Most disapointing game of 2013

[xyrafhoan]

I love Fire Emblem: Awakening. The interface is more or less a giant improvement on previous games and the presentation is fantastic for a handheld game overall. But the gameplay and story is still pretty utter trash compared to Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn. There's so much horribly broken stuff and incredibly bad level design in Awakening that makes me hope that this isn't the future of the series.

Because I loved most of this year's games that I played, most of my real big disappointments were last year. Paper Mario Sticker Star still burns like it was yesterday.

 

[Ironbat92]

I'm gonna go with Saints Row 4. By no means a bad game, I was just surprised how bored I was after the first 6 hours. Gunplay was lackluster, upgrading weapons was pointless, Side-Missions were boring (except the ones that let you run around destroying everything in a tank), and I felt like I was playing a less refined version of Prototype. Lastly, my biggest problem with the game was the fact you had to grind through side-missions to get the best weapons and upgrades.

 

[MysticSlayer]

ugh as expected. Calling infinite the biggest dissapointment in a year that brought us colonial marines and the new simcity. 2 games based on absolute classics in 2 genres, yet being just straight up broken and riddled with bad decisions. makes you either to hip for the mainstream or shows that you expected that game to cure all the worlds diseases. The world looked just fantastic and vibrant, elizabeth was in my eyes the best executed sidekick to date and the plot managed to actually surprise me in places. And I loved songbird, so menacing and ever present in a skycity. Was it overly convoluted with subpar combat, sure. But biggest dissapointment, please.

On a sidenote, I always feel people seem to misremember that bioshock 1 didn't end after ryan. Still one of the best games I've ever played but the ending wasn't that amazing

Disappointing means that you expected it to be much better than it actually was. Everyone knew Sim City would be a disaster once it was announced to be always online, and while some people may have hyped Colonial Marines, some people, such as myself, figured it would be a generic co-op shooter (at best) that didn't do the Aliens universe justice and/or people didn't bother to play it once they learned about its problems. Infinite, on the other hand, was an easily hyped game that was only further hyped after release, so anyone who found the game lacking (and there were plenty) would say that game.

Keep in mind, most disappointing does not mean worst. It just means it came the furthest from meeting the person's expectations, and for many people, Infinite definitely did that.

 

[Fireaxe]

I bought it on launch and was dissapointed on the same day. SC2 wasn't really that good in terms of continuing the story but I was fine with it. After all, SC 1 and BW werent that great in those departements either. HotS just blew it all up. I was so dissapoint.

SC1 and BW (especially BW) actually had pretty good stories I thought, and as much as some people thought WoL was a "big dumb action movie" I didn't mind it because Raynor had spent the entire last expansion basically getting the shit kicked out of him. HotS just lost the damn plot with Kerrigan, who was if nothing else, a fucking cool character in Brood War.

 

[cojo965]

I feel you OP, that would be my choice too. I encountered a game-breaking bug that blocked me from proceeding that I had to start over to fix.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I am going to double down on Bioshock Infinite. Everyone talked about how awesome it was, how it pushed storytelling in games forward, blah blah blah, so when my friend offered me a key shortly after launch I was excited.

Then I get into the game and find the story is so much convoluted bullshit, the shooting is loose and tedious, and I quit played long after I had lost all interest in the game.

Biggest disappointment, personally, of 2013.

 

[balladbird]

Aliens: colonial marines.

Sure, Road to hell was worse, but it had two things going for it that Aliens didn't:

1.) In order to be "disappointed" in something, you must first hold the expectation it'll be good.

2.) It was so horrible it could make for awesome group games... it truly is the birdemic/the room of gaming.


but yeah, nothing funny or redeemable about Aliens... it was a game that revealed the darker aspects of the gaming world, and did so at the expense of a ton of fans.

 

[major_chaos]

Can I just say the entire year? Unlike 2012 I really didn't fall in love with any games this year. I did enjoy some mind you, Sanctum 2, Dead Space 3, Saints Row 4, Metro LL and few others were all fun, but I think the only thing that really amazed me was Dragon's Crown. My list of disappointments however is much longer: GTA V, Aliens, Infinite, The Last of Us, Beyond, X Rebirth, Tales of Xilia, all games that I got my hopes up for only to be disappointed. Hopefully 2014 ends up being a better year for gaming.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

And half the thread is of Bioshock Infinite, look at us the delightful anal rententive rampscallions of game communities. Then I suppose I didn't love the original to get 'you just killed my puppy' disappointed.

That honor I reserve for FUSE. The change in tone and art style, saddening, was fully ready for the game to blow chunks. Somewhat surpised by the demo, Bought the game. Played it, booted for not being online, Sunset Overdrive can go be shit on the Xbox One. Insominac makes great single player adentures, but when they add mutiplayer it's like the purposely sectioned the development team.

I'm looking forward to Burial At Sea Episode 2. Whiney plebs.

 

[Rblade]

ugh as expected. Calling infinite the biggest dissapointment in a year that brought us colonial marines and the new simcity. 2 games based on absolute classics in 2 genres, yet being just straight up broken and riddled with bad decisions. makes you either to hip for the mainstream or shows that you expected that game to cure all the worlds diseases. The world looked just fantastic and vibrant, elizabeth was in my eyes the best executed sidekick to date and the plot managed to actually surprise me in places. And I loved songbird, so menacing and ever present in a skycity. Was it overly convoluted with subpar combat, sure. But biggest dissapointment, please.

On a sidenote, I always feel people seem to misremember that bioshock 1 didn't end after ryan. Still one of the best games I've ever played but the ending wasn't that amazing

Disappointing means that you expected it to be much better than it actually was. Everyone knew Sim City would be a disaster once it was announced to be always online, and while some people may have hyped Colonial Marines, some people, such as myself, figured it would be a generic co-op shooter (at best) that didn't do the Aliens universe justice and/or people didn't bother to play it once they learned about its problems. Infinite, on the other hand, was an easily hyped game that was only further hyped after release, so anyone who found the game lacking (and there were plenty) would say that game.

Keep in mind, most disappointing does not mean worst. It just means it came the furthest from meeting the person's expectations, and for many people, Infinite definitely did that.

I suppose, but like I said my expectations for infinite weren't THAT high. I expected bioshocks level of atmosphere and got that. Additionally I just don't agree that Simcity announcing their horrible design choices and not listening to the consumer in the shitstorm that ensued makes it less dissapointing. It's still called SimCity and didn't live up to the weight that name bears. Maby I overreacted a bit, I would just hate it if any of this kind of discussion would stop bioware from doing what they are doing.

 

[nuttshell]

SC1 and BW (especially BW) actually had pretty good stories I thought, and as much as some people thought WoL was a "big dumb action movie" I didn't mind it because Raynor had spent the entire last expansion basically getting the shit kicked out of him. HotS just lost the damn plot with Kerrigan, who was if nothing else, a fucking cool character in Brood War.

Especially in BW there were some questionable things happening, like why Fenix and Jim are helping Mengsk over the course of 2 or 3 missions, while losing important military assets before Kerrigan even explains her plan, why Aldaris fights everyone or why fight Stukow? You can say they were just stupid and impulsive and it was war and you saw it coming, it still felt like these characters did things that they just wouldn't do. But these were minor things, something you can overlook. In WoL, Raynor at least demonstrated some learning capability, that was good. In HotS, there were loads of things that didn't work. Why is Stukow a pirate ghost now? Why is there a guy called Narud? Why does he not look like Duran? Why does Jim have a gun in that cutscene in prison? Why does Kerrigan convince her minions on multiple occasions using reason?

 

[The_Scrivener]

Assassin's Creed IV. I wanted an open world pirate game. I got an Assassin's Creed dead horse frame tale with some pirates hanging out around doing pirate things here and there.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

GTA5, Bioshock, Tomb raider

GTA because it's just so damn easy...i used to love the old games as they challenged me but the new one is just a cake-walk start to finish. I still enjoy messing around but that only lasts so long.

Bioshock because even though i have no expectations of the series it still fails to deliver any decent gameplay. Graphics and story over gameplay will always fail with me.

Tomb raider wins overall though. I love the old games...the puzzles, the finding a route where there is none and all those other searching and thinking parts. This game removed all of them and replaced them with bog standard shitty shooting. The tombs were a complete joke with the hardest clocking in a massive 5 minutes to complete.

All in all it's been a terrible year for gaming and i doubt the new platforms are going to spawn anything special for a year or two so i'll stick to retro gaming myself into shape, ready for when games start being challenging to play again.

 

[Riff Moonraker]

Gears of War: Judgement. The campaign itself was.... passable. But once you get started playing the multiplayer, it completely went off the rails. Its horrible... absolutely horrible.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

The Last of Us.

It got rented for me, I was pretty excited, and then bored. Bored. Bored.

I'm also not a fan of people excusing lack luster gameplay for a great story.

 

[option1soul]

the battle system [in Ni No Kuni] was laughably flawed. The terrible AI, the awkward pathfinding, the arbitrary nature of when creatures would actually attack during their attack command, the awful MP cost to benefit of spell ratio, and the way that any target-all, special animation attack would cancel your exceedingly long spell/item use animations completely, whether cast by enemy, ally, or completely uncontrollable fairy companion. It's an embarassment that the most efficient way to fight by far is just basic attacks and potions when necessary.

This. Oh God this. I'm trying to play my way through it now and every word you spoke is the exact truth to what I've been raging about. That and the fact that you can't make any more than 1 character block until 15 hours in. I seriously feel lied to by every review who said it was good.

 

[CaptainThom]

Total War Rome 2.. I would have been happy with Rome 1 in HD but instead they created the worst game i have ever played on release, truly awful, the only positive is i learned not to pre-order from CA ever again.

 

[MetalDooley]

Call of Duty:Ghosts

Campaign was back to being a linear shooting gallery.Black Ops 2 had optional side missions,optional mission objectives and story choices.Ghosts removed all these things

Spec Ops mode,the one thing that differentiated the Infinity Ward games from the Treyarch games,is gone.Instead we get Extinction which is just a Zombies rip-off

Ground War mode is gone which is a nonsensical decision as the multiplayer maps are the biggest they've been in years.Why would you make bigger maps and then remove the option to play with more players

The much hyped up "dynamic maps" are nonsense.There's only one map I can think of where it makes any difference

All in all Ghosts feels like a step backwards for the series and will probably be the last Infinity Ward developed CoD game I buy