The Most Disappointing Game You've Ever Played

[Hegel]

Project Eternity.

 

[OSK]

lol, nah. I'd just let the player get quests from both the constable and the thieves, and not have anything be locked out until the player actually acted on his words. After all, words are cheap; it's odd that in this first significant quest, words are completely unbreakable promises.

For example, in the same town, I've simultaneously promised to break into the bank and help protect it when robbers come. This is how a well-designed quest system works. It doesn't force the player to make a choice before he even knows what his choices are, much less whether he's actually making a choice.

Alright, I see what you're saying. It's not what I originally thought you meant. But I disagree that the player needs the choices laid out before him or to be perfectly aware he's even making a choice. Too many RPGs fill their games with petty, meaningless quests that players just blindly agree to do. Whether you actually perform them or not, you're pretty much always guaranteed a positive and non-meaningful result. Like an MMO quest dispenser. I would be perfectly ok with a seemingly simple fed-ex quest turning out to be illegal contraband that fucks you over and locks you out of some content and opens up something else. Always being aware that you're making a choice and having an idea of what the outcomes will be seems a little boring to me.

 

[Xavier0889]

Diablo 2. It was supposed to change my life. It didn't.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The problem with the thieves on the bridge is that they had no way of knowing you agreed to help the constable. It can't even be a "word on the street is you're helping the constable" thing since they're a long way from the town. Unless ogres have really good hearing. Then again, it seems to be a tutorial quest of sorts, to show the player the if he helps character A, his enemy character B won't have anything to do with you. The ghost bandit / priest duo at the first area serve a similar purpose.

That said, suejak's point isn't very good - iirc you have the choice to tell the constable you'll "think about it", you're not forced to choose between "Yes, I'll help" or "No, fuck you" when you talk to him. So it's not a case of "locking meout of paths to complete significant quests without me having made a choice yet".

On topic, I can't think of a big disappointment. Probably because I almost never have huge expectations of a game, and even if I do I'm very lenient of flaws as long as the game has some good points to compensate for it. Mortal Kombat Armageddon for example is very weak compared to the games that came before it, but it has a huge roster and many things to unlock.

 

[Jasede]

Dungeon Master 2. And I was so looking forward to it

I'm a weirdo. Well, you knew that already.
But I like DM 2 better than 1. I blame it on me playing it first. The various environments, the thieves, the shops, the interactivity sucked me in as a kid. One was much more bare bones after I finished 2, even though it's likely the better game if you look at it objectively. But nostalgia gonna nostalgia.

Same reason why my favorite QfG will always be 3 (because I owe it for introducing me to QfG), shortly followed by 2 (because the game has the best EGA graphics I've ever seen, plus furries. Yay for furries!

When I think of QfG 3 a lot of things come to my mind that I'll never forget: the vivid descriptions of the foods from the in, the flirting dialogue, the friendship with the Paladin, the feeling of desperation in the latter half of the game, the time spent in the village, the whole mood of the places, the music... I'm always reminded of the game when I go to eat African dinner or middle-eastern, the distinct smells and tastes I imagined as a kid that the game conveyed so well with just a few words.

 

[Jaesun]

What did you think of Chaos Strikes Back Jasede?

 

[Jasede]

I have yet to play it but I'll quote what I wrote a few days ago:

When I tried it I started in total darkness and was attacked by a monster before I could even find my bearings or get my torch. So I never played it. I think a great adventure awaits me one of these rainy days up ahead - it's VERY rainy here in Seattle at this time - and I'm really looking forward to it. A cup of hot chocolate, the thermostat turned up and a nice game of CSB -- now that's a great way to spend a rainy winter's eve!

I'm actually fortunate to have so many games to play right now. FTL is my current passion; that game is really entertaining for what it is. Though I do have to wonder where all the Kickstarter money went...

While I'm rambling, I'd really like to play some "new" adventure games, as long as they're sort of 2D and have good production values (not pixel-indies). It'd be nice to play an adventure because I haven't really done that since I was, man, ten years younger or so. I was 16 then. Maybe a little older. Last adventure games I played were 7 Days a (Something) by Yahtzee and Scratches (loved it), but I sort of would like one where you walk around and collect items, like Broken Sword 2.

 

[Average Manatee]

The problem with the thieves on the bridge is that they had no way of knowing you agreed to help the constable. It can't even be a "word on the street is you're helping the constable" thing since they're a long way from the town. Unless ogres have really good hearing. Then again, it seems to be a tutorial quest of sorts, to show the player the if he helps character A, his enemy character B won't have anything to do with you. The ghost bandit / priest duo at the first area serve a similar purpose.

That said, suejak's point isn't very good - iirc you have the choice to tell the constable you'll "think about it", you're not forced to choose between "Yes, I'll help" or "No, fuck you" when you talk to him. So it's not a case of "locking meout of paths to complete significant quests without me having made a choice yet".

The problem is that when you say "yes" you don't know that you are actually making the definitive choice. In-character you could simply be pretending to be agreeable in order to coax more information out of the constable or w/e. A better solution would be to split this into "Yes (truth)" and "Yes (lie)" options.

That said, in any game of Arcanum's scope there are going to be quests that can't accommodate the full ideal range of player actions.

 

[bussinrounds]

Bullshit. They turned it into an arcady end to end game with players dribbling through like 4 defenders and shots flying in on goal every other minute. PES 5/WE9 was a more realistic defensive game with actual battles in the midfield that you could actually play 20/25 min games and still have a realistic amount of shots on goal/goals in most games. VERY rare that we'd actually ever have a 0-0/1-0 type game in PES 6 if you played 20+ minutes. That game is when the began.

Have you played PES 4? It's twice as fast as PES 5 and 6.

PES 6 has a slightly faster tempo than PES 5 due to the field being a bit more stretched (bigger gap between defense and midfield), and I agree about the midfield battles, but with 20/25-minute matches I've always had quite realistic stats and results, including tons of goalless draws. I guess you might get more goals if you played a more direct game than I do. I may concede a bit more often in PES 6, but I also score less than in PES 5. If anything, PES 6 is the more balanced of the two. In PES 5 you can score long shots from 30 yards and indirect free kicks from the half-way line regularly. It also has some AI flaws that can be pretty easily exploited, like drawing an opposition full back out of position and playing a through ball to your winger who then has miles of space in front of him, which works every single time if you do it right. Cut backs, fake shots and long through balls are also totally overpowered, as well as players like Adriano and Recoba (or pretty much any player with a high shot power and accuracy). In PES 6 they fixed or at least toned down those things, and that's why I usually play it instead of PES 5 nowadays. I do prefer the overall feel and tempo of PES 5, but it doesn't give you much of a challenge when you know it inside out.

I never said anything about PES4. Although I agree it was way too fast and offensive, a big disappointment after the stellar PES3/WE7.

But PES6 man... my experience with it was WAY too much space in the midfield when you have the ball, you could possess the ball/pass it around all day if you wanted too. Like the opposing team stayed too far back, never crowding the midfield and playing any passing lanes, forcing you to play that long ball over the top. (yes, I fucked with all the tactics too) Not that you REALLY had to play the longball in any of the games (which would of been nice) but it was much worse in PES6 compared to 5. The tackling was very underpowered in PES6 too. Like I said before, mediocre players would just dribble through defenders like they were Messi or something. I could actually stop ppl and take the ball away in PES5/WE9, while I had no chance and felt like a fucking human turn style in PES6, trying to play defense.

I always was more of a possession player and don't play very direct at all, btw. I do agree that certain exploits like cutbacks, shot fakes were overpowered in PES5, but I never abused them, as I always try to play more of a realistic type game. It was never all about winning to me, but more trying to emulate an actual game of soccer and just having some fun with it. We would only play a few games vs friends like once a week without practicing or playing at all during the week, so none of us were that great or even familiar with all the exploits anyway. (which was a good thing, I guess) I always played alot of different games/genres and was all over the place anyway, so I would never be able to compete vs these ppl that just play only sports games, or shooters mainly, say.

Yea, there were def some things that were improved on in 6, but I always felt the Japs would fix something and then fuck 2 other things up in these damn games. As far as the overall game balance though, (offense vs defense) I think PES 5/WE9 was much better and alot tougher to create scoring opportunities, as is the case in real soccer and that was the most important thing to me.

Regarding the overpowered players like Adranio, I totally agree, but we always played with edited option files anyway because Konami's stats were always such dogshit.

Have you ever played WE9 Liveware Evolution ? It's very similar to WE9/PES5. People say they've improved on some certain things, and there are subtle differences, not that I can really tell the difference, but then again I haven't played WE9/PES5 in awhile, so it's tough for me to tell.

Anyway, if you're interested, there was just a patch released for WE9LE yesterday actually, updating the squads for the 2012/13 season.
http://www.evo-web.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=69762

Here is the group page
http://weplaywe.pl/index.php?sid=31a1954fc56860d4851d925260c7d469

And here is the page with info on the patch
http://weplaywe.pl/viewtopic.php?p=3045#3045

They have a server up and you will be able to play online matches too, btw. People would be glad to help you out with setting shit up if you have any problems.

 

[octavius]

I have yet to play it but I'll quote what I wrote a few days ago:

When I tried it I started in total darkness and was attacked by a monster before I could even find my bearings or get my torch. So I never played it.

In this case it's important to remember what it says on the cover of The Hitchikers's Guid to the Galaxy:

Don't Panic

 

[Tzaero]

For me, Rainbow 6 Vegas. It was my first cover shooter and i didn't like being fixed behind walls. I also realized that this crap would make it's way into other games.

 

[OSK]

The problem with the thieves on the bridge is that they had no way of knowing you agreed to help the constable. It can't even be a "word on the street is you're helping the constable" thing since they're a long way from the town. Unless ogres have really good hearing.

I always figured it was the gnome near the constable who asks for the ring since he seems to make it past the thieves with no problem.

The problem is that when you say "yes" you don't know that you are actually making the definitive choice. In-character you could simply be pretending to be agreeable in order to coax more information out of the constable or w/e. A better solution would be to split this into "Yes (truth)" and "Yes (lie)" options.

That said, in any game of Arcanum's scope there are going to be quests that can't accommodate the full ideal range of player actions.

Arcanum does still provide a rather impressive number of solutions for the quest. You can kill the thieves, pickpocket the key to the gate, pay the toll, use persuasion or complete the thieves' quest.

 

[evdk]

I have yet to play it but I'll quote what I wrote a few days ago:

FTL is my current passion

Well yes, FTL is great :D

 

[Gerrard]

People who said Fallout 3, what the fuck is wrong with you? you were actually expecting a good game from Bethesda at that point?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fahrenheit!
it was SO BAD i even forgot it.

 

[suejak]

The problem with the thieves on the bridge is that they had no way of knowing you agreed to help the constable. It can't even be a "word on the street is you're helping the constable" thing since they're a long way from the town. Unless ogres have really good hearing.

I always figured it was the gnome near the constable who asks for the ring since he seems to make it past the thieves with no problem.

The problem is that when you say "yes" you don't know that you are actually making the definitive choice. In-character you could simply be pretending to be agreeable in order to coax more information out of the constable or w/e. A better solution would be to split this into "Yes (truth)" and "Yes (lie)" options.

That said, in any game of Arcanum's scope there are going to be quests that can't accommodate the full ideal range of player actions.

Arcanum does still provide a rather impressive number of solutions for the quest. You can kill the thieves, pickpocket the key to the gate, pay the toll, use persuasion or complete the thieves' quest.

I'm willing to alliow that perhaps Arcanum ought to played more cautiously than your usual game. I don't think it's great design to lock players into something so easily, but I did indeed have the choice to say, "No, not right now." I don't remember whether it was a firm yes/no choice.

So yeah, I'll be more careful in making empty promises to people. This is a game that doesn't tolerate empty promises.

 

[General Maxson]

You can mutilate those pesky thieves easily with dynamite if they are proving too troublesome. You get some nice armor for Sogg.

 

[Carrion]

Have you ever played WE9 Liveware Evolution ? It's very similar to WE9/PES5. People say they've improved on some certain things, and there are subtle differences, not that I can really tell the difference, but then again I haven't played WE9/PES5 in awhile, so it's tough for me to tell.

Haven't played it or any of the Winning Eleven titles, but that does sound interesting. In any case, this discussion made me want to reinstall PES 5 again. I haven't played it for a few years so maybe I should give it a go and see if it's more different from PES 6 than I remembered.

 

[Emily]

Oblivion
For same reasons others have told

 

[JarlFrank]

For me, Oblivion. Loved Morrowind, and the hype caught me. Played Daggerfall after Morrowind and loved it, too. Expected Oblivion to be the best from Morrowind + the best from Daggerfall.

Biggest disappointment ever.

 

[TheCatsofSanktPetersburg]

Warcraft III.

I had been a huge fan of the 1st and 2nd games. Heck, the game manuals were probably my favorite bedtime reading material back then. I loved the lore, the universe, everything, and I had had so much fun playing W2 with friends.

The hype had been tremendous, and during the game's long development cycle it was initially hinted that the gameplay would be much transformed, more tactical, following limited parties of warriors on missions, sort of like Bungie's Myth series, only in beautiful (back then) 3D and with Warcraft's universe to back it up. I bought every magazine that I could find that detailed the new gameplay, drank in every promise.

At last, the game was released upon the world, and it was not like Myth. Ok, I would have been fine if it had just reverted to W2-ish gameplay, but it hadn't. The focus was now on hero units and low numbers of accompagnying fodder. Well, I had played Warlords Battlecry, and that did the whole Hero-centric RTS thing about a thousand times better by allowing actual variety in hero types and a constant progression from one game to the next. So gameplay was nothing too impressive, but hey, it's Warcraft... at least I can enjoy the setting, right? Wrong.

The Horde was now a roving band of green hippies, B-movie samurais and noble savages(tm) instead of some mongolian horde (hurr) from hell, the Alliance was a bunch of pathologically megalomaniacal and inept egotists squabbling instead of once proud nations forced to band together to avoid complete genocide of the human race (and elves, and dwarves), the main character was an emo teenager with a big sword going through his puberty crisis and filled with adolescent revolt. There were pandas.

Heh, at least the cinematics were nice.

While I like W3, this is very true. We never got a sequel to W2 and the whole universe surrounding it simply devolved into a cheap imitation of fantasy tropes for people to dump their fan fiction into.

The W2 manual was my favorite bedtime book too.

 

[suejak]

Haha, I have great memories reading the War2 manual in the laundromat when I went with my dad. It's mostly nostalgia, yeah; but that game felt so cool.

War3 was much more complicated and a totally different vibe, and I didn't like it either. But it's undeniably one of the best games ever made. Go figure.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I think for me it was Deus Ex Invisible Wars and Bioshock. Before those games were released, I still had the naive confidence that next-gen games can be as good or even better than their (spiritual) predecessors. Everything seemed right. The original designers (Levine/Spector) were on board, concepts and ideas sounded promising, screenshots looked nice and then...BOOM. First IW turns out to be a turd on release, then a few years later that piece of shit Bioshock deprives me of the last bit of hope that we'll ever see a mainstream next-gen AAA production that could hold a candle to the classics of the 90's.

 

[jagged-jimmy]

I don't have time for disappointing games. Well, maybe Mass Effect and Alpha Protocoll slipped through... Oh, and GTA IV.

 

[Bluebottle]

Rome: Total War. Really loved Shogun and Medieval, hated the switch to the new engine. Battles were too quick, battle-maps too small, unit appearances too indistinct, too many sieges, too many insignificant battles against a handful of barbarians (with another 10 tiny armies to be cleared up before clearing a province), build tree too annoying, too small a unit selection for most of the factions, fog of war too restricting on the campaign map, movement on the campaign map took too long. I really loved the graceful simplicity of the first two games, every one after that has lost a lot of that (though they've been slowly clawing it back somewhat).