Rise Of Busted Motions Controls [Rise of Nightmares]
Microsoft’s aborted attempt to introduce motion controls to their console was mostly easy to ignore. The Kinect, as reported by countless players, barely functioned — it was like a little camera that detected your movement, theoretically allowing players to control their Xbox 360 games by jumping, ducking, running in place, posing, or whatever random gesticulations developers wanted to program. Heavy emphasis on theoretically.
And there’s one game I always wanted to play that was forever ruined by these terrible, awful, no-good, barely functional motion controls. Rise of Nightmares is a kooky horror-FPS where you explore an evil castle and fight swarms of bizarre undead creatures. The game looks like an absolute riot, but earned abysmal review scores due to the 100% Kinect integration.
If Rise of Nightmares was made into a simple Xbox 360 game with normal FPS controls like Condemned, I think it would be a cult classic. Instead, the game is stuck in the curiosity rubbish bin. Most likely, this game wouldn’t even exist if not for the Kinect integration — so it was totally screwed from the beginning.
Mobile Bases Make Everything Worse [Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight]
Command & Conquer 4 is the single biggest departure in the series history… and we’re including the mobile game. Its all in the new base mechanics. Namely, there are no bases. Instead, you pick from one of three different types of Crawler — giant mobile fortresses that fight and deploy units.
On the surface, it doesn’t sound like a terrible idea. More recent games like Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak took the concept of giant mobile bases in an RTS and made it work perfectly. So, why is C&C4 rated overwhelmingly negative on Steam?
The mobile base idea might make sense in multiplayer when you can work with friends, but for singleplayer the entire concept is busted beyond belief. Each base generates units, and has a painfully small population so you can only build a few helpers at a time. You’re always outnumbered, and everyone respawns — and multiplayer unlocks are tied to singleplayer progression, so it isn’t even an optional mode. The Tiberium Twilight is borderline unplayable where the other games in the series are fan-favorites. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Check out more gimmicks from the Hall of Fail on the next page.
