Most disappointing games for me:

Doom 3, because it was just boring and not fun, and for some reason was not what I expected from the trailer. No doubt did what id wanted, but all that darkness and tension was not for me. Loved the film though 😁.

Deadspace, where the narration and npc speeches made me feel like some dumb village idiot before it even began. Gameplay also too involved, like Doom 3 - seems almost like it might play better on a console.

Half-life... I managed to get to the end of the intro, by which time I was so annoyed at what I considered to be pretentious tedium that I could only stand about 5 minutes actual game play, ever. Ironically I quite liked the demo.

Command and Conquer on xbox 360, can't put my finger on it but basically it just doesn't have any zing for me.

Dark Seed, which I think probably will end up as a game I call up just to laugh at. Surely were better ways of doing this, even on old hardware 😵.

Myst on the PSP, but I suspect its simply not suited to the console.

[quote="ratfink"]Half-life... I managed to get to the end of the intro, by which time I was so annoyed at what I considered to be pretentious tedium that I could only stand about 5 minutes actual game play, ever. Ironically I quite liked the demo.
quote]

HL took forever to get to the point. Maybe in 98 when there weren't many games of this sort, there was no reference point hence the super reviews at the time. However, it hasn't stood the test of time well and playing it today is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Quake 2 on the other hand, is still a blast. No babbling- just straight to the point fragging. System Shock 2 is another super super game. Last I re-played it was last year and the experience was still as good as 10 years ago. The Impressions city building games are also superb- I still regularly play Ceasar III and Zeus- Master of Olympus. Oh, and the Need for Speed series from NFS2 to PU- super super times..... 😁

I can't recall ever being disappointed by a DOS game. Sure, Wetlands was an awful game, possibly the worst I ever bought, but I barely paid anything for it and didn't anticipate the game or anything.

In any case, here are my major game disappointments.

Metal Gear Solid 2
I consider the first MGS to be among my PS1 favorites, but this game ruined everything, except for the very impressive graphics. But the story went bonkers, the main character isn't Snake but some uninteresting dude and the "game" have so many cutscenes it's more like a movie rather than a game.

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
My least favorite of the Hitman series. I enjoyed the first game greatly and looked forward to this a great deal, I especially liked that the official website had a bunch of information about the past of 47. Naturally, I expected the game to expand upon this a great deal, but there was nothing about that. The information on the official website had nothing to do with the game. Most of the levels were also boring, as they were just military levels and not civilian levels. Hitman should be in public locations like hotels, resturants and so on, not some military complex.

Deus Ex: Invisible War
On it's own it's certainly not a bad game, but it remains a bad Deus Ex game. I don't think there is anyone who played the first game first, and then liked this game more.

Half-Life 2
The first HL was fun for me mainly because of two reasons. The secret high-security lab complex Black Mesa, which reminded me of a nuclear plant I used to work at, and it was the first shooter I played where there truly were more than just the player vs meanies. There were both the aliens and the marine, and if you were clever about it at some locations, they could do all the fighting for you. The sequel was instead in a ruin, and I don't like ruins as a game location so that's bad. And thru the whole game it's just us vs them, there is no longer any 3rd faction. And an added thing I found very annoying is how everyone bloody worships Gordon Freeman.

All of these are the second game of a series, heh.

ratfink wrote:

Deadspace, where the narration and npc speeches made me feel like some dumb village idiot before it even began. Gameplay also too involved, like Doom 3 - seems almost like it might play better on a console.

I recently played Deadspace and I know what you mean. The game made a point to tell me 4 times to shoot the limbs. First it's written in blood. Then I found an audio log. Next one of the crew radios me about it. Then the game interrupts as I'm walking down a hallway. One of those game interruptions also wasted several seconds of my air. As if I couldn't guess that I would have trouble breathing in a vacuum.

ratfink wrote:

Dark Seed, which I think probably will end up as a game I call up just to laugh at. Surely were better ways of doing this, even on old hardware 😵.

Could you elaborate on this? I rather liked Dark Seed.

Freddo wrote:

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

Agreed. I played parts 3 and 4 before I finished the second one. I had a hard time sticking with this game. For me it was a combination of bad level design and overly sensitive AI. The guards scream bloody murder if they see you with a gun but I'm disguised as one of them and there's another guard right next to them also holding the same type of gun. It made no sense.

I was disappointed with Stonekeep. I remember getting to the ice caverns, and it was the same landscape and graphics as the dungeon area above. The only difference seemed to be the colour of the walls were blue instead of brown.

OTOH, I wasn't disappointed with the unpopular "Descent to undermountain". Yes there was plenty to sneer at, but IMO it kept itself together to provide some entertaining moments.

I was very disappointed with Dragon Age: Origins

One of the most boring RPGs I have ever played.

SKARDAVNELNATE wrote:

ratfink wrote:

Dark Seed, which I think probably will end up as a game I call up just to laugh at. Surely were better ways of doing this, even on old hardware 😵.

Could you elaborate on this? I rather liked Dark Seed.

I bought it because of the Giger artwork and I was a big fan of Lovecraft a few decades back [not sure whether that's relevant - long time since I played this game], and when I wrote that comment I was thinking of my disappointment with the look. But I'm probably being a bit unfair as I kinda like the game too even if the memory of some of it gives me the giggles 😁.

It does however remind me that I wasn't all that enamoured with Call of Cthulu, where I seemed to run around for hours with nothing happening except getting attacked by a guard. To be honest I never got far with it, so maybe it shines after the area I got on to. But those early stages are pretty crucial for getting engaged I think.

ratfink wrote:

To be honest I never got far with it, so maybe it shines after the area I got on to.

It can be unforgiving if you don't do certain things early on. You need a rope tied to the balcony to get in and out of the house. You have to accomplish everything in the cemetery before the guard shows up because he blocks the way. Then you have to get arrested, so you can leave items in the cell, so they'll transition to the dark side, so you can escape when arrested there.

I liked how the dark side mirrors the regular world and something like leaving a door open in one place effected another. Though I can understand about the look. I had it for 10 years before completing it because I didn't know about a lever which I couldn't see in the artwork. Maybe because of that it was such a thrill when I finally did.

>Actually BZ1 and 2 are two of my favorite games period.

I agree 100%. Especially BZ2 - it was a massive step up from BZ. In fact, it is the only game I own that I have purchased multiple copies of. I own 3 copies of BZ2 - it was that good ! I wanted to be able to legally play it multi-player when 2 of my lan friends came over.

Space Quest 6 -The Spinal Frontier (confusing puzzles, shitty story/ending)
Police Quest 4 - Open Season (no Sonny Bonds?, too gruesome)
King's Quest 7 (sierra bent on trying to be disney)
Betrayal at Antara (terrible voice acting, buggy, not as fun as original)
Riven: The Sequel to Myst (boring, too many disc swaps)
First Encounters: Elite III
Syndicate Wars
Civilization II
Sim City 3000
Fade to Black

I got out of PC gaming around this time. Most of these games pushed the technology to the max (eye candy) but had absolute shit game play. I really disliked the CD-ROM based 640x480 games with the repetitive sound clips and muzak.

Was REALLY disappointed with Curse of Monkey Island ending.

Back To The Future Episodes. Great plot. Horrid gameplay. Way too easy.

I thought HL2 was fantastic. And keeps getting better.

My newly revised list.

Unreal 2 (omg what happened)
Alpha Prime (just boring)
Burnout series (bleh)
AVP3 (bored to tears)
Cryostasis (super terrible performance)
Gothic 3 (non functional and boring even after community patch)
HAWX (mind numbing beyond belief)
Two Worlds (horrible Oblivion wannabe)
Twin Sector (shitty HL2/Portal clone)
Trespasser (this didn't work at all)
SW Empire at War (only the space battles were enjoyable)
Supreme Commander 2 (it's like the developers all were replaced by evil impersonators)

Some of these I would never have bothered with if they hadn't been $5 on Steam. 😉

remember indianapolis 500? that game that came with some of the creative labs kits in the early 90s? what a big disappointment that was! I don't even know where mine is... don't really care to see it again

Yeah Indy 500 came with my SBPro2. I thought the car damage was cool but that was about all I payed attention to.

Indy 500 was awesome!

I had PC speaker back then and you could do some basic tuning of the car, which was necessary in order to win the game.

You could also do some really cool crashes.

I think it was a terrific game!

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Syndicate Wars

I was thinking this was a highly rated game? Maybe even in a top 100 list somewhere. I have it, but still haven't played it to make judgment. 😜

swaaye wrote:

My newly revised list. Gothic 3 (non functional and boring even after community patch) Two Worlds (horrible Oblivion wannabe) So […]
Show full quote

My newly revised list.
Gothic 3 (non functional and boring even after community patch)
Two Worlds (horrible Oblivion wannabe)
Some of these I would never have bothered with if they hadn't been $5 on Steam. 😉

Arcania: Gothic 4 has to be worse. 😜 And I paid full retail cause I'm not used to buying things off Steam and such.

Anyone know how Two Worlds 2 is? I know the original sucked balLz.

BTW Divinity II: The Dragon Knights Saga is underrated. Bought this last week to hold me over till The Witcher 2 and it's quite amazing.

Indianapolis 500 was rated by Computer Gaming World magazine as one of the Top 150 Games of All Time (in their 1996 anniversary issue). Syndicate (not Syndicate Wars) was rated #67 in the same issue.

I really hated Indy 500. It has probably the worst use of VGA graphics of any game I have ever seen. Not to mention it shipped with my SB 2.0, but I was never able to get the bloody sound working with the thing. I much preferred the follow up to this game (Indycar Racing)

http://www.mobygames.com/game/indycar-racing