biggest dissapointments of 2008

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: SlitheryDee

Originally posted by: pontifex

define current hardware

i can run crysis on my current hardware - c2d e8400 @3.6 Ghz, 4gb ram, crossfied 4850s at 1680x1050 with all settings MAXED and get 40+ FPS average and even up into the 70s in some areas.

Hmm...I guess the hardware has caught up with Crysis after all, but 40 FPS average usually means dips into the low 20s at times in my experience. That's playable, but irritatingly noticeable when it slows down. I'd say if your lowest framerate at any time was 30 you're golden. I'm hoping my next graphics card update will put me there.

My point still stands and will stand long after graphics cards are eating Crysis for lunch, though.

i don't notice any slowdown until it hits below 20. maybe that's just me though.

 

[RallyMaster]

Out of the games that I've played this year? Far Cry 2...goddamn that game is so depressing. Makes me want to seppuku myself.

 

[Liet]

I'm going to say Fallout 3... It's a good game, but could've been 10x better. Disappointing how shallow and empty it is.

 

[jjzelinski]

I want someone to redo Hellgate immdeiately

The IPO is just too perfect to not at least TRY

 

[minmaster]

spore should easily be #1.

 

[Vampirrella]

I vote Spore as the biggest dud of '08. Needs to be a poll here

 

[rpanic]

SPORE

 

[gorcorps]

where's our pollage?

spore x1billion

 

[Imported]

Fallout 3.. I don't get the hype and was bored to tears in about 6 hours.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: ja1484
What I'm trying to say is, stop buying the wrong games.

And how would I know, in advance, what the "wrong" games are, exactly? Using metacritic, here are the average scores for the 2008 games I played - mind you that most of the major gaming sites gave ratings higher than the average:

Spore: 84
Fallout 3: 92
Call of Duty: World at War: 88
Assassin's Creed: 79
Dead Space: 85

With the exception of Assassin's Creed, all of these games had gotten overwhelming praise from critics, though I wouldn't give any of them above a 75. This puts me in a tough spot, as other than reviews and having a general interest in the type of game, I just don't know what I'd use to decide.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: ja1484
What I'm trying to say is, stop buying the wrong games.

And how would I know, in advance, what the "wrong" games are, exactly? Using metacritic, here are the average scores for the 2008 games I played - mind you that most of the major gaming sites gave ratings higher than the average:

Spore: 84
Fallout 3: 92
Call of Duty: World at War: 88
Assassin's Creed: 79
Dead Space: 85

With the exception of Assassin's Creed, all of these games had gotten overwhelming praise from critics, though I wouldn't give any of them above a 75. This puts me in a tough spot, as other than reviews and having a general interest in the type of game, I just don't know what I'd use to decide.

Us.

We're a lot more objective than most review sites. Even the fanboys will gladly point out plenty of flaws in games they love. We're also more likely to recommend older games that might entertain you.
Unless it comes out this month most game sites dont give a damn about it.

 

[HumblePie]

Spore sucked and Age of Conan sucked.

Like someone else pointed out, it's how you define "biggest" and he was pretty spot on. However, I'd like to add my opinion to this.

Spore suckage came like this.

Basically EA said spore would be the greatest thing since slice bread. It will fulfill all gaming fantasies. It will leave you in gaming ecstasy. Never again will you need to buy another game for the utter bliss you'll receive from playing Spore. Every time you play spore will be so orgasmic you'll forget that sex is better.

Yah, I'm pushing the envelope here, but basically we get a lot of promises that it will be the "best" without telling us how but the hype machine drives us "wild" with the tidbits that fuel our emotions.

Now here's Age of Conan.

Live the life of a barbarian! Slaughter everyone in massive battles! Ride mounts to epic glory! Be the savior or destroyer of Conan's Kingdom! Do this do that, blah blah blah....

Basically promising not teasers but actual stuff we can do and well can't/ Either because it's not implemented or too buggy to work period.

With Spore this is basically what happen to the majority of gamers. You paid your $50, or maybe a tad more for the collector's edition. You took it home, screwed with it for a few hours and went, "WTF is this shit?!?!" Then promptly deleted it off the computer, threw it in the trash, and ranted and raved on a few online message boards.

With Age of Conan, this is what happened. You paid your $50 or more for the collectors edition. You enter the game and for the first 20 levels, which for some gamers is about a day others maybe a couple of weeks if slower, and think wow!! This game is f-ing cool! Sure there are a few bugs, but man the game play is fast, the voice overs are great, the graphics are awesome, I want to see more!

Then that player gets out of Tortuga and says to themselves, "WTF is this shit?!?! Is this even the same game?" The difference here is that player thinks to themselves, oh it's an MMO, there are Dev's that talk on the forums and seem to care. Since it's Mythic they'll fix all of this. Then a few patches come out that fixes the freckles on some faces.

That player thinks to themselves the patch isn't exactly what they were hoping for but they are showing progress and initiative to fix things and most likely will push out the easy stuff first. So here's my $10 for next month please. I know you need it to get this game back to how it was for the first 20 levels.

The slipperly slope starts and it's months later, with an addition $30 to $50 spent "investing" into a game that is going now where before the average gamer starts to realize they've been Age of Conned by Mythic.

So yah, both games were serious disappointments but to me AoC was worse than spore.

As for fallout 3 are you guys nuts? The game is actually fun. Then again, I never played oblivion and love wasteland, fallout, and fallout 2. I played the original Fallouts about a dozen times with tons of mods and permeations to each. While there are things I wish Bethesda did better with FO3, the mods are making up for that by leaps and bounds. Can't say it wasn't money well worth it. Plus, I did get the collectors edition and love my fallout bobble head

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: ja1484
What I'm trying to say is, stop buying the wrong games.

And how would I know, in advance, what the "wrong" games are, exactly?

If its developed by EA or one of its subsiduries it goes in the "wrong games" pile. If its developed by anyone else it has a chance to be good.

 

[ja1484]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: ja1484
What I'm trying to say is, stop buying the wrong games.

And how would I know, in advance, what the "wrong" games are, exactly? Using metacritic, here are the average scores for the 2008 games I played - mind you that most of the major gaming sites gave ratings higher than the average:

Spore: 84
Fallout 3: 92
Call of Duty: World at War: 88
Assassin's Creed: 79
Dead Space: 85

With the exception of Assassin's Creed, all of these games had gotten overwhelming praise from critics, though I wouldn't give any of them above a 75. This puts me in a tough spot, as other than reviews and having a general interest in the type of game, I just don't know what I'd use to decide.

You're looking at the wrong review sites. Metacritic sucks because the majority of critics suck.

Eurogamer.net is really the only review site I read any more, because they still do 'em old school, the way it should be. 1up.com is hit and miss, but more hit than miss most of the time. Check them out too if you want a second opinion.

You gotta develop a game vetting system. No one was as excited about Assassin's Creed as me. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is probably my favorite game ever, and AC was made by the same team. But the gameplay and pre-release stuff I saw didn't look that good.

Same with Far Cry 2 - it was a must-buy until I started looking at the gameplay videos and such.

Left 4 Dead I didn't even have to think about before pre-ordering. It's Valve, and Valve never misses.

Fallout 3 never had a chance because Bethesda only knows how to make one kind of game, and for some reason continue to insist on using the shitty GameBryo engine. I cannot fathom why.

I don't know what the hell happened with Spore. I'm still trying to figure it out. Nothing I ever saw in the preview of that game ever looked fun. The idea sounded interesting on paper, but it seemed more like a science project in coding that Will Wright was intent on calling a game. My thoughts on Will Wright's games are pretty much in line with what Penny Arcade says about the situation.

In short:

Gabriel's issue with Will Wright's games (if I am paraphrasing him correctly, here) is that Will Wright doesn't do the opposite: they won't meet him. He's hesitant to even call them games, actually. They often don't define any kind of linear progression outside of those you determine yourself, which for him is the equivalent of handing someone a box of potentially intriguing but largely alien widgets and telling you to "knock yourself out" before running in the opposite direction.

I cannot find any motivation to play a Will Wright title.


Dead Space is actually on my list to check out. It's gotten praise from people who's opinions I trust.

 

[fallenangel99]

Dead Space is neat. I liked the presentation, the gameplay, etc. I quit about 10%.. but that's just me and video games in general

 

[Gothgar]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
Age of Conan

i can't :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: this enough. so many promises, so many years of waiting, so f'ing awful.

Unfortunately this, I waited for this game for forever, being a huge REH fan since I was a kid.

Sad thing is, it is just now looking like it should when it was released, too bad they will never get back all the people they lost and will probably be under sooner or later...