Well-regarded 2014 games that disappointed you

Shadow of Mordor is literally just a Ubisoft open world game without the Ubisoft label on it, no idea why people praise this game so much while putting down actual Ubisoft games. Was so disappointed with this.

Same here. Mordor just didn't sit right with me. The gameplay was okay, but everything else was incredibly mediocre. At this point it's more of a disappoint than Destiny for me, because with Destiny I knew what I was getting myself into. With Mordor I'd heard nothing but praise, so I assumed it was a guaranteed winner. Each year is full of surprises I suppose. Some good, and others...not so good.

@wemibelec90 said:

I don't think it's fair to say you're disappointed in a game if you haven't even played it. I mean, I loved DA:Os combat too, and I wish there were more games that use that system. However, having watched the QL, I'm not certain it would even work with the more open-world design BioWare went with for Inquisition. I think it would get pretty tedious to pause-and-play for every single combat across such giant zones. I'm willing to withhold judgment until I've played a few hours of it.

Regardless, my vote goes for Transistor. I loved Bastion and was really looking forward to another SuperGiant game, but Transistor just did not work. On a lot of levels. The story was non-existent, the characters lacked the charm of Bastion, the combat was exceptionally tedious, and the menu design was the worst I've seen in a long time. I think what made it even more disappointing was that having played Bastion, I know there's a ton of talent behind the game.

A few years past, I wrote a blog post about the third Dynasty Warriors: Gundam game, focusing on the exact same issue. Good to see the DW team hasn't made any real progress in learning how to make fanservice of that variety good.

I think it's pretty silly that you are disappointed purely on an idea of a game that you built up yourself, not one they presented you. It was pretty clear Bioware was moving away from the more tactical elements after DA:O and Mass Effect 1. Both sequels in those series of games became more streamlined, it only makes sense they went more in that direction.

@ssully: @lawgamer: I would say that I'm not disappointed in Inquisition, then, but in Bioware for taking the easy way out. I had no assumptions that Inquisition would be anything other than more actiony, but I'd hoped it might be a little more interesting than it appears to be. As someone who had never been able to understand and play an Infinity Engine game before, Origins was a close-enough facsimile that made me feel like I finally understood why those games were so important to people. For this reason, I don't think any further DA game will measure up to Origins, no matter how unfair that is to the developers. I'm not saying I blame them, as action is definitely more popular, but I can help myself from being a bit peeved.

Good to know since that's what I read from looking at vids. I came close to buying it but kept thinking how dull the art and environments looked (plus I'm not into LoTR stuff).

I bought the new CoD. I haven't played it enough to make a good opinion on it but I still kind of regret doing it. Think I should of bought Horizon 2 instead.

And I will agree about Infamous Second Son. Really liked it. But after playing Sunset Overdrive I don't think I could go back and enjoy Infamous as much.

In reading this thread I'm surprised how little titanfall was brought up. People for get about it or something? That game did extremely well critically but most people seemed down or over it after a week

Titanfall needed more game. Splicing out the singleplayer was one thing but the emptiness of the leveling system and the small amount of stuff to unlock killed its longevity. I played in the beta and I played during the free preview weekend and enjoyed every second of it but it felt like all I needed to play. It didn't have pull and all the pre-release press surrounding it was willfully oblivious to that.

Shadow of Mordor for me, I wanted to love it so much but the world was bland and not fun to explore, I didn't particularly care about any of the characters, the stealth mechanics weren't great, the story was not engaging. The nemesis system was a interesting for a while but then I stopped caring about it completely because I found it not really necessary to use because the combat was too easy. I got 3/4th of the way through the game and then traded it in for Call of Duty.

I know it's a obvious, but for me it's Destiny. It's just so...dull. It's like a chocolate Mona Lisa: pretty to look at but under a hot light it all just falls apart.

Diablo 3 just leaves me cold in a big way. On a side note, I really loved Mordor but I think that's mainly because I've loved Tolkien since I was 6. that last boss however, was a total anticlimax, and I can totally see the gaping holes in gameplay that leave people feeling bored. That one great mechanic just isn't enough post story....also it takes a swan dive in the second act by combining "pissing on Tolkein lore" with "let's just rip off the movies".......hey, maybe I have more issues with that game than I thought lol

@nightriff: Oh wow, that totally came out this year, didn't it? Just goes to show how quickly people moved on and forgot about it.

Shadow of Mordor, you kind of have to be bad (or try to be bad) to get anything interesting out of it. I never felt a connection to any of my nemesis's cause every time one would show up I would usually kill them within our first meeting, which wouldn't be a problem in any other game but Mordor kind of built it's name around that system. Also the controls feel really unresponsive. Still a good game though and I enjoyed my time with it but I won't be coming back any time soon.

Also while I love Bayonetta 2, I was kind of disappointed in it's lack of absurdity, but that may have been partly my fault for playing drunk 12 hours straight. I do love it the more I play it though

Watch Dogs is the absolute best example. What a goddamn unfinished game.

And here we are a few months later seeing Ubisoft continue the trend.

I also need to control my rage at the amount of instances where the word "overrated" has and will be said in this thread.

Others will disagree, but I loved Titanfall. It didn't have a very long tail for me, but I played it intensely for enough time to get my money's worth and it was probably the most intensely FUN game I played all year.

You sound exactly like a friend I know...

As for my most disappointing, probably Destiny. I loved Bungie's Halo games, and I expected the same sort of storytelling from Destiny. Even playing the beta I figured they had just removed a lot of cutscenes and such in favour of just testing the gameplay. But then the impressions from the actual game came out and I took my money elsewhere.

Next Gen console gaming started 2014 out pretty barren and dry with the only thing to quench a gamer's thirst was a retread of Tomb Raider. It was great looking but a six month old game with tweaked textures carried over from the PC was hardly anything to get excited over. Thief was a mirage of a once great game that, in the end, tried to startle too many lines and ultimately failed to make good on its legend. Xbox One owners had a bit more hope as spring approached, bringing with it, the critically acclaimed TitanFall. The gameplay was a blast but soon everyone realized that this group that was once Infinity Ward, was now just a start up that lacked the staff, time and funding to put out a true AAA title. Titan Fall turned out to be a cooler of water more so than an oasis to quench our gaming thirst. Sony offered its owners an equally unsatisfying inFamous: Second Son during the same time frame, and as a collective, gamers marched on into May, lips parched.

In may we had hope of a revived Wolfenstein and the beautiful and hyped Watch Dogs. Wolfenstein got less hype but actually turned out to be the better game with its throwback, straight ahead style. Watch Dog came out with all the fanfare Ubisoft could buy only to turn out to be another uninspired GTA clone with a quirky twist. Worst of all, its bullshots turned into a viral anti-hype campaign.

Gamers soldiered on through a void of nothingness. Remakes, retreads and redos all filled the months between May and September. Finally in September, gamers approached the bright light they had been seeing on the horizon for months. The end of this drought was upon us as September brought the insanely hyped Destiny. Like nothing before it Activision and Bungie promised a savior in this game. The beta gave everyone an enjoyable taste of the gameplay, but like TitanFall before it, there grew concerns over its design choices and longevity. Many kicked aside the harbinger and plowed straight ahead with a pre-order and pricy season pass. The brands behind this game, as well as the hype, surely had to prove the critics wrong but by the time the game dropped it was too late. Everyone realized the bright light we had all been chasing was a burning fire of a civilization lost to compromises and inner strife. Only a few who hesitated where not consumed by this fire - pouring fuel on the industries notion that marketing trumps gameplay any day of the week.

As the year closes out we see more of the same. Insanely hyped games with million dollar marketing budgets that fail to deliver on the gameplay. Some, like Sunset Overdrive, have faired better than others, but overall 2014 has proven to gamers that, all that glitters is not gold. Unfortunately, too many gamers have poured money into chasing these shiny objects on a promise, while overlooking what few gems in the rough this year has produced. Hopefully enough people have been burned in 2014, that 2015 will signal the death of the pre-order and the end of the industry being able to sell a gold plated turd for more than a solid, satisfying meal.

@frostyryan: I feel like having on just played through the whole game this week, I got the opposite experience from watch_dogs. Since release all I've heard is some brutally negative things about it that combined with the £15 cost of it (from the original £50) meant I went in with no expectations than a modern ubisoft sandbox filled with tasks to complete and I got exactly what I wanted. It's pretty uninspired but I won't lie, I can still enjoy the current ubi framework of "climb towers, open areas) though I'd imagine another year of it and I'll be done.

I can enjoy it, just not 5 times a year.

Right now, I think I have a handful of games that disappointed this year. In no particular order: Watch Dogs, a game I maybe played to about 30% completion and immediately stopped as I couldn't care less about the story.

Shadows of Mordor has a bunch of really great systems in place, but I feel like it needs a better story to make it more than just kill uruk-hai.

Destiny is super fun to play, but no story, really low amount of content and maybe just a bit too grindy. I still play it though, as I really do enjoy the gameplay.

There are others, like titanfall. But i'll stop there.

OK, I guess I should start with saying I didn't play most of the biggest releases this year, but of those I played I'd say Titanfall and Shadow of Mordor (I was of course disappointed in Destiny too, but I wouldn't call it one of the most well regarded games of the year anyway). Both of the games showed off pretty well on video, but all the design of Titanfall turned out to be incredibly boring to me - all the weapons were bland, and other than the kinda cool enter animation, Titans and pilots just didn't feel or look different enough, the campaign actually made me appreciate the critically panned Brink a lot, since it used the same campaign structure but actually made the player take part in the events rather than just hearing the story told to them.

When it comes to Shadow of Mordor, I see it's been mentioned here a lot, my issues were pretty different from the ones described here though, I don't think the nemesis system itself was an issue, but I just couldn't play the game at all - the controls just felt weird, had to struggle against the camera and movement system at every moment, and that coupled with the third person perspective - which I'm no fan of even in better controlling games - I was entirely unable to progress in it at all.

I hate everything people like! I'm the coolest guy in the world!

The Master Chief Collection is a travesty though. I cant believe everyone except Gamespot are giving it a pass. That's like saying "I know Destiny will be a perfect game in a year so i'm giving it a 10"

Dark Souls 2 is a big one for me. Everything about that game felt like a step down from the first game, and towards the end some of the enemies just sucked.

@mosespippy: Kinda agree about Isaac. Was really looking forward to it but unlike rouge legacy there isn't enough building your character from run to run for my liking

Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright. Bad characters, an even worse story that makes absolutely no sense when the finale rolls around, and it's just not a very good game. It's a bad Layton game and a worse Ace Attorney game.

Watch Dogs although I did enjoy the game just to think what could of been. What pisses me off more then anything is that they dumbed down the PC version graphics on purpose fuck that why can't all platforms utilizes it's own strengths.

Dark Souls 2. That game really bored me. It's an interesting example of reactionary design by a team that learned exactly how their audience plays their games, but the actual content was bland. 70% of Dark Souls 2 felt like filler. There was no Sen's Fortress or Anor Londo around every corner. The Iron Keep had some personality but by and large the game was devoid of the amazing verisimilitude of the first two Souls games. The spaces in Dark Souls 2 felt like more like they existed to facilitate combat encounters than they felt like an organic part of the world. From Software came up with some really neat encounter design and combat puzzles for the player in DS2 but they're devoid of context. Every boss fight in Dark Souls felt important, whereas in Dark Souls 2 the boss fights seem more the developers are saying "we thought this might be cool, I dunno, Scorpion Lady?" instead of trying to ground every boss in the world-building.

I feel like the Souls games had become so well-regarded amongst both players and press that it took weeks before people started really digging into why Dark Souls 2 felt inferior to its predecessor. I had a similar experience with Bioshock Infinite; watching people fawn over that game until weeks later when everyone caught up and started asking "wait a minute, is this not a bit shit?"

I don't blame you. You sound like you really loved Origins, and this game is clearly not that. I think it's a shame because that kind of game is clearly desired. Divinity Original Sin, a game similar in complexity as Origins, seemed to did really well earlier this year. The thing is EA isn't looking for a game that does as well as Original Sin, they want something that catches the masses like Mass Effect or even bigger.

Alien : Isolation . Bad game , IMO .

I think 2014 in general was a joke of a year for video games..... 2015 can't come soon enough.

Probably Transistor. The combat was fun once you got far enough into the game, but that ending was complete shit. It really soured my whole experience with it, I can't think about the game without getting angry at the ending.

Damn, you might be right. I totally didn't realize this.

I would say I played a lot of Hearthstone and really enjoy it. I also played a ton of Dark Souls II and it is easily my favorite game of the year. Didn't disappoint me at all. But besides that... yeah. I played a ton of Destiny but that game did disappoint me a lot still. I read a quote on Kotaku that really sums that game up: 'Destiny isn't a great game but man, Destiny is a great game'.

I would add I was surprised Wolfenstein was as good as it was though.

Shadow of Mordor was just too easy, making most of its gameplay systems (including the Nemisis system, which I found to be really overhyped) just pointless. Sure, I could wait for this orc to be ambushed by a Caragor which he is weak to, but 96% of the time stabbing him with my dagger/sword works just as well. The only orc characteristics that mattered even in the endgame were the resistances, but that just produced a game of rock-paper-scissors where I already new he has chosen a stone. The story was incredibly shallow, pretty much coming down to going through the motions while waiting for the story bosses to turn up. Worse is the fact that pretty much all of the characters abruptly say peace and leave (unless I missed something there are some end game characters who just basically disappear), without much resolution. It just felt like half a game.

Titanfall was disappointing for me too, I never really liked the mechs so I just found it to be a mediocre CoD clone. I spent most of my time wishing you could turn the mechs off.

Sunset Overdrive

Destiny

Watch.Dogs

Alien Isolation

Mordor and Destiny. I was on the hype train so hard for those two games. When Mordor wanted me to "kill 30 dudes" to trigger a chief, I bailed. That wasn't something I wanted to do, and they squandered a really good system and set of ideas with traditional AssCreed gameplay stuff. Outside of just novelty, there also didn't seem to be any point in killing orcs not required to by the main missions.

Excuse me, but the correct title is Watch_Dogs.

@spraynardtatum: I thought it was #Watch.Dogs. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Everyone around the office loves Destiny, but I was shocked and disappointed by it. I got up to level 17 maybe, never finished it. I guess you could say, I don't have time to explain why I don't have time.

Really surprised to see all the Mordor posts.

Then again, the criticisms all seem valid. Guess the fun I had with it let me ignore the downsides, which I suppose Brad was trying to articulate about his Destiny experience.

Driveclub. If you compare what they talked about in the PS4 event and the mess that they released thats the biggest dissapointment in my gaming history to date. As Jeff simply puts it, its horribly broken but even when it works its not a good game.

Destiny.

I only had to play the Beta for about an hour before I realized it wasn't the game I was hoping for.

Dark Souls 2 for sure. The game is okay I guess, but it felt like week-old leftovers compared to Dark Souls. So glad Bloodborne is coming out only a year from the release of Dark Souls 2.

@csl316: Totally agree about GTV5 for last year. As for this year, probably Titanfall.

I wouldn't say disappointed exactly -I'm glad I played it- but I didn't think Mordor was all that.

It's hard to not say Destiny, that series has untapped potential that we will not likely surface until 5 years later. Other than that, Halo: MCC is up there. I haven't been able able to play that game online yet, and that thing came out a fuckin' week ago. Really not liking this "Eh, fix it later" trend that has been going on this year.

@ssully: Not after Origins was hugely successful and DA2 comparatively tanked it doesn't.

That said, I don't think Origins combat was much to brag about in the first place. Divinity and Aarklash are lightyears ahead of Origins in the tactical combat department. Dragon's Dogma is lightyears ahead of DA2 and, by the looks of it, Inquisition when it comes to party / action combat.

Destiny - I don't think I've ever gone from euphoric highs to such lows so quickly. I literally started doing the end game grind, saw what needed to be done, and was like fuck this shit.

Other then that I don't think I've been disappointed in anything I've played this year.

Bitcoin was recommended in the App Store Top Chart, I downloaded it and played it for 5 minutes and got bored. Basically this game is about typing your screen all the time to make bitcoin, the virtual money, and at same time, you can use what you earned for investment or gambling / lottery. Money come and go, and you can only use it to change the virtual environment, like buying furniture, change outfits for the character, etc. In fact, I spent more time typing here just to remind you so you don't have to waste your time for it. (Of course, it's just personal idea, if you this game is your thing, just go ahead. :D )

Destiny and Watch Dogs are the obvious candidates. I would also add South Park to the list. I played that game to completion but despite being a huge fan of the tv series, I didn't really feel all that impressed by the game.

I completely agree, Transistor was one of a handful of games this year that I gave up on. The game completely failed to grab me.

Destiny is the go-to answer, it seems like. I was also bummed out by Transistor. The combat just wasn't very fun at all.