Poll: Most Disappointing Game of 2011?

[Baron von Blitztank]

For me it was Duke Nukem Forever.
I expected a fast paced shooter that returned to the old days of carrying ALL the weapons, healthbars and around 10 guys in any fight at one time. Unfortunately I ended up getting a slow, 2 weapon, regenerating health shooter where Duke was actually vulnerable to bullets. The best I could say is that Duke's character has more-or-less remained the same but some of the jokes are kind of outdated and not in the 90's movie one-liners way.

Thank Cthulhu that Serious Sam 3: BFE came out later on in the year to fill out my twitch-based shooter crave that Duke left me yearning for.

 

[Nico4]

It was alright... I guess. Once again full of games that doesn't benefit the gaming media at all, games with the same freakin' color palets, and easy dumbed down games with content cut out, exploited by DLC. That being siad though, there were a few more good and different games that stands among the other games as shining examples of greatness. Catherine, Dark Souls, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, El Shaddai, The Witcher 2 are among those who deserves more praise than the majority of the mainstream sucesses these days.

As for disappointments? Well Duke Nukem Forever would certaintly fit the bill, but here's my take: Putting it in the biggest disappointment category means that you actually at expecations that the game would be good. I didn't have any expectations for it, and though it did end up a bit worse than imagined, I still thought it was a decent entertaining game. Dead Island however... the CG trailer looks good, serious and emotional, and the game is the total oppersite... and unstable as hell...

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

I'll have to ponder on what was the worst, but as for most dissapointing, Skyward Sword. Especially since I had to buy two copies for Christmas AND get two twenty dollar Wii Motion Plus things (one set was a present)

It's hard to believe someone can just forget 25 years of good game design, but by god they pulled it off somehow.

 

[Get_A_Grip_]

I know it's not really a game, but the 3DS was massive disappointment. There are only three good games on the system. All of them made by Nintendo...

 

[Aggieknight]

Brink, Dragon Age 2 and Rage.

DA2 had so much potential but was obviously rushed and lacked any actual choices. It is a shame because the changes to the gameplay itself were very positive and most of the characters were interesting

Speaking of potential...wow, Brink was so close. Interesting concepts; unique weapons, fun multiplayer, but mix in stupid AI, no human balancing and poorly designed maps (choke points) killed it. This was painful because I wanted to love this game.

Rage was gorgeous but boring. I should have known better on this one. Doom 3 was the same way.

 

[agentwd40]

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

It's just boring. I don't know what else to say. It's so huge, with nothing to explore and feels incredibly unrewarding to continue.

This and L.A. Noire (Because of the ending, loved the rest of it.) Other than that I thought this was a great year for game.

 

[MaximumCrux]

Despite some of the hate, I found LA Noire's ending to be consistent in terms of narrative and given the story-driven nature of the game, I was quite happy with this.

Biggest disappointment for me had to be DA2. What a sad waste.

 

[Connor Rowley]

Honestly i liked this year. SWTOR came out, skyrim came out, there's a new Zelda and a couple other games' I've enjoyed.

 

[Freyar]

The year was really good in general. We've had some great games out this year, though a number of high-profile lame ones came out as well.

 

[Aprilgold]

Worse then average. Everything that tried something different didn't sell, and the copy pasted shooters sold thousands of copies for a engine upgrade. Seroiously, it wasn't very innovative and did a poor job in doing anything but shooting different minorities.

I didn't like Skyrim, just way too easy.

What are these games that didn't sell? Out of curiosity, not argument making.


Personally, I'm very happy with the games I got this year. Picked up Portal 2, Bastion, Deus Ex 3, and I thought they did pretty well, especially the first two.
Of course there's always Madden and COD and all those copy/paste games series that make billions, but I just don't care about them anymore. They can't hype me or excite me or ever take my $60, and that's my little victory.

Thats my exact thing, certain games don't sell, but make up enough to make a sequel, however, a copy pasted game sets itself as a lead example of making money with billions. I guess I shouldn't have said "didn't sell", but should have said "wasn't the example". Seriously, how many games out there that sell as much as Call of Duty or Madden. If a diverse set of games set the example there would be a bigger market for certain types of games. How many rougelikes did you see this year? Or how many space-sims? Or point and clicks that aren't from Tell Tale that sold well? Not many.

Hell, how many FPS's that are like Red Orchestra 2? Sure those are very niche genres, but those games usually don't sell well, but I think it would be nice if they did. Push more diverse genres out in the open instead of FPS or Sports being the biggest ones out there. And don't claim RPG since only the P and G part are ever done right, and sometimes all 3 are done right, but theres not a lot of those.

I'm just saying that it would be nice if more genres were shoved out into the open that way those could make more money and afford to make triple A titles.

 

[Raika]

I was really disappointed with Uncharted 3. It's really baffling that after only three games, the series feels formulaic and dated with only the fantastic voice acting to keep us going.

 

[karcentric]

Despite loving the Saints Row franchise The Third just didn't do it for me, it was just to absurd, and the story really didn't tie in with the last game very well either. Oh... and they killed Johnny Gat, not happy.

 

[putowtin]

Saint's Row The Third!

I cannot believe what a let down this was, I'm so disapointed!

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Dragon Age 2 and LA Noire.

The first was simply nowhere near the caliber of the first, taking more than a few giant steps backwards in just about every aspect of the game.

The second was so hyped up that you were expecting a masterpiece, instead getting a group of unlikeable characters in an unlikeable town solving unlikeable cases. It was pretty much the opposite of Tex Murphy, the best detective game series ever.

 

[vkola]

Brink was a major dissappointment for me, did not live up to the hype..

Hunted: the demon's Forge, bought it and hoped me and my brother would have an awesome co-op experience like we had in RE5, but no. Damn co-co would not even work, tried almost everything, one thing that worked was uninstall

 

[hutchy27]

I thought it was a pretty decent year.
I played this year:
Gears of war 3- which I got for Christmas and I'm enjoying it greatly at the moment, especially beast mode.
Portal 2- was fun but I got a bit bored in the middle but had a good ending
Battlefield 3- also got for Christmas fun multiplayer but the single player is a bit tedious.
Brink- rented this for 5 night for £5 when it came out because I was low on funds back then and I enjoyed it, the bots were flawed but still enjoyable got up to level 18 before having to take it back.
Mortal Kombat- Preorder this because it was cheap and it was fun but got very boring after I complete the story and majority of challenges.
WWE12- bought it a few weeks before Christmas to pass the time and it did that job well and it's very fun to play with friends.
Skyrim- Got this a few weeks after it came out played and enjoyed it for about 30hours but haven't been back on, might return once the dlc arrives.

Just a little summary of what I thought of the games that I enjoyed.
The worst this year in my opinion is Dragon age 2, I rented it and just hated it.

 

[R3VOLU7ION]

My biggest let down was how everyone was so quick to judge Need For Speed: The Run. It was really rather good, going back to the franchises roots more than recent titles (of course apart from Hot Pursuit 2010), but of course as soon as people saw you couldn't customise your cars much they didn't like it. Which is stupid because it was a good game, with good arcadey driving physics, nice cars, great graphics, awesome tracks, and a story that was actually pretty all right, but worked well.

Other than that, Skyrim.

 

[ABLb0y]

The biggest disapointment was either Duke Nukem Forever or Skyrim. Both immeasurably shit, but the first one was worse as it took them 14 damn years to make the bloody game, and what did we get?

But, apart from those (And Homefront. And Brink. And Rage.) we've had a pretty good year. Lots of good games have came out, such as Dragon age 2, Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Uncharted: Drake's Deception, Modern Warfare 3, LA Noire, Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2, just to name a few.

 

[Naranja797]

Skyrim was great, Mount and Blade: With FIre and Sword was great, Crysis 2 was solid, Duke Nukem wasn't actually all that bad, Dead Island was okay, and I had tons of fun with SWTOR.
As far as dissapointments go, I'd have to go with Brink. I played Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and it felt like a baby of Battlefront and Battlefield with a lot less polish, so I was eager. But nope. It was just sloppy and ugly and the guns were boring and the much-touted S.M.A.R.T. system basically was just "Hold shift, look where you want to go, mash the space button."

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Games that came out in 2011 that I have.

360:
Dragon Age 2
Halo Anniversary
Skyrim

DS:
Pokemone White

I am not disappointed with any of them, and at the moment, Dragon Age 2 is my favorite out of them.

Now, for the list of other non-2011 games that I acquired in 2011. All are 360.

Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition
Mass Effect
Mass Effect 2
Borderlands: GOTY Edition
Soul Calibur 4
Assassin's Creed
Assassin's Creed 2
Batman Arkham Asylum: GOTY Edition
Saint's Row: Double Pack(The first and second games)
Street Fighter 4
Dirt
Forza 3

It has been a good year for game purchases, mainly because I have been able to get things very cheaply, that last list cost me around 230 USD. Adding in the first list, my total comes to around 365 USD, so technically a dollar a day.

Now out of the second list, the only real disappointment is Dragon Age Origins. I ordered it just a few days after Christmas 2010, just after I pre-ordered Dragon Age 2. I got it of course so I could play it before DA2.

I only played a little over 20 hours of it before I received DA2 in the mail in March. I just couldn't get into Origins. It was rather boring and slow paced. The combat was outdated and ridged. The leveling system was hosed hosed up and not very rewarding and fun. The dialogue system was also outdated and slow. Many times dialogue choices looked and sounded way too similar, and I had to sit for a few minutes to decide which was the right choice, and then had to reload when I picked the one that had the wrong outcome for me. I can't count how many times I had to do that. Also, the characters where very cliche, similar in make-up in how they reacted to me and how I had to deal with getting on their good-sides.

I quit and moved on to Dragon Age 2, because I felt anything could have been an improvement over Origins. I was right 100 times over. Dragon Age 2 improved everything I had problems with. The story was interesting and progress properly. The combat was fun and more fluid, actually allowing me to attack as fast as I wanted to and giving me actually control over my basic attack(unlike Origins which let me watch the basic attack move very very slowly without being able to control it), attacks felt like real life speed. The leveling system is awesome and rewarding, because I gained something useful every level, a upgrade to my powers(besides attribute points), every level.

The dialogue system made conversations better because instead of having to concentrate on what I'll have to say next and worrying about picking the right thing to say for my make-up of character, I could concentrate on what was being said and getting engrossed in the story. The party characters are much more interesting and fun to interact with, each on is unique in their own way and respond to my character differently. And the icing on the cake was that the graphics were improved nicely compared to Origins. The only draw back was the only 7 or so different dungeon types, but since the the rest of the game was so much greatly improved over Origins, I didn't notice it until I was around 75% finished with the game and somebody had to point it out for me.

DA:O of course had more choice in how to do things, but I of course will choose DA 2 to play over it, because I choose unhindered playability and fun over large amounts of choice that doesn't create enough difference to warrant playing beside the rest of the problems.