Most Disappointing of 2009

Most disappointing game from 2009?

  • A Farewell to Dragons

    Votes: 10 10.8%
  • Borderlands

    Votes: 14 15.1%
  • Divinity II

    Votes: 17 18.3%
  • Dragon Age

    Votes: 18 19.4%
  • Drakensang

    Votes: 5 5.4%
  • Geneforge 5

    Votes: 2 2.2%
  • KB: Armoured Princess

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Knights of the Chalice

    Votes: 1 1.1%
  • Risen

    Votes: 18 19.4%
  • Torchlight

    Votes: 7 7.5%

  • Total voters
    93
I half disagree.
Especially in the case of more story driven games, bad ending can ruin the overall impression of the game and the journey in retrospect.
I really wish developers would care about endings of their games more and plan the development accordingly.
Ending should be the climax of the game, not something that leaves sour undertones when thinking back about the experience.
Imagine Planescape: Torment with botched conclusion.
Also, knowing the ending sucks hurts the journey upon replay.

Did you like Divine Divinity? I did. I also thought that ending sucked, but I replay that game without any hesitation.

There is no way Planescape could be any less than one of the best games out there. I don't care if it had the worst ending in the history of bad endings. I'm talking Indiana Jones 4 bad. It would still be one of the best RPG in my library. The reason being the journey to the end was what made that game great.

I'm glad it didn't have a horrible conclusion to that wonderful game, but it wouldn't stop me from playing it again.

Knowing the ending hurts any replay. You already know what is going to happen so what is the point. The reason I replay any game is the same reason I reread any good book. I want to relive the experience of getting to the end.

Anyway, we all have different criteria when playing a RPG and we all probably have different definitions on what a RolePlaying game is. I just happen to enjoy the adventure much more than the actual conclusion.
 
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Looks like people are voting without reading the title correctly.. i mean.. dragon age was the most disappointing title for most people?

For me - yes. Bioware promised great game with many C&C, deep dialogues and story, dark atmosphere etc, what we have got? Mediocre game with few C&C, mediocre dialogues, retarded (and I mean REALLY RETARDED) story with TEH EVIL destroying TEH WHOLE WORLD, where we are SAVING TEH WHOLE WORLD. And instead of dark atmosphere (ok, I wasn't expecting PST, MotB or Bloodlines but I thought it's gonna be more-or-less serious as The Witcher at least!) we've got another boring high-fantasy.

My reaction when playing Dragon Age was "What The Fuck?!" most of the time.

It's not the worst game of the year but it's most disappointing game of the year for sure.
 
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I actually can't vote in this poll - I only played a few games on that list, but the few games I played certainly delivered (and then some).
 
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Actually Dragon Age was the most suprising game for me,I expected nothing but it ended up a very good game.
I'm not surprised no-one voted for KB: Armoured Princess from what I've been reading here it's as good as Legends.
 
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Dear Green Place
dreaded STEAM rootkit.

OK, we've been through this before ... Steam is *not* a rootkit, that is an already times-over demonstrated fact, you are incorrect and it kills your points and makes you sound like a conspiracy theorist for continuing to shout that from the rooftops.
It is very sad that better (not great) Diablo clones, like Legend or Frater never got that much attention and tanked commercially.

Don't know Frater, but Legend (assuming Hand of God) fails for the reason I state in my Torchlight review - it sets a concept and design it is unable to attain, and therefore fails to deliver a compelling experience. It has some dreadfully poor design choices and lacks the core albeit simple fun of a game like Torchlight. They failed to get the basics right, so the rest that could have supplied a superior experience is simply 'failed fluff'.
 
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Heh, I voted Dragon Age, which funny enough is also the game I voted for game of the year :)
But when I have only played 3 of the games it limits it a bit. And Dragon Age, though good, still disappointed.
 
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Dragon Age, very disappointed.

After you strip away the decent, occasionally good, dialog there's nothing there. The story is horrible, the characters are Bioware cliche, the character system is extremely simple (in a bad way) and the combat has very little depth.

I laugh when people rip on Borderlands for not having a story then praise DA:O. The story was of the same quality, DA:O just had a lot more of it. Gearbox knew their story was crap so ignored it, Bioware champions theirs to the exclusion of gameplay.

What part of this had such high production values? Because they spent the time to litter their blocky fuzzy graphics with rocks? Because everything had full speech? Because they took the time to make sure it was flashy enough to catch the console kiddies attention? Maybe it was that I had to spend an hour in camp after every mission holding the hands of each companions so they felt special. Oh I know, it's all the time they spent lovingly crafting the items in the game like Steel Sword (level IV)!

I will however give Bioware full credit for adapting the interface as well as they were able to mouse and keyboard. At least they didn't try to push a pos console interface on the PC because they were too cheap or lazy.
 
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I voted Geneforge V. My main complaint is that there was a Geneforge V. Jeff keeps releasing these retreads and it's really getting old. Please think of something new and maybe take some programming classes and upgrade your engine-massively!
 
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Legend? As in, Legend: Hand of God. That game was shocking, I'm sorry.

Shocking? A game that got an average ratio of 75% http://critify.de/games/pc/370/legend-hand-of-god/ and got a 60% score on IGN, being the limited distributed, foreign language game it was?

As I wrote: Legend and Frater (aka Chosen) are good Diablo clones, NOT great ones. I read that Legend got a very bad localization job in the US, so that might be shocking. The rushed ending chapter is shocking, too, but did anyone ever hold that against Divine Divinity? No? Thoght so.

Torchlight is just a mix of Diablo-ripped elements, ugly grafics, low production values, no atmosphere, lame attempts at humor and the worst viewing perspective since Nox (2. worst Diablo clone ever).

Legend HoG had everything that is missing from Torchlight. A good viewing perspective, nice grafics with a lot of style (look at the concept art), heart warming humor, a reasonable story (I even read the novel and listened to the audiobook) and characters with personality.

Loot grinding ALONE is not what makes an ACRPGs great. This is why some people still prefer D1 over D2, because D1 simply had more style and was the more complete package.

@Mike
Technically STEAM may not be a rootkit, but if I HAVE to join a gaming network for a single player game (and Games for Windows Live is as bad), not just to get my bought product to run, but just to get the SAVE anywhere function (read the news about Bioshock 2 and GFWL), than it surely behaves like one. In this way I am not in control of my computer. Remember the thing about the WoW client? It wasn't a rootkit, too, but it collected client data nonetheless - do you like this "Brave new World" of computer gaming? I surely don't.
 
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The list show to me just how disconnected I have been from cRPG's in 2009. I haven't played a single one of them. I haven't even played Witcher yet...
 
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Know what you mean, JemyM. The only two I've played are A Farewell to Dragons—because I foolishly offered to review it ;) — and Armored Princess, so I don't feel I'm qualified to vote. I know these are all big name rpgs, but I just don't have the money to pay full retail pricing for all those games, especially not knowing if I'll really enjoy them. After NWN2/MoTB, I just don't know if my love for that kind of game has survived the transition to 3D cameras and cinematic cutscenes.

I do plan to get around to them eventually though, especially Risen and Drakensang.

@ Mike: Frater was the original name for The Chosen, a pretty decent Diablo clone, actually, though far from perfect.
 
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Funny, the RPG Watch game of the year and disappointing game of the year will likely be the same simply because it has probably been the most played one.

I voted Geneforge for the reason already mentioned earlier. I really wish Jeff could come up with something new. He can re-use the same old graphic as far as I'm concerned, but invent some new game mechanisms, a new «world». Perhaps something with a smaller scope than saving the world another time and more developped characters.

Yes, DA offered some disapointment but overall, it offered a great gaming experience. A rather interesting world with tons of lore, simple and limited yet interesting game mechanisms. Pretty bugless, good and well voiced dialogs. Risen is far more shallow and Drakensang didnt hook me nearly as much.

But probably my biggest disapointment in 2009 came from the first russian reviews of Disciples III.
 
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Voted for Torchlight, because it was direct copy-paste from Fate. I mean, the makers of Fate should sue the creators of Torchlight, unless they have some kind of deal between them.

A Farewell to Dragons was lausy, but I didn't expect anything from it. Risen also was kind of a dissapointment, but still a pretty good game, even though was again copy-paste from G2. And Dragon Age was dissapointing for me and still haven't played it through, but many of my friends recommends it, so didn't there to vote that. :) Overall, all those games are somewhat dissapointing, except the ones that I've yet played.

But Drakensang doesn't have anything to do in this list, right. ;)
 
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Might leave this one until I play Divinity II, although expectations aren't massively high so I probably won't be disappointed.

Very happy overall with the selection this year. The things I thought would be good have been either good or very good, and since they all started coming out in the last few months I haven't had time to even try anything I didn't think was going to be good. Haven't even had time to try all the things I thought would be good.
 
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No game disappointed me last year, so I can't vote. :wall:
 
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I chose Dragon Age. Strangely its the one with the most votes, i was expecting barely no one would pick it as the most disapointing of 2009 because of the so many good reviews out there.


For my reasons as to chose it:


a) The Dialog options are extremely boring. Most of the time i already knew what the NPC was about to talk even before he opened his mouth, meaning the whole thing is terribly predictable.

b) The companions "respect level up" is extremely fake. You just need to give gifts and talk to them when you surpass a certain number in his "respect bar" for new dialog options and thats it. Its a good concept but all in all, its extremely predictable aswell. The only exception is with Morrigan when most of the time you are not realy expecting how she would react to a certain dialog (most fun relation in the game for me).

c) The combat has a lot of flaws and unbalances. The whole mage game-play is terribly overpowered but not fun. Its overpowered when you play CC, and boring because you cant go all-out in flames blazing due to agro issues.

d) You can end the game in hard dificulty SOLO with a mage, naked, with no potions (mind you, in a Group-based RPG…)

e) YOu can end the game solo in normal dificulty with some classes (again, in a group-based game)

f) The graphics are terribly bad. They are. Realy. Do a close-up and you'll see the terribly low poly-count.

g) unbelievable low number of max-level armor/weapons for some classes.

The game is good in some aspects like its lenght, the cut-scenes, the sense of exploration and epicness, but all in all, its a very shallow game in my opinion.

If i had to choose, i would give a 80-82% to put it in prespective. When i saw 95% scores i was so hyped i even took some days-off from work to play it on the launch week. In the end, i was disapointed. A lot.
 
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I have to go with Risen because of the poor quest maps and quest log. To me they both lacked in detail and could have been done much better. JMHO. The game play and world I loved. Took me back to the days of Gothic 2. ;)
 
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