many potentially interesting games (horror/spooky ones being the worst for it) either shape up to be broken, bland games wrapped up in a certain art style, or get the boot and never get made (SILENT HILLS)

[Clownbaby]

Oh i almost forgot and I know it's a divisive one but fucking Death Stranding. Luckily I was bought it as a present so I didn't waste my own money. If it didn't have ravishing graphics and no one knew Hideo Kojima made it, I'm positive people would just think it was crap. Might as well just watch a video of the edited together cutscenes, sorted.

[Phil_A]

The Whispered World - looked and sounded beautiful, but the actual gameplay was so drearily rote and the dialogue and voice-acting so obnoxious I couldn't make it to the end of the demo. The lead actor seemed to've based his performance on Steve from American Dad, and oh boy does that get irritating quickly.

[Schmo Diddley]

No Man's Sky. Sounded incredible but ultimately a plodding grindfest.

[Kryton]

NMS is not too bad these days. Lots of content.

[Thursday]

I think in fairness to We Happy Few, it was sold on kickstarter as being a survival game, so that was the kind of game the developers wanted to make, but yeah when your trailer makes people (who'd never heard of it before then) excited for a completely different kind of game to the one you're making that seems quite poorly thought out.

[Blue Jam]

I was thinking of getting Deliver Us The Moon because it looks a bit like Prey, but I've seen one review saying it's like Prey minus the great gameplay, and another saying it's kind of a point-and-click adventure game but also not too far off being a w*lk*ng s*m. Anyone played it? I don't want to get into another beautiful and atmospheric game that's boring as fuck to play.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

>OBSERVER_. Described here. Had so much promise but ultimately it's just a walking sim. It seems like 99% of the budget went on Rutger Hauer's fee. Good concept though and with some proper money behind it the ideas could have been developed into so much more.

God Observer was crap. It was an art project masquerading as a video game. Hauer was shite in it too, it sounded like he didn't quite know what he was doing the voice over for, but I suppose you could blame the direction for that.

[Zetetic]

Fuel, but I don't think that's because it actually overpromised - just that the world suggested the possibility of something else. Wreckfest is too shallow to be very interesting.

I think I might just want a vehicular RPG.

[Abnormal Palm]

Gal Gun 2

[The Crumb]

Fuel, but I don't think that's because it actually overpromised - just that the world suggested the possibility of something else. Wreckfest is too shallow to be very interesting.

I think I might just want a vehicular RPG.

The thing that puts me off Wreckfest is that the setting is too boring. Burnout capitalised on the fact that it's a videogame by letting you smash up supercars in the middle of a city full of traffic. Bangers in a mudpit doesn't seem as exciting.

[Kelvin]

Hollow Knight. I actually ended up liking the game quite a lot, but it's soooo tedious at times, slogging back and forth through the same gorgeous areas.

[Abnormal Palm]

Absolutely. A probably brilliant ten hour game.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

That reminds me: Alien Isolation is about thrice as long as it needs to be.