nub wrote: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.
FC2 was extremely repetitive, mostly because the enemies always respawned at the exact same place in the sandbox. If GTA pulled crap like that people would throw it out the window.
If you have players continually re-treading the same ground, you need to have randomly placed enemies.
Another thing that killed FC2 was the lack of varied enemies. They were all just guys armed with ARs which was pretty boring.
FC1 had much more interesting variety with helicopters, monsters, etc.
Oh yeah, and even if FC1 had a terrible storyline it was at least more interesting than FC2's total non-entities.
I really hope Ubisoft try and make an FC3. One which is actually
good.I'll agree with everyone about
Doom3. That was such a massive disappointment... it played exactly like every other ID game that has ever existed (find keycard, backtrack through narrow corridors) to the extent that it felt like a step backwards rather than a step forwards.
One thing I really hate about corridor environments is how difficult they are to navigate through - it's really easy to miss a doorway / ladder or whatever, especially when the game environments are really dark.
Mixing corridor envionments with outdoor areas is fine, since you can at least get some sense of direction.
Other games that seemed like letdowns:
Reisdent Evil 5. So very average and boring.
FEAR. Basically like COD but with slow motion and laughably bad "horror". Also has endless corridors.
STALKER. The RPG elements made it a chore to play, and the AI was an abomination.
Half-Life 2. It didn't live up to the E3 trailers at all, it felt too much like a rehash of HL1. It's a good game, but fell way short of the hype.
Crysis Warhead. Way too linear - the enjoyable side of Crysis was the open environments and free movement. Without that CW felt bland.
Resident Evil Code Veronica. Terrible level design, terrible graphics, terrible puzzles, terrible controls, terrible storyline. Need I say more?
Condition Zero. It just ended up being CS with bots. The earlier Gearbox version, which apparently played like a mix of
UTSP and COD4MP would have been much more interesting - and would have made for a much more interesting addition than the lame "Deleted Scenes".
Broken Sword 3. A puzzle game that randomly threw in stealth scenes - and thanks to dodgy camera angles you could never tell if an enemy could see you. The graphics were pretty bad too.
GTA Chinatown Wars. Not a terrible game, but really failed at making gameplay suited to 'pick up and put down', mostly on account of it forcing you to do boring tasks before you can start a mission (ugh).
Left 4 Dead 1 / 2. So much for each game being different Valve! The linear level design ensures that pretty much each play through is exactly the same. CSS Zombie Escape is more varied and enjoyable than this.
Had it's moments of scares though. 
