Dork Age/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* 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 Station]] 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.

* ''[[King of Fighters]]'' fans generally look at the period of time Eolith was handling the games (KOF 2001 and 2002) as a Dork Age. The way 2001 plays is in general more glitchy and gimmicky than any other incarnation of the series, and is in general a mess. The music for these games has been compared to the sounds of robots farting among other things and Eolith introduced a few of their own character designs. When SNK [[Back From the Dead|reclaimed the wheel]] as SNK Playmore, among the first things they did was to [[Retcon|wipe several elements from 2001 right out of the canon]], including a whole character (also a blatant [[Captain Ersatz]] of [[Akira|Tetsuo]]) and one [[Killed Off for Real|death]].

* ''[[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.

* The [[Sega Saturn]] period was the dark ages for Sega in the West, along with the late [[Sega Genesis|Genesis era]]. In Japan it is a well-known and loved console but in the West it is considered a failure due to poor marketing, a lack of [[No Export for You|exports]], no ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' main games, and fierce competition. The [[Sega Dreamcast]] out shined the Saturn, but in the end it faded too in the West.. In Japan it went on until around 2007.

** 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]].

* 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.''

* 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.

* There was a time where, to save on bandwidth costs, the site for hosting custom content for ''[[Garry's Mod]]'' forced its users to download addons via torrents rather than getting them directly off the site. It lasted for about two months.