Giant Bombcast Game of the Year 2017: Most Disappointing Game

Right off the bat, I am with Vinny on Assassins Creed 100%

I'm with Alex.

Last Assassin's Creed I played was Black Flag. Origin brought me back in and made me bought Season Pass

Destiny 2 is only a disappointment to the people that like Destiny 1, and none of the staff liked Destiny 1. In fact, I believe Destiny 1 won most disappointing the year it came out. Since most disappointing is based on expectation, it would be weird for a sequel to a disappointing game to also win most disappointing.

Anyway, it seems like most people that didn't like the first actually did like Destiny 2 a lot more, including the staff. That's especially the case with them and many others that didn't stick with the first game for the long haul to see how much better it got over those 3 years (and how much Destiny 2 regressed in very meaningful ways over where Destiny 1 ended up).

Destiny 2 is certainly my most disappointing game followed closely by Mass Effect Andromeda. Considering Destiny and Mass Effect are two of my most played/favorite franchises of all time, getting 2 supremely disappointing sequels would have made 2017 a real bummer if not for the tons of other great games that came out this year.

@gschmidl: Well earned and deserved

@indigozeal: Agreed. I've never felt like Brad exerted his role as host before but this year in 3 of the 4 categories they've done so far I feel like he's refused to budge until people accepted his choice on issues, I would also say that Abby gets a bit forceful on Pyre during the best looking GOTY when it has no business even being mentioned in that category.

Mass Effect: Andromeda definitely has some issues, but the way people talk about it as if it is one of the worst games ever made is complete nonsense to me. I just don't get the extreme hate for it(kind of reminds me of how people lost their shit over ME3's ending). The story wasn't anything special, but it was fine. Nice visuals, fun combat, etc. I got lucky and didn't really run into any of the bugs/glitches I see people talking about, so maybe that impacted my overall enjoyment a lot, but I had fun playing through the game. Not as much as the other Mass Effects, but definitely enough to not really be all that disappointed.

Personally, I was far more disappointed by Shadow of War. I liked the first game quite a bit, and pretty much feel the exact opposite about Shadow of War. I didn't enjoy playing it at all, and actually found it to be kind of bad.

Everyone has different experiences, though, so it is what it is.

My favorite game is looking at @vinny every time @jeff says something he knows is at least semi egregious

Vinny is not even with Vinny on Assassin's Creed.

@metalbaofu: I'm in agreement that the pure vitriol for Mass Effect Andromeda is a bit too far. It certainly leaves questions unanswered and really doesn't do enough with its pretty good concept, but there's a decent throughline and some good character moments. The performance stuff is pretty bad, admittedly. I will say that I benefited from playing this several months after release though.

Also, why no talk about Resident Evil 7? That easily takes one of the top three spots for me, if not the top spot itself.

I thought the moment where you get the hidden blade in AC: Origins was super cool, especially since it was a callback to AC2. In 2 there was the Altair armor crypt thing under the villa that referenced the same moment with Xerxes I, I thought that was neat little bow they tied back to that game.

The most interesting thing to me about this video is basically how important subverting expextations is. LIke, weird category. Vinny loved AC besides the title of the game.

@indigozeal: I Guess I'm trying to convey my dismay in general about this year's GOTY so far. The lack of reasoning, the forcefulness of the crew and their illogical choices and biased approach. There's not much just about it or even rationale, except for where it fits, when they deem it fit.

I mean Brad's not wrong. Everyone builds up Horizon to be this amazing masterpiece but it's just a good open world game. That's really it.

I'm glad Alex was there to bring up how terrible NBA 2K has become. 2K is on the same cash grab craze that EA and other AAA companies are on and since 2K17, MyPlayer a mode that is not fun for me to play anymore. Disappointing me because that's what got me into the game back in 2K13. I think "most disappointing" is probably not accurate as these things have been going for years, but I would not be surprised to see 2K19 on "worst game" lists next year if the trend continues.

I loved AC Origins but didn't like Bayek much as a character. I guess he's ok, but he's no Ezio. I also really disliked Aya (I think that's her name. I may have already forgotten it) and thought she was completely dry and one dimensional.

That ending was crap, too. Just my opinion.

Playing AC:Origins myself, I definitely see Vinny's point. I'm enjoying it, but it does feel like they made Egyptian Witcher and stapled the AC name onto it. There's no real obvious story that ties the "present day" stuff with the ancient world and I miss the little historical tidbits that would pop up when you pass a famous landmark. You'd think they would cover this world in them to teach you about the time period.

The first time the nominations list pops into view I thought it was Jason holding a bit of paper in front of the camera. To be fair, I had many sherries and mince pies in me by that stage.

Man, the stuttering's bad though. I think Jeff mentioned on a recent stream that they'd finally hopefully fixed it.

Brad's right about Horizon. How is that not on here? It's one of the most disappointing games of all time, tbh. Furthermore, how can these three be disappointing when expectations for them were so low to begin with? Having any hope for Andromeda and Need For Speed when most of their series have been bad and Battlefront after the first one was so middling seems a bit daft.

Gotcha. I agree with you. I wish actual, you know, arguments actually counted for something in these debates.

This was my experience playing through the game as well. I don't have a history with the previous Mass Effects, and I wouldn't argue that it doesn't deserve to one of the top three here based on reactions of longtime fans, but I enjoyed the game and found the combat fun and scenery appealing.

Why isnt Destiny 2 on this list?

I never even played Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is a massive disappointment for me. I'm a PC gamer, so I was always envious of those who got to play D1. When it was announced that D2 would be coming to PC, I was incredibly excited. Unfortunately the game didn't even remotely live up to my own hype.

The story is boring and takes only a few hours to complete. The loot stinks and the build potential is non-existent. As someone who quite enjoys games like Diablo, Path of Exile, etc..., this was probably the part that hurt the most. The end-game is a complete joke. Absolutely nothing in the game is challenging. And to top it all off, I'm expected to pay more money (for more mediocre content) on top of the $60 I initially spent which wasn't even close to being worth it to begin with to "complete" the game.

This game really left a sour taste in my mouth. Needless to say, they blew their shot with my friends and I. Destiny is as good as dead to us.

I get that, but it's still a different perspective than the GB staff. Most of them actually did play Destiny 1 and didn't like it, other than Brad who did enjoy it to some extent.

So, whereas you were coming in with no experience after having heard positive buzz from the people that enjoyed Destiny for 3 years, they were approaching a sequel to a game they didn't like with low expectations.

The most disappointed category is all about expectations, and playing and not liking Destiny 1 very much sets the bar pretty low to the point where it would be hard to be a disappointment for them.

AC: Origins definitely follows significant historical characters and events throughout the game. Particularly at the end. But a lot of less prominent things once Cleopatra gets into the picture.

I really want to know what Dan typed into the Google Doc at the beginning that made Alex and Brad go "Dan, lets just not."

Yeah, I was trying to give it a shot, since I wasn't actually much of a fan of what happened with Mass Effect after the first one, and some of what I saw hinted at in the ME:A videos looked promising, but the game kept breaking before I could even get to the first mission. It locked up during the descent into the atmosphere after the intro, and I couldn't find a way to get past that part.

So here's a fun fact:

Destiny 1, did NOT actually win Most Disappointing the year it came out. It looked like a lock, everyone was on board, Jeff gave this big rant about how it was this incredibly unique and landmark fuck up and disappointment... and then he, for some vague reason about the shooting feeling good or whatever, (and Brad, less surprisingly) suddenly pulled back and they gave the "award" to Watch Dogs on the flimsy basis that if you saw the initial WD reveal trailer with the amazing graphics (and I guess absolutely nothing else about the game after that up until launch) then it might have seemed disappointing instead of a big next-gen leap.

Destiny 1 only got runner up for most disappointing. Then it got on their Top 10 list anyway.

*Leans away from microphone*

@larmer said:

Nier maybe?

I feel like the only red flag I saw of Shadow of War being possibly not great was when the director was on the couch on the E3 show and thought reciting rage tweets from a QA member would be a good idea. I actually think Brad was onto something by pitching Horizon to be on this list. I thought the game was okay but it was not nearly as mind-blowing as some people in the games press (Jeff included) made it out to be. So between the amount of hype around it and how good the game play loop actually is, I would wholeheartedly call it disappointing, even if it was one of my favorite games this year.

For everyone asking why Destiny 2 isn't here, look at it this way. The staff had enough people actively invested in the game for enough time that they had a team of six run the Raid. Contrast that with how the first game went over where most of the staff actively disliked the game, and only a couple people stuck long enough to do a Raid.

I can appreciate Destiny 2 might be disappointing to a lot of us...I certainly have my own issues with the game...but I feel like for this group of people on this website, I'm not the least bit shocked that it doesn't get mentioned.

@crushed: I think Watch Dogs was a the rightful winner but maybe for the wrong reasons. The graphical downgrade trailer fiasco was certainly a problem. But the bigger problem, at least to me, was that the marketing leaned heavily into the concept of surveillance and the CtOS system when the game was barely about that.

That game is about a kidnapping and revenge for your dead niece fantasy. It actually doesn't attempt to say much if anything about surveillance, or giving up privacy for security, or how the CtOS system works, or exploring the pros and cons of it. It's a really interesting concept that had so much potential and the most they do with it is a very surface level "this is a thing." The marketing for Watch Dogs set you up for disappointment on multiple levels for 2 years.

@elite49: its a decent game but terribly boring both in combat and exploration. Its got breath design in the world and and enemies. Also the facial animation of the main character is just weird (her lips move but her teeth never seperate) 0_o

@indigozeal: @wemibelle: I gotta admit, based on previous experiences talking about Mass Effect on the internet,those were not the responses I expected to get after I posted that, so that was nice.

And, as for RE7, I loved that game(I gave it second place on my GOTY list), so it definitely wasn't a disappointment to me. It was the first RE to actually feel like RE to me in a long while. I feel like most of the GB staff seemed to like it well enough too, or weren't disappointed by it, at least.

Shadow of War was definitely my personal most disappointing, so I'm glad it got runner up. I liked the first one so much, it was totally unexpectedly good. For them to wreck the endgame so thoroughly with a money-escapable grind was just an awful bait and switch.

I was already done with Mass Effect, Need for Speed and even Star Wars Battlefront, and EA pretty much in general (unless they release a new Skate, dear god, don't screw up a new Skate)

As long as we can all agree that Shadow of Mordor wasn't great to begin with, then I'm totally fine with keeping Shadow of War from this list.

Vinny, go play the Assassin's Creed games you missed! I liked all of them to varying degrees, but they all are pretty fun, in my opinion.

I like the new one just fine, but I see where Vinny's disappointment comes from because I feel the same way in some respects.

Can anyone tell me what it is about the modern day dialog in AC:Origins that people hate? I remember Rorie bagging on it a while back, too.

It seems fine to me? No better or worse than usual...

The biggest issue with ME:A is that it fails as an RPG. The moment you have few to none likable party members (who you banter with a lot), sloppy/"hello fellow kids" dialogue, and a story that feels like taking the first two steps up a long staircase only to stand there and stare at the top: you created a world I don't want to be in.

Environments were great looking, graphics were fine, and combat felt great. Those aren't my top priorities for an RPG.

I'll leave you with two examples that steered me away from this game:

1. The beginning of the game has you waking up from a cryo-pod. You're then given a tutorial about scanner use from a CRITICAL ENGINE starting to break down and the crew pleading for you to use your scanner to find and fix the issue before EVERYONE IN CRYO dies. It's easy to shrug this moment off, but when actual ship engineers are swarming a ship problem that could kill thousands (THE HOPE FOR A NEW SYSTEM BTW) and they turn to someone who just woke up from cryo who probably doesn't have any experience fixing these types of things: I got real worried about how they were going to slap this story together.
2. The most tolerable crew member who I actually liked having around was Vetra. I ended up romancing her, too, because I knew she had the best shot to give me dialogue I could jive with. For the most part that was true, but as I was ending the game I ran into something. We had just beaten the true enemy and everyone decided to throw a dance party at our new home. At this point your last objective is to talk with your crew members for one final goodbye. As I was passing Vetra, she made an out-of-convo comment to me, which I swear wasn't in a fever dream, that was, "Sup bae". I actually dropped my controller. The game couldn't end without throwing something like that in there as I was trying to tie things up. Again I half think I misheard this only due to how outlandish this bit of dialogue is, but someone who's romanced Vetra may be able to confirm if this happens or not.

If this does not end up being Destiny 2...

EDIT: Not even on the short list! YOU PEOPLE ARE INSANE

That no one even brought it up makes me believe that I don't really have a person on staff that my likes/dislikes lines up with anymore.

@joedangerous: Those are definitely some valid criticisms, and as I said, the game has issues. The issues it has just aren't bad enough for me to label it as the most disappointing game of the year. I actually kinda liked most of the crew though, so that wasn't an issue for me. Also, my main priority for any game is simply, "Am I enjoying/having fun playing this." For ME:A the answer to that question would be, yes. And as I said, everyone has different taste/experiences, so I definitely don't expect everyone to agree with me.

BTW, I romanced Vetra too, so we agree with her being the best crew member. I don't think I heard her say, "Sup bae." I can't say for sure she doesn't say it, though. Maybe she just never said it to me for some reason, or maybe I missed it. She could have said it and I just wrote it off as more bad writing and forgot about it, since that is one of the issues I would say the game has. I liked a lot of the dialogue/crew banter, though, so I didn't think the writing was all bad.

Though I believe Shadows of Wardor should have been on the short list given how much the staff (somehow) liked that game, EA sweeping the category was really deserved. Mass Effect and Need For Speed are dead franchises now and Battlefront has such a steep mountain of bad PR to climb to ever be relevant.

Happy with the results.

@linkster7: A LOT of the staff seem enamored with that game, and I wouldn't be surprised if it made their overall top 10 list this year.

I have learned to just ignore their Destiny talk. I bought Destiny 1 cause some staff liked it and burned out before level cap. Destiny 2 I did the same, and while I hit level cap I didn't even finish the story.

I will not be bitten again.

Yeah, that's a shame. A good friend of mine - who was a big Mass Effect fan, was completely turned off with the series after their experience with Andromeda. Similar issues with incomplete side-quests and save wipes (as well as the visual bugs) was too much to bear. And this was someone who loved Mass Effect so much, they were willing to replay the first hours of Mass Effect 1 multiple times till they could afford to get an HDD on their original xbox 360 lol

Not sure, but my guess would be the handler/operator character on the radio. Her delivery seemed genuinely awful to me.

On another note, I guess I am one of the weirdos that actually liked Agents of Mayhem. Its definitely not GOTY material but it was fine. On the other hand its existence was a total surprise to me so maybe it worked for me because I had no expectations for it.

Whew, I went 10 minutes into this video and had to stop.