A game by any other name would be much preferred, thanks
Lords of the FallenandCall of Duty: Advanced Warfarejust came out and they should be laughed out the damn building for their horrible, generic videogames names.
I originally typed “Armored Warfare” and was confused when Google failed to bring up results for our “Call of Duty: Armored Warfare” review. Then I realized it was “Advanced Warfare” after remembering I kept getting it confused withAdvance Warsoriginally.
Dark
Dark Soulsgets a pass as From’s lazy attempt to hold onto its monogrammed towels fromDemon’s Souls. Also because it is a good, distinctive, singular game. It transcends its name a bit. ButBloodborneis obviously better, that alliteration compounded into consonance. It’s more fun to say, to chew around in your mouth like taffy and spit out nonsense permutations like “Bloodbarn” and “Bloodblarn.”
Otherwise? Who remembersDark Sector? That title is both clinical (sector) and generic (dark). And while maybe generic, that game wasn’t clinical. It was nasty and had enemies screaming enough when you disemboweled them that I kind of felt bad playing it.
Of course ’90s kids will remember the fun we had with #darksiders2, thanks to Occams Electric Toothbrush. Affixing “dark” to your title as a lazy descriptor is a great way to ensure you’ll be remembered as often asUntold Legends: Dark Kingdom, known only for being an early PS3 game and having the boobalicious boxart of a woman wearing aShemagh, a bra, and black leather pants with some fringe.
Someone actually went full bore into gritcity and named their gameDark. JustDark. The nerve. Most of these titles would be easily improved just by replacing “dark with “black”(incidentally,Black? Good name).Black Sector.Black Void. Maybe notBlacksiders, but what the hell are siders, anyway? Tiny hamburgers? Get that shit out of here.
You know when “dark” works? As a noun.The Long Dark. The “dark” is the thing, not the vague quality of a thing, and the “long” makes it imposing like a blackened doorway stretched and skewed intoThe Cabinet of Doctor Caligariproportions. It’s like Aku fromSamurai Jacklooking down on you, or walking up to a bar and the barkeep asking him, “Hey, why the long dark?”
Dawn
It’s always darkest before the dawn, right? That’s why the “Dark” section came before the “Dawn” section. I am clever.
But come the h-e-double-hockey-sticks heck on. Is it ever any other time of day in videogame land?
Dawn of Mana.Dawn of Magic.Dawngate.Until Dawn.Grim Dawn.Black Dawn. Dom DeLuise.Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow.Dawn of War.Dawnstar.Golden Sun: Dark Fucking Dawn(“fucking,” mine). Does nothing happen midday, or in the afternoon? I know there’s aSunsetindie game that looks good. When will we get theBefore Sunriseof videogames? How has it neverdawnedon anyone that dawns get yawns?
But thank you, dawn, for letting us segue neatly into…
Of
Unless you’re making aninfomercial oven mitt, please don’t put “of” in your title. I mentionedBloodborneearlier. You know what that game is not called?Borne of Blood. Yes, it has balance and alliteration, but it sacrifices all dynamism to look grandiose and anachronistic. If you want to be historic, go with epithets. Let’s start seeing some Charles the Fats and Charles the Balds, not stuffy junk likeLords of the Fallen.
While I initially committed myself to cordoning off these blights, the problem is they’ve long since spread, intermingled. It’s hard to do a solo bit on the word “lord”–Lords of the Fallen,Lords of Shadow,Lords of Dogtown–when it (and “dawn”) are so often paired with “of.”Lord of Warkind of worked as an intentional upsetting of the term “warlord,” which the film calls out in dialogue, that sees it sitting awkwardly in modernity. Plus,Warlordis a bit too self-serious as standalone title.
I was going to joke, “Maybe for a Jet Li movie,” then thought there was a Jet Li movie calledWarlordwith Jason Statham, then realized that was just calledWar, then learned that Jet Li was in another movie calledThe Warlords. Close.
The linkage here is what I refer to as “fantasy bullshit.”
“Shadow” rates here, too, though its heavily represented in a lot of genres. I was sitting in an ER waiting room a few months back watching college football as a woman struggled with a vending machine and aShadow of Mordorcommercial aired in between football breaks. I watched it and thought, “What the hell is this?” finding it weird that I was completely unaware of this game big enough to pay for prime time television ads.
At the end, I saw the title and went, “oh,” because the “Mordor” tipped me off that this was aGame of Thronesgame, but “Shadow of Mordor” is so boring (so isShadow of Mordor). Can you imagine if the recent Batman game called itselfShadow of Arkham? This is what happens when people that read junk likeA Spell for Chameleongrow up and make things.
Shadow of the Colossusgets a natural pass for being literal and, once again, singular and good. You know what’s a decent fantasy game name?The Witcher. It’s to the point, it’s a proper noun in that universe built on a word in our modern lexicon (rather thanFinal Fantasy XIIIlevel gobbledygook). It stumbled a bit with the sequel subtitle “Assassins of Kings,” consonance aside, but gets back to sounding original withWild Hunt. I want to play a game calledThe Witcher: Wild Hunt.
But wait, there’s War!
We can stop slagging off the products ofLord of the Ringsauthor JK Rowling’s vast influence in the world of fantasy, though, because war games have given us plenty of awful, derivative names in recent years (without backtracking through “War of…” titles).
Warface.Warfighter.Warfare.Warframe.Warfuck yourself.
War of the Monstersisn’t great, though it reflects the monster movie era appropriately.Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Meleeis clumsier, ridingSmashcoattails with “melee,” but more lively.Destroy All Humans!is even better, adding punctuation for….punctuation. Emphasis.
Though we can get into stylization of titles, I’m sure we’ve all agreed that numbers in game names is bad (F3AR). Just becauseSe7endid it doesn’t mean you’re able to; 1) it was the ’90s and 2) it’s not like we actually acknowledge the numeral, even if I just did here. Games shoving numbers into titles now is like suburban teens replacing the pluralizing s’ with z’s ten yearz ago. You missed the boat, kid.
:
You can just put a number on the end and we’ll know it’s a sequel, guys. They’re good for that. Or pull aFast &Furiousand get creative with your sequels; the latest riffs off ofMagnificent Seven.Or pull aMarioand eschew chronology for thematic grouping.
But, fine, I can accept colons for sequel subtitles (that don’t suck), but what’s the deal with fresh games launching with overlong names? Try earning a subtitle for once like we did back in my day (seven miles uphill in the snowboth ways).Kingdoms of Amalur:Reckoning. You know who did get recked? Rhode Island tax payers on the hook formillionsafter 38 Studios closed down because Curt Schilling is too busy linking YouTube videos todisprove evolution. Really makes you think.
The colon was also an enabler for the glut of “r” word games–Retribution, Redemption–that has seemed to die down, thankfully. Of course we’ll giveRevengeancea pass there for being insane, though I would’ve taken eitherMetal Gear RisingorMetal Gear Revengeanceover the full thing.
You Can Do Better
No Man’s Skywas exciting. It was new. It has an apostrophe in its name (let’s give more punctuation a chance to shine). The name feels slightly antagonistic. The title has multiple words without a colon. It’s shows you the sky, but is clear you have no claim to stake.
Obviously the indie scene has produced complete gems likeSir, You Are Being HuntedandThe Deer GodandFrog FractionsandJazzpunkandInvisible Inc.Your game’s name should mean something. It should be punchy or distinct. It shouldn’t sound like it came from an internet generator, or make me have to keep looking the damn thing up because it sounds exactly like everything else.
