Your Biggest Video Game Disappointment

[GI Cake]

We've all had them, that game you've been watching on the internet since it was announced at some fancy gaming expo. A potential game of the year, the show-stealer. The diamond in the rough. But when that game finally hits the shelves, and you find out it is complete and utter crap. That is perhaps one of the worst things that could happen to a gamer. The worst part is having to go back to the same store you bought it so you can get store credit towards a new game that could have the ability to be a complete disappointment as well. I'm a very optimistic guy when it comes to videogames. I am, I don't dwell on every flaw or error a game has and have that one error ruin the overall product for me. I've sat through games like Deadly Premonition and found satisfaction that the story was completely mind-blowing despite how awful the animation, game-play, action, and cut-scenes were. But I can only take so much before I storm up and trade it away.


For me, perhaps the most disappointing Videogame I have ever had to play was Brink. Brink had a very solid promise as a videogame. It was a FPS that offered a lot of unique elements to it. For one, it was set in a post-apocalyptic utopia that two groups were fighting over, law enforcement, and Rioters. The setting itself made the story and it didn't make either group bad guys. Your choice on who to play as was up to your moral compass. Than you had complete, character creation. Your size, your outfit, your skin, your nose. Your weapons, everything was in your hands. The game-play itself also looked promising. It was suppose to be a small CQC 8-8 team play combat. One team would be setting out to do objectives, while the other team tried to hold out before the timer ended. It also engineered a very fun free-running engine that changed the way you ran through a map.

What made this game a disappointment? How completely lop-sided matches could have been for one team or another solely based on the map design. As soon as a map was selected, you instantly knew that you would either be strolling through the other team, or you preparing your own ass for a slaughter. Their was no in between. And the matchmaking itself was complete garbage, the people at Brink H.Q decided that using a P2P connection for their game would be a quick, cheap fix to matchmaking. But the result ended in having the most buggy, laggy, and horrid games seen to date. The game only seemed to work if you played co-op with your buddies against bots. And that can only be fun for so long.


Now I'm asking you.

What is your Biggest Video Game Disappointment?

 

[Nick Black]

Hmmm...I'm gonna go with the usual.

Duke Nukem Forever.

Hands down, one of the worst games ever made. I was so excited for it, because I remember the Duke Nukem games for the N64 and I adored them. I was ready for the filthy, horny, alien fighting warrior to return...and then the game finally came out after 15 years. Everyone thought that after 15 years, the game must be good, right? We were clearly all wrong. The game is horribly broken. The loading screens take at least a minute+ for each level or checkpoint. The environments are bland, the enemies are the same over and over and over again, and the graphics are just so poor that the basic functions of Duke come across like crap.

As you stand in the elevator in the second mission, you look at the mirror and jump. You hear the repeated "Hurhh!" of Duke jumping in place and realize that only his legs do moving. The body lifts off the ground and the legs tuck under his ass, but ironically, his whole upper body does not move. It moves with the body, but that's it.

The weapons are cool, but so simple. The "cool Duke" sayings that made you giggle as a kid remain almost exactly the same, but the funny is sucked dry from them. You can pick up poop out of a toilet (For a 10G achievement), write dirty things on a white board with a marker, punch bad guys in the balls, get lapdances from naked strippers, drink beer, take steroids, and get a blowjob from Twins, but even all of that doesn't save this game from the horrible disaster it was meant to be. 15 years of creation, mixed with evolving platforms, companies passing the game around like a breakout of herpies in a College Fraternity, and just the sheer lack of effort brought on by 3D Realms, Gearbox, and 2K Games, has completely ruined any leftover love of Duke Nukem.

 

[xoxo French Kiss xoxo]

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

After playing Oblivion and other open ended fantasy games, the LOZ series no longer does anything for me. Nintendo has found a way to make the exact same story of good and evil but beat it to death. I once wrote a term paper on how great the Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (my favorite in the series, and possibly the best one overall in my opinion)

But after playing Twilight Princess I felt disappointed because it was more of the same that Id come to expect from Nintendo and from the LOZ series. Ice castle, fire castle, opening sequence of events that lead to some alternate world where the shit happening there effected the shit happening in the other world and blah blah blah the same thing its been happening in the LOZ series for the past 20 years.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Brink was a let down for sure. I remember my friends that work at Gamestop kept telling me to pre-order it because it was going to be awesome. Glad I didn't listen. Aside from the lag and server issues at launch the game was just a mess. The whole parkour with guns seemed cool but nope. The customization factor was pretty cool but that was one of the games few redeeming qualities.

Duke Nukem Forever and Twilight Princess are solid choices as well.

I think in recent memory though two games stand out big for me.
1)Final Fantasy 14-I am a huge fan of MMOs. So when I heard that FF was releasing an MMO I practically came in my pants. I went to pick it up at midnight, got home, installed that bad boy and after about two hours... The interface was bad for an MMO, the economy was shit, the quests were just plain bad and restrictive. It still sits on my shelf to this day unmoved from when I took it out of my PC

2)Star Wars The Old Republic-Now while I still play and greatly enjoy this game its still a let down. I got sucked in big time. The problem is that I was expected a complete 10/10 game and got a game thats a solid 8 or 8.5. The story is great, the interface is good, the economy has been fixed. The problems are it feels more like a regular RPG where you occasionally run into other people than an actual MMORPG, and the quests that do require groups aren't really that difficult. My other complaint is that once you reach level 50, max level, there isn't much else to do. I'm sure it will be fixed with patches and expansions in the future but as of right now the PVP system isn't good enough to keep me interested

 

[Davi323]

Incredibly disappointed with the ending of KOTOR II: The Sith Lords, but overall, the game was brilliant. Fantastic game, shit ending.

If we are talking about the overall game experience, and not just the ending, I am going to go with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I own both Ultimate Alliances and both X-Men Legends games on which the gameplay is based...3 of the 4 games are really good. The 4th is just too damn short, especially considering the Marvel Civil War storyline it's based on. I just did not enjoy it nearly as much as I did Ultimate Alliance.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

Mine was probably Legends of Wrestlemania.

After the disappointment of The 3 Legends of Wrestling games I was very excited when I heard THQ was making a game solely bases on WWE Legends. When the announcement was made I can't tell you how excited I was. Afterall they made the Smackdown vs. RAW and Smackdown series and even though not every game was great in my opinion they were at least good, I have played and own every single one of them and even though some were forgettable none of them were bad. Because of this I'm thinking "well there is no way this game will be bad". They literally could have taken the Smackdown vs. RAW '09 engine, put in legends and I would have been happy and satisfied just because I would finally be playing as all my favorites growing up.

So I buy the game the day it comes out. Put it in and when the menu screen comes up the song playing is the LOD theme and I was like "fuck yeah". Then I actually played the game and man it doesn't get more uninspired and suck ass as that. The game play worked but was boring, I get what they were attempting to do but was executed poorly. After 2 hours I couldn't play it anymore. I waited YEARS for that game to come out, it finally does and I was so disappointed. How can you fuck this up? It would have been so easy to make a good Legends wrestling game, they already made good WWE games NUMEROUS times and the game that came out 3 months beforehand was good (not great but good) and this monstrosity of a game comes out and pretty much crushes any hopes for another Legends WWE game.

There have been a lot of highly anticipated games for me that weren't good or simply didn't live up to what was expected, some of the games were even worse than Legends of Wrestlemania BY FAR but because I was so pumped for this game and so disappointed when I played it I have to put it as my biggest video game disappointment.

 

[Captain Morgan Freeman]

Mine is Metal gear Solid 2 but Assassins creed 1 came very fucking close.


How do you make sure the sequel to one of the most popular Playstation 1 games of all time is successful? Why you take out the main character that's insanely popular of course! And throw in a plot that makes absolutely no sense while your at it!
While a good game in it's own right it never came close to living up to the expectations i had for this game after the brilliance of Metal Gear Solid 1. I had been looking forward to this game since i finished the original and after seeing the teaser trailer and more importantly the massive improvement in graphics my interest was well and truly at an all time high leading up to it's release in spring 2002.

However once i got to play the game i was left feeling cheated at the choice to only have Snake as a playable character for the prologue before introducing us to Raiden, a whiny unlikeable cunt(for lack of a better word). I say i was left feeling cheated but i was too busy trying to make sense of the clusterfuck of a plot Kojima had put together. I must have played through that game 5 times before i actually got a grasp of what was going on, "he's got liquids hand grafted on his arm therefore liquid can control him", "The colonel talks to you on the codec but it's not really the colonel", "Vamp can dodge bullets without a care in the word in the cutscenes yet you can easily kill him in the boss battle", "the enemy have a nuclear warhead no wait it's a purified hydrogen bomb no wait their going to release toxins into the ocean" and don't even get my started on the damm patriots.

To be fair the gameplay was solid and i guess it redeems itself somewhat by the fact the plot ended up making more sense as the series went on but honestly Metal Gear solid 2 was one of the most anticipated games of 2002 and Kojima gave the fans a giant middle finger by taking Solid Snake out of the game and replacing him with a guy that's been included in many peoples lists for worst character of all time and providing a plot that made no sense at the time whatsoever. No game since then has disappointed me as much as it did back in 2002, it could have been a classic it should have been a classic but instead it's seen as the blip in the franchise.

 

[Sean Valjean]

For the record Captain Morgan Freeman, Metal Gear Solid 2 released November of 2001, not 2002.

I know their your opinions, but I can't even grasp how Twilight Princess was even remotely disappointing--but that's a debate for another thread.

I'll go with Devil May Cry 2. This game is like the handbook on how to ruin a sequel by removing everything that mad the predecessor so great. The confident and wise-cracking Dante was gone, replaced with a silent and grim shell of himself who, for some reason, had a Two-Face-like obsession with coin flips. The challenging difficulty that made the original game so popular was dumbed down to the point that the game was mind-numbingly easy.

The levels were bland and uninspired, the boss fights were poorly designed (that helicopter fight being the worst offender--you can't even SEE the damn thing) and the story is as uninteresting as it is confusing.

I was a huge fan of the original DMC and purchased DMC 2 on day one after saving for a month. Calling it a disappointment is an understatement.

 

[Peoples_Champ]

Most wrestling games have disappointed me since the N64 versions. I appreciate how they're more in-depth now and the graphics are awesome, but simple and fun gameplay is why I play video games and I find most wrestling games don't have that fun element any more.

 

[vampireblade]

Im going with Call of Duty it seems to always be the same shit they never really revamp multiplayer they just make new maps and the story seem to repeat as well overall I have been disappointed since black ops.

 

[JM Punk]

So many.....where to start?

The first times I were REALLY disappointed where when Chrono Cross came out for PS1 and Majora's Mask came out for N64. Mainly because I consider the previous games in their respective series, Chrono Trigger and Ocarina of Time, to be the greatest video games ever made.

Somebody mentioned Assassin's Creed and I completely agree. That game got old fast. Run over here, climb some building, kill this dude. Rinse, repeat. I heard the sequels weren't as repetitive, but I was out after that (although I must say that I am really looking forward to AC3.

 

[Lee]

Epic Mickey

This was a game that was going to reinvent one of the oldest cartoons ever making certain old Disney characters relevant again.

Instead it was a huge clusterfuck with a camera that even the N64 would be ashamed of. So many good ideas but a terrible execution. Hopefully this is resolved for Epic Mickey 2.

 

[Harthan]

Hmm. Anyone remember a game called Turning Point: Fall of Liberty? I got really excited for it after a Game Informer cover story on it that made it seem like it was going to be really awesome, so I spent a bunch of my trade-in money from trading in my DS (worst decision ever) on pre-ordering it, picked it up and then was like..."What the fuck?" Terrible controls, hit detection was awful, it looked like something made in 2002...just a bad, bad game man. I actually called the store to see if they'd take it back. The guy said "Why did you want to return it?" "Because it sucks."

He just laughed a little, then hung up on me.

 

[Yrrab]

TLoZ : Ocarina of Time.

A Link to the Past was such a huge, HUGE step for the series. Aside from the graphical advances on the SNES, the gameplay, music, fights, story, world, characters, enemies, items, and mechanics were pushed so far into the future for that time. It absolutely eclipsed any other game of it's genre on the SNES.

But OoT? Well, great, it's 64 bit. Had nice graphics. But it didn't bring anything new to the series like ALttP brought to the series. A Link to the Past was the first game to push the SNES to the limit in terms of just how much that system could do. Unfortunately for OoT, Super Mario 64 pushed the limits of the N64 before OoT could. Obviously, this is just my opinion, but OoT just didn't do it for me. Takes about a day to beat, has a piss-poor story (except for the Ganon fight at the end - best fight in a 3D Zelda game, by far), music completely sub-par to the first 3 games in the series, and the only memorable character happens to be the most annoying fuck in any video game I've ever played (HEY! LISTEN!).

Clearly, these are just my opinions. But damn, my sister and I were so damn excited for this game (almost as excited as I am for Diablo III), and it just completely castrated me as a kid. I can' really think of a time I'd ever been more bummed out.

 

[RattleRockerJet97]

Can I throw in anything Madden or MLB 2K has made in the past 4 or 5 years?

Either way, off the top of my head the new Banjo-Kazooie game that came out "Nuts and Bolts" really killed it for me. I remember a year before the game came out and the teaser trailer came out, didnt show anything obviously, needless to say i was stoaked for a new BJ-KZ game. Then it came out, read a few reviews to make sure, and i was done.

I remember a Jak and Daxter game that made me feel the same way, im terrible at racing games against the clock, so playing.....2 I think it was, with so many timed races was an instant turn off.

Last one I can think of is.....Probably Sonic & The Black Knight. Yea i bought it, yea, I regret it.

 

[blue_dragon]

Not to nag or anything but I have to say that I can't believe someone would pick MGS2 as the worst one of all time....but again I have completed it so many times and it still delivers every single time that I must have lost track to why even consider such thing. But never the less...it's all in the eyes of the beholder. IMO MGS 2 one of best games ever created.

As for me possibly the first massive disappointment in a game I got when getting my hands on Alone In The Dark New Nightmare. Just to let on how much fail it was at first you just wanted it to be an alternative version to how great RE2,3 was but soon you realized that over the top copy catting and floating fluff cloud ghosts just won't do the trick. The whole camera deals (no it didn't work like it did for RE) and everything in between from controls to any weapon or such you got was really working. Possibly one of the crappiest titles of all time. And I had such high hopes for this game it still hurts to this day.

Another title is Fifth Element. It was really never that good and yet I somehow forced myself to play this from start to finish. Probably game time stolen from my life that I will never get away and I still don't get why.

Now let's see Xena: Warrior Princess. I know when I was a kid this had to be one of the most awesoem amazing games of all time. If you think that way please do not ever play it as teen or above. You will understand how horrible it is with almost none redeeming values except from probably throwing that thing around. It's a horrible, horrible game and nostalgia factor is just not worth it folks.

Another massive disappointment is Age Of Empires 2. Many people might love this game but IMO if you play it after teen years have long passed you will get that it's just not as good at all. And it's really hard to say what went wrong but you could assume it was everything. Maybe one of the main things where how everything was just going in slow motion and and it was hard to destroy buildings, took forever to get from point A to point B. The graphics and the units and the buildings had about zero appeal. Story was still good but that was one of the few saving graces of this horribly unappealing game.

Unfortunately the unappeal continued with AOE3. Can't say I played to much of that but that one was even more unappealing than the last one.

Now here comes out another one called Disciples 3. I to this day think that Disciples 2 is one really awesome game that stands very well on it's own. It's one of those diamond in the rough games that you rarely come across (expansions did not make it justice though). Everything from narration (especially the narrator of this story was just awesome with an excellent sad/atmospheric voice) to the story to characters to all the 4 balanced races with all the magic that came with it to graphics well basically everything. This game even had awesome multilayer (if casually playing with a friend). It just had overall appeal and awesomeness that only diamond in a rough could.

So what happens? Here comes Akella (oh boy) and ruins everything with this insanely crappy 3D version of the game called Renaissance. Dunno but there only a very few redeeming qualities. Like the sticking to the ground resource units and story was still really good (even if narrator did not have any real awesome appeal like 2nd had). The game lacked everything from balance to real simple yet fulfilling depth. Not to mention it felt like a massive sell out to the popular Heroes Of Might And Magic series (the reason why I picked Disciples was always to have an alternative easier play style clone so they ruined that for me too). Just overall terrible sequel to sucha great series. Never understood why they wanted to change what was not broken from DSC2 TBH.

Ok finally here goes nothing. GTA4. Biggest disappointment since probably the first one I mentioned (AITD). Ok so what do I do? Pick up a PC version when it comes out right. I'm so excited I can't wait. It all starts so good. Story looks awesome with Nico Bellic and his cousin (or whatever) and bam it hits me in the balls how much this game sucks. I can't drive my car (half of the game is practically gone right there), controls doesn't seem fun at all (unless I missed something) and later I find out Nico just seems having a good time running and falling and jumping in slow motion. I ask what the hell is going on?

This is a joke right? PC version was just rushed I'll wait for xbox 360 version with normal gameplay but alas...... everythings the same and it all is just horrible. And here come these so called critics and dare to write in their magazines that this is a masterpiece that deserves 10/10!? You just want to bang your head into the wall a few times because enough is enough.

I even had to switch gears to Saints Row to get my GTA fix. It used to be all about just getting yourself in a car and driving and doing fun missions and meeting fun characters and just feeling the windy breeze of freedom and badass whenever you stepped on the streets of Vice City. And Rockstar just kicked you in the nuts and pretended we should all do this reality BS that's about as fun as watching 2 no name jobber heels going at it with zero reactions..... Enough is enough Rockstar. Get your act together already.

 

[Death Before Disco]

My biggest video game disappointment in recent history is Final Fantasy 13.

Wow. How far the series has fallen.

Okay, of course the game has outstanding graphics and audio, a high-water mark for the time that it was released. That aside, I thought the mechanics of the game sucked. Basically, you navigate your blue dot to the orange dot (apologies if my dot colors are incorrect), usually following the ONE path given to you, and in-between there are some lengthy, somewhat cool cutscenes. That's about it.

The battle system also sucks. It's very inhibitive in my opinion. The battle system of the early FF games and FF 12 (with it's gambit system) were my favorites.

Also, if you close your eyes and listen to some of the grunts and groans coming from the two child characters (I forget their names because I never finished the game), it sounds like you're listening to sub-par Japanese Hentai film.

Overall, a shitty battle system and overly linear storyline made Final Fantasy 13 the biggest recent video game disappointment for me.


An honorable (or dishonorable) mention goes to WWE All Stars, which came out last year from THQ. Awkward play control and lack of titles made that game another big disappointment.

 

[TheNickster]

There are three games that really disappointed me. Both PSP since I don't have any consoles.

- WWE All Stars

This game was a major disappointment. No titles, limited and same move sets for so many wrestlers. The controls, as Booker B said were awkward and there was really nothing to keep me hooked. The Fantasy Warfare was fun at first, but got old after a while. The commentary ends up being the same and the entrances aren't even the full entrances. The path of champions seems so unorganized, and overall the game was a bust.

- Assassain's Creed Bloodlines

A game that I thought was going to be amazing, but ended up as dull as a dishwasher. I've heard the other games are good, but this one was terrible. Every place looked the same, all you did was kill people, some of the controls were just awkward, but the audiology was actually pretty good. The graphics were OK, especially when synchronizing but those were basically the only high points (no pun intended).

-WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2011

I'm going on a limb, here. I thought that the major low point was WWE Universe mode. The matches were ridiculous, and when you wanted to skip a match you could simulate the match and Chavo Guerrero ended up beating The Undertaker at Wrestlemania! Having a submission match every week doesn't make it better, and I was just disappointed on how it turned out.

 

[Arcade]

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008 for the DS.

Got this game as a gift. I wasn't expecting the DS version to be just as good as the console ones, but this game was just horrible. You use the stylus to fight. That's where everything goes downhill. Everything is repetitive, and Season Mode is horrible. I thought it would be something to enjoy for a little while, but no. The game fails in every way. Last year I picked up SVR 2008 for the PS3, and it sucked, but not as bad as the DS version.