I will remember gaming in 2012 as the year I missed the boat. While I was busy giving my most anticipated games the benefit of the doubt, so many better games were slipping past me. My Pile of Shame list is huge, and this list was far easier to write than my GOTY (where I was struggling to fill 10 spots).
The deeply misguided "More = Better" school of game sequel design meets its sad nadir in a giant, packed open world where everything is a little broken and nothing is fun. As a long time AC fan, this could not have been a bigger bummer. There is great content here, but it's buried under a tedious, bloated mess of a game. The series has strayed so far from its soul that it's nearly unrecognizable, as if the designers were just as bored with the Assassin's Creed universe as the rest of us.
I love everything about this game... except actually playing it. Playing it is awful.
I loved Condemned and was excited about the difficult, atypical death mechanic and interface. Ultimately, what killed ZombiU for me were the moments when it switched to a VERY typical game. Turret sequences? Projectile-shooting zombies placed in conspicuous sniper positions? That's not what I wanted out of such a supposedly unique experience.
There's enough fun in here to sneak onto my GOTY list, but after the brilliance of Mass Effect 2... this game is a bummer. Like Gerstman, I have problems with ME3's story that go well beyond the ending. After hours and hours of fascinating character development in ME2, ME3 come out of the gate flailing with lazy, ham-fisted story beats, ranging from "dead kids make me sad" to "Commander Shepherd, please teach this robot what it means to love." NOPE. FUCKING BUMMER.
Fuck loot. Also, fuck giant Scottish dwarves.
I can't fault Max Payne 3 for not living up to my expectations, as I'm not sure what those expectations even were for a new Max Payne title. The game was pretty and well presented, but tiresome despite its brevity. I remember Max Payne fondly, and while I didn't hate the new outing, I don't really care for it either. Mediocrity bums me out.
I have no idea why I lost interest here, I just know I never need to go back.
I enjoyed Halo 4 more than I have enjoyed a Halo game since the original. That said, I would like to have seen a bigger break from tradition. Also, it's a bit shocking how little 343 cares about the story it's telling. Burying key narrative information in hard to find terminals, then further hiding the content in a SEPARATE GODDAMN SOFTWARE APPLICATION is absurd, and it kinda bummed me out.
