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Let's do this again. What's your most disappointing game of the year?

Frillen

Member
Assassin's Creed III. The first game I've ever played where the entire game is a tutorial. And you know what the insane thing is? There were still parts of the game that weren't included in the tutorials. With the next AC, UbiSoft: Do not include a billion different gameplay segments in your game.
 
Diablo III

Most disappointing game this generation.
It's not fun, it's not addictive, they took a big shit all over the lore, the loot is crap. I could go on, I really could, it's just a bad, BAD game.
 

PAULINK

I microwave steaks.
Street Fighter X Tekken really let me down. I tried so hard to justify some sort of enjoyment from the game, but it just felt off. Hard to believe because I love the idea of mashing up the two different rosters, but they changed the fighting system way too much to accommodate both the tekken fighters and the stupid gem system.

I was so let down that I just went back to playing Street Fighter 4. Rekindled my love.
 
Probably Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion. Amazing idea to bring back the 2D Mickey style, game looks and plays like garbage.

Yep. The demo was already an indication of what was in store, but I figured "Well, I'm getting this for $30, and this is coming from the Henry Hatsworth guys. Surely it can't get much worse than this, right?"

Whoo boy, did I make a wrong call there.

Mickey controls sluggishly. The intro is way too long. The painting mechanic completely stops the flow of the game. There's some platforming, yeah. But in between it, you'll frequently have to stop, trace the same damned shape on the touchscreen, and continue on, which gets very annoying, very quick. It pretty much never gets used in any sort of meaningful or clever way, and honestly only seems like it's there because it's an Epic Mickey game, and the paintbrush is the whole point of EM. And even when you factor in the painting and the fortress aspect, and the insultingly easy fetch quests, I still managed to beat the game in a little over two hours.

Admittedly, the production values are quite nice. The sprite work is pretty cool, and the music (Specifically the tracks arranged from the original Castle of Illusion game) is pretty nice. I was really excited about having a spiritual sequel to one of my favorite platforming series done by what seems like a competent developer, but Dreamrift really screwed up here. It's a shame, because Hatsworth is one of my favorite DS games. The fact that Dreamrift was working on this was why I even had confidence in this in the first place.

Runner up: New Super Mario Bros. 2

Found the game to be thoroughly boring the whole way through.
 
Dustforce - it´s ok, but considering the quality of the art and the music, I had hoped that the gameplay and UI would have been more polished.

Other then that, nothing. Every other game I have bought, about 12-15 or so, have been really good.
 
Mass Effect 3: the ending definitely ruined it for me, I tried replaying it from the start after I finished it but I just couldn't go on after the first two hours. Which is a shame, the rest of the game is pretty good, it has some nice parts and you can really feel that the game is preparing itself for the grand finale. Then the last hour happens.
 

leroidys

Member
Not much has disappointed me this year, as I generally don't buy blockbuster titles that aren't nintendo, and nintendo didn't release much of anything this year.

Just based off of the beta though, PSASBR was very disappointing to me. I'm a huge smash fan so I was really looking forward to it, but the combat just feels dull and pointless. Not having a health bar or ring outs really kills any intensity in a fighting game. It has to be one of the most bafflingly terrible major design choices in a game in years.
 
STARHAWK for PS3. The game is a complete fucking cluster fuck of epic proportions. I have no idea what the dev team was thinking with this game...it's just not fun at all....

*it has this really ugly art design, cowboys in space fighting ugly mutated humans - argh
*awful gunplay, everyone is a bullet sponge. after dying you have to collect all the weapons again (this is such a pain in the ass) it was good design (in the 90's) for fast arena shooters like Quake or UT, but once you are dealing with massive maps and slow gameplay, it's a stupid fucking decision.
*terrible match making and team balancing - I kept getting killed by pro pilots in most of the games I played
*ugly maps and bad map design...none of the map designs are good.

This game was released like 5 years after Warhawk...I didn't like that game either, but it wasn't this bad. You gotta wonder what the studio was doing for such a long time...after playing this shit game, I understand why Sony cancelled the three game contract with these guys.

*I just came back from night shift, please overlook any errors etc :p
 
Guild Wars 2 disappoints me as well, I didn't have any super level of hype for it but I'm still surprised how little it actually brings to the genre. I still dabble a little bit but it's not the big event it was claiming to be. I actually found my time with Tera much more unique and enjoyable (Tera is in my top ten for the year)

I'm hoping FFXIV 2.0 brings what GW2 failed to do.
 

TEH-CJ

Banned
Halo 4. one of the worst fps I have ever played in terms of campaign, and considering I don't go out of my way to play bad fps, I am not exaggerating.

its better than pdz and original Killzone, I give it that. every other fps I have played completely demolishes it.

crap gunplay, no stand out set pieces at all, rubbish AI, promethu what ever the fuck you call them are beyond boring to fight. the only objectives you have in the game is press x to call a lift and put in your usb stick to deploy cortana. it was go from point A to B in the most boring way possible, just going through the motions.

Gaf is going to have seizures of my opinion but its nothing new.
 

Stasis

Member
Torn on the 3's.

Hated:

Diablo III, for all the reasons everyone's already posted. I realized it's level of suck by day #3 but I still managed to press on and put around 100 hours into it with friends, hoping I was wrong and that it'd be able to generate the addictive fun of D2 at some point. I think that makes it even worse for me because now I not only want my $$ back, I want my time back too. Even worse than my disappointment of the game itself is the fact that there won't ever be another meaningful Diablo game. I will never see the D3 that was supposed to be. The one we all dreamed of. The one the original team probably could have made. FML. A lot of this falls on the shoulders of greed and the mfing AH directly and indirectly.

Mixed Feelings:

Mass Effect 3, I still just love the world and the setting so very much that I'm OK with the story not being as great as ME2. The ending was awful, but I got over that quickly too. I can't get enough of that environment, the sounds, the music, the ship, the citadel (though better in ME2), some of the characters... I can overlook anything else. I'm kinda shocked to see the level of upset at it tbh.

Assassin's Creed 3, I just was never a fan of the series the two times I tried it: 1 and 2. I didn't try Brotherhood or Revelations. I decided to try the third installment out of boredom one evening and I'm OK with it. I think it's that I like the setting a lot more. Colonial Boston and the surrounding villages are fun for me for whatever reason. I'm also a sucker for open-world snow, like in Skyrim. I love it... especially when I play during Winter. Silly I know. Story is OK so far, though nothing awesome. Not sure if I'll finish it or not because I'm too obsessed with...

Loving:

Far Cry 3, the setting of #1 with some of the open-RPG feeling of #2, but refined. Could be a bit harder, but it's still a TON of fun for me.
 
Mass Effect 3. Even before the ending, it wasn't very good and felt like a chore to play. Other games I came in with appropriately low expectations (Borderlands 2) or extracted enough enjoyment out of and didn't keep playing afterwards (Diablo 3).
 

Nymerio

Member
Diablo 3. Which is weird, because I've put about 80 hours into this. I liked a lot about it, but I ultimately left disappointed.

Another one is Guild Wars 2, but in that case it's not the games fault. Was hoping this would be return to the time I've played WoW with friends. During the first few weeks we could never get on the same server to play and after that things just didn't work out. Everyone is working and busy doing other stuff, so there's just no time for a game of this calibre.
 
Of the games I've played enough to judge almost every single one has had some elements I didn't like even if I enjoyed the game as a whole:

Max Payne 3

Fantastic game that was interrupted way too often for my liking. The writing wasn't as strong as in the previous games, I missed the visual novel transitions and having access to more than 3 weapons as well but ultimately I still enoyed it.

Hitman: Absolution

I haven't played that much of Absolution but coming from Blood Money I'm not sure about the pure stealth sections or the disguise system. In any other game I'd have liked them instantly but I have a hard time separating the game from its name and the expectations that come with it.

Dishonored

Second favourite game of the year but it's a bit on the easy side and I feel too powerful sometimes. Could have done with some tighter stealth sections for example.

Darksiders II

Combat and movement are vastly improved over the original I just wish they had done the same for the dungeons. They're pretty but the puzzles are nothing special like in the original. I'm also really curious who wanted a loot system in Darksiders. It's no surprise they had to sell 2m of this when it looks like they just added stuff for the sake of having it. Good game so far but some very baffling choices.


There is one game though that I felt genuinely ripped off:

Quantum Conundrum

Stallion Free has described it best: This feels like a game by someone who hasn't learned a single thing during her time at Valve. Saying that it has terrible writing, awful PixarDreamworks-reject aesthetics and incredibly dull "puzzles" is being too kind to this trainwreck. I was fooled by the demo, thought the puzzles might improve with time but it never really does anything interesting with its mechanics, not even visually. I paid 4€ for it and I regret every single second I spent with it and I won't be purchasing the next game by Kim Swift/Airtight Games.
 
I didn't buy many games, but the ones I bought (Dishonored, Walking Dead, Max Payne...) lived up to my expectations.
I'll have to go with Resonance. I expected something as good as Gemini Rue, but I ended up with a forgettable experience.
 
Mass Effect 3. I'm not even complaining about the ending, I didn't like the whole game. The enemy spawn system was shit, they always came at you with a couple small guys and 1 big guy, this really ruined the fun for me as it made the game unnecessarily difficult. Then there was the technical performance on PS3...
 

Sadist

Member
Overall, I'd say 2012 was a big disappointment in general. Big console releases felt awkward. Can't speak for the Wii U yet, so I'll keep that one out of the picture. E3 wasn't very fun. It felt off. 3DS seemed sluggish with new releases, Vita performing poorly. It blows.

I think my biggest "disappointment" would be the Last Story. I got to chapter 25 or something and it still doesn't click. I was all ramped up for a new Sakaguchi game, but I don't know... feels like a game targeted at western players but with a combat system which needed more polish.

Other game that made me sigh a little bit was NSMB 2. Honestly, it's not a bad game. Nintendo knows how to build a very competent platformer. But it's just too safe. Coin rush mode saved it for me.
 

dosh

Member
That would be RE6: an old, old game trying desperately to grasp what works in most modern tps in order to implement it super awkwardly in its old, old gameplay. And failing miserably, of course. That, plus the horrible writing and dialogues (but hey, it's Capcom).

People were saying it was bad, but I wanted to believe that they were wrong, all of them. How naive.
 
Halo 4 was disappointing but I still loved it, Assassin's Creed III was disappointing but I also loved it, the ones that takes the cake is of course Mass Effect 3:

Shallower storyline, boring gameplay, non-existent RPG elements, repetitive side-quests, tali's face being a Photoshopped stock-photo and of course that ending.
 
D

Deleted member 30609

Unconfirmed Member
Hitman Absolution, easily. If I wanted a poor man's Splinter Cell, I'd have just waited for Blacklist.

Diablo 3 deserves a mention, but frankly I've never been a giant loot game fan. The auction house fundamentally broke an already completely transparent difficulty curve.

RE6 isn't on my list. All the terrible design decisions actually created a weird comedy. It's not a film-style comedy in any sense. It was a weird special video game comedy. It's the only game I've played like it.
 

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Diablo 3 is the most disappointing game in my entire gaming career.

I know it's hip to shit on D3 but I couldn't agree more. People can be as snarky as they want but in 20 years of gaming no other game has let me down as much as D3 has, so I guess it's by definition my most disappointing game of all time let alone this year ( heck I've repressed the memory so much I totally forgot it came out this year ).
 
SSX disappointed me so much when it came out it made me :(
Was hyped up and ready but luckily I got it from red box.

It's no SSX at all, the 3rd mountains "boss" was just falling into a hole 84738576 times, was really frustrating and :/



Also Tony hawks pro skater HD, i love the first two games and still play them to this day but wow they ruined it, my childhood hurt lol
 

Kazzy

Member
The Walking Dead

Okay, I feel like I should preface this, because I know that a lot of GAF will be ready to descend upon this criticism. I did enjoy the game, and did provide a unique experience, but I feel as though the hype surrounding the first couple of episodes definitely affected my expectations negatively.

I never really felt that sense of urgency, which was so often trumpeted, and most decisions were quite clear cut. Sure, they all inhabited a moral gray area, but I still found it easy to convey my actions through the avatar of Lee. And there was never that moment, where I got the impression that I was being compromised in my decision making, and I simply had to make do, which is what I was expecting.

It was the machinations of the story that ultimately let me down, and although I can appreciate just how many potential threads are created as the narrative moves on, it was still disappointing. It became less about making my own experience, and more about having an negligible effect on the an already established story.

I clearly enjoyed it, having completed the entire season, but not for the reasons that had made me expectant.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
RE6 would be it, but ever since it was announced I didn't expect much of it anyway.

I guess its Hitman Absolution. I expected it to be one of this years greats, but its full of bullshit and downright terrible levels. They could've cut about 5 hours out of the main game and it would've been better. The classic hitman levels were so obviously dialed in and so small that they posed no challenge whatsoever.

I also didn't like the Tarantino style thrown into the mix, those characters like Dexter and Skurky were terrible.
 
Max Payne 3... I hate the Fucking Setting and max's alcoholic, drug addict, bald ass. Story felt a bit too much personal. Too much Man on Fire(great movie, but the game doesn't have a Dakota fanning/Denzel Washington relationship in it.) You were forced to use the cover system which is not really where Max Payne used to shine(Seriously, his schtick is to jump around and shoot guns blazing) technically, it's an amazing game, but i'm not interested in the new max. Go back to new york or bury this franchise, Mr Houser.
 
Most disappointing:

Darksiders 2

Most disappointed:

Mass Effect 3. Let's make the real ending DLC! And this is coming from someone that actually liked the ending.
 

theDeeDubs

Member
I want to say Diablo 3 but I was expecting it to be pretty bad. It basically lived up to its expectations. So my winner is Borderlands 2. I was expecting some major improvements from the first game, but it ended up being just as meh as it. I wish someone would take the idea and really run with it (third person, meaningful/iconic loot that isn't so random, visible armor loot, design your own class and look). As it is now, it's just another boring shooter and both it and Diablo 3 have the same shitty premade classes and character models that come with it.
 

-PXG-

Member
Halo 4 MP. Every map but Haven is awful. Unlockables and exp undermine team cooperation and instead focus entirely on personal gain. Victory is an afterthought. Ordinances are just.....ugh...We all knew they would be a big problem. What in world was 343 thinking? DMR dominates everything. JIP is laughably broken. Game just isn't balanced, isn't fun and just another game trying to be like COD. Sad to see this happen to Halo, of all games.

Other than that, for all reasons already stated, SFxT is also on my list. Buggy game with awful lighting and shading with ridiculous DLC.
 

Doffen

Member
Uncharted Golden Abyss, I was sort of hoping that the game would make everything worth it. Don't get me wrong, I liked it and it's one of my favorite games for Vita, but it's miles away from the main series.
 
I wanna say that, despite the criticism of FFXIII-2, the game was kinda good. I liked it more than FFXIII. Save for the time travel bullshit. The game had fun protagonists in Serah and Noel and a noble antagonist in Caius. I hated every character in FFXIII.

The game still can't hold a candle to the old FF games of yesteryears.
 

Spierek

Member
Operation Racoon City is my Operation Racoon City. That's probably the most disappointing piece of crap I've played this year. Final section of Max Payne 3 also comes to mind; when put aside with first and second thirds of the game, it just pales.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Diablo 3. And we're not even talking "disappointment of the year", but rather "the biggest disappointment ever".
 

EGM1966

Member
Mass Effect 3 and AC3 - both hugely failed to deliver on the initial promise of their SP Universes and featured weak, derivative and horribly unimaginative endings.

Gameplay was okay in both but if you give me a plot then have your ending bloody worked out.

AC3 probably pips ME3 though as it came following a period of intense milking of the franchise.
 

Liamario

Banned
Max Payne 3-

Great gunplay, a lot of fun; BUT

- Too many cutscenes.
- Hated the location.
- Stupid bloody video glitch effect that just made you feel like you had a headache.
- Story bored me.
 

Kazzy

Member
The Last Story

Combat is just awkward, level design is bland, some framerate problems, and the voice acting is mediocre, especially for the two main characters.

Agreed.

I don't know if many are willing to criticize a game for being overly ambitious, but that's precisely where my problems with The Last Story stem from. The game appears as though it is being hampered by the Wii hardware, pretty much every step of the way. The art design may be nice, but it's hard to tell when everything is drowned out by a mismatched colour palette, and horrible lighting. Graphically, this all culminates to make it an ugly experience, particularly in it's performance, with the framerate being wildly inconsistent.

Living in the UK, I got this earlier than a lot of GAF, but it's one of those times where I felt like I had been caught by the hype. Of the three project rainfall games, I think it sits comfortably at the bottom. I usually can glean some sense of enjoyment from the games I purchase, regardless of their overall quality. Whenever I see the box sitting on my shelf, it just brings all that disappointment back.
 
Guild Wars 2 easily. I bought the pre-purchase version that you couldnt return and when I first played the beta I thought:

5867243800_acf40a89c9.jpg


Played full version for 2 hours or so.
 

-PXG-

Member
Dustforce - it´s ok, but considering the quality of the art and the music, I had hoped that the gameplay and UI would have been more polished.

Other then that, nothing. Every other game I have bought, about 12-15 or so, have been really good.

Boo this man. Great game as is.
 
[ in no particular order ]

-hitman 3
( better than before but still not as good for me )
-dishonored
( intrested by the universe disliked the gameplay experience )
-skyrim
(2fps on my console )
-street x tekken
( still waiting for the 2013 patch.. it missed the spark where you can have fun without caring about too many rules )
-diablo3
( i tried the free trial and i was bored so i didn't buy the full game )
 
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