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Games That Didn't Meet Your Expectations

Sydney

The Good Samaritan
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Location
Canberra, Australia
(This totally wasn't inspired by justac00lguy's thread. :right: )

Sometimes we purchase games expecting them to be great, more than likely because the franchise has a good reputation. But sometimes those games fall short of our expectations. Whether it be gameplay, graphics, or even the storyline, something about those games makes us dislike them. Whatever it may be, which games didn't live up to your expectations? How come? How could they be improved? Discuss.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
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Akkala
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Hylian Champion
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance - I expected an evolution of Re:coded's battle system, got far less in return.
 

Zorth

#Scoundrel
Joined
Apr 22, 2011
SS, Black Ops and The Old Republic.

Because the fangirl inside me made up ridiculous fantasies of what the games would be and how they would play, I had too much hype in other words. Playing these games more and more made me mad that the imaginary game that I had painted in my head didn't exist and playing the games wouldn't cut it. None of these games are necessarily bad (except for The Old Republic, that was a huge pile of fecal matter), more that I was expecting way too much and had the bar set way too high. :/
 

CynicalSquid

Swag Master General
Joined
Aug 1, 2012
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The End
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Apache Helicopter
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Ok, I am not saying this game is bad. I actually adore it, but this game was over hyped for me. I heard that it was comparable to Ocarina of Time, which is why I'm afraid of playing Skyward Sword, but it's nothing like Ocarina. It follows the story template that ALttP started, but nothing else even compares. The story isn't even as great as OoT's in my opinion. It really just feels like a watered down OoT. It was just the hype that set me up for disappointment, but I still love it.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

I heard a lot of good things about this game before I bought it, and none of my expectations were met. The overworld is boring to me, even with the Minish Link gimmick. The dungeons, and bosses were easily forgettable, The story isn't that great despite it being unique, and The gameplay feels like 3d Zelda gameplay in 2d form, which makes it feel awkward. I just really don't like this game, and this is all my opinion by the way. I sold the game a while ago, and I'll only buy it again for collecting purposes. I really have no interest of playing this game ever again.

Those are the only games I can think of right now.
 
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ShadowDiety

Nanomachines, son.
Joined
Apr 12, 2012
Location
Michigan
Paper Mario: Sticker Star
Black Ops 2 (the zombies isn't that great)
Gears of War: Judgement (worst $60 I've ever spent)
Assassin's Creed 3
 
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Location
Pennsylvania, USA
Gender
Male
Skyrim kinda disappointed me. A lot of features from Oblivion were either nerfed or taken out completely. Some examples would be the need to repair weapons/armor and the whole spell creator. I do like Skyrim still, but I thought that it would just improve on those features instead of taking them out.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
Skyrim - all of these stupid fanboys and fangirls squeal over "how much there is to do" in the game...and sure enough, there are loads of content in the game. But the battle system is absolutely horrid. It is just garbage as far as I'm concerned. It plays like Mount & Blade - slow, clunky, and unproductive. I popped this game into my PS3 as I was borrowing it from a friend, and I couldn't last over an hour. Game is utter crap.

Zelda Skyward Sword - I wanted a great game, I got a fanfic instead...a B Film-fanfic.
 

Big Octo

=^)
Joined
Jul 2, 2011
Location
The
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Where do I begin? I think I'll start before the release. The most basic thought I had for the game was "It's a 3D Zelda game, they're always great. There's no way I won't like this game." Along with this, the motion controls attracted me, and I thought that they would totally make the game for me. In regards to story, the fact that this was canoncially the first game and would essentially be an origin story. I really needed to play this game.

What I got was nothing that I had anticipated. The motion controls just weren't my cup of tea, ruining the majority of the gameplay for me. I felt that plot was luckluster and the "origin" story felt poorly done. Overall, the game was a bore that failed to deliver. It's a miracle that I managed to complete the game with what little interest I had for it. It has effortlssly worked its way to my least favorite game in the series, which is really a shame, because I really want to like this game, but I just can't.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Dear, oh dear. What happened here? Let's take a look at what I think about it.

So, the original Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was a fun hack-n-slash/3D platformer that I took a liking to. The gameplay was fun and engaging with other neat features that kept the game from getting stale, such as upgrades and other extras. When the sequel was announced, I was over joyed, another full-length game that will likely bring a boatload of new features!

But oh no. This game was hardly anything like that. Not only did this game bring hardly anything new to the table, it also took away from the original game. The variety of enemies and Storm Troopers was scarce compared to the original, the quick-time events became tedious much faster than before, and overall, it just felt like a poorly-done rehash of the original with some fancy aethstetic changes to give it the appearance of a new game. To add on to this, the game was incredibly short, and I completed in only a short day. Normally, length usually isn't too much of an issue, but when it's something that just felt like a watered down version of what it's based on, that's a real problem. Honestly, this game could have been passed off as DLC for the original, and it sure did feel like that. Playing it was truly a saddening experience, and for me, it's one of the worst video game sequels I have ever played.
 
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Assassin's Creed III. It was good, but didn't meet my hype. A strong second act was forced to compensate for the lackluster first and third.
 

Mercedes

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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Nov 12, 2007
Location
In bed
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Female
Since we're on a Zelda forum, I'll go for Skyward Sword first of all. Was very disappointed in that game and was probably the first Zelda game I didn't particularly enjoy. After Twilight Princess, I had very high expectations for a Zelda game made specifically for the Wii and I was definitely riding the hype train during the run-up to release and yet was treated with a game I feel is weak, let alone a weak entry into the Zelda franchise. Overall a poorly executed game imo, a lot of bad design decisions. I disliked all the recycling and back-tracking which was un-necessary, they could have had more variety too, and the justification for it all and the challanges felt unimaginative. Lack of exploration sucked too, and of course the motion controls, I disliked them, for many reasons I'll not bother with. Following on from Wind Waker and then Twilight Princess, a big step down imo. My playing also went Witcher 2 and then Skyward Sword. That didn't bode well for SS, to be compared to that.

Another title would have to be Left 4 Dead 2. I still love you Valve and I'm sorry I had to do this, but, L4D2 was very dissapointing. I wasn't one of the boycotters complaining it was releasing a year later, if it's a quality game then why wouldn't I want it now? And in some places, you did succeed. The physics and the dynamic zombie models were amazing, pipe bombs exploding just became an absolute spectacle. But marred by some disappointing design decisions I didn't expect from Valve. The fluid, amazing animations were gone and wooden, stiff ones placed onto a less interesting cast, and bringing back Francis, Bill, Zoey and Louis made them look even worse by comparison. Disliked the music too, and the new levels just weren't as good, and melee fatigue in campaign? The new special infected were great but I felt the game also got a bit easy, expert mode was way more forgiving. Although Realism helped a lot. Overall not at all a bad game, loved it for Versus, but, not as good as the original.

And, while definitely not a bad game, I'll have to go with Resident Evil 5. I liked a lot of the elements it brought, the inventory screen was a nice hark-back to the old days and helped with the co-op though looking after AI Sheva's inventory got tedious (WHY DID YOU DROP 30 SHOTGUN SHELLS FOR RIFLE AMMO WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A RIFLE SHEVA?!!) but I felt it drew on Resident Evil 4 a bit too much. Hold up in a house while things attacked, chainsaw man attacks, and I felt these were executed worse too. And since it wasn't new, it didn't have that same feeling. I'd just played an entire game as Leon and killed hundreds of these things, to keep the same atmosphere they had to go a step further but I don't feel Capcom did. I also still don't like what happened to Wesker, but before the ending he was superb. Really on top form, DC Douglas was fantastic as Wesker.

Metal Gear Solid 4, too. Previous MGS games I'd really enjoyed, specially MGS3, and so I was riding high for MGS4 to come out. But, it really didn't impress me. Storyline wise, meh. I thought it was well written, I liked the characters, Raiden especially I really liked, but overall I just felt the storyline could have been executed so much better. I mean, the amount of cutscenes that game had, which did test my patience by the end, I felt like Kojima was beating me over the head with the script shouting "APPRECIATE THIS!", but I just didn't. I'm sure people more invested in the MGS story found it fine, but, I found it all very convoluted and schizophrenic in tone, and a lot could have been shaved off to leave it more refined. Gameplay-wise, it was alright, I didn't use like, more than half of what was at my disposal, but, I felt it only suffered in comparison so I won't fault it for that. After playing DX:HR, for instance, the wall sticking of old MGS especially just feels awful.

And gotta give the final mention to Halo: Reach. As a game, awesome. Enjoyed it. As Bungie's farewell to their series, their swan song, their labour of love that they made it out to be... I just don't see it. It didn't live up to all they were holding it up to, and then 343 came out with Halo 4 which I felt was better than Reach in pretty much everyway. So, I was a little bit disappointed in Bungie for Reach, as I said I still enjoyed it and would recommend it but it didn't live up to the very high expectations that were set out.
 

pkfroce

Skelepuns
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Nov 25, 2012
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The Underground
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Male
Skyward Sword was disappointing... It wasn't as... amazing as I thought. I loved it, but I was expecting a lot more.

Paper Mario Sticker Star: *sigh* I... I don't even want to talk about how disappointed I was
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
City of Angels
Diablo 3

There was just so much hype going into that game. People were expecting it to be a visually improved version of Diablo 2, with a ton more content and a lot more loot to obtain. It even had the biggest launch event for any PC title. But after beating that game once, I realized that it was nothing but a former shell of its predecessor. There was no endgame. The game was to easy. Enemies didn't give any challenge and the boss fights were really lame, especially Diablo himself. It was so easy to level up and didn't require you to think about what class build you should go for. Overall, the game was less challenging than Diablo 2 and had no replay ability whatsoever.

Assassin's Creed 3

With so many prequels out in the franchise, one would expect Ubisoft would try to experiment with this game and take risks by adding a ton of new fun ideas. But nope, it was just the same game with slightly improved graphics. It took like ten hours to become an assassin, and by then I was just tired of the repetitive game play that I have seen for the past four games. The naval warfare was fun, but even that got old fast. It wasn't necessarily a bad game though, it just had overused ideas and game play. At this point, there just going the Call of Duty route.

Duke Nukem Forever

No words can describe how mediocre this game is. I can't really say anything else but BORING. Thanks Gearbox for failing on giving us the Duke Nukem game we wanted for years.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

Gearbox failed us again on this; however, this game was even worse than Duke Nukem. What they showed us at E3 was nothing like the pile of crap they released to us. They even deemed it canon to the franchise, making it a sequel to the movie. The enemy AI was horrible, the graphics were just plain dull and mediocre, the game was way to short, the story was just meh... there's a lot more but I just don't feel like delving deeper into this. I'm just thankful I didn't actual buy this game and saw my cousin rent it and play it.

Mafia 2

I expected too much from this game. I was hoping and praying for a Godfather like game, but my God it was just boring and took forever to pick up. By the time the game actually picked up to the gang wars, I just got to tired of playing it and gave up. Thankfully I only spent 5 bucks on the game, but still. They could have made the game more engaging from the start.
 

Ventus

Mad haters lmao
Joined
May 26, 2010
Location
Akkala
Gender
Hylian Champion
Diablo 3

There was just so much hype going into that game. People were expecting it to be a visually improved version of Diablo 2, with a ton more content and a lot more loot to obtain. It even had the biggest launch event for any PC title. But after beating that game once, I realized that it was nothing but a former shell of its predecessor. There was no endgame. The game was to easy. Enemies didn't give any challenge and the boss fights were really lame, especially Diablo himself. It was so easy to level up and didn't require you to think about what class build you should go for. Overall, the game was less challenging than Diablo 2 and had no replay ability whatsoever.

-No community
-No chatrooms
-No making and naming games
-No face-to-face trading
-No traveling between acts
-No gambling
-Useless crafting
-AH renders loot farming pointless
-Gold farming is more important than loot farming
-Gems are boring
-Items are boring
-All items boil down to vit, main stat, and DPS/armor
-No interesting or unique affixes
-Chests are worthless
-MF and droprates are awful
-Skills and classes are imbalanced
-Skill system offers no incentive to reroll a class
-Generic and boring story
-Feels like WoW
-Lacks horror and gothic undertones
-Looks like WoW
-Level 60 is when the real game begins
-Inferno offers no reward for playing
-Repair costs are too high
-Waypoints are worthless
-Pay to win (RMAH)
-Legendaries suck
-White items are worthless
-All classes use DPS for skill damage
-All classes can wield all weapons equally
-Bosses are weak
-Bosses are boring
-Bosses don't offer rewards
-Stuck on a linear quest-reward system
-No freedom
-Have to play how blizzard wants you to
-No offline mode
-Server problems
-No PvP
-No open-world PvP
-Casualized and dumbed down
-Item sets suck and are worthless
-No runes
-No charms
-Acts are generic and boring
-Maps are generic and boring
-Very little map randomization
-Game offers no reward for hardwork
-Level 60 cap
-No skill trees
-Can't place attribute points
-Leveled attribute points are pointless
-Insanely huge and unnecessary stat numbers (just like WoW)
-Jay Wilson
-Caters to the new fans instead of the old fans
-Lots of Bugs
-Unfinished despite long development time
-Feels hollow and doesn't have a gripping atmosphere
-Bad voice acting
-Bad characters
-WoW-like characters
-"Everyone is a winner!" sort of game
-Nerfs
-4 person game restriction
-Very little replay value
-Crafter level transfers characters
-Friend's list is in shambles
-Checkpoints

Erm ZombiU also disappointed me; the game simply sucked. I mean, people love to say it has this amazing use of the Gamepad, but it was all contrived and made to APPEAR to be novel. Graphics of the game were horrid. Storyline was practically nonexistent. And as much as I was supposed to be "scared"? I can't be scared when my player character yells at the top of his lungs when he tries to hit a zombie. ZombiU = 2/10 game, horribly weak.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2013
Location
City of Angels
-No community
-No chatrooms
-No making and naming games
-No face-to-face trading
-No traveling between acts
-No gambling
-Useless crafting
-AH renders loot farming pointless
-Gold farming is more important than loot farming
-Gems are boring
-Items are boring
-All items boil down to vit, main stat, and DPS/armor
-No interesting or unique affixes
-Chests are worthless
-MF and droprates are awful
-Skills and classes are imbalanced
-Skill system offers no incentive to reroll a class
-Generic and boring story
-Feels like WoW
-Lacks horror and gothic undertones
-Looks like WoW
-Level 60 is when the real game begins
-Inferno offers no reward for playing
-Repair costs are too high
-Waypoints are worthless
-Pay to win (RMAH)
-Legendaries suck
-White items are worthless
-All classes use DPS for skill damage
-All classes can wield all weapons equally
-Bosses are weak
-Bosses are boring
-Bosses don't offer rewards
-Stuck on a linear quest-reward system
-No freedom
-Have to play how blizzard wants you to
-No offline mode
-Server problems
-No PvP
-No open-world PvP
-Casualized and dumbed down
-Item sets suck and are worthless
-No runes
-No charms
-Acts are generic and boring
-Maps are generic and boring
-Very little map randomization
-Game offers no reward for hardwork
-Level 60 cap
-No skill trees
-Can't place attribute points
-Leveled attribute points are pointless
-Insanely huge and unnecessary stat numbers (just like WoW)
-Jay Wilson
-Caters to the new fans instead of the old fans
-Lots of Bugs
-Unfinished despite long development time
-Feels hollow and doesn't have a gripping atmosphere
-Bad voice acting
-Bad characters
-WoW-like characters
-"Everyone is a winner!" sort of game
-Nerfs
-4 person game restriction
-Very little replay value
-Crafter level transfers characters
-Friend's list is in shambles
-Checkpoints

Erm ZombiU also disappointed me; the game simply sucked. I mean, people love to say it has this amazing use of the Gamepad, but it was all contrived and made to APPEAR to be novel. Graphics of the game were horrid. Storyline was practically nonexistent. And as much as I was supposed to be "scared"? I can't be scared when my player character yells at the top of his lungs when he tries to hit a zombie. ZombiU = 2/10 game, horribly weak.

Thank you for elaborating. :P I just had the other few games in mind and wanted to briefly talk about them, or else I would have made a longer list for each game. Then again, I didn't want to remind myself of all the disappointing aspects of that game. It just makes me rage and regret my decision of ever buying that game. Waste of my 60 bucks.

Speaking of zombie games though, Dead Island was another zombie game that disappointed me. Not as bad as ZombieU by any means, but the game was not what I expected, especially after seeing that emotional and gritty trailer. The game was not optimized at all. It ran horribly, and I ran into so many bugs and glitches it was just hard not to wonder if they even tested the game. The respawns were pretty bad. I would sometimes spawn into a group of enemies and instantly get tackled down and die. Even some of the cut scenes were bugging out and had no textures. The voice acting wasn't that great either, it was as if they weren't even trying. Story felt rushed as well, and the controls felt clunky too. Only thing the game had going for it was exploration and the many weapons the game had to offer. Other than that, the developers should have taken more time into refining that game. It could have been the next big franchise, but instead they rushed it to get that easy money since so many people (such as myself) were suckered into that amazing trailer.
 

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