Games that fooled you

[Racecarlock]

Mafia II. Only warning I got was from some reviewers on Gamefaqs. That was it. See, all of the reviews were good, some of my friends said I should play it, and even the people of GTAforums kept asking over and over for features imported from mafia II. So I found it in a best buy bargain bin for $20.

I still feel ripped off. Chapter 3 has me lifting crates, chapter 6 has me cleaning prison toilets, chapter 7 has me chaperoning drunk guys around with no control over my radio, chapter 8 has me color matching cigarettes to customers, and the shootouts are something you could easily find in gears of war. And when you're not doing all of that, you're usually sitting in traffic. Wow. It's an okay linear game, but the problem is that even though people acknowledge the automatic GPS waypoint you get, they still called it a fucking sandbox game.

To top it all off, the story is half heartedly ripped from godfather. Hell, the main character's first name is Vito. They only changed his last name. And another character? His name is Henry Tomasino. You know, like Don Tomasino in the godfather? I mean, they didn't even try. The whole story is basically a bunch of mafia families are having feuds and you want to make money, so you do their errands. I'm not sure if that goes on through the whole game, though, because I just stopped playing at the point in a chapter where it said I have to go back to Derek to earn more money because a drug deal went wrong and I'm in debt. For about the 5th time in the game. Fuck that.

 

[Resetti's_Replicas]

Epic Mickey. From the reviews, I took it to be on the same caliber as Okami. Should have known better, it's made by EA so I should have expected it to be half-assed. It's just a platformer, not an adventure game. The overhyped morals system doesn't actually have noticeable effects. The reviews failed to mention that you can't backtrack and there's no final boss.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

The force unleashed.

The marketing made it look cool and hyped the fact that when you push storm troopers off things they try to grab onto things as a big 'cool' feature.
Turned out it sucked.

Also Brink.
And TOR.

 

[Eamar]

Another vote for Skyrim here. Biggest case of Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome I've seen.

All my friends adored it (which is fair enough, obviously) and would not shut up about it, but none of them could argue with any of the (many, many) complaints I levelled at it, or explain how it was good despite them. I was confused.

And as predicted, after a couple of months they all seemed to forget it existed

 

[Amethyst Wind]

Too Human completely fooled me into thinking there was going to be more game when it ended (y'know, as there should have been for the game to be worthwhile).

On a more positive note, I was fooled into thinking that Alan Wake would be good story average gameplay and I found myself thinking the gameplay was pretty sweet but the story was average.

 

[risue]

Ive gotten pretty lucky.. Thought about getting BRINK, but decided to hold off cause I wanted to wait for one of my friends to get it... to this day neither of us have gotten it.

I loved DA:0 but from the get go I guessed dragon age 2 was going to be a flop.. it was, still haven't gotten it, no intention to get it.

Duke Nukem Forever i almost got just because of the name... didnt take long before i saw it was going to be a huge flop.

RAGE was almost a day one buy, I just didn't have the money at the time (yay college student) still haven't gotten it.. maybe if it goes on sale super cheep.

Dead Island fell into the same deal that brink did, wanted to get it with a friend then after it came out.. neither of us were too excited to get it.

On the other hand... Assassin's creed got me. although i did get it on sale for $5 it really didnt live up to what I was hoping for. then i still got Assassin's Creed 2, which does seem better... though the main reason I got it (also on sale for $5) was because I was studying Florence and was curious to see how well they had re-created the city. I knew going in that there would be a lot of things missing in the game but in actually seeing how different it is... a bigger let down than i had imagined i guess...

Mass Effect 3 (not just because of the ending) the hype almost made me forget my reaction to the initial trailer: "please don't make it into a 'save earth' game" ... multiplayer was oddly fun though

Dirt 2 - I'm a PC gamer... why i thought a driving game using the arrow keys would be a good idea is beyond me... i just saw pretty graphics and thought a driving game would be a fun change, think i only played it for 30 min and gave up. (not really the games fault, i'm sure if i got a steering wheel or game pad it would be a different story)

the Penumbra games - I loved Amnesia: the dark descent. similar game style, same developer... but it just didn't hit the same note for some reason.

finally Bulletstorm - day 1 buy and while i didnt dislike it, i do regret the $60 i paid for it, really wish i had waited till it was on sale before i got it.

 

[Grygor]

Epic Mickey. From the reviews, I took it to be on the same caliber as Okami. Should have known better, it's made by EA so I should have expected it to be half-assed.

Wait a sec - why would it's having been made by EA have been a sign it wouldn't be good, when it wasn't made by EA? It was published by Disney, and developed by Looking Point Software, which is owned by Disney.

About the closest it comes to being "made by EA" is that it's designer, Warren Spector, worked at Origin Systems for the short period of time it was owned by EA.

 

[Anthony Wells]

Ocarina of time. everyone and the mother praises it to hell and high water. i didn't like it. because i was COMPLETELY underwhelmed by ocarina being the: best game evars!!!011101 and....it wasn't even close. its an average game at best. sure it did what it did FIRST and that colors everyone's view of it...picking it up now was a disappointment... (and for the record i did play it when i was a kid. and i didn't like it then. and after hearing it touted as the best ever i gave it another shot. i liked it now...but its not the best game ever.

 

[s0p0g]

hmm... old? Black and White: yo, you get to be a mutha-effing GOD, with human sacrifices and your own, intelligent (uh-huh...) pet, that'll help you with you day-to-day tasks... also, oyu get to be GAWD damn it! - you can't mess this up, right?
yes. you can.

new-ish? The effing Force effing Unleashed! - you get to be death incarnate! your enemies act intelligently, credibly, naturally, blahdeeblah! wreak havoc with AWESOME powers to command!
- you won't mess this up. you can't mess this up. you're not gonna mess this up HOW did you mess THIS up?!

these were games i truly was (*surpised* and) disappoint with. yes, truly disappoint.
in my defence: when B&W was released, i was still young, inexperienced, and not a cynical bastard, but believed in the good in (independent, haha) pc-gaming magazines ^^

snip

That wasn't the game then. That was everyone who praised it.

true. when you expect some kind of jesus of gaming, you'll probably just see the man... game, whatever. but when you expect "just" another good zelda game... and you get THIS (in this case: expect a man and get some sort of jesus ^^ )... let's say i didn't finish it eight times for nothing, and each time was better than before. watched my brother finish it several times. watched my friends finish it. helped my brother and my friends when they were stuck.
i still don't know how they did it, but OoT felt SO big, and gameplay & pacing-wise it was (at least nearly) perfect. at least i have no complaints.
the best was trying to get to Hyrule for the first time, after leaving the forest, before the first night began and the bridge would rise, so one has to fight the skeletons ^^ - never did it, but that never stopped me from trying ^^
also, Malon was cute (and close enough to my age to be liked back then)

 

[evenest]

I preordered Rage based upon what I saw from E3 and some of the preview footage. I got stuck trying to complete the sniper mission and turned it off. Sadly, I haven't gone back to it. I thought it looked great, but I didn't feel compelled to go back to it at all. Someday I will as I spent $60 on it. That is what really annoys me, the price is down to $19 and has been for quite some time. Grrrr Arrrr!

I finally got around to playing Assassin's Creed this morning. I must say that I don't care for the controls and that mission in Block 3 where you have to kill the guard that is set up for insta-fail frustrates the bejesus out of me. Challenges are good; however, problems that are set up in a way to frustrate players make no sense to me. I also refuse to play timed events--they aren't what I would call fun.

 

[Worgen]

Mercenaries 2, the ad totally sold me on the game, it was fuckawesome.
Look at that damn ad, just watching it again makes me want to get the game, fortunately now I know its crap and I wont waste the money on it again.

 

[Austin Howe]

As someone who doesn't like spending good money willy-nilly, I'll say that the only game I've ever payed for with my own money that truly disapointed me was BioShock.

The story just wasn't that good, I'm sorry. Ayn Rand was a great villain, but otherwise, it had bad atmosphere, mediocre soundtrack, average gameplay . . . list goes on.

 

[Samurai Silhouette]

Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim, I thought there were both going to be epic. Made me not want to care about gaming anymore.

 

[Killspre]

Red Faction Guerrilla Warfare, this game was hyped like crazy and made me super psyched for this game when it first came out. I even went so far to preorder it from gamestop and what I get probably one of the more mediocre 3rd person shooters to be released. Oh and nice job of making my destruction feel big when all I have to do is leave that part of the game to find the entire building rebuilt. I mean I get they had to or the open world would be pretty empty eventually but at least keep them dumbass military buildings I had to destroy be gone. At the time I didn't have internet so if its multiplayer made up for it I didn't see it.

 

[redisforever]

Mech Assault 2
To this day I have no idea why I bought it in the first place, but I took it to Game-X-Change the very next day.

See, I have a strange bond to that game. It was the first console game I ever had. It came with my Xbox. Also, the graphics are quite nice in the cinematics. That's about it.

OT: Duke Nukem Forever, anyone?

Now, really, I'd say Minecraft. Not what you think though. I thought it'd be shit. It fooled me. It wasn't.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Homefront....

Seriously? Im playing supporting cast? They only needed me for one mission, the rest of the time Im helping out Mr. Badass McAwesome Kickass....

That, and the campaign lasted like 4 hours. Even COD isn't that shallow!

 

[Dead Seerius]

Alan Wake's American Nightmare.

I usually don't get overly disappointed about the games I play because I make sure I'm getting exactly what I expect before I buy, but AWAN was a massive letdown compared to the stellar first game.

I loved just about everything in the first game, from the atmosphere to the gameplay to the scenery, but American Nightmare lacked in just about every department.

The plot just came out of nowhere and never seemed to explain whether Alan was still in the dark place or not or, for that matter, what your main reason for being in Arizona was in the first place.

The dialogue between characters was laughable and even cringe-worthy at times, totally not what I was expecting after the first game.

That being said, the Fight 'til Dawn mode was pretty sweet.

 

[Anthony Wells]

le snip

let me recite the OP *clears throat...keyboard....thing* and i quote:

What are some games that fooled you with hype and made you buy them only to regret it later?

Reasons could range from (but not limited to):
-Great trailer
-Sequel, expect bugs to be fixed that marred prior entries
-Referrals from friends
-Referrals from message boards

I do believe that last one there...referrals from message boards... does fit here...and the other one referrals from friends. so my post is fine as is.

 

[KefkaCultist]

Modern Warfare 3.

I actually tend to enjoy the call of duty games, even with their repetitive nature, because as bad as the games are, they're a lot of fun to play with friends. Unfortunately, it seems that IW didn't learn a single thing from the problems with MW2, and just made the sequel AWFUL. I don't think I've played a less fun multiplayer game before.

Yeah, this is my answer. I played a ton of MW and MW2, but stopped playing MW2 when the hacks and mods started becoming more common. I got MW3 on release day because I figured it would be good online, but no, I was getting killed by obvious hackers/modders on the first bloody day of it's release. I got super-pissed at this and rage quit. haven't picked up that $60 piece of shit since.

 

[gbemery]

Alan Wake - But its kinda my fault when it was first advertised it was said to be an open world. Then it took like 8 years to produce and it was episodic and it was still horrible animations, and the story was just dumb in my opinion.

Dragon Age 2- No game should rehash that many levels, the game didn't feel like Dragon Age it felt like a completely different game. The story was good how ever.

Finally...

Mass Effect 3- This rushed pos got me good. I'm not even talking about the endings. The endings aside there are so many bugs and issues such as crappy lip syncing (worse out of the series) and large swaths of foreshadowing in the story that is just too butchered to allow a game like this to be considered good. The large amount of half truths that Bioware portrayed and the horrible follow up support. Its almost like no one play tested the game or they did but got side tracked or said screw it. This is the last game I will ever preorder.