Zup wrote:

Did I mention Shogo: Mobile Armour Divison? I got high expectations, but it's plain boring and the story didn't impress me. Fighting in a mecha is like fighting on foot, but only taller.

Watch out. It has devoted followers. 🤣

Shogo was shipped to me by accident when I ordered Klingon Honor Guard back in 1998. I think I beat it. It was ok I suppose. If you're into anime it might be super cool. Give me MechWarrior instead.

I really enjoyed Shogo, although the critical hit mechanic can be quite aggravating. I'm not hugely into anime, but I really love the homage in this game, I think that had it had a few months of polish and maybe some extra content (the expansion pack never came out for example), we would be talking about a great classic nowadays 😀.

Back To The Future games for the NES - I sooo wanted to drive that DeLorean, game one was just me at age 16 (I wore jeans and a black sleeveless) running to the malt-shop as the only sober guy in town, and that Super Mario Bros. + Donkey Kong rip-off that was II & III. Never expected much from LJN after renting those two from the local blockbuster.

Another disappointment - a mislabeled copy of Atari 2600 Codebreaker, I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out if it was the cartridge, the paddle controllers, or the Atari that was broken - turns out it uses the TOUCHPAD controllers.

A reverse disappointment - I HATED Ultima as a little kid as my only experience was the FCI/PonyCanyon NES port of "Exodus" (no Ultima III, just Exodus). Then I get Ultima VI: The False Prophet for my 11th birthday, and my mind was blown, and suddenly, I understood WHY Ultima was so great. The paradigm shift from "Fight, fight, fight, die, revive party, fight, fight fight, fight, fight, catch a cold, fight....." to "holy cow, I can do almost anything I want in this game" was amazing. Since then I became a huge Ultima fan.

Not the most disappointing, but when Monkey Island 3 (CMI) came out, I was rather disappointed with the new change in graphics and that Ron Gilbert would not be involved. It just looked too cartooney and seemed rather kidlike for an MI game, I so much loved the graphics and general feel of the DOS based 1st and second games. Only recently did I decide to learn what I was missing.

Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness which I wanted to enjoy so much, but it was badly let down by the mouse/keyboard controls which I could never master.

Most disappointing games for me were often sequels to a great games, which turned to be way inferior to their predecessor. There were loads, but here are 3 games that come to mind :

Eye of the beholder III - I bought it after having enjoyed the first and second episodes which to me were masterpieces of their genre. Episode 3 was such a let down, with inferior graphics, sound and gameplay. I returned it to the shop the next day for a refund.

Soldier of Fortune 2 - I really liked the gameplay and general atmosphere of the first one. For some reason I found the sequel subpar and don't think I played it for more than 20 minutes before putting it back in its box. By that time game shops wouldn't accept returns any more...

Heroes of might and magic IV - I spent countless hours playing HOMM II and HOMM III and their expansion packs. I bought HOMM IV on the release date and was so disappointed by the different graphics, the changes in gameplay and the inferior soundtrack. I put it back in its box and never bothered with HOMM V or the rest of the series.

MMaximus wrote:

Soldier of Fortune 2 - I really liked the gameplay and general atmosphere of the first one. For some reason I found the sequel subpar and don't think I played it for more than 20 minutes before putting it back in its box. By that time game shops wouldn't accept returns any more...

I agree, the first level isn't exactly great, though the game does improve somewhat in the later levels, not Raven's best indeed.

Counter-Strike Source
Because of the improved graphics, the CS:S maps do not feel large like the original CS maps. Somewhere along the line, in development, someone said "Hey, let's make the game more like Rainbow Six". They forgot their origins. Yes, campers and loners don't exactly contribute to the group's mission, but if I want to involve myself in a sport which requires groupthink and a collective approach, I'll go paintball shooting or laser tag. I play CS to wind down, not to fool myself into thinking I'm getting excercise.

Team Fortress 2
What, people actually play this abomination? Once again, someone over there, at whichever company is now designing Valve games, decided to take what was a masterful game, and make all the characters cartoons, and then emulate the Korean model of gaming by introducing paid upgrades. I would have no problem with this, if the server operators had the ability to monetize these upgrades themselves, but who does all the money go to?

Once again the maps feel small, compared to TF 1. A good example of this would be 2Fort, which was a staple of the game. The element of the realistic feel is destroyed when you have the forts so close to eachother. In real life, if two opposite teams had such close proximity to eachother, they would blow eachothers forts to smitherines. Sure, in a computer game, you expect miniaturization in the sense that time is accelerated and physics are reduced, but if you do too much of it, something doesn't sit right in your mind, and your brain doesn't believe the story. To sum things up, if I want to play a game with cartoons characters which requires absolutely no skill and whos only purpose is to convey a false sense of grandiosity in weak-minded adolescents, I'll play Dragon Ball Z on some old Nintendo console.

CSS and TF2 are a celebration of mediocrity.

Escape Velocity.

and by escape velocity I mean this one

ok some moans from me:

heroes of the storm - boring, simple, repetitive - it put me off trying any other "moba" like dota or LoL. in fact I've now uninstalled steam asi only got it for dota2 [won't be bothering with that now]

diablo iii - dull, repetitive, no challenge, annoying npcs, too many distractions [achievement/hint/grind], graphics too good given the poor immersivity

world of warcraft - accumulation of disappointments over the years i played; but if you thought it used to be boring, banale, dull, repetitive, unoriginal, self-referential, too full of stupid jokes and generally on a self-destruct streak - you should try it now, it's worse 😁

I thought I was a Blizzard fan but they have really pissed me off lately; the Overlook looks crap to me and hearthstone is hardly worth mentioning...

other disappointments:

tera - awful

path of exile - liked it at first but it's online only, gets boring and the graphics can get irritating. a lot of nice concepts - gems and the huge talent tree, the character types, the sort-of-australian setting, the to-my-mind quite original mobs - but the grinding kills it for me, exacerbated by being online-only. i'm left either with sore eyes and repetitive strain injury, or a sense of not having achieved enough [or both].

the witcher - tedious first boss fight so i never played any further. the books are ok though 😉

The best thing about WoW is the fishing.

swaaye wrote:

Watch out. It has devoted followers. 🤣

I know, but the game is so uninspired that I don't understand how can it have so much followers. Even as a "mecha" games is a failure (no changes in combat). Strike Vector has its own troubles (so many to list here) but the mechas feel more "mecha" than Shogo ones.

Some other games...
- Hitman (every one of them): I never got into one of them. It gaves you problems that often has no logical solutions, and the gameplay relies in finding that solutions and execute them in a tightly timely manner. I guess they could have been done better.
- Mirror's Edge: I must say it is a refreshing concept, but playing it makes me dizzy and it's not as fun as I expected.
- Metal Gear Solid 2 and later MGS games: Too much non interactive sequences. The first one had a good balance between story and action, with the second one I felt interrupted too many times. That's why I ended playing Splinter Cell.
- Splinter Cell Double Agent (and later): A victim of "consolization". In the first SC games the controls were great, but they broke it when choose to mimic the console controls. Meh.

Note that I don't say that they are "bad" games. But I expected more of them and they dissapointed me.

Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy: I don't usually get caught up in hype with games but I was seriously sucked in by the demo for this game and the promises it made. It pretty much falls apart the moment the demo ends, it has these annoying flashback/stealth levels, a batshit crazy story (not in a good way), terrible qte that makes your fingers feel like their about to snap off, a main character that gets written out of the story early on and so much more. It's just garbage and I remember being quite angry at wasting £30 on something so terrible.

Apart from that I've had a good run when it comes to games. I can't really think of anything else that comes to mind.

IIRC, I never got far into Max Payne because it wouldn't let me (a) skip cutscenes, and (b) save the game when I wanted. Are there settings/patches that get rid of this behavior?

2fort5r wrote:

IIRC, I never got far into Max Payne because it wouldn't let me (a) skip cutscenes, and (b) save the game when I wanted. Are there settings/patches that get rid of this behavior?

Along with bad controls, not being able to skip a cutscene or save at will can be a deal breaker...

I don't recall having issues savescumming on MP...on easy at least 😜

I might be confusing it with another game. It's been a few years. I'm pretty sure the cutscenes were unskippable though. Annoying.

Can I add Battlefield 4 to the list? Being a BF3 player I was very disappointed by the gameplay changes along with the lack of guns that were in previous games, it just feels like a CoD clone with better physics and drivable vehicles. I think the game just lost its charm

subhuman@xgtx wrote:

Can I add Battlefield 4 to the list? Being a BF3 player I was very disappointed by the gameplay changes along with the lack of guns that were in previous games, it just feels like a CoD clone with better physics and drivable vehicles. I think the game just lost its charm

Anything after Battlefield 1942 is trash, if you ask me...

Desert Combat is an online multiplayer mod for it, and it still has an active playerbase. People still prefer it over later versions of BF, and that speaks mounds to how much the industry has deteriorated, when a 10+ year old game beats anything out there today. You should check out DC, it's a lot of fun.

Star Wars : KOTOR 2

25% of the game was missing 🙁

I remember BF1942 and DC. I think I stopped playing because hackers were becoming a problem.

I stopped playing BF2142 because the servers were always nearly empty...