I have many "steam page deleted" games that have impossible-to-verify user rating. But from those that still sell seems to be the one rated most Negatively.
Probably Johnny Graves - The Unchosen One. It's a little action game made by a (now shuttered, as far as I can tell) Finnish game company Stupid Stupid Games. It had a lot of promise at first but it was published in a state that feels unfinished - barely any enemy variety, poor sound design, overcooked dialogue, and it's over in a couple of hours, too. It's a big shame it turned out like it did, the worldbuilding was pretty good during Early Access (though not much of it shows in-game either). It was supposed to be bundled with a short story ebook as well but there was no marketing for it and the Steam store page has no mention of it. To top it off, it was poorly priced on release, 15€ on launch, though now it's only 3,30€.
26:45 Is "crown vaccine" here a mistranslation of "coronavirus vaccine"? I think the description for the game indicated that a new coronavirus is the cause of the zombie outbreak.
Haven't watched this yet, but I do want to jump in and say how much I appreciate the amount of objective thought you put into these videos - they are very satisfying precisely because you do your best to look past the criticism that already exists and find some redeeming feature in each game, if there is one. Thank you for this series.
The sin game feels very 2004 in a way that 2024 games aren’t nailing INTENTIONALLY. The Badass Antiheroes Who Aren’t Your Daddy’s Protags, the two female characters being sexpot and cool alt girl, the platforming with a twist… it feels like a game I’d beg my mom for as a kid lol
@@mattieglover2356 Good point! They might have added those cutscenes later or they just happen to paint with all the tells of AI - over sharpened edges, forms that make no sense, mismatched building styles and broken perspective. I'm thinking now it might just be the later.
AI art is usually pretty terrible, but let's not forget that bad art existed before AI and will continue to exist long after. Not all cases of terrible art are immediately AI.
Such a great series, Son. It doesn't get old. Frostbite makes me sad because it feels like it could have been a horror version of "Firewatch" which I really enjoyed.
To be fair Firewatch kinda IS a horror game. It just never goes full bore dark, monster, scare horror. But it still really gets under your skin when you first think you're being watched, when you find the "recording site" and the whole switcheroo with the walkie talkies legitimately got me paranoid IRL. I know you mean more explicit horror like monsters and jump scares but I feel like insinuating Firewatch wasn't a horror game in a more subtle way sells it short.
Frostbitten's problem with picking up items is that the raycast condition on every frame is not setup correctly. Basically, you want the item to select when you look at it and deselect when you look away. The problem they're having is that it is a constant collision so it appears and disappears over and over again. What they should do instead is have a condition first and foremost to see if the item is locked. When i have done this, I have used and for that -- so the first condition is " if raycast is colliding and selected == null" Have and elseif for if the item is locked and the raycast is not colliding. That is where you remove. Some pretty rookie stuff, but understandable problem to encounter. Anyway, the problem wasn't your positioning around the object, it was literally when you pressed the key. The process function is called on each frame -- each cycle of a thread of the processor to deliver a frame. It was rapidly disabling and enabling your ability to pick it up on a frame-to-frame basis. Not only no fun for the CPU performance of the game but also pretty trash to try to make work. If anyone is working on their own game and needs to implement this, i would be happy to write you a demonstration in any language you want :) 🩷
you know what I think could be a great addition to your series? I'd really appreciate a short section at the beginning of each game review where you summarise in a few words what the consensus seems to be on why the game has gotten negative reviews. like for ex "Most reviewers seem to have an issue with the poor optimisation, broken translation and lack of overall polish"; just a few words, enough to get an idea of why people disliked a game. because there are quite a few games that get bad reviews for something related to the dev team or publisher, or a decision around region pricing, stuff like that you know? where imo the bad review is warranted since there aren't many ways to voice your dissatisfaction as a player, but it's not necessarily linked to the game's quality itself. so yeah it'll still be super informative before you go into what you thought of the game to know why the majority of other players gave it a negative review. just a thought! i've been enjoying your series very much
Dead by Death feels like one of those projects that "hire" artists and programmers and pay in "exposure", hence the inconsistent art. I've had the displeasure of making assets for similar projects and usually it's one or two idea guys that get volunteers to work on the game and promise profit sharing once the game is published. At least from my experience, the idea guys always forget that their volunteers aren't paid and alienate everyone, which leads to a high turnaround.
China has a lot looser laws around copyright/patented stuff from what I remember, so they probably just ripped a bunch of assets since they can’t get punished for it
Did the developers not thought of ENVY being able to take and use the powers of an enemy for a limited time? That would actually fit with the sin (A person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it) and could be interesting in fights and even puzzles. Example there is a platform that is way to high for the other characters to reach, but there is this flying enemy near by so ENVY takes that enemies ability to Fly for a second which allows the player to reach that platform.
Damn seeing EDF6 on this is wild, I just wanna say that it's an amazing game overall and if you play it on other platforms you don't need an Epic account at all, I've got it on PSN and it's a blast. Of the EDF's it has the most interesting and weird story of all BUT I would say if you've never tried EDF before, play 5 first. 6 Is the sequel(normally they aren't always connected) and you'll miss a ton of context for what's going on with 6. Not to say it's some high concept art you simply won't be able to enjoy without playing 5 but a lot of 6 will seem weird if you don't, what it's going for is really cool and it works best if you understand the complete package.
I love your chill reviews of these low rated games. I feel like this series would be great for young game devs because of how well you articulate the good and bad in these games and not just ‘game sucks … rage … grrrrrr’.
9:25 That is definitely *Dark* Daemon and *not* "Darf" Daemon. I'm a font enthusiast and graphic designer, and many old Blackletter-style fonts render lowercase "K" that way, especially those of the German/Fraktur style.
You also may not be able to read Simplified Chinese, but you could always throw their name into google translate to get the pinyin and that shouldn't be too bad to pronounce. Darf Daemon is by "Dōngfēng chuī" and Human or Virus's creator is "Zhōnghàolín".
The only reason EDF6 is here is because when the game released on steam you had to have an obligatory epic games account, I think they got rid of that already but the people who left the bad reviews didn't change them so it stayed like that, on ps5 it has 4,69/5 if that explains something
It's literally just people who buy into five year old Epic Games Launcher conspiracy theories being mad. Although EDF6 DOES implement it so badly that the Epic overlay crashes laptops if the screen is... Set to borderless window or something?
@@FelisImpurrator "It's literally just people who buy into five year old Epic Games Launcher conspiracy theories being mad." 100% wrong. For numerous reasons. Here's a couple... 1 - There was no mention of Epic on the store page prior to 12 hours AFTER launch. 2 - Tons of games use EOS (not to be confused or conflated with EGS, which is the launcher you're referring to) but don't require creating an account or giving EOS unnecessary access to your Steam profile. 3 - Most games that use EOS don't require it to be installed in order to play the single player part of the game. EDF 6 will not run at all without EOS installed. It will crash/close-out and throw a validation error. There are more reasons, but these are the biggest ones. "Although EDF6 DOES implement it so badly that the Epic overlay crashes laptops if the screen is... Set to borderless window or something?" This has nothing to do with EOS. This was an AMD driver issue that is being resolved by AMD as quickly as they can. Pro-tip: Before shilling for Epic, make sure you're not going to look like a bootlicking shill. Tim "Swindler" Sweeney is a piece of sh!t for a lot of reasons, almost all of them related to his childish hate and tantrums about Steam. Defending him in any way is a big no-no.
@@skyesfury8511 "Everyone who isn't as hysterical as me is a shill" is my favorite way for other people to discredit themselves. When did I say I was some kind of huge Epic fan? I just don't care, man. I have better things to do than get emotionally invested over the PC equivalent of the console wars. Who even cares this much about Tim Sweeney? All CEOs of large companies are trash. All large companies are trash. What does being indifferent to a product have to do with having some weird parasocial attitude toward some guy who owns a bunch of stuff and doesn't do much of value? Valve isn't your friend either. Besides. All I ever saw on the EDF6 Steam forums were "china spyware ree", so that's what I talked about.
@@FelisImpurrator "Everyone who isn't as hysterical as me is a shill" When you have to lie about what someone has said, you've already lost. "is my favorite way for other people to discredit themselves." The irony of you accusing someone else of discrediting themselves after you lied about the person you threw the accusation at. "When did I say I was some kind of huge Epic fan?" Oh, I see, so since you didn't come right out and say you're an Epic shill, that must mean you're not one. Even though you're behaving like one. "I have better things to do than get emotionally invested over the PC equivalent of the console wars." That rings hollow after the comment I replied to previously. Even more hollow after I clearly struck a nerve. "Who even cares this much about Tim Sweeney? All CEOs of large companies are trash." People who don't want to see the gaming industry turned to sh!t care. And while all CEOs are trash, only Swindler Sweeney has gone out of his way to try to pick fights with Steam. When he launched his failed store (EGS) he specifically called out Steam and said he was going to create a platform war with Steam. Trash CEOs are a dime a dozen, but Swindler Sweeney makes Kotick look like a saint. So to answer you asinine question again: People who don't want to see the gaming industry turned to sh!t care. Run along, tourist.
Frostbitten feels very inspired by Dr Who's Angels, which I think can be great if executed well. hope they give it another try some day. Great video, love seeing some of these lesser known games.
This fits my now ancient memory of Party of Sin. It was very much a product of its time, an early developer's not well enough polished XNA project. The concept was sound, but the action itself just wasn't satisfying. I do want to recall liking its soundtrack through.
love the channel my man, i do want to say the tall letters are hard to read, they hurt my ape brain when i struggle to read it. Also that old techo music SLAPPED. i loved hearing it inbetween games, please bring it back for the love of FSM.
Great video as always, great thoughtfulness and analysis as usual, but if I may give a criticism on this particular video, I find the vertically wide text used to show the name of the game is really hard to try and read, and in my opinion doesn't look that great stylistically. This is probably a one-video choice anyway, but I thought I should leave it in case other people experience a similar issue with reading it.
Those weird images in the Robowars intro reek of slightly modified AI images to me. Someone generated it, then maybe cleaned up the more egregious oddities in photoshop or something similar.
The Sand to Surf game reminded me of the other "surf around the big map" game called Zineth, made over 10 years ago by some students as a thesis project. It was really fun - you drift around a big map delivering zines and managing a few mobile apps that are connected to the lore.
When i was a kid, i remember getting hooked on this tiger electronics type hand held, but i suspect it was even older than all those god awful licensed title handhelds. This one was actually well done to my recollection, where you drive a car, and have to switch lanes to dodge traffic. Like a Gameboy version of what switch galaxy ultra is, but probably more fair. I remember vivdly sinking at least an entire afternoon into that thing to this day as a kiddo. Only to seemingly never see it again.
Thank you for another thoughtful and well-researched video!! Please please change your title card font though, I beg. Watching on the TV, I can't even read them unless I squint - it's super unpleasant to force my eyes into submission to read them
9:15 Okay, no, this is very clearly "Dark Daemon" - that is just a very old script being used. The letter "f" in these old scripts looks much closer to what you'll see when you put an f in italics in a modern font.
Is it possible to see which games have the most contentious reviews? ie approximately equal favorable and negative but high numbers of both. Also it would be interesting to see which games changed the most after launch, that is launched very favorably but then had most reviews turn negative (or vice versa).
Sand to Surf feels like a game that would excel with a really good atmospheric soundtrack. Sort of a "the journey is the goal" kind of calm exploration travel game.
Frostbitten.......a Blink Mechanic!??!?!?? YOU'RE KIDDING ME!!!!!! LMAO. This just leaves me picturing somebody purposely opening their eyes as wide as possible looking ridiculous.
Huge fan of the channel. Here are some suggestions for the next video: * Two Worlds II HD * Wanderlust: Rebirth * Home (release 31 Aug 2012) * Guncraft * The Bureau: XCOM Declassified I would definitely like to hear what you think about these ones in a future vid :)
Outside of the EGS stuff for EDF6, there's also a major crashing issue with AMD GPUs in the game. It just doesn't feel good when you're playing through a 40 min stage only to crash when you finally manage to clear it.
I'm reasonably sure that the confusion with the title of Dark Daemon is due to the blackletter font they used. I think many years ago I had the exact same one and was frustrated that the k they used doesn't really look like a k if you aren't familiar with it
So... For the truck racing game and the trucks going 160mph, idk if they truly are miles per hour or KMH because *apparently* the limit for trucks in actual truck racing is 160km/h (for safety reasons, of course). It is also said that "yet speeds of 150 mph (241 km/h) were still attained on the front straight at Pocono Raceway, and the closed course record of 132 mph (212 km/h) was set in qualifying at Texas World Speedway by Charlie Baker on March 21, 1982" (that's just off wikipedia because I wanted to know real quick, and not do actual research of course). Meaning the game isn't too unrealistic in that part.
The people saying EDF 6 doesn't have many upgrades over EDF 5 are new to the franchise. EDF 4.1 was EDF 3's sequel. EDF 6 is EDF 5's sequel. I'm sure you can see the pattern. EDF 7 will see the improvements people are expecting (though many tourists don't understand that Unreal 4 or higher graphics means you can't do the massive hordes of enemies that EDF is known for: see EDF Iron Rain where they attempted to use the Unreal Engine). EDF is a long running franchise whose fans appreciate what it is: an homage to 1950s/60s campy B movies. The devs are not seeking to be next COD/Battlefield or DOOM or Crysis. They've found something they're great at and they lean into it. A lot of new people coming into EDF with 6 look at the previous titles (without playing them) and don't see the improvements that been made.
Yeah the differences between 5 and 6 are kinda crazy, sure if you look at screenshots it all just looks the same but the graphics are definitely far better but still bad enough that the game can handle hundreds and hundreds of enemies and effects at once. I'm like 110 missions deep and I haven't seen the FPS tank once on PS5 even when the entire screen is ants, robots and fireballs. It's also worth mentioning that every map is absolutely massive, sure most of it is copy and pasted buildings but the end result is still a legit city sized city, you can even go up the stairs outside apartment buildings for a real sense of the scale. And all these buildings can be destroyed, you can level the entire city. Games like EDF are why I'll never buy in to the realistic graphics BS, you could never have games as insane as this with hyper realistic graphics. Notice how ever single major battle sequence in a high spec game is just a bunch of set animations happening in the distance rather than a real active battle.
@@mrcheesemunch The way they reuse maps is also extremely well done. They reuse a few city maps multiple times, but because of where you start, and where the majority of the action takes place, most people won't ever realize they're on the same map they've played on eight times already. And yea, some maps are absolutely insanely huge. Conflict on the Plains (i think that's name?) map is monumentally massive.
@@PlasticCogLiquid That was my first reaction, too. But Son has done justice to titles in the past when they're on these lists, and I think he gave EDF 6 a fair shake on this.
i feel like a good mechanic for envy could have been turning one or more enemies against the others in... know... envy :)) so that they would basically fight for you for a period of time
Thanks for mentioning aidio surf, I've been trying to remember what that name was called for years so I could play it again. It used to have a vice grip on me as a kid.
No, the game is called DarK Daemon on the title screen. It's old-german letters. The lower case F would not have the in between part of the k and it would go to the bottom left part and not the lower right part. I don't blame anyone to confuse it tho...even worse...the lower case S also looks like an f but with a shorter middle line and it goes straight down...
Umbrella Corps is one of the absolute worst I played on Steam. On one computer it was so unresponsive to the controls with massive lag. But on another computer, it simply played better with not great mechanics. The worst part is it's technically an Resident Evil game. I actually won my Steam copy with a few other Capcom games from someone's stream. I highly prefer Strider reboot which I also won from the same stream. Umbrella Corps is everything you don't want in an RE game.
When you said "Party Of Sin" i felt a galaxy brain moment, like a dormant memory of something i don't see in years, and i was right, i remember the game being played by a youtube, Diddo, like 11 years ago, i was a teen, dam i feel old now
Party of sin kinda fills me with inspiration because you can see that there is definitely talent there that can be cultivated into something awesome if the team takes the criticisms in stride and actually learns and adapts.
just leaving a comment to say I really enjoy your content! re: worst games.. I always find it ironic that I'm often most disappointed by games rated overwhelmingly positive.
Human or Virus's models and names for the "Phase" and "Belica" characters were ripped straight from Epic Games' free asset pack released after the characters' original game, Paragon, was shut down. There is currently actual games using these models faithfully instead of for chinese slop
Okay, I have to admit I was surprised to see EDF6 on here. I haven't personally played any of the Earth Defense Force games, but from what I've seen, the general sentiment is that they're a pretty good time. It's a shame that the reviews are mixed because of something not related to the game itself, but instead a service issue. :/ Also, I wouldn't say you necessarily need to learn Mandarin, but putting the text through translation and learning the pinyin/pronunciation would definitely be a step in the right direction. I'm not Chinese myself, but I just love when people take the time to learn how to pronounce things correctly (or as close as they can). :)
Try Omno for a game with sand serfing - not for the series (it's 92% positive), but for yourself Also, for a game with 18 reviews on steam it's weird that yours is a second video about Dead by death I saw. I guess it's the name that allures people))
me trying to ignore the fact that the sins already have demons that represent them and that Satan is Wrath's and Lucifer is Pride's so I don't get peeved off by the premise of party of sin
Steam Dumpster Diving focuses on finding hidden gems, like real-life dumpster diving. This series, however, examines poorly reviewed Steam games to uncover what happened. This guy is a detective investigating the crime scene, while the other guy is a medic looking for survivors.
I loved EDF 6 over 4.1 and 5, most of the negative reviews is the blah blah blah epic games, which space marines 2 also has and also did the same thing of not mentioning it because it will tank sales, this is where steam reviews becomes a issue, does it have denuvo- it'll have negative reviews for that, does it link to a 3rd party like ubisoft/epic/bethesda launcher- it'll have negative reviews about that, is the dev done with the game and it is completed and they have moved on to something else, they'll be reviews saying 'abandoned game' this one is rare to see outside of early access, which isent completed but i have seen it. These have nothing to do with the actual game yet it massivly effects review score BUT it is info that is needed in case you refuse to play games with denuvo ect, but if you dont understand why something requires this then think of it from a greed standpoint and from a 'contractual obligation signed by ceo' standpoint.
Earth Defense Force 6... Sad to see it here, but it's where it belongs. This didn't cover the major reason people were so upset: On being released, it was more or less more of the same as 5. That's fine tbh. All of EDF was essentially building upon what was already there. But they also changed the stream info post-release to mention it required an Epic Games Store account in order to play multiplayer. This was never mentioned until post-release. This blindsided everyone who pre-ordered, which was a not-insignificant portion of the fanbase, myself included. We are upset not just that we're required to make an outside account, but because we were outright lied to. It's worse then Helldivers in that regard, as at least they were open about how the requirements for a Sony account would eventually be implemented. I struggle to play this series now without a very sour taste in my mouth, and I hate that because this is an amazing game series for some braindead fun with some light strategic planning. This is a black mark that's going to be remembered by everyone who felt that the company had done people wrong.
I have been playing Earth Defense Force 2025 (which is 4), on the Xbox 360 for years. It still has an active community. Something about the game just vibes with my autism. It is the game I have played the most in the past decade. The thing that most amazes me about EDF is the hitboxes. Accuracy actually matters in this game because you have no idea how many times you will thread the needle and miss by literal inches cause the shot goes between all their legs or bullseye a lamp post / tree branch and blow yourself up or waste a long reload on your sniper.
Played Party of Sin after Trine and Trine 2 when I was looking for similar games (there are surpisingly few, even today)... Yeah, safe to say I didn't think very highly about it.
I hate to defend the designers of Dark Daemon, but the "k" in "Dark" is actually correct. That's an old German blackletter font (so-called Fraktur), and the "k" really looks like that. The "f" would have a different shape. But that's the only aspect of their game I'd defend.
Considering every single one of those games shown that the devs that bought out party of sin’s team looks like DEI slop, I’m not surprised it’s on here.
Earth Defense Force looks really fun, shame you need a second acount Those knife skills in Human or Virus are excellent xD The last game reminds me of Big Rigs Over the Road Racing. Have you covered that one already? Forza Motorsport 7 had a racing truck, and it sure sounds a whole lot different. But they can be very fast, I got mine up to 220 km/h in stock mode.
27:21 the jank arms holding a rifle are always a dead giveaway when something is pure shit lol when the dev cant even get right the things that are constantly on your screen, even when its something they could compare to real life as much as they need to.
if you like the premise of sand to surf you should check out Journey its a great game with a similiar premise (im pretty sure it was STS's inspiration) but its brought to perfection
Keep doing great work my boy and you’re making your mom proud. Also interesting to see how bad these games are but also see how you give them some positive feedback towards them too. I raise you right.
What's the worst game you've played on Steam? 🎮
I have many "steam page deleted" games that have impossible-to-verify user rating.
But from those that still sell seems to be the one rated most Negatively.
GTA online
Abermore
but its a fun game
just broken
I almost wanted to buy Dead Matter
Dodged a bullet on that one
Probably Johnny Graves - The Unchosen One. It's a little action game made by a (now shuttered, as far as I can tell) Finnish game company Stupid Stupid Games. It had a lot of promise at first but it was published in a state that feels unfinished - barely any enemy variety, poor sound design, overcooked dialogue, and it's over in a couple of hours, too. It's a big shame it turned out like it did, the worldbuilding was pretty good during Early Access (though not much of it shows in-game either). It was supposed to be bundled with a short story ebook as well but there was no marketing for it and the Steam store page has no mention of it. To top it off, it was poorly priced on release, 15€ on launch, though now it's only 3,30€.
Party of Sin’s Envy is really smart bc it sounds like they don’t do anything thus making you long for the qualities and abilities of the other sins
The phrase is also "Green with envy," so green eyebeams makes total sense
It's actually an occult reference to the Evil Eye which is believed to be caused by someone envying something that someone else has.
I also thought it was about seeing what others have and wanting it
26:45 Is "crown vaccine" here a mistranslation of "coronavirus vaccine"? I think the description for the game indicated that a new coronavirus is the cause of the zombie outbreak.
Haven't watched this yet, but I do want to jump in and say how much I appreciate the amount of objective thought you put into these videos - they are very satisfying precisely because you do your best to look past the criticism that already exists and find some redeeming feature in each game, if there is one. Thank you for this series.
what a sweet lil boy
The sin game feels very 2004 in a way that 2024 games aren’t nailing INTENTIONALLY. The Badass Antiheroes Who Aren’t Your Daddy’s Protags, the two female characters being sexpot and cool alt girl, the platforming with a twist… it feels like a game I’d beg my mom for as a kid lol
it reminds me of the Aladdin Sega game from '92!
There are actually three female characters, the third being Sloth
The reason the images in Robowars look so nonsensical is that they are AI generated slop.
I thought it said it was released in 2014. Was there some sort of update?
@@mattieglover2356 Good point! They might have added those cutscenes later or they just happen to paint with all the tells of AI - over sharpened edges, forms that make no sense, mismatched building styles and broken perspective. I'm thinking now it might just be the later.
AI art is usually pretty terrible, but let's not forget that bad art existed before AI and will continue to exist long after. Not all cases of terrible art are immediately AI.
@@Sanguivore Absolutely, but it has all the specific tells of AI art, not that it's just generically bad. It's very strange.
Such a great series, Son. It doesn't get old. Frostbite makes me sad because it feels like it could have been a horror version of "Firewatch" which I really enjoyed.
To be fair Firewatch kinda IS a horror game. It just never goes full bore dark, monster, scare horror. But it still really gets under your skin when you first think you're being watched, when you find the "recording site" and the whole switcheroo with the walkie talkies legitimately got me paranoid IRL. I know you mean more explicit horror like monsters and jump scares but I feel like insinuating Firewatch wasn't a horror game in a more subtle way sells it short.
Frostbitten's problem with picking up items is that the raycast condition on every frame is not setup correctly. Basically, you want the item to select when you look at it and deselect when you look away. The problem they're having is that it is a constant collision so it appears and disappears over and over again. What they should do instead is have a condition first and foremost to see if the item is locked. When i have done this, I have used and for that -- so the first condition is " if raycast is colliding and selected == null" Have and elseif for if the item is locked and the raycast is not colliding. That is where you remove.
Some pretty rookie stuff, but understandable problem to encounter. Anyway, the problem wasn't your positioning around the object, it was literally when you pressed the key. The process function is called on each frame -- each cycle of a thread of the processor to deliver a frame. It was rapidly disabling and enabling your ability to pick it up on a frame-to-frame basis. Not only no fun for the CPU performance of the game but also pretty trash to try to make work.
If anyone is working on their own game and needs to implement this, i would be happy to write you a demonstration in any language you want :) 🩷
I'm not planning to make a game, but this comment was very helpful and informative! Thanks. :3
you know what I think could be a great addition to your series? I'd really appreciate a short section at the beginning of each game review where you summarise in a few words what the consensus seems to be on why the game has gotten negative reviews. like for ex "Most reviewers seem to have an issue with the poor optimisation, broken translation and lack of overall polish"; just a few words, enough to get an idea of why people disliked a game. because there are quite a few games that get bad reviews for something related to the dev team or publisher, or a decision around region pricing, stuff like that you know? where imo the bad review is warranted since there aren't many ways to voice your dissatisfaction as a player, but it's not necessarily linked to the game's quality itself. so yeah it'll still be super informative before you go into what you thought of the game to know why the majority of other players gave it a negative review. just a thought! i've been enjoying your series very much
That’s what he does at the end of each section
Dead by Death feels like one of those projects that "hire" artists and programmers and pay in "exposure", hence the inconsistent art. I've had the displeasure of making assets for similar projects and usually it's one or two idea guys that get volunteers to work on the game and promise profit sharing once the game is published. At least from my experience, the idea guys always forget that their volunteers aren't paid and alienate everyone, which leads to a high turnaround.
Your own dumbass fault for working for exposure, if you did.
The title sounds like a band name from Myspace.
Dark Daemon's art style looks suspiciously ripped off from Darkest Dungeon.
That's true, it has that really dark shading and minimal features
I wouldn't be surprised if it was an actual rip-off of Darkest Dungeon
The skeletons around 13:00 are incredibly similar to ones in DD and I wouldn't be surprised if it was lifted/copied entirely.
China has a lot looser laws around copyright/patented stuff from what I remember, so they probably just ripped a bunch of assets since they can’t get punished for it
The art is obviously ripped off of Darkest Dungeon.
Did the developers not thought of ENVY being able to take and use the powers of an enemy for a limited time? That would actually fit with the sin (A person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it) and could be interesting in fights and even puzzles. Example there is a platform that is way to high for the other characters to reach, but there is this flying enemy near by so ENVY takes that enemies ability to Fly for a second which allows the player to reach that platform.
It fits, envy is commonly known as the green eyed monster
I’m guessing you’ve never done game development 😂😂
The fact EDF's tutorial is too much fits the theme. Everything in EDF is too much lol
good point haha
Damn seeing EDF6 on this is wild, I just wanna say that it's an amazing game overall and if you play it on other platforms you don't need an Epic account at all, I've got it on PSN and it's a blast. Of the EDF's it has the most interesting and weird story of all BUT I would say if you've never tried EDF before, play 5 first. 6 Is the sequel(normally they aren't always connected) and you'll miss a ton of context for what's going on with 6.
Not to say it's some high concept art you simply won't be able to enjoy without playing 5 but a lot of 6 will seem weird if you don't, what it's going for is really cool and it works best if you understand the complete package.
I love your chill reviews of these low rated games. I feel like this series would be great for young game devs because of how well you articulate the good and bad in these games and not just ‘game sucks … rage … grrrrrr’.
5:10 Envy's power would fit then, seeing as jealousy is a green eyed monster.
My only critisism of this video is the title cards for each game is very bad the text really hurts my eyes trying to read it
Pretty sure they're a riff on a sort of ThorHighHeels visual style, but yeah, they don't really land.
yeah i agree
Think you need glasses pal.
@petemyers2870
They wear glasses…
He literally tells you the game
You can feel the amount of work you put into these and I really appreciate you giving me something to drink a beer to and unwind with.
I am glad he is still making these videos.
I'm glad he's still making them too
9:25 That is definitely *Dark* Daemon and *not* "Darf" Daemon. I'm a font enthusiast and graphic designer, and many old Blackletter-style fonts render lowercase "K" that way, especially those of the German/Fraktur style.
You also may not be able to read Simplified Chinese, but you could always throw their name into google translate to get the pinyin and that shouldn't be too bad to pronounce. Darf Daemon is by "Dōngfēng chuī" and Human or Virus's creator is "Zhōnghàolín".
Dark Daemon*
I think the "Darf Demon" thing actually has to do with the font. There are versions of fraktur where tge k looks like that.
Yup, I got a bunch of old German books (pre 1930) that are all written in fraktur like that.
Correct, my copy of Mein Kampf has the ks written just like that.
@@d.s.8227 xDDDD
My immediate thought was the font choice probably caused the k to look like f. Especially since it was consistent, so probably not a typo.
This was my thought too, on an old PC I had fonts that were like this
Becoming green with envy is a saying, so maybe thats why green beam? *shrug*
He envys buttons I guess
I also think of the phrase “little green eyed monster” :•)
Thanks for playing our game, Frostbitten! ❤
The only reason EDF6 is here is because when the game released on steam you had to have an obligatory epic games account, I think they got rid of that already but the people who left the bad reviews didn't change them so it stayed like that, on ps5 it has 4,69/5 if that explains something
Imagine giving a poor review to any EDF game that isn't Insect Armageddon... 🤣
It's literally just people who buy into five year old Epic Games Launcher conspiracy theories being mad. Although EDF6 DOES implement it so badly that the Epic overlay crashes laptops if the screen is... Set to borderless window or something?
@@FelisImpurrator "It's literally just people who buy into five year old Epic Games Launcher conspiracy theories being mad."
100% wrong. For numerous reasons. Here's a couple...
1 - There was no mention of Epic on the store page prior to 12 hours AFTER launch.
2 - Tons of games use EOS (not to be confused or conflated with EGS, which is the launcher you're referring to) but don't require creating an account or giving EOS unnecessary access to your Steam profile.
3 - Most games that use EOS don't require it to be installed in order to play the single player part of the game. EDF 6 will not run at all without EOS installed. It will crash/close-out and throw a validation error.
There are more reasons, but these are the biggest ones.
"Although EDF6 DOES implement it so badly that the Epic overlay crashes laptops if the screen is... Set to borderless window or something?"
This has nothing to do with EOS. This was an AMD driver issue that is being resolved by AMD as quickly as they can.
Pro-tip: Before shilling for Epic, make sure you're not going to look like a bootlicking shill. Tim "Swindler" Sweeney is a piece of sh!t for a lot of reasons, almost all of them related to his childish hate and tantrums about Steam. Defending him in any way is a big no-no.
@@skyesfury8511 "Everyone who isn't as hysterical as me is a shill" is my favorite way for other people to discredit themselves. When did I say I was some kind of huge Epic fan? I just don't care, man. I have better things to do than get emotionally invested over the PC equivalent of the console wars.
Who even cares this much about Tim Sweeney? All CEOs of large companies are trash. All large companies are trash. What does being indifferent to a product have to do with having some weird parasocial attitude toward some guy who owns a bunch of stuff and doesn't do much of value? Valve isn't your friend either.
Besides. All I ever saw on the EDF6 Steam forums were "china spyware ree", so that's what I talked about.
@@FelisImpurrator "Everyone who isn't as hysterical as me is a shill"
When you have to lie about what someone has said, you've already lost.
"is my favorite way for other people to discredit themselves."
The irony of you accusing someone else of discrediting themselves after you lied about the person you threw the accusation at.
"When did I say I was some kind of huge Epic fan?"
Oh, I see, so since you didn't come right out and say you're an Epic shill, that must mean you're not one. Even though you're behaving like one.
"I have better things to do than get emotionally invested over the PC equivalent of the console wars."
That rings hollow after the comment I replied to previously. Even more hollow after I clearly struck a nerve.
"Who even cares this much about Tim Sweeney? All CEOs of large companies are trash."
People who don't want to see the gaming industry turned to sh!t care. And while all CEOs are trash, only Swindler Sweeney has gone out of his way to try to pick fights with Steam. When he launched his failed store (EGS) he specifically called out Steam and said he was going to create a platform war with Steam. Trash CEOs are a dime a dozen, but Swindler Sweeney makes Kotick look like a saint. So to answer you asinine question again: People who don't want to see the gaming industry turned to sh!t care. Run along, tourist.
Skyesfury8511 is the least favorite son.
Most of these look like baby's first Unity projects.
Frostbitten feels very inspired by Dr Who's Angels, which I think can be great if executed well. hope they give it another try some day. Great video, love seeing some of these lesser known games.
This fits my now ancient memory of Party of Sin. It was very much a product of its time, an early developer's not well enough polished XNA project. The concept was sound, but the action itself just wasn't satisfying. I do want to recall liking its soundtrack through.
love the channel my man, i do want to say the tall letters are hard to read, they hurt my ape brain when i struggle to read it. Also that old techo music SLAPPED. i loved hearing it inbetween games, please bring it back for the love of FSM.
Great video as always, great thoughtfulness and analysis as usual, but if I may give a criticism on this particular video, I find the vertically wide text used to show the name of the game is really hard to try and read, and in my opinion doesn't look that great stylistically. This is probably a one-video choice anyway, but I thought I should leave it in case other people experience a similar issue with reading it.
>It's a free game so it doesn't take any money.
Me, a pirate: What about my time?
Those weird images in the Robowars intro reek of slightly modified AI images to me. Someone generated it, then maybe cleaned up the more egregious oddities in photoshop or something similar.
The Sand to Surf game reminded me of the other "surf around the big map" game called Zineth, made over 10 years ago by some students as a thesis project. It was really fun - you drift around a big map delivering zines and managing a few mobile apps that are connected to the lore.
When i was a kid, i remember getting hooked on this tiger electronics type hand held, but i suspect it was even older than all those god awful licensed title handhelds. This one was actually well done to my recollection, where you drive a car, and have to switch lanes to dodge traffic. Like a Gameboy version of what switch galaxy ultra is, but probably more fair. I remember vivdly sinking at least an entire afternoon into that thing to this day as a kiddo. Only to seemingly never see it again.
Thank you for another thoughtful and well-researched video!! Please please change your title card font though, I beg. Watching on the TV, I can't even read them unless I squint - it's super unpleasant to force my eyes into submission to read them
The feeling of envy/jealousy is often called a "green eyed monster". Hence the green laser beams Envy shoots from her eyes.
9:15 Okay, no, this is very clearly "Dark Daemon" - that is just a very old script being used. The letter "f" in these old scripts looks much closer to what you'll see when you put an f in italics in a modern font.
Is it possible to see which games have the most contentious reviews? ie approximately equal favorable and negative but high numbers of both. Also it would be interesting to see which games changed the most after launch, that is launched very favorably but then had most reviews turn negative (or vice versa).
My son! Always wonderful to see a new video. Very proud ❤️
Sand to Surf feels like a game that would excel with a really good atmospheric soundtrack. Sort of a "the journey is the goal" kind of calm exploration travel game.
Regarding Envy, the green beam is probably based on the saying “green with envy”.
Kinda weak, but it’s not just based on nothing at least.
Frostbitten.......a Blink Mechanic!??!?!?? YOU'RE KIDDING ME!!!!!! LMAO. This just leaves me picturing somebody purposely opening their eyes as wide as possible looking ridiculous.
Switch Galaxy Ultra reminds me a bit of Thumper. .. now I need to go play Thumper lol
Huge fan of the channel. Here are some suggestions for the next video:
* Two Worlds II HD
* Wanderlust: Rebirth
* Home (release 31 Aug 2012)
* Guncraft
* The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
I would definitely like to hear what you think about these ones in a future vid :)
Outside of the EGS stuff for EDF6, there's also a major crashing issue with AMD GPUs in the game. It just doesn't feel good when you're playing through a 40 min stage only to crash when you finally manage to clear it.
I'm reasonably sure that the confusion with the title of Dark Daemon is due to the blackletter font they used. I think many years ago I had the exact same one and was frustrated that the k they used doesn't really look like a k if you aren't familiar with it
If a tooltip comes up that says "the gasbag has been killed" when I die, I'm gonna be pissed
So... For the truck racing game and the trucks going 160mph, idk if they truly are miles per hour or KMH because *apparently* the limit for trucks in actual truck racing is 160km/h (for safety reasons, of course).
It is also said that "yet speeds of 150 mph (241 km/h) were still attained on the front straight at Pocono Raceway, and the closed course record of 132 mph (212 km/h) was set in qualifying at Texas World Speedway by Charlie Baker on March 21, 1982" (that's just off wikipedia because I wanted to know real quick, and not do actual research of course).
Meaning the game isn't too unrealistic in that part.
The people saying EDF 6 doesn't have many upgrades over EDF 5 are new to the franchise. EDF 4.1 was EDF 3's sequel. EDF 6 is EDF 5's sequel. I'm sure you can see the pattern. EDF 7 will see the improvements people are expecting (though many tourists don't understand that Unreal 4 or higher graphics means you can't do the massive hordes of enemies that EDF is known for: see EDF Iron Rain where they attempted to use the Unreal Engine). EDF is a long running franchise whose fans appreciate what it is: an homage to 1950s/60s campy B movies. The devs are not seeking to be next COD/Battlefield or DOOM or Crysis. They've found something they're great at and they lean into it. A lot of new people coming into EDF with 6 look at the previous titles (without playing them) and don't see the improvements that been made.
Yeah the differences between 5 and 6 are kinda crazy, sure if you look at screenshots it all just looks the same but the graphics are definitely far better but still bad enough that the game can handle hundreds and hundreds of enemies and effects at once. I'm like 110 missions deep and I haven't seen the FPS tank once on PS5 even when the entire screen is ants, robots and fireballs.
It's also worth mentioning that every map is absolutely massive, sure most of it is copy and pasted buildings but the end result is still a legit city sized city, you can even go up the stairs outside apartment buildings for a real sense of the scale. And all these buildings can be destroyed, you can level the entire city.
Games like EDF are why I'll never buy in to the realistic graphics BS, you could never have games as insane as this with hyper realistic graphics. Notice how ever single major battle sequence in a high spec game is just a bunch of set animations happening in the distance rather than a real active battle.
@@mrcheesemunch The way they reuse maps is also extremely well done. They reuse a few city maps multiple times, but because of where you start, and where the majority of the action takes place, most people won't ever realize they're on the same map they've played on eight times already. And yea, some maps are absolutely insanely huge. Conflict on the Plains (i think that's name?) map is monumentally massive.
Seeing EDF on a bad games list is just straight bullshit.
@@PlasticCogLiquid That was my first reaction, too. But Son has done justice to titles in the past when they're on these lists, and I think he gave EDF 6 a fair shake on this.
I started with 2017, then insect armageddon. Played world brothers a bit, and enjoyed it for trying to lean into a silly direction.
„Envy“ would really lend itself to copy another character‘s attack.
Switch Galaxy Ultra is just an extravagant ratchet & clank grind rail section
Thank you for this great viseo son. As you know, your mother and i recently got our first gaming pc so this has been very helpful.
World Truck Racing looks like what Big Rigs might have been if it had actually made it out of alpha before the devs gave up.
i feel like a good mechanic for envy could have been turning one or more enemies against the others in... know... envy :)) so that they would basically fight for you for a period of time
It does say Dark Daemon, that’s what the “k” looks like in that particular black letter script. I’ve always found it confusing and weird.
Thanks for mentioning aidio surf, I've been trying to remember what that name was called for years so I could play it again. It used to have a vice grip on me as a kid.
No, the game is called DarK Daemon on the title screen. It's old-german letters. The lower case F would not have the in between part of the k and it would go to the bottom left part and not the lower right part. I don't blame anyone to confuse it tho...even worse...the lower case S also looks like an f but with a shorter middle line and it goes straight down...
Umbrella Corps is one of the absolute worst I played on Steam. On one computer it was so unresponsive to the controls with massive lag. But on another computer, it simply played better with not great mechanics. The worst part is it's technically an Resident Evil game. I actually won my Steam copy with a few other Capcom games from someone's stream. I highly prefer Strider reboot which I also won from the same stream. Umbrella Corps is everything you don't want in an RE game.
9:16 look at start button
⭐
if you're liking the premise of Sand of Surf I highly recommend Zineth, it's a really fun game with simple graphics that's actually well made
Holy shit party of sin
That was one of the first steam games I ever bought
I really hated it lmao
When you said "Party Of Sin" i felt a galaxy brain moment, like a dormant memory of something i don't see in years, and i was right, i remember the game being played by a youtube, Diddo, like 11 years ago, i was a teen, dam i feel old now
Party of sin kinda fills me with inspiration because you can see that there is definitely talent there that can be cultivated into something awesome if the team takes the criticisms in stride and actually learns and adapts.
just leaving a comment to say I really enjoy your content!
re: worst games.. I always find it ironic that I'm often most disappointed by games rated overwhelmingly positive.
dear mr. son,
thx for the vid.
best regards,
Thank you for watching!
"It's software and it happens to work and display images and react when you press buttons" - YouFavoriteSon. Put it on the box honestly. hahahah
Human or Virus's models and names for the "Phase" and "Belica" characters were ripped straight from Epic Games' free asset pack released after the characters' original game, Paragon, was shut down.
There is currently actual games using these models faithfully instead of for chinese slop
Okay, I have to admit I was surprised to see EDF6 on here. I haven't personally played any of the Earth Defense Force games, but from what I've seen, the general sentiment is that they're a pretty good time. It's a shame that the reviews are mixed because of something not related to the game itself, but instead a service issue. :/
Also, I wouldn't say you necessarily need to learn Mandarin, but putting the text through translation and learning the pinyin/pronunciation would definitely be a step in the right direction. I'm not Chinese myself, but I just love when people take the time to learn how to pronounce things correctly (or as close as they can). :)
Try Omno for a game with sand serfing - not for the series (it's 92% positive), but for yourself
Also, for a game with 18 reviews on steam it's weird that yours is a second video about Dead by death I saw. I guess it's the name that allures people))
me trying to ignore the fact that the sins already have demons that represent them and that Satan is Wrath's and Lucifer is Pride's so I don't get peeved off by the premise of party of sin
Yo i didn’t know this but that makes total sense wow
14:45 Gunand wings was one of my favorite animes.
(new crown vaccine) = Novel coronavirus vaccine
Hey I got an idea bro. You should call this series steam dumpster diving. And you should focus on souls like. I've never see someone do that before.
Steam Dumpster Diving focuses on finding hidden gems, like real-life dumpster diving. This series, however, examines poorly reviewed Steam games to uncover what happened. This guy is a detective investigating the crime scene, while the other guy is a medic looking for survivors.
@@cutsceneentertainment6706 what's this series called again?
I loved EDF 6 over 4.1 and 5, most of the negative reviews is the blah blah blah epic games, which space marines 2 also has and also did the same thing of not mentioning it because it will tank sales, this is where steam reviews becomes a issue, does it have denuvo- it'll have negative reviews for that, does it link to a 3rd party like ubisoft/epic/bethesda launcher- it'll have negative reviews about that, is the dev done with the game and it is completed and they have moved on to something else, they'll be reviews saying 'abandoned game' this one is rare to see outside of early access, which isent completed but i have seen it. These have nothing to do with the actual game yet it massivly effects review score BUT it is info that is needed in case you refuse to play games with denuvo ect, but if you dont understand why something requires this then think of it from a greed standpoint and from a 'contractual obligation signed by ceo' standpoint.
take a shot every time "yourfavoriteSon" says "at the end of the day"
Another banger from YourFavorironteSonapple
Earth Defense Force 6... Sad to see it here, but it's where it belongs. This didn't cover the major reason people were so upset:
On being released, it was more or less more of the same as 5. That's fine tbh. All of EDF was essentially building upon what was already there.
But they also changed the stream info post-release to mention it required an Epic Games Store account in order to play multiplayer. This was never mentioned until post-release. This blindsided everyone who pre-ordered, which was a not-insignificant portion of the fanbase, myself included.
We are upset not just that we're required to make an outside account, but because we were outright lied to. It's worse then Helldivers in that regard, as at least they were open about how the requirements for a Sony account would eventually be implemented.
I struggle to play this series now without a very sour taste in my mouth, and I hate that because this is an amazing game series for some braindead fun with some light strategic planning. This is a black mark that's going to be remembered by everyone who felt that the company had done people wrong.
I actually bought Darf Daemon just now for 5 bucks lol. I see it recently got updated and it genuinly has potential. 😂
Haven't played the September 3rd update, but if they can fix the translation issues and a lot of the bugs, I think it could be halfway decent.
I have been playing Earth Defense Force 2025 (which is 4), on the Xbox 360 for years. It still has an active community. Something about the game just vibes with my autism. It is the game I have played the most in the past decade.
The thing that most amazes me about EDF is the hitboxes. Accuracy actually matters in this game because you have no idea how many times you will thread the needle and miss by literal inches cause the shot goes between all their legs or bullseye a lamp post / tree branch and blow yourself up or waste a long reload on your sniper.
Played Party of Sin after Trine and Trine 2 when I was looking for similar games (there are surpisingly few, even today)... Yeah, safe to say I didn't think very highly about it.
I love the concept behind "Sand to Surf" & do hope that they decide to fix it in the long run.
I feel like world truck racing is just some meta joke about Big Rigs))
Oh boy I sure hope robowars isn't know for any piracy related reasons
that galaxy ultra is like someone making a copy of skyroads not understanding the fun bits of the design
I hate to defend the designers of Dark Daemon, but the "k" in "Dark" is actually correct. That's an old German blackletter font (so-called Fraktur), and the "k" really looks like that. The "f" would have a different shape. But that's the only aspect of their game I'd defend.
Considering every single one of those games shown that the devs that bought out party of sin’s team looks like DEI slop, I’m not surprised it’s on here.
At first I was surprised why EDF was here, but after seeing what the complains are, I totally understand.
Howdy partner I’d love to see a retrospective of the Rachet and clank games ❤
The "new crown virus" in Humanovirus, could that just be a reference to Corona?
A bad translation usually means that the company didn't wanna pay for a good translation service.
Earth Defense Force looks really fun, shame you need a second acount
Those knife skills in Human or Virus are excellent xD
The last game reminds me of Big Rigs Over the Road Racing. Have you covered that one already?
Forza Motorsport 7 had a racing truck, and it sure sounds a whole lot different. But they can be very fast, I got mine up to 220 km/h in stock mode.
Trust me: EDF 4.1, 5, and 6 are all amazing. Played for hundreds of hours.
27:21 the jank arms holding a rifle are always a dead giveaway when something is pure shit lol when the dev cant even get right the things that are constantly on your screen, even when its something they could compare to real life as much as they need to.
if you like the premise of sand to surf you should check out Journey its a great game with a similiar premise (im pretty sure it was STS's inspiration) but its brought to perfection
Keep doing great work my boy and you’re making your mom proud. Also interesting to see how bad these games are but also see how you give them some positive feedback towards them too. I raise you right.
Glad you enjoy it!
World Truck Racing feels like a sequel to Big Rigs
What hapenned to the "Hey dad" in the greeting? :C
I'm proud of you son. Doing me proud!
Hey son are we getting an MGS 5 video?
of course
"Dead by Death" just sounds like something an ai would generate.