Your top 10 'Major Disappointment' games or: 'I want my money back!'

@JDR13:

I like Doom 3 a lot as well. I thought (at the time of its release) the graphics were amazing and the gameplay was easily the most horrifying and immersive FPS shooter out there. (And some might argue still is -- at least the most horrifying.) I have a pretty decent computer so I could play with all the graphics maxed out and playing alone in the dark… call me a wuss but it was pretty scary stuff. I consider myself pretty hardcore and I have some friends who're hardcore as well and some of them couldn't even finish the game because it was too scary. I actually made it near the very end and gave up because the game was too scary and messed with my head. There isn't a horror movie out there that's too scary for me… some of them leave me wishing I never watched them because they mess with my head a bit but that's sort of the point to them. Anyway, if you say Doom 3 isn't scary then I whole-heartedly believe you didn't play the game long enough and you didn't play it in the dark, alone, and with the graphics up high. The fear factor in itself was enough to give this game major props, not to mention the graphics during that time. Also, it was a VERY long game for a FPS. I've played at least 50 FPS games (and beaten them all) and Doom 3 is easily longer lasting than 75% of those… if I had to guess more accurately I'd say it is longer than about 90% of FPS games out there. It was repetitive in the typical sense of a first-person shooter with no RPG elements to it but that's nothing to complain about… because you get what you buy in this case, which should be predictable.

But for BG… I played the original and quite frankly thought it was kind of boring. It had some strong and addictive elements but compared to most other highly successful RPG games, I didn't think Buldur's gate was all that special. That doesn't mean I'm not a true RPG gamer, it just means my personal preference in RPG games is different than yours. I'd actually say that BG serves as proof that there are two major categories of RPG games… the type that favor RPGs like BG more and type that favor RPGs like Gothic or Elder Scrolls more… (and I'm not just talking about camera angles… I have no problem with 3rd person RPGs… Diablo for example was a truly great 3rd person RPG experience. NWN is another great one). Generally, blanket statements of any kind are a sign of ignorance in my opinion… but we all make them so no harm done!

Originally Posted by Jaz
I didn't like Baldur's gate, either, and one of my ongoing PnP RPG campaigns started in '97 (not AD&D, though, we stopped playing shortly before the 3rd Ed was released). *shakes PJ's hand*

I love the BG games, but there is a mentality that they are the penultimate representation of RPG. I just don't buy that … and since my first love is shooters, my analogy is that neither Half Life is in my top 10 games - people often say 'how can you call yourself a shooter fan if you don't worship HL?' Sorry … just don't.

Originally Posted by Prime Junta
@JDR -- why do you find it annoying that peoples' taste in games doesn't always match yours?

Since we're talking annoyances, I get annoyed by logical fallacies. Like No True Scotsman, which is what you're toting. I didn't care for BG, but my current PnP D&D campaign will have its tenth anniversary early next spring. How long has yours been running?

Prima, do you take everything posted on a gaming board that seriously? You need to learn to distinguish sarcasm.

In other words, that was just me saying that I really liked Baldurs Gate.

Congratulations on your Pnp campaign. Is there supposed to be some sort of relevance in relation to a CRPG? Just curious, since those are two very different types of experiences.

Yes, I do realize I said "RPG's". Just for the record, I was referring to CRPG's, but since this IS a website dedicated to them, I didn't think my words would be taken out of context like that.

Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were lying like lead in the shelves, as we use to say here. They never sold much.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were lying like lead in the shelves, as we use to say here. They never sold much.

Only a couple million copies here or there …

txa,
Half-life doesn't even crack your top ten for shooters?! What are some of your favorite shooters?
Half-life 1&2 are definitely in my top ten for shooters, but this may be due to the fact that most FPS are pretty bad in general, rather than Half-Life being that good.

Originally Posted by JDR13
txa,
Half-life doesn't even crack your top ten for shooters?! What are some of your favorite shooters?
Half-life 1&2 are definitely in my top ten for shooters, but this may be due to the fact that most FPS are pretty bad in general, rather than Half-Life being that good.

I'm not saying I don't love them, just don't worship them … here are some I like better, in no particular order.
- Dark Forces
- Jedi Knight
- Jedi Knight II
- No One Lives Forever
- NOLF 2
- Soldier of Fortune II
- Doom
- Wolfenstein 3D

The original Wolfenstein 3D, or Return to Castle Wolfenstein? They were both great.

Yeah, the original Doom, and Doom 2, were the best. I played Doom on 3 different platforms. PC, Playstation, and the Atari Jaguar. The pc version is best of course, but the Playstation version had some incredible background music added in.

Had a lot of fun with the JK series as well. Surprised you didn't mention Jedi Academy.

The worst game ever made was Blood2, it was nothing like the Blood one was.

Originally Posted by Bigpapa
The worst game ever made was Blood2, it was nothing like the Blood one was.

That's a great example Bigpapa, I couldn't agree with you more. I loved the original Blood, it was the best game ever made using the old BUILD graphics engine made popular by Duke Nukem 3D. Blood 2 was a buggy piece of poop.

Blood 2 was one of the games I did't finish. A pity, I had loved Blood.

My 10 major shooter-only disappointments were… um…

-Blood 2 (JDR13 said it all)
-Witchaven 2 (nearly unplayable due to control issues)
-Operation Bodycount (yawn.)
-Angst (probably the worst game ever, regardless of genre)
-Redneck Rampage Rides Again (tech issues… stutter stutter….)
-Mortal Coil (great premises, great features, but a buggy mess)
-The Hidden Below (just plain disastrous.)
-Rebel Moon Rising (great lighting, boring game)
-some title in an Egyptian, Tomb Raider-like setting… it was so bad I decided to forget the title
-Creature Shock (I hadn't expected an Arcade game, so this came as an unpleasant surprise… my fault, but still.)

Then there were those titles which made me laugh - more of a hilarious experience than depressing: Mortyr, for example, Ken's Labyrinth or Depth Dwellers. Did anybody else play those?

Originally Posted by JDR13
The original Wolfenstein 3D, or Return to Castle Wolfenstein? They were both great.

When I think 'original' with Wolfenstein, I think of the one I had for my Apple ][+ in ~1981 I was talking Wolf 3D (1992). RtCW I like a lot, but I thought MoHAA was better and I've barely replayed it since …

Originally Posted by JDR13
Had a lot of fun with the JK series as well. Surprised you didn't mention Jedi Academy.

It wasn't a complete list JA I've only played a dozen or so times …

Originally Posted by Bigpapa
The worst game ever made was Blood2, it was nothing like the Blood one was.

I personally think that Contract J.A.C.K. to the NOLF games is worse than Blood 2 to Blood, but then again … crap is crap

The Half Life and Sin episodes are too short for their cost in my opinion… very good games (especially half life episode one) but if I'm going to pay that much money I want more than a day of gameplay.

Speaking of FPS games, my absolutely fave (for multiplayer) is Classic Quake. I've never enjoyed a multiplayer game more than that beauty….Ahhhh, the memories

My list would have to include:

Half-Life 2: My biggest complaint is that I just couldn't shake the empty feeling of that I was really just running through a long corridor throughout the whole game - especially in the parts that were set in the city. It felt like nothing of it was there for any reason other than to serve as an obstacle course, with some enemies littered about.

Gordon Freeman's complete and utter silence was also an immersion breaker for me. There's also hype that it failed to live up to (remember the films they said were actually AI based, that were shown to be scripted when the source code leaked?).

Oblivion: Another case of developers outright lying to make their game sell better (the RAI demonstration videos, mostly). An uninteresting gameworld (nevermind the fact that Cyrodiil is supposed to consist largely of tropical rain forest according to the previous games) that fails to create a believable society. The new version of Cyrodiil is supposed to be full of farmlands, but heck, even the Ascadian Isles in Morrowind is more believably farmed than any part of Cyrodiil is. It's mostly just empty wilderness with no purpose other than to have somewhere out in nowhere to hide the caves and ruined forts.

Also, less skills, a console interface, level scaling, fast-travel, an extreme hand-holding quest system with those annoying markers to tell you exactly where to fast travel to, annoying minigames, a main quest that forces you to be a hero, no choices other than "take this quest now or later" even when the quest givers imply choice by saying things like "don't tell that person about this" - it all just made it feel too dumbed down for me to appreciate the game.

The only really good parts I found was the first half or two thirds of the Dark Brotherhood (did they run out of ideas, or time?), and Sean Bean as the voice actor for the Emperor's heir did a good job.

I know of the interface mods and OOO etc, but those felt more like band aids in a situation where you need tourniquets.

Heroes of Might and Magic 5: Perfect example of why you should not take a 2D franchise and turn it into 3D without some considerable thought given to why it should be 3D when 2D worked so well. Having to turn the camera around the battlefield just to be able to attack from the right direction shines of poor game design. I never really gave it much of a chance after I had that happen, and I don't see much reason to either - when HoMM 2, 3 and 4 are all more than enough for my turn-based strategy gaming needs.

Neverwinter Nights: My main complaint was the awful Aurora engine, that sort of tried to be the Infinity Engine as well as 3D single player at the same time, yet failed horribly among the weird camera settings/controls and tiled areas. The tile based terrain might be easy to make mods for, but it made the whole game world(s) feel awkward. And the single player campaign was ridiculous. The UI was mildly annoying. I missed the tactical element of controlling a 6 man party, that didn't have such obvious "one quest per chapter" progression of their storylines.

I had high hopes for "the next Bioware game", as Baldur's Gate II was still my favorite game at the time.

Of course I have played more games than those that I didn't like, but I think those are the only ones that I've really felt let down by.

I agree on Oblivion and NWN, and your summary of dissappointments on the two are spot on. I'd like to add that the premium modules, add-ons and multiplayer capabilities of NWN make it a decent game, but it certainly did not live up to the "BG3 hype" at the time. I even recall BG2 ToB having an in-game screen saying "Your adventures does not have to stop here, you can import your character to Neverwinter Nights!" or something similar, that made me want NWN very badly.

I had also wanted to import my BG2 character but it's understandable that they weren't able to do it since they were using different rulesets.

IIRC that loading tip about exporting your character was actually already in BG II, without the expansion pack, before their plans for NWN had taken their final shape, and before they decided you could become lvl 40/a god in Throne of Bhaal.

EDIT: Oh, and believe me, I've tried to like NWN for what it is. I even bought the expansion packs after hearing they were actually worth playing, I tried playing on persistent worlds as well as single player mods. But I could never get past the fact that I loathed the actual engine so much that it was all just unplayable.

Originally Posted by Dr. A
Speaking of FPS games, my absolutely fave (for multiplayer) is Classic Quake. I've never enjoyed a multiplayer game more than that beauty….Ahhhh, the memories

Yeah, Quake Team Deathmatch was fun. But then came the original Team Fortress (the one with the Carmina Burana intro movie), and my view of multiplayer changed forever. You could even have a co-op game of the original Quake with the TF characters. Quite funny to knock on a shambler's door and watch it rush out to tear you apart… just to be greeted by your level 3 sentry gun and your HWG friend.