Nazeeh’s Little Corner on the Web

Isn’t is sad and annoying when good games just don’t get the attention they deserve? This is something I have noticed quite a few times. Games that are pretty well done, and in some cases have very cool and innovative ideas, just simply die away. Some refer to them as “Sleeper Hits”. It seems to happen quite often actually. Here’s my list of games I thought were really cool and should have been successful, but somehow they just died away…

Deathrow (Original Xbox)

This was the first game I experienced that fits in that category. Deathrow was very well done. The game got a 9/10 review from teamxbox.com. It was a fast paced futuristic sports title with a very aggressive play style. It played on System Link (when not many games other than Halo supported that), had 4 player split screen and pretty damn good graphics. I was the only guy amongst my friends that bought that game. Never met someone that actually knew it let along had it… just died away.

The Outfit (Xbox 360)

Here’s another one of my favorite games that just died away very silently. The Outfit is a 3rd person, squad based RTS/shooter hybrid. I personally haven’t played a game like it before. It mixed regular shoot’em up style with Real Time Strategy concepts. You accumulate points and you can spend them on calling in vehicles, weapons, turrets, etc to the battlefield and you place them where you want. Excellent game, not so amazing graphics though, but still quite enjoyable. Again…died a horrible silent death…

Shadowrun (Xbox 360)

Ah… one of my super favorites: Shadowrun. A game that was prosecuted, trialed and sentenced to death before it even came out. Shadowrun was just a combination of bad decisions that clouded an astounding game underneath. First bad decision was using the Shadowrun license as basis for the game. I personally know nothing about the Shadowrun RPG world. But when fans of that RPG knew that their favorite game was butchered into a first person shooter, they instantly hated it for everything it could possibly be and never gave it a chance.

The second bad decision, which I didn’t care at all about, was the exclusion of any single player campaign for the game. I don’t play single player games, so I didn’t even notice there wasn’t one. But lots of people feel ripped off when a multiplayer only game costs $59.99. Again, killed it before it came out.

The game was the first cross platform title that allowed you to play vs PC gamers! Awesome idea, except it required Windows Vista to play. The game came out around the time Vista launched, so not many people had Vista to start with, and with drivers still in beta, most serious gamers were still on Windows XP anyway.

Game did not have the best graphics to be honest. They worked well, but with stuff like Gears of War floating around, it just paled in comparison. Not a bad decision per se, but probably not enough time to do better.

In the end though, those that stuck through all those bad decision were presented by one of the finest first person shooter in a long long time. Extremely well thought out, maps are awesome, races are very good, abilities are insanely balanced and fun. The game play mechanic is one that took a genre that is still somewhat stuck in the Doom days and enhanced on it in many ways.

Shadowrun will forever be one of those excellent games that I am very happy to have experienced. FPS games should take a few notes from this excellent title. R.I.P Shadowrun… you will not be forgotten.

Universe at War: Earth Assault (Xbox 360)

Now, this title just came out, so it’s a bit early to call it dead, but all indications so far point that way. Universe at War is a SCI-FI based RTS game that is cross platform (PC vs Xbox 360). RTS in general is one genre that is usually dismissed when it’s on a console. I will agree with everyone that it is a genre that is more suited on the PC due to mouse/keyboard. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work on the console.

UAW was preceded by titles such as Battle for Middleearth II and Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Both games made by EA. Those games were the first to bring a good and well thought-out RTS experience on the Xbox 360. But for unknown reasons, both games received zero support from EA and pretty much were left to die in their own stench of bugs and imbalance. Something you just don’t do with an RTS.

UAW brings an enhanced control scheme that is simply astounding. It is very easy to pick up and play and controls extremely well. I start to forget I am on a console after a while. The game has 3 races that play very differently and each has a huge arsenal of units and weapons that make for lots of strategies.

I don’t know… while this game is not officially dead, I am just not seeing a bright future. Looking for online games returns maybe one game. It has a world conquer mode that is quite sweet, but there are no players to fight against :( Come April 8th though, the patch to enable cross-platform play will be released. So I am hoping this will bring more people. We’ll see though…

Parting words…

So yeah… I find it sad and annoying when a great game just fades away and dies a horrible lonely death. I feel bad for the dev teams that spent months upon months working on such titles. I mean, if you release a crappy game, then you deserve for it to die. But all those game in my opinion were really good! Quite polished and very obvious that people put their hearts and souls into them. Most of them died due to bad or non-existent marketing. So they never got a chance to succeed in the first place.

Oh well… I am sure there are numerous business reasons with statistics to back them up that were used to justify their deaths. What do you guys think? Which of your favorite games were “sleeper hits”?