(video game chimes) - [Falcon] Sometimes when you
play a bad game, you think, "Wow, what were they thinking?" And while there are
definitely some bad games that came from good ideas, sometimes the problem with a game is that it's anything but inspired. Hi folks, it's Falcon, and today on GameRanx 10
video game ideas that sucked. Starting off at number 10, Doom 4, which was Call of Duty but with demons. Call of Doomy. Oh, I'm glad this one didn't happen. So after Doom 3 came out in 2004, the franchise went into a
decade long hibernation. Yeah, for good reason. If you go back and play Doom 3 now, there are some minor improvements that make it not the worst thing ever, but man, people did not like
Doom 3 when it came out. And during that decade, the landscape of first person
shooters changed very quick. And because of that, when it
was time to make a new game, Id Software didn't really
know how to evolve the series. Doom 2016's success eventually showed that there was still a demand
for old school shooters, but it wasn't a guarantee the game would've been well received. For years the game was
stuck in development hell, playing follow the leader to
the Call of Duty franchise. And before they came to their senses and just canceled that whole
version of the project, Doom 4 was going to be basically
everything the fans feared. Instead of a fast-paced
action game with large levels, it was a slow moving cinematic experience with extremely linear levels. Now it's set on Earth
during a demon invasion, so that at least is Doom-like,
Doomy one might say. And what you would do is take on demons as well as possessed cultists who basically would fill in
for the standard FPS enemies. The pre-alpha footage
doesn't, it doesn't look bad. I mean, as a completely
different franchise that has completely different expectations than the Doom franchise,
that could be all right. But the thing is you just have
to go fully in that direction and obviously they want
to retain some level of Doom's identity, so what
it ended up looking like was something like Resistance. And to be frank, that's not Doom. If you're gonna make
something that's not Doom, make it as something that isn't Doom. Start it as a new IP and
build something unique. As an entry into the Doom franchise, you have to incorporate elements of Doom. And if you do that, you end up essentially
watering down the whole formula either way. Either it's Doom or it's not Doom. It can't be kind of Doom. That's gonna be bad for everybody. Like, people who want it not
to be Doom are gonna be mad because it's Doom-like. People who want it to
be Doom are gonna be mad because it's kind of Call of Duty-like. And let's just say Call of Doomy just sounds like some kind
of new Coke type thing. I'm happy that they
didn't make this version. And number nine is Shadow Run from 2007. Is this the best way to
revive a cult classic RPG? The SNES and especially the
Genesis versions of Shadow Run are cult classic RPGs for a reason. They're dense, they're
complicated, interesting. They have this fascinating cyberpunk world that has some fantasy elements. And by the year 2007, people were really wanting
some kind of a follow up. Bethesda had announced a
Fallout follow up for 2008. Maybe Shadow Run could get
some next gen love as well. Well, Shadow Run did get rebooted, but not in a way any of the original games or tabletop version would
imply, would make sense. Instead of being an RPG, you know, what Shadow
Run is, was, either way, it was a squad based FPS
developed by FASA Studio. Fans of FASA, the developers of some of
the best Mech Warrior games and the great Crimson Sky sequel, did not want them to
make something like this. And Shadow Run fans, ooh. Well, let's just say they
were in full agreement. It's the exact problem
that I described with Doom in the last point,
except the game came out. So the only people who
would've ever been interested in this were multiplayer FPS players who had no interest in the IP at all, leading me to believe that
it might have made sense to make this game and
not call it Shadow Run, start a new IP, blah, blah, blah. What did I say in the last point? And just avoid the source material. Like, all it did was make everyone mad. There's a long list of IPs that have been inexplicably turned into multiplayer shooters. Like, does anybody remember
Gotham City Imposters? It's the rights holder
shoving a square peg into a round hole, it just doesn't work. And number eight is Marvel
Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, which I don't know what
EA was smoking with this. Marvel superheroes pretty much remain some of the most well known
and beloved characters, period. That didn't stop for a while. Pretty much been going on and on. So EA and Nihilistic Software decided to make a fighting game where half the roster
was a bunch of nobody's that you don't care about. So you can't play as the Hulk,
but check these dorks out. You can play as Brigade,
Johnny Ohm, and Fault Zone. I'm guessing Johnny Ohm has
something to do with electricity and Fault Zone probably
something to do with earthquakes. Brigade (stumbles) I don't know what Brigade, like there's nothing implied by that name. So it sounds like a fair trade, right? The whole thing's just a boneheaded idea. Like, it's (sighs) It's hard to wrap my head around it. I mean, the idea of a Power
Stone-like Marvel fighting game, that's great. Like, when you say that though, a Power Stone-like Marvel fighting game, the assumption is that you
would include Marvel heroes that people care about,
otherwise why do it? So making most of the cast
just completely unknown, ah, well kind of dulls
the allure of it a bit. The game was not that
much fun to play either, so it fails in every possible way. I can't get over how lame these guys are. They're literally called the Imperfects. The title was wrong too. They did not rise. They were in it, but rise, they did not. And number seven is Dwarfs, a dark and gritty retelling of Snow White. Obsidian, fantastic developer. Fallout New Vegas is beyond a classic. But this Dwarfs game they were
working on that got canceled, I don't know about this one. You ever had a friend who's really proud of some idea they had and they just go on and
on about how brilliant and how awesome it is and how cool it would be if it got made and you're kind of sitting there afraid to tell them how stupid they sound? Yeah, that's Dwarfs. It's a game that Brian Mitsoda,
the designer and writer for Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines, said, "I think if it had come out, "it would be considered a classic today." Everyone who worked on the project seems to have positive things to say about it, but it's a dark retelling of Snow White and the frigging seven dwarves. It didn't get canceled because
it was too good, you know? Reading about the whole project
today sounds like a parody, not something we're supposed
to take seriously at all. Like, the prince kills
his mother by a mistake in a shocking opening sequence. Dopey was mute because of the trauma of
watching his mother die. You know, Dopey, the cartoon
character that looks like this. Dopey, the guy that seems
like he's got half a banana for a brain. Yeah, he's dark and tortured, guys. He doesn't speak, not 'cause he's dumb, but because he's emo. That's just a bad idea. Maybe Obsidian could have
done something decent with it. And again, a lot of people seem
to talk positively about it that worked on it. And maybe it would've been a classic, maybe it would've subverted
all of our expectations, but as a starting point,
the idea is not good. And number six is Star Wars:
The New Emperor, an FMV game starring everyone's favorite
Star Wars character, C-3PO. Oh yeah, and no one else. This is a game we know
almost nothing about other than a name and a basic premise. But that's really all it takes
to earn a spot in this list because yeah, what the hell
were they thinking with this? Most of the canceled Star Wars
games sounded like good ideas like Battlefront III or Star Wars 1313, both of which were
canceled for stupid reasons in my opinion. But whoever made the call
to curb stomp this one, maybe that was the right choice. Well, not maybe. Everything about Star
Wars: The New Emperor is kind of baffling. It seems to be an FMV game
set after "Return of the Jedi" about the imperial remnant
crowning a new emperor. Not Snoke. Also Palpatine hasn't like returned. It's a new dude. Maybe it was gonna be a grand
reintroduction of Triclops, Emperor Palpatine's son with an extra eye in the back of his head, which is a real character
from a Star Wars EU book, which I can't imagine why Disney made all of
that stuff not canon. Not even that it was bad. It would just be impossible to work with. And they also don't seem to be
quite as competent. (laughs) So for whatever reason, whatever mission that the
rebels were undertaking, they'd sent C-3PO 'cause who else would you send to do whatever they were gonna do in response to crowning a new emperor? Why would you send one person? Like, what... You know? And it wasn't even supposed
to come out in like 1993. It was being developed in 1998. Like, "The Phantom Menace"
was about to come out. Everything about this just sounds so dumb, so, so dumb that I want
to know more than I do. We only have a short description to go on, but it's such a weird and bad
idea we had to talk about it. I just wish we could say more. And number five is Metroid
Prime Federation Force, a Metroid game where
you don't play as Samus. So this is another one
that actually came out. Kind of in the bad ideas it
should have been canceled but weren't category. In 2016, Metroid Other M was looming, considered by most of failure. So basically they came up with a 3DS exclusive cooperative shooter where you don't play as Samus. So obviously that would
rescue the whole thing, right? That's apparently what somebody thought. But yeah, instead of playing as the iconic hero of the series, you play as a faceless federation grunt, going on like random, short
missions that are just miserable unless you're playing with other people. One of those games where I
guess it's playable with friends but it might as well not be 'cause playing by yourself is not fun. Also, the weird chibi art
style doesn't make sense. Like, I've never seen a
Metroid look like this. Why? The entire premise doesn't fit with the Metroid series in any way. And everything about it feels wrong. It's a Metroid game with almost no recognizable
Metroid elements. There's no exploration based gameplay, none of the iconic powers, and it's just like mindless shooting in these small boring missions. There have been a couple of
weird Metroid Prime spinoffs, like remember the pinball game? But those came out when Nintendo was still
making Metroid games. Maybe this came out now after Metroid Dread
revitalized the whole thing, it wouldn't have been so reviled. But it's a sucky idea for
a Metroid game either way. And number four is Duke
Nukem: Endangered Species, which is a Duke Nukem hunting game. In the early 2000s, the PC gaming market
saw an absolute deluge of hunting games. The most popular were the Cabela's games, but those were hardly the only ones. There were a whole lot of
them, and they were mostly bad, but more importantly, they were
raking in money, big money. And for a little while
they were a big business. So it kind of makes sense that a developer with a more established brand would want to try a hunting game
spinoff with it, right? I don't know why they
settled on Duke Nukem, but that's what happened. Sounds like a joke, but it was not a joke. It was way too real. Developer Action Forms actually tried to make a Duke Nukem hunting game. The prototype is actually out there. You can play it, and it
is as bad as it sounds. Do I really need to say
why this is a bad idea? Duke Nukem 3D was a game
about exploring complex and interesting levels, not
empty featureless forests. Someone obviously
realized it was a bad idea 'cause it did get canceled. To add a bow to this bizarre story, elements of Duke Nukem: Endangered Species actually eventually found their way into the equally insane
Vivisector Beast Within, which if you've never heard of, look it up, it's totally nuts. And number three is Gamer Girl. I guess was probably well
intentioned, but was misguided. A 2020 trailer went online for an FMV game called Gamer Girl, where you apparently play as a moderator for an online streamer who helps them deal
with an online predator. It's one of those ripped
from the headlines premises that sounds provocative but
mostly just comes off as trashy. The initial trailer got so much backlash that the publisher pulled
the entire announcement after a single day, and it's been gone. The game just doesn't exist now. They did have to know that
just the premise alone would would create some pushback. And probably relying on it to generate a little
bit of media interest. But the weird thing is not
that it's a female streamer, it's that you play as the moderator, and you basically tell
the streamer what to do, even about important life decisions, which is I mean, a baffling idea to me. The whole thing would've
made a lot more sense if you played as the central character, but instead they made it super weird. These days everything is
just a new battlefield for culture wars. Not my favorite thing in the world, but I think in this case we
can just say the entire premise of Gamer Girl, culture
wars or not, was a bad idea and move on. And number two is Escape From Diab, which can be described simply
as skinny guy has to escape from a city of evil, fat people. Oh, this is another one to add to the hopelessly misguided category. This game was built with at least the
potentially honorable goal of curbing childhood obesity. But if you can't tell by the
fact I can barely not laugh while describing it, they did it in the most
ham handed way possible. I wasn't joking. This is a game where a selection of conventionally attractive,
muscular skinny guys have to escape from a city
full of evil, fat people. That's literally all there is. And while it's supposed to be
about promoting healthy eating and lifestyle choices,
from the screenshots, it mostly just seems like it's
sort of demonizing fat people which is kind of just a sucky thing to do. Obviously being overweight
isn't good for your health, but I don't know about
making a moral judgment because of somebody's weight, let alone making them into an evil horde. Like, that feels ridiculous to even say. It sounds so, so silly. That's the premise of this game though. I think it's trying to
scare kids "straight." But there's a right way
and a wrong way to do that, and this game is so obviously on the wrong side of that scale. Like, this is dumb. But what might surprise
you is it's actually a game that was developed by a
developer that specifically works in what are called games for health. They received funding from the government to make Escape From Diab and another game called Nanoswarm:
Invasion from Inner Space that I know nothing about. And Escape From Diab has undergone
extensive clinical trials to see if it helps children lose weight. Escape From Diab. Diab, like the first
four letters of diabetes. That is something that the US
National Institute of Health gave them $10 million to develop. And finally at number one,
it's a Shenmue online MMORPG because that makes sense. The Shenmue games, they're
famous for a lot of things, but the last thing I think anybody wanted or expected was an MMO based on it. The first Shenmue games
are focused on story almost above anything else. People are pretty invested
in the story of Ryo in his quest for revenge against Lan Di. And Shenmue III, ah, didn't quite satisfy, but maybe Shenmue 4 will. Anyway, when this game was announced, people did not want a vaguely related MMO filled with supernatural elements that weren't present in the main games. They wanted a proper sequel
that continued the story. Just about everything that
makes the series interesting and memorable would've been discarded when turned into an MMO. Maybe some of the
environmental exploration would've remained, but everything else looks
completely different. Like, was Shenmue even
a popular enough brand to turn into an MMO? Yeah, it was primarily meant
for Chinese and Korean markets where it would probably be more popular. But still, it looks
like they took the name and discarded pretty much everything else. There's a few screens of the
game still floating around, but they pretty much look like every other generic Korean MMO that you've ever heard of, so, eh. Quick bonus for you, Kinect Star Wars. We couldn't not mention this one, but we decided to throw it into bonus 'cause the game has been
the internet's punching bag for many, many years, and everybody knows how
bad of an idea it was. Everybody said everything there is to say, but it cannot be understated how bizarre this whole thing is. I mean, seriously, galactic dance off? Did we really need to see
Han Solo dancing to YMCA? Don't get me wrong, we had our laughs. But the song remixes are
cringey to the extreme. The dancing is embarrassing, and everything about this
mode just plain sucks. Nothing else needs to be
said, just look at it. It's the dumbest thing ever made. And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, let
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