I have to admit that this seemed like it was going to be a down year when it came to games I was interested in. One that nearly killed all of my interest came out just a few months into the year with Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. I had such hype and hope that it wouldn't be a piece of hot garbage and it completely was. I finished it, hated myself, and have never touched it since.
So now I ask you GAF, what game is your Operation Raccoon City?
It's still Diablo3. Kept waiting for it to get fun all the way to Inferno. I have zero desire to play it ever again.
Reasons: horrible, cartoony story. Weak drops. Game seems designed around the AH. As the game progresses ability options narrow. Boss fights are not fun. IMO it felt like a long grind with never any payoff. Graphics were piss poor.
In terms of expectations ... Street Fighter X Tekken. Played it a whole lot less than I thought I was going to when it got announced.
-DLC characters set the wrong tone
-Game wasnt well balanced, too many online fights ended in time outs. Hell, usually the opponent used it as the only strategy.
-Didnt like the lighting, too stark. In SF IV it was used much better. Made playing the game a little unclear.
-Dont recall the specifics, but it seemed to launch buggy.
-Not a fan of gems and more importantly, DLC gems!
I don't like Mass Effect 1, I don't like Western RPGs but for some reason I fell in love with ME2, hell I beat it about 12 times.
So because of this I had crazy high hype for ME3 and outside of one character I just hated it. I don't know how I was so in love with Liara and LOTSB only to have me wishing she would die about 1/2 through ME3.
Diablo 3 - most of the reasons have already been given by hundreds of other people. For me; the loot sucked, the skills and progression completely sucked, Inferno was not worth it in such a way that it actually required skill, and felt way too much like boss farming from WoW just to progress at all. Absolutely no addiction factor with D3, whereas I played D2 for nine months straight just about every day when it was first released.
Followed very closely by ME3 (not because of the endings either).
Hah. That's precisely the same number of times that I said that I played it in the Omega thread. Also, I agree with you 100% about Liara. I absolutely hated her in ME3. I actually hated most of the squad members because they were just sappy fan favorite picks (OMG I wanna bone or unmask Tali in ME3!!! Mmmm, Kaiden, smooch, smooch), and there was only 1-2 interesting characters.
Mass Effect 3, hands down. And no - it's not only the ending. The opening sequence alone made me hate this game. Some of the worst and cliched dialog Bioware has ever written.
I don't like Mass Effect 1, I don't like Western RPGs but for some reason I fell in love with ME2, hell I beat it about 12 times.
So because of this I had crazy high hype for ME3 and outside of one character I just hated it. I don't know how I was so in love with Liara and LOTSB only to have me wishing she would die about 1/2 through ME3.
To this day I'm shocked at how much I played and loved ME2.
As for more on ME3, I lied. Mordin was amazing in ME3, but he was in it so little he didn't do much.
I get that some people hate ME2 because of the more limited scope and focusing on the party members, but honestly that is why I loved it. I enjoyed all the stories, I loved the characters and ME3 was just never able to capture that same feeling for me.
It had some cool new ones, but so many of the returning characters were awful (Liara/Ashley) or just not used enough (Miranda/Mordin).
Mass Effect 3, hands down. And no - it's not only the ending. The opening sequence alone made me hate this game. Some of the worst and cliched dialog Bioware has ever written.
Oh god this was so bad. I just started replaying it this week and the opening nearly had me shutting it off already. Thankfully it picks up a bit, but still that opening was so bad.
The loot was sub-par (still is, really). The atmosphere was butchered. The story was complete schlock (and an insult to the previous games, frankly). And, well, I'm a graphics whore, and I'm still amazed they released a game that looks worse than another game from the same company (Starcraft II)!
I apologoise for not articulating, as I'm on a phone, but I found assassins creed 3 was incredibly disappointing. Simply put the game is incredibly unfun, the controls took a significant downgrade from the series legacy of fluid movement and combat, the story just compounded confusing elements and left some things without explanation. And the side missions were just barran and insipid, I found them all universally boring.
It was just a downgrade in every way. I genuinely think it was the worst game I've played this year - not in terms of sheer quality of the game, but due to how disappointing and unfun and poorly designed it was.
One game I followed for many years and was looking forward to a lot was Guild Wars 2.
I was basically done with that game by the last beta. I don't think it's very bad in any specific way. I think it iterates on the MMORPG formula well, I think the idea that people don't grind to get super mega loot is fantastic.
But in the end I just don't think it's that fun to play. I think at this point I would like those games to incorporate physics into the combat ala Chivalry / Dead Island and such.
Absolutely loved the original, bought the sequel day one and I made it all of an hour into it. It is pretty much unplayable from my perspective. It may be better after some patches, but right away I could tell the combat was beyond abysmal. No way was I going to put up with that for hours on end.
I can't choose between Diablo 3 and Assassin's Creed 3. Assassin's Creed 3 because the game is horribly buggy and clearly unfinished. Diablo 3 because of the fucking awful online problems, the mediocre story, the worthless drops, the unrewarding grind etc. I'm sure patches have fixed some of those issues and a few people have made lots of money on the RMAH but I have zero interest in ever playing it again.
Diablo 3, because as I've said 1000x before, the Auction House is a joke. Loot that dropped at my level was mediocre at best. It was very hard not to use the AH to upgrade my gear, yet at the same time this removed me from the game world, killing any suspension of disbelief.
Honourable mention to Assassin's Creed 3. I was actually enjoying it on PS3, but the chug-a-long frame rate finally convinced me to ditch that version and purchase on PC. Then I discover that the game isn't even optimised for Crossfire. I know Crossfire has its own problems, but c'mon, this is one of the year's AAA titles, and it's CPU-bound and running like crap on both Nvidia and AMD? I'm not the most anal guy in the world about fancy graphics, but I do prefer a stable frame rate.
Shamefully bad story with hysterical character motivation and terribly forced elements of drama, lack of atmosphere, emphasis on military shooter aspects and action, very few things that even remotely resemble the franchise that it is supposedly a part of, bizarre/dumb locations like the
Chinese palace with the Yakuza zombies and being chased by a tank in an outdoor garden WHAT THE FUCK
, QTE's everywhere and BAD QTE's at that, random deaths, dozens of highly questionable game design decisions in general; it's just flat out fucking terrible in nearly every conceivable way.
The best thing about RE6 were the bad reviews and bad word of mouth that hopefully contributed to its less than stellar sales which will, hopefully, make Capcom open their eyes a bit but I'm not counting on it. People complain about Silent Hill falling from grace; Downpour was a fucking masterpiece of a Silent Hill game in relation to RE6 and the RE franchise. I was displeased with RE4's story direction but at least it was a well made game and I can roughly say the same about RE5. I couldn't dream of saying anything that positive about this one.
I want to say Gravity Rush. Interestingly, I found something very endearing about Kat, her spunk and naivete. Gravity Rush also has some great art design. I think most of my disappointment stems from how much I didn't like the combat system. I customized it so that it wouldn't use the Vita's gyroscopic sensor, but it had just felt frustrating enough to not be fun. Exploration and side missions towards the end didn't feel satisfying, either. Started out great, though.
However, Assassin's Creed 3 might actually trump that because of how utterly broken it is, at least on the PS3, and in spite of me having put a little above 12 hours. There are a few things I miss from the Ezio games in terms of control and climbing and exploring. I like Connor enough so far, but that doesn't help me overlook the AI issues and sometimes odd and uneven combat, and this is after installing the 1.02 patch.
Mass Effect 3, hands down. And no - it's not only the ending. The opening sequence alone made me hate this game. Some of the worst and cliched dialog Bioware has ever written.
Only played that demo but yeah, noticed this as well
My worst of the year?
Well since i'm fairly selective about what I play, I tend to do pretty okay with bypassing shit ...reading GAF a bit too much helps as well.
For me though, probably Diablo III.
Did not give A FUCK about it leading up to release but then I got hit by the hype train, ran out and bought the $100 collectors edition.
Probably ended up playing that game less then 5 hours. Reason being? It felt EXACTLY like a game that had been in development for 10 years. As in, no soul (sooo much dialog that couldn't care less about) but HIGHLY refined to the point of being just, well, there. Also, the whole always online even for SP never sat well with me.
Runner up would have to be AC: Liberation. I know the system is capable of more than THAT. Such a waste of a fucking awesome setting and character.
Was convinced RE6 on the other hand was gonna be bad but ended up being one of my fav 3rd person shooters this gen.
I don't know if I felt the game as a whole was disappointing (I actually thought most of it was an improvement over 2, and I liked the MP), but ME3's ending was the most letdown I've felt in some time.
No way, it's already been a year that Skyward Smörgåsbord has been released, and it's the only thing I have undying hatred for.
WOAH, I think I've loved every game I could get my hands on this year, I was disappointed in some, not to the extent of SS, but oh well.
I'll just say ULTIMATE BUDOKAI TENKAICHI was severely lacking in gameplay, it was a non-stop button masher that's main mechanic was based purely out of luck and not of skill. Also you were doing more watching than playing. Granted, the cutscenes and explosions were a delight to watch, I wanted a bit more from it.
Raging Blast 2 is by far the best Tenkaichi style game this gen, however it got a 5.5. on IGN, while they gave ULTIMATE TENKAICHI A 7.5, justice?
A switch of editors can sway the pendulum this much?
I didn't want another MMO, I wanted a modern Guild Wars. Which isn't to say it is a bad game. It seems pretty good. I'm just at the point where bland MMO bats&rats ad infinitum doesn't do it for me.
I played the demo and the game just felt wobbly as hell compared to the tight controls of RE4. The sense of dread and tension from the previous RE games was also gone and it didn't impress me graphically one bit. The transformations happened too often and didn't make any sense as well(I guess lack of context or build up). Most of the major transformations and changes that zombies experienced always had some sort of build up in the previous REs(RE5 woman's transformation, RE1 hallway hunters, RE4's exploding head bugs) I can't imagine spending thirty hours on a title that controls the way RE6 does just to prove a point to RE6 fans on GAF.
Also, there is no way I would even bother with Chris' campaign after playing the demo.
I can't choose between Diablo 3 and Assassin's Creed 3. Assassin's Creed 3 because the game is horribly buggy and clearly unfinished. Diablo 3 because of the fucking awful online problems, the mediocre story, the worthless drops, the unrewarding grind etc. I'm sure patches have fixed some of those issues and a few people have made lots of money on the RMAH but I have zero interest in ever playing it again.
Yea its a completely different game now but that does not excuse the release version. I would have put this as my top 5 but I also put over 500 hours into it.
This has been a really weird year for me. I can't even pick one biggest disappointment. Mass Effect 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, Assassin's Creed 3 and Resident Evil 6 were all huge disappointments. But at the same time, so many games that weren't on my radar were awesome (Walking Dead, Hotline Miami, Far Cry 3, Mark of the Ninja)
I guess if I had to pick one, RE6. Just cus it was so bad. Could have helped make 2012 the best year of the gen.
- Shooting feels too rigid and loses all of the flair of Resi 4. It might as well be any other generic third person shooter.
- Bad HUD.
- Abysmal story filled with melodrama, dudebro, characters with no introduction, flashbacks and general nonsense.
- Completely fails at horror. Horrible at building suspense, relies heavily on genre tropes, dull objectives.
- Too many shit QTEs. Some are just broken too, like a train that needs to be dodged even if you're not on that particular side of the track.
- Bad graphics outside of cutscenes. Too dark, lots of jaggies, low resolution effects and textures, and too much fucking BLOOM. Dodgy framerate too. Resident Evil 5 looked and ran better on consoles.
- Delayed PC release and too narrow field of view (being patched).
- The logo looks like a giraffe getting a blowjob
Shamefully bad story with hysterical character motivation and terribly forced elements of drama, lack of atmosphere, emphasis on military shooter aspects and action, very few things that even remotely resemble the franchise that it is supposedly a part of, bizarre/dumb locations like the
Chinese palace with the Yakuza zombies and being chased by a tank in an outdoor garden WHAT THE FUCK
, QTE's everywhere and BAD QTE's at that, random deaths, dozens of highly questionable game design decisions in general; it's just flat out fucking terrible in nearly every conceivable way.
The best thing about RE6 were the bad reviews and bad word of mouth that hopefully contributed to its less than stellar sales which will, hopefully, make Capcom open their eyes a bit but I'm not counting on it. People complain about Silent Hill falling from grace; Downpour was a fucking masterpiece of a Silent Hill game in relation to RE6 and the RE franchise. I was displeased with RE4's story direction but at least it was a well made game and I can roughly say the same about RE5. I couldn't dream of saying anything that positive about this one.
It's weird, the first game the popped into my head was Mass Effect 3, but then I thought about it some more, and realized it'll probably end up being in my top 10 games of the year. For all that I was disappointed in it, it was still a good game.
You know, Diablo 2 was designed to be played for years.
Diablo 3 was designed to be played for weeks. Unbalanced and too much focused on its own stupid economy.
I bought SFxT on steam for no good reason and still regret it. The community was already dead, and the systems not good (gems, preset piss-easy tag assaults, badly balanced characters).
Soul Calibur 5
I actually enjoyed it a lot, in terms of the actual fighting and stuff it's the best SC in years, but because of that I really got my hopes up that it'd be a return to form for the series in every way but the single player stuff was just awful. Great game but a personal disappointment.
From this year's releases I've played I'm kind of partial to Uncharted 3 because of how much I expected for it, whereas with Diablo 3 I've felt the genre is close to dead with the dominance of MMOs, and SFxT I recognized as an overwhelming ABClaunch right away and was already accustomed to Capcom's sleazy DLC policies.
All the hate for AC3 has me worried. I actually purchased the first AC day one, but it bored the fuck out of me after only two hours, so I loaned it to a friend. Then it ended up burning in his house fire, so I never played it. He purchased AC2 upon my recommendation and really loved it, so I borrowed it and played it for about eight hours. Everything about it seemed so much better than the original, and I actually had fun with that game, but shelved it for a while.
With the announcement of AC3 and the massive amount of critical praise it was getting, I decided to try to play AC and AC2 just to have the stories out of the way. But goddamn is it extremely hard to play the first game; it's so bad in pacing. So basically, I'm going to slog through that, just to play the only good AC game that I have, and then it's back to disappointment? I actually still have AC3 sitting unwrapped in the next room.
You might as well just change the thread topic to say "Mass Effect 3 because i hated the ending and the other 30 hours preceding this ending also ruined the previous two games for me" - its pretty much the only answers you are going to get on this forum.
Soul Calibur 5
I actually enjoyed it a lot, in terms of the actual fighting and stuff it's the best SC in years, but because of that I really got my hopes up that it'd be a return to form for the series in every way but the single player stuff was just awful. Great game but a personal disappointment.
Hm, this one's also up there for me. But for different reasons.
I simply could not get a handle on the fighting. For some reason, it just didn't 'click' with me. I could never get as good with it as I got with 2 and 3 (and to some extent, 4).
I was also disappointed with the omission of several key characters (Zasalamel being the biggest omission, followed by Bangoo). Terrible missed opportunity, that.
I tried to look at it this way as the other games also have silly stories and dumb about them, but the difference here is that while those were harmlessly hammy b-movie level stories, this one was just simply god awful, not even on an amusing level, just a "why the hell am I spending time with this game" level.
RE4's story was completely bonkers and off the rails and it knew it. The problem with RE6 is that it tried to be serious, like legitimately serious and dramatic because the designers kept talking about the "emotional value" they were going for or whatever and the good voice acting backed up their effort. In the other games you have cheesy dialogue, voice acting and storytelling, but it felt charming and purposeful. That, or at least I just didn't mind it until now for whatever reason.
The gameplay mechanics are good enough for what the game is trying to do, I just absolutely hate what it tried to do. I couldn't relate anything about it to any one reason why I've been a fan of the series since 1995.
