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).
* Nintendo fans also have the [[The Legend of Zelda CDI Games|Zelda CD-i games]] to forget about, due to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mHw5g55oC4 this] and general unplayablity. Well, it hasn't been forgotten by YouTube, by way of [[So Bad It's Good]]-ness and by extension, [[Youtube Poop]]. ''[[Hotel Mario]]'' had the same case as well.
* 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 [[Play StationPlayStation]], 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'.
* The ''[[Silent Hill]]'' franchise is notorious for its horribly [[Broken Base]], but most fans will agree that the series peaked with ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'', and the existence of a franchise [[Dork Age]] is nearly-unanimous. The general summation of this is a reverence for "Team Silent" and a mistrust of the games in which this development team was not involved. The general consensus is that ''[[Silent Hill 4|Silent Hill 4: The Room]]'' is where the slide began, however, even though it was the last of the "Team Silent" entries. The recent ''[[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]'' has broken the fanbase further, between those convinced that the series remains mired in suck, and those who believe this new entry was fresh and compelling enough to possibly signal a revival of the franchise.
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* The ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]'' series entered a [[Dork Age]] with the games starring Larry Lovage (''Magna Cum Laude'' and ''Box Office Bust'').
** Worth noting that Al Lowe, the series' creator, isn't involved with either of them. Judging by his site, he'd be more than happy to give them advice, and is also more than happy he wasn't involved when the games bombed.
* 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 [[Play StationPlayStation]] 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.
*** It should be noted that both games are explicitly [[Canon Discontinuity|exiled from the Contra canon]].
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* ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War|Deus Ex Invisible War]]'' was Warren Spector's entry into a Dork Age, and immediately lost his accumulated industry and fan respect. He's managed to bounce back some, which is better than other developer/producers have been able to do (anyone remember [[Daikatana|John Romero]]?) but still hasn't regained his former stature. Because of lingering rancor, ''[[Thief]] 3'' received less fair critical reviews than it deserved, and Spector hasn't been invited to return for ''Thief 4'', currently in pre-production.
** He may have found a rehabilitation of his image in the unlikely vessel of a [[Epic Mickey|Mickey Mouse game]], though its mixed reception (and Spector's claims that negative reviewers "misunderstood" the game) didn't make for the reputation resurrection that was hoped for.
* ''[[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.
* [[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'s history from November 2005 to January 2007 might be this with the releases of ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'', ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' and the [[Porting Disaster|GBA port]] of the original [[Sonic the Hedgehog (video game)|Sonic]] game. Shadow's game was a spin-off that aimed for the [[Darker and Edgier]] crowd, with [[So Bad It's Good]] results. ''Sonic '06'' was hyped to be the Blue Blur's big comeback, but instead turned out to be a [[Obvious Beta|glitchy mess]] topped off with yet another [[Narm|unintentionally hilarious]] and convoluted storyline. [[Canon Discontinuity|Thankfully, the game's events are not part of Sonic canon and we never have to speak of it again]].
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** 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.]]
* Sony had a little dork age in the mid-late 2000s, though they've appeared to have grown out of it recently. It started with the [[PSP]], which, while being a success, never lived up to its expectations and was massively trounced by the inferior-seeming [[Nintendo DS]]. Then came the [[PlayStation 3]]'s launch at [[Memetic Mutation|five hundred and ninety nine U.S. dollars]], its strange [[Dada Ad|Dada Ads]], a controller that lacked rumble functionality, and limited exclusive games (most which turned out to be mediocre, anyway). It got so bad that Sony actually lost all its profits from the [[Play StationPlayStation]] and [[Play StationPlayStation 2]]'s success. The [[PlayStation 3]] eventually tossed away its growing pains around 2008 and is now finally catching up to the [[Wii]] and Xbox360's sales -- and with the [[Play StationPlayStation 2]] '''still selling after eleven years on the market''', Sony could finally regain trust.
* 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.''