The biggest "Meh" of 2012

[BleedingPride]

Call of Duty. because they're all pretty much meh at this point, the main villain was a nice touch though in the single player. He's no Vaas, but he was pretty good. Also, speaking of Vaas, the way they dealt with Vaas in Far Cry 3 kinda pissed me off, seeing as his boss wasn't nearly as good of a character.

 

[Oro44]

I hate to put down a game that I haven't completed just yet, but its shaping up to be Dishonored. The gameplay is fine and all, but the story isn't really grabbing me, the dialogue isn't that great (especially the NPC banter) and I'd very much like to explore more of the world, but I'm not really able to.

 

[Thoric485]

Dishonored. The complete lack of difficulty just made the awesome powers, awesome set pieces and particularly awesome assassination animations fall flat. At no point did I scramble to combine my powers for a way out, feel starved for runes, or supplies, or like there was any threat of failure at all. Safety was always a blink away, godly powers were supplemented by a huge mana pool, a fully stocked arsenal and nearly blind guards who just don't give a fuck.

I'm not even that much of a difficulty junkie, but this was like shooting fish in a barrel. All you had to do was choose the weapon. And still the approaches in Dishonored (nevermind the itemization and character progression) were quite limited compared to Arkane's previous games, which were more intricately designed in terms of difficulty.

And you couldn't see your torso and legs. Argh.

 

[Duffeknol]

Stated before, but defintely AssCreed 3. Seven hours until you get to actually play the game as intended, forced linear missions (the first time you go to New York, fuck that was frustrating) and on top of that a protagonist utterly devoid of a character. What a lifeless sack of nothing that Connor was, incredible. They could've done something with him being a halfblood. But nope, instead we get his droning, monotone 'yes I will help you on this quests bleep bleep' robot responses. Game picks up in the last few hours, but by then you're already braindead. Also no more weird puzzle levels or glitches in the animus to find, instead we get to prowl the entire world for 'trinkets' to give to an old fart who gives you access to a bunch of jumping puzzles. Great.
Hated the game. I went for pretty much 100% completion in the last three games, but I uninstalled this one as soon as I was done with the story. It wasn't even terrible, it was just sooooooooooo fuckinggggg tediously DULL.

 

[afroebob]

Now I'm a HUGE fan of Spec Ops, just got it and finished it recently and was just.. Wow... Actually my GOTY of 2012. But I must admit that if you have a piece of art and the message goes WHOOSH over a lot of people's head's, the fault lies with the artist and not the viewer. Of course sometimes it could be the intention of the creators that some people just wont get it. With that said I do think they made Spec Ops' story accessible enough, I understood it. There is not definite answer, just interpretation (which the lead writer Walt Williams himself has stated & he has some interesting theories on the story himself).

Well I think a lot of people don't get it because we have been conditioned to not pay attention to what is going on outside of the surface level of the game. Even games with great stories tend to have their themes showing right out on there sleeves. So when a game has more subtle themes they are very often missed when in any other media such as books and movies because we pay more attention to them. You could arguably blame the developers for not making a game with this taken into account but considering I don't see how they could have had subtle themes without them going a lot of peoples heads. Wou can't have your cake and eat it, too.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Probably The Darkness II's ending. I'll be honest, that just made my eyes glaze over. A cliffhanger, huh. You gonna charge us for the ending as DLC? Or did you plan a sequel? ...that made me... yeah, I didn't like that. I was really enjoying the game, and the last few minutes just rolled over me. M-e-h.

Remember that game Binary Domain that released early in the year? Saw a few articles about it on websites and magazines prior to its release, and I could tell from then that it would just sink as another generic cover based third-person shooter. Hell, even its name was bland sounding. I ended up renting it much later on and, surprise surprise, that's all it was, a generic cover based third-person shooter. It's not broken or infamous by any means, I just felt like I was playing a Gears Of War re-skin with robots.

Did you end up finishing it? Most of the really impressive stuff with that game comes from the narrative. Whether it's the outlandish (French robot!) or the... more serious and slightly depressing, to the twist that is in concept fucking stupid, but in practice honestly really effective... yeah, that game's gameplay is serviceable, but it's the story that lets it stand on its own two feet. If you haven't finished it, I recommend giving it another shot at some point.

If you have finished it, then, um... oh.

 

[Joby Baumann]

Mass Effect 3
It just felt so tacked on, I know everyone got pissed about the endings, but that's not what they should have been pissed about.

They should have been pissed about (a) the existence of kai leng (or lang, I don't remember), who seemed to take a wrong turn from the set of Deus Ex HR, and (b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M6wc4Qtyws when Anderson says "more than one" MORE THAN ONE? GODDAMNIT FUCK I AM COMMANDER FUCKING SHEPARD, I HAVE SAVED THE UNIVERSE TWICE, WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY OWE YOU?

 

[thesilentman]

How can you go without mentioning the long-awaited return of Spec Ops?

Are you insane? Spec Ops was one of the best games of the year. It got a lot of shit for being a Call of Duty rip off, but thats just because people don't understand what the game is about. They go in saying 'Well, lets go play another Call of Duty clone' and go through the whole thing not realizing that the game is a critique of the entire modern shooter genre.

Now I'm a HUGE fan of Spec Ops, just got it and finished it recently and was just.. Wow... Actually my GOTY of 2012. But I must admit that if you have a piece of art and the message goes WHOOSH over a lot of people's head's, the fault lies with the artist and not the viewer. Of course sometimes it could be the intention of the creators that some people just wont get it. With that said I do think they made Spec Ops' story accessible enough, I understood it. There is not definite answer, just interpretation (which the lead writer Walt Williams himself has stated & he has some interesting theories on the story himself).

Did you just say that if a message, that is inferred through the aesthetics and storytelling of a particular medium, isn't inferred in one way by the audience, it's the artist's fault?

What. No seriously. What. I don't get it...

If some message is intended to be inferred by the artist is lost on an audience while other people clearly get the message intended, then you can't really fault the artist. It's the people who don't get the message due to a lack of a quality needed to understand the message.

OT- Have to say Dishonored. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but I didn't feel any sense of accomplishment stealthing my way through the levels. I think it was because the game was too easy after gaining all of the powers given by the Outsider.

 

[Dr Jones]

Well I think a lot of people don't get it because we have been conditioned to not pay attention to what is going on outside of the surface level of the game. Even games with great stories tend to have their themes showing right out on there sleeves. So when a game has more subtle themes they are very often missed when in any other media such as books and movies because we pay more attention to them. You could arguably blame the developers for not making a game with this taken into account but considering I don't see how they could have had subtle themes without them going a lot of peoples heads. Wou can't have your cake and eat it, too.

Granted that's true, but I don't think Spec Ops handled its themes subtly at all. Well of course some of them are subtle indeed, but it should be clear to anyone that's even looking at the screen, that Spec Ops is something else. The ending(s) for example don't have a single percent of the typical gung-ho shit we see in Call of Duty. I honestly just think it boiled down to people not giving a shit. They got the story but weren't motivated to pay attention to it due to the "blandness" of the game.

Hell I even thought the game looked ridicilously bland until I started hearing about the story. Had I not been told that it was something else beforehand I'd just skip every cutscene expecting it to be boring story exposition with a weak premise that only serves the purpose of giving me more things to shoot.

 

[Dr Jones]

Did you just say that if a message, that is inferred through the aesthetics and storytelling of a particular medium, isn't inferred in one way by the audience, it's the artist's fault?

What. No seriously. What. I don't get it...

If some message is intended to be inferred by the artist is lost on an audience while other people clearly get the message intended, then you can't really fault the artist. It's the people who don't get the message due to a lack of a quality needed to understand the message.

As I said, it depends on what the artist is going for exactly. If he/she is aiming to get a majority of people and 1/4 of the people experiencing the art, then yes, the artist is to blame for having failed his/her mission. If an artist sets out to make a personal story and frankly wont care about who gets it or not, then sure, it's fine if 1/10 or less get it, an example could be made for David Lynch's movies.

 

[Jfluffy]

My biggest meh has got to be Mass Effect 3's endings. The apocalypse was pretty meh-worthy too.

 

[Malfy]

Assassin's Creed 3.

I was looking forward to the new setting, main character, and improved controls, especially since Revelations was a major disappointment. Turns out, Connor ended up being the most boring main character in the series, side missions became even more trivial, your Brotherhood became less useful, the Templar conflict became more muddled, hunting became a chore, Revolutionary-era America not as fun to dick around in that Renaissance-era Italy was, main villain was mostly a bore....They somehow managed to make Desmond more fun to play as than Connor.

The game isn't bad, but it is only just slightly better than the let-down that Revelations was. After not playing it for weeks, I had to force myself to beat the game just to get it out of the way and move on to the next title (Far Cry 3). AC3 convinced me that Ubisoft should kill the annual release schedule for the franchise and give it time to really live up to the potential, similar to the transition from AC1 to AC2.

 

[Tentaquil]

snip

Uh.....this is a gaming forum.....soooooo....yeah.
Though I do both disagree with you and agree. I mean, just based on your comment, it seems you just want the whole conversation to burn.

Fine then Mr. HardonforTechnicalities

Most Meh in A Vidja Game

An odd one but the Skyrim DLC's. Not really living up to the OC

 

[Zydrate]

Sad to hear about AC3, though I still want it.

I still haven't beaten Revelations because it's just so goddamn boring. Like others have said, it's technically a great game. But it's doing SOMETHING wrong.

 

[Slenn]

Diablo 3 handsdown. You've got to stand in awe by the mediocrity of this game compared to the hype + expectations.
It should've been the cure to cancer, the holy grail and sliced bread in one game aaaaaand it ended up as just another Activision-moneygrab. Yay.

This.

Blizzard used to be amazing. And now everything that they publish is a 60$ waste of time. Starcraft 2 wasn't that all replayable, because, looking back on it now, the single player campaign is really boring. I can't finish Diablo 3 anytime soon because there's nothing in it that really makes it shine. Granted the revelation at the end of the first Act was kinda neat, the art design is really fresh with dungeons that make sense, but it just doesn't seem like a great game at all.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

For everything I played this year, it has to be Silent Hill Book of Memories on The Vita. I got it as a christmas gift and ended up telling myself it would be cool. Never again. The combat was even worse than it has been in Silent Hill games. The Puzzles were good but everything else I was very meh about.

 

[jebara]

Dishonored.
Got bored from the start and kept on in the hopes it would get better, eventually gave up.

 

[SuperSamio64]

I. Want. To. Play. As. Desmond!

Did I just read that right? Desmond is sooooooooo boring though. Also, a modern day Assassin's Creed game would take away the best bit; exploring history.

I agree with most of that, if not all, but I kind of want the AC story to start wrapping up (if it hasn't already). They can't go into the past too far away from present day anymore (except for, maybe, the civil war and world wars) unless they go pre-Conner and I'm really enjoying the whole "end is nigh" tone it's pulling. I want to play in that time period now. I'm don't really want anymore history unless they can do a WWII period Assassin's Creed somehow.

Fair point. I think a WWII AC game would end up being a little Saboteur-y, but I don't see why they can't just go back further to be honest. As underwhelming as Liberation was, it showed you don't need Desmond to tell an Assassin's Creed game.

 

[megamegaman247]

halo 4 was very meh for me. I think of this in the sense that what NEW gameplay advances did it make. It felt like i was just playing reach all over again.