A Favorite Game/Book/Movie/Band's/Etc Worst Release?

[Tanis]

So we all have them, a beloved band or singer, book or film or game series, etc.

But, hey, nobody is perfect and sometimes they release something that...well...just kind of sucks.
With Black Sabbath it's anything without Dio or Ozzy, with comics it's anything new by Frank Miller.

So...what are some of yours?

 

[Xprimentyl]

I watched Interview with the Vampire back in ?94 and enjoyed it enough to want to read the book of the same name by Anne Rice on which it was based. This turned into a love for her as an author and I?ve since read and re-read both her Vampire and Witches chronicles multiple times. Fast forward to 2012 when she announced yet another series, but this time based on werewolves. I was elated; I couldn?t wait to see her spin on one of my favorite mythical creatures. She came to the Dallas area and I attended a book signing when The Wolf Gift came out; I was excited to meet her and glad to find she was a very pleasant woman. The Wolf Gift, however, was NOT a very good book. With Vampires, she romanticized them, but made them extremely powerful and deep creatures; with her Witches, she included over 400 pages of family history going back nearly a thousand years in the first book; the Wolves were just? bleh. Nothing about them was very interesting; in fact, there came a point in the book when I ceased to even care that they were werewolves; it didn?t seem to matter to the story.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Metallica.

St Anger.

'Nuff said.

 

[Poetic Nova]

My favorite band, Anaal Nathrakh at one point released 'Hell is Empty, and all the devils are here'. Their weakest album. Although Desideratum almost got that honour if it werent for the fact that it had grown on me after 2 years.

 

[the December King]

I have read The Troop by Nick Cutter. When I did, I thought it was fantastic- a solid horror novel. Best of the year at the time (2014). I got excited to read more of Cutter (actually a pen name for Craig Davidson, but his works under his own name hold no real interest to me). I liked the style.

But sadly, I really disliked his followup novel, The Deep (2015). It felt like a colossal let down. To be fair, I appreciate varying the approach, and the stories are, though both horror, definitely different.

I'll try some more of his works, though.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

For the Fallen Dreams is a melodic hardcore band out of Michigan. They put out two albums with two different vocalists that were both really good but then the new guy took things in a whole new direction. Their third album was bad but nowhere near as terrible as the shit show that was Wasted Youth. Luckily the original vocalist is back and they've gotten back on track.

Also, I really dug Grant Morrison's Batman run from Son of Batman all the way up through the Black Glove and Batman RIP and the Dick Grayson as Batman era, but I just could not get into Batman Incorporated. I finished the story but man oh man was it a dense slog with a bunch of characters I didn't give a shit about.

OH, OH, also, Dark Souls 2. Jesus lord, why? WHY???

 

[Howllons-y]

For me, it was On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the James Bond series. The film itself was fine and the ending has well done, but I didn't like George Lazenby. He just fell flat as James Bond compared to Sean Connery. It felt like shooting the second Thor film where they replaced Chris Hemsworth with Twilight-era Robert Pattinson.

 

[the December King]

Metallica.

St Anger.

'Nuff said.

As an aside, did you watch the documentary Some Kind Of Monster? I found it entertaining.

 

[twistedmic]

The closest I can think of was Star Trek: Beyond. I enjoyed the first two of the Star Trek reboots but the third fell flat in my opinion. It didn't really mesh with the previous movies in the series and I was somewhat disappointed with it.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Metallica.

St Anger.

'Nuff said.

As an aside, did you watch the documentary Some Kind Of Monster? I found it entertaining.

It's in my dvd collection, but to be honest I found it quite depressing. I thought it'd be a behind-the-scenes, life-on-the-road tour film, but no. It was quite upsetting to realise that the metal icons I had grown up with were now rather sad middle-aged men, sat around a table in group therapy talking about their 'feelings'. They turned it around in time for Death Magnetic, but I think at the time the band were, for various reasons, in quite a bad place and I didn't really feel comfortable watching all of that stuff just being laid bare like that.

 

[American Tanker]

I'm a fan of Namco Bandai's Ace Combat games, with AC5: The Unsung War being my favorite of the bunch. I'm probably committing an act of heresy by daring to suggest that I enjoyed AC: Assault Horizon more than I liked AC6: Fires of Liberation(though this is mostly down to the "High-G Turn" mechanic and the fact that it only worked with "Novice" controls when turning vertically); but Ace Combat Infinity is just horrible.

It's horrifically grindy, and basically requires you to play the multiplayer if you want to get your planes upgraded. And you never make enough money to keep up with the upgrades you're earning, which can mean that EXP earned on a plane can go to waste because you can't get it upgraded to the next level quickly enough, which just slows down your grind even more. Then we get to the option of paying IRL money for items that boost your EXP and in-game money earning...

At least Project Aces and Namco Bandai seem to have learned their lessons. AC7: Skies Unknown is going back to the best years of the franchise, more or less. Here's hoping it lives up to the memories. I look forward to revisiting the sites of great battles from the Circum-Pacific War and the Second Usean Continental War. There'd better be monuments to both Mobius One and the Razgriz Squadron in certain locations.

 

[the December King]

Metallica.

St Anger.

'Nuff said.

As an aside, did you watch the documentary Some Kind Of Monster? I found it entertaining.

It's in my dvd collection, but to be honest I found it quite depressing. I thought it'd be a behind-the-scenes, life-on-the-road tour film, but no. It was quite upsetting to realise that the metal icons I had grown up with were now rather sad middle-aged men, sat around a table in group therapy talking about their 'feelings'. They turned it around in time for Death Magnetic, but I think at the time the band were, for various reasons, in quite a bad place and I didn't really feel comfortable watching all of that stuff just being laid bare like that.

I can see that, sure. Oddly, I think those are the reasons that my better half loves the doc, and she's a Metallica fan... I dunno.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Toss up between Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Homecoming.
I liked the challenge of Origins, the weapon system and the level design. I even kinda like Travis. But the story was all fanservice surrounding The Order, and Travis' own story felt extremely token and irrelevant. At least Homecoming was trying to do its own thing, even if The Order was still hanging around. But still it suffered from fanservice and trying to recapture the spirit of the early games (2 specifically) without really comprehending what was so special about it.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Everything released by Rare post Nuts 'n Bolts. Was Viva Pinata before that? If not, then everything post Viva Pinata. (Accents don't work still here)

Nightwish, after the lead singer Tarja Turunen left.

Xavier Rudd, after he stopped solo work. Same for Dub FX.

 

[Queen Michael]

I gotta go with Super Mario Land 2 here. The gameplay itself is fine, but the design of the game feels so un-Mario. The game feels like a really well-made Hong Kong pirate Mario game.

 

[shrekfan246]

It's in my dvd collection, but to be honest I found it quite depressing. I thought it'd be a behind-the-scenes, life-on-the-road tour film, but no. It was quite upsetting to realise that the metal icons I had grown up with were now rather sad middle-aged men, sat around a table in group therapy talking about their 'feelings'. They turned it around in time for Death Magnetic, but I think at the time the band were, for various reasons, in quite a bad place and I didn't really feel comfortable watching all of that stuff just being laid bare like that.

Ugh, tell me about it, as soon as I found out that most bands are comprised of actual humans, music was just ruined for me forever.

OT: They're not really "favorites", but Bullet For My Valentine have a very rocky history for me. Their first album was everything I wanted, and initially when their second album came out I heard a few tracks and just wrote the whole thing off because it sounded like they were moving in a direction I didn't care for. Then their third album came out and I heard a few songs I liked from it, so I went back and gave the second album another chance, ended up liking it, and I was kinda pumped when their fourth album came out, aaaannnnd that was the one that just immediately tanked all of my hopes.

The part that really drove how bad it was home for me was that the most interesting track on the entire album was literally just a song written as a "sequel" to one of my least favorite tracks (though admittedly one of the most popular ones) from their first album, except using lazier and more boring versions of the guitar riffs from said original track.

Their latest album is okay, it'd probably reinvigorate my interest if I gave it a few more listens, but eh.

Also, Frank Miller's art work is, uh, something else.

Spoiler

I'm still kinda shocked how he's managed to just get worse over the years.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

It's in my dvd collection, but to be honest I found it quite depressing. I thought it'd be a behind-the-scenes, life-on-the-road tour film, but no. It was quite upsetting to realise that the metal icons I had grown up with were now rather sad middle-aged men, sat around a table in group therapy talking about their 'feelings'. They turned it around in time for Death Magnetic, but I think at the time the band were, for various reasons, in quite a bad place and I didn't really feel comfortable watching all of that stuff just being laid bare like that.

Ugh, tell me about it, as soon as I found out that most bands are comprised of actual humans, music was just ruined for me forever.

Har-di-har. You know what I mean. Everyone has ups and downs, everyone comes unstuck at various times in their lives - it's understandable, it's perfectly human, but it isn't particularly comfortable to watch.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

At World's End.

That movie is a special effects masterpiece. And despite the flaws I enjoyed the story as is, I mean you can clearly tell at least the makers cared about what they were making. They didn't feel like unnecassary as the last 2 movies that came out.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I'm a fan of Namco Bandai's Ace Combat games, with AC5: The Unsung War being my favorite of the bunch. I'm probably committing an act of heresy by daring to suggest that I enjoyed AC: Assault Horizon more than I liked AC6: Fires of Liberation(though this is mostly down to the "High-G Turn" mechanic and the fact that it only worked with "Novice" controls when turning vertically); but Ace Combat Infinity is just horrible.

You, matey, are not alonein your sentiment. Hell, I even liked AC:0 better than Infinity.

At least Project Aces and Namco Bandai seem to have learned their lessons. AC7: Skies Unknown is going back to the best years of the franchise, more or less. Here's hoping it lives up to the memories. I look forward to revisiting the sites of great battles from the Circum-Pacific War and the Second Usean Continental War. There'd better be monuments to both Mobius One and the Razgriz Squadron in certain locations.

Bring back the Demons and I won't complain either, but yea, also glad they're going back to a fictional but plausible world.

Just no trench runs, I hope they resist that urge...

 

[iwinatlife]

Wheel of Time Crossroads of Twilight aka the book you can skip entirely and miss almost nothing