Top 10 Good Ideas that Just Didn't Work in Video Games

It’s always great to see video game developers trying new things. Well...maybe not always. Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’re counting down the top ten good concepts in video games that were badly executed.

For this list, we’re looking at ideas in video games that players were excited to play because they sounded innovative, intriguing, or original, but turned out to disappoint upon release.

Fans of this classic space shooter series were highly anticipating Nintendo’s latest outing, which received a mixed reaction, to say the least. One of the most highly criticized aspects was the aiming system, which required the player to use a first-person view on the Wii U gamepad simultaneously with a third-person view on the television screen. What could have saved this feature is if there were better customizable options; like being able to adjust the sensitivity, only have it activate when holding another button like how ironsights work, or just turning it off altogether. But nope, can’t do any of that, what were you thinking Nintendo?

Many games successfully execute dialogue options with voice acting, most notably Mass Effect and the Witcher – but fans of those games have already become accustomed to playing 1 predetermined character. Less so with Fallout. In a series that was long hailed as an extremely open ended roleplaying experience, giving your character a single voice per gender really shattered the illusion of character choice for many diehard fans. Add to that the fact that many fans didn’t enjoy the choice of voice actor and felt that the dialogue options were often opaque and rather boring, and it looks like many people who have just preferred the strong silent type for their waste-lander.

While “Final Fantasy” may be one of gaming’s most iconic series, it certainly isn’t without a few slipups. The growth system in the series’ second instalment utilized a growth system wherein abilities grew stronger the more they were used. For example, attack would grow stronger the more the character attacked, and defense would grow the more the character was hit. While this makes sense in theory, it became frustrating since all spells levelled up individually rather than together, and it also created an easy loophole that allowed the party members to simply attack and heal each other to easily level up. While it’s admirable for such an early RPG to try to mix up the formula, it’s no surprise that this format never resurfaced.

Rockstar Games has made a name for itself with its open world crime games, and while “L.A. Noire” is by no means a disaster, it’s also far from a masterpiece. As a Los Angeles detective in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the player character must solve various mysteries, and its main selling point was the interrogation system, which featured then-new face capture technology. The player was meant to read the players’ faces and respond to their expressions. Unfortunately, trying to get actors to look like they’re lying badly resulted in expressions that more often than not looked like bad highschool drama class than genuine human guilt or innocence. Heck, even if this worked it’s extremely difficult to tell if people are lying in real life – how are you supposed to do it here?

Many games include abilities that allow the player to take control of enemies, but rarely is it a game’s main selling point, and after this ambitious project turned out to be a disaster, it’s easy to see why. A great example of creative thinking gone wrong, the idea of “mindjacking,” or controlling the minds of enemy NPCs, which, for some reason also extends to machine enemies. But the 2 Big reasons why the concept fails so hard is that the controls for taking over enemies are extremely sloppy, and the A.I. in the game is so mind-blowingly dumb, that they’ll sometimes get killed before you can take them over.

The second add-on DLC for “Skyrim” revolved around the ability to create and customize houses with found materials and having families. Allowing players to have more creativity sounded like agreat idea, but the customization was extremely restrictive, and construction was just plain boring. Houses were, for the most part, restricted to premade models, and while you could add furniture, you couldn’t choose where it went, but rather, simply whether or not it existed. Fans were expecting a dose of “Sims” to be added to one of the seventh generation’s best RPGs, but rather they coughed up five bucks to essentially have a place to put your kid...who really didn’t even do anything.

“Red Steel” was one of the most exciting launch titles for the Nintendo Wii, as it was one of the only adult, action-oriented games to utilize the revolutionary motion controls. Of course, every innovation takes a while to work out its kinks, and the controls tended to be glitch and unpolished. The swordplay segments are the worst offenders, featuring slow and awkward controls that feature few, simplistic moves that failed to live up to expectations. What’s worse, using the Nunchuck and Wiimote to control two unwieldy swords made the player look and feel like a bit of a moron.

It’s hard to imagine an action game foregoing a health bar, but this Konami effort tried to do just that. Instead of a health bar, the player character, a cursed demon hunter, loses body parts based on how much damage he takes, forcing the character to run around the battlefield collecting disembodied limbs. An interesting idea, to be sure, but when half of the time spent fighting enemies consists of running, and in some cases, rolling around, it begins to feel tedious. It just goes to show, sometimes dead is just better.

“Watch Dogs” was marketed as a “Grand Theft Auto”-style game, but with a twist: the character was able to hack computers and machines in order to manipulate the environment and progress through missions. It seemed strange that few games had utilized such an interesting concept before this, but while it was interesting, it flopped poorly in execution. The hacking minigame basically boiled down to holding down a button or solving a simple rotation puzzle, which essentially gave the player way too much power over the environment without really having to try or learn any skill. We’re not saying it should be overly difficult, but such a hyped game should have really provided more of a challenge for gamers.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable, or in this case, dishonourable mentions.

Painting
“Epic Mickey” (2010)

Terrain Changer
“Fracture” (2008)

Planet Exploration
“Mass Effect” (2007)

When the final chapter of Rocksteady’s epic Batman trilogy was announced, players were ecstatic to finally get to experience Batman’s sweet ride. Though the game was a critical and commercial success, many felt that the introduction of the Batmobile was poorly handled. The controls tended to be slippery and difficult to manage, the tank mode didn’t feel particularly true to the spirit of the Batman franchise. This all could have been forgiven, but the Batmobile sections made up a large chunk of the game. It certainly didn’t sink the game, but c’mon, It’s the Batmobile, this should have been the coolest thing ever.

Do you agree with our list? What idea do you think was poorly executed? For more helpful top tens published every day visit WatchMojo.com.