It's a depressing truth of modern games development that strikingly good, original games often sell very badly. Partly that's a question of mean-minded publicity - I had to catch a bus to Neptune to lay eyes on an advert for Sega's sorely under-appreciated Binary Domain, for instance. Timing can be a factor, too, as the excellent DmC: Devil May Cry's probably going to discover next week.
But I suspect there's also a problem of consumer hypocrisy to reckon with. Oh, you'll say you're hell-bent on buying the latest, delicately shaded, engagingly abstract new IP de jour. You'll talk the hindlegs off any number of donkeys about how eager you are to lay hands on unconventional properties. But much as the smell of hot grease tends to lure me away from my superfoods lunch, so the sight of something uncomplicatedly lowbrow flashing a bit of thigh at CEX has a way of disabling arty aspirations. Here are some extra-smelly specimens to add to your pile of shame. Not all of them are terrible, but you probably don't want to be caught clutching a copy.
1. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
A toxic Wild Western shooter that's so hammy you could clamp a burger bap around the disc and slap it into a MacDonalds box. The eternally daft Techland conjures up a North American frontier that's one part indestructible crate to one part on-rails AI henchman to one part jowly, hard-breathing chunk of exposition. The highlights are probably the "breach" sequences, which see the McCall brothers blowing cowboys from their seats in slow motion, and the high noon duels, in which you keep one hand predatorily poised near your arsecheek till the clock strikes the hour.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood review
2. Dante's Inferno
A solid action game that just happens to be the most breathtakingly flagrant rip-off ever torn from the billowing coat-tails of a passing bandwagon. Visceral's debut brawler makes no bones of its borrowings from the God of War franchise, seeking instead to bury that odour of familiarity beneath high octane allegorical stylings and heaps of bustling, bursting cleavage. There are some pleasantly outrageous boss fights in store, though the concluding punch-up with Lucifer is a bit of a damp squib.
3. Dead Island
Another, more infamous Techland effort, which makes up in anecdote-friendly weirdness what it lacks in polish. I've not had a chance to play this one at length - mainly thanks to Mike, whose obscenely levelled character ran me over with a pick-up truck the second I entered his gameworld. Later, we fought a protracted fight with an extra-tough zombie which boiled down to endless kicking and throwing of boxes. Sort of like a round of Streets of Rage gone mad. Subsequently, I drove an SUV into a jacuzzi.
13 comments so far...
Clanger67 on 11 Jan '13 said:
Must say i really quite enjoyed Dead Island and am quite looking forward to Riptide.Must say i didn't go into it with massive expectations.And while the story isn't really that mind bending think it looks pretty good despite quite a few bugs.Otherwise quite good for a bit of mindless zombie bashing and quite tactical with weapon degradation and how it gets harder.Quite a lot put me in the mind of Dead Rising except you have a lot more freedom about where you can go and no time limit.Also when you get the vehicles is quite good fun.
Will admit though i haven't tried any of the others except Doom 3 on the pc when it first came out and the demo for Sniper Elite.Was going to get Doom 3 at some point when i first heard word of it but after the review and wondering if it would stand the test of time being a typical id corriodor shooter,have changed my mind unless i can get it mega cheap.
GossipHound on 11 Jan '13 said:
Dead Island for me as well - great fun in co-op. Put a lot of time in it so was devastated when my save file got corrupted and I lost my level 48 character and plague samurai sword. Haven't been back since
OXM ETboy on 11 Jan '13 said:
If only I'd played the Way of the Samurai games on Xbox 360, I'd probably "recommend" one of those here too. The PS2 originals were terrifying timesinks, given a taste for samurai B-movies.
Baryonyx on 11 Jan '13 said:
Dead Island and Dante's Inferno were great games. Not perfect, but refreshingly characterful in an increasingly grey gaming landscape. Hunted was also worth playing too.
RickyBlaze on 11 Jan '13 said:
I think I would have loved Dead Island. I was about half way through adn really enjoying it when the infamous save file corrupt kicked in.
I have never forgiven the makers of this game for taking months to fix it, by which point I had given up and sold it on...
Actually, did that save corruption ever get fixed?
Metalrodent on 11 Jan '13 said:
I quite liked Fracture, its pretty old now and wasn't amazing when it came out. But there was some great fun to be had by crushing a man with the ceiling and various other dirt warping based shenanigans
Grummy on 11 Jan '13 said:
Really is one to add to this list.
It's about as badly made a game as you'll find, no particular glitches, but it would barely pass as decent by last gen standards of visuals and sound. Also, the length of the game is wholly dependent on how long you play it. It thrives on its replayability and multiple choice storylines, which really only amount to the same 4 or 5 stories slightly different. I think I remember reading that the Bioware staff were all playing it shortly before making ME3. Despite that though, for some reason, it's just really really nice to play. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
delmariachi on 12 Jan '13 said:
Dead Island and Dantes Inferno were pretty good,,
Dead Island took a while but rewarded in the end, albeit after a lot of fetch and carry quests.. Dantes Inferno was actually quite enjoyable, although the end boss was a bit of a let down down and the trials were a pain, my missus thought I was possessed by a drunken sailor, the amount of cussing I was aiming at it.. Still all in all, if ya find them cheap, give em a go..
Bonescrubs on 12 Jan '13 said:
Have Dead Island, played a bit of it and really enjoyed it despite it's slightly rough appearance. Definitely going back to it. Tried the COJ: Bound by Blood demo. Thought it was OK, though I will probably wait for Gunslinger now. As an FPS fan Doom 3 is a no-brainer, just haven't got round to buying it yet.
Kinect Star Wars? Bought it for the kids, they played it for like half an hour, got bored and went back to their Lego games. I traded it in a few days later, and they've never asked to play it again, let alone noticed it's gone. That was seven months ago...
comabob on 12 Jan '13 said:
I really dont get the hate for Bound In Blood - it was awesome.
As far as my guilty pleasures go - Conan, Splatterhouse, Saboteur and BOTH Kane N Lynch games are some of mine.
Have to agree on Dantes Inferno and Dead Island - both really good games.
FishyGinger on 14 Jan '13 said:
I've not played any of these (played doom 3 on pc though). Is that a good or bad thing?
SidTheSloth on 14 Jan '13 said:
>Sniff<
I lament the exclusion of Dynasty Warriors...
And Samurai Warriors... 
And Warriors Orochi... 
(And Warriors: Legends Of Troy)...* 
>sniff<
Do Viva Pinata/Alpha Protocol count?
We're quite Pinata friendly around here but i've had more than one friend in the real world raise an eyebrow at its colourful existence on the shelf.
I've heard great things about Rise of the Argonauts & Viking too...?
*The games i single handedly hold responsible for the sheer number of controllers i've gone through this gen!
comabob on 14 Jan '13 said:
Viking was brilliant, ROTA is good but has its issues - Alpha Protocol was highly under appreciated - good shouts sid!