Dork Age/Video Games: Difference between revisions

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* [[Nintendo]] fans try not to remember the [[Virtual Boy]], an allegedly portable clunker of a gaming platform that was supposed to deliver the cutting edge of 3-D virtual reality gameplay but instead gave us eye strain, neck strain, and hideous graphics in only two colors: Red and black. To add insult to injury, damn few of the games put out for it (there were less than 20 in all) made any use of 3-D and could just as easily have been produced for a better gaming platform. Gumpei Yokoi, the victim of executive meddling, ended up [[Kicked Upstairs]] before quitting Nintendo (the only game for the system that gets a pass is ''Virtual Boy Wario Land'', which managed to be genuinely fun despite the headache-inducing graphics).

* The early [[Nintendo 64]] era was something of a [[Dork Age]] for Nintendo. The overly long development of the N64 caused some Super NES gamers to jump ship to [[PlayStation]], and the decision to use expensive proprietary cartridges instead of discs caused developers to jump ship, too (most infamously [[Square Soft]], whose ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series was a Nintendo mainstay until ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]''). While Nintendo's first-party games on the N64 were as awesome as ever, there simply weren't enough of them to go around. The system launched with ''two'' games total, and it only had about one new release a month. So if you were tired of playing ''[[Super Mario 64]]'' for the umpteenth time, your choices in early 1997 were ''[[Pilotwings]]'' and ''Cruis'n USA''. That was pretty much it. The Nintendo 64 gained something of a reputation for releasing three unique and groundbreaking games a year, and absolutely nothing else.

** This wasn't helped by Nintendo's historic lack of support for third parties; one big selling point of the N64 hardware was custom microcode, but Nintendo never released information on how to use it, fearing it would be copied by their rivals. Among other groin-punches, they also patented using the N64 pad's C-buttons to control an in-game camera, meaning every non-Nintendo game had a shitty camera system, and continued in their usual habit of meddling with in-game content to be more 'family friendly'; for example, forcing ''[[Perfect Dark]]'s'' 'Adrenaline Pills' to become 'Combat Boosts', and ''[[Duke Nukem]]'''s steroids powerup to become 'Vitamin X'.

* ''[[Twisted Metal]] 3'' and ''4'' were developed by 989 Studios rather than series' original developers, Singletrac. When the former staff members of Singletrac formed Incognito to develop the newer games in the franchise, it elected to wipe the events of those two titles from continuity.

* While it is true ''[[Warcraft]]'' fans [[Unpleasable Fanbase|are quick to hate]] almost any [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|new development]], the Burning Crusade's plot deserves a mention for the sheer amount of frustrating and blatant [[Retcon|retconning]] and character changes.

* In the late 1990s, [[Konami]] farmed out the development of the ''[[Contra]]'' series to Hungarian developer Appaloosa, resulting in the creation of the series' two [[PlayStation]] installments ''Contra: Legacy of War'' (which also saw release on the [[Sega Saturn]]) in 1996, and ''C: The Contra Adventure'' in 1998. Both games were critically panned when they came out and Konami even canceled plans to localize the first of the two titles in Japan after the negative reception it received, which makes one wonder why they would give Appaloosa a second chance.

** Made all the worse by the fact that ''Legacy of War'' was relying on a 3D glasses gimmick for sales. We're talking '50s B-Movie red/blue cardboard glasses here. Oh, and massively derailing existing characters and canon, considering these followed on from ''Contra: Hard Corps'', one of the more story-heavy ''Contra'' games, it did not go well.

* ''[[Backyard Sports]]'', with the games from 2006 onward. There have been numerous character changes and [[Brother Chuck|removed characters]], and the announcers are incredibly boring.

** To give ''2002'' some credit, it's still one of the most played versions in the series competitively, and even after the release of ''2002: Unlimited Match'' you'll still see some original ''02'' tournies being played. Now, ''2001'' on the other hand? Uh...

* ''[[Street Fighter]]'' actually inverted this. When the ''[[Street Fighter III]]'' series came out, many people were turned off by all the changes and many dropped the series altogether. As time has passed however, many looked back and were able to view the ''SF III'' series, specifically the [[Capcom Sequel Stagnation|third iteration]] ''3rd Strike'', [[Vindicated by History|much more favorably]].

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' is widely considered the weakest of the franchise, centering mostly around a [[Replacement Scrappy]] and featuring [[Gainax Ending|an ending that had a Cthulhu-like effect on most gamers' sanity]]. Whether or not it came perilously close to killing off the entire franchise, however, is debatable given that the game was still a critical and commercial success. The widespread belief that Hideo Kojima made it bad on purpose because he wanted to quit making games is also perpetuated by MGS2's [[Broken Base]] - Hideo has repeatedly insisted on stepping down as director, only to return time and again of his own volition to and turn out a spectacular effort like ''[[Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker]]''.

** A non-canonical example could be the game, Metal Gear 2: Snake's Revenge, an American follow-up to the original [[Metal Gear]] game for the NES. The game not only completely changed Snake's character and his relationship to the franchise but also took the game that introduced the concept of *stealth* gameplay and turned it into a generic shoot-em-up.

** SEGA's dark age as a whole really began with the [[Other Sega Systems|Sega 32X]]. While the Sega CD could be considered just as bad, it's more of an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] nowadays due to a few gems ([[Sonic CD]], Snatcher, [[Lunar]]) among massive amounts of shovelware, but the 32X really kicked off Sega's mismanagment in the west. Then the Saturn's surprise launch came along with [[Vaporware|Sonic Xtreme]] stuck in [[Development Hell]], and then Sega hired [[The Millstone|Bernie Stolar]]...yeah, things didn't really go well for them at all until they went third-party, considering the Dreamcast was [[Too Good to Last]].

* While ''Warhammer40000''-based games made by Relic Entertainment (''Dawn of War 1 & 2, Space Marine,'' etc.) have been generally well-received, the ''[[Dawn of War]]'' expansion that was farmed out to Iron Lore has received nothing but rancor. Canonically, the storyline of the previous expansion was a rousing success for the Spess Muhreens, while the campaign of the [[Obvious Beta]] that was ''Soulstorm'' is considered an [[Old Shame|embarrassing defeat that is spoken of only with great reluctance.]]

* The ''[[Tony Hawks Pro Skater]]'' franchise fell into one hard with its final two games, ''RIDE'' and ''SHRED'', which attempted to revive the franchise by using a skateboard-shaped motion controller to simulate boarding movement. This failed to address any of the problems the series had been going through, and introduced several new ones. Both games failed as a result, and the ''Hawk'' franchise appears to be [[Franchise Killer|down for the count for good]].

** About to be revived by ''Tony Hawk Pro Skater HD.''

* There are ten years between Black Isle's ''[[Fallout 2]]'' and Bethesda Softworks' ''[[Fallout 3]]''. There are two ''Fallout'' games between them--Microforte's ''Fallout Tactics'' and Interplay's [[In Name Only]] ''Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.'' ''Tactics'' was a competent game that had severe issues with staying within the established continuity (in a world where World War III was brought on by a crippling energy crisis, many bases of have full drums of fuel just lying around more than a hundred years later, etc.); the same cannot be said of ''Brotherhood.'' Bethesda has proclaimed ''Tactics'' to [[Broad Strokes]] canon, while ''Brotherhood'' is full-on [[Canon Discontinuity]].

* The ''[[Need for Speed]]'' franchise had one. While [[Fan Dumb|some fans]] claim the entire ''Underground'' era to be [[Fanon Discontinuity]], most generally point to ''Carbon'' in 2006 as the beginning of the series' downward slide (especially coming on the heels of ''Most Wanted'', generally regarded as one of the series' high points), and ''ProStreet'' and ''Undercover'' in the ensuing years as the nadir of ''NFS''' dork age. In any event, it ended with the release of the very well-received ''Shift'' in 2009 and ''Hot Pursuit'' in 2010, which brought the series back to its focus on exotic cars and away from the burned-out "tuner" culture.

* The ''[[Valis]]'' series had lain dormant since the early 1990s, until its reputation was stained in 2006 by a series of [[H-game|H-Games]] titled ''Valis X'', which Telenet Japan published in a desperate and failed attempt to avoid bankruptcy.

* If E3 2012 has shown us anything so far, it's that the industry is still in the growing pains of the Dork Age. All the usual buzzwords are being bandied about: grim, gritty, edgy, and--worst of all--"realistic."

 

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