Bad games are everywhere. In fact, they seem to be more abundant in recent years than ever before. As the video game medium has increased in popularity, so have the number of releases and with that, obviously the number of bad titles. Still, what exactly makes a bad title?
Is it under funding? Is it a lack of development talent? Is it simply a bad idea from the ground up? Yes, sometimes to each and often to all three. Still, that doesn’t explain how even the most well funded and best development teams can make a bad game out of what sounded like a surefire hit idea.
For answers to those kinds of questions, you need to look to other mediums. How does someone such as Steven Spielberg make a bad movie? How do the Eagles releases a bad album? Few would argue that either of these legends haven’t made a classic or two in their time, but they’ve definitely also had some flops. Is it hubris? Is it self-delusion? What causes it?
Take Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, for example. After releasing The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, AI and Minority Report in a five year span, Spielberg made a move to smaller movies with Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal. 2005’s War of the Worlds was supposed to be his return to the spectacle popcorn movie, a la Jurassic Park. However, while the film was met with mixed reactions from critics, it ultimately was a let down to many fans.
It might be difficult to call War of the Worlds a bad movie, especially since many enjoyed it. But it is also hard to argue it is of the level of E.T., Jaws, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park and others. So, what went wrong? The easiest argument is minor miscalculations. Aliens that drain humans of blood? Too gruesome for many. A Hollywood happy ending that feels tacked on? Too sappy for many. Tom Cruise as star right at the beginning of the public backlash against him? Too Scientologist for many. You could go on and on listing reasons.
The same happens with many games. Consider The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within that we recently featured in the Call Me Ishtar column. Was the game inherently bad? Well, that likely depends on who you ask, but few would deny that the game was a flop compared to its predecessor. How come?
As detailed in the aforementioned column, many problems can be pointed to such as the “hard edge” tonal shift and the refocus of the game toward more combat. But the truth is, these are mostly minor details in the grand scheme of a game. The game engine still worked. The graphics were pleasing and ran well for the most part. The script was interesting. The voice acting wasn’t too horrible. The basic gameplay was still enjoyable. In fact, most of what made the original game such a classic was still there, and what did change was rather insignificant.
The point being that a bad game is often measured in degrees. Take even something classically bad such as Bubsy 3D on the original PlayStation. While there are many problems you can point out with the title, the major one is the control. Bubsy controlled like a tank and the title was near impossible to play as a result. The rest of the game, however, was mostly just degrees off for a platformer of its time. Was it bad? Sure, but it wasn’t like a textbook entry on every facet of bad game design.
Compare that with Bubsy’s 16-bit offerings and you will see that while they were flawed games, they were mostly off by degrees. Was Bubsy an annoying mascot character with attitude? Sure, but so was every other 16-bit platformer star (Sonic, anyone?). Were there good ideas in Bubsy? Yeah, the water slide segments were quite fun. However, little design decisions such as the way he controlled or the amount of damage he could take ruined the experience.
The same can be said for most games. It’s the little things that add up and make for a bad experience, and not simply one big issue usually. So, what causes bad games? Lack of funding? Bad developers? A bad idea to begin with? Often, it is none of the above factors by themselves, but the small decisions made along the way. That’s why even the best developers can turn out bad games now and then.
Keep that in mind the next time you are bashing a new game. If not for a matter of degrees, it could have very well been the next Halo-which, by the way, was always slightly off with those repetitive levels.
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