Well-regarded 2014 games that disappointed you

Well, I'm looking back at the year and trying to sift through all the really good (but not mindblowing) games of the year. Inevitably, I ran into some disappointments and I'm curious about yours.

I just completed Infamous: Second Son. It's a game I bought my PS4 for, as Infamous was my favorite new IP of last-gen. It was the biggest disappointment of the year for me, by far. Let's just say I started it at launch and didn't complete it until just now. Not because of length but because of apathy. The reduced gameplay scope, the characters, the story, and the setting all came together to severely underwhelm me. This goes against a lot of reviews I read that called it the best in the series.

Which brings me to what well-liked game this year did you just not enjoy? Not necessarily your biggest disappointment, but a game that everyone seems to like that just did not click with you. Seems like when a game gets pretty good reviews but gets disliked, a reviewer may start making excuses for it and almost feel afraid to straight up say "I didn't like it!!" I just ask that it's something you played, not something you think looks dumb because of its Quick Look.

Last year, mine would be GTA V. This year, it's Infamous and Transistor (And yes, I played the Destiny beta and realized it wasn't for me despite my love of Halo).

Shadow of Mordor. It was just boring. It's a game of systems...and that's it. I didn't really dislike the systems but they didn't blow my mind like other people. Then add in that the art design and environments are generic and dull, the writing is dull, the voice acting is fine I suppose but the lines are, you guessed it, dull. I guess I need more then systems to enjoy a game.

Last Of Us Remastered

The remastered part wasn't the problem, I hadn't played The Last Of Us before and despite an incredible first 5hours or so I quickly felt the game become a tedious slog with very samey environments which once dazzled quickly become a bore. Most overrated game ever? Could very well be 7/10

Transistor. I enjoyed my time with the gameplay, though the enemy designs were kinda too similar and not very interesting. But the story is just told poorly/not told at all, and you don't get to know any of the characters besides "charming man in sword", so I just felt nothing at the ending because I DON'T KNOW THESE PEOPLE. And there are a handful of plot details that are just never even remotely explained.

It's not a terrible game, but it's a much weaker showing than Bastion, so it disappointed me.

@yesiamaduck: Last of Us really dips in the middle for me. You're right, it does get tedious for a good long while. First time I played, once I got better at the game it kept me going. Luckily, I think it gets really strong towards the back half. That game should've been five hours shorter, despite my overall positive impression of it (I'd go with 4 stars, could've been a 5 if it was a little tighter).

@jasonr86: I've heard that a lot from Mordor and can understand the criticism. I just loved the gameplay and got a kick out of the Nemesis system for a good ten hours, until later in the game where I didn't feel threatened by anyone. The story wasn't too deep and there wasn't much variety there, but its gameplay was everything I hoped Black Flag would've been last year (my first AC game since 1). Come to think of it, the story missions sucked pretty hard. Oddly enough, still a top 5 game for me in this... transition year, let's say.

@bisonhero: And oh, Transistor... my hype levels were through the roof. I just didn't like the core gameplay and couldn't finish it. My problem is that every ability didn't make me feel powerful. The focus was more on tactics, obviously, but I don't think giving you weak powers was a good compromise (even with mods). Like balancing in Starcraft, I wish they balanced things by making each side feel stronger. I dunno, it had a lot of design similarities to Bastion outside of combat, but the gameplay just didn't do it for me. The audio/visual aspect just wasn't enough. And as you mentioned, the story didn't grab me. Bastion seemed to do a bunch of world-building that Transistor didn't live up to.

I'm not really sure, honestly. I like Mordor well enough, though it's way too easy, causing the nemesis system to fall completely flat if you're competent at the game because you never die or encounter difficult captains. I really like Destiny, so much that I plan on buying the 'expansions.' It's not without its flaws either, but, from what I can tell, most of the complaints are from people who were either expecting something totally different or who haven't been exposed to MMO systems before.

Those are actually the only two major 2014 games I've played, I think. I plan on picking up Infamous on Black Friday, but I still need to play through 2 before I get into it.

@csl316: Yeah, your abilities in Transistor basically suck for the first, say, third of the entire game. The system doesn't even work, really, until you have like a dozen different powers, and a ton of secondary slots opened up to upgrade your powers with your powers. By the end of your first playthrough you finally have an adequate amount of abilities to properly customize yourself, and I begrudgingly played through a new game plus (for the achievements I was missing) where you get even more powers. Also I thought the memory limit on how many you could equip at once was just draconion, and should've been higher. It maxes out at 32, which while I get that it fits the Tron/YO DAWG YOU IN A COMPUTER theme, but it felt lame that even at what was basically max level, I still wasn't even filling all of the secondary and passive slots I had available because you hit the cap of 32 so quickly.

Well I shall plough on through based on your endorsement of the final act.... I've just met the other child and his carer... how long before it gets good again? lol :D

Once you get out of that season. It's the longest one, from what I remember. But some stuff in fall and most of winter is just so strong. All I can tell you is that they develop a sense of urgency. In the middle of the game, they're just kind of meandering about. It feels kind of directionless, like you got all freakin' day to get where you need to be.

My buddy's playing through it now, and although I like the large combat encounters that appear in Pittsburgh, boy is it a weak point of the pacing. We're actually putting it down for weeks at a time because nothing's pushing him forward aside from the gameplay.

Thief.

@s80007 said:

Was Thief well-regarded? Most people seemed pretty down on it.

I am confident in saying that i have not had any disappointments from this year or any year come to think. Granted, i only played a handful of new titles(2014) but everything as usual has been entertaining and thats good enough for me. VG are a hobby i greatly enjoy and wish others would take the time to appreciate the talent instead of villanize teams which consist of hard working people who are taking YEARS not DAYS to provide that experience. I wish i had a spot of the talent that creates the worlds in which i escape, but i do not. Do you?

Wolfenstein: The New Order would be mine. It got a lot of good press around the time of its release, and the idea of a flashy, interesting, surprising under dog sort of release really appealed to me. It ended up being the first game I bought when I picked up a PS4. I played through the first 4 (I think) missions and was kind of into the way the story was shaping up, but the gameplay just didn't grab me at all. I shelved it in exchange for Transistor and forgot about it for months. I've recently thought about going back and switching up my play style and powering through a few more missions to get a more complete picture, but it's been too long. I've forgotten enough now that I feel I'd have to start from scratch, and my first experience left me with no desire to do so. Whether it's the games fault or not, all I feel is disappointment when I think about it.

I wasn't even looking forward to it, but even then I found Evil Within disappointing. What a heap of garbage.

Pretty much every game this year that's been high profile/high budget has been creatively bankrupt, committee/focus test designed rubbish, or re-releases. Alien Isolation looks a lot better than I originally thought it would be, though.

There's been some decent indie stuff though.

Well, Dragon Age: Inquisition is getting some buzz, but I'm already disappointed in it. As a HUGE fan of Origins, I have an undying chip on my shoulder with Bioware for heading in the action-RPG department instead of staying with a more tactical style of combat--like we needed more of those in today's market. Sure, you can pause combat and issue commands, but the flow and feel of the gameplay is nowhere similar. Dragon Age II was at least a bit closer to this in design, even though it had flaws elsewhere. I can't even look at gameplay of Inquistion without mumbling to myself angrily and fantasizing about what could have been. I refuse to pay anything near full price for it and only want to play it because I really like the world they created and want to continue the story.

Nobody's villainizing, we're talking about well-regarded games. The point here is if you played something that just wasn't for you.

If you like everything, then great.

The "well, can you make something better" argument gets under my skin. I play music, and if I hear someone criticize a band I'm not gonna ask them to put out a superior record. I do corporate finance, if someone can't balance a ledger I'm not gonna try to make them feel bad about it.

@gamer_152: It was the most disappointing though

It's certainly the default attitude. Which is why I'll continue being the one guy who will say nice things about it amid the negativity.

I've certainly said it elsewhere, but Bravely Default really shot itself in the foot for me with its last third. It's the definition of lazy padding and the opposite of fun.

I think I'll have to go with Hyrule Warriors. I mean...like...funnily enough, it'll still probably make my top ten of the year, but after the dust had settled, I still found it somewhat disappointing. For one, Lana and Cia stick out like the sorest of fucking thumbs in the worst possible way. They both look like cookie-cutter anime and/or JRPG characters. How Nintendo gave them the greenlight, I don't know, but they're here and they suck.

Secondly, and this is my probably my biggest complaint, is the fanservice is like...barely mediocre at best. For example, although you can, let's say, play with Midna in a Skyward Sword level, that's about as deep as the crossovers go. As far as I can remember, none of the side characters ever acknowledge each other or visit another Zelda timeline. I'll let the lack of interactions slide during the midst of gameplay, but the fact there's zero cutscenes with characters from the different timelines interacting in any way whatsoever is incredibly disappointing...and I'm not even a huge Zelda fan!

To make matters worse, none of those side characters except for I think Fi ever acknowledge that they met a Link in their respective timeline. They're all like "shits gone crazy! Let's kill some shit! Alright, bye!" and that's that. Didn't Ruto joke about marrying Link? Didn't Midna sorta kinda maybe have a crush on Link? Where the fuck is any of that? I mean, say what you will about the whole harem thing, but it's actually kinda true and the game makes no attempt to even remotely have a little fun with any of that.

But whatever. The biggest sin of all though, and it's kind of at odds with my very first complaint about Lana and Cia sticking out, is literally nothing in this game acknowledges that the Toon Link side of the Zelda universe exists. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Again, they could've done so much with it. For example, during a story mission, have a few characters end up the Wind Waker timeline, but have all of them retrain their respective art syles except for Link who has now transformed into Toon Link. Have them poke fun of how strange he looks. HAVE SOME FUCKING FUN WITH THIS UTTERLY RIDICULOUS, FANSERVICEY CONCEPT. JUST DO ANYTHING.

It's just...ugh. I don't even like Zelda that much, but I feel like there's way too much wasted potential here and it kills me. That said, somehow, I still did have fun actually playing it (I love me some Dynasty Warriors) so while I clearly find some aspects disappointing, part of me still loves it.

Destiny isn't well regarded, but everyone, or the very least the majority of the people were hyped for it and in the end it turned out to be a fucking mess. Lame design choices, absence of any kind of lore and story, and multiple cash-crab tactics reduced a game that could have been the next Borderlands meets Halo into a total grind-fest. I still play it from time to time when I'm board, but that doesn't change the fact that it was extremely mediocre.

Shadow of Mordor. I mean, it's not bad or anything, I enjoyed it on the whole, but it took forever to click with me at all, and it took waaaay too long before introducing the mechanics that made it really interesting. The story didn't really do anything for me, nor did Talion himself, really.

It really just felt like Batman Arkham City without Arkham City's excellent levels and stealth rooms. You're left with an open world, fun combat...but not a whole lot else? The Nemesis system could only do so much to make up for it.

It's a solid game with some cool ideas, but I didn't find myself raving about it and ultimately found it a bit disappointing after hearing the internet, press and friends really pump it up.

Dark Souls 2 was this year's biggest disappointment to me. It wasn't a bad game; it just wasn't a fantastic Souls game IMO.

GTA 5 still counts right? I think it's incredibly bland and monotonous.

InFamous SS i thought the game was OK at best but after playing Sunset Overdrive the combat in InFamous now just seems so boring. It's the same as all the other InFamous games which was fine but i just thought this game was going to do something different.

I'd probably say Shadow of Mordor. I did enjoy it, and I can see why people love it as much as they do, but the story did nothing for me. By the time I reached the other area I was struggling to force myself through the story missions. They struck gold with the Nemesis system, but the game didn't offer much else.

Shadow of mordor, I feel almost exactly the same way as I did about prince of Persia 08, both quite shallow and vastly overrated.

Preach it brotha. V felt like a pandering to a player census. I think that series has lost its heart, and I thought IV was great too.

IV had even less heart than V though, it's the most lifeless of the bunch.

Finding a way to bring up GTA V again lol.

That was a 2013 release.

It's also a 2014 release.

Watch Dogs was a piece of shit. Ubisoft is great at taking amazing subject matter (French Revolution and NSA surveillance) and turning it into really stupid fiction. Like brain dead, not a hint of self awareness, trashy shlock. Plus the driving was ass and all Ubisoft AAA games are essentially the same design now so that level of familiarity was significantly disappointing.

Sadly I think most games that I've played this year were a little flat. Dark Souls II made some smart mechanics changes, but everything else was a step back.

I never got around to finishing the P4 play through of P4AU. I've got maybe 4 chapters left, then the P3 and Adachi and true endings after that, so I'm well short of finishing it. Not sure why I put it down. There's a lot of game there (I'm also not done Golden Arcade, Score Attack or the Challenges) and I just can't seem to want to play it for more than 20 minutes.

I really dislike The Binding of Isaac Rebirth. Not sure why.

I never finished Icarus Proudbottom's World of Typing either. I got a few weeks in then got busy for a week and was suddenly behind, so I never went back. Having a lot of trouble with the final boss of the last episode I did too probably didn't help.

I really like OlliOlli but I think it sucks that the last 125(?) hard challenges are locked until you complete the 250(?) easy and normal ones first. I'm like 3 short of having the other third of the game unlocked, but now that I'm out of practice I'm never gonna have the skill to get them.

@corevi said:

@artisanbreads said:

Finding a way to bring up GTA V again lol.

That was a 2013 release.

It's also a 2014 release.

So about a re-release... you guys hated it last year, but now this year it's going to be good because it's on new consoles? It isn't even out as a re-release but it's already disappointing?

Plus so I guess every re-released game is considered a release this year? Last of Us going to win GOTY again?

It's okay guys. There was a long time to complain already. It was a release from last year. Or at least use a proper thread. This is about games from this year.

I'm not sure how exactly we're defining "well regarded", but Civilization: Beyond Earth is a game that did pretty well critically that I (along with many other Civ fans) found to be quite disappointing. It's not a terrible game by any means (though it does have a lot of fundamental issues), and it has the potential to become much better if supported with further expansions. However, with Firaxis coming off of some amazing games in Civ V and XCOM and invoking the classic Alpha Centauri, there was almost no way this game could live up to the expectations.

Also, I really liked GTA V, and I'm likely going to buy it again.

@artisanbreads said:

@corevi said:

@artisanbreads said:

Finding a way to bring up GTA V again lol.

That was a 2013 release.

It's also a 2014 release.

So about a re-release... you guys hated it last year, but now this year it's going to be good because it's on new consoles? It isn't even out as a re-release but it's already disappointing?

Plus so I guess every re-released game is considered a release this year? Last of Us going to win GOTY again?

It's okay guys. There was a long time to complain already. It was a release from last year. Or at least use a proper thread. This is about games from this year.

Would it help if I told you Oddworld New N Tasty is one of my favorite 2014 games?

@chaser324: GTA V is incredible. The fury in the writing is unmatched. The controls were pitch perfect and the map was a blast to explore. It really comes down to the writing for me though. It's great satire. That game has some serious balls.

Except for the phoned in ending.

I was really unimpressed with Wolfenstein: The New Order. Yes, it did really ambitious things with story and character, but I just didn't think it was very fun to play. I think it's saying something that my favorite thing about it was the title screen music.

Isn't 2014 the year of disappointment? I can't think of a big game that I was interested in which didn't end up disappointing me, to be honest.

Maybe I'm forgetting some titles, but anyways I think a better question would be: What are well regarded 2014 games that appointed you.

I'm usually pretty good at calling which games aren't going to live up to peoples' expectations, and tend not to get caught up in the hype myself. Kept clear of the big ones like Watch_Dogs and Unity, knew what I was getting into with Destiny before hand, etc.

My non-applicable one would be the 360 version of Forza Horizon 2. It's basically missing about 3/4 of the game from the Xbox One version and only took a few hours to complete the main set of races (basically they want you to do every race literally 10 times to truly complete it). I knew it was missing stuff from the Xbox One version before getting it, but it really wasn't too clear until the Quick Look had gone up on the site and everything. The 360 version was also incredibly buggy: clipping into roads and having the physics bounce your car erratically, clipping into roads and coming to a dead stop, occasionally some of the AI would drive into a wall at the start of a race and stay there indefinitely, etc. The core of the game was still pretty solid, so I had fun with it, but it was a really big let down for what it should have been. I don't think anyone was raving about the 360 version though, so even though Forza Horizon 2 as a whole was well regarded, I don't think the 360 version was.

For my actual answer, it'd have to be GRiD: Autosport. People seemed pretty positive about that game when it came out, saying how much better it was than GRiD 2 and it was a return to form, etc. That game is bad. The AI is awful, the handling model is bad, the game design is terribly boring, the netcode for the online wasn't very good, and features like the cockpit view were very sloppily done (to the extent that it was effectively unusable). GRiD 2 strayed quite far away from the first game, but it was still a pretty fun racing game if you just didn't get too hung up on the fact that it was supposed to be a sequel to GRiD. Autosport basically tried to force GRiD 2 into being GRiD, but in the process muddied up everything, making it the game about 1/4th as good as the original GRiD, a whole seven years later. I still played over 10 hours of it, desperately trying to like it, but it has so few redeeming features, and they all get completely washed over by the other elements which they rely on (e.g. the online progression in that game is really good, but it requires you to have to play GRiD Autosport and deal with the poor netcode, as well as the desolate online lobbies).

Probably Alien: Isolation? I was really enjoying it till I got to the infuriating part where you have to sneak around 4 humans. I spent like 20 tries on it, couldn't figure out what to do and stopped playing.

FAQ it, man. If you really like the game no reason to let a chokepoint stop you.

My disappointment of the year has got to be Destiny. I realize people are split on it, but it has its defenders and I don't get it. I played that game a lot, grinding not because it was necessarily fun but because it was so close to fun and people were talking up the raid. Then I got to the raid, saw what it had to offer, and put down the game. I went back this weekend for a few minutes to run around the tower and see what Xur had to sell, and rather than giving me feelings of nostalgia and memories of fun times, like going back to an MMO generally does for me, it just made me angry all over again and even more angry that I had to hunt for that stupid merchant.

Nothing else even compares. On the flip side I was worried that Sunset Overdrive would be a disappointment for me, and the first couple hours weren't great, but once the game fully opens up it's super fun. Might be my GOTY.

Destiny and Infamous: Second Son.

Destiny I think is just kinda boring (I've never been a huge Halo fan either), and still way to grindy and while I loved the first two Infamous games, Second Son simply didn't click for me.

Mordor. Don't get me wrong you could do some really cool things in that game but as a whole I thought it was kinda boring. I didn't think the nemesis system was anything special either.

Runner up would probably be Titanfall, though most of my beef with that game comes from some poor networking issues. (On the 360 version at launch. It may have gotten better since. Also it's totally CoD with mechs.)

I have never gotten around to playing The Last of Us, and the critiques here make me wonder. I really did not like that whole Revolt at last years GOTY awards. So I have not given the game a fail shake, yet. And Transistor...I don't know. Haven't tried it.

I think for me the games were slow this year, rather than disappointing. My favorites; Dark Souls 2 .Wolfenstien, and Shadow of Mordor should have more competition. I guess they will with games now coming out. And if I didn't mention any tittles, I will definitely be culling threads for what people liked, just to see at least any indie tittles I failed to appreciate.

@privodotmenit: To each their own I guess. I loved the driving mechanics in that game and while the plot was a little ham fisted and overbearing, it was pulled off decently enough in the end. I thought V was too 'topical' and it really hit you over the head with all the culture parodies to a point of fatigue. Also, those Lazlow missions...ugh.

As for proper new releases, I guess i don't really have any yet. Haven't played games that many would probably consider disappointing (Watch Dogs, Destiny, Assassin's Creed Unity) so ummmmm maybe, Stick of Truth? It was funny, but the gameplay wore thin towards the end. It was good though, just not great.

All games to come out this year? Just kidding... but it has been a pretty disappointing year.

Watch_ Dogs was no where near the graphic fidelity we were promised and with such an interesting premise, you would think we would get a much more interesting story. Instead we got some bogged down story that checked marked through cliches and had extremely boring characters that had practically zero relatable or interesting traits. It was just a mess of a game that once I beat it, I never picked it up again.

Destiny was the biggest over hyped piece of putrid garbage I have ever played. I know I will for sure never buy a Destiny or Bungie game ever again if we're just going to get Loot Collector 2014 with out dated fps game mechanics. It feels like a game with an identity crisis and it just doesn't know whether it wants to be an mmo or a shooter.

Ironically I think Shadows of Mordor and CoD were probably my most enjoyed games to come out this year because I knew what I was going to get when I bought them and I loved playing them. They were games that had no BS attached to them and I felt like they were so simplistic in their ideas that it was easy to get into them. It seems a lot of the newer titles they use ambiguity to market their games and it leads people to speculate trailers and demos to the point that they create impossible expectations to what the final product will really be like. I feel like we never really saw what Destiny was really going to be like (I still don't understand what Destiny is about). All the marketing was just this convoluted mess about what we could do and it seems Watch_Dogs and some other games are taking the same route.

It's all about expectation right? I really enjoyed Second Son (keeping in mind it was still an honorary launch game) but I had never really cared for the previous Infamous games despite trying to like them REALLY hard.

And Transistor was a fairly big letdown at first. I was very much looking forward t to it but the story didn't come together in any impactful way and the whole experience just ended up being sorta... aimless? disconnected? I did replay it a couple of times and learned to really, really like the combat system it had in place. Tinkering with combinations and playing on high difficulties redeemed a lot of my respect for the game overall. That and the overall ambiance and beauty of the art design and sound is still so compelling on it's own.

So yea. Expectations. Both good games though.

Shadow of Mordor. All you do is kill orcs... that is it... that is the entire game.

It would be a hard game to review, I admit. The 'Nemesis' is very cool, but the game that surrounds that system is so superficial.... You don't want to be the backwards reviewer that doesn't praise innovation, but the game itself is painfully dull.

@poser: I played it for forty minutes or so at a friends place and yea. You. Just. Kill. Orks.

It all worked and played well but yikes, after 40 min I was like "Ok, I need to take a break and make some tea or something."

Apparently it's that for 25 hours.

I actually thought the combat in SS was a step down. The grinding in the first two games made the fights seem more mobile and generally fast-paced. Second Son had more powers based on traversal, but that stuff wasn't used to great effect in the combat itself. It also led to more missions of following guys and getting across the city, due to the powers lacking interesting combat options (aside from running away). Not to mention that 2 was chock full of huge battles, while Second Son was just a game of small skirmishes against frustrating enemies.

Sunset actually feels more like the previous two games to me, so I like it way more. Seems it all comes down to that grinding.