Most disappointing/worst game of the year contender so far for 2015?

I played on ps4 and I feel the same, could of done with better Batmobile handling and less tank.

I've only put maybe 6-7 hours into it so far and not gotten past the first few quests, but Fallout 4's story and world building is incredibly lifeless and boring so far.

Gascoigne's three hit combo. Get hit by one and you'll take all three. Since I made those comments I beat the game anyway. Its fair once you know what to look for, like all Souls games.

@substance_d: The story and characters get more interesting once you reach Diamond City, if you haven't already.

Most disappointing for me would be Arkham Knight for PC followed closely by Fallout 4. Surprisingly, I thought the year would go out with a bang with Halo 5 and Fallout 4, but it is now shaping up to be merely a whimper.

Batman. Has none of the fantastic pacing of Asylum or the great design of City, so much Batmobile, character faces look...off (to me at least), Riddler decides to tests your intelligence by building fucking racetracks, ending is ambigious and unsatisfying, the handling of Catwoman coming from a huge fan of her character was a joke and the season pass is actually waste of money.

Now I'm not finished but I'm tempted to put Witcher 3. Now presentation, graphics, music, voice acting (save for Geralt, the most unemotive dullest protagonist I've seen in awhile) are exceptional but the actual playing part is serviceable at best.

Probably FO4 right now. It just feels like a game that should've come out many years ago, not be a modern release.

Mgsv seemed soooooooo amazing... Then ten hours in I realized I saw all the game had to offer asides from the weird meta game which is fucking terrible. Then I realized mgsv was the best playing worst game ever, it fucking sucks

Hotline Miami 2 is probably mine. I love the soundtrack, but everything else feels like a step back.

As a massive Halo fan, Halo 5 for me.

Rock Band 4 most disappointing anyone?

Batman is definitively high on the disappointment stakes.

Hmm, I don't think any of the GOTY contenders really let me down. I mean, Arkham Knight was probably my most anticipated, but I still loved what I got out of it. Never played enough of The Witcher. Barely touched Fallout, but the visuals are beyond disappointing. Halo 5's campaign was fun, but the narrative was horrendous. Battlefront is probably the most fun I've had with a game this year, alongside with Rocket League.

I CAN'T CHOOSE.

@bondfish: Rock Band 4 is kind of exactly what I thought it would be to be quite honest. It might be slightly disappointing in that it is missing a few features, but having followed development, I expected it'd be bare bones "previous Rock Band works on current gen consoles now." I just didn't expect Harmonix had the funding to really go bonkers and innovate far beyond what they were already doing. Plus their partner in this for hardware, MadCatz, is in pretty dire straits financially.

I could see some disappointment with Guitar Hero a bit more as they seemed to be more ambitious and had funding there, but what they produced is kind of a weird product. They stripped out the band/party game aspect, replaced it with more advanced guitar playing, but also selected a pretty mainstream set of songs and eliminated being able to buy more songs. And what replaced it is something that maybe works great in a party setting, but it's less of a party game. I dunno? That whole thing is kind of weird.

For clarity, both games seem of pretty similar quality (I only bought Rock Band as I have so much DLC).

@cav829: dont get me wrong it was basically what I expected too. But the fact that the tour mode doesn't put your score on the leader board killed it for me. I like playing songs somewhat randomly and to not track your score or stars in that mode is completely stupid. another aspect is that after you finish a song with other people playing drums,, guitar, etc, it doesn't show your stars, or leaderboard rank is another dumb move and all together a step back from Rock Band 3 making it disappointing.

I haven't even played it myself, but it seems like Battlefront is the leading candidate.

The Order: 1886 burned me so bad that I will never pre-order another game, or I haven't so far... I swear! This game fell SO flat. Boring cover-based shooter sparsely populated with enemies. There is a grand total of 11 (I believe) weapons, most of which you get to use once or twice. Your first battle with werewolves (which also rarely happens) has you standing still waiting for a werewolf to get close enough to you for a quicktime event. Regardless if you are successful he will run back into the shadows and an alternating werewolf will attack and do the same until you or them are dead. BUT, for the most part it is a collection of very long cutscenes.

I do admit that it is gorgeous, which only makes it more infuriating.

After extended time with Halo 5, that is going to be my most disappointing game. Nothing about it was fun for me. The story was very dull and uninteresting, and just didn't deliver like the older Halo games. As a huge fan of the Halo lore, I have no desire to finish the campaign here. I have no fun in the multiplayer and absolutely hate the map designs. They all feel the same: a ton of criss crossing pathways in the open that feel more like a CoD map than a Halo one. None of the maps have an identity unless it's based on one of the old well designed maps. I actually do like the breakout map, though. I have no idea what's going on with the textures ln the BTB maps.

I had high hopes for the game but there is no fun to be had for me. That's just how I feel.

It has to be Tony Hawk 5. It was such a letdown for everyone. To publish the game in such a state, convoluted with bugs. Order 1886 was polished yet short. Legend of Korra was despicable, but it had such a niche player-base that nobody heard about it.

However, Tony Hawk 5 everyone knew of. I 've spent a mere five hours of my life on a skateboard. Hence, I am not a skater by any means! And yet I loved that franchise. That game destroyed that I.P.

Biggest Disappointment: The Order 1886

Worst Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5

Biggest Mess: Batman: Arkham Knight

I just thought of this, did either Giant Bomb office do a quick look of Devil's Third? That would be a strong contender for worst game if anyone got to endure the pain of playing that.

Worst game that is getting bandied about as a possible game of the year contender would be Metal Gear V. Don't get me wrong parts of that game are more fun than anything I've played all year but the lows just can't be forgiven.

As for most disappointing I got to go with Arkham Knight. Forget the PC problems, I just thought the addition of the Batmobile and opitional side quest bogged down what could have been a decent sequel. While I liked the story I guessed the identity of the titular Arkham Knight before the game came out and was hoping I was wrong but alas I was not.

@mocbucket62 said:

The game won't be out in North America until about a week from today. It definitely seems like Nintendo of America is putting this one out to die way too close to Christmas with little to no marketing, because they'd rather put a marketing push behind Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Woolly World.

But yeah, from what I've heard, that sounds like a bad game. Hard to call it "most disappointing", because I think expectations were never especially optimistic for it.

The confusion about what this topic is even about is still my favourite part about this thread.

Arkham Knight. Played it on PS4 and it just confirmed despite the lush graphics the trajectory of that series was downhill. Further proof that adding more open world mechanics does not necessarily make for a better game.

Tony Hawk could probably win both categories.

Indeed. I were disappointed just by watching the QL.

I never really understood this complaint. Structurally, City and Knight are exactly the same as Asylum, with the only difference being that the hub world has been enlarged giving the player more space to grapple and glide. You have your main hub where you move around in from place to place and then enter an enclosed location where major story beats happen.

@liquidprince: Batmobile son! That shit ain't fun!

You do realize that his character went through a process that specifically dulled his ability to display emotion, right?

@spaceinsomniac: That still doesn't make him an interesting character though. Geralt has always been the worst element of that series IMO, so I'm with @mystyr_e. It's a perfectly valid criticism. You can understand what they were going for with the character and still find them uninteresting.

I actually became a fan of Geralt during the first game because of the way he talks and his... stoic view of every situation. Fits his character perfectly.

still doesn't make him interesting to listen to. His arc is actually interesting and his relationship with Ciri (I'm not done yet) is well done but his voice acting is just bad and how he managed to get a best performance nod, I don't get. At one point he can tell a super important character goodbye or to stay with him yet youtube-ing both scenes, it's the same uninvolved monotone type of voice. He might as well be talking to a sugar packet.

@mystyr_e: So your problem isn't Geralts character but the voice acting. Personally I loved both, I feel his voice fits his visual and his characterization very well.

You do realize that his character went through a process that specifically dulled his ability to display emotion, right?

...

Seriously though, that was a bittersweet moment in the game for me, because I almost got the sense that Geralt must be frustrated at times due to his inability to deeply feel and express his emotions. It's all part of the character, and I'm sure it's the same way in the books, however with the written word you can put as much emotion or lack of emotion into speech as you would like. With the games, they had to decide on a direction and stick with it.

Consider yourself lucky that they didn't make him like the Dragon Age tranquil, especially the ones from the first game that practically sound like robots. That would have been far worse.

All right, I take everything back about Evolve running away with Disappointment of the year and anything else I said about any other game being disappointing, because holy crap does Just Cause 3 win this category.

That game looked from everything we saw and heard at E3 like they were really doing it. It looked like a Saints Row the Third level leap from the awesome Just Cause 2. Like Brad was specifically talking at one point about expecting this to be a Game of the Year contender months before it was out. The Quick Look EX looked really damn good.

And then the game came out. On every platform, not just consoles, load times are a total shit show. And it's just random, as you load into the game faster than you reload challenge missions on failure. And oh, the challenge missions. Hey, you know all those random side activities in open-world games that more than not feel like busy work and you only do when you're in the mood for them? Yeah, every skill upgrade in the game is locked behind them. Hope you feel up to 5 gearing 112 freakin' challenges. The frame rate is a total mess at times, though I can deal with that at least. The game's map could serve as the subject of a college thesis on terrible UI design. You can't zoom in nearly far enough. Meanwhile icons are slightly different shades of red from the highlighted combat sections, making them a nightmare even for the non-color blind to figure out. Even the story missions cannot go untouched by bad design. It feels like half of them so far have been escort missions, which are about as terrible as escort missions always have been.

Dan's 4 out of 5 was super generous. I get it. The core game here is really damn solid. Despite my vitriol, I'm basically arguing a 3 vs. a 4 which is whatever. But maaaaann I'm not even sure this game is in my top 20 for a year I thought it'd be competing in the top 5.

I would love it if MGSV won both Game of the Year and Most Disappointing Game.

@spaceinsomniac:

that's another thing I don't like : "dude it's in the books". Like they made me pick between Yennefer and Triss even though according to the books Yennefer is the "correct choice". Said no to Triss, waited to see how Yennefer was as a character, didn't care for her, now I probably lost both but people are like "no dude you should've stayed with Yen because in the books...". I don't like Geralt's voice acting whatsoever but him as a character I like but I cant get behind his story when he sounds do detached from everything.

Fallout 4

Probably MSGV for me too, looking back on it now. Weirldy enough I think it was probably also the best game I've played this year - and there'in lay the source of the dissapointment. Amazing game, AWFUL story. For all the three hours of gameplay (or whatever) that MSG4 had in it I still remember that so much more fondly, because it had a goddamn soul.

Perhaps Rainbow Six Siege.

Went from a 'full' game with a full singleplayer to, well some simple singleplayer missions to a multiplayer only game. Well I don't mind multiplayer only games (Titanfall was my favourite game last year), I feel that it is a missed opportunity with Siege. All the breaching mechanics would be awesome with some sort of planning mode from the first three R6 games. And the rest of the game is kinda so-so too. Doesn't look all that great and lots of small bugs and glitches. Not a terrible game, just disappointing looking at what was originally showed.

MSG5 story was really underwhelming for a MGS game, but I still enjoyed it gameplay wise.

@cav829: yeah, i'm in the final act of the game and i just don't think i've had any, like, fun? i'm just waiting for something to click, but it hasn't yet.

I will probably get crucified but here it is: Mario Maker.

Mario Maker has been the only real regret as far as gaming purchases go for me this year.

It all comes down to two things:

- the terrible search and sort options for levels shared online

- 99,9% of the users being absolute shit at level-design

Let's say I want to play a "normal" level, nothing too hard, nothing gimmicky ... I can't unless I invest a shitload of time into finding the right creators and following them, trying out dozens of shared level codes on forums etc. Eventually I just gave up on the game.

I'm sure Mario Maker will be GBs GotY but they experienced it in a very specific bubble, even if they continue to deny that fact.

For these past couple of months I've semi-regularly checked this thread and even now the phrasing of the thread title is confusing to me. Is it "most disappointing game of the year" contenders or "most disappointing: game of the year contenders." A lot of these posts seem like they could go either way. My year wasn't all that disappointing to be honest though I kind of wish Namco Bandai games had gotten their shit together when it comes to framerate on home consoles. Batman: Arkham Knight would be my answer. I enjoyed that game a whole lot but it sucks to hear that PC users didn't have a reliable way to play it. Also the Batmobile sections were a bummer top to bottom which is a shame because they made the actual Batmobile design look cool as shit. It'll probably still be one of my personal top ten this year along with the prestigious title of "rental of the year".

I've put a ton of time into Fallout 4 and I'd also say I love the game.

Definitely the most disappointing this year for me, though.

As great of a year as this have been, I feel like I was burned by all the AAA games I wanted to play. MGSV, Batman, FO4 all not terrible but very uninspired. MGSV was great but man I am not buying a kojima game for the good gameplay. The story was so disappointing, which is something I never expected going into a new MGS. Convoluted, confusing, weird, epic, amazing, anime as fuck and wtf are all things I would like to get from it but I was just kind of let down.

@lackingsaint said:

I hope this comes up in the GotY podcast, whether they decide to actually make MGSV the Most Disappointing or not. It's just such an interesting semantic discussion. On the one hand, it plays better and has more fleshed out gameplay systems that are more flexible than any previous Metal Gear Solid game, or even any other modern stealth game, for that matter. So on that level, it's a good game.

But on the other hand, it is almost 100% guaranteed that Konami just said "fuck it, ship what you got" to Kojima at some point, because there are a paltry number of story cutscenes or story moments that actually have any significance, and it seems like the dev team had the time to get the gameplay working but then didn't have the time to actually script very many diverse mission types. The amount of that game that is padded out with "hey, extract this one guy" missions is astounding. It's the most repetitive console Metal Gear Solid game ever (I am to understand that Peace Walker is grindy as fuck). So taking all of that into account, it's disappointing relative to the high bar of insane story and character nonsense in the previous games of the series.

Honestly, though, even if it may or may not be Dan's personal GotY, I feel like Dan would rather drink wine and do other fancy guy stuff than concede the argument that MGSV is the most disappointing game of the year. There are some solid counterarguments to be made, like how Fallout 4 is kinda just Fallout 3 again except with weird settlement stuff that is poorly explained and some slight tweaks to VATS and skills and whatever, and that's disappointing to some people. Ditto for Arkham Knight just kinda being Arkham City but with a Batmobile nobody really likes that much, and Just Cause 3 has some of the same mission-type failings that Just Cause 2 had.

Hotline Miami 2 is most disappointing game. I loved the ever living shit out of 1 and outside of 2, it was everything I didn't want in a sequel to that first game.

I have to throw my hat in the MGSV ring.

Yes, the gameplay was exceptionally improved. The thing is, I don't go to metal gear for gameplay. I go to that series for insane dialogue, endearingly goofy straight-from-Kojima's-diary codex conversations, and all of the stuff that makes that series iconic and unique. And anyway, while the "moving and shooting" is much improved, I pretty much disliked everything about managing motherbase, the clumsy and slow nature of getting into missions, the design and structure of how missions play out, having to traverse the open world (even with some fast travel), gating content behind timers, and so on.

It didn't benefit from the decision to go open world. It lost more than it gained through how they changed the game.

For a franchise that has always lived on its fascinating, complex, ludicrous narrative, I was so disappointed in the piecemeal offerings of MGSV.

(Fallout 4 couldn't be my most disappointing, because it met my expectations almost exactly. I thought I was going to really enjoy it, but be disappointed about narrative, choice-and-consequence, and RPG elements, and all of that came to pass.)