10 Video Games That Were Vindicated By History
Vanquish deserves so much more love.
Sometimes, there are video games that come out at the wrong time. These are the ones that were heavily criticized during their initial release or left many fans disappointed. Yet after a couple of years, these titles gain a fan following, and all of a sudden, their critical reception takes a 180.
Now, why does this happen?
One reason is with a critical second look, people learn to appreciate what these games are, rather than what they wanted them to be.
Many products suffer from huge expectations and so during their initial release, disappointment can often outweigh any positives a game may have. Yet with enough hindsight and retrospect, players realize that these titles may have been unfairly criticized.
In other cases, some games brought new, unrefined ideas to the table that have become staples in more recent titles. Sure, these mechanics may not work as well as they do today, but these games still deserve credit for introducing them in the first place.
These video games were disliked during their initial release, but over time, have had a considerable critical reevaluation.
10. Alien: Resurrection
In the 90s, it was crazy to think that the first-person genre could ever come to consoles. Sure, there were ports of Doom while GoldenEye 007 was a success for the Nintendo 64, but these were exceptions to the rule.
Alien: Resurrection, a tie-in to the 1997 movie of the same, was one of the early attempts at bringing the genre to consoles.
Though its atmosphere was praised, contemporary journalists drew criticism for the game's difficulty and pacing. One common complaint was its dual analog stick control scheme, which was unheard of at the time. You see, one of the biggest challenges of console games in the late 90s was translating the PC's precise keyboard and mouse controls into a controller.
This point of criticism ironically became the gold standard in console FPS games years later, as Halo: Combat Evolved would use this method to revolutionise the industry and genre. And though the Xbox original proved that the genre could thrive on consoles, Alien: Resurrection eventually got recognition for being one of the first games to implement this control scheme.