Over at Complex Gaming they’re having some fun adding “honest” blurbs to popular game covers, asking “What if games told the truth before you dropped $US60?” Honestly, I’d probably buy them for the blurbs alone.
For example, I still have not finished The Last of Us — I know, I am a communist for this. I loved the voice acting and was enjoying the story, but damn if all that gameplay didn’t get in the way. Maybe I’d have stuck with it had this text appeared on the cover.
And maybe disappointment with Resident Evil 6 wouldn’t have been quite has high if expectations had been set from the get go.
Many of gaming’s greatest tragedies could have been averted with the addition of a single line of text.
This could eventually lead to a fun Photoshop contest. For now it leads over to Complex Gaming, where several more games exercise some refreshing honesty.
Honest Video Game Box Art: What if Games Told the Truth Before You Dropped the $US60? [Complex Gaming]
Comments
20 responses to “If Video Game Covers Were More Honest”
“Selfish prick dooms humanity”
Hahaha! I’m kinda glad I wasn’t the only person who saw that in the ending.
I also liked the jab at Bioshock too.
Well – it wasn’t exactly subtle. When people asks me what the story is about, I always tell them: “It the story of a man who finds his humanity again, and it makes him truly fucking evil”.
Yeah, but a lot of people are stating that the ending is brilliant.
Porbably the same people who say that game “really really awesome” too….
It was great up until that final chapter.
No one can honestly say that they would sacrifice their loved ones for the greater good. We would definitely expect others to and we can make a big deal saying we would, but at the end of the day it’s a situation that many (thankfully) don’t have to face and is far too complex to be seen in black and white.
I don’t mind that some didn’t like the game, but when people say they wanted the option to let her die I feel they missed the point of ending all together.
Be it the fault of the game, or the player, you were meant to relate to Joel and feel for Ellie.
I remember thinking, “DADDIES COMIN BABY” as I started mowing down fireflies, but the implication of what I was doing wasn’t lost on me, it made the ending even worse to swallow as Joel fumbled with his watch and seeing that Ellie had realised what had happened, but that’s what made it deep for me.
Can I fault him for his decision? Yes, but I sure as hell can’t blame him
“No one can honestly say that they would sacrifice their loved ones for the greater good.”
That statement is ridiculous. It’s a simple matter of fact that in a world of seven billion people there are people who can not only honestly say this, but have actually done this, particularly in wartime.
Parent strangles baby so the villagers’ hidey hole won’t be betrayed.
You think this has never happened?
Parent kills child for defending army’s sustenance during a siege.
You think this has never happened?
Anyone who literally couldn’t kill a loved one to save the entire race represents a complete failure to the species.
I wouldn’t say it made him truly fucking evil.
The Firefly’s plans were arguably quite poorly conceived to begin with – “Hey! Let’s just hack open her skull in the vain hopes that we’l find a cure!Vague enough that we’re maybe avoiding Last of Us spoiler territory, but just in case anyone hasn’t sussed out the ending yet…
I thought it was a brilliant ending for this very reason. I was really expecting at least one of the protagonists to die at the end of the game. I was so surprised when neither of them did, but this coming at the cost of condemning the world to continue enduring the disease that was probably going to wipe out humanity, fantastic. Probably the most atypical “happy” ending I’ve seen in a long time.Cannot agree enough and I believe many people would have done the same thing for a child or loved one, doesn’t necessarily make him evil at all. Selfish, in a very hard to define way yes, but that’s humanity.
I think it was evil. I’m not a big fan of the needs of the many vs the few argument, but he basically doomed humanity to remaining in post-apocalyptic wasteland. Regardless of his reasons, it was pretty evil. Which is why I like the ending personally.
Fair enough 🙂 I think the fact that so many people liked the ending regardless of their feelings for the reasoning why screams how great of an ending it was..
I thought it undermined Ellies character.
Even if he hadn’t done that the world would still have been screwed
as there is no way the fireflies could or even would have mass distributed the vaccine. Even if they were able to then what? You still have a large amount of murderers, rapists and general bastard humans running around.I don’t know about that – the fireflies seemed to have a national presence. They seemed to be more unified that the remaining military personnel.
i love that no one will ever, ever get over the omnishambles that was sim city
upvote for using the word omnishambles.
Malcolm Tucker fan, I take it?
😉
“Let us know when this works!” needs to be an actual mailing list. I want to give Lionhead my phone number and have them SMS me when Fable Anniversary doesn’t freeze every 10 minutes so I can play the damn game.
Right!? I’ve stopped playing as I’ve had it lock up on me 6-8 times!
If game covers were really honest they would show actual gameplay screenshots on the back of the cover. Not those bullshots where you can barely tell what kind of game it actually is!