getting stupider or just more obvious? this year's bad games.

[Vindekarr]

It's been a good year for gaming, it's come back strong after the GFC and it's looking also to end on a high note as the xmas rush brings forth a tide of good new titles. However I had a buy up earlier in the week and was absolutely amazed when every single game I got, despite being given rave reviews by virtualy every gaming mag, website and tv show, was absolute rubbish.

 

Split Second was hyped as innovative, new, unusual and fresh. It's none of those things. Basicaly, split second, an episodic racer of dubious quality, is an attempted revive of the car combat arcade racer hybred as seen in flatout and full auto.

 

Neither of those games really did that premise justice, both were short, had very little diversity in tracks or cars, and typicaly restricted the player to playing it "like this"-locking them into a preset tactic and forcing them to stick to that until endgame.

 

Split second epitomises this recipe for failure. It's got a wide variety skins, but most of the cars actualy share about 3 common skeletons and chassis, so it look more like 4 cars with diferent bodies than the full list. Secondly it's icnredibly short-offline took me a mere day to complete, it tries to cover this over by being unforgiving and making you restart a lot. This is done by having parts of the track being explodable. These explosions destroy any nearby car.

 

The problem really though is the AI. It's beyond stupid, it's stone cold retarded. Firstly, it never tries to take it's fellow AI out, only you, so instead of doing what any modern AI is capable of doing which is seeing some other AI leading, and saving it's weapons to take out the leader, it innstead is ONLY programmed to target YOU. This raises a number of problems. First, for the most part, it's pretty effortless to survive the explosions and debirs. Second, the AI is a pathetic shot, it usualy misstimes it's weapon use and misses by kilometres. Thirdly, if you DO get taken out, assuming you even reset at all-not a certainty seeing as this crashes so often-but even if you do, it's usualy a 40 second respawn timer and you reset about half a mile behind where you were taken out, killing an AI even once takes him out virtualy all race-it makes this pitifuly easy, yet hair tearingly un user friendly since ANY mistake is punished either with a CTD or a restart.

 

Lastly, the controls are bloody aweful. Laggy, unresponsive, and totaly devoid of the feel that all good racers can give you of each car handling diferently. Eg, in Burnout Paradise, the current king of this genre, all the cars and motorbikes are totaly diferent in look, sound, and the way they respond. Some are user friendly, easy to control, others are twitchy, over responsive, but as they say "devilishly fast in the hands of a pro".

 

Secondly, Torchlight.

 

This worthless lump of rubbish is basicaly Dragonshard's engine married up to WoW (lack) or gameplay. It's got graphics that look somewhat like champion's online with textures from the 8 bit era, virtualy unchanging levgels, and gameplay that, to the best of my ability to pick the diference, is grinding or grinding, depending on your mood. The gear isnt even good, the whole game just feels like WoW grinding. And it's singleplayer, so you cant even break the monotony by arguing.

 

This game is absolute rubbish-laggy even on my monster of a new PC, with unreliable "random systems" governing way to much of everything. The only environment is a mine. And thats it. Some "random dungeons" exist, but you wouldnt bother with those because they are often about 50 or more levels above you even when labeled "levels 5-10"

 

Lastly, the characters are UGLY, body, mind, and lack of soul. They're almost as boring and bland as Sheperd from Mass Effect, and that's saying something.

 

Lastly, Aliens VS Predator.

 

This "new" take on AVP is such a sad example of "all they had to do was re make the old one!" But they didnt. Like champions online after COH, this game ruins the good name of it's excellent 2002 ancestor.

 

The whole game is a single long drab coridor shooter if wisely you play as a marine. You've got all three factiosn playable, but the Alien campaign is absolute trash, and the Predator campaign is simply broken. The marines are the only powerful ones, it's like the other two have been nerfed so badly they've lost their charm.

 

Xenomorphs are awesome, sleek black terrifying and with a beautiful, lethal liquid grace. Not here. Here they are about as deadly as ET. They come rushing at you in big swamrs not even bothering with stealth, screaming and clawing. As a marine though you actualy have an advantage over them in melee despite the Xenos being melee only. Marines have everything going for them in marine VS xeno. Light, flares, motion tracker, guns. So it's disgustingly pathetic when the many marines are slaughtered by Xenos in the campaign.

 

It's just pathetic. When you're playing as a xeno you really dont have any option but to hide. The game is entirely focused on stealth, but the stealth system is SO BROKEN you cant actualy ever strike back unless you're on easy. The problem is the over simplistic melee system. Heavy attacks and light attacks and blocks. Those are your only options. Heavy hits do very little damage, take about 10 seconds to charge up, and have no range. they dont work. Light attacks are the only working sort. Your averga efight consists of locking on, doing a light atatck, which ALWAYS knockdowns, and then killing them with an instakill Grab.

 

A grab takes 45 seconds to finish. That breaks melee completely since it takes so many light attacks to kill even one marine. You just cant play as aliens here. They rely solely on melee and the melee system favours marines. They also rely on stealth. When they go into a shadow in game, they are supposed to be almost invisible. This doesnt actualy happen. Marines here can see THROUGH walls and pitch blackness. You'll usualy be perma detected even before you enter the room.

 

The predator on the other hand is wholely broken. The cloaking device doesnt work-Aliens are blinded by it totaly, but Marines can see through it from 80 metres and beyond if you're moving, and 40 metres if you're still. What's more, the pred's weapons are virtualy one-hit-kills and have infinite ammo. So you just toss your disc enough times, and all the problems die. Unless you want to actualy play properly, if you try and melee, you're toast since marines can see you through walls, ignore your "distract" and can somehow hear ANY movement in the zone.

 

These are my big three failures for the year so far, anyone got anything to add?

[brokenergy]

I'm waiting for 2011 for my gaming fix Vin. There is nothing good around now (which you have stated correctly) and some of the biggest releases are going to happen in 2011. So I have nothing really to add because there is nothing interesting that has caught my eye.

[JimboUK]

I've stopped taking much notice of magazine/website reviews, I'll read them to get an idea of what a game is about and then go off and check what real gamers think on forums and the like. Mafia 2 is a good example of the cluelessness of these hacks, it's linear and a little short but it has an excellent story with great characters, it got marked down by both Giant Bomb and Eurogamer for not being a Grand Theft Auto clone. I wonder sometimes if these people actually play games away from work, some of them don't have a clue. Wasn't it Gamespot who knocked the D&D game "Neverwinter Nights 2" down for using the D&D system? that says it all.

[KDStudios]

That's why I personally just check out youtube for gameplay videos.

And REAL gamer reviews, not what magazines are PAID to put in.

I never believe anything from one person or one magazine or website.

I like to check a many number of sources before getting a game.

Hype is what kills the game more.

The more hype for a game the more likely it just won't deliver.

 

Take MW2 for example...Complete flop of a campaign, horribly short and if playing on veteran impossible to do UNLESS your lucky.

I'm talking about the mission where you have to flee from that house... but you die at the end anyway? What was with that?!

Also the multiplayer is terrible, no dedicated servers and a million and one glitches.

 

So yeah.

I'm sticking with what I see and not what others say =P

[Vagrant0]

Torchlight wasn't THAT bad, and made for a few good hours of entertainment. While yes, the graphics were a bit too story-book, and the character design was too stylized, it's something which can be overlooked when you are a fan of rogue-like games. The real downside of the game is really that it comes off as being too much of a "Diablo for kids", and is far too linear in both dungeon types, skills, and equipment.

 

But your first problem is really in that you listen to anything mentioned by paid reviewers.

[Balakirev]

One major problem is the ever-increasing desire on the part of players for more game features. The more you put in, the more difficult for the rules-based AI, and the more difficult it is to adequately beta test in-house. Which is no excuse either for releasing a brain-dead AI or a game that's beta-tested by your players, of course. It's simply a fact of life.

 

By contrast, check out something like Solium Infernum. Tiny company, simple, menu-based graphics, had fantastic AI almost from the first, despite having a relatively complex set of interactions with computer-driven AIs, because there are physical spaces to consider (saving lots of time and money) and because aside from those interactions there's very little else. I'm not recommending the game (though it is fun), but just trying to show that a game concentrating on a few design elements takes less resources and works well from the start. It's just not the kind that sells a lot, though.

[DELiSH]

I dug Torchlight for a while, even though it was a souped up version of Fate. Soon the next version will be out and it will probably be much more fully featured. The first one got boring too quickly due to lack of variation, being too easy and having no real goals to strive for. The lack of good quests and more varied random scripted encounters also bogged it down. BUT, it was still fun, at least for a while :)

Rumor has it the next one will have multiplayer, which can only help boost its popularity.

 

Lots of other interesting games on the horizon, but until then why not try some of the older games? There are many nice gems out there from years past, depending on what you're into. I know I keep discovering games that are two, three even five or ten years old and have a blast with them. Games I never noticed before, for some reason. Also games by indie developers like Spiderweb Games are worth checking out. I like the Avernum and Geneforge series.

 

It's not that games are getting stupider, there are still intelligent games being developed. It's simply that there is more variety these days and perhaps you're focusing on a narrow selection of what's available. Try to look at the less than mainstream and you'll find plenty of better games.

[Azrael12078]

Mech Assault 3 looks good in the trailers. I hope it plays like it looks. MA2LW wasn't the best for me. I thought the story mode lacked a bit. multiplayer was fun. MW2 was a huge disappointment for me. I wont even go back to it till Black Ops is out. That I might even pass up too if the rumors are true that the Beta is already hacked:(

[AliasTheory]

That's why I personally just check out youtube for gameplay videos.

And REAL gamer reviews, not what magazines are PAID to put in.

I never believe anything from one person or one magazine or website.

I like to check a many number of sources before getting a game.

Hype is what kills the game more.

The more hype for a game the more likely it just won't deliver.

 

Take MW2 for example...Complete flop of a campaign, horribly short and if playing on veteran impossible to do UNLESS your lucky.

I'm talking about the mission where you have to flee from that house... but you die at the end anyway? What was with that?!

Also the multiplayer is terrible, no dedicated servers and a million and one glitches.

 

So yeah.

I'm sticking with what I see and not what others say =P

 

Agreed.

 

I subscribe to GameInformer, but only for collector's purposes and to look at articles that AREN'T game reviews. I used to like GameInformer but now I just don't agree with their reviews in many cases. And they wouldn't ever dare to put a big-name title like Mario down either, even if they are big complainers of stale, old gameplay. Now I always check on Youtube and browse message boards before making my educated choice.

 

As for MW2...I wouldn't say flop of a campaign. I thought some levels could have been designed better, but it really was more of what made CoD4 great. Those fast paced, blockbuster moments are awesome. I love Han Zimmer's soundtrack for the game and is definitely worth a listen outside the game. And veteran? Not impossible by far. I have little experience and I went through veteran three days after the game came out with little problem. Heck, I even did all of Spec Ops solo with the exceptions of Hidden and the coop gunner missions. Now World at War is something to complain about as far as the single player. And multiplayer itself is actually fine. I live in Hawaii and I get good connection. The community is what is making this game go down the drain.

 

Failures of the year? None so far for me. I've always walked away from every game on my shelf being happy and satisfied.

[Deleted1217574User]

It wasn't quite this year, but I was severely disappointed with Fable II. It was just... Boring. The dialog was humorous, but that was about it, despite all its hype. Now, with Fable III coming out, I'm not even gonna try it. I rather hate when one game in a series ruins the rest for ya.