Gaming Disappointments

[afccarl666]

I wanted to start a thread so people could have a rant about games that have disappointed them by not living up to expectations or being repeatedly delayed, and advise others on games to avoid.

I will start off with Ferrari Challenge on PS3. How could they make a potentially fantastic game so bad? I mean, surely crashing a car at 200mph+ would do more than just dent the bumper? As for the handling, lets not go there. I've pushed shopping trolleys with more response, its far too inconsistent. Then there is the boring and painstakingly long story mode with over 12hrs going around the same tracks in the same car. No fun at all

Definitely one for PS3 owners to keep away from, worst £20 I ever spent

[Indoril Nerevar]

Sins of a Solar Empire
SoaSE is a good game, but it is not what I expected it to be. The box promised such things as colonising worlds, spreading culture, expanding empires, etc. Turns out it's basically just a space RTS, and those things the box describes are just extra game mechanics for beating the enemy. There was no real empire-building or culture spreading. Good game, but not what I expected.

Oblivion
Possibly the biggest disappointment for me. I spent months getting excited about "the next Morrowind", as I expected it to be - watching trailers, looking at screenshots, etc. I even gave my computer a major upgrade so I would be able to play it at high detail. Got it, and found it to be nothing like Morrowind. The graphics were impressive, and the gameplay was smoother than Morrowind's, but there were so many ways in which Morrowind was better. Again, this is still a good game, but is nowhere near what I hoped and expected it to be.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest
I was really happy when I found out that another LOTR game was being made. I should've known better. This one looks like it's a port from a console. There are a whole 4 classes, each with about 3 different attacks. The levels consist of killing stuff until the game decides you've won. It comes across almost as a Battlefield-style LOTR game. If I wanted to play Battlefield, I would've bought Battlefield.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I really don't get why people enjoy playing this type of game. The whole "top-down, mash random buttons until you win" gameplay is not what I call fun.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
All I will say about this is that W = Forward, S = Backward, A = Strafe Left, D = Strafe Right. Someone should've have told the programmers that.

Far Cry 2
Great graphics, etc. Lame gameplay. There are about 4 different things you can do in this game. After that, you have to repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Battle for Middle Earth 2
This is another which fell short on its promises. It promised the ability to build wherever you want. While it gives you that ability, it's of no use to you, because the unit cap is so small that you can only effectively defend a tiny base. Plus, the maps are so small that by the time you've expanded your base a little, the enemy's base is on your doorstep.

Red Faction 2
After the awesomeness of Red Faction 1, Red Faction 2 just bored me. Was I supposed to care about these random people? What did they have to do with Parker and Eos and the Red Faction? As far as I could see, they weren't related. The gameplay was very confusing, as little was given in the way of instructions. The guns weren't even given names in-game, so they were all just different types of "bullet shooters". Very boring overall.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
WAY too short to pay money for.

Aliens vs Predator 2
AVP 1 was great fun. It was scary, it was difficult, it was fast-paced. AVP 2 scary, but was nowhere near as difficult, and was not fast-paced. The story was lame and wasn't even explained properly. So many aspects were left for you to fill in. The animations were dodgy (people do not sway in the breeze). The Aliens in particular were badly-done, especially in comparison with AVP 1's Aliens. AVP 1's were much faster and more dangerous, especially to play as. AVP 2 made it feel more like you were playing as a velociraptor. After AVP 1, AVP 2 was a big let-down for me.

[GoSuNi]

For me will be....

Day of Defeat: Source - Lame cartoonish graphics and amazingly crazy recoils the guns still have.

Far Cry 2 - Bland graphics that doesnt even resemble Africa at all. Just green, dark green, brown, and more green. The quests are a pain by driving one side of the map to the far side and drive back. The driving is tedious and the enemies are annoying to kill once they start spawning 5 seconds after I leave an outpost.

Battlefield: Bad Company - I expected better single-player, at some point it gets frustrating such as the terrible controls on the helicopter and escaping a once wiped out building now respawned with even more. The controls are weird too. The multiplayer is good but suffers with some intense lag for some reason.

[ebackhus]

Originally Posted by Indoril Nerevar

Sins of a Solar Empire
SoaSE is a good game, but it is not what I expected it to be. The box promised such things as colonising worlds, spreading culture, expanding empires, etc. Turns out it's basically just a space RTS, and those things the box describes are just extra game mechanics for beating the enemy. There was no real empire-building or culture spreading. Good game, but not what I expected.

Oblivion
Possibly the biggest disappointment for me. I spent months getting excited about "the next Morrowind", as I expected it to be - watching trailers, looking at screenshots, etc. I even gave my computer a major upgrade so I would be able to play it at high detail. Got it, and found it to be nothing like Morrowind. The graphics were impressive, and the gameplay was smoother than Morrowind's, but there were so many ways in which Morrowind was better. Again, this is still a good game, but is nowhere near what I hoped and expected it to be.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest
I was really happy when I found out that another LOTR game was being made. I should've known better. This one looks like it's a port from a console. There are a whole 4 classes, each with about 3 different attacks. The levels consist of killing stuff until the game decides you've won. It comes across almost as a Battlefield-style LOTR game. If I wanted to play Battlefield, I would've bought Battlefield.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
I really don't get why people enjoy playing this type of game. The whole "top-down, mash random buttons until you win" gameplay is not what I call fun.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
All I will say about this is that W = Forward, S = Backward, A = Strafe Left, D = Strafe Right. Someone should've have told the programmers that.

Far Cry 2
Great graphics, etc. Lame gameplay. There are about 4 different things you can do in this game. After that, you have to repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Battle for Middle Earth 2
This is another which fell short on its promises. It promised the ability to build wherever you want. While it gives you that ability, it's of no use to you, because the unit cap is so small that you can only effectively defend a tiny base. Plus, the maps are so small that by the time you've expanded your base a little, the enemy's base is on your doorstep.

Red Faction 2
After the awesomeness of Red Faction 1, Red Faction 2 just bored me. Was I supposed to care about these random people? What did they have to do with Parker and Eos and the Red Faction? As far as I could see, they weren't related. The gameplay was very confusing, as little was given in the way of instructions. The guns weren't even given names in-game, so they were all just different types of "bullet shooters". Very boring overall.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
WAY too short to pay money for.

Aliens vs Predator 2
AVP 1 was great fun. It was scary, it was difficult, it was fast-paced. AVP 2 scary, but was nowhere near as difficult, and was not fast-paced. The story was lame and wasn't even explained properly. So many aspects were left for you to fill in. The animations were dodgy (people do not sway in the breeze). The Aliens in particular were badly-done, especially in comparison with AVP 1's Aliens. AVP 1's were much faster and more dangerous, especially to play as. AVP 2 made it feel more like you were playing as a velociraptor. After AVP 1, AVP 2 was a big let-down for me.

Wasn't Lost Coast just a tech demo that was free?

[Indoril Nerevar]

Originally Posted by ebackhus

Wasn't Lost Coast just a tech demo that was free?

Nope. $9.99 on Steam. It should have been free.

[ebackhus]

Wow, I didn't pay one red cent for it.

[Tiber Septim]

I spent quite a while trying to think of what games have been a disappointment to me, then I realised it would be far easier to list the games that haven't disappointed me.

• Morrowind
• Fallout 3

That's it.
Pretty much the last decade's worth of games I have played have not lived up to my expectations. I'm not saying they were all absolutely horrible, but they could have been so much better.

[bruiser]

I got Lost Coast. It was free. Direct from Steam. After playing it, I agree it would not have been worth paying for.

[floop12444]

Mirrors edge
The Singleplayer was way too short.
The multiplayer was even worse, all it was was time trials, i was at least expecting some head to head online.
The gameplay/graphics however were nice, but that was about the only thing.

[Mcninjaguy]

I wish I could remember all of the games I don't like. Then I can rant about em and ranting is fun!

Command and Conquer 3 and Kane's Wrath - Not only poor gameplay but Kane's Wrath was only 32 bit. Fail EPIC FAIL.

Lord Of the Rings - Conquest - Just crappy gameplay. Its like it was from 2005.

Harry Potter GAMES - Books are EPIC, games fall short of me wanting to barf in the case and seal it shut and send it back to manufacturer. Its not really that bad but as a Potter fan I will want to badly play the games. It was going to get no better than the Wii version which at least gave you workout for Half Blood Prince and the Order of the Phoenix.

The Witcher (before patches) - This game made me buy the book that it was loosely based off of and a great book that was. The loading times were really long and the gameplay was glitchy. This is fixed in the Enhanced version which I can download even though I have the regular version. This game is one of the best examples of a comapny that spent maybe over a million $$$ to fix a game up and released the fixes/ expansion and extra content for free. That was nice of em.

Demon Stone (xbox) - I spent $45 on the game without renting it first only to realize it was a cheap rip off of Gauntlet and when I did try to get some money back they gave me $2. Eeeech, I hate it!

Alone in the Dark (360) - all I can say is this.
"OMG OMG zombies are coming quickly flash the zombies by opening your coat then combine lighter fluid with tape and something else. Why isn't this cheap tape working!"
Smash
Gameover your face has eaten while you were still alive and didn't even realize it since you were paying too much attention to manly chest

Rainbow Six 2 - I still like this game and this soldier can pivot from behind walls like nobodies business but that's all they can do or they die.

Spore - Fun gameplay but the anything above the civilization stage (space) is hard and boring. Way too short.

MMORPG's - I don't want to collect bug guts for you mr creepy Elf.

Any Need for Speed Game except Shift (yet to play) and Porsche Unleashed.

Theater of War - Crap. You don't need to do a thing to win the games.

Gothic 3 If you can stand laggy gameplay on a high end computer and every single bug in a game then this one is for you. You have to also content with crappy gameplay and storyline. Have fun.

Devil May Cry 4 - He doesn't cry! I want to cry for his sadness that he holds in. I'm not into these really arcadey overly hard games.

Far Cry 2 - I kill a man 2 minutes ago and slaughter and destroy their village. They're all respawning as soon as I reach a certain distance away. They never kill me, they just kill the vehicle and I have to get out shoot them and repair mine. The game felt like a chore.

Prince of Persia(2008 version) - The lady is cute and the graphics are good but the battles aren't bloody and too far in between.

SIms 1,2,3 I like making same sex lady couples and that's about it.

I wish I could remember more games. But does it really matter?

[afccarl666]

Originally Posted by Mcninjaguy

Harry Potter GAMES - Books are EPIC, games fall short of me wanting to barf in the case and seal it shut and send it back to manufacturer. Its not really that bad but as a Potter fan I will want to badly play the games. It was going to get no better than the Wii version which at least gave you workout for Half Blood Prince and the Order of the Phoenix.

Far Cry 2 - I kill a man 2 minutes ago and slaughter and destroy their village. They're all respawning as soon as I reach a certain distance away. They never kill me, they just kill the vehicle and I have to get out shoot them and repair mine. The game felt like a chore.

Prince of Persia(2008 version) - The lady is cute and the graphics are good but the battles aren't bloody and too far in between.

I agree with all these. I hate it when they all come back when you kill them. Civillians wouldn't go a miss either. And POP, the last battle I did was against the woman that keeps moving. Battle lasted 10 seconds. Pretty much sums it up.

Got some more here:
FIFA 10: Am I the only one that thinks the other players on your team don't run into the space enough? And the gameplay is too slow?

Gran Turismo 5: Hopefully the March 2010 release date will hold up. And I got my hopes up in September

The Sims 3: The fact my PC barely plays it with any graphical effects (Though I have got less than the minimum RAM requirement ).

Need For Speed Shift: Not NFS. This is circuit racing. And the handling in Ferrari Challenge actually looks quite good compared to this.

[GoSuNi]

Do you know what's crazy? Far Cry 2 got very positive reviews, seems like the reviewers are slacking off. Far Cry 2 was terribly boring.

[Baejung92]

I think the only games that didn't disappoint me in some way or another were ones that I played when I was just getting into gaming (circa 2004~05). I thought SimCity 3000 and Battlefront II were absolutely amazing beyond expectations, and though now I realize they're not exactly the best games out there, I still had tons of fun with them (still do, in fact).

As I played more games and got more experienced with them, I started expecting more, and so was disappointed when games didn't do everything I thought they would. I think the Half-Life Episodes are incredibly good games, but they still fell short of my heightened expectations.

[Lord Sirian]

I'll list the few games that haven't disappointed me.

Half life 2 (and the Eps)
Portal
Prototype
Morrowind
CSS (I guess, because I didn't even know what the heck it was until I got the GOTY edition of HL2, so I had no expectations, so how can I be disappointed? )

Anyway those games are the ones that I can say haven't disappointed me. Most of the rest have, but most of those have still been good games. - Just not as good as I was expecting.

[Zealex]

Call of duty 4 was pretty disappointing to me. My brother played it with his friends gave it to me a week later. I played it for a couple months, sadly I have no one to hand it down too :/.
It just felt like a run and gun shooter for me. I don't know why the sniper scopes were so shaky when I could spray with a saw and never miss a shot...

[Lord Sirian]

CoD4 didn't disappoint me.... But that was only because the bar was set so low that it was > 6 feet underground. Hard to be disappointed by a game that you're expecting nothing of. I expected nothing good and I got nothing good. (I didn't buy it, played it at a friend's house. and that was a long time ago).

[Zealex]

All my friends(xbox users..) seem to love the cod series and are all so thrilled to get the MW2 once it comes out. Heck, one kid is missing school for it(I was shocked by this). MW2 looks pretty disappointing to me. Oh well.

Half life 2:Deathmatch is pretty boring/disappointing. I got it in a bundle with css dods hl2:lost coast(20 minute gameplay lol) and hl2:deathmatch for 20 bucks.

[Lord Sirian]

Some people just like samey shooters that add nothing to the gaming world. I guess they just don't understand the brilliance of games like Half life and Half life 2. - They just say something like:

ohh it looks weird/its about aliens and i have to actually think about this game and whats going on rather than just point and shoot like most of the other games i mindlessly play 24/7. So i dont like it cause it makes my brain hurt when i think

[Zealex]

Why is that so true ? Isn't portal a really "hard" thinking game too?

[Lord Sirian]

Heh. Portal is really funny. - But a lot of the humour is too subtle for the people who just like mindless shooters.

To be honest I'm kind of grateful for games like CoD4, they've made me think hard before buying a game - just in case I'm disappointed in it. A lot of games sound good when you hear about them, but once you play them... they just... aren't what you were wanting.