The best flops worth celebrating on Turkey Day

Audiences balked, however we nonetheless love these video games, films, and TV exhibits

Each Thanksgiving, households throughout america stuff themselves filled with roasted chicken. However this yr, we thought it was additionally nearly as good a time as any to offer due to the really exemplary turkeys: the flops, misfires, and misunderstood oddities we won’t assist however love.

We’ve got a robust “no trolling” coverage right here at Polygon and are by no means right here to reappraise one thing for the sake of a reappraisal. That stated, we additionally love making, defending, and arguing about our opinions throughout a dinner desk. We consider cultural curiosities that critics dismissed or audiences shrugged at deserve a spot on the desk, similar to that inexperienced bean casserole just one particular person loves, however it’s a must to make anyway.

So in a season constructed round sharing what brings us pleasure, let’s spend this Turkey Day championing the turkeys:

Fallout: New Vegas was a turkey at launch and a masterpiece today

Picture: Obsidian Leisure/Bethesda Softworks

The second season of Prime Video’s Fallout is arriving subsequent month, and the video games are again on my thoughts. They at all times are, so again in March, I undertook an entire replay of the core sequence, which was an exquisite concept that I’ll do once more someday. And after revisiting all of them, my opinion stays steadfast: Fallout: New Vegas is the very best entry within the sequence. It is a take most Fallout followers have settled on because the recreation’s launch again in 2010 — however you wouldn’t know that based mostly on its launch.

When New Vegas landed in shops, it had many issues going towards it. Firstly, it wasn’t developed by Bethesda, as that studio was too busy creating The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. As an alternative, duties had been handed over to Obsidian Leisure, a studio primarily recognized for sequels to beloved video games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights that, whereas good, did not stay as much as the unique.

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I love Heavy Rain, just not for the reasons David Cage wanted me to

Picture: Quantic Dream

Quantic Dream’s 2010 interactive drama, Heavy Rain, is what I can solely describe as a really bizarre recreation. David Cage’s darkish thriller places gamers within the footwear of 4 protagonists, every of whom are one way or the other associated to the Origami Killer: a mysterious determine who kidnaps younger boys during times of heavy precipitation, utilizing rain to drown them. Origami figures are then left on the scene of the crime as a kind of calling card. It is a nice idea for a gripping thriller, however Cage did not fairly stick the touchdown, as a substitute creating one of many funniest video games I’ve ever performed.

Like most David Cage gigs, Heavy Rain takes itself extraordinarily significantly, regardless of how unintentionally goofy it may be. The sport primarily consists of strolling round and urgent buttons, and probably the most motion gamers ever take part in comes within the type of quick-time occasions, that are the primary supply of potential hijinks. The overabundance of QTEs can simply flip what ought to be a tense chase sequence into a side-splitting experience when players react a bit too slowly, and hilarity inevitably ensues.

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Universal’s Waterworld stunt show makes the notorious turkey a better movie

Picture: Common Photos Dwelling Leisure

Kevin Costner’s Waterworld was a legendary failure — with critics, with moviegoers, with revenue margins. With a reported funds of $175 million, and a worldwide gross of solely $264 million, the Kevin Reynolds-directed post-apocalyptic blockbuster gifted box-office reporters “sunk!” headlines for years to come back. An outlandish premise didn’t assist its legacy: Costner stars as a human-fish hybrid badass hero man in a world the place the oceans have risen to cowl the land and everybody drinks pee to outlive. It is bizarre, unhappy, and fairly hopeless.

One way or the other, within the yr 2025, it is also fantastic, if seen with the best context. All of it hinges on whether or not you’ve an opportunity to go to Universal Studios Hollywood for the Waterworld stay stunt present.

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