8 Video Games That Could Have Just Been An Email

Dante, Dante's? Hello Dante, how's it going with the bumpy

Hello there you little demons, Jules here for WhatCulture.com back again with another episode

of the awesomely named and awfully hosted Choose Your Own Adventure, the weekly medieval themed

format where I'd the crowned Jules of WhatCulture.com take a list chosen by you. Yes, you the person

who is, you know what, I'm just going to say it out here and I think it's a very controversial

statement here, you know what, it might get me banned of all platforms, but you know what, big up to the nans. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying nans are great and unfortunately mine

isn't very well at the moment so I just want to take this opportunity to say big up to all the

nans, the grannies, the nannas, the what they called in Welsh. I know that bampi is what you

call grandad. Nansy? Nampi? I don't know what it is. Whatever you call your grandma, just give us

some love and the granddads as well. Let's chuck them in the pile as well. For nothing else other

than just to share the love. Yes, you get to decide what list I dole out to you each and every week

And this week we have none other than... EJ Wyatt for their amazing and quite comical suggestion of

video games that kind of should have just been an email. Now, there probably isn't a person among us

who hasn't played at least one video game and then thought to themselves, well, that was definitely a

game. I mean, for one of many, many reasons, a game might leave you just feeling utter indifference

Maybe the experience just failed to move you in any way or stoke any strong feelings

It just left you feeling, eh, eh. It was a game that existed and you probably stopped thinking about it the moment that you switched it off

And that's exactly what we're going to be talking about today. Eight video games that basically could have been an email

Devil May Cry 2. Now impressively even more polarizing than 2013's Devil May Cry reboot

Devil May Cry 2 is one of the most bafflingly undercooked sequels and say it with me kids

Actually I can't be bothered. it's just not filling me with any joy here. It's a bewilderingly naff rush job that Capcom just

plodded out less than 18 months after the acclaimed original. It put basically every

foot wrong. The combat was intensely casualised to the point of tedium, Dante's edgy personality

was cleaved away in favour of generic stoicism, and the repetitive level design was an absolute

snoozer throughout. Combine all of this with a brief five-hour playtime, and how blatantly the

storytelling was nothing but filler, and it's little surprised that even ride-or-die DMC fans

often recommend newcomers to just, uh, kind of skip this one and instead jump into the brilliant

third game instead. Devil May Cry 2 did the one thing that nobody expected. It made a character

action franchise boring. Super Meat Boy forever. Now, it's fair to say that by 2020, fans of the

all-timer platformer Super Meat Boy were beyond jonesing for a sequel. But man, what a weird letdown it ended up being

The chief complaint about Super Meat Boy Forever is that Team Meat made it an auto-runner

meaning that players no longer had control of Meat Boy's movements beyond, well

jumping and moving that way. Further polarising was the decision to have the levels be procedurally generated

depending on the player's skill level. A nice idea on paper, but it ensured that this sequel lapped the tightness and exactitude of its predecessor

Ultimately, Super Meat Boy Forever came and went in a flash, because while it's actually a rather good example of an auto-runner

it's consequently a terrible Super Meat Boy game. And not exactly what anyone who loved the original wanted for a sequel

Team Meat originally designed the game as a mobile-only spin-off before then pivoting it into a direct sequel

and, uh, boy, does it show. The fact that very few people talk about this game today

except to, uh, dunk on it, of course, in lists like this, kind of says it all

But speaking of big meaty things here, have you actually considered subscribing to WhatCultureGaming

I mean, if you enjoyed this type of content, then why not just click that button and get that notification bell rung as well

because then you'll be able to stay up to date with all of our daily gaming content goodness, my friend

And that, whew, that's a spicy meatball right there. But now onto something that a little less spicy meatball and more rotten hunk of meat Because uh talking about Resident Evil 3 Remake Now after the enormous success of Capcom Resident Evil 2 Remake fans naturally expected the same level of care and attention for the remake of Resident Evil 3 Nemesis

In fact, if I remember correctly, I think that Cy might be a slight fan of Resident Evil in general

Maybe I've got that confused, though. There hasn't been any sort of indication that she's actually into that franchise

Maybe I'm just going out on a whim here. However, I will throw the camera to her right now to say whether she does enjoy the Resident Evil franchise

and what she thought of Resident Evil 3. But here's the caveat, by the way, Si

You have five words to do so. Enjoy. Or you could do it in a haiku. I'll accept either. I'll accept either

Not a great remake. Underrated action game? Carlos is hot

Damn. I couldn't have said it better myself. But I'll try, because I have a script in front of me

Now, Resident Evil 3 offered up solid visuals, don't get me wrong, and it was pretty cool, rollercoaster-style thrills

but it was also very superficial and clearly kicked out for a quick buck

For one, large sections of the original game are missing entirely. The branching choices are gone

Boss encounters and puzzles have been streamlined, whatever that means, and Nemesis himself has a far more subdued presence overall

I loved it when he was big bin bag, man. I thought that was great. And then it was like, what are you, a mutant dog right now

What's this dog doing over here? Hey, somebody let the dogs out

And then I was just like, oh, the game's over. Cool. Cool

Sick. Resident Evil 2's remake was a perfect example of how to reinterpret a classic for a new generation

while not being 100% faithful. But the new Resident Evil 3 just felt like Capcom really couldn't be bothered to do it full justice

And it's a shame. There are great elements in this game. It's just we needed longer, more fleshed out experiences and a damn sight more nemesis

I shouldn't even have to say that in the title. Star Fox Zero

Now, considering the Star Fox Zero was the first mainline Star Fox game in a full decade, fans quite understandably expected it to take full advantage of the Wii U's hardware

The Wii U's hardware. Sorry, I know that it sounds like a silly thing to say

It's not exactly the most powerful thing in the world. I'm pretty sure that most calculators nowadays can outperform it

But still, people expected a great deal. What people didn't expect was Nintendo to suddenly shoehorn motion controls into this game

And it became a massive sticking point with critics and players alike on launch

Being forced to use motion controls, which were just uncomfortable and unintuitive

meant that the game felt like a chore to play from minute one. Beyond that, the story was a dull retread of earlier Star Fox games

ensuring that this felt like a spectacularly unenthusiastic, half-hearted attempt to bring the IP back to the mainstream

Here's a thing. If you've got a long-dormant franchise like this, right

and you want to bring it back in to the public viewpoint, try. Just try

The vocal complaints about the controls alone were seemingly enough to sink Star Fox Zero commercially

as it ultimately ended up selling less than half a million copies. Albeit this was also a result of the Wii U's pretty stagnant sales at the time

The basic act of playing this game is such an awkward pain in the arse

that opening an email instead is genuinely preferable. Call of Duty Mon Warfare 3

Now the Call of Duty franchise has pretty consistently delivered the meat and potatoes goods

It's like, alright Gouverneur, how's it going? You want some slop? Here's some slop

enjoy your slop welcome to the slop factory imagine if all of the adverts for call of duty

going forward were just that they were just like straight up about it hey gamers have you enjoyed

last year's slop all is more have you enjoyed being shot from nowhere i don't understand where

you've been shot from and having a lifespan of about 15 seconds slop slop it on call of duty

black slops Anyway back on track 2023 Modern Warfare 3 was just a tepid stew It just missed so much of the good stuff Now it little secret that the game was originally developed by Sledgehammer Games as a DLC for Modern Warfare 2 before Activision changed it into a full retail release mid

and, boy, does it show, because it likely explains both why Modern Warfare 3 released with a cobbled-together excuse for a campaign

and the multiplayer suite launched with no brand new maps at all, just remastered ones from 2009's Modern Warfare 2

Though the multiplayer at least delivered a basically fun time, it was painfully, embarrassingly clear that this product was never intended to plug the gap in the franchise's annual pipeline

Activision made it happen because they just knew it would sell anyway

even if the negativity surrounding the release is likely what prompted it to sell less than Modern Warfare 2

All in all, it's a rare Call of Duty game that even some loyal fans decided to skip

because it showed so little basic respect for them and their wallets

The Order 1886. Now, to be completely fair to Ready at Dawn's alt-history steampunk action-adventure game

The Order 1886, it would have made for a really, really pretty email

It would have had all of the sort of clip art that you could have forcibly put into that. You would have opened it and just been like

wow, that's a nice email. Gee whiz. Big Pidge, come and have a look at this email

Look at, wow. just just whee zoom you know i'm saying i'm getting batman big expletives coming up here

bazoong yeah i probably shouldn't have called you out of that meeting that was that was actually

wasn't very respectful of your time i apologize he's got a new corporate job

doesn't pay the bills you know he's gonna keep us with a roof over our heads you know i'm saying

Now, the marketing for The Order focused on its undeniably jaw-dropping visual presentation

with Sony hyping it up as one of their big AAA IPs, the potential of which, well, really spoke for itself

But the rug was firmly pulled once the game launched, and critics and players alike expressed their thunderous indifference

Yeah, it was a game that, despite its technical innovations, was otherwise just a bog-standard third-person shooter

with nothing even remotely mechanically interesting to offer. Even worse than that, though, neither the characters nor the story made much of a dent

wholly unaided by its brutally short five-hour length, ensuring that players were afforded little time to immerse themselves in this game's

superficially rich world before it was all over. Though some scattered enthusiasm for the order definitely remains

it evaporated from mainstream gaming culture in the blink of an eye, likely because it felt less like the start of a franchise and more like a..

Proof of concept? Shenmue 3. Now, fans were overjoyed when Shenmue 3. I'm trying to emulate

that guy who goes, eats all the peppers around on TikTok and Instagram, where he's still like

it's some chili oil. I'm going to get these peppers in the chili. If you've not seen it

it's just some old dude who just goes around eating really hot peppers and showing no

like, reaction whatsoever. It blows my mind that somebody's just there like

oh, I'm going to take this habanero and dunk it in some chili oil and then just do that

And he does that all the time. It's funny what soothes the brain on the reels, isn't it

And that's mine. That's me sharing, by the way. Please share your weird things

not the super weird stuff. Let's keep that to ourselves. Share the slightly alt things that

you watch on reels. I just want to know. I just want to know. But give me the description. Don't

link me. Just give me the description. Again, the five word challenge that I gave to Cy earlier

Give me that. I want to see that in the comments section below. Your weird reel pulls. Five words

Chilly-o! So yeah, as I was saying, fans were overjoyed when Shenmue was finally confirmed at E3 2015

But when the long-awaited sequel released in 2019, almost a full 20 years after the second game

it was pretty tough to mask the disappointment. I mean, sure, there were those diehards that simply were just happy to see it return in any form

But if we're being honest with ourselves, Shenmue 3, I'm not going to do it all the time

is one of the most audacious squanderings of a belated sequel in gaming history

Rather than appreciate Shenmue 3 existence was basically miraculous and just press on with progressing Ryo quest to avenge his murdered father creator Yu Suzuki decided to make the threequel a glorified filler entry

where almost nothing of consequence happened. One could forgive, perhaps maybe even embrace

the stiff combat and clunky controls if Shenmue 3 had any story momentum whatsoever

but here the villain Lan D doesn't appear until the final minutes of the game

before he effortlessly beats you to a pulp in a brief boss fight

and then goes on his separate path again. You're sat there just going

what? I waited 20 years to have my ass kicked? I don't understand you, Yuga Suzuki

You're sitting there with the big drawing board of ideas here. You've probably written down a billion things to do

and waste your time with little gacha-like games and arcade experiences. And you've never thought once, just go

ooh, probably should move the plot along. Don't worry, I'll come back to it in another 20 years

There's a good chance that I'll be dead by then. And not be able to say

and also, So yeah, long story short, would have actually rather this be an email

because the email would have just been the header text and no content whatsoever

with a picture of Landy just flipping you off. And I would have probably appreciated that just as much

And so we close the show on Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2. Now, The Force Unleashed had its pretty rough edges

but it nevertheless remains one of the most entertaining and memorable Star Wars games, and it's sold enough that a sequel was quickly put into production

But Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 is a depressingly blatant cash grab that largely

just rehashes the original that makes most of everything worse? Yeah. With a wafer-thin story

woefully repetitive level design, clunky combat, and a mere four-hour playtime, this thing absolutely

dripped with cynicism from every port, feeling like it was just half-baked DLC than a full-fat

retail product. Following the game's release, it unsurprisingly emerged that the production

was a f- Crigy. Nightmare, with LucasArts insisting that it be completed in just two years

half the time the team spent making the original Force Unleashed. Due to this

writer Hayden Blackman only had three weeks to pen the game's script, which, when combined with

leadership changes at LucasArts, resulted in the project's scope and style being pulled in

different directions throughout. That cannot have been a fun time. Despite the first game being a

massive commercial hit, this limp sequel failed to move the needle at all, effectively killing the

franchise shortly before Disney bought Lucasfilm. What a depressing end to such a promising franchise

Oh, well, here's hoping that maybe Yu Suzuki jumps on board in 20 years we can

Yu Suzuki, if I ever meet you in real life, mate, you're gonna have a lot to answer for

and mainly just that I'll be really nice to you and polite because I don't carry that beef forward

It's just a video game. But don't do it again. And there we go, my friends

Those were eight video games that kind of probably should have just been an email. Let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below

and also put your suggestions for next week's episode down there as well

If you want to chat to me on the social medias in the meantime, you can do so where I'm at RetroJ on both Blue Sky and Instagram

and you can follow my lovely and ever-patient editor's site over on her social medias over here

But before I go, my friend, I just want to say one thing. Even though we spoke today about video games that probably should have been an email

why don't we pen ourselves a nice little positive thought right now and send that to the inbox of the heart

That kind of actually works. Fair enough. I surprise myself sometimes with these

Let's just start each and every day by being kind to ourselves, by reminding ourselves that we deserve love, happiness and success because we do

We're all human beings. We deserve the bloody best. So treat yourself with that love

And trust me, it'll make things a lot easier if you do. There's enough hatred out there, so let's not start it in our own home

You know what I'm saying? So big love to you, you massive ledge, all right? And by the way, if you want to check out any other WhatCultureGaming stuff

you can check out a video. Okay, let's think about this. Where am I going to be positioned on the screen

So that must mean that everything's reversed. So here or here, does that work

You can check out. If not, I'll just flip the image right now. Hopefully not upside down, because otherwise that'd be very confusing

Unless they've... No, whatever. So it's over here. Go check out some more content from WhatCultureGaming

and I'll speak to you soon. Bye