Biggest game let down you've ever had?

[DEAD34345]

L.A Noire the game was so boooooooooooooooooooooooring I couldn't even finish it, after all the hype and it being made by rockstar or take 2 or whoever the hell made it it was just terrible

Well, my disappointment is from the same game but for entirely different reasons. I loved the game, with all its interviews and detective work broken up by fun little chase scenes/shootouts. Then, just as the main character finally begins to become more likeable we switch to another. This was a little jarring, but I was overall OK with it. Then, the game suddenly turns into an entirely generic 3rd person shooter and ends.

Spoiler

Oh, and the original character just dies because he couldn't get out of a sewer pipe.

 

[Darkeagle6]

For me, it was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life.

You see, around the time I was 9 years old or so, I first rented Harvest Moon 64. It hooked me like no other game had hooked me before. I won't go into the details too much, because I can write paragraphs about why this game is still my favorite Harvest Moon (yes, I do know nostalgia plays at least a part in this), but suffice it to say that I made my mother rent it so often that she basically paid the game's cost in rental fees, after which she grew tired of bringing it back to the rental store a week late and just bought it for me XD

The following harvest moons I played didn't quite live up to that (I'm thinking mostly of Friends of Mineral Town/Back to Nature), because while there was more to do, the world and characters did not feel as "alive" as they did in HM64. They were still fun games, mind, just not as special (I realise I sound like a nostalgia-spewing fanboy here, but hear me out).

Anyway, when Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was announced and all the screenshots and character information were being shown on the internet in Harvest Moon fan forums, I grew extremely excited, even more so when fans with imported copies from Japan started telling us what the game was like. This was a game that brought in a very fresh and interesting take on the concept, with a different, very pleasing new aesthetic, new characters (after milking out the same characters for so many games, Save the Homeland notwithstanding), different mechanics, and most importantly, the feel of a small community withdrawn from the rest of the world, with no supermarkets or hospitals or such things. Basically, everything I could have asked from a Harvest Moon game, even today. I can't describe how excited I was when I finally held the game in my hands.

I tried to like it. I really did. But the game is just terrible. Some really bad design choices and balancing issues, absolutely boring villagers who rarely say anything interesting (or sometimes don't make any sense, like that time when you try and give a flower to your wife and you're asked if you're selling it to her o_0), a good number of bugs (not the 6-legged kind), and very little to do for the entire 10 years of gameplay the game expects you to play. The game had so much potential to push the series further and create a great experience for both fans of the series and newcommers, and yet ended up being my biggest game dissapointment ever. I know some newcommers enjoyed it, so I'm pretty sure part of the reason I hate the game so much is that I let myself get super hyped about it (eh, I was 15 IIRC), but there's no denying it's got some really bad problems.

That was the last time I ever let myself get swept by hype. Incidentally, I thought the two Harvest Moon games for the Wii were pretty fun, although if you're interested in the series get one or the other( preferably Animal Parade), as they're more similar than Back to Nature was similar to HM64. I know that no game will ever live up to Harvest Moon 64 by now, because I'm aware of how much that game's memory is covered in nostalgia for me, but I can't help but feel that it did something special that no game in the series has ever matched.

I know that I just ranted on games that most people haven't played, don't care about and/or think are stupid, but I'm sure at least one person around here will feel my pain XD

Persona, I heard the series was super amazing and it sounded like my kind of thing. I guess I wasn't suppose to start with the first one...

I imagine you've played the remake on PSP? I haven't played it, but from what I've heard its got really bad, antiquated gameplay and is just a bad port overal. When most people rave about the Persona games, they're talking about Persona 3 and 4, which are completely different, quite original in their gameplay formula (if you overlook that the two games are near-identical) and really fun if you're its target audience. I've spent at least 300 hours in those two games (not 300 each, mind ) The plots are barely connected at all (references to the previous games are completely non-essential to the plot of each individual game). Check out some reviews for the games!

 

[Kenami]

Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Definitively well put together but no fun factor in it for me, which is weird because I'm a pretty big Batman fan.

 

[wangtron5000]

Dungeon Seige 3 was he biggest let down for me, they killed a good franchise.

 

[lion el jhonson]

Dragon Age 2... GAGAGAAGAGAHAHAHAAGAGAAGAAGAHAGAGAHAAAGARARRAARARARAAGAAAH

 

[Vivec93]

The Fable series and Dragon Age II are the biggest let downs for me.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Got a couple...
Borderlands, although it doesn't really count because it was mainly the ending that sucked BALLZ. Rest of the game was ok, and I found the visual style to be rather appealing, unlike some.

Allen Wake, loved Max Payne and was super hyped about this game. Firstly, they didn't release it on PC which was a bit harsh (for Max Payne fans I though). Otherwise, I found it to be a little stale in the action department, though the story really had me going for a while.

And lastly, Resident Evil 5, which started off pretty cool, and I stuck through to the end, but it lost all of its scare factor for me. Mercenaries mode made up for it totally though. RE4 was still pretty twisted, but that annoying blonde chick had me grinding my teeth in frustration, at least you could kill her in a myriad of wonderful ways.

 

[jjboat]

without a doubt, pokemon black version. been a loyal fan since yellow version, but felt a bit worn out after playing through so many new installments and burning through so much cash just to play the same basic game for over a decade. Game Freak said this new game would be an overhaul, so when i was making my way through victory road once again i was like fuck it. Nintendo has a formula to make something special with the series, every time i play i think of a plethora of simple ways the game could be updated. but they just take baby steps. so maybe ill have to sit the next few generations out, maybe by then the updates will be noticeable.

Also portal 2. the game was pretty awesome, but didn't live up to my standards. and some of the puzzles just pissed me off.

OP: I played the third age, it was pretty awful. I think i got to rohan, and i was losing so much in normal battles that i just gave up. the story was so bland and the characters were role playing game cliches that lacked the depth of the tolkien characters. the graphics were ugly with muddy textures and the routes were far too limited and never gave the game the sense of scale it needed.

 

[Mount]

Another vote for Spore. They hyped it up with all the "oooooo you can design your creatures however you like!!" ...yeah, if you don't mind them not having the best stats. Every stat has basically ONE specific part that is the best, so if I want a fast creature with good social skills and a strong ranged attack, it WILL have the exact same parts as every other fast/social/ranged creature. Further, when they set up the feature to populate MY world with creatures designed by other players, they doomed me to playing a game where 3 out of every 5 creatures was designed to look like a penis. >_<

Also, I play a lot of games from the Big Fish Games library. It really makes me nuts when I play a demo which cuts me off at a specific storyline point, rather than at the 1-hour time limit. If you have to stop me 17 minutes in because you're afraid I'll SOLVE your game in under an hour? You made a BAD GAME, and you lost a potential customer.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Final Fantasy X (Something just did not click like the others had before it)
Sonic Unleashed (No. Just no.)
Ratchet and Clank Size matters (Maybe because it was the PS2 port. I don't know. I just hated it.)
Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (I hated it. Simply hated it.)

I'm going to say Spore, too. It went from looking like the best and most innovative game ever to a set of editors with a game grudgingly attached. Not to mention the fact that you see almost nothing of your creature once you enter the Civilization part of the game.

Yeah game was kinda shitty
I enjoyed the space part a bit. But I quit after hitting the center of the galaxy.

 

[TheSchizoid]

Final Fantasy X (Something just did not click like the others had before it

I've always called it "Final Fantasy: Sailor Moon". I have yet to finish it, especially since I don't think I'm getting the 100% ending. And when did FF games have multiple endings? Especially ones that depended on a completion percentage? Fuck you Square! (Not yet SquareEnix at the time).

 

[freakydan]

How am I the first one to mention Duke Nukem Forever? I know it was never going to live up to the lengthy development, and the hype did nothing to help the situation, but I wasn't looking for a great, ground breaking game. I was looking for a capable, mindless FPS. That's right, I wasn't looking for a good game. Just a decent one. It was still a massive let down.

Edit: Apparently, I overlooked someone else saying DNF. Ah, well. I stand by the rest of my post.

 

[WaysideMaze]

If you'd asked me a month ago, I'd have said Soul Calibur 3 (console version; arcade was fine).

Really? Now I'd say SC4.

I played SC3 for hundreds of hours, I absolutely loved it. That was on top of however much time I spent on Soul Edge and SC2 (but not SC, no dreamcast).

I got myself all hyped up for 4, and felt incredibly let down by it. Was just missing that spark, and I returned the game after just 1 day.

 

[WaysideMaze]

How am I the first one to mention Duke Nukem Forever?

You're not, Schizoid mentioned it on the previous page.

Plus everyone's too busy mentioning spore. And rightfully so, that game sucked.

 

[PiemasterZ]

Borderlands and Oblivion both come to mind. Borderlands had potential but wall of text character interaction and three enemy types grate after about two minutes, and after Fallout three, picking up Oblivion to see what all the fuss had been about proved more perplexing than illuminating. But by far the biggest let down has to be Dragon age 2. It was like some kind of horrible hack and slash/tactical rpg hybrid that just didn't work. Even the story had parts I didn't like, and an annoying "determined to be embedded on the cynical side of the sliding scale no matter what" vibe, like everyone in the story forgot their meds and was either manic depressive or insane.

 

[Elec0]

Left 4 Dead 2, or Brink.

 

[MetalDooley]

Grand Theft Auto 4. For all the great scores it got, when I played it, it was lacking one thing that any game really needs for me. Fun. It looked good, and had a great story. But it wasn't any fun to play, like the older games were.

Yup that pretty much sums up my feelings on the game

Borderlands. I heard tales of hundreds of thousands of guns and GOTY material.

What I got was a grinding quests through uninteresting environments with lousy combat using a few guns with their stats modified in many different ways.

Agreed yet whenever you say this people tend to say "oh it's meant to be played in co-op".No,no,no if co-op is optional in a game then my enjoyment of a game shouldn't depend on me using the damn thing

 

[Vhite]

Gothic 4. It's not a Gothic game.

 

[ZephrC]

Final Fantasy VIII, no question. The height of my expectations for that game, compared to the complete and utter failure that it actually turned out to be just cannot be matched. Especially since that game by itself managed to completely change the way I decide which games to buy and which to wait on. I'm far more careful about that to this very day because of how mind-bogglingly disappointed I was in Final Fantasy VIII.