Topic: Games that were BAD, but now they're GOOD?

Howdy y'all. Recently, a friend who's moving away gave me his copies of Rainbow Six Siege and The Division. I've been playing R6S on PC, so I know that's good, but The Division I didn't want at all, remembering that it had a poor launch and wasn't anything I was interested in. Taking another look at it, I see it's recently been updated into something that many YouTubers at least are recommending.

So now I'm wondering, after all the patches and after all the hype/hate has died down, have you played any overlooked games that you think are worth a second chance?

@smelly_jr The games as a service model will throw this up all the time. Its the nature of the beast. Sfv, driveclub, gt sport, destiny, ff15 they are all games off the top of my head which were better 9 months down the line than at release.

Im approaching this thread from a different angle and games I put down pretty quickly but then picked up again and loved.

BadLand - I thought it was too easy. Boy was I wrong.

Final Fantasy 12 - Absolutely hated this originally but found its charms on my second 100 plus hour playthrough.

Halo Combat Evolved - couldnt see what the fuss was about. Then a few months later played the hardest difficulty in split screen with my brother and it was fantastic.

I always thought Mad Max was a lot better than the reception it got on release.

Definitely Street Fighter 5

I always liked the game, but for a lot of people the Star Wars Battlefront 2 overhaul will fall under this category given how people hate the loot boxes (even though in my experience, it wasn’t that big of a deal if you use your crafting parts smartly)

The only other game I can think of is Street Fighter 5. I still don’t think it’s perfect, but that launch was pathetic, with just not enough modes or characters. It’s a lot better now, but it’s still a pain unlocking stuff without the season passes.

If I approach the thread like themcnoisy, I would mention Knack. I finally played Knack recently because of PS Plus and I had a great time with it, the game is really fun and the graphics are pretty good. I'm not saying that the game is perfect or anything like that, but I really don't understand all the hate and the low metascore, especially with so many awful games getting a free pass.

Now talking about bad releases and then become a great game, Driveclub definitely deserves to be mentioned.

Assassin's Creed: Unity. Glitches galore at launch, then it got so much better. I never played around launch, but I absolutely loved it afterwards (think 90 hours, and I want to play it again sometime.) It's a little rough around the edges yes, but it's an amazing game with so many great design concepts, that can flow together so well, more so than being a little rough gets in the way of. Fantastic game. Way overlooked because of it's launch.

Not so much bad as in industry standards but bad by personal that I am finding good now is Skyrim.

I tried it when it first came out for the Xbox 360 years ago didn't like it. I just was confused as to where to go and what to do mainly cause at the time I wasn't use to open world games. I was more use to games like Zelda that were more linear. Tried it again when the GOTY edition came out on 360 still didn't like it thought it was horrible and couldn't understand the hype behind it. Finally tried it again now on Switch and I am enjoying it immensly.

So yeah for me personally it was a bad game but now it's good.

No Man's Sky. I personally still enjoyed my 30 or so hours with the game but i did end up getting a bit bored with it.

Still planning to go back to it and maybe start a new playthrough as I've not played it since any of the updates.

FFXIV. When it first released, it was a shambles but after Naoki Yoshida was brought aboard to fix the mess it was re-released as A Realm Reborn and is still, in my opinion, one of the best mmo's to this day.

I don't play too many service based games. When I first played Zelda: BOTW I just didn't get it but I had a new Switch so I stuck with it. Then it started to click once I forgot the concepts of standard, icon heavy open worlds games. That wasn't the fault of the game, completely me.

Had a get together with some friends and we played Rayman Origins in local co-op. I decided I hated it, found it boring and didn't see what the point was.

But I just didn't get it. Tried it a few years later and really enjoyed it. It's a great game, I was wrong.

@themcnoisy I must disagree.
Driveclub had an exceptionally rough release - the fault of Sony and Evolution's lack of proper load testing. But, it was a great game on release - even without the online features. Servers were swiftly fixed and free updates and support continued long after.

Street Fighter V though... I love a bit of SF - but the release version of V was only put out to meet the deadline of the tournament circuit - and it should've been treated as such. A £20, bare-bones TE edition rather than release what they knew was poor and a season pass!
It's a fairly content rich game now, even without buying any of the other characters.
The lobby system is still a clunky piece of junk though - Capcom could really learn a thing or two form NetherRealm. MKX for example was stellar on release, rock-solid, simple lobby system that worked and a very clearly defined dlc offering. It's a shame I'm so crap at their games really.

@JohnnyShoulder I really enjoyed NMS myself. The unfortunate multiplayer fibbing aside (and to be honest, they said, and clearly hoped - that people wouldn't interact) - I never felt like I didn't have a full game. I played a fair bit - but didn't reach the centre as I was waylaid trading and getting a bigger ship.
I'd stopped playing by the time the freighter and base stuff happened. I updated and played for the first time in ages about two months ago to check out the changes. Seemed my progress was all gone and quite a lot has changed in the game. It'll be fun to pick it up and get in to having a freighter and a base and stuff. But I'm not ready for that level of commitment yet!

I don't really understand this service as games thing, being a gamer from the 80s/90s. I mean, most of the time these games get reviewed upon release and, a lot of the time they then don't get reviewed again. I can't count the amount of reviews I've seen for, actually decent games, like Assassins Creed Unity that said it was a mess of glitches and bugs etc. These reviews don't get revisited once the game has been fixed and the only way to find out if it ever was, is to dig deep into reddits or such like.

Surely the game makers are losing money on sales by not releasing finished product? A lot of people will read bad reviews and not bother looking beyond that. A lot of people will not buy a day one game and wait until the price has come down. Still, those bad reviews are the only ones online and even though by then the game has been fixed, people will still only have the bad review to go off.

Why release a half finished game at all? I bought SFV in the sale after the season 1 pass and way before arcade mode was added. Now I see that those who buy it with Arcade mode also get all the DLC characters added as well, for free? Why don't I get them? I've suffered the game without arcade mode for a whole year! It really makes me wonder why anyone would bother buying some games on day one.

@tomassi As far as SFV goes - because Capcom are horrible. As I said - the game as released, was rushed out to run on the tournament circuit as they didn't want to carry on using IV on Xbox (the tournament standard), probably due to the deal with Sony for V. So rush V to market as they have to have a release out to be used in the tournaments.
As I say - it should have been a budget TE version on release.

I would recommend just waiting for the season characters to drop in price unless you have bought them with won fight money already. It's a bit of a sh*t show really.

@tomassi Well this is just it. Ive bought 1 game at release in 2018 and thats a vr game (pop up pilgrims).

Tbf I dont understand main stream gaming anymore. Twitch gaming, youtubers, its all about online etc etc.

Sod that give me a copy of C+VG a full game.

@themcnoisy @tomassi Agree - The whole industry seems off kilter. Publishers and gaming media rely on release buzz and excitement to generate interest in their games and platforms. If you want to talk about a game a month or two after release, no one is interested. At the same time, the product itself is at its worse at launch. As a consumer, you get a better product six months down the line when it has been patched and the price has been more than halved. The two just seem completely uncompatible and unsustainable. The only games right now I trust getting a launch are indies or first party single player games from Sony or Nintendo because they largely seem finished and are willing to move release dates if games aren't ready. Not saying they have always got it right but at least I play what is advertised. The last third party game I bought at launch was Wolfenstein 2 and not sure what else I will get, other than possibly Red Dead 2 this year.

@KALofKRYPTON I think that Capcom should have offered existing customers the character passes for free as a good will gesture, but I guess that was never going to happen. I don't play much of SFV to be honest but I have noticed that each character unlock is 100k in XP. From what I have played I have 10k in XP so am no where near unlocking even one character, let alone all the extra venues etc as well. That's an awful lot of grinding away by the sounds of it. So, probably won't bother. In future I'll remember to only ever buy games when the GOTY edition comes out and is half price in a sale!

@themcnoisy Yeah, mainstream gaming totally sucks compared to when I was younger. All this online rubbish. Offline gaming is barely an after thought for a lot of companies now. I mean, the difference in my friends and I playing and loving Sensible World of Soccer back in the 90's, compared to kids playing and loving FIFA now, purely because of FUT and online youtube stuff, is insane. When society has made 'celebrities' out of complete numptys opening virtual packs of football stickers on youtube, you know we are on a slippery slope!

I imagine there are many people like that, I can't see how that is anyway lucrative for a gaming company?

@Rudy_Manchego Agreed - I'm not sure how releasing unfinished games to crap reviews benefits the gaming companies at all? Look at all the flak EA got for the release of the first SW Battlefront. What did they do for the second one? Make it even worse! The only way I will buy that game is when it has all DLC and characters included and costs about £9.99! If they had bothered to make a brilliant, complete game in the first instance I would probably have paid £50 for it on day one because my son and I loved playing together on the first one.

@tomassi I think (as in, think I've heard it mentioned in my SFV group) that post the Arcade patch, fight money accrual was nerfed. But as I say - V came out to meet the tournament schedule.
Had there not been that deadline, I imagine that the game would have been slightly better on release - but I think the DLC and Arcade thing would still be the same.

I got MKX on launch with one of the Kombat packs. Absolutely fantastic game. Nice bit of DLC and an idea that more would come. You can get the whole lot for £20 or less now. Which is fine I think. The launch game was solid and complete and now it's all cheaper.

For me, it really depends what it is. If there's information out there about a game - chances are I'll have read it or watched before I lay some cash down for it. I can't remember the last time I paid for a game and was genuinely surprised or angered by what I got.

@KALofKRYPTON No, I agree with you there. I usually read loads of online stuff about a game before purchasing as well. As for SFV, I grew up preferring Street Fighter to MK so that was what guided my choice. To be honest, even though none of my friends play video games, I still think I need multiplayer couch games, meaning a fighting game was a must. Have I actually ever played against another human on it? No!!!

@tomassi You do need multiplayer couch games. Find something. I'm sure you can most people playing if the situation is right.
I fully intend on getting BombermanR, despite have Mega and Saturn and usually taking Mega and controllers and the multitap with me for game nights.