A time when you were super right and super wrong about an upcoming game?

Here is a comment I made a year before the release of No Man's Sky that was pretty accurate:

and here is a comment I made in early 2017 about Mario Odyssey that was...not as accurate:

Of course I don't expect anyone to dig up their old comments, just wanted to hear some anecdotes about times when you were spot on and completely off.

Combed through my old comments, thought it'd be a bit of a laugh. Plucked out some gems for y'all. This was very early days of GB, by the way - I was in on day one. I was also 19, btw, so I'm not that proud of some of these...

"With FF XIII going multi-platform, there is pretty much no point in owning a PS3 now. MGS4 is fine, but it may be on 360 soon. LittleBigPlanet looks good. Killzone 2 and Resistance 2 will be nowhere near as good as the 360's shooters. Also, it's a continuation of a trend of developers seeing where the money is, with Microsoft. This really is one of the worst things that could happen to Sony. It's not catastrophic yet, but it's damn near close."

So, in hindsight, FFXIII being on 360 wasn't THAT big of a deal. I've never played MGS4, so I don't know why I felt like saying that it was merely "fine". It never came out on 360.

I was obviously pretty bullish on the 360 back in 2008, as it was the system I was playing games on; it's a bit ironic, because I can see myself in other threads saying I'm thankful that there's no "console wars" equivalent on the site, and here I am shilling for the 360. Also, this was during the time that you chose your favourite console as part of your GB account, and your name appeared in the relevant colour - green for 360, blue for PS3, red for Wii. Which in hindsight was a very silly feature.

LBP and KZ2 ended up being great, I bought a PS3 in 2010 and I loved it, and console debates are always stupid.

(On the subject of FFXIII and how it looked on 360): "Looks excellent. Can't wait to play it on my 360."

I never did.

(On the subject of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift): "One of the worst movies I've seen."

I have less than zero recollection of watching Tokyo Drift. I guess maybe I caught it on TV some time because GB wouldn't shut up about it. I'm sure I've seen far worse films. Was probably just being antagonistic.

(On the subject of what the future of gaming consoles will look like): "Steam-styled download system for all consoles."

I mean, I wasn't totally wrong on this one. I was probably thinking that a nightmare DRM machine like the original Xbox One reveal was the future for all consoles, but obviously that hasn't happened yet. There's still time, I guess.

(On the subject of whether Ocarina of Time is better than Twilight Princess): "Fuck yeah. OoT kills TP."

I have never played Twilight Princess. And yet I felt totally confident shitting on it on the internet. 19-year-olds, eh?

(When asked to guess a release window for Half-Life 2: Episode 3): "Yeah I was gonna say November 09. That's plenty of time."

*sad trombone*

(On the subject of Duke Nukem Forever, in a post dated "9 years, 6 months ago"): "It'll happen, but it'll be shit."

AM I A WIZARD?

I thought the Tomb Raider reboot was gonna be trash, just chasing Uncharted even though I loved most anything Crystal Dynamics has done. But it came out, everything was awesome. It was a surprise Metroidvania thing with fun combat and creative puzzles and a good story, so I did every single thing in it. I learned my lesson about doubting CD.

On the other hand, Mass Effect 3, I can't think of a recent game that I was more hyped about. I played it, I loved it, and thought it was perfectly perfect from beginning to end. So that backlash is something I never could've predicted.

I am still totally sad that I was right about Battlefront 2015 being as shallow as a shower. If they just made Battlefield Star Wars it'd be my favourite game.

I seem to be a bad predictor of "zeitgeist-y" games as I thought Defence of the Ancients for WC3 was one of the more boring mods and that PUGB looked like yet another Arma mod.

I might as well use this thread to make a hot take and see whether I was dead on or dead off:

Nintendo Labo will come and go just like Wii music.

I don't know if I ever posted about it, but a lot of people seemed iffy about Doom 2016 before it came out. I watched Gamespot's video on it, thought it was freaking awesome despite seemingly everyone else, and was totally right.

I know how shitty this sounds, but I can't remember a time where I was super wrong about something. I'm sure I'd find an example if I combed through my post history, but I'm lazy.

I thought metal gear solid v was going to be terrible, i was wrong and it ended up being one of my favorite games that year.

I thought the last of us was going to be dope, i didnt like it at all.

I thought destiny would be borderlands but with good shooting, i was wrong and it ended up being an incomplete mmo at launch.

Being right doesn't really stick out in my memory, i think i am pretty good at judging whether i will like something or not so when i am wrong i remember.

I dont really deal in absolutes, guess i've always been a bit of a cynic but heres a post I made over 7 years ago leading up to Dragon Age 2:

"Not too thrilled about the shift to action-rpg but i'm sure bioware have enough sense to make it different enough from mass effect for fans of the original to care."

I was wrong, but right to be concerned.

This is a quote leading up to Ninja Gaiden 3 from around 6 years ago.

"The game from what i've seen has been steamlined for the GoW crowd which is dissapointing since for me NG (itagaki's versions anyway) is part of a dying breed of games that require skill and coordination to play. That's not to say I have anything against GoW. It's just there's dozens of those games floating around in that vein and GoW is definately top of it's class among them."

Keep in mind this was before the souls epidemic where God of War clones were coming out at a rapid pace. (I actually long for those days now, weirdly enough)

Granted it didnt exactly require a prophet to see how that game would turn out.

On the subject of God of War i'm going to predict that the next one will be a well made game that will make me sad (not because of the narrative, just because it's trying too hard to be mature) I like mature games, I loved The Last of Us (if that counts) but that isnt what I want from God of War. I want a dumb grandiose gore spectacle that revels in chaos.

Would love to be proven wrong.

Wrong- Two Worlds.
Right- Horizon Zero Dawn.

Mass Effect 2 was the first game I went to a midnight release for. The first game was my favorite game at the time (and now is staying strong at my second favorite behind the first Dragon Age) and some of the stuff shown off for Mass Effect 2 seemed pretty awesome.

Then it came out and had completely gutted mechanics that I had no idea about, ruined thw most hilariously awesome biotic power (singularity used to be so silly when maxed out in terms of it's area of effect, etc) and then did stuff with the characters and core plot that I really didn't like. The goody two shoes scientist is suddenly kind of a bitch and a total badass and has ambiguous morals all of a sudden? Giant terminator baby for a boss? The all story?

Halo 3 was probably the game I had dialed in best before release but Bungie used to be super transparent so it wasn't hard. It was exactly what I expected but a great game nevertheless.

Right - also No Man's Sky

Wrong - thinking Brink would be good

I wonder if I can find the thread I made after the destiny 2 reveal. Everyone said I was way to harsh and that the game looked fine. I might've deleted it since it turned into such a dogpile. But turns out the fact that Bungie had nothing really new to announce for this sequel was a dead giveaway. Now basically Destiny fan on these boards agrees Bungie didn't make Destiny 2, they made Destiny 1.5. Hell, in some ways it's Destiny 0.5, something even I, with all my pessimism, didn't foresee.

I think this is the closest I can think of for myself as well. Which lead to me really enjoying NMS. And only playing about 2 hours of Brink.

I always believed Wind Waker was going to be good. And I've probably been wrong too many times to think of a good one right now.

Wrong - SFV will be good

Right - Marvel wouldn't make EVO. Not a hard prediction to be fair.

I definitely feel validated for always thinking the Ouya was a dumb idea (at least, I'm pretty sure I was always cynical about it.) Sure, yeah, now we can all look back and laugh at what a joke it turned out to be, but it bears recollection that those people managed to raise like $8.5 MILLION DOLLARS for their bad underpowered android box. I guess the combination of burnout from the late 360/PS3 generation and the starry-eyed optimism of early crowdfunding campaigns really worked people over, huh?

As for me being wrong, I have to imagine there are plenty of really embarrassing examples if I wanted to dig through my post history. I've been here long enough that it would not be hard to find something idiotic that I posted when I was like... 17 or something (as opposed to the idiotic things I post as a grown adult.) But I don't really want to do that. I'll say that I was pretty hot for Civ: Beyond Earth before it came out, and when it turned out to be a mostly forgettable, generally inferior reskin of Civ V I was quite disappointed. It wasn't bad, but the successor to Alpha Centauri it was not.

"Awesome! I can't wait for Yakuza Zerochanceoflocalization"

I was very wrong, thank god.

I said WoW was going to fail. Why would anyone pay monthly when you can just play Diablo 2?

I now have two mains in WoW with at least 20 days of /played each.

I thought both Doom and Shadow of Mordor were going to rock when all my friends were cagey.

I also thought Dragon Age 3 was gonna be trash and by the time all the DLC came out it was one of my favourite games this gen.

Right - I was extremely pessimistic about Mass Effect Andromeda when that was being marketed. I don't think I was alone in that but I definitely remember people saying they thought the combat looked really exciting, while I thought it looked really clunky, and not at all like what I enjoyed about previous games. I also thought everything about the story set-up sounded like trash.

Wrong - Lots and lots of stuff. The one I remember most clearly was having a very negative reaction to a trailer for Assassin's Creed III that leaned really heavily into a "evil tea drinking redcoats" vibe. I was rightly roasted for suggesting that this would be in any way reflected in the game, and sure enough the game was a lot more even-handed about that stuff, even if most people didn't like a lot of other stuff about that game (for the record, it's probably my second favourite AC game).

Right - Alien Isolation. After Colonial Marines, people were extremely cautious about being positive regarding each nugget of info and footage, but I saw immediately they had totally nailed it. I just knew.

Wrong - I thought the Arkham Asylum demo was pretty shit; they chose one of the most boring areas in the game -- that initial combat tutorial and a smidgen of Joker stuff -- and I just thought it was so phoned in and unremarkable. Guess what game is in my top 50 of all time?

Might go into my post history later and see what I can dredge up, but immediately my Evo lineup predictions come to mind. Right:

Wrong:

Right - Also No Man's Sky funnily enough. I thought everything it offered, even at its optimal ideal, seemed kind of boring.

Wrong - I actually can't think of a specific example. There have plenty of games that I have been disappointed by that I was obviously wrong about

Here's me being really stupid a few months before the game came out:

The Dishonored games are now one of my favourite franchises. Dishonored 2 is a genuine masterpiece.

Right: I knew Mortal Kombat (2011) was going to revitalize the franchise to all knew highs. It brought back the 2D fighting plane from the original trilogy, lots of content and had a story mode that essentially revolutionized the genre. Even Japanese fighting games like SFV (although not at launch) and Tekken 7 felt obligated to include a story mode. It was also the only MK that I put a lot of time in and while I enjoyed Marvel vs. Capcom 3, MK had so much more content and reasons to go back to that for a casual player, MK was my choice. Of course MvC3 was bigger in the pro fighting scene, but MK won over casual players.

Wrong: I actually had faith in Mass Effect Andromeda getting good reviews. I thought it would be the least well reviewed MA, but thought it could get a 84 Metacritic score. Boy was I wrong there.

I thought Breath of the Wild was a really bad idea. It turned out to be one of my favorite games of all time.

I was right about No Man's Sky as well.

I was incredibly wrong about ME:A. I thought the early pessimism was unwarranted and that'd be an amazing game.

Right: I knew Far Cry 3 was going to be a lot better and more popular than the prerelease consensus had it at. I remember making a prediction on here before release that it would be on GB’s GOTY list and getting laughed at. Only thing I got wrong was how much I was going to like it...I don’t think it even cracked my personal list that year.

Wrong: I remember thinking/hoping that Black Ops was going to flop. I have no idea why.

Super right: Always

Super wrong: Never

Thank you. Thank you. You're all too kind. I'll be here all week.

Okay, in all seriousness though. I can't recall being right. I think it has to do with remembering the times I have been excited about a game and simply became disappointed by the end result. I know I was hyped for Dead Space 3 and Sundered. Dead Space 3 turned out to be great overall, but in some integral ways really disappointing when compared to the first two games. Sundered just wasn't a good game. I thought Jotun was a really great game and Sundered wasn't. I always figure in that everyone has a different opinion, so I never make huge assumptions as to what will be the next best/worst thing. I can only go on how I personally feel about something and how it affects me. I know I was never interested in No Man's Sky despite its space exploration; it just never looked interesting to me, so I guess that could be the closest thing if that counts. I saw others mention it, so that came to mind.

I thought Overwatch was going to come and go.I also thought that For Honor and Evolve were going to be big e-sports things.

And this is why I don't play multiplayer.

I think it was mostly just blind hope but I really thought mirror's edge catalyst would be good. Mostly because I loved the first game so much I think.

I'm generally pretty good at knowing when games will come out. Like with red dead 2 I knew that the first time they showed at e3 it was definitely not going to come out in 2017, probably 2018 or 2019 (and with it being pushed to October I would bet it gets pushed to Q1 2019).

Don't have posts to back this stuff up, but I'm sure I can pull a few examples out of my cranium.

Game I was right about: Do the WWE games being bad every year count? Or is that too much of a layup?

Game I was wrong about: Rocket League. I didn't have any expectations for it, but it has ended up being my favorite game of the generation.

Game I was right about that everybody else was wrong about: I don't care what anyone else says - the original Two Worlds is a quality game! I'll fight you all! I have a sharp stick!

I think i was right about Brink. The moment i saw the trailer and read the concept,i just thought it seemed pretty lame. I remember everyone was pretty hyped about it.

I was absolutely wrong about Binary Domain. I thought it was going to be just a generic TPS with a shoehorned command gimmick and annoying NPCs that don't do what you tell them, but it was a pretty fun game.

Honestly, I guess i was just a negative nancy till a few months ago, trying to get better.

Well I'm fairly new around here, so I don't have any old GB posts to share but here's where I was right and wrong on a few things.

I was right about Splatoon. It instantly was on my watchlist the moment I saw the E3 2014 trailer. Then the first Global Testfire pretty much validated all my expectations.

I was wrong about the Uncharted series. I was one of those Naughty Dog fans who loved Crash and Jak but despised Uncharted, to me it just wasn't as good as its predecessors. I liked the platforming gameplay and the cartoony look of those game and Uncharted just looked like a generic "AAA" game that was all brown and grey. Though I reversed my stance on the series when I played Uncharted 1,2&3 last year.

Right: MGSV. After playing Ground Zeroes I knew the full thing was going to be one of my favorite games of the decade.

Wrong: The Witcher 3. I was really down on it all through the release window and only played it recently (still working on finishing Blood & Wine). I now like it more than MGSV I think...? Maybe not, but it's really close.

My exceptions for games are usually in the middleground so my predictions aren't really "right" or "wrong" about a game. But I kept saying last year that the Steam version of Senran Kagura Estival Versus was my fame of the year since March last year, and looking at some of the lackluster, flawed and uninteresting releases last year, boy was I fuckin' right.

Wrong: FFXV. The trailers and everything made this seem like the best Final Fantasy stories in years. What we got was one of the worst simply due to the amount clearly omitted from it. It's a great premise completely kneecapped by a barely there plot, a weak main cast, forgettable side characters, a forgettable villain who is just kind of a shitty ripoff of an older and infinitely better FF villain, and godawful pacing.

Right: 99% of the MMOs that came out after WoW that claimed to be the next big thing. Rift, TERA, TOR, Wildstar, Warhammer, etc. The problem was all of these games didn't really fix what was wrong or offer anything different that WoW at it's core, yet their fanbases (before they even got to play them) claimed they were vastly superior. I wouldn't even consider myself a huge WoW fan, even at the time, and even I could see that while those games wouldn't necessarily fail, all the hype surrounding them would lead to disappointment.

Rift advertised their public events and put out a trailer that ended with "You're not in Azeroth anymore!" and MMO forums blew up with people claiming the death of WoW. Even ignoring the fact that other "WoW-killers" had already come and gone, anyone with a brain should have found it weird that that game had nothing to show for itself except the gimmicky class system and public events. Everyone thought those would be enough to crown it king, but then you cut to a month later with everyone suddenly going "oh half these builds/classes are useless" and "I don't even bother doing public events anymore because they're all the same and/or no one else on my server is doing them." And then people got md at the lack of content and the game slowly faded away into obscurity. Meanwhile, I'm browsing the forums seeing all the complaints like how did you people not see this coming? These games all advertised 1 maybe 2 new features and avoid talking to the press/community about anything else except in the most vaguest of terms and suddenly you're surprised the rest of the game is boring?

Right: HITMAN. I was among few really hyped about it, and that game completely delivered and then some. I also defended IO when they were taking some really unwarranted shit from people who didn't pay attention to the game's episodic model, and IO ultimately proved themselves to indeed be consumer-friendly overall. I'll also say Forza Horizon 2/Titanfall. It seemed like fucking everyone actively ignored those games because they were Xbox One exclusives at a time when the narrative was still heavily in "fuck Microsoft" mode. It felt as if I were yelling at a brick wall that these games were great, and I was somewhat vindicated when Horizon 3/Titanfall 2 received some acclaim as multiplats. I still think many people don't give OG Titanfall and Horizon 2 half the love they deserve because they fly against the "Xbox has no exclusives" claim, but I digress.

Wrong: Wolfenstein: The New Order. I thought the game would be shallow and lame, and made some inane presumptions about its gameplay based on some random videos. Once I finally played it, I loved it, and the story of that game (while ridiculous at parts), was really done well. It's a great game that I initially whiffed on. Also, I guess you could throw in Souls games. While I could recognize their general quality and could appreciate what they offered to others, I assumed they weren't for me, based largely on annoyingly punitive things like random deaths where the game is basically just trolling you. That stuff is still an occasional pain in the ass, but the games have enough depth to more than make up for it. I found myself loving them when I finally gave them a shot, and the series has helped me keep more of an open mind in general about games.

Wrong - Mass Effect 3 would be a great cap to the series.

Right - Dragon Age Inquisition would be a boring MMO - light slog.