Games that are fun when you're losing?

C

CyclopsRock

Member
I got all excited earlier. I got all excited over the trailer for the final BF3 expansion pack, and decided to jump back into it. I bought Armored Kill (where's the 'u' in 'armoured'?!) and locked and loaded.

I like the game. I've always liked it. I love the series. But man, it's not a fun game when you're losing, at all. If it's close, down to the nail it's great, but beyond that it's more or less a linear path to self-flagellation. I was thinking about why - mostly whilst sitting at the respawn screen - and I think it's probably because the game offers lots of ways of dying that you can't even see, let alone do anything about. Mortars, snipers, giant planes, small planes, helicopters, artillery barrages etc. All these things can be very far from you, to the point that you can't see them. And the more your team is losing, the less they're dying. And the less they're dying, the more of these they can get into play, and the problem compounds itself. And it's just not fun when you spawn, die, respawn, re-die. I've never played a game where I felt like I was helpless to stop my own fate like BF3.

And then I was thinking "Well, what games ARE fun, even when you're losing?" What are your thoughts?

The first one that sprang to my mind was Left 4 Dead 1/2. I think they both do a great job of making the game good fun even if you're getting slaughtered with an awful team.

Another is the Super Smash Brothers games. I always have a great time playing them, whether I win, lose, draw, whatever.
 
Super Smash Bros, definitely. I always get a kick from watching myself fucking bouncing off of walls and shit when getting hit at high percentages.
 
Demon's Souls for me. The road to winning (beating it) for me was paved with a myriad of losses. And I took every single one of them, no matter how heartbreaking, like a champ.
 
I can think about a lot of them, actually.
In fact, too many to bother listing them.

Most management games, for instance.
 
347389-king_of_colosseum_ii_coverart_large.jpg

The only wrestling game where I'm like 'yeah! good match, computer!'
 
Spelunky versus mode.

Even more recently, EX Troopers co-op. Even when my friends and I are getting our asses kicked, I'm always still having a blast.
 
MacVenture games (Deja Vu, Uninvited, Shadowgate). Often you'll purposefully do something silly (like using a torch on yourself in Shadowgate) just to see (or rather "read") the gruesome death it will inevitably lead to.
 
Blur's 20 player online races. The game is basically Mario Kart, but not balanced to give players who are further behind better items. That means that the guy who's first at the start of the game will probably stay ahead the entire race, but the battling in the pack (which is based on both item use (without Mario Kart's bullshit items) AND driving skills) for places 20 through 5 is FUCKING INTENSE and a giant barrel of fun.
 
Hilarious that this comes up, I just wrote a paper about how the 1994 XCom is more fun when you are losing than when you are winning.

I'm actually proofing it right as we speak, I'm using at as part of my application for an MFA in gamedesign program.
 
XCOM, largely because while losing a mission bad can really hurt your chances on the higher difficulties you *can* usually pull out of a tailspin if you can string together a couple of good missions. And even when you don't the game seem so sadistic and gleeful when it's punishing you that by the time you lose and the world succumbs to the alien threat you feel like the CPU earned it, even it you'd swear it cheats at dice sometimes. ;)

There's something about the cascading shitstorm in XCOM that's addictive and even enjoyable; where getting a couple of veterans killed one mission leads to a few rookies dying the next, which leads to having to skip a terror mission because you have no shot of completing it, which leads to losing some support... and on and on.
 
Pretty much all of Nintendo's party games. This includes Kart, Smash, Mario Party, Wii Party (and the Wii ___ line in general), Nintendo Land, etc.
 
Super Meat Boy, as long as a single death is considered losing, anyway. Any failure here is a learning experience. I never felt like I died due to bad game design. I was the one who missed a jump or didn't get something quite right.

But beyond that, the simple act of INSTANTLY respawning upon death and setting off again makes dying almost enjoyable. What I screwed up on is still fresh in my head. Plus, I LOVED watching a bazillion little SMBs being slaughtered at once while one little dude triumphs.
 
Rhythm Heaven Fever, because I'm pretty sure the dev team went out of their way to make the animations funnier the worse you're doing.
 
Games you play with friends (although maybe because I also usually win but nah still), games with fun styles and also fun gameplay.

As others have said most of my ones really: Pokemon Stadium, Mario Party, Fifa, Cod, Smash Bros, PSASBR, Mario Kart, Sonic RT, Rayman/Mario Bros, Ninja Gaiden, Wipeout, and yep Blur too.

Not so much with serious fighting games I'd agree...and of course you have a lot more fun when you're winning too. - Super Meat Boy up to a point..there's only so much you can take.
 
ScraftyDevil said:
Rhythm Heaven Fever, because I'm pretty sure the dev team went out of their way to make the animations funnier the worse you're doing.
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Haha my wife and I always sing to each other all messed up

Crazy into you: Crazy! Into... You

Fo sho: Fosho!


Also whubudubuduba is that true? ............... (cute reporter glares at stupid wrestler)
 
Missin' beats on purpose to see the hilarious cutscenes in Elite Beat Agents. Except for that level of course.
 
Tony Hawk games were amazing for the bails you could put your skater through.

Burnout crashes were ultimately more interesting than racing in Burnout.
 
Faster than Light, XCOM & SMT games with the press turn system. SMT especially gets really tense when the enemy gets a critical or casts some kind of instant death spell on your whole team. In these games you're thinking "oh shit, what can I do to turn this around!?" Hellish, yet strangely enjoyable at the same time, mainly because they are all continuous learning experiences. Some of the old C & C games with missions where you start of with a damaged base under heavy and unrelenting assault from an overwhelming enemy force can be pretty fun as well, if you manage to fight your way out of that initial corner and turn things around.
 
Warsow, for me at least.
Sothpaw said:
Not DOTA that's for sure.
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Also so this. Dota and APB are the only two games to get me to actually destroy a piece of computer equipment out of anger. To be fair, it was a Razer mouse both times, so it had it coming.
 
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