Game names: search and destroy

In the Coint and Plink 2009 thread I remarked that Prototype, Infamous, and Uncharted (I, II, whatever) are all kinda indistinguishable to me, because of their names (I've not played any of them). And I think that's a bad thing: that a game's name ought to be part of its attraction. Which got me thinking: what are some really good game names? What makes them good? Same for bad names. So let's talk about this.

One of my favorite names is Yars' Revenge...a name that's even better than the game it names! I like the name b/c first of all "Yars" is a killer word, like "Mars" or "Lars", and because it's made up (as far as I know) it could be anything. It sounds alien too, which is good. And now Yars is getting revenge! Revenge for what? Haha, the game will never tell you, since all you do is kill things represented by blocky pixels. But it leaves a lot to the imagination.

after putting a bit more grind on Torchlight I'll add it as a name I like a lot: because you automatically know up on hearing it that it's a dungeon crawler. And yet it's a punchy name, rolls off the tongue easily.

search: BAD DUDES

destroy: Demon's Souls

Is Psychonauts a search or a destroy name? I can't decide-- on one hand it sounds relaly stupidly generic, but on the other it sounds almost like a parody of stupidly generic names. I am leaning towards dud though.

Dud: Men At War, a decent RTS that came out like a year ago. HI I HAVE NO PERSONALITY I AM MEN AT WAR.

Classic: Bubsy in Claws Encounters Of The Furred Kind. CLASSIC!

it might even be men OF war, i can't even remember.

Destroy: Final Fantasy. There's nothing "Final" about it.

I think my rule of thumb is that a game name says something about the game. This is why Prototype for instance is bad: it makes the game sound like a demo.

Psychonauts is mostly a good name: it's PSYCHO! And something about space or exploration. I've never played it so maybe this is wrong (yeah yeah I know, maybe I'll pick it up on xbla later this year).

B/c of my "functional" naming rule of thumb I like names like Sim City and Civilization and Blitz. And Fable. And Peggle (which is also a really fun word to say).

I suspect iPhone games have pretty bad names on the whole, b/c there are so many of them and good names are hard to come by. Like, I love Azkend as a game, but the name is terrible. First of all it sounds like ass (literally). Second of all if anything it sounds like an RPG or RTG (albeit a dumb one) but no, it's a match-n.

destroy:

sports games with two licensed names. Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Madden NFL, etc.

numbered games with generic subtitles. like Myst III: Exile. Like anyone's going to call it Exile.

Tom Clancy's _______________

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I guess Rainbow won.

Demons Souls

agreed, games with hopelessly forgettable generic names like this.

Search
Booty
Resident Evil insanely genius
R Type

s:
The Ancient Art of War at Sea
The Earth Dies Screaming
A Mind Forever Voyaging
Castle Wolfenstein
GORF

d:
Evolution: Dino Dudes
Cybermorph
Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy

GORF haha

anyone remember "Don't Buy This", a selection of really crap games from Firebird for the sinclair spectrum.

oddly, i ended up buying it and yep they were crap. the fruit machine game was kinda fun with friends though.

D: all those hopelessly bland one word names that sound like indie bands from the early 90s - Pure, Dirt, Fracture etc etc

Fuel
Braid

search:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gamelife/2010/01/pony.jpg

Destroy: Final Fantasy. There's nothing "Final" about it.

― Your body is a spiderland (polyphonic), Saturday, February 6, 2010 4:52 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

who cares, it's an awesome name! great rhythm to it, really sticks in your head. also doesnt really make sense but sounds like it does, which is always great for a name.

It definitely has rhythm, I'll grant you that.

i think evolution: dino dudes is about 10000000000000000x better name for a game than "the earth died screaming"

...

really hate generic war game names. call of duty, battlefield, company of heroes...etc

was just thinking how much I like the name borderlands, despite having never played it...also really love the cover art

see, I think something ridiculously OTT like "The Earth Dies Screaming" does a really great job of distinguishing itself among other generic shmups, whereas evolution: dino dudes tells me nothing about the game, implies that it is part of a series that does not exist, and is cutesy without being cute.

You might say that TEDS doesn't say anything about the game either, but in an era of plotless games, it concisely suggested a world beyond 192x160 pixels. Kind of like Yars' Revenge, although Yars did it much better.

Also, I was trying to make a lol by having all my Ds be Jaguar games.

you can probably add the world ends with you onto that list

search: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

i think evolution: dino dudes is about 10000000000000000x better name for a game than "the earth died screaming"

― antexit, Saturday, February 6, 2010 11:01 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i like both these titles for different reasons. the latter because of what LBJ said, the former cuz it's hilarious and reminds me of being 12 years old (and is perhaps a nod to "bad dudes")

you can probably add the world ends with you onto that list

haha oh jeez. I almost bought a DS just because of the title of that game.

The World Ends With You is a great name.

I agree that Pure is a terrible name. I think Burnout isn't great either, since it sounds like a bad thing. I guess they mean burn out your engine or your tires?

search: Starfox, Excitebike, Doom---but not Quake, which doesn't draw me in at all. Does the game involve an earthquake? No, it's just Doom with better graphics. I guess it makes for a good graphics engine name.

destroy: Unreal, MDK

xp you should! because the DS is great and so is that game! /obv

though it's a shame they couldn't go with the original title for copyright reasons (It's a Wonderful World) the title they went with was still pretty good, even though it's a little more... uh... kludgy when you read it in the in-game dialogue that references the title

Excitebike is an awesome awesome name

Friend of mine introduced to me (via his desktop wallpaper) 'Team Buddies' for playstation. The name is so delightful that I really want to give the game a try, and it actually looks pretty good, like a cutesy, bomberman-esque strategy game. But the name is what makes it. 'Team Buddies'.

I like Burnout because in certain typefaces it looks like it says Bumout.

D: Super Mario 64. Mass Effect. Bayonetta. (they're all games I love, but with awful names).

S: Little Big Adventure (can't believe that got renamed for the US...and then blatantly stolen by LPB!)

little big adventure, with twinsen?

Viva Pinata is a name i like. Really lets you know yr going to be battered abt the head with cheerfulness.

Also planescape: torment is a nice mixture of lol rpg cliche and wtf.

the earth dies screaming got its name from a movie i thought.

Have to admit that I loved it when all the Castlevania games started using the musical titles. Sure, it doesn't really make sense, but the sense of grandeur they add does fit the larger scale of the Metroid-style 2D games. For the record:

Rondo of Blood
Symphony of the Night
Harmony of Dissonance
Aria of Sorrow

By comparison, Circle of the Moon, Dawn of Sorrow, Lament of Innocence, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia generally sound less cool.

Another personal fave: SINISTAR. Because it's such a lame pun, and because the real star of the game is the crazy shouting villain.

cosign Viva Piñata and Castlevania (even without the subtitles).

I kinda have a softspot for old school, really direct titles, like Combat, Defender, Asteroids, Track and Field. They get right to the point: almost a kind of onomatopoeia but not for sounds, for purposes (there's probably some word for this).

I have a love/hate relationship with Konami games. On the one hand, Contra! Rush'n Attack! Blades of Steel! Double Dribble! Gyruss! These are great! You say Gyruss, you know just what's going to be: rotating doom. But on the other hand, Jackal, Gradius. And Lifeforce, though the Wiki page gives some context as to why the name doesn't work.

i quite like Gradius, and Salamander is such an odd name for a shooter.
bullet hell smhmups have great names : Perfect Cherry Blossom, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, Subterranean Animism, Radiant Silvergun etc.
also anything with dude in the title is A+ : Two Crude Dudes, Bad Dudes vs DragonNinja.

na-naaa na-na-na-na-na-na-naa KATAMARI DAMACY
na-naaa na-na-na-na-na-na-naa KATAMARI DAMACY

(Although having said that, while I do think the name is incredibly pleasing to say, I am a sucker for games that have proper songs to go with them. I mean, 'Missile Command' is a pretty generic name for a game, but the song Atari commissioned for it gets stuck in my head all the bloody time.)

I was thinking the other day about how bioshock is such a terrible name for that game. The only reason it makes some sense is the electricity plasmid (which is one of many) and the fact that its made by the folks who did system shock.

Katamari is great, at least in English, since it ROLLS off the tongue.

Bioshock's terrible, yeah. Did I already say Halo is bad? I wonder if its success is responsible for the generic one-word titles of late lamented above, e.g. Pure, Fracture.

Half-Life is a great name.

yeah along with katamri love japanese words as titles: suikoden, tekken

mag

^destroy obviously