Roundtable: What is Your Most Disappointing Game of the Generation?

The VGU staff discuss their personal disappointments with games from the current generation.

[Sadist3]

Assassin's Creed. The game had great potential, and the first game was ok but the rest were executed horribly. The AI sux, you literally run through the game hitting the attack button over and over again to brain dead enemies, and the settings suck. Fighting pirates in part 4? Fighting the guy on the front cover of the Quaker oatmeal box in part 3? Seriously? An assasin's should not be fighting Benjamin freaking Franklin. The setting should have been in ancient Egypt, or feudal japan. The series doesn't even have a point anymore.

[Software_Lover]

I forgot about Assassins creed. Maybe because I'm just getting around to actually playing them.

I remember when the game was first being shown. The open worlds. The horseback riding. I was like yes, UBI has done it again. I didn't know it was gonna be some flashback crap from the future.

I'm sure the story is great, but that just threw me off just a little bit.

[abzdine]

i'll say PES cause that series is the one i must have played the most on PS1 and PS2.

but if i have to choose a current gen only series it'll be Assassin's Creed without a doubt.. cheesy as hell!

[listenkids]

It did have potential, then they made 2 which improved greatly on this said potential, providing a great game, with a even better follow up with Brotherhood.
Because the series isn't going the way you'd like, or is being overused doesn't make an individual title bad.

Alas, everyone has opinions, even those formed from those around it.

[RytGear]

Precisely, althought the newer titles are getting bad (Connor in AC3 and Damn Pirates!? in AC4) The Ezio trilogy were all fantastic games, lets not forget that

[Lovable]

@Sadist13

The whole series is just awful. It's beyond saving right from when they released the first one. Game is terrible.

[3-4-5]

AC3 is responsible for me not caring about the series anymore.

AC2 and brotherhood were really good games.

[ironfist92]

AC3 gets alot of undeserved flack for its flaws. Imean, there are definitely worse games which are broken and a complete and utter mess. Ac3 just has the problem of havign a few large flaws mixed in with great traits and qualities, yet people tend to look at the bad constantly, and judge it bad overall.

[FITgamer]

That thumbnail pretty much answers the question for me. Thank Gamefly for saving me from wasting $60 on that ish.

[Software_Lover]

I have many

Haze........ just not fun
Too Human... What this game could've been (wrong developer)
Lair.... the reason I bought my launch ps3
Bionic Commando......Dreads? they screwed up the mechanics

I could go on and on but top of the list for me is probably Mass Effect...... after Mass Effect 1. They just turned it into a third person shooter. You didn't even need to use the RPG mechanics or grind out to get your gear.

[MazzingerZ]

Lair played well if you held the controller as if was laying on a table and always returned to that position, I had no problems playing it, it was rather very early and instructions were poor, a youtube video on PS Blog would do the trick if game was launching today

Actually, I tried to play it again with the patch and I couldn't, sixaxis felt more natural

[nevin1]

For me this gen really sucked compared to NES-PS2 era. Games I enjoyed in the past wasn't good this gen.
GTA 4 was boring

Sports games were average

Wrestling sucked

MGS4- MGO was one my favorite highlight this gen. But the SP was disappointing. Way to much focus on story.

GOW: Ascension- Tried to implement multiplayer

Overall I give this gen a 7.5(and I might be generous)

[dcj0524]

Why is ascension bad because it had multiplayer? I don't get it.

[HeavenlySnipes]

"Way to much focus on story"

Did you play any of the MGS games? MGS2 and 3 (3 especially) had very long story segments

With the game being the end of a saga, you'd expect them to tie up loose ends storywise so veteran players feel satisfied at the end

GOW Ascensions MP was fun, didn't like the "the more you play the better stuff you have" progression system because I joined late and everyone was overpowered compared to me

[Angrymorgan]

Duke nukem........cant say much more...

[Grimhammer00]

GTA5 online.

Yeah....wish I was kidding.
(Once its patched up - ill be on ps4. So, yeah it's a mess and by the time it's fully enjoying its ambitious design....it'll be too late for me. And likely many others.)

[GarrusVakarian]

That's a shame. Its the most fun ive had on a videogame since.....well i can't remember when. Hopefully it get released on PS4.

[Grimhammer00]

I too agree its great at 2am when it seems most stable for me. But having a lvl 13 chracter deleted hurts my ability to get back in.

Plus, nothing it does - it does well. It's just the idea of it all sounds great. But innumerable load times, load hangs, lag so bad and the promise of open world that really limits you to missions.

Why not make the map half the size but have every building be real? With interiors and such. Limiting what cars I can steal/keep solely due to rank bs?
It GRAND THEFT fuvking AUTO!!!

[GarrusVakarian]

Probably Assassins Creed 3 (although i still somewhat enjoyed it). And Brink.

[Grimhammer00]

I loved Brink!!!
Really just needed better bet code and dynamic missions.

[gamewizard99]

Brink, I was so hyped. I played it for about 30 mins and gave up. It was terrible.

[Grave]

Same, it was Brink for me too. I remember starting the game and then playing for a little and just feeling sick. So much hype, so much let down.

[thebudgetgamer]

I really wanted to like Brink, and for the first half an hour I was like these people don't know what they're talking about. Then I kept playing for another half an hour and was, oh yeah I get it now.

[Grimhammer00]

GOW Ascension mp is great!!! So don't agree.

But everything else is dead on.
Though I like asscreed games. I long ago accepted that the "Assassins" weren't really. They should've been named something else. Say - architects vs templates? Something that suggested they were shaping the future as they see it should be. Much as the Templars are attempting.

All for a end game that feels lame.

But asscreed pirates is sounding much more fun. Story? I hope the pirate story part is great. The rest I throw away anyways.

[UnHoly_One]

GTA 5

I really thought it was going to be good. I really had myself convinced.

But I couldn't take an hour of it before I had to list it on eBay.

[GarrusVakarian]

Lmao. An hour.

*shakes head*

[UnHoly_One]

Yeah that's how I felt. It was awful.

I normally keep all my games, even the ones that are just "ok". My game closet at home has a little over 200 games in it just from this Gen.

I haven't sold a game for being terrible in years.

[HeavenlySnipes]

A 30 hour game deemed awful after playing 1 hour

You probably played 2 missions within the first hour (tutorial stuff). You realistically didn't really even play the game if you only had it running for an hour

[UnHoly_One]

Yes I played the tutorial bank robbery and exactly 2 missions as Franklin.

That gave me enough time to figure out that I hated the characters, hated the driving, and hated the shooting.

Not sure how much more I needed to hate before I felt justified in turning it off and playing a fun game instead. lol

Listen, I know I'm in the minority here, but the game just wasn't for me.

[HeavenlySnipes]

You played as 1 of the 3 characters

From what you've said, you barely know anything about Michael at all yet you "hate all the characters". You haven't even come across any of the relevant story based characters yet

The shooting varies between the characters. Franklin's shooting ability isn't as good as Michael's. And there are 3 different shooting options to choose from in the options menu; did you try them all? Probably not

It seems like you're trying too hard to be a hipster and say the game isn't that good. That may be true for some, but at least they had the decency to see most of what the game offered before they quit

I can only imagine what I would have missed out on if I stopped playing The Last of Us after the first hour because I don't really do anything but listen to the characters talk and watch intro cutscenes. Then using your logic, I'd say that the game was just an interactive movie and I'd sell it on ebay

[UnHoly_One]

Dude, get over it. I didn't like it.

I saw plenty to make my decision and I'm confident I'm missing out on absolutely nothing.

Yes I tried all 3 shooting options. 2 of them help you too much, and the third doesn't help you at all, which sucks because the game is balanced assuming you are using auto targeting.

I've hated the shooting in every GTA game ever. Usually I just enjoy the rest enough that I get over it.

This one was clearly not going to get to that point. I'm not "trying" to not like anything. I tried the game, I didn't like it.

I'm very sorry we have differing opinions, but that's just the way it is.

[GryestOfBluSkies]

i was so excited for the potential of brink. that was probably my biggest disappointment. honorable mention to Fuse, which hooked me with its demo, but it turned out that the demo was just repeated throughout the whole game.

[BabyTownFrolics]

BRINK!!!

I hyped that game to my friends and have never heard the end of it since.

[Infernostew]

Probably Final Fantasy Xlll or Brutal Legend

[Grimhammer00]

But I enjoyed fuse. Just needed competitve modes and more co-op maps.

[dcj0524]

Saints Row 3. Didn't have the same awesomness as saints row 2. Another one would be Starhawk. I love the game but its not as good as Warhawk.

[Captain Qwark 9]

dark souls, dragon age origins, mass effect 1-3, gtav, red dead redemption, tomb raider reboot, far cry 3, halo 4, gears of war 1-3, batman arkum games, i could troll on and on, obviously im not serious but i do wonder how many will respond before they get to this part

[NoNeedForAName]

Mine is probably Socom 4.
Anybody who played Socom in it's prime on PS2 will not argue about how disappointing S4 was. After waiting years for a proper sequel by the devs of the original games and all of the community feedback that Zipper asked for and said they were listening to the game just turned out absolutely awful.
Zipper even got disbanded because of it's failure and in January, I think, Socom will officially be dead with the closure of the last 2 remaining games' servers. It is straight up shameful how badly the Socom franchise and fans were treated by Sony after all of it's success on PS2.

[HeavenlySnipes]

I wasn't disappointed in Socom 4 because I played the beta and seen what they were going for lol

[NoNeedForAName]

Yeah dude, I played the beta as well but I was in denial and figured there is no way they will release a finished Socom game that sucks that bad. I made the mistake of having faith in Zipper not to completely screw up their own game and they made me look like an idiot ha ha.

[HeavenlySnipes]

Final Fantasy 13 hands down

They had a beautiful string of FF games before it (7,8,9,10,12) and this next gen entry was supposed to continue that

Honestly one of the most boring games I've ever played

Push analog stick forward, get into battle for 45 seconds, exit battle and continue pushing analog stick forward until you reach a melodramatic cutscene of Hope whining or Snow giving a motivational speech

Rinse and repeat for 15 hours until you reach Pulse. The game opens up a bit, but then they decide to make the enemies be slightly better than your characters, so you now have to spend hours grinding for CP to increase your abilities and that is all but fun

I don't even have to mention the horrible weapon customization or the flaws in the battle system

[InTheLab]

Dragon Age 2 and Bioware in general. They crapped out DA2 in 15 months despite working on DAO for 5 years....and it shows.

Perhaps if they didn't sink every penny into that MMO, we would have received a proper Dragon Age.

I would also add GTA4. I bought the game day 1 and played it for about 5 hours and realized I wasn't having any fun...at all. Traded it in and haven't touched it since. It's easily the most overrated game of any generation.

Yeah...GTA4 has a freaking 98 metascore but is nothing more than a meme about cousins and bowling now. It's is not the legendary title that everyone claimed (at the time) and I suspect a few years from now, everyone will realize that GTA died with San Andreas...

[mike32UK]

Got to be Haze easy.

[Kryptonite42O]

Brink...
that game was just horrible... no story.. and the online was the same thing over and over.. AI was terrible... the game was overhype beyond belief. I would give it a 1 out of 10.

[ironfist92]

any Killzone games, Gran Turismo, Soul Calibur V was dissapointing, and basically every NFS game after Most Wanted (2003)

[yeahokchief]

Battlefield 3 on console. Piece of trash.

Voice chat did not work
Matchmaking did not group you with your friends
Hit detection issues
Falling under the map issues
Input lag issues
Lack of meaningful destruction
Designed well beyond the capabilities of 360/ps3

Yet they still released it and sold it to us. They should have made a separate game more tuned to the PS3's capabilities. It's disgusting that they're doing the same thing releasing BF4 on PS3 before PS4. I will never forgive dice or EA for this shit game.