the GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT game list

[Zipfinator]

I only play good games.

I'm sure you've been disappointed with something in your massive list of games. Although you said you only PLAY good games which means you can still buy hundreds of bad ones.

[YokaI]

Posting again because I feel this is an interesting post, worth my time.

-Lost Odyssey

Agreed. The game had a good OST from what I DL'd, but everything about the game just seemed like poor direction. Battles were sluggish even for a turn based rpg, too many repetitive SFX and the animations were god awful, especially the hands. I was execting a game made by Sakaguchi and Nobuo to at least be classic final fantasy in quality, but instead the world got the turd that is Lost Odyssey.

Otherwise, since I keep my expectations low, I really didn't have many dissapointments with 2009 or any year before it really. Prototype was shit, but I expected it to be shit anyway. (I also love the abundance of swearing, something that gets me cracking up is when a writer doesn't have a proper vocabulary to express himself other than saying "shit fuck shit asshole tits!"

I think I would rather say pleasant surprises / disappointments from 2009.

L4D2 was better than expected, and I think I can say that about MW2, which could have been better if we were given a bit of mod ability. I still feel disappointed that L4D1 wasn't packaged with L4D2 the way most games (Super Street Fighter 4) handle a "new release" of a game so soon after the previous installment, and it would only promote people to buy L4D2 even more by saying "hey, if you didn't buy L4D1, you get it all with L4D2." MW2 is a fun multiplayer, I don't really care much for must FPS single player games, so I'll just leave it at that.

Final Fantasy 13 was also better than expected, I was really worried the game was going to be a flop. Scratch that, it was probably my favorite game of 2009, though it still had a few flaws. I guess nobody here experienced this game besides me, but they really did look at some western games when designing final fantasy, and not necessarily western RPGs (thank god), but added things such as dialogue that doesn't just take place in a cutscene. It's very L4D-ish how characters will be talking to you as you are walking to the next point. However, I feel that the later part of the game, when it becomes less linear and more open worldy, gets extremely difficult to the point where you are either forced to grind or totally reformat your party set up, which adds more strategy which is cool but makes it so that fighting even trash monsters can be stressful. There weren't enough puzzles in the game, like FFX's sphere grid, which would have broken up the slightly repetitive gameplay more. Some aspects like Chocobo Riding weren't really given the respect they needed, and are kind of buried deep in side-quests which give you very little story progression. Other than those few flaws, and a few others I've tackled on countless of other forum discussions on other sites, FFXIII was a polished and enjoyable game with an amazing story and some really great characters and music.

The above reminds me to mention, I was disapointed with FF12. It was a terrible game. I think that's technically late 2008 (I think?) but I really needed to point that out. Horrible music, horrible gameplay, just horrible. Good animations, I guess OK characters, but bad english voice acting. (Same could be said about FFXIII's VOs too, but I played it in japanese so I really can't say anything about the english VOs.)

I was disappointed with New Super Mario Brothers Wii. I just wasn't a fan of the music and the game was boring both multiplayer and singleplayer for me. There just wasn't enough enemies and good platforming, and I just felt the game looks poor in comparison to their classic games such as Super Mario World 1 + 2, and even felt that it doesn't even compare to Super Mario Galaxy (1).

UT3 was a bit of a bummer, I really wish they would focus on making UT a bit better. That being said, I was never really a huge UT fan, so I only got it for the editor / sdk, so I guess it isn't really a disappointment. I've been revisiting quake 3 thanks to Quake Live (http://www.quakelive.com) and it really seems like I missed out on Quake 3, which is a shame since the game is pretty intense and is VERY fun multiplayer. I never really knew, nobody even told me I was missing out... I feel like the way I felt when I played Street Fighter 2 for the first time like 3 years ago, thinking "Wow, how the fuck did I miss the best fighting game in the world?"

I've still got a mound of games to play, specifically Fallout 3, Infamous, Uncharted 1 + 2 (Which my friend kindly enough gave me used copies of during Christmas, haven't gotten around to any of them), I still don't own uncharted 2 but I've been hearing some really good stuff about the game so I really wanna check it out. Times like this I wish I wasn't a poor college student. Btw: That's pretty much all I got for christmas besides a sweater and an art book, both of which I like quite a bit, I didn't get a PS3 since I spent my money on L4D2 and MW2, which I think is fine, I can save up my money again come March when Super Street Fighter 4 comes out.

A side note, nobody in the world is even nominating Street Fighter 4 as best game of the year, even though it's probably the best fighting game we've had this decade!

/goes back to lurking and doing other things, happy new year everyone.

[Major Banter]

Hi YokaI, nice to see you dwell here still

Was expecting a typical anti-rant but instead was greeted by a well argued and interesting writeup, nicely supported arguments. I totally agree with the UT3 thing; what the hell were they thinking changing a winning formula? I would have loved simple expansion of the UT theme without suddenly Epic suddenly constraining to certain environments limited by a storyline. On top of that DM_Morpheus has gone. All the same I'm looking forward to the next UT and I pray they avoid story elements and put music back into it as it always should have been; driving awesome.

[Hollow]

Oh hai Yokai *waves*

I think someone mentioned it but, the Gears of War series completely sucked ass for me, I played both all the way through, but they did nothing for me. It felt like when a big blockbuster movie overshoots the hype and turns out to be a letdown. The first was admittedly better, but still not the great Xbox exclusive I pictured.

[Phott]

Something that came to my mind, Episode 1 was a big disappointment because it was so extremely short.

[Hollow]

Something that came to my mind, Episode 1 was a big disappointment because it was so extremely short.

Actually, i kinda agree with you. It was a bit 'Meh' compared to The other parts of the saga. I think it was because it was Valve just going ''here's a bit more of the same, whilst we make something really cool'' (EP2). There were no real standout parts in EP1...it was good, but I didn't feel at all like it was intense/gripping enough...for the fact that it was an 'escaping the city whilst the citadel crumbles scenario. Could of been a whole lot more chaotic. And it was short.

[Vicpop]

Far Cry 2 - kind of interesting introduction but I was left alienated when the game actually started, and then when I got used to it I got bored
Dead Space - heh
Unreal Tournament 3 - awful movement physics, overall boring gameplay, very same-y, uninspired maps. seems more like a showcase of ue3 than much else.
Episode 1 - while it's nice to have more hl2, episode one made me hate alyx and all throughout i really did not give a fuck about anything that was happening. I probably wouldn't be able to make it through a
"leisurely" playthrough now. best thing about it was the commentary
Braid - overrated. nice music
GTAIV - really, very immersive environment that fucking fell FLAT right when I hit the 40% progress mark for some reason; the writing became awful, the gameplay extremely monotone, another case where I couldn't care less about anything that's happening, which in the case of GTA is usually the one thing that would keep me playing.
Serious Sam HD - not worth 20 dollars, at least; worth it at 10$ or less. it's nothing new, at all, everything is the same except for some textures and model updates; the level design is really ugly with these new textures, it shows how simple it all really is; one of those cases where the game looks better with the lo-fi look. (eg hl1 > hl:source)
Left 4 Dead 2 - got old surprisingly quick. too much of a more-of-the-same
Unreal 2 - heh
Doom 3 - though ad_hominem is right about it still keeping the idea of the doom series intact, the first hour of the game was really impressive to me; it set me up for a really immersive experience that, like far cry 2, fell flat as soon as it started up. you could tell where it was going immediately. the art style, particularly for the hell levels was really cool in my opinion. i'd been waiting for a game to depict hell that way, especially with its ambience (fucking stunning).
Quake 4 - like doom 3 except without the cool intro. and ugly lighting

[RefaelBA]

I know it's not a game, but it's a toy, so what the heck.
iPad. The most idiotic thing that I've seen since Windows Me

[Terr]

Splinter Cell: Double Agent.
After Chaos Theory, that POC was a bug-ridden slap in the face. In what sane universe do you give the player a bonus goal on a mission which is literally impossible to accomplish even after multiple patches? I also disliked how they changed the emphasis into a lot more "sneaking in broad daylight" and emphasis on lethality over sneakiness.

I played Chaos Theory to death. Not just a pacifist run, no... but I even attempted a zero knockout run. (99% successful.) By comparison I didn't even have the will to finish Double Agent halfway through.

That Deus Ex game that shall not be mentioned is one of my top five worst games I've ever had the displeasure of playing

I was going to mention it, but OK. I'd emphasize that it was a disappointment--which has to do with having high expectations--more than being intrinsically bad.

Crysis: Warhead. Much more linear than the original. Sure, in some cases they make these interesting side-environments, but then do something dumb like tie it to following a train. Which, needless to say, it pretty linear.

[vcool]

Far Cry 2 - kind of interesting introduction but I was left alienated when the game actually started, and then when I got used to it I got bored
Dead Space - heh
Unreal Tournament 3 - awful movement physics, overall boring gameplay, very same-y, uninspired maps. seems more like a showcase of ue3 than much else.
Episode 1 - while it's nice to have more hl2, episode one made me hate alyx and all throughout i really did not give a fuck about anything that was happening. I probably wouldn't be able to make it through a
"leisurely" playthrough now. best thing about it was the commentary
Braid - overrated. nice music
GTAIV - really, very immersive environment that fucking fell FLAT right when I hit the 40% progress mark for some reason; the writing became awful, the gameplay extremely monotone, another case where I couldn't care less about anything that's happening, which in the case of GTA is usually the one thing that would keep me playing.
Serious Sam HD - not worth 20 dollars, at least; worth it at 10$ or less. it's nothing new, at all, everything is the same except for some textures and model updates; the level design is really ugly with these new textures, it shows how simple it all really is; one of those cases where the game looks better with the lo-fi look. (eg hl1 > hl:source)
Left 4 Dead 2 - got old surprisingly quick. too much of a more-of-the-same
Unreal 2 - heh
Doom 3 - though ad_hominem is right about it still keeping the idea of the doom series intact, the first hour of the game was really impressive to me; it set me up for a really immersive experience that, like far cry 2, fell flat as soon as it started up. you could tell where it was going immediately. the art style, particularly for the hell levels was really cool in my opinion. i'd been waiting for a game to depict hell that way, especially with its ambience (fucking stunning).
Quake 4 - like doom 3 except without the cool intro. and ugly lighting

SSHD was not supposed to be like that though, it was pretty obvious from the start that they simply upped the textures and turbosmoothed the models while keeping the level design and stuff the same.

I can't say I was dissapointed by it, I still love the game, but I do regret blowing 20 dollars on it just for it to start selling for 6.97 the next day.

[TicTac]

Vic, I disagree on Deadspace and FC2. Deadspace was AMAZING (I played it twice in a little more than a week, and plan on going back to it soon), as was FC2. Biggest problem with FC2 was the shit-ton of bugs, and the fact that it's made by Ubi (seriously, every time I report a bug/ask for a fix, they basically tell me to fuck off)

[vcool]

FC2 got old after the 5th mission, the world is lovely but the characters are ugly and the voice acting and animations are unbelievably bad.

[nub]

Vic, I disagree on Deadspace and FC2. Deadspace was AMAZING (I played it twice in a little more than a week, and plan on going back to it soon), as was FC2. Biggest problem with FC2 was the shit-ton of bugs, and the fact that it's made by Ubi (seriously, every time I report a bug/ask for a fix, they basically tell me to fuck off)

I also agree that Deadspace was fucking awesome. The only qualms I had was the amount of backtracking you did and the wonky controls on the PC. Everything else about it was very awesome. Definitely my favorite horror series. Even Extraction was fucking great, and I have no doubts about Dead Space 2 being even more awesome. I eagerly anticipate its arrival this year.

Farcry 2 on the other hand was incredibly disappointing. Despite the awesome arsenal and the fun you can have with dune buggies, the game is the epitome of repetitiveness. It boasts a vast open world, but I've never felt more confined by the environment in any other game. The only games I've seen that do open worlds well are Stalker and Borderlands. It's just a great experience to explore the new areas in both of those games. Ubisoft did a terrible fucking job with Far Cry 2 and I really hope they go back to the traditional ways of the first game if they ever make a 3rd. The scifi backbone was one of the reasons why I loved the first game, and the moment they said they took it away, I knew Far Cry 2 was going to be an instant failure.


Anyway, another game I was horribly disappointed with was Last Remnant. Not only did it have a horrible skill curve, but the combat was relatively confusing and unrewarding. On top of that, they made horrible use of Unreal Engine 3, with bad textures and terrible optimization. The game had a lot of potential, with its decent storyline and unique setting, but that was all weighed down by many pitfalls in its development.

[srredfire]

Dead Space was pretty cool, I just wish it was actually scary. But I guess that's lame to say since nothing really spooks me too much anymore. Plus I wish they spent more time on the character design, ESPECIALLY on the bosses. Every single boss was just like, giant slug stuff with tentacles. Meh.

Recently I guess my biggest let down was Zeno Clash. Don't get me wrong, it's decent for what it is, but before when I bought it I had the impression of a COMPLETELY different game, and in turn I got some EXTREMELY linear fighter, and the fact I had to fight the same group like 50 times was really, really annoying.

[nub]

Dead Space was pretty cool, I just wish it was actually scary. But I guess that's lame to say since nothing really spooks me too much anymore. Plus I wish they spent more time on the character design, ESPECIALLY on the bosses. Every single boss was just like, giant slug stuff with tentacles. Meh.

You have to admit you were like "Holy fucking shit" when you first laid eyes on the Hivemind.