Most disapointing game of 2013
- Thread starter Not G. Ivingname
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I know that the topic is "Most disapointing game of 2013" but let`s back up a bit to last year, 2012, ASSASINS CREED 3, OMG, what a buggy mess that was. As an Assasins Creed fan i was really hyped about this game, i remember i got it on day one, and i was like "my god, WHY??" it wasn´t a bad game, but it didn`t live up to my expectations...
I take it back. I played some GTA V yesterday. I get how to shoot now (I think). By repeatedly zooming in, flicking the right stick, etc. even if I'm having a hard time seeing where I'm aiming, it is doing so automatically to a point and has become very intuitive.
The cars still drive like the super chargers reving as fast as possible on a hot oil slick. Uck. But I don't hate the game.
That hate is now directed at Game of Thrones (could be 2012, but I just got it in a Humble Bundle). I was initially drawn in by a great story. I love the GOT universe so I was pretty excited. Then I discovered its mechanics were about as good as Batman Dark Tomorrow. Broken. I uninstalled it. :-(
The cars still drive like the super chargers reving as fast as possible on a hot oil slick. Uck. But I don't hate the game.
That hate is now directed at Game of Thrones (could be 2012, but I just got it in a Humble Bundle). I was initially drawn in by a great story. I love the GOT universe so I was pretty excited. Then I discovered its mechanics were about as good as Batman Dark Tomorrow. Broken. I uninstalled it. :-(
Dissapointing = BadRblade said:
I wasn't really expecting Simcity or A:CM to be any good, but Bioshock Infinite has been praised to the sky(yay!) and the firs few minutes pretty high expectations, infortunately the rest of the game was boring and Confusing plot and gameplay wise, until you get to the ending that blows your mind for the next day or so, which makes you leave it with a good impression, it's only after you start to think about the game some more that you start to hate it... what was I saying again? oh yeah, it was a dissapoiing game, but not an awful one.
OT; I don't really have dissapointements except Bioshock, because I only bought the games that I was sure are good. If anything there are some that exceeded my already high expectations (Gta 5, Rayman Legends) and some that simply delivered (The Stanley Parable was cool, but not Jaw droppingly amazing in my honest opinion. and Rogue Legacy is fun)
Edit:
Wait, TB was released this year? then that, defnitelyCardinalPiggles said:
I generally don't like setting expectations for games, it just gets me whiny and dissapointed when they aren't exactly what I expect and I honestly enjoy games more if I'm not expecting the moon and the stars from them before even a gameplay trailer gets released.
Of course I'm not a perfect human being, and of course it would be impossible for me to have any expectations for anything.
I guess probably A Link Between Worlds. Don't get me wrong here, it's actually a pretty decent game with some fun ideas and great dungeons. With that said I was expecting a sequel to the Link to the Past, not Link to the Past again with some new items. There are points in a Link Between Worlds when I was just wondering why they didn't just remake Link to the Past, they have the same overworld, the same locations and even some of the same bosses and dungeons.
But hey, at least it didn't have that GODDAMN stamina bar!
Of course I'm not a perfect human being, and of course it would be impossible for me to have any expectations for anything.
I guess probably A Link Between Worlds. Don't get me wrong here, it's actually a pretty decent game with some fun ideas and great dungeons. With that said I was expecting a sequel to the Link to the Past, not Link to the Past again with some new items. There are points in a Link Between Worlds when I was just wondering why they didn't just remake Link to the Past, they have the same overworld, the same locations and even some of the same bosses and dungeons.
But hey, at least it didn't have that GODDAMN stamina bar!
I felt like it was the biggest joke and the lowest point of triple A development since E.T on the Atari 2600, but that's just grumpy old hyperbolic me.CardinalPiggles said:
Seriously, that game was the most bland and unchallenging experience of my life. I know there were some tremendously awful games that came out this year (Ride to Hell, Colonial Marines), but those can just be dismissed as comical - Tomb Raider 2013, on the other hand, draws it's parallels to E.T on just how damn right insulting it is to have a reboot of Tomb Raider, a fairly established series with some decent design choices, and have shoved down its throat the most recycled and asinine level and enemy design to ever plague this industry. I seriously couldn't tell if it was satirical at first when I realised just how much it employs the WORST conventions of triple A development today.
A reboot should be a re-imagining of the core game design with the technology and narrative conventions of present times, not a "how much can we fuck up this well established franchise with the things that make games horribly shitty today" fuck fest with "RPG elements."
The Last of Us, no question. After hearing so many gamers and just about every reviewer gush about it and many people calling it the best game ever made, my expectations couldn't be higher. I was immediately hit with how weird and awkward the controls felt.I thought I'd get used to them but I never did and it just made playing the game thoroughly unenjoyable for me. Add to that the story, which I had heard was one of the best aspects of the game, ended up because painfully cliche, for the most part. I found myself sitting there and going, "Okay there's another zombie survival story cliche." I felt like I saw almost every significant event in the story coming a mile away. I'm not calling it a bad game but for me personally, it was very disappointing
Payday 2.
Somebody else earlier in the thread pretty much covered why Payday 2 was so dissapointing, but basically:
-30 missions were promised, instead we got 12, plus another 8 as DLC later on and 5 slightly different escape missions. 2 of the original missions were exactly the same mission but instead of stealing random jewellery you steal a tiara,
-Badly designed levelling system, after about level 30-40 there's virtually nothing left to do.
-The assets you can buy aren't descriptive enough and it's not even clear what some of them actually do.
-Shitty card reward system, which rewards you with the same stupid rewards over and over.
- 27 GB for roughly about 25 hours of actual gameplay.
-The game is glitchy. The game in fullscreen mode doesn't work for me because the in-game mouse dissapears and when I click, the game minimizes. Other times the in game mouse will glitch again and my desktop mouse will appear instead. The game also randomly suddenly closes with no error message, or it minimizes itself and disconnects me from the game when i attempt to reconnect. Other fun glitches include players being unable to reconnect to the game that you're in, and in-game glitches such as the police not attacking you on a certain level when you glitch inside a police car, or cameras still detecting you even after they're destroyed.
- The DLC is bad. The weapons DLC is overpriced, and the armoured transport DLC is shoddily made, all 5 levels are ust slightly changed versions of the street levels, and the spawning locations for the police on the train level and the tunnel levels are so bad that the game will spawn police directly behind you half of the time.
As for the Christmas level, they've literally just taken a level from CS:GO and added a few christmas trees. The halloween level was just as bad, slightly reskinned bulldozers and fire everywhere which was just distracting.
Also, almost all of the missions have exactly the same objectives. The only ones that are slightly different are mall crasher (which is the worst mission in the game), big oil and the one train mission in the DLC.
- Half of the weapons look and even most of them feel the exact same as each other. Speaking of "weapons", the OVE9000 saw is clunky, annoying to use and even when it's fully upgraded it still doesn't last anywhere near long enough to open the deposit boxes etc.
- Did i mention that the game is 27 GB? it's a ridiculous file size for such little content.
Somebody else earlier in the thread pretty much covered why Payday 2 was so dissapointing, but basically:
-30 missions were promised, instead we got 12, plus another 8 as DLC later on and 5 slightly different escape missions. 2 of the original missions were exactly the same mission but instead of stealing random jewellery you steal a tiara,
-Badly designed levelling system, after about level 30-40 there's virtually nothing left to do.
-The assets you can buy aren't descriptive enough and it's not even clear what some of them actually do.
-Shitty card reward system, which rewards you with the same stupid rewards over and over.
- 27 GB for roughly about 25 hours of actual gameplay.
-The game is glitchy. The game in fullscreen mode doesn't work for me because the in-game mouse dissapears and when I click, the game minimizes. Other times the in game mouse will glitch again and my desktop mouse will appear instead. The game also randomly suddenly closes with no error message, or it minimizes itself and disconnects me from the game when i attempt to reconnect. Other fun glitches include players being unable to reconnect to the game that you're in, and in-game glitches such as the police not attacking you on a certain level when you glitch inside a police car, or cameras still detecting you even after they're destroyed.
- The DLC is bad. The weapons DLC is overpriced, and the armoured transport DLC is shoddily made, all 5 levels are ust slightly changed versions of the street levels, and the spawning locations for the police on the train level and the tunnel levels are so bad that the game will spawn police directly behind you half of the time.
As for the Christmas level, they've literally just taken a level from CS:GO and added a few christmas trees. The halloween level was just as bad, slightly reskinned bulldozers and fire everywhere which was just distracting.
Also, almost all of the missions have exactly the same objectives. The only ones that are slightly different are mall crasher (which is the worst mission in the game), big oil and the one train mission in the DLC.
- Half of the weapons look and even most of them feel the exact same as each other. Speaking of "weapons", the OVE9000 saw is clunky, annoying to use and even when it's fully upgraded it still doesn't last anywhere near long enough to open the deposit boxes etc.
- Did i mention that the game is 27 GB? it's a ridiculous file size for such little content.
to be honest i actually wasn't disapointed in a game (maybe in some game media related things like certain ppl stopping what they do) but then again i don't go out to buy on release day so yeah...i was going to buy some games but after looking it up and digging in i made steps back turned and ran. i'm quite picky and i really try to buy only "good" stuff to prevent me from getting buyers remorse
I haven't really bought any games this year...not new ones anyway. I've bought a couple online Alpha games in the last couple weeks, that's about it. Nether, DayZ, 7 Days to Die.
I guess I don't have one this year. If I did buy a new game, I wasn't disappointed. I loved Bioshock Infinite, complaints about combat be damned.
Though I am getting a few games tomorrow for Christmas, so I should probably wait until then...I'm waiting to see if the 3DS is all that it's been hyped up to be. "Great selection of games" "More creative gameplay", all that stuff was tossed around when I asked about it. Then again, same thing was said to me about the DS, and I was very underwhelmed about that system. I much preferred my PSP.
I guess I don't have one this year. If I did buy a new game, I wasn't disappointed. I loved Bioshock Infinite, complaints about combat be damned.
Though I am getting a few games tomorrow for Christmas, so I should probably wait until then...I'm waiting to see if the 3DS is all that it's been hyped up to be. "Great selection of games" "More creative gameplay", all that stuff was tossed around when I asked about it. Then again, same thing was said to me about the DS, and I was very underwhelmed about that system. I much preferred my PSP.
Ni No Kuni. It is by far the worst JRPG I've ever played. The hand-holding is ridiculous and insulting and it has possibly the worst battle system to ever grace the genre. How the fuck did it get reviewed so highly.
Gone Home
I liked the idea of how you discover the story by searching it out. However, the story itself was kind of shitty. It was really nothing more than a mediocre soap opera. Add that it cost 20 bucks and was only 2 hours long, I was pretty pissed that I'd bought it. I wouldn't have even watched a let's play if I'd known the story was garbage.
I liked the idea of how you discover the story by searching it out. However, the story itself was kind of shitty. It was really nothing more than a mediocre soap opera. Add that it cost 20 bucks and was only 2 hours long, I was pretty pissed that I'd bought it. I wouldn't have even watched a let's play if I'd known the story was garbage.
None...absolutely none. And I buy a lot of games on release. However, I avoid hype like the plague and judge every game I play based on whether I have fun with it. Were there some lower points to the year? Sure, but no more than there are any other year. Even games like A:CM gave me entertainment by MST3K'ing the shit out of them with my friends.
Long story short, entertainment is what you make of it. On that note, I'm sure I'll receive an ungodly number of replies telling me how wrong my opinion is, and how horrible the gaming industry is today, but the hell with it.
Long story short, entertainment is what you make of it. On that note, I'm sure I'll receive an ungodly number of replies telling me how wrong my opinion is, and how horrible the gaming industry is today, but the hell with it.
Like many, I hadn't gotten my expectations up for many games this year.
And so... 9.03M.
It's an indie game in remembrance of the Japan tsunami victims, consisting of walking around and examining objects. It's clearly a "chill out" game, but even so, wasn't paced well enough to have the emotional impact it was going for.
And so... 9.03M.
It's an indie game in remembrance of the Japan tsunami victims, consisting of walking around and examining objects. It's clearly a "chill out" game, but even so, wasn't paced well enough to have the emotional impact it was going for.
It's a two way split between Fire Emblem: Awakening and Shadowrun Returns.
In the end...I think it's obvious which one I'm leaning more towards.
Fire Emblem is one of those niche turn-based RPGs that straddles the line of difficulty-fun balance.
But even with 3 difficulties and an option to switch permadeath on/off, it doesn't matter...Fire Emblem is boring because it's either just too damn easy or an irritating luckfest on the higher difficulties.
I've blabbed on about it over the course of the year, and I'll do so one more time. The AI in FE:A is simply some of the laziest AI programming I've ever seen in the genre; and that's infuriating because the same developer has already made better AI in its previous games. It was never perfect, mind you, but it was never this easy to abuse.
All the AI does is either bumrush you from their current position, or wait for you to come into range before attacking. It literally attempts to do nothing else. No pushes, traps, or tactical retreats (all three of these were things the Advance Wars AI could do OVER TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO)
The lack of ACTIVE class abilities turns the game into a raging luckfest or statgrind instead of a strategic rpg.
Once I got past the "squishy" phase of my units' careers, most of my turns were spent setting up deathwalls, and mashing the start button to skip turns. All because the AI is so easily cheesed into making horrible decisions.
Given the number of GOOD, challenging "SRPGS" I've played, this really is unacceptable, and it's a shame because the rest of the game is remarkably well polished. The voice acting isn't bad at all, the characters are well written and the plot...well, OK, the plot isn't really "good". I kinda called every twist hours in advance. But it isn't terrible.
It's just that AI completely undermines the legitimate difficulty and thus the fun of a turn based strategy game.
But even with 3 difficulties and an option to switch permadeath on/off, it doesn't matter...Fire Emblem is boring because it's either just too damn easy or an irritating luckfest on the higher difficulties.
I've blabbed on about it over the course of the year, and I'll do so one more time. The AI in FE:A is simply some of the laziest AI programming I've ever seen in the genre; and that's infuriating because the same developer has already made better AI in its previous games. It was never perfect, mind you, but it was never this easy to abuse.
All the AI does is either bumrush you from their current position, or wait for you to come into range before attacking. It literally attempts to do nothing else. No pushes, traps, or tactical retreats (all three of these were things the Advance Wars AI could do OVER TEN FUCKING YEARS AGO)
The lack of ACTIVE class abilities turns the game into a raging luckfest or statgrind instead of a strategic rpg.
Once I got past the "squishy" phase of my units' careers, most of my turns were spent setting up deathwalls, and mashing the start button to skip turns. All because the AI is so easily cheesed into making horrible decisions.
Given the number of GOOD, challenging "SRPGS" I've played, this really is unacceptable, and it's a shame because the rest of the game is remarkably well polished. The voice acting isn't bad at all, the characters are well written and the plot...well, OK, the plot isn't really "good". I kinda called every twist hours in advance. But it isn't terrible.
It's just that AI completely undermines the legitimate difficulty and thus the fun of a turn based strategy game.
Foreward: I am a huge fan of the Shadowrun tabletop. Especially 2nd and 3rd Edition, before FASA's unfortunate collapse and absorption of IP into Microsoft (who has since relinquished the IP to people who...only sort of give a fuck about the properties).
When Shadowrun Returns was announced, it seemed that all the elements were going to fall into place for me.
Not only was it being set in my favorite time period of the setting and ruleset (3rd edition era, not only was it being made into an entry in one of my favorite game genres (SRPG), but they got the original creator of Shadowrun on board for the setting and scenario.
How on earth could they fuck this up?
Harebrained Schemes.
By that, I mean they handed the project off to a total newcomer, probably due to the very limited budget.
But that's fine; I've played incredible games done on very low budgets.
I'm not a stickler for graphics or voice-acting as long as the content itself is engaging. And don't get me wrong; the setting and mannerisms are ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON in the stock campaign. I even found the visuals to be pretty good for the most part (though the character models could use some work).
There are two major issues I have with Shadowrun Returns:
-A short, hyperlinear campaign that bafflingly shits all over half the character skills available and offers little in terms of replay factor thanks to its ridiculous handholding and railroading.
-Tablet-based design which created INFURIATING issues. Namely, the terrible Save system and the laggy, sometimes baffling interface.
I cannot stress how badly Shadowrun needed to become something like an old CRPG like Baldur's Gate sort of game hub, or something a larger "sandbox" open world game like Grand Theft Auto 3+ (or at least something like the Genesis and SNES games).
Instead, I was treated to the two hallmarks of modern Rushjob Game Design: Railroading and Handholding.
Extremely limited environments and progression so that the developers can avoid making more content.
Everything the player can interact with is highlighted, and every scene is just the player being carted from one area to the next. And when I say everything, I mean EVERY SINGLE THING.
I honestly have no idea why they chose to go with that given the nature of the story. It's an investigation, which is made interesting because of the suspense created by mystery and discovery. When everything is laid out with "CLICK THIS, IDIOT" indicators it loses all appeal.
Even Shadowrun on the SNES forced the player to muck with primitive blocky graphics to find items and clues, and despite all that, it was still pretty intuitive and engaging for the most part. In short, it's a waste of potential. They made the skeleton for a truly great game, and bungled it. Because of this, I'm worried there will be no second attempt with the benefit of hindsight. In fact, I know so.
Because there is another Shadowrun game in the works, only, it's an MMORPG.
Which is pretty much where fun goes to die. So, instead of something worthwhile like a cyberpunk "sandbox" RPG, or a GOOD CRPG, it's going to be a mindless grindfest, no matter how ambitious the developers or anyone else imagines otherwise.
Because if there is any one constant in MMORPGs, it's grind. Because without grind, players just blow through the content too fast to stick around, and those servers cost money whether anyone is playing or not.
And once a game franchise goes MMO, that's it. It's pretty much done for. To date, I have yet to encounter a SINGLE new MMO based on an older property that hasn't gone to shit once it became an MMO (well, maybe save for Star Wars...MAYBE.)
Either it succeeds as an MMO and remains as such, or it dies out as an overly expensive failed venture never to be touched again.
So, realistically, Shadowrun Returns was my only real hope for a good modern Shadowrun video game, and it blew it. It's not terrible, but it's not great either, and that's a pity because I can scarcely think of another setting that still has as much potential as video game material as Shadowrun.
When Shadowrun Returns was announced, it seemed that all the elements were going to fall into place for me.
Not only was it being set in my favorite time period of the setting and ruleset (3rd edition era, not only was it being made into an entry in one of my favorite game genres (SRPG), but they got the original creator of Shadowrun on board for the setting and scenario.
How on earth could they fuck this up?
Harebrained Schemes.
By that, I mean they handed the project off to a total newcomer, probably due to the very limited budget.
But that's fine; I've played incredible games done on very low budgets.
I'm not a stickler for graphics or voice-acting as long as the content itself is engaging. And don't get me wrong; the setting and mannerisms are ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON in the stock campaign. I even found the visuals to be pretty good for the most part (though the character models could use some work).
There are two major issues I have with Shadowrun Returns:
-A short, hyperlinear campaign that bafflingly shits all over half the character skills available and offers little in terms of replay factor thanks to its ridiculous handholding and railroading.
-Tablet-based design which created INFURIATING issues. Namely, the terrible Save system and the laggy, sometimes baffling interface.
I cannot stress how badly Shadowrun needed to become something like an old CRPG like Baldur's Gate sort of game hub, or something a larger "sandbox" open world game like Grand Theft Auto 3+ (or at least something like the Genesis and SNES games).
Instead, I was treated to the two hallmarks of modern Rushjob Game Design: Railroading and Handholding.
Extremely limited environments and progression so that the developers can avoid making more content.
Everything the player can interact with is highlighted, and every scene is just the player being carted from one area to the next. And when I say everything, I mean EVERY SINGLE THING.
I honestly have no idea why they chose to go with that given the nature of the story. It's an investigation, which is made interesting because of the suspense created by mystery and discovery. When everything is laid out with "CLICK THIS, IDIOT" indicators it loses all appeal.
Even Shadowrun on the SNES forced the player to muck with primitive blocky graphics to find items and clues, and despite all that, it was still pretty intuitive and engaging for the most part. In short, it's a waste of potential. They made the skeleton for a truly great game, and bungled it. Because of this, I'm worried there will be no second attempt with the benefit of hindsight. In fact, I know so.
Because there is another Shadowrun game in the works, only, it's an MMORPG.
Which is pretty much where fun goes to die. So, instead of something worthwhile like a cyberpunk "sandbox" RPG, or a GOOD CRPG, it's going to be a mindless grindfest, no matter how ambitious the developers or anyone else imagines otherwise.
Because if there is any one constant in MMORPGs, it's grind. Because without grind, players just blow through the content too fast to stick around, and those servers cost money whether anyone is playing or not.
And once a game franchise goes MMO, that's it. It's pretty much done for. To date, I have yet to encounter a SINGLE new MMO based on an older property that hasn't gone to shit once it became an MMO (well, maybe save for Star Wars...MAYBE.)
Either it succeeds as an MMO and remains as such, or it dies out as an overly expensive failed venture never to be touched again.
So, realistically, Shadowrun Returns was my only real hope for a good modern Shadowrun video game, and it blew it. It's not terrible, but it's not great either, and that's a pity because I can scarcely think of another setting that still has as much potential as video game material as Shadowrun.
In the end...I think it's obvious which one I'm leaning more towards.
Bioshock Infinite. It wasn't a bad game, I definitely enjoyed playing it, and I'd list it among my favorite of the year, but it just wasn't as strong as I was hoping for. Then again that's hardly Bioshock Infinite's fault: I went into the game with pretty high expectations thanks to Bioshock 1, my friends talking about the game, and Gavin Dunne's "Dream of the Sky" (I still get chills every time it reaches the Little Sister reprise).
I am another person who is going to confess that I was disappointed with Bioshock infinite. I completed the game, but I just felt a bit "meh" about the whole thing. It was a lovely looking game don't get me wrong, but I didn't really like any of the characters and I haven't picked up the game since.
Another game I was fairly disappointed in is also Killer is dead. While I am used to Suda51 games to be wacky and weird, I found this one to be fairly dull. I also hated Mondo, as he is such a bland, forgettable character, at least with Lollipop chainsaw it was bright and fun, and some of the sections made me laugh out loud. Also David. I HATE David, it took me ages to actually best him the first fight against him. That could be because I am horrible at games, but I prefer to think of the game being quite unresponsive to my button-mashing.
Another game I was fairly disappointed in is also Killer is dead. While I am used to Suda51 games to be wacky and weird, I found this one to be fairly dull. I also hated Mondo, as he is such a bland, forgettable character, at least with Lollipop chainsaw it was bright and fun, and some of the sections made me laugh out loud. Also David. I HATE David, it took me ages to actually best him the first fight against him. That could be because I am horrible at games, but I prefer to think of the game being quite unresponsive to my button-mashing.
Blame Creative Assembly. They kept acting as if ETW and NTW were the rough patch to get over in a new era of the series, but it didn't get better in my opinion and it's the big reason why I avoided it and am not surprised to read it's a mess.kingthrall said:
They really hit the high mark with Medieval II and need to bring back its level of moddablity to the series.