Your 5 most disappointing games, 2008-2012

[loc978]

Among games I actually played...

Supreme Commander 2. Rushed research+cheap units=free power. The perpetual motion machine of RTS gameplay. As for the single player campaign... so many tropes, so little time.

I suppose I should list Mass Effect 2 in here as well. The gameplay went all to hell with what amounted to corridor shooting and pre-assigned cover, while the plot was shot through with so many holes one could be forgiven for thinking it was a Star Wars prequel movie. Somehow I still enjoyed it, though. Damndest thing. Haven't played 3 yet... I imagine I will someday.

I'd list tOR, but it honestly lived up to every expectation I had. It works fine if what you're looking for is KotOR 3 with 8 separate protagonists... aside from that, it failed. Again, as expected.

Lots of other games I refused to buy, watched a few LPs and laughed.

On the flip side, Portal 2. That was a surprise... in a good way.

 

[bificommander]

Sword of the stars 2. From what I can tell from the mechanics and graphic style, I might have actually liked this less than the original even if it had been properly functional, not an early beta version.

Xenoblade Chronicles: I had recently bought a WII and still have fond memories of playing FF8 (don't judge me, up to that point I'd played Red Alert and US Navy Fighters, to play a game with any kind of epic looking story sounded cool), and there was a lot of buzz of the Americans begging Nintendo to bring the game to their shores. So I shelved over the cash for it, and god did it annoy me. Poor graphics, less interesting story, uninteresting combat and even though I spend too much time for my liking doing optional quests, I got creamed by the first monster in the first dungeon I had to go to. It's been gathering dust ever since.

Empire Earth 3: Oh how much have I wanted to like this one. I loved EE1, and the promise of three actually different sides, rather than 2 dozen with slightly different bonuses and maybe 1 unique units sounded great. So did the world conquest mode, which would actually work for a game where you don't fight the same battle every time, since you can research new technologies and ages on the world map. But dear god, the bugs. Surrendering on the battlemap gave you a victory on the world map. Animation was awefull, especially of the ships. The watercombat was completely broken. The AI was a joke. I've played through it several times, trying to enjoy the parts that are there, but so much about it was just unfinished.

Okay, and I didn't pay full price for Supreme Commander 2, but I count it. I understand it sucks that the first game didn't sell all that well. But the solution wasn't to turn it into a carboard copy of more popular games, because the fans of those games will just buy the original.

And Mass Effect 2 is a partial loss for me. The story was okay, and the way they handled the effect of your choices on the ending was cool (take note ME3), but everything just felt so cramped, small an unepic. All the universe consisted of coverbased corridors, plus one slightly larger Omega Station. And you know, I only at the very end realized that 'go see what's on the other side of the relay' wasn't just the first step in the story that would lead to the epic big picture, just like 'find out what Saren's up to' was in ME1. No, that was supposed to be the big, epic mission. If that's all there is to it and it's supposed to be oh so dangerous, why not send a few probes through once you've obtained all the Plot Coupons to make the jump? So despite the poor ending of ME3, ME2 is still my least favourite in the series.

 

[vun]

In no particular order;

Modern Warfare 3: I never played Black Ops, and while MW2 had it's flaws it was still good fun when playing with a friend, kind of like a Steven Seagal movie. MW3 is just no fun at all. I guess MW2 could be listed here as well due to the disappointment it was coming from CoD4. Like I said though, MW2 was great fun despite it's flaws.

Crysis 2: The first Crysis is easiliy one of the better games I've played, the story might not be deeper than a puddle, but it was still so much fun playing through that I didn't really care about the lack of story.

Skyrim: I don't really need to say anything here, do I?

Diablo 3: See above.

Number 5: I don't think I have a game that stands out here, I've never been one to buy a load of games at random and seems like I only get burnt on sequels messing things up. And because I tend to spot games that will disappoint me before I go and buy them, like BF3.

So for my number 5 I'm going to say BIT.TRIP BEAT simply because when I got it as part of the bundle I just read the BIT.TRIP part and thought I was getting the runner game as that was the only one I'd heard of.
I did eventually get runner later, and the beat game is alright I guess, but I don't see why I'd play that when I have audiosurf.

 

[ick99]

My Five Dissapointments.


5. Skyrim: In Oblivion I always found there to be a bit of progression even while being an open world game, money was hard to make, and the value of it was important until you reach a certain point, and the insignificance I felt, similar in Fallout 3 made the world much bigger and my place in it even more so. In Skyrim, money falls out of the sky, the characters who can join you are not interesting or valuable, and the lack of depth can be a little immersion breaking, but still, there hasn't been anything that has given me more fun this year.

4. Deus Ex HR: Bought it for the story and social commentary, left confused by the scale and the game play, probably would have enjoyed it more if I played enough to get immersed, but that would have required work.

3. Jaggered Alliance (Crossroad and BIA): Bought both for a nostalgia trip, AI was broken and it was just a bloody mess to try and deal with completing the story.

2. Dawn of War II: lately a lot of the Warhammer labels have been breaking my heart, oh well, I'll keep throwing THQ money and weeping.

1. Mass Effect 3: EA!! Not even the most raunchy Alien sex can make me forgive you.

My Five Surprises

1. Mass Effect II: I don't do shooters, I like shooters, but they take a while to get into. Mass Effect made me love the characters, identify with my own character, get upset over losing characters I liked the least. The ending brought me on the edge of my seat, I never had been so invested in a the story and characters of a game.

2. Fallout III: Again, no shooters, this is probably the first thing I played remotely horror or even survival. Atmosphere was fantastic and a lot of the characters were as insane, desperate, or creepy as I would expect in a post-apocalypse reminded me of the Book of Eli and the Road, in how horrified you are of the world, and how careful you have to be around strangers. I thought I would try a friend's to pass the time, I bought it the next day.

3. Bioshock: I was recommended this, it was cheap and on steam, best social commentary and story in such a game, all the flaws in it were not very visible, so I kept inside the immersion bubble.

4. Arma II: I found this both boring and confusing at the start, but its so boring and confusing, that the community I found was mature enough, and was interested in good solid team-play. I like that no one tries to put their balls in my face, and that in the DayZ mod, there's an actual reason for Ball-to-face action.

5. Victoria II: Was a little sceptical and extremely confused how to play, but after getting into it, I have concluded that it is the best kind of game for anyone on the Autism Spectrum. The game is fascinating in it's historical aspects, and the level of influence you have of everything.

 

[putowtin]

Infamous 1 and 2. How could Suckerpunch make two games that have so much potential, yet the end result is a fucking mess? Both 1 and 2 (noticeably 2) has such a fucking terrible mission structure, not to mention a game that has great freedom of movement in the second you are confined to small houses and flooded swamps? What the fuck Suckerpunch? Give me a massively destroyed city with huge skyscrapers for me to traverse, not swamps and flooded towns with a character who dies in water.

Seriously? Flood Town is one small part of New Marais, and as you say Cole dies in water so it makes the area a (enjoyable) challenge to get around. The mission structure is great and if you get bored you can create your own missions.

I could go on all day about how wrong you are, but it's saturday and I have more important things to do!

O.T
1: GTA 4
2: Force Unleashed 2
3: Mafia 2
4: Fable 3
5: GTA 4

I never said I died much traversing it. I actually died very little with the Ice Jump power in that area (which I will admit, was fun to use).

The mission structure is horrible, and the UGC missions are even worse. I enjoyed the first game more but still let down that this was Suckerpunches debut title on next gen consoles and they were average at best. Festival Of Blood was very enjoyable however.

What didn't you like about Mafia 2? I hold that as one of the greatest games this gen.

Mafia 2? The game that gave you a beautiful city with ball all to do in it!
Seriously mini games? none, collectables? Some old playboys!
I ran through that game in 5 hours and wondered where my £40 went

 

[Frontastic]

5. 'Dead Rising 2' - It was just too lazy of a sequel. Loved the first one and all the gameplay improvements were actually fantastic but it felt like a re-skinned DR1. Despite the promise of this one being a Vegas-style city, we get another damn mall. Still though... lightsabres!

4. 'LA Noire' - I appear to be the only one of my friends who actually stuck it out and finished it (and that was because I LOVE John Noble). The spartan gameplay would have been ok except the game had zero flow or pacing. It was great and cinematic for the first third but then you solve the serial killer case and the game just drags on and on and on for HOURS. It was still nice to see something new but it could have been so much better.

3. 'Alan Wake' - Fun (if a a bit basic) gameplay and a great atmosphere that sadly got over-used and utterly de-valued fast. Everyone raved about the story and I don't see what they were talking about. It was average, lacking substance and resolved very poorly. Like 'Noire' wasted potential.

2. 'Alpha Protocol' - It was the Bond game I've always dreamed of in terms gameplay and while I still actaully really enjoyed the game it was broken beyond belief. How does a game even get released in that state these days. It could have been one of my favourite games of all time, now it's just an interesting glimpse of what could have been.

1. 'Resident Evil 5'
- The one thing Resi didn't need was to be gritty and serious again. RE4 was the perfect blend of really good horror gameplay and stil lighthearted and silly. The only thing this game had going for it for Wesker because he was ridicuous and he filled the Merchant-shaped hole in my heart.

Honourable mention: Mass Effect 2. It's not on here because I do genuinely adore that game but I was quite annoyed with 2 when it first came out that in tone and atmosphere it felt so different to ME1. I missed the creppy isolation of wandering around barren planets on your own for hours with nothing but the wind howling and beautifully unsettling, minimalist sci-fi music playing. 2 & 3 are still fantastic blockbuster-action-fests but that's not why I intially fell in love with the franchise.

 

[Frontastic]

EDIT: Oops, stupid double-post glitch.

 

[MetalGenocide]

C&C 4! Worst train wreck in the history of train wrecks. I can forgive the people who forgot this existed. The memory probably imploded on itself.

Diablo 3. Hahahahahaaaa Ahahahaaa haaa.. okay blizz nice joke there...wait... you're going to put that in the final game? No! no nononononononono! NO DAMMNIT! FUCK! NOOOO! Aaaand it's gone.

"Fear" The whole franchise. Extremely overrated. Very mediocre shooter with silly spawns, oh wait "jump scares", Doom3 did the thing better.

Red Alert 3. I honestly felt the colors eating through my retina. And this is coming from a MLP fan. Boring shallow, gimmicky, buggy and unresponsive.

DUke Nukem Foreeeeeeeever. Hope dies last. Don't mess up again gearbox. Please don't.

 

[Amaror]

Dragon Age 2 - pretty obvious one.
Mass Effect 3 ending, rest of the game was genius, though.
Mafia 2 - just nothing to do and the ending was pretty shitty.
Dawn of War 2 - oh how fun the Prequel was. But 2 was so boring i coouldn't even get past the first few missions.
And yes, i know it is a multiplayer game, but dawn of war 1 + all sequels always had a fun campaign in it. DOW 2 does not.

 

[Soundwave]

The only games that have really disappointed me were from Black Isle/Obsidian. They have these awesome ideas for games that they never seem to deliver on. And really, I feel like any problem I've ever had with any of their games could've been addressed had they spent more time/money on QA.

 

[Alcamonic]

Max Payne 3, all the hopes, all the wishes.

 

[teebeeohh]

did we really need a thread specifically for people to ***** and whine? i feel like they do enough of that anyway.
fallout 3, it just didn't feel like fallout, too little humor and such BUT since NV was so fucking awesome i will let this one slide.
Dragon age 2
shogun 2, i can't put my finger to exactly what it is but i didn't like it as much as older TW titles, may have something to do with with yearly releases.
Prototype 2, the gameplay was not as fun the second time around and the fact that they just ignored the ending to Prototype was dumb as shit and took everything interesting away.
oh and oblivion since i didn't play that till 09. i can accept skyrim as a simplified version of Morrowind and be OK with that but oblivion is just somewhere in between "simple and straightforward fun" and "deep and immersive"

 

[Commissar Sae]

To me the most disapointing game was dungeons. I was hoping for dungeon keeper style fun, and while dungeons seems based of that great series I was dissapointed and quickly uninstalled it. On the upside they ahve dungeon keeper 2 on GoG, so that has helped.

 

[MammothBlade]

I'll take for disappointing games that I have any kind of expectation of and ended being let downs:

5- Brink: Lot of potential wasted in team deathmatch with no progress whatsoever.
4- Rage: Promised a Fallout experience without the limitations Fallout had, plus vehicles. Had none... well, it had vehicles.
3- Assassin's Creed Revelations: After 2 and Brotherhood, I was hoping they added something worth the price, and while it's good, it's truly forgettable.
2- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 & 3: I put both of them on the same boat for sharing story, which was the most disappointing thing it had.
1- Dead Island: I had real hopes for it, and it's not bad, but I couldn't find fun or engagement, it simply vanished from my hands and never opened the box again.

 

[Candidus]

#5 Fallout NewVegas - I knew I shouldn't have. I dodged FO3, and I dodged NV until it landed in Steam's Bargain Bin. I wish I'd dodged it then too.

#4 Skyrim - The greatest character in this game is the landscape. Almost all NPCs have just the ghost of a personality. One or two manage to reach the game's highest tier for NPC writing: "almost compelling". I spawned an all consuming tide of glitching cabbages in Whiterun, then I was bored and lonely. Uninstalled.

#3 Civ 5 - Can you see another nation's borders? You're about 15 turns from war then. When I bought (played, then uninstalled) this game, the diplomatic system was basically an illusion. Its real function was to delay war by several turns at a huge cost. Civ 5 is - or was - therefore a straight turn based war game that pretended other elements. In that genre, there are far better than this dog-pile.

#2 Dragon Age 2 - Those PS2 textures. That Twilight-quality writing. I don't even want to discuss this game.

#1 Supreme Commander 2 - Utter garbage. So much badness that I don't know where to start. The story that totally shat all over Illuminate players? Or the fact that order queues and other technical mechanics were better written in the first game (which especially hurt transports)? The way that the economy was made babies-mode because too many imbeciles couldn't crack Supcom and FA's? Or maybe that the developers took some really apalling unit concepts from amateur expansion packs made by modders for the original? I bought Supcom 2 for £5 when it eventually dropped into Steam's bargain bin, and it is still the worst value for money trade I've made in 5 years. A real piece of shit.

 

[The White Hunter]

These past few years have left me disappointed and disillusioned with some of my favourite series, and I've sought out greener pastures as a result. Sadly, I had to play through and delude myself that I was enjoying them to realise just how boring they'd become.

Well for me my biggest disappointments within the time frame (since I'm a Sonic fan this'd have been a lot better to read if it had been the last decade rather than 4 years):

Final Fantasy 13: I expected a huge world with great characters and a great story, with a well paced narrative and interwoven exposition. With the kind of detail and love that FF12 was crafted with, I expected that same level, I expected the bestiary notes, I expected the optional stories, I expected the volume of quests, optional areas, optional bosses, items, summons, etc. Instead it was a corridor for 20-30 hours with no real challenge beyond staying awake, then a bit of an open world with not much in it besides monster hunts, and then the end and some trophchievements that I couldn't be bothered with. Final Fantasy XII was indeed the final fantasy for me, sadly this remains to be changed, though 13-2 was better.

Sonic Generations: It is far from bad, it's a top notch game, it's action packed, flows fantastically. It's bright, colourful and it's great fun. But it lacked variety, there were too many "green hill" levels and too many city levels for my liking. They took too much from more modern Sonic games in my opinion, especially Colours, where they made an inferior version of the stage. I'd have rather some extra Mega Drive levels than the modern stages, for example, Ice Cap, Lava Reef, Death Egg, Starlight, etc. The Heroes level could've been better too, Rail Canyon or Egg Fleet would have been more interesting and stood out a lot more. It was also very short lived with little replay for me with a very poor final boss. Disappointing after Colours but a great game anyway.

Resident Evil 6: It isn't out yet. But that demo was enough for me. I adore 4, it's one of my favourite games of all time, so much so that I own 3 copies of it and have finished it countless times, including challenge and melee runs. My problems with 6: I shot a corpse and it didn't react, I assumed thusly that it was just a corpse not an enemy, I was wrong, it attacked when I walked over, so I was pissed off. It's hard to be quite sure how much damage you're doing and the game doesn't give great feedback to your attacks, it also has a strange lagging effect that seems intentional when you change aiming direction or begin to look elsewhere. The lighting effects are bloomy and hyper focused, and dragged away any immersion because I have a vague understanding of how light functions. It used 2 buttons for interaction, co-op actions not withstanding. The AI is worse than 5, after 2 minutes of trying I managed to get it irreversibly stuck on an environmental object. I'd go on, but I just hated the demo so much that it gains this spot with ease. Edit: I seriously can't grasp what Capcom are thinking these days, I really can't, they want COD's sales levels? Then do it without Resident Evil. Keep Resi as a reliable income source from dedicated fans and make a new IP that doesn't suck. I'll have to leave it here or this'll just become a Capcom rant.

Battlefield 3: The game just didn't live up to what I wanted from it, it's a good game, but it just wasn't fun enough most of the time. It also had some severe balancing issues for months after release. I enjoyed Bad Company 2 a hell of a lot more, and rather than fancy flashlight effects and vain attempts at photorealism, I'd have prefered to be able to knock buildings down with rocket launchers. Just diappointment in general, I adored BC2 too much for BF3 to topple it from it's throne.

Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1: Ask an old Sonic fan, the kind that still has their MegaDrive in working order and ready to go with a hue stack of games, or any retro gamer, what makes 2D Sonic so enjoyable, and they'll tell you it's the pace and flow of the game. With floaty physics and a weird acceleration curve Sonic 4 (Episode 2 is guilty too, but less so) is a huge disappointment for myself and many other fans. It also lacked much original content and had a relatively poor soundtrack, it wasn't ear rupturing levels of awful, but for a SOnic game it was poor, even Sonic 06 can boast a great OST. Alas Blue Blur, you're guilty of a lot of disappointment, may your next title be as good as Colours was.

Edit:Removed Arkham City, had 6, done derped there.

 

[The White Hunter]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi
The Amazing Spider-Man
Prototype 2
The Old Republic

I heard those were all very disappointing games. Especially Ultimate Tenkaichi (I love Dragon Ball, hence I avoid the games these days..)

I'd like to add pokemon diamond and pearl if only they'd come out in the time frame specified, just for being kind of boring. Platinum fixed it, but I was bored of Sinnoh by then.

 

[The White Hunter]

Metal Gear Solid 4, definately. Somehow worse than Metal Gear Solid 2. A fucking achievement if there ever was one.

Resident Evil 5 was a disappointment, too, but it is soon to become a game I'll be looking back to fondly with the release of Resident Evil 6.

With the release of the Resi 6 demo I was looking back on 5 with fond memories. ): Read my previous post for more details. God damn it 4 was gold I don't know what Capcom are thinking...

 

[Adamantium93]

1. Mass Effect 3: A COD in space shooter that forgot all that made the previous games fun. Also an ending that destroyed the series.

2. Just Cause 2: Heard this game was amazing. Its meh at best.

3. Diablo 3: The coolest parts of the preview videos turned out to be lies. And the game progressed down samey-clickey-dungeon-wahey.

4. Guild Wars 2: Don't get me wrong: I still like GW2. But the fun story missions are broken up with grindy slogs through areas where you just kill things until your bar is full and then you move on. Even worse, as you progress in level the time between these fun missions increases and you're stuck with more grind than necessary. Granted that's the mmo formula but at least WoW has an over-arching story to these quests with actual reasons to do them which makes them feel less like work and more like fun. GW2 still does a lot right in the combat/grouping department and the story missions are great. I just wish I didn't have to bore myself to death for X hours before I can get to the next one.

5. Dragon Age 2: I actually didn't hate this game in fact I kinda liked it so I won't spew bile for hours like everyone else. Didn't like how the entire thing was a collection of side quests or how often the game repeated areas and always threw extra enemies at you when you thought you were done.




Games I was surprised to enjoy:

1. Deus Ex:HR : I looked at this game and thought it was a boring modern shooter but after hearing some hype and finally running out of other things to play I gave it a try and loved it.

2. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria : After trying GW2 I thought my WoW days were over but I gave it one last try and found that this game is actually good (as mmos go). The pandas aren't as childish as people feared, the lands are very pretty in that wow cartoony style and a sense of exploration is back.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. Ok, its not in the time boundaries but I played it a few months ago because I had never gotten into it back in the Gamecube days. I'm very surprised. The game is old and yet the cartoony design holds up well. Gameplay isn't too bad and this has to be the first Zelda game where Link has more emotions than happy and shocked. Thoroughly enjoyed it despite the fact that its almost 10 years old.

 

[EHKOS]

1: SWTOR, I really love anything with the Star Wars atmosphere, and while it had a subscription fee I had a lot of fun with it...to a point. You cannot play this game solo, and I know that's not what it's for, but dang. I think I found my niche, Single player games with an MMO structure.
2: Just Cause 2, it had a giant map, but the fastest air transport still took forever to get anywhere. It would have given a bigger sense of vastness as well, but there was nothing to fucking DO. It was a nice escapism game, it was beautiful, but it was also dull.
3: Sleeping Dogs, I had a huge gripe with the vehicular handling. It was really...I don't know how to describe it. I'd say too safe, and the cars had no real weight to them. They made turning overly simplistic. Also, I had a hard time caring about the story, it truly was a GTA 4 clone. But it was fun, and messing around was a nice time killer.

I can't think of anymore right now.