The Eight Least Compelling Games of E3

by Chris Buecheler, 7/24/2008 1:08 AM

(Page 3 of 4)

Battman attack
Onward, to more piles of bricks!
#3 - LEGO Batman

The LEGO Star Wars series turned out to be an excuse to print money, so apparently I'm in the minority here, but I didn't find the combination of "Star Wars: Now With Mutes" and uninspired, platform-y gameplay particularly enticing. The idea of "playing the movie" is a fun one, but "walk to next screen, hold down 'assemble puzzle' button, repeat ad nauseum" doesn't really seem to capture the full experience.

I'm not sure how they're going to apply this to the Batman franchise ... Here you'll have a game where, yes, the fans will be familiar with the characters, but they won't have an entire set of plotlines pre-filled with exciting action pieces that conjure up 30 years of fond remembrance. What you will have, though, is lots of little piles of puzzle-bricks hopping around, waiting for you to stand in front of them and hold a button until a little machine pops up and ... buh ... zzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa11111111111111 ... sorry, I fell asleep on my keyboard.

Spore creatures
Spore's subtitle? "What the hell is going on here?"
#2 - Spore

Heresy! Sacrilege! No true gamer could possibly have any feelings about Spore other than excitement, unremitting love, and possibly mild sexual arousal (judging by all of the things you crazy kids have been turning out using the Spore Creature Creator). Will Wright is a god among men, and surely his latest creation will be yet another multi-platinum smash success and a true gift to the gaming world. Right?

Well, ok, I'll admit that it's possible. I didn't expect to like The Sims, and I ended up spending way more hours than I'm willing to admit assembling ever-more-expensive furniture around my lesbian Mad Scientist and Sports Superstar couple. I played the hell out of The Sims 2, too. Here's the question though: What, if anything, have you seen so far in Spore that indicates there is any kind of game there? I've seen a Creature Creator, and some mildly strategy-looking action that reminds me way too much of Black and White for comfort.

I will concede that of the titles on this list, Spore has by far the greatest chance of making me eat my words, but what I've seen right now isn't really very compelling.

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Responses

  • Gabe
    Gabe

    Jul 25 2008 4:17PM

    I find the wiimote to be he closest to a mouse for a console that I've ever used. RE4 for the Wii with point and click shooting is awesome. Mostly, though, the Wii does indeed collect dust.

  • Smidgen
    Smidgen

    Jul 25 2008 2:04PM

    Everyone that buys a Wii doesn't play it after two weeks? Thats odd. Then I wonder who is buying the 80 million games it has sold so far? If the author of this dumb article can't get excited about playing Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime: Corruption, Smash Brothers Brawl, Mario Kart, Boom Blox, or any of the other fantastic games for the Wii, then I feel sorry for his joyless soul. Apparently, the only thing that matters is the assembly line of pointless, cliche, boring first p

  • CaptainHomeless
    CaptainHomeless

    Jul 25 2008 11:14AM

    @d+pad - I've heard of all of those, yes. However, I don't know any gamers who are using their Wii to play those games. There was some mild excitement amongst some of my friends when Mario Galaxy came out, but for the most part the folks I know who ran out and bought a Wii admit that it's mostly collecting dust. The point though really wasn't about whether or not the Wii has "gamer-friendly" games. It's that I don't find the system and its method of control even remotely compelling, so I don't c

  • Unbound
    Unbound

    Jul 25 2008 2:58AM

    Of course you sound like a bitter old jerk, but that's good! I'm tired of cheerleading game journalists touting retreads and insipid designs as something they're "counting the days" for. Take that compliment with a grain of salt though, since I'm a cynical old jerk. I ,however, did like the first three Splinter Cell games for the realism in particular. Hell, I wish Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon would roll back to some of that old realism. You get shot in the head, you die. So this means that

  • malcolmm
    malcolmm

    Jul 24 2008 3:37PM

    Mostly choices I would agree with. Although I own a Wii, I can somewhat agree with your negative comments regarding it. I find the controller to be an expensive gimmick. I do enjoy playing Wii games - Mario Galaxy and Mario Kart in particular. But these could have been done on the Gamecube. Nintendo has the right idea - trying to create new types of games, too bad the hardware is so underpowered and so many of the new game types are boring. I want new game types that are designed from the

  • d+pad
    d+pad

    Jul 24 2008 3:21PM

    Sigh. I thought this list would be better, to tell you the truth. Especially disappointing is your paint-by-numbers jab at the Wii. I could understand hating on WiiMusic (I'm not feelin' it either), but you had to pull out that old chestnut "everyone buys a Wii for Wii Sports and then throws it into the closet." I guess you didn't hear about the release of Zelda: TP, Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, SSBB, Mario Kart, Super Paper Mario and the soon-to-be-released Wario Land, huh?

  • SwiftRanger
    SwiftRanger

    Jul 24 2008 2:31PM

    "desperately-in-need-of-a-reboot real-time strategy genre" On PC it already got several reboots in very different forms (CoH, SupCom, WiC) in recent times, at least in terms of gameplay (campaign is another, sad story though). The problem with Halo Wars is that it just looks (and even seems to play) like a C&C3 Halo mod, which wouldn't be that bad if C&C3 actually had something memorable about it but it didn't. Just making controls work on another platform and having the Halo-theme aren't

  • CaptainHomeless
    CaptainHomeless

    Jul 24 2008 1:38PM

    If I'd expanded this list to nine, Guitar Hero Whatever-The-Latest-Version-Is would've been on the list. The first one was not bad, if highly overrated, but the market's way over-saturated at this point. Glad people are enjoying the article. I was afraid everyone would just think I was a bitter old jerk. ;)

  • sladewilson
    sladewilson

    Jul 24 2008 1:22PM

    I gotta agree 99% with this one also (MK vs DC interests me only because of the comic fanboy in me and yeah, Batman will own Sub Zero every chance I get to beat the snot outta him...) I'm really glad somebody had the guts to call out the Wii crap games and that Lego garbage. I agree also with Je-Tze - I wish you would've added that Guitar Hero/Rock Star I wish I had talent but I'm tone deaf crap! Ugh....

  • Je-Tze
    Je-Tze

    Jul 24 2008 2:59AM

    Agreed; almost 100%.(Except i like the Splinter Cell games, and Halo wars looks good to me, though i do agree about Halo being, in general, overrated; but then i generally like RTS's, even the new crop.) Good to see someone FINALLY calling out Spore, and the shitty Lego games, and Little Big Planet. The only thing missing from your crotchety-old-man, get-off-my-lawn rant is Rockband and all the lame-ass Guitar Hero games. Seriously WTF do people see in that crap?!

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Filed Under: E3 2008, E3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Halo Wars, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, LEGO Batman, Spore, LittleBigPlanet
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