Most disapointing game of 2013

[AnthrSolidSnake]

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.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

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.

 

[RedDeadFred]

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.

 

[savageoblivi0n]

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.

 

[DiabloBub666]

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.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's a two way split between Fire Emblem: Awakening and Shadowrun Returns.

Spoiler: Fire Emblem Awakening

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.

Spoiler: Shadowrun Returns

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.

In the end...I think it's obvious which one I'm leaning more towards.

 

[Veldrenor]

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).

 

[Artina89]

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.

 

[beastro]

Rome Total failure 2, yet again another peace of absolute shoddy designer-ship by Sega. Seriously if you want to know which company should be rated worse than EA, Sega should take the crown.

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.

They really hit the high mark with Medieval II and need to bring back its level of moddablity to the series.

 

[Blacklight28]

Tomb Raider.

I went in expecting an action game with solid characters and an intriguing story like FarCry 3, but I was sorely disappointed.

The shooting was awfully subpar and the platforming tedious with little payoff. I'm struggling to actually remember what they survival elements were because they never seemed to come into play.

There was really nothing captivating about the story, maybe because I just came to really despise Lara as a character. She really just seemed like the devs were just throwing her into as many painful situations as possible while mindlessly babbling "look at how strong our female protagonist is!". Those moments are too frequent to remain shocking, and her scream becomes grating in my ears as I find myself thinking "yeah yeah, now get back up so we can get on with this shit".

And I wont even bother mentioning the quick-time-events.

Glad I only paid $10 for this thing.

 

[Windcaler]

Im going to have to go with the controversy surrounding DMC (and to a lesser extent the game itself). Im a really big Devil may cry fan but Ninja theory took the games I loved and tore away everything that was interesting about them. They got rid of the absurd Dante in favor for the angry teenager Dante, the ruined the combat system by making it easy to get high ranks, and their worst offense of all was outright trolling the DMC fans that made constructive arguments about their game but got "its about the hair" as a response.

If this had been called something else I would be kinder to it but they relied on the DMC liscence to make their game and hope for sales from people like me. They failed in my eyes. I probably just would have passed on the game as is but when Ninja theory trolled us they earned an eternal boycott from me. I will not buy another one of their games because of their immature responses to legitimate consumer concerns. Screw them and their attitude

 

[InfinityX]

any MMO fans out there?
I found Final Fantasy XIV: A realm reborn to be the biggest disappointment. The amount of work they put into their world, and the beauty that the world is (the best looking MMO out there IMO), completely destroyed by SE's greed.

(pre-latest patch)
-A Endgame that revolved on repeating the same one dungeon 12-15 times a week for 3 weeks
-Unacceptable server lag
-Incredibly small world
-A elemental system that doesn't even serve a purpose (but could of)
-Has a cross-class skill system that would be cool, if wasn't so restricted
-story that was good at first, but then became garbage
-Terrible customer service
-Huge Botting troubles
-no respect for the players

(Latest patch)
-Guild housing prices so outrageous that its just a scheme for SE to milk it's players
-They hyped up this beautiful looking raid called "the crystal tower" to be in this patch...except SE didn't let the players inside of it, its just the area before it, and now players got to wait 6 months for it to be opened.
-added vanity items, but no vanity slots

Its really a shame, the game could EASILY be one of the best MMOs out there, but SE F'd up their game just to milk their players. They're worse then EA right now.

 

[Right E O]

Lots of Bioshock Infinite? Well all right. To each his own I guess.

Throw me in for Fire Emblem: Awakening. What do get when you suck all the good level design out of a strategy game? Apparently more shipping fodder and anime boys than you can shake a stick at. I didnt hate this game, but expectations were high and a mediocre game that throws out the old school challenge? Not what I was looking for.

 

[cubikill]

The Last of Us.
I haven't ever been so disappointed in a game ever. Aftere hearing about how the story is the best story ever told in a game. Or how ellie is the most likable character ever voiced. Or the rest of the hype. Needless to say I played it, and didn't agree. It wasn't any of the myriad of issues that I had with inconsistency in tone, rules or character. Rather it committed the cardinal sin of gaming, it was boring as fuck. I just didn't care about anything. I kept waiting for the game to be more, I kept waiting for it to make an original move. I wanted it to make an original story arch or anything original. Instead it was a boring generic romp with characters I didn't care about. In the end I cannot say I hated the game, seeing as I just can't muster enought feeling about it.

 

[DazBurger]

Half Life 3.
Short and forgettable singleplayer, unplayable multiplayer and terrible graphics.
What a nightmare -_-

And then I woke up...

 

[Kashe]

Disappointed this year?

I didn't buy any games (released in 2013) that I was disappointed in. Bioshock was kinda interesting, but I haven't played many of the games in this list, nor did I really look forward to them.

So meh.

 

[Yopaz]

I think I'll go with Shadowrun Returns here. I am one of the few people who actually liked it, but I was too psyched about it for it to live up to expectations. I was hoping for so much more than what I got. I enjoyed it so I'm not complaining about how the game turned out, but I can understand how some people who are more into Shadowrun feel like they were let down.

That said I have played very few 2013 games this year. Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to play Professor Layton to make sure I at least play it before 2014.

 

[RJ 17]

Huh, somehow forgot that A:CM came out this year. I guess that's how heavily I buried the memory of that game.

Well now that I remember that it did come out this year, I'd really have to pick that as my biggest disappointment seeing as how I'm such a big Aliens fan and had very high hopes for that crusty piece of crap.

For something new (that's likely already been brought up elsewhere in this topic ) and what I had originally intended on mentioning when I came to this topic: Arkham Origins. I absolute loved Asylum, I loved City even more, and I was dead-certain that I was going to love Origins as much as the previous two. I kept telling myself "As long as they don't fuck up the combat then that's all that matters...the game will be great!" And from all the gameplay videos I saw, it certainly looked like the combat was kept intact from the previous games.

Then comes release day. I actually stayed up for a midnight release due to being so eager to get my hands on this game. And guess what? They fucked up the combat. The one thing they had to maintain in order to make the game as enjoyable as the others (at least to play) and the shat all over it. Batman's targeting priority is all fucked up, the enemies are obscenely over-aggressive which forces you to not fight so much as just keep hitting the counter attack button like you're playing Assassin's Creed...this is particularly bad considering the fact that sometimes the counter button just doesn't feel like working, and most of the fights have Batman taking on 15 thugs in an area the size of an apartment's bathroom. God damnit it pisses me off how much they fucked up the combat in that game. What's sad is that I actually kinda did enjoy the story...though it was disappointing that once again Joker turns out to be the main badguy, offering very credible evidence to all the arguments of "They're only going Prequel so they can have Mr. J back in the story again." Look, Joker's my favorite Batman villain too, but I was really hoping that someone else could have the spotlight this time. Still, it wasn't a horrible story. Not the greatest, but not horrible.

I can still somewhat enjoy the game, but it's not nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped.

P.S. Why the fuck give a fast-travel system if towards the end of the game all the Bat-Drop Points are all being watched over by fucking snipers?

 

[sagitel]

.... the vigors were completely out of place ....

well i hear that quite often and there is a simple explanation for it. (this is my theory it may or may not be true.) there is a note from lutece saying that she found vigors in rapture on of the worlds. now you might ask why there is no adam? why no one uses it? why people are not going mad like in rapture? you see i thought that whenever Columbia exists rapture cannot exist the same way that booker and comstock shouldn't exist in the same universe. so lutece goes to rapture. finds a plasmid. uses it in columbia only to fuck the city up and make it another rapture. so she changes the substance a bit and goes to another columbia. where people are driven mad. this happens many times until the vigors are as stable as possible. as we see them in infinite. and why people dont use it? well you dont see them getting promoted and there isnt huge marketing for them. people in columbia are so paraoid against foreign things and change that it will take time for them to use this new technology.

OT: mine goes to splinter cell: blacklist. i had never played any of the splinter cells before. but i had heard many good things about them from my friends. so i borrowed black list from my friend. it was all fine and dandy. i had problems with the plot as i saw the "terrorists" to be the good guys but i managed to not care about the it in the missions. yes some problems were there that made ubisoft look REALLY lazy (a guy standing in the sunlight and saying: "it looks like a calm night" in farsi and all the guys who spoke farsi were voiced by two people ) then they introduced the snipers. the little pieces of shit knew where i was hiding and held their god damn laser lights on my hiding place for a good 5 minutes. then i got to the mission in Tehran. you see its really important for me that movies and games make a correct portrayal. (i didn't watch argo for that.) the old US embassy is 15 minutes away from home and i see it every day. so the fact that they didn't even use some fucking pictures to recreate how it has changed made me angry. (example: you can never find any portrayal of death in Iran with that sickle and there we have statues with the sickle in the game) then the voicing. oh my god. for the first time i was sad that i understood what they were saying. it was so much on my nerves. the gameplay had become too shitty to forget these issues. and i wont talk about the plot holes. it was a game with good start that was fucked so much it couldn't stand up

 

[soren7550]

I by no means dislike any of these, they just didn't live up to the expectations I had of them:

Pokemon Y
- Not a whole lot of new Pokemon. When they say "there's so many Pokemon, you need three Pokedexs!", you'd think that there'd be more than 70 new 'mons.
- The Fairy type Pokemon were predictably cutesy, girly, and pink. Only three of the Fairy types don't fall into any one of those.
- The gym leaders and Elite Four aren't memorable.
- There's about zero endgame content. There's the Looker missions, that'll take up maybe an hour of your time to finish all of them, and the Battle Mansion. Woopie. Maybe I'm spoiled by G/S/C and HG/SS, but quite frankly, I expect more.
Oh yeah, there's looking for Mega Stones. How riveting.
- The Pokemon riding is underwhelming as well as disappointing. You can only do it in a handful of select areas, and only with the Pokemon that are there for that express purpose. Have your own Gogoat on hand, and/or always dreamed on riding on your Arcanine? Too bad for you, you can't ride them.
- The Mega evolutions for the most part aren't worth the effort. Sure, some of them look cool, and you get a bit of a stat boost/change. But, you do it once or twice, and you're done with it.
- Character customization. To me, customizing the female character felt lacking since most of the clothing options for girls is very girly, so I ended up sticking to the default appearance.

Saints Row IV
- Doesn't feel much like a Saint's Row game. Where's the gangs? Why the superpowers? Aliens?
- Cars are made useless by super sprint & jump.
- No Widowmaker.
- Buggy. Audio files playing for no reason, tattoos appearing and disappearing, getting stuck in/under the environment, missions becoming unbeatable, and so on.

BioShock Infinite
- Not as good as BioShock.
- Enemy types don't vary often.
- Not much variety in guns.
- Often doesn't feel like you're on a city in the sky.
- Skylines don't get featured as much as they should.
- Story gets really confusing.

Diablo III
- Uninteresting story.
- Piss easy.