The Name Of the Game

[Glorb]

The first thing that you see or hear when you see or hear of a game is the title. Therefore, I think that the title is second only in importance to the cover art, appearance-wise (or maybe it's the other way around). For a game title to be good it must be fairly short, recognizable, and not fatally stupid-sounding. For example, Grand Theft Auto is a great name, for many reasons; chiefly among them is the fact that it tells you what the game's about: stealing cars. Another is Half-Life: it's a scientific term in theretical physics (the decay constant to an atom or something like that), and Godon Freeman is a scientist, but it also (probably) has something to do with the "half life" of the zombies.
But on the other end of the spectrum are crappy names, mostly names made up of random words to sound as generic as possible. Take Alpha Black Zero: Intrepid Protocol and the recent Monster Kingdom Jewel Summoner. Both names give no information on what they're about, except that one is a generic shooter (it has "Alpha" and "Zero" in the title) and the other is a generic RPG (it has "Kingdom" and "Summoner" in the title). Other crappy names include Elemental Gimmick Gear (what exactly is so gimmicky about this...elemental...gear?) and No One Can Stop Mister Domino!, a game famous in the annals (I went through extra effort not to misspell that) of bad-name history.

Oh, and I dare anyone to think of a cooler-sounding name than Far Cry. If you ask for it at a game store, it definately sounds like you're buying a manly shooter and not some generic puzzle game collection or something.

[Area 64]

Both names give no information on what they're about

Well, names like, "Super Mario Land," or, "Super Mario World," don't necessarily tell me what those respective games are about, either.

Take Alpha Black Zero: Intrepid Protocol and the recent Monster Kingdom Jewel Summoner. Both names give no information on what they're about

Well, I did research about ABZ. It turns out that the game is set in the future. The reason for the name is because Alpha Black Zero is the name of the protagonist's "commando unit," so it does kind of tell you that it will be a military-esque game. I looked up both "intrepid," and "protocol," and when put together, it basically means a fearless strategy, which the protagonist has to develop, since he has been, "accused of multiple illegal assassinations against his own government."


Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner, obviously tells me that it's about monsters and involves a jewel. It tells me more about it than a name like "Yoshi's Island DS", where you just have to assume that the player knows what Yoshi's Island is, and what happened in the first game.

And I have no idea what Far Cry is. When I hear the name, I think of a game where falcons are used as weapons or something.

[Lizard Dude]

I submit the actual game names:

Alien Shooter
Divine Divinity
You Are Empty
Run Like Hell
Hard Truck Apocalypse

Pretty much every WWII FPS has a horrible name, all of which sound exactly the same (you know, Call of Medal of Men of Honor).

Furthermore, games need to stop using colons in the title. It's gone too far.

Oh, and

The Varghina Incident

[The Chef]

I remember back when it was sufficient for a sequel to have a number on the end and that was it. Sometimes I envy other countries if a game's title is different there (Super Donkey Kong always made more sense to me than Donkey Kong Country), and the practice of giving every DS game a second title that started with D and S got kind of annoying after a while.

[Mr. Wiggles]

I'd love to know exactly what a "Valkyrie Profile" is. Is it a profile shot of a valkyrie? Is there a whole case of profiles on known valkyries? I mean really.

Also, Far Cry has the word cry in it, which implies someone being emotional. Emotional does not meet standards of manly to me.

[Red Paratroopa]

Hey, guys can be emotional and manly, like me. *starts to cry*  I don't have to conform to your rules!

[bobman37]

Run Like Hell

Best game title ever.

Also I've always liked the title Baldur's Gate. I just thought I'd throw that out there. It's a good game, too.

[Chupperson Weird]

Valkyrie Profile is a game about a valkyrie. So it profiles her.

[ShadowBrain]

the practice of giving every DS game a second title that started with D and S got kind of annoying after a while.

Oh, lord, I hear ya. How much longer do you think it'll be until companies stop thinking that's cute or funny enough to keep doing? Just another reason not to put numbers or acronyms in your system's title (well, N64 had a few "64" games, but it's gone into downright overkill on the DS).

It's the chicken and the egg, really: Do they get the plots to work with the name, vice-versa, or do they just give 'em inaccurate/wildly unoriginal (Yoshi's Island DS? Genius!) titles under said self-imposed restraints? Man, who cares, just make a DS game I'll wanna play, for once.

[MaxVance]

I remember back when it was sufficient for a sequel to have a number on the end and that was it.

I think game developers stopped doing that (movie studios too) when it was found that apparently consumers don't like sequels with numbers in them. Apparently the number made it sound too much like a "sequel."

[Chupperson Weird]

Numbered sequels sound like it's more of the same, so instead they go with the franchise title as an overarching brand name and use the subtitles for the actual name of the installment.
That said, you can still have three installments of Final Fantasy XIII.

[BP]

The first thing that you see or hear when you see or hear of a game is the title.

Not always, sometimes we get "tentative titles" accompanied by screenshots first.

[Glorb]

I think "Doom" is an awesome name, for two reasons: it's simple, and it sounds violent, which are pretty accurate descriptions of the game. Really, would a parent buy a game named Doom for their young ones?

And as soon as heard the name Hard Truck Apocalypse, I cried at how rad it sounded.

[Lizard Dude]

From the random name generator department:

Heroes of Annihilated Empires

[Glorb]

Seriously? Those must be some pretty wussy heroes, being as how their empires were annihilated.