Here's a forenote: Tryhard does not necessarily mean 'edgy'.

For example, "Halo Killers" and "Mario killers" were tryhard games in that they tried and failed to either oust or replace said franchises.

And let's be honest, whatever the next Zelda with it being a big ambiguous open world project in a landscape where most of us are tired of open world games, is probably going to be seen as trying too hard to be an open world when Twilight Princess was seen as a big empty bowl, Wind Waker was a chess board with specks of dust on it and the occasional big island, and Skyward Sword was a story fustercluck with 3 tiny DESIGNATED QUEST AREAS and a sky full of bugger all. This is the first time where the hardware won't be a complete detriment to the size of the game, and I'm just not sure they'll be able to pull it off without looking utterly ridiculous or falling into the same trappings that other open worlds.

Ah, sorry. Rant aside, for a more classical example, there's Shadow the Edgehog. With such classic lines as 'This is like taking candy from a baby, which is fine by me.' and 'Where is that DAMN fourth chaos emerald?!', you cannot go wrong with showing where the Sonic Franchise tried too hard.

Another example that comes to mind is Super Mario Sunshine, in that it tries too hard to make the mechanics of the games likable and fails terribly. From FLUDD, the physics, to the levels where you rely on the wonky way Mario moves now. (It doesn't feel natural.) Added to the fairly ridiculous story and rather infamous ending, and it is simply no wonder that Nintendo is too afraid to write stories these days because they keep backfiring.

So, what are some tryhard games that you've encountered? Like a Hack and Slash that tried too hard to be a platformer, instead? Or tried too hard to make you feel for a cardboard cutout? (All of Dogs_Watch).

I think I get it.

Diablo 3 tried too hard to be WOW.

Elaborate a little?

It was WHOA, maybe even a solid DANG, but not really WOW. And mind you, I've seen a few GOSH titles in my time, too.

Not the gameplay so much, just the look.

One of the reason I loved D 1 and 2 was their minimalism. They were dark and not too flashy; the characters didn't look like they just came out of a DC comic, like they do in Warcraft. I always thought D3 looked like Warcraft characters with their bigger than life design. I won't say it killed D3 (DRM did that :P) but it took away what separated the Diablo games from the rest of the Blizzard catalog.

Oh, that's YOU! That avatar change really threw me.

Honestly, I'm probably going to change it back since so many people keep saying the same thing. Plus, I'm kinda starting to prefer the old one anyways.

Whew!

I think Randa's Monday is a perfect example (if I correctly grasp the gist of the thread). It tries so hard to be a zany comedy point & click like Lucasarts classics, and it tries so hard to be "geeky" and "nerdy" you can almost see the veins on the games dev's foreheads. And it fails so badly. I think it references every single game and movie in existance, but not in any clever jokes- just brings them up for no other reason as to mention them, because nerd humor, right? That's how it works, right? And those classic adventure games, they had crazy puzzles, so here, have puzles that make no sense at all! Again failing to see that there usually some sense to those puzzles, and that they actually moved the game foreward, not just led to another nonsense puzzle on the very same few screens for hours and hours.

That's something I did notice; D1 and D2 were not afraid to be unsubtle, but they acted within the depth of their realm; nothing looked out of place.

Oh, like how Unepic was trying quite hard to be a comedic D&D parody but considering that I had to click though all 15 pages of the post 2005 releases just to remember it's name...but it was only good in the platforming and not the humor department, according to the reviews.

Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender: It was always so evident it was trying to beat the Space Quest series, especially Space Quest IV, in its own game. Maybe adding some Leisure Suit Larry there as well with sexual naughty naughty nudge nudge innuendos. It failed quite miserably, albeit it was still a passable point&click adventure game IIRC.

SQ4 (and Leisure Suit Larries) made me chuckle several times, while Rex Nebular just felt contrived and clumsy (literally), like the part in the intro where Rex trips over, and his "boss" makes a palmface. I guess that's when I was supposed to laugh?

It could have been worse I guess, it could have had canned laughter as well.

Plus, Sierra adventure games were known for their fantastic Roland MT-32 soundtracks. Rex Nebular supported MT-32 too, but its soundtrack totally sucked. Usually it didn't sound like proper music at all, but some kind of experimental modern jazz or something.

One of the games making me feel MicroProse seemed to have some quite amateurish composers, compared to the likes of those at Sierra, LucasArts, Origin, Westwood, Ocean etc.

I must have been misinformed, I always thought "try hard" was a term used for things (games) that were beyond difficult to accomplish anything in it.

Would, Die Hard after number 2 count?

bubsy as a series
it tries too hard to tap in to the EXTREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEME animal mascot platiformer with "tude"
but bubsy himsel fis over engineerd and made by committee
he is a void
he has beady little eyes an annoying smirk nonsensical clothes ( a shirt with an exclamation point ? why ? and why just a shirt ? )
his voice clips are incessant but they are just not funny they are bad puns dated references and unfunny cat jokes because he is a cat of sorts
he has no character and no personality he is just there to soak up some of that sonikku dollars

all that could be forgiven if the games were actually decent but they arent
they are just mindless copies of mario and sonic games with out understanding or caring what made those games good or why sonic game play mechanics do not apply to mario style levels or vice versa

the controls are off the physics are slippery and the whole game is just a track wreck
the atari jaguar game is insane hard with one hit deaths and no indication of what is a solid object to jump on and what is just background decoration

but the most abysmal bubsy game is 3D which is just an awful tone deaf piece of awfullness if this was your first game it would put you off vidoe games for life
its an alpha pushed out as a finished product ( much like gog galaxy but at least gog doesnt charge you for the dubious honor to use galaxy )

bubsy's voice is even more annoying and now he wont even shut up anymore
the graphics are awfull and are nothing more then flat polygons
the camera is beyond broken and the controls ...gods they make the broken controls from tomb raider look refined and smooth
bubsy was already a trainwreck but this is just another train filled with flammable chemicals crashing headfirst in tot h burning wreck of the original 3 games
i thought die hard 3 was a good movie ?
4 and 5 are crap though
unless you mean the games

die hard trilogy 2 !
....yeah great name there