Video Game Disappointments

[gunswordfist]

IV's story mode was filmsy, had no tag team mode for no reason (only bringing that up because story mode had tag team matches.) and no Weapon Master Mode but beyond that, it's a good game. I've spent countless hours on Vs. I like it more than MKX and about as much as Super Street Fighter IV, as far as current gen games are concerned.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

SSFIV is the most fun that I had with a fighting game last gen.

[talonmalon333]

I have to echo Soul Calibur III. I loved II, but III never felt polished to me. It might've also hurt my interest in the series as a whole, because I only played very little of IV and never touched V.

[gunswordfist]

I've never played Soul Edge, I, III or V. I want to get V.

[Nel_Annette]

I won't go into every flaw of each game I mention, but I'll just try and say why they initially disappointed me.

The one-two-three knockout punch of Sonic Heroes-Shadow the Hedgehog-Sonic The Hedgehog 2006. I had gotten back into the series through the SA games on GameCube, and was heavily anticipating Sonic Heroes. I loved Shadow in SA2. When I saw that he was coming back, I was hyped. Four teams, four stories that probably intersected like the SA games. I played the demo that came with Mario Kart Double Dash over and over... and then Sonic Heroes actually came out. I can appreciate what the game was trying to do looking back. It was a sort-of 3D take on the old formula; vibrant colors, an Act 1/2 setup for each level, with boss battles after each, and a much more subdued story. But for 14-year old me, just coming off the more story-focused SA games, this was not what I was wanting at the time. I didn't like the levels, I hated the sheer lack of story, the characters barely interacted with each other in-level besides pointing out things in said levels, the levels are too long for their own good and while I like a few pieces, I don't find the soundtrack all that great. And they bring in Shadow and get vary vague about whether he's a robot or not and it was just really frustrating for the Shadow fan that I was at the time. And Metal Sonic. They give him this cool new look, and he transforms into something stupid before we get to fight him.

If how they treated Shadow in SH was like giving me blue balls, Shadow's self-titled game was a kick in the nuts. I got over the guns. But the game was sooooo boring and try-hard. Unneeded, awkward cursing, bland levels with some of the most uninspired music in the series, a really badly implemented morality system... and the endings you could get! They were terrible. "I am Shadow Android, the ultimate Shadow Android! This is who I am!" "I am Shadow, defender of... I don't know! This is who I am!" "I am Shadow, and I found the computer room! This is who I am!" Dreadful. I stopped being a fan of the character after that.

And, well, StH06 is StH06. I am so happy I didn't have a PS3 or X-Box 360 at the time, or I probably would have bought the game on day one. But, thanks to the internet, I saw all the horror stories, though I couldn't believe that the game was worse than Shadow. And then I got my 360 and rented it from Blockbuster. God damn, I have never had to fight a game's controls that hard in my life. There are so many elements to it that leave you in shock, wondering how SEGA could release a game in that state and say "good enough". No. Nooooooooooo. My favorite franchise had produced two clunkers followed by the worst game I had ever played, and I was done. Unleashed fortunately put out a damn good demo, otherwise I probably would have never looked back. I actually didn't own Sonic 06 until last year when I picked up a used copy for a laugh.

Assassin's Creed Revelations and Assassin's Creed III. I liked the first Assassin's Creed well enough, but I loved AC2 and AC Brotherhood. But by Revelations, I was tired of Ezio, and unlike a lot of fans in the series, I found Constantinople to be the most boring city in the series. AC3 was just awkward. Mostly due to the wait time to actually play as Connor (in retrospect, I love Haytham, and would have loved him as the main character), and then from there, realizing how disappointing of a lead Connor is. His personality is understandable, but seeing it in action throughout the use of the game is aggravating. AC Liberation and Unity also sucked, but I had no expectations for the former and was informed about Unity's quality before it ever had the chance to let me down.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Oh, for fuck's sake, Miyamoto, what did you do?! No partner characters? No real story? Bowser doesn't talk once? No reason to battle because you gain nothing from it? Boss battles that are either stupid hard without a certain item or stupid easy with said item? Hardly any humor because the writers barely get to do anything? Fuuuuuuck that noise. The Thousand Year Door is my favorite game of all time. You took everything good about that game and tossed it in the trash. Cripes.

The Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks/Skyward Sword. I hate touchscreen controls. I hate waggle controls. Zelda is one of my favorite franchises and that was three games in a row that let me down. SS is the only 3D Zelda title I haven't beaten. The hand-holding got to me. My Wiimotes not responding how I wanted them to got to me. And I know we have had arguments about this in the past, and that a good lot of you disagree with me, but I still think that the further away something is from Link, the blurrier it looks to the point that the backgrounds of the environment look like a blurry, pastel vomit nightmare.

Snowboard Kids DS. I love the N64 games to death. I looked past the character redesigns and heavily anticipating this game. And when I finally got it, I thought it sucked. That's about it.

That's all I got. There's probably more, but this is just from me looking at the shelf.

[Foggle]

I was heavily anticipating Aliens: Colonial Marines. Two years before release, I witnessed - in person - people from Gearbox playing a game with excellent graphics, amazing atmosphere, fantastic combat, cool level design, and enjoyable writing.

We all know how that garbage turned out. Worst fucking bait and switch of all time.

I just have to wonder... what happened to the game I saw them play that day? It wasn't pre-rendered footage; it was real. Why did we get a piece of early 2000's shovelware instead? It makes no sense.

Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Oh, for fuck's sake, Miyamoto, what did you do?! No partner characters? No real story? Bowser doesn't talk once? No reason to battle because you gain nothing from it? Boss battles that are either stupid hard without a certain item or stupid easy with said item? Hardly any humor because the writers barely get to do anything? Fuuuuuuck that noise. The Thousand Year Door is my favorite game of all time. You took everything good about that game and tossed it in the trash. Cripes.

Really glad I resisted the urge to pre-order.

[gunswordfist]

I hate touchscreen controls. I hate waggle controls

I have a new best friend.

Also, I refuse to believe any AC games are worse than the first one, if that's what you're saying.

[Nel_Annette]

The first AC game is very flawed, but I still liked it for what it was and had no expectations when I went into it. I guess on a technical level, it would be the worst. If you don't count the portable games anyway. Assassin's Creed Bloodlines is a sad affair.

[gunswordfist]

Yeah, I thought you might have meant most disappointing =/= worst.

I came into Assassin's Creed with about average hype. My hype was nowhere near as high as many other gamers was. They were going kind of crazy. I never understood it. Anyway, I thought the upgrades would be more exciting (like the only thing I heard about the game that excited me.) and everything else would be average. Nope, it was pretty below average overall. A lot of travel, a lot of repetitive missions and side quests. I had to force myself to beat the game back when I forced myself to beat any game I played long enough. I think AC broke me. I did kind of enjoy it towards the very end for some reason. It's mostly the middle that got on my nerves.

Anyway, I want AC to die and we get Sands Of Time style Prince Of Persias instead. I could accept as many of those as there are Ratchet & Clank games.

[Nel_Annette]

I like the idea behind how they had you do things in the first game. Naturally, you'd gather intel on your target, and then make a plan from what info you gathered, and use that to decide how to go about getting in and killing them. But the execution was what sank it for a lot of people. The intel missions are extremely samey, and time consuming. And the ones where you had to gather flags just seemed to come out of nowhere and make no sense considering the rest of the games atmosphere. If each target had unique intel missions, maybe like, three each, where you assassinated an underling before getting to them, maybe it would have been received better.

And the combat was pretty clunky. I feel like the combat shouldn't have got so easy in the later games though. In a series that focuses on assassinations, getting caught should make combat nearly a punishment. That's something I like about AC1. Yeah, it's a punishment for all the wrong reasons (clunky controls), but I do like how getting caught before reaching your target made the whole situation turn into complete hell and made the player feel like a total scrub. The games shouldn't fail you for getting caught, like some later ones do, but it should make combat something you do not want to get into.

[gunswordfist]

Yes, I think the intel missions where the main culprit. That got old fast. Having much more unique missions and being able to assassinate targets in more than two ways. It was either sneak up on them or attack head on, if I remembered correctly. Also, I remember daggers sucking at long range kills so long range was out. And I don't think you could poison anyone. It's been awhile. lol

I remember it used to take me like half an hour to kill all the guards when I just decided to say fuck it and just kill them all for whatever reason.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

They're competent games (well, the second one is) but they so soundly miss the point of the game design of the classic games that I have to wonder what exactly happened here. Dimps made Sonic Advance, so they know how to make a classic Sonic game. Sonic fans have told Sega for years exactly what they want from a 2D Sonic game. It was pretty easy, Sega of Japan. Pretty easy.

So what did they get right?

Well, some of the levels in episode 2 look really nice and some tunes are kind catchy. But compared to Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, 3&K, CD, or even Advance? Not even close.

There are next to no branching paths, the rolling and spindashing don't work, the homing attack doesn't fit at all, everything is automated, the levels frequently feature out of place gimmicks that don't fit, the physics (and I'm not a purist, for instance I don't mind either Sonic Generation's physics) are awful not just for a Sonic game but for a platformer in general (at least episode 2 fixed the momentum issue), and some of the most boring and tedious bosses ever.

I don't even think these are bad games when all is said and done, but they are terrible disappointments.

[Nel_Annette]

Good call. I've forgotten that one. I've seen fan games that would deserve the title of Sonic the Hedgehog 4 before the actual one. Had they chosen a different name, then it would have just been a mediocre 2D Sonic game. But that title's just as much a slap to the face as S'06 calling itself Sonic The Hedgehog. When you're going to make a new entry in the earliest incarnation of the series, the one that it's most well known for, there's an expectation of quality, and StH4 doesn't even come halfway close to the original trilogy (and Knuckles). I can't even think about it without thinking of how wasted its potential was. The blatant level-theme rip-offs and overabundance of gimmick stages just dragged it down.

On the plus side, we got some good music, like Metal Sonic's badass boss theme that I hope they bring back as his leitmotif should he appear again.

[gunswordfist]

I wish Tax Man made Sonic 4.

[Rynnec]

Eh, I disagree. I think that IV, while not great, at least had good mechanics going for it and had a good online mode.

SCIII was by far the worst, with some of my favorite characters being underpowered and downright unfun to use, the character creation option felt really limited in that game, and it has arguably the stupidest mode to ever be included in any fighting game.

Besides, V didn't really improve itself from IV, IMO, so it's not like you can really praise that game for adding more costumes and a throw-away story mode.

III has its fair share of problems, that's for certain, but it also doesn't have the things that bothered me in IV so much, like obnoxious clothing damage, stupid-even-by-FG-standards story, and a shitty single-player option. Say what you will about Chronicles of the Sword, but at least it gave solo players something, which is more than what I can say for IV and V. As for the CaS, if anything, IV's was even more limited, at least in III you could equip anything with any combination, while IV added that pointless "conflict" system, while V was much better in this regard, it still didn't go away completely. (that being said, V still has the best character creation system).

Speaking of V, gameplay wise, it felt a lot more satisfying than III or IV. Movement felt really great, the soul meter added an extra layer of strategy, and the combat just felt right, and while the clothing damage system is still there, it's made much less obnoxious than IV.