During this decade, a lot of great games managed to come out. During the same period, there were many of them considered controversial. There are several reasons explaining this: an unimportant start with a bunch of bugs, an unsuccessful release date, market oversaturation, and so on. It also happens that a project is considered bad because of one weak aspect, almost completely ignoring its positive aspects.
Similar games are united by a similar fate: many of them failed miserably in sales, and some received mixed (or even negative) opinions from the press and players. What distinguishes them from frankly failed games is that, over time, they gain cult status and recognition among fans. But outside of their (albeit large) fan base, these projects rarely make it to the various tops.
We decided to recall such games over the past ten years, which for various reasons, have not won their well-deserved success and recognition.
Spec Ops: The Line (2012)
Spec Ops: The Line was developed by the German studio Yager at the beginning of 2007, but the game was released only in 2012 – after a series of transfers. The idea of setting Dubai abandoned due to sandstorms was with them almost from the very beginning, and during development, the authors were largely inspired by the novel “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad and the military drama “Apocalypse Now” by Francis Coppola.
Like the novel, the game showed the horrors of human survival on the edge of his abilities and how much he can change if he gives free rein to his primal instincts. In terms of gameplay, Spec Ops: The Line did not offer anything new, so the result was a standard military shooter with shelters, which everyone was pretty tired of even then. But Spec Ops: The Line was remembered primarily not for its gameplay but for its detailed demonstration of the horrors of war in its purest form, which is rare even in films, let alone games.
Spec Ops: The Line is a rare example of a game where you don’t have a huge boss waiting for you at the end of the last level, and you end up being the main antagonist yourself. And this, perhaps, is her main merit. When it doesn’t try to be a game with obvious limitations, Spec Ops: The Line is at its best.
Despite the commercial failure, the project has gained a cult status: in narrow circles, it is called almost one of the best games of the last generation, and it is also often mentioned in discussions about how to correctly show the war and its irreversible consequences.
Remember Me (2013)
A game titled Adrift by Dontnod Entertainment was originally supposed to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive. But after a brief lull in 2011, it was canceled. As planned by the developers, it was an action in the cyberpunk genre, which took place in Paris in 2084, and the key theme was the possession of other people’s memories. Remember Me also promoted the idea of using other people’s memories.
In the game’s universe, human memory has become a common commodity that can be bought or sold, and companies have gained almost complete power over society. Thanks to this demand, memory hunters also appeared – specially trained people who are able to influence people’s thoughts and even change them. The heroine Nilin is one of these hunters, and she just knows how to change memories.
The mechanics are very interesting: in a kind of demoscene that can be wound back and forth, you need to change several events in such a way that a person’s memory changes. Sometimes this even leads to terrible consequences – a person’s personality almost completely changes. The only pity is that this mechanic was used very rarely in the game.
Despite mixed overviews from critics, Remember Me was not a complete commercial failure and managed to sell a million copies – it even made it to Capcom’s list of “platinum titles.” But this was still not enough for Dontnod, and the studio was on the verge of bankruptcy for a long time. The situation improved after the release of the episodic adventure Life is Strange, in which the developers deepened their idea of manipulating the future – this time by rewinding time.
Binary Domain (2012)
Binary Domain is the debut project of the Japanese studio Ryu Ga Gotoku, which subsequently took up the development of all the main parts of the Yakuza. Binary Domain is set in 2080 Tokyo. Global warming has reached its limit, which has led to massive flooding of entire continents, making most of the planet unsuitable for normal life.
Robots, due to the cheapness of production, have become the main labor force. Under the new laws, corporations are prohibited from creating human-like robots, but such experiments have been carried out in secret for a long time, and many of the results of the experiments ended up in an underground environment – such creatures began to be called “empty children.” With Bet22, the best online casino, get access to great sports, bonuses, and hundreds of sports and events to bet on.
This “empty children” case reached the summit of a critical point when one of the headquarters of the American company “Bergen” was attacked by one of these robots. The investigation of the incident was transferred to the Rusty Brigade detachment – it is from this event that the long adventure of the detachment begins.
Binary Domain is not very different from other third-person shooters, but it still has its own interesting mechanics. For example, voice control – with it, you can give orders to your partners without being distracted by a special menu during the battle. The system only recognizes specific words and does work in most cases, but it lacks depth and tactical options. This also includes the “system of consequences,” on the basis of which the relationship of the hero with the party members is built.
