My disappointments for the year. I would not call most of these bad games. In fact, most of them will rank well in the 2010 GOTY awards. Rather, these are the games that, when I first saw or heard about them, I expected to be on my Best Of list, and was let down.
OK, so the action is improved. Everything else is terribly, terribly wrong. Where 1 was nuanced, 2 is forced. Where 1 is populated with characters, 2 is populated with cartoons. Where 1 is sophisticated, 2 is witless. In the end, the new developers ravaged BioShock the way Joel Schumacher ravaged Batman.
To say it's the worst of the trilogy is like naming the World's Slowest Bugatti Veyron. It's still awesome. But... playing it immediately after GoW Collection, I was let down. How could the same game go from awesome (Poseidon) to bland (Giant Crates On A Chain) so quickly? I could keep picking on it (monster design, narrative arc, etc.), but the point is... it bummed me out.
A fascinating experiment in game design. And a complete failure where it matters most. If the narrative were transposed to television or film, it would be laughably bad. When the game's primary goal is to create an emotionally moving piece of interactive fiction, the rest of its successes are moot when it fails so spectacularly at its mission. If you enjoyed the story here, you need to read better books, or watch better movies.
Like every Final Fantasy since 3(6)on the SNES, I picked this one up the day it came out. I have played about 4 hours of it. I am confused by the game parts and irritated by everything else. Does it get better after 20 hours? Maybe. Will I ever see that for myself? Probably not.
Crimson Skies was among my all time favorite XBox games. I was really, really looking forward to this. The demo was enough to get the picture... this wasn't going to be my long awaited spiritual successor.
The enemies are so cute and harmless (visually and literally gameplay wise) that I kind of feel like a dick for taking them out. Also, the eyebrows on the Prince make him look like the bad guy. Working for him felt like subjugating an entire world and oppressing its populace with brutal, yarn-based threats of violence.
After seeing the art and animation, I was sold. On the day it came out, I jumped online and bought the full version without even trying the demo.
I'll never do that again.
In the weeks after the game came out there was a HUGE buzz, so I jumped in. It satisfied the Zelda/GoW itch well enough, but I was disappointed. The art style, characters, and story were more endured than enjoyed.
Again, it's a great game. But I won't get nearly as much mileage out of it as I did CE. Once you acquire the basic skill set (which you already have if you play Pac-Man), the game becomes pure memorization, zero adaptation.
