Your Single Biggest Disappointment Gaming Wise.

[Valkrex]

Metroid: Other M.

I'm a huge Metroid fan, and I've played nearly every Metroid game ever released. Except Metroid 2 since finding it was next to impossible for years, and I can't quite justify paying for it on my 3DS because college is expensive. I even got 100% item AND logbook completion in all three Metroid Prime games. I don't do shit like that often, if ever, so this should go to show how much I love this series.

Gameplay-wise I didn't have too much to complain about in Other M. It took getting used to, but once you got the hang of switching in and out of first person view and learning the dodge system, the gameplay was actually a lot of fun with some pretty well done levels and boss fights. The energy and missile systems were done in a new way that I actually rather liked, and exploring this massive space station felt very much like a melding of the Metroid Prime style first person games and the classic side-scrollers.


But the story... good god the story and the portrayal of Samus was downright criminally bad and caused me and all of my friends who love the Metroid series to delcare it non-canon in our eyes. I probably don't even need to go into why as its been done to death, but holy hell this game's story was just awful. It never happened. It doesn't exist to me, and the true Samus that we all know and love never had this mess of game plot dropped on her.

 

[Briantb]

Like many others have already said, Mass Effect 3 takes the cake. The ending was the biggest insult I have ever suffered as a gamer. After investing so much time and love into the franchise it felt like a slap in the face. I've mostly reconciled it, but I will never forget how I felt the first time I beat the game

I'm much the same, I started out playing on PC switched over to console with the ps3 release of ME and ME2, played through both prior to ME3 release and even took a few days off work to play ME3 only to get completely depressed and annoyed at ME3 ending. The extended ending DLC isn't any better ether.

 

[raeior]

So many games to choose from. DA:I, ME3, Spore, Dungeons.
Though I guess my biggest disappointment is still X Rebirth. I expected it to be buggy. All of Egosoft's games have been buggy as hell on release. I still preordered the collectors edition because I love that series and everything they told beforehand sounded interesting. Also there is simply no game that is comparable to the X series. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous are nice, but they have a completely differend scope. So I preordered it, hoping that this could fix a lot of the long standing problems with the engine (path finding being one of the biggest problems) since they developed a new one for Rebirth.
Little did I know that they would turn a series with a pretty small but loyal fanbase into some weird consolified shooter in space. They even managed to make the UI worse! I never thought that would be possible! Also the path finding is so broken that they "fixed" it by simply deactivating collision damage. The whole economy is a joke, all stations look the same, every NPC looks like he/she is 90 years old...
They are still patching it but I don't expect it to ever become a good game.

 

[RealRT]

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
What I expected - the expansion and building upon what made the first game great - huge environments with the feel of epic. A story with a more defined and distinguished main character. For Lords of Shadow to become the new Legacy of Kain
What I got - nonsensical story, atrocious stealth sections, lame ending, Dracula being far too bland to be interesting. The combat, bosses and castle sections were good though. Still proves that Legacy of Kain is irreplaceable.
Mass Effect 3
What I expected - for it to replace ME2 for me as ME2 replaced ME1 (and I only really started LOVING ME with ME2), all build ups to pay off, an epic conclusion with all my favorites coming back and epic music all around.
What I got - that ending, lame as fuck character sidequests, lame as fuck main theme.
RAGE
What I expected - id Software to come back to the FPS throne.
What I got - where the heck is my third act of the game?
The Bureau: XCOM Declassified
What I expected - Mass Effect with aliens in 1950s
What I got - Mass Effect with aliens in 1950s. With atrocious companion AI that makes it nigh unplayable.
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
What I expected - even better platforming, even better graphics, even better music, even better combat, the Dark Prince being cool, the game that combines the strengths of Sands of Time with the strengths of Warrior Within
What I got - worse platforming, laughable graphics, lame music, lame combat, the Dark Prince being lame, the game that panders to Sands of Time fans like crazy while having none of its charm or brilliance AND losing all the perks of Warrior Within in the process.

Finally, I got Painkiller Hell & Damnation on the PS3...the game runs like absolute Ass. It's fun when it's working but most of the time it runs at about 10FPS for me and just feels incredibly unresponsive. The first time I played this was on the original freaking Xbox for crying out loud, how is that one the better version?! Oh well, gotta get the PC version I guess.

Get the PC version on a Steam sale with the DLCs. They get sales fairly often and the discounts are pretty big.

 

[DanielBrown]

Worth mentioning Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as well.
First game was among my favorite games ever. Then the second one came along and improved on everything. I was sceptical over BTPS since it had another developer but I figured that more of the same couldn't be bad.
How wrong I was...

Could you expand on why it disappointed you? As someone who likes all the BL games and thinks BLPS is actually the best one (particularly due to it's awesome action skills and skill trees, the only time the other game's skill trees were as good was with Krieg's middle tree and Gaige's Anarchy tree.) (And the Grinder was a genius idea.) (And lasers, slams and cryo are all really fun to use) (And I like brackets ) As far as I can tell, the only bad part of BLPS was the endgame, which I never cared for in BL anyway so... (oh, and while I haven't bought it, I've heard the Holodome is meant to suck.)

I never got further than around level 20 iirc, but what bothered me so much up until then was that the maps felt very maze like and were a ***** to navigate. The humor was another disappointment. BL1 and 2 made me laugh a lot, but in BLPS I never even cracked a smile. Seen a lot of remarks on this saying that it's mostly humor only Australians would find funny, so I assume that's the case for me as well... And finally I don't like having to run around looking for air constantly. It's a minor annoyance, but one I could've done without.

Will definetly give it another go when they release a pack with all the DLC though. RPG shooters are rare and I fucking love the genre.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Another vote here for Mass Effect 3, Although Dragon Age 2 & DA:Inquisition come very close.

ME3's ending? I can't believe folk actually got that far! lol. It was the total u-turn in plot, setup and game mechanics which ground me down. The Illusive man going from a grey-area, results before morals character, to a fucking Scooby Doo villain was bad enough, but picking up quests from overhearing conversations??? WTF??? Did I just dream that??? Super hero of the Galaxy, with a plethora of contacts at his disposal, and a multitude of things to do is walking around gathering side quests from tab-hanging over local gossip? It's fucktarded beyond belief, and that's just a small gripe.

Dragon Age 2 I found horrible, a real sickener with none of the quality from the previous game, and DA:I I found a total mess.

Also an honourable mention to Oblivion. What a downturn in quality that was. From exploring a deep, hand-crafted world with layers of depth and atmosphere, to THE blandest copy-paste excercize you could ever experience. Utter pile of dog shite.

Dragon Age Inquisition

I'm clearly in the minority here though. This game was VERY highly received game from fans and critics alike. I feel like what many Diablo fans probably felt like when they played Diablo 3....'why isn't this game like D2? Where's my runewords? Necromancer?' etc. Plenty of people wanted D3 to be Diablo 2.5. I get that now...I want Inquisition to be Dragon Age 2.5.

What's so interesting about this is that I hated DA:2 with a passion, loved DA:O, but thought the same about DA:I.

How bizare that Bioware tried to please both fans, pleased neither, and yet the game remains so highly regarded.

Even as a stand alone game DA:I is just not fun. It's a dull, repetative, souless experience with no real core.

 

[Ultress]

Wild Arms 4: Playing Wild Arms 3 changed my outlook on JRPGS. The Migrant system and wild west setting were something I had never really seen before.The series had been trying to make a world that felt like it was dying and the till that point it was more tell than show. Here the world looks and feels like its dying,the healing berries are rare because the world is a dessert and you travel seas of sand. It builds up atmosphere and really pulled me in, I adore this game to say the least.

Then Wild Arms 4 came along dropping the great Wild West setting in favor of a generic post apoplectic setting with cardboard characters lead by a self righteous kid ,Jude. The creative tools and dungeons puzzles are replaced with annoying jumping challenges, made even more grating by the fact that Jude never shuts up when jumping. When it's not all about jumping it's simple switches hit puzzles. The combat is interesting with the Hex battle system,but it is horribly broken once a certain skill is learned. Best part is the guy at the Game Crazy swore up and down it was better than Wild Arms 3, I never listened to that man again.

 

[Halla Burrica]

Mario & Luigi Dream Team Bros, is probably the most disappointing game I have ever played (I have yet to play Mass Effect 3).

It was my first Mario and Luigi game, and I was really excited to try out this series. It didn't go very well. Combat was fun with its mixing traditional RPG gameplay with rhythm based gameplay, for about 40% of the time, when you were fighting in real life. When you went into a dream (which you do a lot of in this game), the combat just stopped being fun since you have to fight so many more enemies and made the thing into a chore. It was like they took the original combat in the reality segments, and then just pressed the TURBO button without much thought put into it.

Story wasn't much fun either. The main villain was bland and forgettable, faced with an even blander good guy hero that I wanted to shut up for most of the game.I honestly don't know which one was worse. The Mario and Luigi series are known for their cheeky humor and funny dialogue. If there is any in this series, it was not in this installment. I don't think I laughed or even snickered once during the 40 hours it took me to beat this game. And that's the other problem. This game is 40 hours long, in a bad way. Way too much of it feels padded, overly tutorialized or like boring fetch quests. I don't have a problem in general with fetch quests, in fact some of my favorite game series have a lot of "fetch questing" in them, like Zelda, Metroid and even Bioshock (when you think about it, isn't Bioshock just one really long series of fetch quests? oh well). But here it's just dull, since there isn't really much motivation for it. With both the hero (sort of) and villain being really dull, and with Mario & Luigi being mute, what else is there to give you motivation? Peach? Nope. This game is the first time I have really hated Peach, mostly because she is given dialogue, but she doesn't have anything to say that gives her any positive qualities, at all. I also hate her because she is the reason I had to spend 40 hours playing this f#cking game. I know it's a Nintendo story, and a Nintendo Mario story at that, but they could at least have had something to engage me. Games like Metroid Prime 3 or Skyward Sword did that just fine.

Bosses are also disappointing. Now I'm not talking about the traditional bosses, but the big one-on-one fight with Luigi and some monsters. They were hyped up to be these epic godzilla-esque fights, but turned out to be just standard, turnbased RPG fights with more flashier and over-the-top visuals and animation than the other fights. Lots of style, but very little substance.

All in all, really disappointing. I hope the other games are better, because this one was just mediocre for me. The music was nice though, I'll give it that.

 

[Rastrelly]

Mass Effect 3. I'm still kinda shocked on how horribly awful this game was.I can't point a single thing I like about ME3. Things I disliked in previous games were emphasised, things I liked - basically, removed.

Majesty 2. Dumbed down heroes, blurry visuals, boring design.

Might and Magic X. I was really hoping it will actually be Might and Magic X, not HoMM V/VI spinoff.

The Elder Scrolls Online. Nuff said.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Mass Effect 3, not just the ending, everything from the start of that game felt contrived, rushed and poorly thought out. Auto-dialogue, neutered conversation system, shitty side quests, really atrocious sense of scale, retcons, forced "feels" moments (that fucking kid noone gives a shit about, that somehow is enough to send you into a recuring nightmare several times), that bint who licked a PSP was put in the game for (ffs), choices being meaningless, the points system, which has to be the most boring way of implementing 'consequence', japanese Adam Jensen space ninja Troy Baker, DLC that is just as bad as the main game.

Diablo 3, decent hack&slash, horrible Diablo game. From the visuals, the story to the flashiness of the gameplay, it was just not Diablo in the slightest. Still better than Torchlight 2 though, that game was mechanically better, but also ungodly boring.

Assassin's Creed 3 (I sense a pattern emerging here). It was just one step to the side and tow steps back. Not flatout terrible, just kind of nothing, and after AC2 and co, that isn't enough.

Great post, in particular the ME3 analysis. The bad ending actually worked for Bioware/EA as that took the main focus of negativity away from the atrocity that was the game itself.

That kid *facepalm* "Hi, I'm commander Shepard, a sole survivor/war hero/ruthless legend who's travelled all over the galaxy, lost crew members and close companions, died myself, and seen more sights than most would in a 1000 lifetimes. What, a random kid dying??? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Absolutely some of the utterly wankest plot writing ever known to man.

 

[step1999]

I never got further than around level 20 iirc, but what bothered me so much up until then was that the maps felt very maze like and were a ***** to navigate. The humor was another disappointment. BL1 and 2 made me laugh a lot, but in BLPS I never even cracked a smile. Seen a lot of remarks on this saying that it's mostly humor only Australians would find funny, so I assume that's the case for me as well... And finally I don't like having to run around looking for air constantly. It's a minor annoyance, but one I could've done without.

Will definetly give it another go when they release a pack with all the DLC though. RPG shooters are rare and I fucking love the genre.

I think the map design was a bit poor as well. In particular the instant death pits for missing jumps annoyed me, having lava deal damage over time like in the first map would have been better. I disagree w/the humour though, there were a few things I didn't get (which I assume were Australian references) but for the most part I think the humour's just as good as BL2. (Though I'm trying to compensate for nostalgia since it's been a while since I played BL2, so if I replay it my feelings may change.) Also which class did you play? IMO Athena and Nisha > Claptrap > Wilhelm.

 

[Zacharious-khan]

Skyrim, I had never played a elder scrolls game before and i figured i would give it a try since everyone and their dog was raving about it.
all it ended up being was a buggy clanky as hell wrpg, i can't even play it due to how annoying the combat is. I've tried going back to give it another shot a few times but the same thing happens. I get annoyed at how much i would like it if i could play the damn thing and then i go drop a few more hours into Fallout NV

 

[briankoontz]

Probably Deus Ex 2. Deus Ex was (and still is) my favorite game of all time and many of the same developers worked on the sequel, but the sequel was a terrible mess. Lightning rarely strikes twice in the same place.

 

[DementedSheep]

Probably the first AC game. A interesting idea buried under tedious and repetitive bullshit.

 

[Islandbuffilo]

That kid *facepalm* "Hi, I'm commander Shepard, a sole survivor/war hero/ruthless legend who's travelled all over the galaxy, lost crew members and close companions, died myself, and seen more sights than most would in a 1000 lifetimes. What, a random kid dying??? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Absolutely some of the utterly wankest plot writing ever known to man.

The kid's death made me laugh more than anything.
"You can't help me!"
*zap*
Neither could they.

 

[Twinrehz]

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, even on this forum, but here goes once again.

Fable II

Seriously, fuck this game. On so many levels, fuck this game. Story goes as follows, I played a couple of hours of Fable 1, found it very likable, though perhaps a bit simplistic, though I never played very far, because it wasn't my console or anything. I heard about fable 2, and thought it'd rock, seeing as how the first game kinda kicked ass (once I got past the business of just getting started, which was very slow).

I got it, played the shit out of it, and then it ended. Underwhelmed by it's surprisingly short story campaign, and how it at first seemed much bigger than it actually was, not to mention how easy the whole game was, left me very disappointed. I didn't read much hype about it, I just figured that the first game was cool, so I thought the second one might be too, but no. It was bad, and I can't believe a friend of mine actually went and bought Fable 3, which looked like exactly the same, only even more cliched than the previous one.

I don't always understand other people's humour, but I REALLY can't see the entertainment in running around in a chicken suit.

 

[WhiteWolfe]

The last 15 minutes of Mass Effect 3. I'm still mad.

Spore was a bunch of nothing unfortunately.

Destiny lasted longer than I thought but not as long as I hoped before it became completely boring.

 

[BaronVH]

This is an extremely easy post for me. Half Life Two Episode 2. Simply because they made a cliffhanger ending to a great game and then completely and utterly gave up on it. You may argue we will get Half Life 3 sometime. Probably. But what they promised was a release of a shorter episode and even teased the setting, and then gave up on it. They also gave up on it in the worst way. Greed. They made this game delivery system that forced you to use it for Half Life 2, then released other games (that were very good, no doubt). Steam, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, and Portal made them so much money, they basically just said we don't care. Honestly, when they do release Half Life 3, many people will have moved on. If I were a total optimist, I could see them cancelling iterations of the game that didn't work, but I just do not believe it. I do think that episodic gaming was harder to pull off than they thought, but they now have a monopoly and seem to care less about their fan base.

I could comment on Mass Effect 3, but honestly, it was not that big of a disappointment simply because Mass Effect 1 and 2 weren't as good as many claim. I thought 2 was the best, but 3 was not that big of a disappointment. I have to say I am disappointed with the lowest common denominators out there allowing companies to justify the free to play model, but it does not rise to the level of the abandonment of Half Life. I liked all three Fables, all of the Gears of War. Duke Nukem 4 is up there, but I saw that coming.

Biggest surprise? Alien Isolation. The IGN review scared me, but the review here was very well thought out. Out of 10, it is an 11. I would even say better than any of the movies.

 

[scotth266]

I'm probably going to surprise people quite a bit and say that the most disappointing game for me is Skyrim. Other games have disappointed me by being flat-out bad/meh (Spore in particular) but Skyrim manages to disappoint simply by being half the game it could have been. Magic simply doesn't work in the vanilla version of the game, with several spells not even making sense (example: why would I use Clairvoyance when I can simply rely on the radar?). The civil war is compelling, but the player's involvement in it is hilariously limited outside one or two missions, with the rest being "go kill a bunch of really weak dudes." A lot of things that should feel really important (such as the end of the Dark Brotherhood questline) wind up being really, really weak.

Mind you, it's a game I have fun with. But it's a game that has a lot of flaws.