Best game with the worst elevator pitch

2014-09-04 11:51:07 am

Don't know what to speedrun :(

A friend of mine was telling me about "Five nights at Freddy's" and how it was a great game but "the guys at the store were raving about this game, I thought it was the dumbest concept." Which led me to say "There have been some really awesome games with insanely stupid elevator pitches." And that comment leads to this post. What games can you think of that are really good games but if you had to give the elevator pitch (i.e. the quick 30 second sell) would sound like total crap, crazy, boring, etc?

Thread title:

ais523

2014-09-04 01:51:19 pm

Two games I've worked on (and greatly enjoy) are pretty bad elevator-pitch-wise. NetHack (which I like to the extent that I'm working on the fan project to resurrect its development) is hard to describe in 30 seconds in a way that makes it at all appealing to play; pretty much all its selling features sound like negatives. For Enigma (this one, many games have the same name), pretty much the only advert I've seen work is to compare it to other games that people have played in the past.

MemoryTAS

2014-09-04 01:53:31 pm

Who would ever want to play a game about a jumping Italian plumber?!?

Uilnslcoap

2014-09-04 02:21:56 pm

F*ckin' sanity effects...

Okay, we take the Legend of Zelda series, cover just about all of Hyrule in water, make the characters look cartoonish, and have fewer dungeons than past iterations of the series. Also, you spend minutes on end and cumulative hours sailing across the ocean, often with not much to do but take in the scenery.

(I love Wind Waker; it's one of my favorite games, and my favorite Zelda game.)

presjpolk

2014-09-04 04:38:50 pm

HELLO!

Alright. You know Aliens? OK, let's do Aliens. Only put Sigourney Weaver in a bulky metal suit the WHOLE GAME, take out the cute kid, and in fact every line of dialogue. And you know the chestbursters and all those scary aliens? Replace those with a cute cuddly blob that saves the day. Instead make the bad guy a giant brain in a jar.

xxxAceBlade

2014-09-04 04:57:31 pm

Take your ten year old child. Give him a backpack and a small pet animal. Send him into the wild to fend for himself for days on end. Oh, and that child has to take down an entire criminal organization.

Frikken love pokemon.

KJHawkinson

2014-09-04 04:58:49 pm

When Shigeru Miyamoto was working on the original arcade Donkey Kong the programmers thought that he was crazy for wanting to have multiple screens/stages in the game. They weren't happy about the extra work and most (all?) arcade games up to that point were a single screen.

MAS8705

2014-09-04 06:52:25 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

You play as a super powered 600 year old witch that has access to hellish powers by using her hair that she wears as clothing! And get this, when she goes up against the really powerful Angels (did I mention that the enemies in this game are all angels? No demons here, just angels), she does all these sexy poses and all the hair on her clothes go flying off to completely annihilate her foe, leaving the 600 year old witch completely naked!

*sees guy walks away*

Why does everyone walk away from me before I can show them what she looks like?

Efreeti

2014-09-04 07:03:36 pm

They/them

"Schoolkids commit suicide over and over again to release helpful spirits"

Youkai

2014-09-04 10:51:20 pm

Don't know what to speedrun :(

Lol Efreeti, what game is that?

Efreeti

2014-09-05 12:12:33 am

They/them

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Axel Ryman

2014-09-05 02:37:29 am

We all scream for Eyes Cream

A young boy abandons his mother during dinner to check on a raft. In doing so he is put into a coma after being plunged into a pool of darkness where he dreams about teaming up with a talking bipedal shield wielding dog, and a talking duck that wears a shirt but no pants while casting magic to search for his soulmate and some other chick. On his journey he travels through space on a ship made entirely of candy beating up cute little black creatures while visiting other planets where he has to solve the problems of the locals.

CourtesyCoin

2014-09-05 09:13:45 am

hi i herd dis were WR happens yes

Quote from Axel Ryman:

A young boy abandons his mother during dinner to check on a raft. In doing so he is put into a coma after being plunged into a pool of darkness where he dreams about teaming up with a talking bipedal shield wielding dog, and a talking duck that wears a shirt but no pants while casting magic to search for his soulmate and some other chick. On his journey he travels through space on a ship made entirely of candy beating up cute little black creatures while visiting other planets where he has to solve the problems of the locals.

Wow. That does make it sound bad Cheesy

MAS8705

Edit history:

MAS8705: 2014-09-05 12:37:46 pm

2014-09-05 12:36:17 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

Quote from Efreeti:

"Schoolkids commit suicide over and over again to release helpful spirits"

Probably would have gone with "school kids put a gun to their head and pull the trigger over and over again..." but still, persona 3 sure did have a fun idea of summoning personas. Makes you wonder why over the top thing is going to happen in Persona 5.

Also to just drop off another wonderful pitch. "Imagine this! Manhunt, but replace all the humans with Giant Teddy Bears!"

Omnigamer

Edit history:

Omnigamer: 2014-09-05 12:53:09 pm

2014-09-05 12:52:36 pm

All the things

A young boy one day encounters a bee spawned from a meteor that challenges him to save the world. The youth then runs away from home and uses a bat to indiscriminantly bash local wildlife, gangsters, hippies, and inanimate objects. Along the way the boy experiences drugs, cultism, politics, and probably some more drugs. At the end... uh... he can time travel and transforms into a robot? Yes, let's go with that.

Galindo

2014-09-05 03:40:36 pm

Hail to the King

Quote from Omnigamer:

A young boy one day encounters a bee spawned from a meteor that challenges him to save the world. The youth then runs away from home and uses a bat to indiscriminantly bash local wildlife, gangsters, hippies, and inanimate objects. Along the way the boy experiences drugs, cultism, politics, and probably some more drugs. At the end... uh... he can time travel and transforms into a robot? Yes, let's go with that.

Not to mention the actual ad for the game.... "This game stinks!" Like, seriously? Somebody thought that was a good slogan when people don't know it includes a scratch-and-sniff item inside?

Melodia

2014-09-06 12:06:29 am

'A figure in a robot suit is given a pea shooter and tasked with killing a brain in a jar'.

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

2014-09-06 10:36:50 am

Learning to Stream

Mysterious plumber travels to distant lands, ingests mushrooms, flowers and leaves to gain special abilities, all while battling mysterious fauna and flora while trying to rescue a Princess.

_Stash_

2014-09-06 02:40:41 pm

Sup.

Quote from Mr. Kelly R. Flewin:

Mysterious plumber travels to distant lands, ingests mushrooms, flowers and leaves to gain special abilities, all while battling mysterious fauna and flora while trying to rescue a Princess.

actually, that sounds pretty awesome not gonna lie

xud9dab2

2014-09-06 03:44:14 pm

heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

If you think Persona 3 is bad try summing up Persona 2. I guess the best stuff would be spoilers, but man.

Alko

2014-09-06 04:38:31 pm

Caution: This user contains Kana ^_^

A group of schoolchildren goes to the hospital to check up on a friend of theirs. Suddenly: Earthquake! And after the earthquake, the ICU where their friend had been brought has disappeared. Also, the place is swarming with demons. They go back to the school and lo behold, their friend is alive and well, so off they go to rescue others.

You know how they always told you the stork brought babies? Well this particular stork is attacked and drops one of the two babies it was carrying onto an island of dinosaurs. For some reason, the baby which has hached knows exactly where his twin brother is, and leads the dinosaurs who bring him there in a pony express type system.
(Actually, that doesn't sound half bad)

It's all about dinosaurs that jump around in a childish colourful world eating fruits. Yeah, it's totally ment to teach you that melons are best food evar.
(Does that even qualify as a good game? 8D)

Efreeti

2014-09-06 09:37:36 pm

They/them

Quote from Alko:

It's all about dinosaurs that jump around in a childish colourful world eating fruits. Yeah, it's totally ment to teach you that melons are best food evar.
(Does that even qualify as a good game? 8D)

HELL YES IT DOES