Word(s) in a title that make or break a game

[FantasiaWHT]

I've just been thinking lately that sometimes you KNOW a game is a real stinker just by one or more words in a title (and I don't mean an entire title that's a really bad series or anything :P). And there's some words that seem to show up in better games too.

What I don't want to see is a word that only shows up in one series, if you just don't like the series (or just like the series!) like... mega.... or kombat... hehe

BAD WORDS

"Ops"

There are a TON of terrible games out there with "ops" in the title. All of the Spec Ops, Rogue Ops, Naval Ops, Shadow Ops, etc.



GOOD WORDS

"Fantasy"

All of the Final Fantasy games, obviously. Cosmic Fantasy. "Phantasy" Star.

"Super"

Surprisingly, there are a lot of great games with the generic "Super" in them. Super Mario ETC, Super Monkey Ball, Super Metroid, Super Smash Brothers, the list could go on. But there were a lot of great SNES games, especially, with "Super" in the title.

What else can people think of?

[Socheata]

"Army" and "Men" in conjunction is a deadly combination. :P

[Gapporin]

BAD WORDS:

Extreme.

[Nez]

I don't look for words I look for Shaq. Anything that is endorsed by Shaq is an utter failer. Shaq fu NBA ShowTime: NBA On NBC. Just stay away from that man.

[Ernster]

GOOD WORDS:

Mario

BAD WORDS

Sunshine

LOL

[crazyjackcsa]

The word extreme scares me a lot. so does the word EA I do like the word The.

[Avatard]

BAD WORDS!

Years (2005, 2004, 2003, etc...), Dance, Luigi, Madden, extreme/Xtreme, Offroad, Cheese (never seen one, but I bet it would suck).

[Cryomancer]

I am wary of things with sub-titles, ie smaller title parts below the big logo, not the kind of movies, those rule.

[Cmosfm]

BAD WORDS:

Card

[IntvGene]

n' is good.

Examples:
Bump n' Jump
Lock n' Chase
Up n' Down
Roc n' Rope
Ghouls n' Ghosts
Rush n' Attack

The exception to the rule is: Sneak n' Peek, that awful Atari 2600 game where you play hide and seek (with slightly aroused characters).

[Cryomancer]

BAD WORDS:

Card

Cardfighter. Counter'd.

[Daria]

BAD WORDS:

Extreme.

More like Xtreme

[RockyRaccoon]

**INSERT X-STREME ZOMG SPORTS STAR HERE** Pro **INSERT ZOMG OVERLY EXAGERRTED X-STREME SPORT HERE**

><

[Mr.FoodMonster]

BAD WORDS!

Years (2005, 2004, 2003, etc...), Dance

::shakes head::

For bad I'd go with XXX

Good I'd say Mega

[Gast]

at first i was planning on saying 3D, but then i saw a recent duke nukem thread ...

[Querjek]

"Mario" plus "Party" plus "any number higher than 6".

[AB Positive]

BAD WORDS:

Card

Card Fighter's Clash 1 and 2, denied! :)

-AG

[Sotenga]

Good words:

Castle: This goes especially if part of one word. ;)

Gear: Metal Gear is obvious, but Elemental Gearbolt was a pretty good shooter too. Oh, and Xenogears. Haven't played it, but I probably will in the future, especially since my pal Nate is gaga over the game. It's damn cool, from what I heard. Oh, and Guilty Gear!

Mario: Yeah, I'm still a Mario fanatic, and although I'm not a great RPG fan, any game of that genre starring everyone's favorite plumber are games that I often find innovative, fascinating, and with much more action than any RPG's that I've played. I look forward to Paper Mario 2, I do. It's not just the RPG's, though... Mario is timeless.

Gradius/Axelay/Zanac/Darius/any other extremely unorthodox word: I find that many shmups have strange titles that are often just one word, and for some reason, shmups like that inexplicably turn out to be very, very, very, very, very... good.

[daynum]

"Super"

Surprisingly, there are a lot of great games with the generic "Super" in them. Super Mario ETC, Super Monkey Ball, Super Metroid, Super Smash Brothers, the list could go on. But there were a lot of great SNES games, especially, with "Super" in the title.

What else can people think of?

There are a lot of super "super" games but this probably because there was a time when it seemed that every other SNES release was a "super" title. So for every Super Metroid there was a Super Battleship or Super Solitaire.

[Promophile]

BAD WORDS:

NFL
NCAA
Street
Hoops
Nascar
Racing
Tom Clancy's
Ops
Xtreme

[Ed Oscuro]

Castle: This goes especially if part of one word. ;)
Oh I see, as in Castlequest :D

[link1110]

Good words:

"Tales of"

[Dk_slammer]

Bad Words----"Racing"-



Good Words---"Evil"

[scooterb23]

I have, based on this thread, games sales charts, and my own experience made the best and worst games ever. Behold.

BEST. GAME. EVER.

Super Mario Katamari Racing


WORST. GAME. EVER.

Xtreme Madden XXX Kart 2005

[Ed Oscuro]

BEST. GAME. EVER.

Super Mario Katamari Racing
Any game that lets you flatten Mario's face against asphalt HAS to be good ;D

[qbertandernie]

AVATARD: speedy gonzalez cheese cat-astrophe! never played it...might be ok...

[Gapporin]

I have, based on this thread, games sales charts, and my own experience made the best and worst games ever. Behold.

Heh, I was going to do that based on Promophile's list alone. I give you:

Tom Clancy's NCAA Street Hoops Nascar Racing Xtreme Ops.

[JJNova]

BAD WORDS

"Ops"

There are a TON of terrible games out there with "ops" in the title. All of the Spec Ops, Rogue Ops, Naval Ops, Shadow Ops, etc.



I think somebody lied to you about Spec Ops. The game was developed and released by Take Two Entertainment to be a 10 Dollar line of games, and was released to some very good reviews and acclaim. It was supposed to be a line of games that appealed to those that knew they were paying too much for 50 cents worth of plastic disc, and 2 dollars worth of box and manual.

Anyway, the first Spec Ops game wasn't bad at all (PSX, Take Two)

[FantasiaWHT]

I think somebody lied to you about Spec Ops. The game was developed and released by Take Two Entertainment to be a 10 Dollar line of games, and was released to some very good reviews and acclaim. It was supposed to be a line of games that appealed to those that knew they were paying too much for 50 cents worth of plastic disc, and 2 dollars worth of box and manual.

Anyway, the first Spec Ops game wasn't bad at all (PSX, Take Two)

I find that the vast majority of "budget" games aren't worth even touching. I'd rather wait until a good game is cheap than buy a brand new budget game for the same price. I'm still going with thumbs-down on the spec ops titles.

Anyways, want to remind people to stay away from words that only show up in one series of games- don't want this to turn into a favorite/least favorite series thread, because we have plenty of those.

Look for words that show up in good/bad titles across multiple series'

[Dimitri]

Good: Mega, Star
Bad: Pro, Clancy :P

Reasoning? I don't need no reasons!


There are a TON of terrible games out there with "ops" in the title. All of the Spec Ops, Rogue Ops, Naval Ops, Shadow Ops, etc.

Psi-Ops. Counter'd! /clone

[banski83]

Bad Words/phrases: Harry Potter, FIFA, Myst, Star Wars, Pokemon

Good Words: Monkey, Unreal

More to come, when I've had a think about it...

[esquire]

Bad: Army Men, Extreme/Xtreme, Dance, Mary Kate & Ashley, Harry Potter

Good: Mario, Castlevania, Panzer, Might and Magic, Warcraft, Unreal

[Jasoco]

Hitler's Xtreme Nazi Attack Squad 2005

...Would be bad.. seriously, though. Aside from Hitler or Nazi (Not counting Wolfenstein as the words aren't in the title.) anything with a year at the end of the title usually means you better prepare to plunk down money every year from then on.

Mario can make or break. Bad examples are Mario is Missing, Mario's Time Machine, maybe Mario Teaches Typing. Anything that makes you think it's a fun Mario game, but turns out to be educational. Then there are the arguables, like Sunshine. Some hate it. Some like it.

Seems just about anything with the words Final and Fantasy in the title will sell billions and billions. Same with Pokémon to an extent.

[FantasiaWHT]

*debates asking for a lock because nobody is paying attention to the actual question I asked*

:P

Try to stay away from words that ONLY SHOW UP IN ONE SERIES.

This is not a good/bad series thread. There are plenty of those.

[banski83]

:hmm:

OK, how about this one then:

"THE"

........just joking with you.
But, its pretty hard to think of words that span more than just one series which automatically emanate a bad feeling.

One word (ok, anagram) which does give me a feeling of foreboding though, is MMORPG. I read or hear that anagram (is that the word? don't think it is, but can't think of the right word, please feel free to correct me) and I instantly think "Ooh, brilliant, goblins, orcs, elves and undead. Again. So original." :/ -_-

Now I know there lots of different type of MMO's (I like playing EVE: Online personally, trying to get into Planetside but no-ones kind to n00bs on it :angry: :( ) but its what I instantly think of when I see/hear that combination of letters.

Anyone got any other opinions like that?

[Sotenga]

Welp, I ran out of time before I could get around to bad words, but there are quite a few I have to share.

Madden: I know, I know, this one's been said quite a bit already, but I just cannot stress enough how much I dislike this game series. I'm surprised I haven't officially boycotted it yet.

Bokosuka: Well, there's only one game I know of that uses this word, and it's an old MSX game ported to the NES known as Bokosuka Wars... but DEAR CHRYSLER, this game sucks both ends of the lower human body simultaneously! The only good part about it is seeing WOW! YOU LOSE!, which shouldn't be too hard to access. At all. Because the game sucks.

Raider: I could have said "Tomb," but Lost Tomb was a pretty cool game, and I imagine Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is a good use of the Indy license.

Network: Piece this word together with a certain extremely long-going game series, and you'll find that's when said series jumped the shark in my eyes.

Shaq: This strategy might work if this word went with a basketball game. Lamentably, that has not yet happened. LOL

[FantasiaWHT]

Banski, the word you are looking for is acronym :)

Anagrams are words that have the same letters but are spelled differently- like: tea, eat, ate. Or to quote a great Simpson's episode- "Alec Guiness" and "Genuine Class"

Thought of another good word- Valkyrie :)

[9c1lt1]

Any game that contain a year in the title.

[FantasiaWHT]

What about AD 1501? hehe

[banski83]

Banski, the word you are looking for is acronym :)

Anagrams are words that have the same letters but are spelled differently- like: tea, eat, ate. Or to quote a great Simpson's episode- "Alec Guiness" and "Genuine Class"

Thought of another good word- Valkyrie :)

Thanks for that! :)

I stand corrected! LOL

[tony_good]

For the most part, games released in America with non-English words in the titles seem to be a turnoff. Not that they are bad games necessarily...

[Jasoco]

For the most part, games released in America with non-English words in the titles seem to be a turnoff. Not that they are bad games necessarily...I wouldn't say so.

[Nz17]

Gear: Metal Gear is obvious, but Elemental Gearbolt was a pretty good shooter too. Oh, and Xenogears. Haven't played it, but I probably will in the future, especially since my pal Nate is gaga over the game. It's damn cool, from what I heard. Oh, and Guilty Gear!

I take it that you've never played Elemental Gimmick Gear? ;)

COUNTERED!