Bomb of the Year

Wario Ware GC

It's a pretty good game still, but I was expecting a lot more, it's pretty much just the GBA one with a few new multiplayer modes, it's rather lame, it feels a bit weird playing the minigames on a tv too. Wario Ware GBA > Wario Ware GC. I'm really happy with every other game i've got this year, haven't been really disappointed in a game in a long time.
 
I don't know if Shadow Hearts: Covenant completely disappointed me, but a lot of GAFfers' impressions said that it was a fantastic game, one of the best traditional RPGs ever, a huge improvement over the first, had a great story, etc., and I thought it was about as generic as they come. It wasn't BAD, but I was expecting something well above average and just got average.
 
"Wow some people either have some horrible taste in games or are way too harsh of critics."

I don't think it's that people have horrible tastes, it's just that each person has a certain expectation for each game.

Doom 3 being another example where the game isn't entirely rubbish, it's just way below expectations.

If this was a thread about the absolute WORSE game this year, i'd have never put MGS3. There are way worse games this year.
 
Personal pick: Katamari Damacy -- short, cloddy tank controls, frustrating camera, mostly feels like a chore. I would have put my twenty bucks towards Contra or Alien Hominid. Might not have been as annoying if I had merely rented it, but I doubt many rental stores bothered to pick the game up.

Hype-to-actual-quality ratio: Doom 3 -- a stale tech demo that almost completely ignores everything we've learned from the last 6 years of FPS advancement. This game fails to recapture the intensity of any of the original Doom games since it can't handle more than a handful of active enemies at a time. A dumb, plodding find-the-key affair where it seems like you spend more time reading dull journal entries than actually fighting.

If we were allowed to include games we bought this year rather than just games that were released this year, HALO PC would probably top both of these. I can't believe they fucked up multiplayer so badly.
 
border said:
If we were allowed to include games we bought this year rather than just games that were released this year, HALO PC would probably top both of these. I can't believe they fucked up multiplayer so badly.
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I too, got Halo for PC from a bargain bin somewhere, and it was probably the worst $30 I ever spent. Not only was the Multiplayer as mentioned, fucked up, the game just didn't perform the fraction of what it should have. I mean, I'm not anyway technically inclined with DirectX API's, but shouldn't the fact it the Xbox uses the DirectX API make porting, you know, a little bit of a cakewalk?
 
Halo PC didn't perform badly for me, but given that it was coming from a system with a GeForce 3 and 733 Mhz processor, it should have run much better on my Radeon 9700 + 2.53 Ghz system.

Single player framerate was up and down quite a bit. Multiplayer framerate was smooth as silk.....too bad it was constantly fucking lagged. I had already played through the one-player mode, and only got it for $30 since I was having so much fun at LAN parties and thought it would be even better online. But they totally screwed the pooch. Die Gearbox die.
 
"OH, come now. How can it possibly be anything other than Killzone/Halo Killer/Herald of the Nurb Revolution?"

well, you see, this is how expectations can work in mysterious ways.

I expected Killzone to be pretty poor (from talking to people who had played it), but it was actually way above my expectations.
 
I'll say Driver 3 (I won't call it by its given name)

The first two games were great, and while my hopes weren't that high for this one (only after reading negative pre-release impressions) to go from what the previous games had done....to this was just awful.
 
The year ain't over yet, but I will definatly say Ridge Racers. After watching some new videos of it and seeing the way the cars handle and powerslide... it's absolutly nothing like Ridge Racer and looks like a fucking abomination to the whole fucking series, and this is coming from the ONLY biggest Ridge Racer fan there is.

Seriously, when I watched this new commercial for the PSP from Japan, they showed Ridge Racer and if you watch it, you will see how he takes that last turn and how it just doesn't look or feel right at all!
 
Halo 2.

Actually, no. Given how weak Halo 1 was, there was every reason to expect Halo 2 to be an equally tepid affair.
 
Do you guys have any idea what constitutes a bomb? It's not something you consider overrated. It's not Fable, which got mostly positive reviews and will probably crack a million in sales. Not Driv3r, which also sold a lot of copies even though it got mediocre reviews.

An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
 
Teddman said:
Do you guys have any idea what constitutes a bomb? It's not something you consider overrated. It's not Fable, which got mostly positive reviews and will probably crack a million in sales. Not Driv3r, which also sold a lot of copies even though it got mediocre reviews.

An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
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I think we're all treating this as a "letdown of the year" thread :lol
 
What about Bard's tale? Did it actually came out?! I heard people talking about how good it was, and i cant find it locally.

WHAT HAPPENED?!
 
Teddman said:
Do you guys have any idea what constitutes a bomb? It's not something you consider overrated. It's not Fable, which got mostly positive reviews and will probably crack a million in sales. Not Driv3r, which also sold a lot of copies even though it got mediocre reviews.

An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
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Outrun 2 got no hype, even if it did it wouldn't help it. The only "hype" it got was the OXM demo disc. Sorry but online internet forums dont' count as hype, nor does a website named Kikizo. If IGN or Gamespot did a big story on it all the time like they did, it might have faied a little better.

But what really fucking did it was the fact that it was a lousy game when compared to what else is offered out there now, especially for Xbox racers. All the average Xbox users that played Outrun 2 demo probably thought it was fun for like 1 minute then was like "is this all I do is just drive through traffic?"

Plus no custom soundtrack, boring game play and no real meaning at all. Like, you couldn't sit down with it and play it hours, mastering a certain car or track. It's not like that. Even worse, it should have stayed in the arcades just like Super GT did. That's why they never released it, it would have done just as poorly becuase 4 tracks and 4 cars just aren't enough. No matter how you put it, Outrun 2 was worth a game or two at the arcades, nothing more!
 
Teddman said:
Do you guys have any idea what constitutes a bomb? It's not something you consider overrated. It's not Fable, which got mostly positive reviews and will probably crack a million in sales. Not Driv3r, which also sold a lot of copies even though it got mediocre reviews.

An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
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Depends on how you define 'bomb' or 'failure'. Sales figures don't mean anything to me. I'm more interested in quality.
 
lara said:
Halo 2.

Actually, no. Given how weak Halo 1 was, there was every reason to expect Halo 2 to be an equally tepid affair.
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You have guts. Tons of guts. Behold...they are coming back...they are coming back...they are coming back...

I would say it was either Halo 2 or Fable. Not saying they are bad games but they were SOOOOO HYPED and at the end despite delivering good times they weren't as good as expected. Killzone enters this list too and Driver 3 too...
 
Teddman said:
Do you guys have any idea what constitutes a bomb? It's not something you consider overrated. It's not Fable, which got mostly positive reviews and will probably crack a million in sales. Not Driv3r, which also sold a lot of copies even though it got mediocre reviews.

An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
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Actually:

kumanoki said:
We all have our favorites for GOTY, but what game(s) completely disappointed you?
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Funny that you still have some people that were clearly not disappointed with games, but nonetheless get their shots in. Yes, I'm sure Killzone "disappointed" CrimsonSkies. :)
 
katamari damacy. it's not as fun and addictive as i was led to believe. quirky, yes, original, yes. but bland graphics, less than stellar control mechanics and wonky camera makes for a bland game.
 
Well Socreges, the thread starter also hasn't a clue what a bomb is... listing X-men Legends, which both sold very well and also got positive reviews. I've come to the conclusion that this is a classic case of a mislabeled thread.

It's not really a broad definition--when something bombs in the industry, that means it didn't sell. If you just personally were disappointed in a game, that's something else.

Too bad that's what this thread has mostly turned into, because finding out which game bombed the worst in 2004 is a lot more interesting to me than the upteenth "Your pick for most overrated/disappointing game lately" type thread...
 
Brandon F said:
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Dude you must be on crack, tales is one of the best games of the year.
Have you even finished the game?

You should have said killzone instead.
 
I feel a major need to rant here...

I felt very disappointed at the stupidity of SEGA making Virtual On Marz on PS2 instead of XBox, at least XBox would have handled the game in the way that the Dreamcast handled VOOT and probably had a real Co-op mode, system link mode, XBL and better load times.

I felt disapponted at the lack of more SEGA games on XBox like the VF series, Fighting Viper series, basically I want more SEGA games on XBox, specially a Panzer Dragoon Saga version or sequel.

Doom III was not really a let down because I knew that RARE and Bungie and Valve have always made better videogames than John Carmack's Id Software, so basically I am disappointed at the engine being that it relies too much on CPU power and was made to purposely run slow doing shadows if you have a slow CPU to force you to upgrade.

I was also majorly disappointed at Take 2 Interactive's choice of making GTASA a specific hardware game for PS2 instead of taking a chance on XBox and raising the watermark by having a GTASA with true hardware transform and lighting, pixel and vertex shaders and the rest of the Direct X 8.0 effects that the XBox's Nv2X can do.

XBox Tech Specs: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1561&p=1

The above link also provides a XBox versus PS2 and GC technical comparison with very technical breakdowns.

On that note, Breakdown was also a let down, definetly. Here you have a Japanese company making a XBox hardware specific game like Breakdown and totally never even considering to extend the replay value with a system link mode, let alone a XBL mode.

I could go on and on, but I am sleepy, I'll come back tomorrow.
 
Teddman said:
Well Socreges, the thread starter also hasn't a clue what a bomb is... listing X-men Legends, which both sold very well and also got positive reviews. I've come to the conclusion that this is a classic case of a mislabeled thread.

It's not really a broad definition--when something bombs in the industry, that means it didn't sell. If you just personally were disappointed in a game, that's something else.

Too bad that's what this thread has mostly turned into, because finding out which game bombed the worst in 2004 is a lot more interesting to me than the upteenth "Your pick for most overrated/disappointing game lately" type thread...
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Yeah, when I saw the thread title I was ready to post a picture of the Second Sight box :P
 
DCharlie said:
"OH, come now. How can it possibly be anything other than Killzone/Halo Killer/Herald of the Nurb Revolution?"

well, you see, this is how expectations can work in mysterious ways.

I expected Killzone to be pretty poor (from talking to people who had played it), but it was actually way above my expectations.
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Well, it depends on your comparative timeframe.

As of six months ago, we had all seen video footage of the game and had a pretty good sense of how it was going to turn out. But as of this time last year, everyone was salivating over fuzzy pseudo-screenshots and anticipating the second coming.
 
If you knew a game was going to suck, it's not really fair to call it a bomb (example: Driver 3).

As for me, probably my two biggest letdowns this year were Champions of Norrath (worst online implementation for a decent game EVER), and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (too many reasons to list)
 
I don't see how Killzone can be considered a disappointment. To me, a disappointment is when the game, as the developers realized it, doesn't add up to your expectations. Killzone was hobbled by time. It was rushed out to meet a deadline. If Killzone had been given another month or two to spruce up the AI and framerate, it would be a serious contender for GOTY.

Fable is a disappointment. Years of development, with the grandest promises trickling out every month, and it culminates into a piece of shit. It wasn't rushed or unfinished. It was just shit. There's a difference between that and the state of Killzone when it was released. I think Killzone 2 will deliver what Guerilla wanted Killzone to.
 
Teddman said:
Well Socreges, the thread starter also hasn't a clue what a bomb is... listing X-men Legends, which both sold very well and also got positive reviews. I've come to the conclusion that this is a classic case of a mislabeled thread.
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No shit! That goes without saying. But if you just read the first post itself, you can discover the true intention, and reply appropriately.
XS+ said:
I don't see how Killzone can be considered a disappointment. To me, a disappointment is when the game, as the developers realized it, doesn't add up to your expectations. Killzone was hobbled by time. It was rushed out to meet a deadline. If Killzone had been given another month or two to spruce up the AI and framerate, it would be a serious contender for GOTY.
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Seems like you DO see how, pal.
 
Socreges said:
No shit! That goes without saying. But if you just read the first post itself, you can discover the true intention, and reply appropriately.

Seems like you DO see how, pal.
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No, I don't. They rushed Killzone out. Killzone, in its state, was not intended for release. But, under the contraints of their parent company, they had to. Fable was shipped by a company satisfied with the way the game was packaged. Sure, the game received decent reviews, but most people I know laugh at that nonsense. The game fell laughably short of what was promised -- not because of time contraints, but because the designers pulled a lot out of their arse.
 
XS+ said:
No, I don't. They rushed Killzone out. Killzone, in its state, was not intended for release. But, under the contraints of their parent company, they had to. Fable was shipped by a company satisfied with the way the game was packaged. Sure, the game received decent reviews, but most people I know laugh at them as completely nonsense. The game fell laughably short of what was promised -- not because of time contraints, but because the designers pulled a lot out of their arse.
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What does that matter? People can still be disappointed with the final product. Disappointment is a "feeling". Do you think people give two shits what the circumstances were? No. The game was supposed to be very good. For many, it was not. Therefore, disappointment!

I think you're trying to treat disappointment as an objective reality. Yeah, good luck with that.

Oh, and didn't you "enjoy [Killzone] immensely"? Has the "vibrancy of the warzone in Killzone" "let go of [you]" yet? I'm not so sure you're the best authority in such a state to be determining how people felt about Killzone. :)
 
KillZone for sure

And eh ToS. GAF hyped this up to be an awesome RPG. Its just like every other RPG out there, but with a great battle system. Uninteresting NPC, static locations, poor story, even worse characters.
 
XS+ said:
I don't see how Killzone can be considered a disappointment. To me, a disappointment is when the game, as the developers realized it, doesn't add up to your expectations. Killzone was hobbled by time. It was rushed out to meet a deadline. If Killzone had been given another month or two to spruce up the AI and framerate, it would be a serious contender for GOTY.
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I gotta say, that sets a new standard for bizzaro logic damage control. The dream of Killzone still burns bright in the Sony fanboy sole. :)
 
Teddman said:
An example of a bomb is OutRun2. It sold under 10,000 in its first month after getting quite a bit of hype, and the reviews were middling.
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:lol WTF are you talking about? Absolutely no one expected that game to do much of anything sales wise, and even those who were glad it came out (like me) wondered why they were bothering. And it had about as much advertising as Ford Racing 2 (hell even less, not sure it even had a magazine ad).Not to mention that the poster clearly means this thread to be about personal disappointments. What a stupid post.

Of course if you wanna look at a game failing to meet sales expectations, I'd give it to Madden 2005. :lol It's obviously sold well, but ESPN NFL 2K5 clearly had a bigger impact on it's sales then EA thought was possible.

For personal bombs, it's WWE Smackdown vs Raw by a country mile. It's unbelievable how empty this game feels next to HCTP. Not even Bret Hart can save it. His CAW in HCTP is good enough anyway.

BTW, the spin over Killzone is pretty funny too. Killzone could've been delayed, just like GT4 has been delayed, but it wasn't. It isn't like Sony needed it out before Christmas. They thought it was good enough to release, and others obviously think it wasn't. Doesn't matter a goddamn what the developers meant for the game...if the final product sucks to a person, then that's all that there is to it. If you like it anyway then that's all that matters, but it isn't gonna affect anyone else.
 
Doom III was not really a let down because I knew that RARE and Bungie and Valve have always made better videogames than John Carmack's Id Software, so basically I am disappointed at the engine being that it relies too much on CPU power and was made to purposely run slow doing shadows if you have a slow CPU to force you to upgrade.
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Doom3 requires a powreful GPU, not CPU. I've got a 6800GT and a 2 year old Athlon XP 2500+. I get 60fps everywhere at 1024x768 at High Quality except when a ton of those spider guys are on screen.
 
"They rushed Killzone out."

or did they?

Ps. Played more MGS3 - yes, i was on drugs - things just got Shit loads better!
 
I've enjoyed every game I've purchased this year, maybe 20 + between the GBA, DS, GC, PC, and Xbox. Bout the closest to disappointment would have to be Halo 2... which is still enjoyable and a worthy purchase, and I hated Halo 1.
 
i'm gonna say call of duty united offensive. it was fun, but it was over in like 3 hours and had maybe 1/4 of the maps of the original's single player and much worse atmosphere.
 
I'm going to post and say Xenosaga Ep II. That game almost fucking ruined my entire month. Nothing is more depressing than watching something you have supported and loved for years just fall apart like that. Terrible. :(
 
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