Forgotten Mid Games

[dropsmegamega]

Up to PS2 era we had thousands of games, but a lot of these were just mediocre or downright terrible and ended up completely forgotten. Even nowadays from time to time we find suspicious games whose very existence in physical form is surreal, or maybe even a threat...? Truly my memory kinda sucks so even though I loved to buy random pirate games that were being conveniently sold on the corner of my street as kid I don't remember much, that shows how forgettable they were I guess... I also recall in gaming magazines it was so funny to see then bashing these games in the reviews. Lot of times you could see how unappealing they are in the very cover art, let alone in-game graphics. Do you have any memories of games like that? Maybe even funny reviews to share?

I'll leave this beautiful cover art and a review related to said series.

 

[Yousef]

Hurts me to say this but many anime arena fighters fall under this. As well as the many generic sandbox games and military shooters. I’d say a lot of kid movie tie-ins. There was a Stewart little game I played as a kid that was decently ok.

 

[Cu-Neo]

I remember that I had a lot of PS2 bootlegs one of them was "Mario collection" and it was a bad snes emulator inside a PS2 disc. And I remember that one of my friends had a Charlie and the Chocolate factory (the burton version) game and the art style was something.............

 

[DunkeyKong]

Medal of Honor Underground, enough said

 

[AtlasM]

Batman & Robin PS1

 

[Hikari.EXE]

Altered Beast for the PS2 is peak mid gaming, but I enjoy it a lot. This game falls in the category of "Great concept, terrible execution" The game was from an era where no one knew how to make 3D combat, I.E. before Devil May Cry, so it's clunky as hell, but it still has a lot of charm, many of the transformations have these beautifull FMVs of the character contorting and turning into the animal of the transformation, and then you move around with the tranformation... And it sucks, the animations are stiff as fuck and the combat floaty. But I still enjoy it from a purely conceptual level, we don't have many games with complete character transformation and this is one of the very few that makes it LOOK good, it just dosen't PLAY good.

 

[Clippy]

Bujingai is that kind of game for me. Can't remember the last time I saw anyone talking about it but it's forgotten for a reason. You can tell there's a decent Devil May Cry clone somewhere in there but it's buried beneath a wonky camera and infuriating platforming.

 

[Yousef]

Bujingai is that kind of game for me. Can't remember the last time I saw anyone talking about it but it's forgotten for a reason. You can tell there's a decent Devil May Cry clone somewhere in there but it's buried beneath a wonky camera and infuriating platforming.
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This is on my 2025 to-play list actually. Alongside NeonBreaker, Samurai Western and a bunch of others.

Post automatically merged: Dec 30, 2024

Altered Beast for the PS2 is peak mid gaming, but I enjoy it a lot. This game falls in the category of "Great concept, terrible execution" The game was from an era where no one knew how to make 3D combat, I.E. before Devil May Cry, so it's clunky as hell, but it still has a lot of charm, many of the transformations have these beautifull FMVs of the character contorting and turning into the animal of the transformation, and then you move around with the tranformation... And it sucks, the animations are stiff as fuck and the combat floaty. But I still enjoy it from a purely conceptual level, we don't have many games with complete character transformation and this is one of the very few that makes it LOOK good, it just dosen't PLAY good.
View attachment 7280

Playing this currently. It’s really fun. Kinda like a more mature Ben 10.

 

[MrFabulous]

The worst kind of mid genre for a long time was definitely superhero games. These had all the same problems as movie tie in games (and often did tie into a new movie release) but would also be doubly disappointing if you were a comic book fan, because this might be the only time you ever see a favorite character adapted into a video game and it's for some mediocre slop (eg. Marvel Nemesis).

There was the occasional good title in there (The Punisher on PS2, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction) but overall I don't think the streak of bad/unsuccessful games was broken until the Arkham Asylum game came out.

Interestingly the talk of Bujingai and DMC clones reminded me of the PS2 Ghost Rider tie-in game

Which isn't too bad but definitely mid, at the time the rumor was that they actually licensed the DMC engine from Capcom directly - and I believe that because otherwise it's a blatant carbon copy (like GoW).

 

[Bonkers225]

 

[RetroShmetro]

Mortal Kombat isn't forgotten but the ps2 games are awfully mid, just like the franchise tbh

 

[Yousef]

Mortal Kombat isn't forgotten but the ps2 games are awfully mid, just like the franchise tbh

So true (saying this as someone who still kinda likes it)

 

[Bakuma1997]

Many of them, basically if it had this logo, expect a blander than flour experience
View attachment 1735580694657.webp

 

[Gentlemanvaultboy]

E.O.E, my love. My friend introduced me to it, and I was so enraptured I asked him to let me have it. It wasn't difficult to convince him. If I'd been older, I might have thought a little harder about that.

 

[Hikari.EXE]

E.O.E, my love. My friend introduced me to it, and I was so enraptured I asked him to let me have it. It wasn't difficult to convince him. If I'd been older, I might have thought a little harder about that.
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Holy shit this looks amazing... How have I never heard of this game.

 

[BigTony]

Bujingai is that kind of game for me. Can't remember the last time I saw anyone talking about it but it's forgotten for a reason. You can tell there's a decent Devil May Cry clone somewhere in there but it's buried beneath a wonky camera and infuriating platforming.
View attachment 7287

I've heard of this game all I know about it is that it stars Japanese rockstar and real life vampire Gackt

Post automatically merged: Dec 30, 2024

Final Fight Streetwise is really cool if Capcom gave the devs more time it would have been a classic, as is its still a fun game but frustratingly unpolished.

 

[stealthRUSH]

Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 and Dragon Ball GT: Final Bout come to mind. I spent close to a hundred bucks on an action-replay and import version of DBZUB22 back in '96. I tried to give it multiple chances, printed out the move-set from GameFAQs but in the end the gameplay was so stiff, I had some "fun" with it but not for long. You can throw DBGT:FB (in '97) in this category, I remember clunky controls & movement. One thing I did like was when you both performed your fireball they clashed, oh and fighting against Super Baby. I only played a few minutes of Shin Butoden and Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu, with little desire to return.

 

[Tounushi]

Hurts me to say this but many anime arena fighters fall under this. As well as the many generic sandbox games and military shooters. I’d say a lot of kid movie tie-ins. There was a Stewart little game I played as a kid that was decently ok.

What even happened to western movie tie-ins as a genre? Nowadays they're additional pieces of the franchise, rather than a gamified retelling of a movie's story. Can't think of anything outside of Lego games that do this today.

 

[ATenderLad]

What even happened to western movie tie-ins as a genre? Nowadays they're additional pieces of the franchise, rather than a gamified retelling of a movie's story. Can't think of anything outside of Lego games that do this today.

The logistics of labor, games take so much longer to produce now they could never capitalize on the success of a film while it was still in theaters.

 

[Tounushi]

The logistics of labor, games take so much longer to produce now they could never capitalize on the success of a film while it was still in theaters.

So either come up with a crap game, a very limited-scope game, and/or start production before even the first shots of the movie are taken.

 

[Hikari.EXE]

The logistics of labor, games take so much longer to produce now they could never capitalize on the success of a film while it was still in theaters.

So either come up with a crap game, a very limited-scope game, and/or start production before even the first shots of the movie are taken.

Counter Point: Mad Max (PS4)
It's actually good!

 

[WolfOfPersia]

does anyone else remember these games?? not bad not good, just mediocre af honestly

 

[Tounushi]

Counter Point: Mad Max (PS4)
It's actually good!

Not a movie tie-in as in it retelling the story of a movie. It is somewhat of a prequel to Fury Road, but otherwise its own thing.
"Do you even know how old you are?"

 

[termite-egg-salad]

“Super Alfred Chicken”, a really middle of the road platformer that was released on the SNES and then had a 3D sequel on the PSX. Nothing is super interesting about it. At all. The music is annoying, you die in one hit, (and it is very easy to get hit) the puzzles are boring. That’s pretty much it. There’s just no reason to play it.

 

[BigTony]

View attachment 7493View attachment 7495
does anyone else remember these games?? not bad not good, just mediocre af honestly

I played the pc version of nightfire i think it gets more hate than it deserves but its definitely not great instead of just porting the game to pc they recreated it in GoldSource they had cut out all the driving sections and made the stealth even worse than the ps2 version. apparently the online was pretty good there's still people running servers for it.