Black & White 2. The first game is one of my favorites, but the second is a buggy, horrible mess. The gameplay is awful. The story is awful. An absolute waste of time.

Lure of the temptress. Started off intresting enough with you escaping from a prison but eventually the fetch quests dragged on without anything much of note happening. Lot of waiting about just to talk to certain characters.

Bossses were not very creative , basically just involved spamming attacks to game the ai in a melee fight. Dialogue was okay , I think it was tongue in cheek and making fun of medieval fantasy tropes , but overall just eh.
Ending felt very rushed , final showdown was unremarkable.

Yeah pretty disappointing.

Gothic 3. After the exceptional Gothic 2 and a very solid Gothic 1, I expected the same level of quality from the third game when it came to the combat and world design. Unfortunately, the only good thing about Gothic 3 was the music.

The game shipped in an unfinished state, with a combat system that didn't even remotely resemble the previous games. It also used a highly unoptimized engine, which made the game run like crap, and crashed way too frequently. Even after applying all the official and fan-made patches, Gothic 3 still fell short of reaching the quality of its predecessors.

The developer's next game - Risen tried to make up for this and mostly succeeded. It is pretty much what Gothic 3 should have been. Sadly, their reputation was already tarnished by that time.

I am pretty disappointed with the new GTAV remaster for PS5

Never read game magazines so I wasn't hyped for any game... But some of my friends were... I guess they filtered them for me 🤣

If I had to point some of my disappointments... it would be mostly the sequels... like Warcraft III, Warhammer 40K DoW 2, Test Drive Unlimited 2 (is there a 3?). The Need for Speed series after Porsche Unleashed. But I didn't really played much games (new or old) since 2012. Only some weeks ago I upgraded to GTX 1060 6GB to try new Forza Horizon 5 even though I never played the series - didn't tried it yet 🤣

The original Battlefield 1942.
What a silly mess.
The greatest generation might not have fought to be played by Tom Hanks one day, but that game is offensive.

Descent to Undermountain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_to_Undermountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJFJlZuOV_Y

Released in 1998 as DOS Game, with disappointing Bugs, weird Glitches.
Bad Graphics for 1998.
Weird Controls.
And ! Performance Issues haha

Krautland 😁

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-03-25, 22:08:

https://i.imgur.com/iovkUDR.jpg Krautland :D […]
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Krautland 😁

Great meme.
Same for me: Driving home for an hour to play car simulators or even worse, sports simulations.
Why simulate any pedestrian activity when I can start a multiplayer game and legally shoot stupid people in the face?

DOD:Source was a mistake, though.

Same principle, but extrapolated to "FPS" in general. Hello, I'm already a bipedal mammal, b0b-walking my way around a first-person perspective, realistic-looking world, interfacing with standard, realistic-looking human items. So, turning on a computer+screen to "simulate" various incarnations of that same formula ... is it's own form of weird Busman's Holiday, imo.

Albeit, yes, with much shooting of the faces, which does not - I promise - form a part of my real life daily activities! But even that. I mean, take the entirity of humanity's collective imagination, and for some reason half of the stuff we create = various forms of "shoot thing in the face".

Boooring.

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-26, 00:50:

Same principle, but extrapolated to "FPS" in general. Hello, I'm already a bipedal mammal, b0b-walking my way around a first-person perspective, realistic-looking world, interfacing with standard, realistic-looking human items. So, turning on a computer+screen to "simulate" various incarnations of that same formula ... is it's own form of weird Busman's Holiday, imo.

Albeit, yes, with much shooting of the faces, which does not - I promise - form a part of my real life daily activities! But even that. I mean, take the entirity of humanity's collective imagination, and for some reason half of the stuff we create = various forms of "shoot thing in the face".

Boooring.

Have you tried shooters in VR? Very different experience when everything is life-sized and you can physically duck under cover, aim-and-shoot, etc.

Sombrero wrote on 2022-03-25, 11:03:

Prey 2017: System Shock 2 is one of my personal all time favorites and I was looking forward for a modern spiritual successor for it, but turned out Prey is probably the most boring game I've played in recent years. Three main reasons; the enemies are boring, the combat is boring and the soundtrack is boring. The best thing about SS2 is its thick atmosphere, the game has been mistaken for a horror game numerous times, while Prey's atmosphere is the equivalent of a wet sock. Some seem to have really liked the game, I was not one of those people.

I agree. I was let-down by Prey (2017) as well. The enemies were extremely dull, as was the bog-standard sci-fi plot and environments.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad game, just an extremely over-hyped game.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-03-26, 00:55:

Shreddoc wrote on 2022-03-26, 00:50:

Same principle, but extrapolated to "FPS" in general. Hello, I'm already a bipedal mammal, b0b-walking my way around a first-person perspective, realistic-looking world, interfacing with standard, realistic-looking human items. So, turning on a computer+screen to "simulate" various incarnations of that same formula ... is it's own form of weird Busman's Holiday, imo.

Albeit, yes, with much shooting of the faces, which does not - I promise - form a part of my real life daily activities! But even that. I mean, take the entirity of humanity's collective imagination, and for some reason half of the stuff we create = various forms of "shoot thing in the face".

Boooring.

Have you tried shooters in VR? Very different experience when everything is life-sized and you can physically duck under cover, aim-and-shoot, etc.

That does sound like a very fun experience. In a similar way that real-life Paintball was a fun once-in-a-while experience. But not necessarily something to dedicate large swathes of my life to, given all of the many other very fun experiences life (and video gaming) has to offer.

Playing at soldier has it's place. I just don't personally think that place should be so large. 😀

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-03-25, 22:08:

https://i.imgur.com/iovkUDR.jpg Krautland :D […]
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Krautland 😁

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of these work simulators. Even for the more successful ones like commercial flight simulators. But disappointing? I what way. The concept already sounds relentlessly boring.

Though being a big RTS fan in my teens I can see the appeal of business sims (including Sim City).

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-03-26, 01:01:

Sombrero wrote on 2022-03-25, 11:03:

Prey 2017: System Shock 2 is one of my personal all time favorites and I was looking forward for a modern spiritual successor for it, but turned out Prey is probably the most boring game I've played in recent years. Three main reasons; the enemies are boring, the combat is boring and the soundtrack is boring. The best thing about SS2 is its thick atmosphere, the game has been mistaken for a horror game numerous times, while Prey's atmosphere is the equivalent of a wet sock. Some seem to have really liked the game, I was not one of those people.

I agree. I was let-down by Prey (2017) as well. The enemies were extremely dull, as was the bog-standard sci-fi plot and environments.

I wouldn't say it's necessarily a bad game, just an extremely over-hyped game.

Not a bad game at all, just not what I personally would find fun. In fact the plot seemed alright enough to me and the environments even great with many ways to progress, but even after three attempts I never did get far in the game because it bored me to death so don't know how they fared deeper in.

I think the enemies probably sounded great on paper, but in practice... I got fed up with the little shapeshifting headcrab things within 30min, they could have been fun as rare encounters but constantly getting attacked by coffee cups and chairs? No thanks, killed any uneasiness and paranoia their possible presence could have created. Also wasn't terribly fond of how the game was seemingly build around disabling/stunning the enemies first. I remember someone saying it's a FPS for smart people, so I guess I'm just too dumb for it.

Did I talk about Ion Fury? A massive dissapointing game for me.

Don't get me wrong, the game is good. It has good graphics and sound (for a Build shooter), but it feels soul-less. Nothing new, interesting or exciting about levels, weapons or enemies. It feels like a generic shooter of the era. Obviously I won't buy the expansion.

It's disappointing because I had higher expectations about this. I was interested into Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, but my disappointing at this game keeps me from buying it. Lately, I've seen Hedon - Extra thicc edition, another old-engined game... I guess that it will be more enjoyable because I have lower expectations (to be honest, the word "thicc" is the thing that catch my eye... although it seems that there are no thicc women in there).

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-26, 05:07:

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of these work simulators. Even for the more successful ones like commercial flight simulators. But disappointing? I what way. The concept already sounds relentlessly boring.

I used to read game magazines in the 90s, before I got access to the internet. They really tested those games.
I feel sorry for the poor intern who had to play these games and write a review. 🤣

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-03-26, 08:58:

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-03-26, 05:07:

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of these work simulators. Even for the more successful ones like commercial flight simulators. But disappointing? I what way. The concept already sounds relentlessly boring.

I used to read game magazines in the 90s, before I got access to the internet. They really tested those games.
I feel sorry for the poor intern who had to play these games and write a review. 🤣

I read those from the early to mid 2000s and I don't remember any apart from MS Flight Simulator. Maybe there was a handful of them over the 5-ish years I read them. But Euro Truck Simulator seems to be fairly popular.

Probably the most disappointing game I played was the DOS RPG Albion. I heard great things about it. Reviews were great. Nice graphics, nice music, turn-based combat. All in an outer space setting. Then I tried playing it. Many times. There were two main issues:
-switching between three different views, with the worst being 1st person. It was so terribly done that you could not maneuver without bumping into walls and inadvertently changing directions without realizing it. The view the game started off in (overhead, slightly isometric) was great, and if they just used that one, it would've been a great game.
-limited party movement options. You either had to hold down the left mouse button or use the four arrow keys. Holding the left mouse button constantly fatigued the muscle below my index finger. The arrow keys did not allow for diagonal movement. Hardly any other keyboard controls either.

It had a lot going for it - great setting, great story, beautiful graphics and sounds/music. It was a game I was chomping at the bit to play...

A few that come to mind:

Ultima VI: The False Prophet (C64 ver.)
Ultima VI is an amazing RPG... but the C64 version is nearly unplayable.
It's an impressive port for the hardware, but that didn't mean much to me back in 1991 or whenever I bought it. You had to swap disks every time you talked to someone (there was a dedicated conversation disk). It got so bad that I went and got the official hint book, so I could try to play the game while avoiding as many conversations as possible... definitely a great way to completely miss the point of Ultima VI!

They also had to remove a lot of content (portraits, most music, some spells, some items), though of course I didn't realize this until I finally got a PC and was able to play the PC version of the game.

I was very disappointed indeed to spend my hard-earned cash at a young age on a game that I found to be completely unplayable, and remember wishing I had instead bought the other game I was eyeing, Might & Magic.

Ultima VIII: Pagan
Once I got over the great soundtrack and nice animation, I soon realized what a massive disappointment this game was (and is). No party, even worse combat than in Ultima VII, no character portraits, a world that felt completely artificial compared with the impressive worlds of Ultima VI and VII, and an overall structure that felt more like Zelda than Ultima. I've tried getting into this game several times since then, but it's just not interesting at all, even if I go in pretending it's just this game called Pagan unrelated to Ultima.

Final Fantasy XIII
About 10 years ago or so I ended up, due to a scheduling mistake, having a two-month vacation between jobs; I didn't mind having that much time off, but it also meant no income for two months, so I couldn't really do much. I decided to start playing through the entire series of Final Fantasy games, and ended up getting through FF 1 & 2 (PSX), FF 3 (Famicom), and FF 4 & 6 & 7 (PSX). I enjoyed all of them so much, that I went out and got the latest in the series, FF13. Once I got over the great graphics, I was immediately disappointed. An RPG with no exploration whatsoever, braindead combat, and a story told mostly through "cinema scenes" of two characters standing at opposite sides of an empty room spouting nonsense at each other while not even looking at each other (I seriously thought it was a bug the first time I saw it). The environments, which sure did look great, ended up being corridors with invisible walls, funneling you from the entrance straight to the exit to the next corridor. I couldn't believe it, surely the game had to be more than this. I forced myself to get about 20 hours in, and I was doing the same exact thing at hour 20, that I was doing at hour 1. What a massive disappointment to this Final Fantasy fan.