The game you had highest expectations for that let you down

[Cold Rival]

100 times Halo 3. The hype surrounding that game during the build up was immense - and honestly I think I was expecting too much because of it all. I remember people saying that it was going to be "the greatest game in history", and "you'll never want to play anything else". I was bored with it after about 10 hours worth of game-play. On top of that, the story was meant to fantastically wrap up the trilogy. I was rather disappointed.

 

[onikage567]

soul calibur 4. sure, ivy has massive boobs, but it was just soo repetitive.
Unreal tournament 3. boring, everything looks the same and the weapons were annoying. the first unreal tournament still kicks ass though

 

[Russian Redneck]

The first Guitar Hero game really let me down (I bought it then sold it only a few months ago so shut up!). If only the hammer-ons and pull-offs worked then it would be my favorite Guitar Hero game if not one of my favorites. As things stand right now, it's just unecessarily difficult. Actually, I don't think it's even too difficult; just really, really, REALLY frustratin, like more-than-GHIII frustrating.

Another game was Phoenix Wright: Trials & Tribulations. I went into the final case expecting something epic yet all I got was pretty much "WHINE WHINE WHINE and then I killed the person. CAES KLOSED GAIZ LOL". Seriously, there wasn't even an epic monologue or interaction between two of the focal characters, just the standard character montage scenes.

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is another stinker that I won't soon forgive. After the advent of Roller Coaster Tycoon and its perfection in Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, Chris Sawyer just had to go and make a 3-D interface which would have rocked if it hadn't been so clumsy. Some would probably argue that the game made up for its letdown by allowing you to ride the attractions you built but by that time a zillion other ride simulation games had a foothold on the market and RCT3 seemed like a late-comer to the party.

 

[djeeten]

Metal Gear Solid 3. I heard lots of good things about the MSG series and when I saw MSG3 in the bargain bin I couldn't resist. I realy don't get what people see in this game. I found the story to be convoluted and the gameplay overly complicated.

 

[EzraPound]

The wierd thing is a fwew of those are considered the best game in some of the highest regarded series ever.

It's not that weird, since that's largely why I had high expectations for them. I mean, it would be hard to have high expectations for Daikatana after seeing it thoroughly denigrated in an issue of PC Gamer, right?

Ironically, Matrix enthusiasts have wormed that argument on too when defending the ending of that series as well. Yes, I have heard the one about the "Lady and the Tiger" over a million times...in my ending he got the Tiger. I honestly hear that all the time...but if you are trying to tell me I am playing (or in this case, more reading) someone else's story and am brought to that sort of conclusion it usually means one of two things...

1) The author was trying to challenge me intellectually (I would like to believe this, BUT)...
2) ...this type of ending is often used as a sort of cop out or to hide personal feelings/beliefs. In this case it also means the author was either indecisive about the ending or feared telling his own ending to the story thinking that it would not be accepted by mainstream society. I would love to be able to sit down with the story writers and actually find and ending of sorts to this- or at least, all of the possible endings that got sent to the cutting room floor at four days to release date.

Haha, someone who doesn't understand ambiguity. Ever read One Hundred Years of Solitude? Or The Trial?

Interesting. What it is about OoT that you were let down by? (I'm asking partly because I'm curious and partly because you should be prepared for the hate bomb you're likely to get)

Personally, I think it's a great game and all, but it kind of felt like a retread of Link to the Past with a graphical facelift. There are Zelda lovers and Zelda haters. I'm just a Zelda liker.

The Zelda series is admittedly influential, though I personally found OoT less enjoyable than other A-list N64 titles (Super Mario 64, GoldenEye, Conker, etc) because - like its 2D predecessors - progression in it was largely dependent on obscure, infuriating puzzles that tended to break up the pacing of the gameplay. IMO, placing the player in a room with no discernible exit and forcing them to inspect every smidgeon of the architecture or scroll haplessly through their items doesn't constitute venerable design, it just pisses people off.

That said, OoT has alot to like about it, and I certainly wouldn't dispute its status as one of the most influential titles ever.

C&C: Generals

After the great humour, superb balance & frantic pace of Red Alert 2 we get an awful RTS with... ahem... "questionable" moral values.

Pardon me, but what are you smoking? Red Alert 2 was one of the most poorly balanced RTS's in contemporary history, and its humour was plebian and condescending at best. Remember when the game first launched on Westwood Online, and noone played Soviet because the faction just empirically sucked alot more than the Allies? Or when Westwood had to patch the Demolition Truck because it could blow up, like, half the map in 1.00?

 

[AngryMan]

Force Unleashed needed a bit of polish, but I wouldn't say my expectations were too high from the get go.

This. What I expected of Force Unleashed was exactly what I got. Same goes for Spore.

I hate to adopt the pessimistic line here, but if you have low expectations of everything, then you'll always be either vindicated or pleasantly surprised.

Me, I aim somewhere in the middle and try to have realistic expectations. That means looking at the actual mechanic and production of the game and only reaching a conclusion after some thought, rather than swallowing the hype.

And you know what? I can't name a game that I've ever felt truly let down by. I expected Force Unleashed to be an average-at-best "god of war" ripoff with a technically interesting physics engine gimmick, and that's exactly what I got, but what I wasn't expecting was just how good that physics engine actually is, or just how stylish some of the unlockables are (Black lightsaber? Sith robes? FUCK yes!). Similarly, I expected Spore to be a disjointed series of half-formed games with an interesting procedural animation gimmick and lots of potential for running into hilarious player-made monstrosities, but what I didn't anticipate was the ENTIRE SECOND HALF OF THE GAME (AKA the space age). Maybe I'm just obsessive, but I can't stop having fun with terraforming and planet sculpting.

Point is, if your expectations for a game are accurate, then you're never going to be disappointed. Maybe I'm just a better-than-average judge of how good a game's going to be?

 

[Trace2010]

Ezra,

I'll agree with you about Goldeneye, I liked that one better then OoT.

Yes, I do enjoy ambiguity and have read both, but I enjoyed The Emperor's New Clothes so much more...

 

[AngelLord57]

Halo 3 and GTA IV. So much hype but they ended up sucking.

 

[Albino Ninja]

Splinter Cell Conviction-yes I know its not out yet, but they ruined what it was. *tear*
Oblivion-had incredible potential
Mass Effect-more RPG less shooter
Kotor 2-Lucasarts rushed the developer it was gonna be awesome
Mercs 2-C'mon, I mean C'mon!!!
Army of Two-shallow and less than what was promised.

 

[crono738]

Force Unleashed
then Guild Wars: Factions...

 

[WILLTHEALMIGHTY]

Mass Effect

Bioware just doesn't know how to write characters with personnality anymore. If you're going to have huge amounts of dialog, at least make them interesting to listen to.

 

[The Iron Ninja]

Mercs 2-C'mon, I mean C'mon!!!

I waited so long for that game... and what do I get?
(To quote from an earlier post)

14 missions that I can complete in one day, repetitive and frankly rather lame dialogue, the inability to play local co-op, enemies that instead of using tactics just fire endless ammounts of rockets at you until you die, terrible AI and the return of that annoying Australian chick (who will not shut up)

Fuck you Pandemic! And Fuck you too EA!

 

[Kyriptonite]

Mines halo3, Its quite a gud game but with all the hype it was made out to be a god like video game, which it clearly isent, which made it shit for me. But the hype wasent the worst thing. It was the fucking beta. Now beta made me think it was going to be brilliant and when I got the game I played it for an hour thought it was shit and went off to gears of war and if the same shit happens with gears of war 2 im gona kill someone by shoving nails in there eyes. Same goes for fable 2 and fallout 3.

 

[CIA]

FF xii, square fucked up...bad.

See, to this day, I will never understand the hate for this game.

Let me ask you, what are your exact reasons for disliking the only good product Square's pumped out since FFVI?

The characters where about as dumb and irritating as you can get with the possible exception of whats-his-name the dude with the scar. I hated the way the combat worked because there wasn't enough control over the battle. Mostly thought it was the story and the fake British accents. Almost all final fantasy games disappoint me because in my view they haven't been as good as FF VIII. I'm too young to have gotten into the old FFs. I tried to play a few game boy remakes but i lost interest pretty fast for some reason.

Sorry for the delay.

 

[Voltrox747]

Mario Kart for Wii, who ever made this game I want to see burn! Not one new level, even a 5 year old child has more imagination than these bloody nips. Also why the hell would you place a super missile ability that does all the work for you, seriously you can come back from 12th place to first in no time, there is as much luck to the game than there is skill!

Welcome to Mario Kart. Ever since the blue shell showed up luck has been a major factor. I don't agree with all of their choices of which tracks to bring back, but I did like a few of the new ones. Rainbow Road is the craziest yet and the mall, Maple Treeway, Grumble Volcano, Koopa Cape, and Moonview Highway are all great. My only complaint is that you can't set items to strategic during online matches, which completely negates my enthusiasm over the option being there in the first place. It's still my favorite Mario Kart yet, as the bikes are much more fun to control and overall the gameplay itself is well polished, even if they got lazy on the rest of it.

Same goes for Brawl in fact. Aside from tripping, which is universally agreed to suck, I thought the gameplay was a nice mix of the best aspects of Melee and 64. However, I have absolutely no reason to play it since online is stuck on 4-player time matches, which is the worst possible setting in the game as far as I'm concerned, and I very rarely get the chance to play it with friends. Brawl's crappy online actually stopped me from buying a Wii, as my GF has one and I can play the single-player games at her place. I would have picked up a Wii of my own just to be able to play Smash whenever I like, but after that epic failure I'm not going to bother until another multiplayer game comes out that I would put up the money for.

EDIT: I completely forgot to mention FF12. For the record, my favorite FF games are 6, 9, and maybe 10 if you don't count the stupid ending. Aside from the story, I thought 10 had a great battle system and I really liked being able to switch characters mid-fight and control the summons for once. As for 12, it had the most boring battle system I have EVER seen in an RPG. The gambit system seemed like a great idea at first, but in practice I just ended up fighting battles by holding the control stick in one direction and hoping to God I got to the next area before I fell asleep. The boss battles were ok, but the rest of the game was a complete drag, since the story was nothing more than a long string of fetch-quests. The only thing I really liked was the political craziness going on, and honestly I found myself becoming much more interested in the stuff going on between Vane and the other nations than in what the party was doing. I managed to get to the end of the game, but was underleveled and couldn't beat the last form of the final boss. I had no desire to go hold the control stick down for another hour or two, so I quit there. I'll give it this though, Dr. Cid is my new favorite crazy guy. His voice actor was amazing, and both he and the character deserved a better game.

 

[Antinash]

Spore: Doh! Instead of the promised "sim-everything" we got a combination of 5 stripped down games melded into one massively underwhelming title.

Star Wars: TFU : just plain boringness, nothing new or original. force powers are fun until you realize that your going to wind up doing the same thing over and over again.

After all the hype for Spore, I was expecting something that would have my attention for weeks. Once I got to the center of the universe, I was just like '' eh, I have no urge to play this again whatsoever''

Also TFU: whats in gods name was that crap?

 

[Noamuth]

Soul Calibur 4.

I was shitting bricks over this game coming out. I hadn't been looking forward to a game release like that for years..

.. Then it just pissed all over itself and died.

Combat? Good, not great, but good. That I could forgive. It's never been amazing. I liked the new additions (mostly).

Graphics? Holy shit, they were amazing. Probably the only part that lived up to my expectations, but also the part that mattered the least to me.

Storyline/character development? Out the window. It was never great, but.. Bloody hell, they didn't even try to do a proper story mode.

Bah.