8 Genius Ideas Wasted On Bad Video Games
These killer ideas deserved SO much better.
There's a clear reason why truly innovative video game mechanics are so few and far between - they're extremely tough to come up with, and even then, there's no guarantee they'll actually resonate with the general public.
And so, it's always frustrating to play a game that's ultimately a bit naff, only to appreciate that there is one shining golden nugget of innovation amid the dreck, albeit one which has basically been drowned out by said game's thunderous badness otherwise.
Sadly that's absolutely the case with these video games, each of which brought one truly brilliant, even ingenious idea or mechanic to the table, but it ended up stifled by the game's many creative deficiencies elsewhere.
From a terrible story to obnoxious characters, janky gameplay, and myriad technical issues, these games failed to foreground their best and most creative concepts, ensuring that they were largely slept on by the gaming masses.
And as such, these ideas have largely laid dormant in the gaming sphere ever since, even though it's clear that many of them could be implemented far more successfully by other developers producing great work. We can only hope...
8. The Deaf Experience - The Quiet Man
On paper, the Square Enix-published beat 'em up The Quiet Man had a ton of head-turning potential, with the game featuring a minimal soundscape in order to reflect the experiences of its deaf protagonist, Dane.
Only vague muffled sounds are audible throughout both the action-centric gameplay and live-action cutscenes, and the dialogue is left un-subtitled, leaving audiences to try and piece together the plot themselves through visual cues.
It's certainly an intriguing setup, and one which in better hands might've actually made for both an interesting mystery-action game and a creative step forward for representation in video games.
But even if you can forgive the deeply clunky combat, The Quiet Man's execution feels fundamentally flawed; Dane is shown regularly reading lips and communicating with other characters, so there's a bizarre disconnect between Dane's comprehension of what's going on and our considerably lesser grasp.
As such, you were more likely to be confused than compelled by the story, but even once a patch was released allowing players to replay the game with full audio and subtitles, it just confirmed how overpoweringly dull it all was.
The kernel of a great idea is definitely there, but not like this.