Games that disappointed you

[Zera]

Has this ever happen to you? Your waiting for a game (whether its an original one or a sequel). This could be the most hyped thing to man or just a personal favorite. But when you finally get it and play it, you realize that it was not what you expected. By that I mean it wasnt good. Was the potential wasted or did it blow all together?

I recently experienced this with the latest entry to one of my favorite series, Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. Now I wasnt expecting it to take the genre to new heights, but I expected more than what it is. They just didnt add anything new besides the staples of sequels(new characters, weapons). Not to mention the game's difficulty setting can be through the roof at some points. By all means its not a bad game and I recommend it to anyone who has not played a single fire Emblem game. I was just disappointed with it.

Has this thing ever happen to you?

 

[Annom]

Call of duty 2, compared to Call of duty one it was a major down grade with a new shiny pain job, nothing felt right anymore. None of the guns I had become used to felt the same, and they took out the "cook" on grenades I wasn't impressed by anything it had to offer and quickly went back to call of duty original and UO.

 

[xbeaker]

Happens all the time. Though with the availability of demos these days it happens a lot less. Even ?good? games can disappoint if they just don?t have what I am looking for, or they are over hyped. For example, I didn?t really like KOTOR. 4 of my friends were playing it, and raving about it. I got about half way through and the game just never managed to click for me. I don?t expect every game to be a AAA but when it sets insane goals that it never reaches (see: Peter Molyneux) or just falls flat of what you wanted everyone gets disappointed.

 

[FatRabidRamboCow]

Neverwinter Nights. Just didn't compare to the likes of Baldur's Gate.

Neverwtiner Nights 2 was even worse.

 

[J-Val]

Lost Planet. I constantly heard it being compared to Gears of War, and when I received it as a gift I thought "Why not?". To me, it just seemed so generic. I don't know who even contemplated comparing it to Gears of War. The only similarity is the fact they're both Third-Person Perspective shooters. Gears of War was a slow-paced "shoot-and-duck" game. Lost Planet was a pretty average run 'n' gun.

 

[dwallack79]

I agree with Lost Planet - what a great concept and major hype for a game with the dumbest, most confusing story I have ever seen. The gameplay is very average and came out at a time when there was little to get excited for on the 360. Definitely a let down.

I was also disappointed with Twilight Princess. It was a great game, as is every decade-developed nintendo re-hash, but overall it was really just Ocarina with stick waving.

 

[hooliganyouth]

"Indigo Prophecy" - had a huge amount of potential but threw it all away on painfully distracting and - IMHO - pointless rhythm games. It could have been a really effective detective/supernatural thriller but I was so annoyed that I gave up after a few hours of constantly having to repeat mini games. Boo "Indigo Prophecy" Boo!

And for extra added disappointment: Why has there never been an awesome Indiana Jones game? Yes there have been a couple of lacklustre titles but for the most part they suck. Sure an Indiana Jones inspired game sometimes works - i.e. "Tomb Raider" - but it's just not the same.

 

[Kohlrabi]

"Fable" sounded like a very interesting RPG conceptual, but when I got hold of the PC Version eventually it was just another Action "RPG" with some tamagotchian elements.

And basically every german game I played, e.g. "Spellforce", "Sacred" or "Gothic 3". They were extremely bug-ridden and had very shallow gameplay (except Gothic 3 for some parts).

"Fallout: Tactics": I knew it was just a turn based strategy game utilizing Fallout's rules, but it was really bad for what it was.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Dead Rising. I love the storyline, the characters are neat, the setting's good, and there's so much technical excellence going on there... and they change the control scheme to something completely different for just about everything other than walking in the mall; I feel like a perpetual-n00b. Add to that the level-grinding, and when I got stuck I just never went back to it.

KOTOR didn't disappoint me, but when I got stuck on a tough part I found I didn't want to invest a bunch of time replaying the game to level up (yeah, I'm not much of an online/computer RPGer) through prior storybits and round-file so much I've already done.

Dawn of War 2's solo campaign was so out-of-kilter I didn't play it out; the Guard play sessions annoyed me with the egregious voice acting (so unlike the first one) and then were interrupted mid-game to play the Eldar, whose voice-over work grated as much but only because it bitched about what you'd done as the Guard. (3 fixed this issue stunningly, and I'm debating getting 4 or not as I had to shovel parts into my desktop to run the last one.)

There's probably more, but gotta scoot.

-- Steve

 

[AK-00]

Final Fantasy VII. After listening to people bang on about it for years, I finally give the thing a try, and it's diabolical. Terrible, even compared to the old "Eye of The Beholder" games on the Amiga. To somebody who spent his teens playing games like Monkey Island and Daggerfall, it was out and out risible.

In a similar vein, I found "Sam & Max Hit The Road" pretty impenetrable. Not really funny so much as as bizarre. Certainly nowhere near as good as the episodic Sam & Max games, which have been good to me.

 

[hooloovoonate]

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - Destroyed everything I loved about the original, except perhaps the gameplay.

Xenosaga Episode 2 - Ruined the incredible battle system of the first Xenosaga.

Final Fantasy X-2 - Worst story in a game, and what was with the crappy action/exploring?

Mario Kart: Double Dash - Just not as much fun as Mario Kart 64.

Gunstar Super Heroes - Took away the weapon swapping/combining of the original.

 

[hooliganyouth]

Xenosaga Episode 2 - Ruined the incredible battle system of the first Xenosaga.

Oh yeah I forgot about that one...in the time between playing 1 & 2 I had completely forgotten what had gone on and why I cared about any of the characters.

 

[Robomanjr]

Timeshift was really disappointing to me, maybe its cause im starting to fall out of FPS games but i think it needs some fine tuning, the time freeze/slow/ reverse powers were cool but the enemies seem to have the ability o withstand 2 close range shotgun blasts to the dome.

 

[Girlysprite]

might and magic 9.from 6 on the series started to dwindle somehwat, and came down with a huge crash at 9. Never really finished and polished because 3do went boom. I was a real fan of the series...

 

[Lightbulb]

I think basically every game in the last 3 years which i read a review for and subsequently played.

Main offenders are Black and White, Neverwinter Nights, Oblivion and Supreme Commander.

They were all billed as the greatest thing ever in the reviews and were infact really quite crap COMPARED TO WHAT THEY SAID THEY WERE. Whether or not they were good doesn't really matter. If you build something up so much that it doesn't achieve what they told you it would its going to seems rubbish.

I have come to a conclusion regarding any spoilers be they previews, videos, hyperbolic reviews or whatever they just will not do me any good. I will always expect too much. Therefore i am going by word of mouth reviews, demos and Zero Punctuation reviews.

 

[some random guy]

The Darkness.
That game had so much potential but it just ended up feeling rushed. They basically got a good concept for a video game and then cut as many corners as possible to get it released earlier than all the other big games. The aiming was shoddy and imprecise, the difficulty level is unbalanced and the game is just too short. That game could have been so much better if they spend a few more months developing it.

 

[Katana314]

Always click the post button ONCE, even if it seems to take forever. If it does, you can copy the post into clipboard, go back to the thread, refresh to see if it's there, then post again.

 

[Andrew Armstrong]

You must really dislike The Darkness then

GTA: London wasn't too good, I recall. Was fun, but I didn't do much of it and the area you explore was so limited (I was English even!).

C&C Generals I was lead to be believe much was better then I thought after playing it, I did finish the singleplayer levels then uninstalled it. Never got the expansion.

There's a few others, but usually I don't have much expectations for a game since I don't get too very hung up on previews, and certainly not to the point where I then think the game I thought was bad (rather then average, or okay, or mediocre, or fun for a while...).

 

[J-Val]

Oh yes, and of course the main offender; Shadowrun.
Shallow gameplay, poor combat, weapons lacked variety - only five of them, including a useless katana and two guns which are essentially the same - and the whole thing just lacked finesse. I've always been against the idea of pure online games - at the least they could have Bots - but this game was just terrible. It was like the premature illegitimant offspring of Counter-Strike while it was on heroin. Major dissapointment.