*Your* Top 10 Most Disappointing Games Of All Time?

[happyninja42]

In no particular order, simply because I don't really devote that much emotional time to which one hurt me more.

1. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within:
Hey, let's take everything that was endearing about our protagonist from the first game, rip it out, give him an edgy, angsty emo makeover, and replace the cool soundtrack with death metal shit. Oh! And lets put the villainess into a metal thong and introduce her ass first to the player, in a slowmotion closeup that takes up the entire screen. Yeah, no thanks, I'll just shut it off in the opening tutorial and never load it up again. Thankfully Two Thrones made up for the crap that was that game.

2. Homeworld 2:
I love Homeworld, and I absolutely adore Homeworld: Cataclysm. I was absolutely psyched for HW 2....and then I played it. And while it wasn't a bad game, it was just...not Homeworld. All the voice acting was bland and lifeless, even Karen Sjet, which saddened me, because one of the things I loved about her performance in the first game, was how she was still able to convey a sense of humanity in the mechanical voice. The voice in HW 2 did not. I've sense learned why, that it was a difference actress all together, as the woman who did Karen in HW 1 was 9 months pregnant at the time, and couldn't take the job. The game just felt, lifeless. The plot was dumb, the reason for it made no sense as to why finding this MacGuffin would save the day, and when they did, it still made no sense. As far as level of anticipation, to crash of disappointment, this was pretty high up there for me.

3. Force Unleashed 2:
I really enjoyed the first Force Unleashed game. I thought it was a pretty interesting story idea, the gameplay was really fun, and I thought the conclusion was really good. It wasn't the greatest game I played, but I had fun with it, and it's one of the few Star Wars games that made me actually feel like a Jedi powerhouse. And then the second one came out, and again, like HW 2, it just felt like it was going through the motions. The plot was non-existent, and they just went from map to map, without any connective tissue of story or plot to make it make sense. I played it, finished it, and then never looked at it again. It was just totally forgettable.

4. Thief (The reboot)
Terrible light/shadow physics, terrible restrictions when it came to traversing the world, being force to only jump when they let me jump, unable to climb whatever I want, or shoot rope arrows where I want. A dumb plot, a total gutting of the original lore, and turning it into nothing but a time long past. It just failed everywhere, and showed just how badly it didn't live up to the original Thief trilogy.

5. Tomb Raider (Reboot)
I'm not a Lara Croft fan. I think I played one of the original games back in the day, for like a few hours maybe. But I was really looking forward to this reboot. The trailers were awesome, showing me a dramatic story of a girl, growing into the legend of awesomeness that she was destined to be. Being put into a terrible situation and being forced to overcome it time and time again. Hell yeah! I'm all for that shit! Bring it on! ......oh, it's just a terribly written B Action Movie ripoff, with cliched dialogue, stupid character motivations, and a string of male characters who sacrifice themselves so that Lara can continue on? Yeah no thanks, screw that crap. Also, forcing me to watch certain people die, by taking away control from me so they can show me a cutscene where my character stands there, dumbfounded, and watches a bad guy kill a good guy. When not 3 seconds before the cutscene, I was in control, SAW the badguy, and was preparing to shoot him dead before he could hurt the guy. But no, the script says he must die, so Lara will stand there like a braindead moron, and just watch. This game frustrated me more than most in the past several years, and that's impressive, since I didn't have some kind of nostalgia armor for the series to be angered by, like with Thief. It was just a badly written game, with a lame story, and a lame cast of characters.

6. Max Payne 3
Another series I love, but holy shit Max is so fucking depressed in this game! I couldn't finish it, he was just so goddamn mopey and drunk! Every...damn....scene...he hammers home how he's useless, and those around him always die, and he should just die and save everyone the trouble. Oh my god shut up!!! You are NOT the Max I know and love from MP 1 and 2!! You had a happy ending at the end of MP 2!! It had loss to it, but it was a salvation kind of thing! You had closure for fucks sake! Why did they fuck it all up with this dimestore game adaptation of Denzel Washington's character from Man on Fire?! And let's be honest, the art style and animation took heavily from Man on Fire, it's obvious in every frame. And I can appreciate it, as I love that movie. But the movie didn't have Denzel drunk and useless the whole time. He grew out of it at the midway point, but Max doesn't. He just stays emo and drunk.

 

[Lightspeaker]

In no particular order.

Dragon Age: Origins - Big new RPG from Bioware! Exciting stuff, right? Well...no, not really. Actually felt like a step backwards from where they were in the KOTOR days. Painfully bad combat system, characters that on the whole weren't particularly gripping (I didn't dislike them but it felt incredibly hard to actually become attached to any) and one of the worst designed difficulty curves I've ever experienced. Not so much a difficulty curve as a difficulty rollercoaster...one fight you win instantly, then next you immediately die fifteen times over and over no matter what tactics you use, then you stomp again. Dragon Age 2 was a huge, huge improvement in virtually every respect except the story and environmental design (lazy use of copy and paste).

Final Fantasy XII - I loved Final Fantasy from the moment I started playing a demo of VIII (which I have a soft spot for, despite its flaws) so when they decided to make FFXI an MMO it was hugely disappointing (it should never have been a main-numbered FF game in my opinion). Hearing about the upcoming XII got me hugely hyped and then...well it flunked. Worst Final Fantasy game to date. Basically an offline MMO but without even the fun of progression of an MMO. The ridiculous decision to use Vaan as a main character instead of...say...Ashe was just baffling. I tried no less than three times to force myself through it but I just couldn't. It was just agonising. Maybe I'll try again at some point because the story, at least, was alright.

Dawn of War: Soulstorm - I don't really have to comment further on this, right? Just a very poor sequel to such a good game. What a waste.

Dawn of War 2: Retribution - This one comes down to the fact I was hoping it'd be another Dark Crusade. I wasn't exactly a huge fan of the direction they'd gone for the Dawn of War 2 campaigns and wanted another map-based multi-faction competing thing again and hearing they'd have multiple faction selection in it was exciting. Even it not living up to that ideal wouldn't have been bad if the campaigns had at least been varied but instead the campaign was the EXACT SAME THING OVER AND OVER FOR EVERY FACTION. Literally the same missions with different characters. Not actually a bad game but very disappointing from what it could have been.

Every Total War game since Rome - Honestly I could list separately but its easier to just group them as a whole. It seems like the series is just never going to live up to the heights of Rome:Total War.

Mass Effect 3 - Most people cite the ending but I think the problems go deeper than that. The writing starts getting wonky as early as Priority: Thessia which I actually think is WORSE written than Priority Earth except for the last handful of minutes with magical star child. And even before that there are bits that look like they should have had an editor look over it. It almost feels like they made Priority: Rannoch and then were told "ok, great, this needs to ship next week" and then had to throw together the last chunk of the game and had no time to go back and review what they'd done previously. Its not a terrible game but when I think about what it could and should have been its a real shame.

Half Life 2 - I actually bought this around launch off the back of the "OMG HALF LIFE 2! HALF LIFE IS BEST GAME SERIES EVER!" hype and I just...didn't 'get' it. Okay the game is a reasonably well made and fairly competent shooter with, at the time, a cute physics engine. But I have never and probably will never understand the hype around it.

Dead Island - Dull, dull dull. Largely frustrating game with no depth and since I prefer to play single player for RPG games it was just an all round boring experience.

Borderlands - See Dead Island. Except I heard way more hype so was suitably more disappointed.

Mercenaries 2 - I always felt that in Mercenaries 1 I had WAY more freedom to do stuff. Mercs 2 felt very limited in comparison. And significantly more confusing as to what I was actually doing.

 

[Adam Lester]

1- Dishonored: I had such high hopes for this game due to the trailer. The graphics were almost vomit-inducing, the story was nothing new and the stuff that ever seemed interesting in that game was never explained. The game mechanics were tight, but could have been a lot tighter. I really wish that they'd take another crack at it, the game could have been a thousand times better with the right people behind it.

2- Silent Hill Homecoming: By Azazoth's tears...what is this. Stop trying to be Silent Hill 2. PLEASE STOP TRYING TO BE SILENT HILL 2.

3- Colonial Marines: Nothing more can be said about this game that hasn't been said already. Go fuck yourself, Pitchford.

4- Anything Assassin's Creed has done since brotherhood: Granted, they keep me playing until the end but then the moment I put down the controller, I forget everything that happened.

5- Bioshock Infinite: I enjoyed the game, don't get me wrong. But so much wasted potential.

4- Resident Evil 6: I wasn't expecting much, honestly. But this is the only game I've played where I literally fell asleep at the controls.

5- Alien Isolation: Don't get me wrong, I loved this game. On the other hand, their "Advanced AI" for the Xenomorph translated into taking a shortcut by making it intentionally broken so the thing could be on the other side of the ship but still show up in the same room as you by the time you dropped down a vent.

6- Watchdogs: Another game that I'm happy I didn't give a single shit about by the time I ended up playing it. Garbage plot, garbage protagonist, etc.

7- Legacy of Kain, Soul Reaver: Once again...I LOVED this game. But it was my first disappointment, especially with all of the hype surrounding it via gaming magazines at the time. For those that don't know, LOK: SR was supposed to be a magnum opus but due to last minute issues, they had to cut the game down to roughly 70% of what it was going to be and threw it out on to the toy shelves. On a brighter note, it's safe to say a series is good when even the half finished product shines.

8- Devil May Cry 2: This kinda falls into the Colonial Marines territory of 'nuff said.

9 through 10: Anything released in 2014.

 

[ArcaneGamer]

I don't know if I can make it to 10.

Metal Gear Solid 4 certainly was a big steaming cow pie right in the face. Not that it was a complete surprise seeing as the quality of MGS seems to leap frog, but that still didn't make the whole experience any less sour.

Uncharted 3 was just a retread of Uncharted 2, but with zero cohesion. With Naughty Dog admitting they just came up with set pieces first and then tried to crowbar them into the narrative, with no regard for the plot. Also the whole thing with Sully raising Drake... just, ugh.

inFAMOUS: Second Son was just a launch game, and oh boy did it feel like one.

And Oddworld: Munch's Odyssey was the first fully 3 dimensional Oddworld game, which at the time got me super fucking hyped, but I ultimately should've known better.

Yeah, I'll agree with you on Second Son. The story was alright, (especially factoring in Paper Trail, and the good guy path. Which on a brief side note, did you know that the bad guy ending was originally canon until the studio saw how many trophies players got for the Good Guy ending?) but it was annoying that you had to be the bad guy to get the cooler abilities, and the moral choices were...well, cookie cutter. "Press this to REDEEM someone" or "Press this to CORRUPT someone". UGH. Xmen:Legacy, AGH, such wasted potential! An Action RPG with an upgrade system where you get to pick whether you side with Xavier or Magneto; as a new character. It SOUNDS cool, doesn't it? But the end result was much less than to be desired.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

9. Deus Ex: Invisible War. So many interesting ideas! So many horrific implementations! So many obnoxious technical limitations that the first game didn't have!

There was a single thing that completely ruined that game for me. The Universal Ammunition. Such a horrible concept. Run out of bullets for a gun? Congratulations, you now have no bullets whatsoever.

...

Gee, thanks. I guess I'll just punch this security robot to death then?

I found punching everything into unconsciousness was the best way to go about things in that game. Baton + EMP Augmentation + Strength Augmention was really good and it didn't use up all your ammo. Still, universal ammunition was a terrible idea. It got even worse once you started fighting the Templars who had power armour.

Most Disappointing?
Probably Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. I don't think either of them were overall bad games but they were the ones that disappointed me the most.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

6. Max Payne 3
Another series I love, but holy shit Max is so fucking depressed in this game! I couldn't finish it, he was just so goddamn mopey and drunk! Every...damn....scene...he hammers home how he's useless, and those around him always die, and he should just die and save everyone the trouble. Oh my god shut up!!! You are NOT the Max I know and love from MP 1 and 2!! You had a happy ending at the end of MP 2!! It had loss to it, but it was a salvation kind of thing! You had closure for fucks sake! Why did they fuck it all up with this dimestore game adaptation of Denzel Washington's character from Man on Fire?! And let's be honest, the art style and animation took heavily from Man on Fire, it's obvious in every frame. And I can appreciate it, as I love that movie. But the movie didn't have Denzel drunk and useless the whole time. He grew out of it at the midway point, but Max doesn't. He just stays emo and drunk.

Haha, totally agree on Max Payne 3. "I'm so worthless! I can't do anything right!" Dude! You have singlehandedly destroyed 3 criminal empires by now! You are the greatest bad-ass to ever walk the earth! And all you can do is whine about how everything sucks.

 

[asdfen]

MG Revengance

What were you expecting?
Because, what it does, it does exceptionally well.

I was expecting to have enemies on screen and/or a block button
instead I have camera showing scenery/walls/whatever but the enemy that is about to hit me and kill me in 1-2 hits
boss fights - some of them are incredibly horrible and are QTE fests

 

[Tuxedoman]

Okay then! My top ten disappointing games of all time. Gawd, there are a lot of games that have let me down, but I'll try to put them in order of most disappointing to least disappointing.

10: Xcom The Bureau.
This game was the last game I pre-ordered without researching beforehand. The only reason it isn't higher on the list is that I didn't really have all that high hopes for it when I bought it, but somehow it managed to dash even those expectations. I was hoping for a neat tactical shooter with some deep leveling up mechanics, and a cool permadeath thing like in Xcom. Instead, I got Mass Effect 3 lite. And that's saying something.

9: Diablo 3
So, I didn't think Diablo 3 was a bad game. Even at launch, with all its bs going on, I still didn't think it was -bad-. What it was however, was an entirely new game that would have been better off if it wasn't tied to the Diablo franchise. That, and the game balance was broken for a good what.. Eight months? Whenever that big re-itemisation patch dropped anyway.

8: Beyond Earth
I thought this was gonna be really cool. It seemed like a neat idea, take Civ and put a Sci-fi flare on it. Only problem was that the game was basically a $40 mod for Civ 5, with a handful of changes and dozens of missing features. It ended up being a shallow experience, and I fully regret that purchase.

7: The Witcher
I should not have played Witcher 2 before playing this game. Yes, the story may be great. That doesn't change the fact that it controls like ass, it looks like ass, and everyone -is- an ass. Ass ass ass, ass. Its a shame, because I adored Witcher 2. Alas, the original just is not for me.

6: Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.
So gonna explain this a bit. I love this game. I still think its a great rts/4x Hybrid, and would recommend it to fans of the genre. That said, The Rebellion stand alone was -not- worth $40 at launch, especially when I already owned Sins of at Solar Empire: Trinity. It added as much content as a $5 dlc, with eight times the price.
As it stands, its a good game. I just wish I hadn't paid full price for it, when I had a 90% of the features already in its previous title.

5: Halo 4

So Laggyteabag basically said everything I had to say about this game. The gameplay felt 100% off at almost every corner. 343 showed the world that they were huge Halo fans, and basically made the game into a giant fanfiction. The music strayed too far from the 'halo' themes, the Prometheans felt overdone when it came to their art while being boring and predictable to fight, and for some reason they decided to not go with Halos' wide open spaces for level design, instead opting for a whole bunch of close quarters maps with very few vehicles. Maybe this is what fans wanted, but it wasn't what I wanted.

4: STALKER Call of Pripyat

I wanted to like this game so much. Sooooo so so much. Everything from the setting, to the theme, to the gameplay seemed like it'd be a perfect fit. Alas, the zone ended up being a very bland and boring place to me, which meant that I had zero interest to go out and explore. It also meant that when I got ganked by shitty dogs for the third time after being an idiot and installing the Misery mod, I really just did not feel like playing that game.
Whoops.

3: Divinity: Original Sin
I'm not sure if I really should be disappointed with this game, because it bought me a lot of joy. Just not for the reasons I had expected. Everything about it was awful in my eyes, apart from the actual leveling up mechanics. The perk system was cool, the level of detail that goes into your character sheet was neat, and the role playing between the co-op characters was brilliant. Oh, and combat was pretty cool too. Sadly, everything else was awful. The moment I saw that opening cutscene telling me about orcs attacking the mainland, and undead being in the north, I knew I was in for one hell of a generic ride. With bad voice acting. And bad plots. And an awful 'old school' ui. And dozens of other issues.

But hey, at least I could teleport locked chests away from prying eyes, then bash them open with my fists.
And steal every painting in the tavern, before selling it back to the tavern owner for 4k gold.

2: Planetary Annihilation

I love the Supreme Commander series. When I heard that this game was in production as a spiritual successor, I though it would be the best rts of all time, and I'd have endless fun with it.
Then I played it.
I just... I don't understand how the company forgot to program the -game- side of the game, after putting so much emphasis on twitch streaming and their procedural planet generation. The gameplay side of things was shallow as -hell-, and every AI I faced ever could be rushed to death with bombers within ten minutes.

BUT AT LEAST IT WASN'T...

1:

Supreme Commander 2.

Hey you know that unique rts? That one thats pretty deep, and offers players tons of unique playstyles while offering huge battlefields? Yeah, lets take that, but remove ALL of those things and make a starcraft 2 clone. Hey why does our fanbase not like this game?

That sums up Supcom 2.

WELP THAT WAS LONG.

 

[joest01]

MG Revengance

What were you expecting?
Because, what it does, it does exceptionally well.

I was expecting to have enemies on screen and/or a block button
instead I have camera showing scenery/walls/whatever but the enemy that is about to hit me and kill me in 1-2 hits
boss fights - some of them are incredibly horrible and are QTE fests

Mmm, OK... There is no shield (and it's not Ninja Gaiden...), so why would it have a block button. It has parry and dodge.

And QTEs? For the most part you need to cut things, right (especially in the final battle)? I don't remember QTE's bothering me except maybe the jump at the end of the Monsoon fight? (What an incredible boss!)

But thanks for the response. I thought perhaps you were expecting MGS stealth, or hating on Raiden. Not liking it as an action game is of course valid, but beyond me

 

[Madame_Lawliet]

I tried to think of some original choices, but some of y'alls are also some of mine...

10: Silent Hill HD Collection
I love Silent Hill 2 & 3, and the thought of having them together on a single disk with better textures, some improved lighting, and a widescreen resolution sounded pretty fuckin' great, then it came out and it was a butchered port with fucked up fog effects and ruined voice acting. All this would have disappointed me much more if I didn't still have my old PS2 disks that I can still play (this is why you never get rid of your old formats, kids).

9: Rayman: Raving Rabbids
I first heard about this game through it's first announcement as a sequel to Rayman 3, and was still under the impression that it was going to be another 3D platformer up until I got it on launch day with my launch Wii (I was a stupid 12 year old, and I didn't follow news very well). It's a good thing I actually really liked the game once I properly figured out what it was, although when you're expecting a brand new 3D platform adventure for your (then) next gen console, and instead you get a minigame collection, it's hard to not be a little bit disappointed.

8: The Entire Ratchet and Clank series past A Crack in Time
It hasn't been all bad, and Sony's utter refusal to actually market any of the damn games hasn't done the series any favors, but the Ratchet and Clank series just hasn't felt alive since A Crack in Time. ACiT was amazing, it was a fantastic marriage of imaginative sci-fi comedy and great art direction, and it played like a dream to boot. That game felt like you were playing a Pixar movie, and it was a great introduction for then-series newbies like me. But then we had that god awful 4-player coop thing, and then the insubstantial Into the Nexus, and the other one that I can't even remember the name of, and it's all just been so... eh. The whole series seems to be slowly sinking into irrelevance, which I can't imagine is a very good position to be in for a property that has a movie coming out this summer (I think it's still coming out this summer, I'll have to check on that later...).

7: Nights: Journey of Dreams
As someone who read Nintendo Power through the early 2000's all I could hear about was how aweosmely awesome Nights: Into Dreams on the Sega Saturn was, so when this game got announced for the Wii I was really excited to finally play something close to what those writers would never shut up about! Now I've still never played the original Nights, but I really want to because if there exists a good version of this game, then I think that it would be awesome! This game itself? Not so much, atleast not for me. I liked the flying for the most part (atleast when I used the classic controller instead of the crippled Wii controls), but the levels just felt like they were missing something and the voice acting was god awful. I might give this one another look, as I haven't actually played it in years, but I don't know if my opinion will change on it.

6: Shadowrun Returns
I wanted to like this game. I really, really, reeeeeeeeally wanted to like this game.
As a big fan of the cyberpunk aesthetic and a budding fan of the Shadowrun setting, I thought that a classic style CRPG made in that universe sounded like the coolest idea ever. But the game itself, while not what I'd call bad was just so not what I was hoping for, the character customization was underdeveloped, the combat was ripped right from XCOM, the visuals (while beautiful) had this heavy saturation of blue that just did not mesh with my mental image of the world of Shadowrun, and worst of all, the story was dull and predictable with a dialogue tree system that felt very lackluster.
Plus, it still pisses me off that the base game didn't have any sniper riles, so I couldn't even make my table-top character...
It really hurts to hate on a game that was Kickstarted, and I desperately want a great Shadowrun game, but this was just not it for me.

5: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
This is one I really feel alone on, everyone else seems to love this game but man it let me down hard. Maybe it's just that I don't like the new mission system, maybe it was the bullet sponge-y bosses, maybe it was the fact that I utterly hate the PSP as a games console and even the HD version on the PS3 wasn't able to un-do the design concessions made for the PSP, but I just do not like this game. And that sucks, Metal Gear is my favorite game franchise, I hate that I don't like a critically acclaimed Metal Gear game, and one I was looking so forward to as well.
But that disappointment carries on to my OTHER favorite franchise...

4: Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
I was all kinds of hyped to finally play this game when I was able to get the HD version as part of 2.5 HD Remix. Having learned my lesson about PSP versions of games that would control infinitely better with 2 analogue sticks I held out for this one and didn't play it at all until I was able to get the PS3 version, so I could finally fill in the last piece of the puzzle in Kingdom Hearts' story. What I got wasn't a bad game, I actually liked it... for the first third. Then I realized that I essentially had to play every level two more times with two more characters, and that pieces of each level were gated off arbitrarily for some characters for seemingly no reason. And then, once I did all that I was treated to the revelation that to get the real ending I had to play to 100% on each character, which meant grinding all the minigames, finding all the treasure in every level, and doing all the optional arena challenges. THREE TIMES.
Yeah, in an era of Youtube, I don't have to put up with shit like that. I don't understand why they designed it this way, and it's not like this is some secret ending that doesn't really mean anything like in KH1 or 2 (although it does have one of those if you do all this shit on the hardest difficulty, which makes me question what the point of gating the normal ending off in the first place), this is, for all intents and purposes, the end of the game. The ending I payed to see, waited all this time to see, beat all three campaigns with the promise that I could see it after I was done, and I can't even see it without doing a bunch of arbitrary busy work? Fuck off.

3: Bioshock Infinite
This was an opinion of mine that was very controversial when I first voiced it, but nowadays almost seems trite and tired, so I won't go on too much about it. Simply put: I followed Bioshock Infinite since it was first announced all the way back in 2010, and I truly believe that if the game Irrational originally wanted to make was the game we got, it would have been THE greatest experience of the console generation. However what we got was not that game, it wasn't the worst game I'd ever played, far from it, it was amazing from an aesthetic point of view, and it had some of the best animation, voice acting, and atmosphere of any game I've ever played, but the gameplay was so par for the course, it didn't have any of the depth and complexity shown in the early trailers, and the plot was so full of holes that it resembled swiss cheese.
When I watch those old trailers all I can think is man... I wish I could play THAT game instead...

2: Paper Mario: Sticker Star
The Paper Mario series is probably one of, if not THE, most nostalgic franchise for me, I loved the original and The Thousand Year Door as a kid, and I even thought Super Paper Mario was pretty good, different, but still good.
Sticker Star? Fuck that game. Fuck, fuck, fuck that game.
The batlle system was a barely functioning joke, the humor was a massive step down from the first three, everything about the setting was stock Mario fare (flying in the face of the bizarre and off-the-wall scenarios from the other games' levels), and it was just awful all around. I can't understand how a series that was once such a fantastic marriage of humor and creativity devolved into such a boring and uninteresting game, and it really dampened my hopes to see a true successor to The Thousand Year Door... ever.
Just a massive, massive disappointment.

1: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
The original NMH is my favorite game ever made, and even though deep down I knew that NMH2 could never possibly top the sheer genius of the original (I mean it's very existence invalidates NMH's ending for one thing), the game I got was just way way more of a let-down then I thought was possible from ol' Suda. I don't want to spoil too much or spend an hour explaining why that game was, at best, a re-tread of the first game with none of the heart soul or purpose, and at worst a complete and utter betrayal of the whole message, ideas, and thesis of the original.
The ONLY good thing about that game is the music, specifically Margret Moonlight's theme, as far as I'm concerned that's the only justification it has for existence.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Turns out I have got 10. Let's see:


- Darksiders: I thought when I bought this I'd get an average God of War-ripoff. Instead, I got Liam O'Brien mumbling away in a hilariously miscast role, bland combat and a constant slew of insipid quests.

- Fallout 3: First off, I enjoyed Fallout 3. But, I didn't enjoy it all that much, certainly not as much as say, Oblivion. I still love the aesthetic, the soundtrack swings between brilliant older tunes and creepy ambient tracks that build the atmosphere beautifully and the VATS system is loads of fun. I just didn't get quite the right feeling out of the game. A lot of the interactions felt lifeless, none of the quests grabbed my attention or got me fired up (with the one fantastic exception of Liberty Prime) and my overall experience of the game was one of distracted boredom. So yeah, there's some great stuff there, but still disappointing.

- Odin Sphere: This is another one of those highly rated games that I just didn't get. The design was lovely and the sprites were absolutely flawless but the combat felt like listless button-mashing, the crafting system was poorly explained, the plot seemed to be doled out at random and impenetrable and the actual progression through the game seemed to be equally impossible to follow.

- God Hand: This is one of those games that people seem to love but I guess I never really got it. The freeform combat that you could craft on the fly was a really nice mechanic but the rest of the game is just sloppy. I appreciate it was rushed out but still, I've played rushed, naff-looking and sounding games before and enjoyed them - Samurai Western is my favourite example of that - but aside from the fact the game is basically an alpha release, the novelty of the combat wore off for me quite quickly and the humour isn't my kind of humour, being a little too zany for my tastes.

- Kingdom Hearts re:Coded: I'm a massive fan of the Kingdom Hearts series - Kingdom Hearts II is easily on my favourite games of all time despite its flaws[/i] - but re:Coded was a big disappointment for me. The plot is terrible, the monsters are dull, the missions are tedious and between levels you have to endure those miserable data-world bits where you just smack cubes around a barely-rendered grid land. The one saving grace for me was the wonderful combat and leveling system but it wasn't enough to stop the game being a disappointment.

- Zone of the Enders/ 2: The Second Runner: Another day, another highly rated set of games that I didn't enjoy. I had played a demo of the second game and I found it brilliant - smooth graphics, neat combat conducted on a well-programmed 3D plain and best of all, you were fighting in a mech suit! How cool is that! Then I bought the games together and just found them to be monotonous hack-and-slash games that failed utterly at grabbing my attention.

- Tales of Graces f: I'd never played a Tales of game before this - perhaps this wasn't a good entry point? I don't know, but what I do know is that this was very disappointing. Hateful characters, terribly dialogue, a completely nonsensical plot, the same locales you visit in every JRPG but devoid of any soul or life, Motoi Sakuraba's usual pathetic soundtrack. Interesting combat though.

- Assassin's Creed: Revelations: I love the Assassin's Creed games. I don't mind the yearly releases of them, I don't mind the easy combat, I don't mind the random DLC they push on you (mainly because I don't buy a lot of it) but I just can't get over how disappointing Revelations was. There are some wonderfully human moments where Ezio falls into some fantastic self-reflection and the sequences with him and Sofia are charming and sweet. Watching Altair's fall and re-rise to grace was satisfying. Yusuf's all-too-brief appearance was a high point. But my word was the rest of the game miserable. The main issue I had, I think, was the plot, which felt completely pointless and stirred in me all new levels of complete indifference. Oh, and it had those horrendous Desmond first-person platforming bits. No thanks.

- Limbo: Oh dear this disappointed me. After a masterfully-crafted first act, filled with a tense, creepy atmosphere, inherently scary imagery like the giant spider, the brain slugs and the wild children and some fun, if not terribly challenging, puzzles, the game just plummets in quality after you leave the forest at the start. By the time I got to the city I'd settled into bored grumpiness and lost all interest in and attachment with the game. The atmosphere was gone and the puzzles felt trite and dull and in the end I just limped through it having lost all care in the game.

- Rogue Galaxy: I think this definitely takes the spot for my most disappointing game. I remember being so incredibly hyped for this game and even the constant delays in its release couldn't dull my enthusiasm. When it came out I got it as soon as I could... and found myself playing a poorly-written retread of Star Wars. The game's combat was interminably boring, monsters and bosses seemed to take ages to beat, the dungeons (especially those two damn towers in the second act) was horrendous to look at it and really stodgy to trek through, the plot was pretentious and yet so predictable and the soundtrack consisted of 20 second loops of the most inane orchestrated bleeps and bloops I have ever heard. Needless to say, I was crushed.

 

[small]

hmm 35 years of gaming.. lets see

mass effect 3.. first game that retroactively destroyed my interest in a series and i honestly thought my game glitched and i missed half the ending cut scenes, with the directors cut and citadel they fixed it but the initial disappointment is still there.

assassins creed. i normally love these style of games but the pc controls made it practically unplayable for me

assassins creed 4. i had a weird love hate relationship with the game. loved the first half and then kenway slowly turned into a massive twat and the modern day stuff and constant memory walls were immersion breaking for me, and finally killed my interest in the game around 2/3rds of the way through.

saints row 2.. one of the single worse pc ports i have ever played, and some of the minigames were completely unplayable with a mouse and keyboard and not to mention you need a current modern pc to run the game smoothly. coming from saints row 3 as my introduction to the series it was interesting to see where the series came from and it was ok but the game was a let down for me story wise and the boss was evil for the sake of being evil. i missed my zany

earth siege.. i loved the previous metaltech series but that game killed my interest in the series

 

[Jimmy Donnellan]

Destiny: all style, no substance. Struggled to like it from the start, really don't see the appeal in the grinding people are doing now either.

 

[CaitSeith]

I try not to think much about disappointing games. Only a few have left such a black mark in my heart to make a list out of them:

5. Escape from Monkey Island - I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the awkward animation, it made half the jokes feel less funny. Or maybe that LeChuck could change into his old forms in an instant (and his zombie form looked terrible). But I didn't see it as good as any of the previous three games.

4. Final Fantasy 7 and 8 (PSN version) - Jaggies! Jaggies everywhere! I originally played them on PC when they were released (which look better than the PS1 version). I thought that in a PS3, they would look good. I was wrong. So wrong...

3. Forbidden Forest 3 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyXW-fh7wds] - If you know about the "Forbidden Forest" series, hats off to you! The first 2 were C64 games (the first one really good by the way) about shooting monsters with your bow and arrows, while avoiding their attacks (or else you faced a one-hit gory death). But the 3rd one was released on 1999 for the PC, with 3D graphics, and it was really disappointing.

2. Alone in the Dark (2008) - Survival horror expected. Action "horror" delivered (and not in a good way).

1. Metroid: Other M - Most disappointing final boss battle in the Metroid series... ever.

 

[A Username Not In Use]

Mass Effect 2: The most disappointing I have ever been with a game. The story was rubbish, paticularlly as I spent the previous game working to take down Cerebus. Killing Shepard introducing a new alien threat for no good reason, especially since they introduced a Geth civil war and resolved it in side missions. Never finished it and I have no desire to ever play 3.

Dragon Age Origin: Did not like the combat. Felt it would have worked alot better if it used a similer system to Rogue Galaxy when it came to battles.

The Witcher 2: Never finished the tutorial. Only good thing about it I got it on Games with Gold so I didn't have to spend money on it.

Half Life 2: Overhyped to the point that when I finally played my reactions was 'is this it'. Also the speedboat escape at the begining lasted way too long and what the hell do people see in the gravity gun? Horrible to control, lack of useful ammo in a crunch and despite having the power to move a car it can only life and throw a Combine soldier when its been overcharge at the end of the game. Seriously how heavy are the Combine that the gravity gun can't pick them up?

Legend of Zelda Wind Waker: Seemed very short compared to other Zelda games. Wanted more content in both the main and side quests.

Assasins Creed 4: Like most people loved the pirate ship moments just wished that there was more pirating and less Assasins Creed. Sid Meier how about a new Pirates game?

Borderland 1 & 2 (to a lesser extent): FPSRPG what's not to love, bright colourful but it was so bloody boring. Same enemies, empty boring enviroments, rubbish guns amd stupidly long periods between getting said rubbish gun and finding a better yet still rubbish gun. 2 was a massive improvement in terms of enviroment and variety of enemies but still the same crap weapons and the same stupidly long periords between getting them and finding better ones.

Super Mario Bros 3. I played Super Mario World before I played this and World did everything 3 did but better.

Grand Theft Auto series: I don't know what it is I just cannot get into the GTA series at all. Red Dead Redemption also had the same problems for me I just could not get into it at all.

Civilisation Beyond Earth: Loved Civ 5 but Beyond Earth was a let down. My biggest peoblem with it was my civilisations health as it really limited my attempts to expand my colony.

 

[Nadia Castle]

10. Star Wars: Force Unleashed- What the hell was this mess of broken gameplay and story so bad it made 'Attack of the Clones' look like high art? I don't know why I seemed to be the only person not expecting the second one to be a pile of crap, and after Star Wars games had started to get good again...

9. Sam and Max (post Lucasarts)- I'm sure they could be good games, but the lack of original voices is really, really jarring. They could have been a million times better if they'd just stuck to being 2D as well.

8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2- This didn't jump the shark for me, it jumped 8 billion ft out of the stratosphere, struck an amusing pose, and crash landed on two broken legs. This might actually have convinced me the subversive story in 4 was a complete fluke.

7. Assassins Creed (all of them)- I really despise every one of these. Each time I let myself think they might be good this time but nope. It never feels like I'm really in control of the platforming and Assassinating people never actually seems to factor into it.

6. Command and Conquer 4- What the holy hell was that? And I liked Red Alert 3 as well.....

5. Ocarina of Time- It wasn't really bad, but I played it after playing Wind Waker which did everything better despite the fan frothing.

4. Resident Evil 5- Way to grab the wrong end of the stick Capcom. Dead Space ended up walking away the title of true sequel right before it started eating stupid pills as well.

3. Oddworld: Munches Odysee- I don't dislike this game, but it could have been so much better. Look at the early development and you can see what a superb game it should have been before Lorne Lanning got into fights with publishers.

2. Final Fantasy 7- I don't hate JRPGs, but everyone told me this was the best thing since sliced bread and it ended up just feeling flat and overlong. The ridiculously long cut scenes and attacks did not help in the slightest.

1. Halo- God damn this franchise to oblivion. Every magazine, every friend, school mate and online review promised this was the best shooting experience ever crafted and it was so, so bad. Swapping out the fun of Goldeneye or Unreal Tournament for a fucking terrible story, dumb enemies and miserable voice acting. I know it was exciting for everyone, but 5 mins on Timesplitters 2 put this to shame. This didn't disappoint, it made me angry!

 

[vickyjohn]

Watch dogs game that diasppointed me all the time ...

 

[Skin]

3. Half-Life 2 - just a massive step down from the original in terms of everything other than the tacked on B-grade drivel that is considered to be the story. It's not a terrible game, but in terms of gameplay, it was a complete anachronism.

2. Dark Souls 2 - straight up garbage. Every thing from the movement, to the NPC's, to the level design, felt utterly inferior to DeS and DaS. The final nail in the coffin for me was the pathetic PvP system. As someone who very often fight clubs with the best DaS PvPers in the world, in my opinion, DaS2 is mechanically inferior. There is no depth nor strategic value and many if not almost all PvPers have come back to DaS.

1. Halo 2 - this game was complete shit. No redeeming value in my eyes except for a few multiplayer maps which were not worth playing on because of the shitty game mechanics. The story went full retard, Halo:CE was a fun popcorn shooter in space with interesting tidbits thrown here, but simple enough. Halo 2 has a giant poo under the sea pull Chief and Arbiter together and then talks in parables. What the fuck. Many other reasons like the pathetic linear level design and absolutely awful multiplayer, but I am not going to waste any more time talking about this piece of shit.

 

[Bravo Company]

My #1 disappointing game of all time would have to be Battlefield 3. After all the fun from BF2, I was hoping for that with better graphics. Instead, I get the worst netcode possible, a terrible singlepalyer experience (which nobody wanted), probably the worst map in multiplayer history (looking at you metro; as if most of anything else was much better), and shit tones of paid DLC that only split the community. Yeah, fuck you EA for ruining my most anticipated game of all time. Then you go and release BF4 in a completely broken state not much later.

Ugh, I had so much fun with the battlefield franchise. Maybe a return-to-humor Bad Company 3 will come out or something.

Since the disappointment of battlefield 3, I haven't really hyped up anything else.

Dishonorable mentions include:

Crysis 2 - I didn't know I'd dislike this game because I played it before Crysis 1. Crytek deciding to make a linear(ish) shooter after having the open world fun of Crysis 1, is beyond me. Also, why the change in alien type? We went from cool ice based alien things to zergs?

Assassins Creed 3 - Ugh, this game has soiled my taste for AC, I still haven't played AC: Pirates, or the new one, because of it. Almost everything I liked about the previous AC games, gone. Replaced with the ability to climb trees and the same brick churches over and over again with one of the worst protagonists to exist.

Metro: Last Light - Not a bad game, but didn't give me the same thrills that Metro 2033 gave me. Metro 2033 is the only game where I was forced to kill monsters with my knife because I ran out of ammo for all of my guns. Metro:LL was considerably more forgiving, and for that, it was considerably less fun for me.

Also, GRID 2 was a disappointment as well, but I'm tired of ranting about things so I won't elaborate much more than that.

 

[Iwata]

Not a complete list by any means but..:
Star Citizen - Not Freelancer 2.

Freelancer- Not Starlancer 2.

That's my entry.