2007's Ten Biggest Gaming Letdowns

Game|Life offers up an anti-top-ten list, noting the three blog authors' biggest disappointments from 2007. Chris Kohler's biggest letdown echoes my own feelings on this topic: "No LittleBigPlanet. PlayStation 3's software library got significantly better this holiday, but there's no killer app. I honestly don't know if LittleBigPlanet would have been one. But I think it's going to be mine. It's going to be the thing that glues me to PlayStation 3... when it ships. I was all ready to start building worlds and sharing them with my friends and generally start being a jackass by now, but it won't happen until next year -- late next year, if you believe the rumors. I hope they're not true. And I do hope LittleBigPlanet sets the planet on fire when it releases." Any gaming 'event' this year an epic fail for you?

Comments

Another big let down

[FredFredrickson]

I couldn't get enough people to click myminicity links! What a dumb game.

Personally?

[JK_the_Slacker]

I still haven't managed to beat VI. You know, that console game where the object of the game is to edit a file and then quit? That's a really hard one, and I'm so disappointed that I got so close, but didn't finish it this year. Ah well, there's always 2008.

Re:Personally?

[rk]

You know there's a cheat code that lets you save your progress before you quit, right? Press escape, then type ":wq" and press enter.

Re:Personally?

[Sciros]

It's a PC game rather than a console game I think. Maybe that's the problem.

Some disappointments

[Sciros]

To begin, I'll echo the biggest disappointment as being the Wii's lack of anything good from companies not named Nintendo. A number of my friends are regretting the purchase of the Wii because of this reason, wishing they'd bought a 360 instead. Surely having both is best but I certainly haven't felt so much of the same sentiment from 360 owners I know.

Anyway, my disappointments:
1) Smash Bros Brawl being delayed until next year. Mr. Iwata personally told me that he was hoping to make this game a release title for the "Revolution" (this was in 2005). We're now more than a year overdue, and for something like Smash that really doesn't imply 6.5 solid years of development time. They were simply slow to start on it.

2) Lack of availability of the Wii. I'm not used to having to put so much work into acquiring a $250 piece of technology one year after its initial release; my mornings are usually quite busy. As a result I still don't have one.

3) FFXII: Revenant Wings (DS). I expected much better than what it turned out to be. Even looking at videos of the game on IGN didn't quite get across the abysmal pacing and unbelievable lack of variety in this game. Its supposed depth doesn't amount to anything in practice.

4) Mario 3v3 Hoops (DS). I think this came out in 2007. If not then nevermind. Anyway this game is a giant turd.

5) ArenaNet slowly turning Guild Wars into a grindfest. The one MMORPG that let me play PVE at my leisure and not "fall behind" decided that it's a much better idea to just go into WoW me-too mode rather than stick with the original tenet of skill over time played. The Eye of the North expansion released this year completed the transformation.

6) Bioware going to EA, Blizzard merging with Activision. Let's just say that these *cannot possibly be good things* considering Bioware and Blizzard haven't exactly been in need of an improvement in any way. (Well, Blizzard graphically perhaps but Activision doesn't help there.)

7) Forza Motorsport 2. Great racing engine, cool graphics, good customization, good online mode. But... what is with no music during races? Or having to play your ass off to unlock even the ability to *purchase* a lot of the cars? This isn't supposed to be a 100-hour RPG, it's a freaking racing game. Nobody wants to spend days driving cars they don't like to get at cars they do; there's no storyline or change in gameplay to keep you interested in the meantime. Seems the developers forgot they were making a *game* rather than a training sim for racing teams to study tracks.

Re:Some disappointments

[techpawn]

5) ArenaNet slowly turning Guild Wars into a grindfest. The one MMORPG that let me play PVE at my leisure and not "fall behind" decided that it's a much better idea to just go into WoW me-too mode rather than stick with the original tenet of skill over time played. The Eye of the North expansion released this year completed the transformation.

THANK YOU! Finally, someone else that saw that they turned down that path and because of it lost quite a few players. I gave up on it when I came to the realization that the people who just ran from mission to mission where doing much better than the casual players. It's now a subscription free version of WoW. I've gone back of PnP games. Yeah, it's a hassle to get everyone into someones basement for a few hours each week, but it's all in all a far better experience.

Re:Some disappointments

[edwdig]

1) Smash Bros Brawl being delayed until next year. Mr. Iwata personally told me that he was hoping to make this game a release title for the "Revolution" (this was in 2005). We're now more than a year overdue, and for something like Smash that really doesn't imply 6.5 solid years of development time. They were simply slow to start on it.

The problem with SSB Brawl is Iwata made a promise he couldn't possibly deliver. Iwata publicly announced a SSB game as a Wii launch title in late '05, THEN went to the designer of the previous games in the series and asked him to make the game. The guy had left Nintendo a few years prior. So, Nintendo had 1 year to get the guy to agree to make the game, get a dev team for him to work with, and create the game. Once this became public knowledge, it was pretty clear it wasn't going to be a launch game. In the end, it took them a little over two years to put it together, assuming no further delays.

Re:Some disappointments

[Osty]

Then forget forza, and go get GT3, or GT4.

Better graphics on 4(on an inferior system), you can turn the music off, and you have to play a ton to get cars you actually want to race.

I'd actually recommend against getting GT3 or GT4, or at least get them along with FM2.

• Graphics: You're comparing PS2 games to an Xbox 360 game. GT4 launched a few months before the original Forza, back in 2005. Forza 2 launched this year on Xbox 360. That in itself means it has better graphics, but Forza 2 also has per-track lighting effects (a desert track like Laguna Seca has much more harsh lighting than the fictional Maple Valley track, for example), collision damage which actually affects driving (If your wing comes off, you lose your downforce, for example), much better track depictions (compare the Nurburgring Nordschleife in GT4 against the same in FM2), and more detailed cars. There are only two little issues I have with FM2 graphics: Cars with movable parts like retractable spoilers (Porsches, Lamborghinis, etc) don't move, and there's no in-cockpit view. Neither of those are in the GT3/4 games either.
• Gameplay: Forza 1 had a much better/more realistic physics engine than GT3/4, and Forza 2 takes that even further. The Gran Turismo series uses a modified version of Pacejka's Magic Formula, which is decent but not entirely realistic and suffers at the limit. Forza uses a more expensive model based on actually modelling the suspension and tires (across three separate points on the tire contact patch), which leads to a much more realistic physics model. FM1 ran input and physics at 60fps with graphics locked to 30fps. FM2 runs input and physics at 360fps with graphics locked to 60fps. Collisions are realistic, compared to GT's bumper car/billiard ball collision model (no wall-riding in FM, using other cars as movable ARMCOs risks damaging your own car). Real-world tracks are the most realistic yet, with a real sense of elevation changes, traction surface changes, etc. There are PC games that have better physics simulations than FM, but FM is leaps and bounds beyond GT.
• Control: Assuming you're using a controller rather than a wheel, the analog triggers on the Xbox and Xbox 360 are much better for throttle and brake control than trying to use a PS2's analog buttons. There are a few third-party PS2 controllers with triggers, but they're few and far between and suffer from typical third-party controller problems (fragile, sloppy, etc). GT3/4 may play better on a PS3 with its fully-analog L2/R2 buttons, but if you're trying to play on a PS2 you pretty much have to have a wheel. And that's the only place that GT beats FM in my opinion -- the Logitech wheels are the gold standard, and they simply don't exist for 360 (yet?).
• Cars: I don't know about you, but GT's car selection has never really done it for me. While it's great that you can choose from 15 different models of Skylines or 12 different Civics, the cars I want to drive aren't available in GT. I want to drive Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, and those aren't in GT3/4 (GT5 is supposed to have Ferraris and maybe Lamborghinis, but I don't believe they'll have Porsche this time around). And no, RUF cars don't cut it.
• Sound: Who cares about in-game music? When I'm driving, I want to hear the engine so I can know when to shift without having my eyes glued to the tach. And when it comes to engine sounds, Forza has always been better than GT (this video pretty much says it all. That's FM1 vs. GT4, but FM2's engine sounds are even better. It's pretty obvious when you hear the Corvette comparison). If you must have in-game music, use the 360's custom soundtrack feature and play your own music. I'll guarantee that any music you choose to play will be better than the built-in soundtracks for either series.
• AI: GT's AI is comp

The Biggest Disappointment

[MonkeyCookie]

...was that Duke Nukem Forever wasn't released in 2007. I was sure that this year was the year!

Assassin's Creed

[nuzak]

Boy is it pretty. And smooth. And climbing things is fun for the first half-hour or so.

The voice acting is ... okay. Actually everyone's good except for Altair himself, but I have heard worse.

But seriously, I was looking forward to being immersed in the role of an assassin stalking his target patiently, taking just the right moment to strike, then blazing a bloody trail out of town. But nope, I get to listen to "Thief! I'll have your hand for that!" over and over and over and over and over again until I get sick of it and decide to have my two-dozenth very high-profile swordfight in the middle of the street -- which the guards will mercifully forget all about when I walk away for a couple minutes to climb the next Generic View Point Tower.

Talk about a wasted opportunity.

Re:more about "The Internet and Jade Raymond"?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

This NSFW

Re:Halo 3 Easily Biggest Gaming Letdown In 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not own Halo 3 and I have no intention of buying it or a 360 but I'm going to defend it anyway. The whole "640p" thing was because it renders to two 640 row framebuffers which are then composited and slightly scaled vertically to achieve some cool lighting effects. People were only able to notice the slight reduction in vertical resolution by counting pixels on framegrabs. Until I see a study showing that people are even capable of distinguishing 720p and 1080p video sources (not still images), I will continue to believe that all of this fretting over resolution is nothing but fanboy wankery.

That's a challenge to all of the resolution whores out there. I'm sure someone out there can put together a simple double-blind study to test this. Get some volunteers and set up a game to play a demo in 720p or 1080p. Don't let them pause the demo, or get close enough to count pixels, just have them sit an appropriate distance from the screen and ask them which sample was higher resolution. Call it a hunch, but I predict that less than 60% of the volunteers will get it right. If you somehow manage to test "640p" versus 720p I don't see how it could be significantly higher than 50% for a sufficiently large sample.

Re:Halo 3 Easily Biggest Gaming Letdown In 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

Bungie could only manage to get Halo 3 to run at 640p resolution and not the minimum standard 720p for real next gen games.

Wait, what? How is that a "minimum standard" for "real next gen games"? You know that the Wii's maximum is 480p, right? If you consider Halo 3 to be even borderline "next gen," then you can't say Metroid Prime 3 isn't, as its single player mode blows Halo 3's away.

Re:My biggest let down of 2007

[eyeye]

Mine was Unreal Tournament III - the textures and graphics are noisy and the interface clumsy.

Halo 3? Disappointing?

[filterban]

Okay, so I can understand someone thinking Portal and BioShock are better games than Halo 3. I don't understand TFA calling Halo 3 a disappointment simply because they liked two other shooters more. From TFA:

The sales of Halo 3. It wasn't surprising that Halo 3 would sell like something that sells really fast, but I was saddened by how many people were exposed only to the world of the Master Chief while missing out on the amazing BioShock or my new pick for greatest game of all time, Portal. Sure, both games sold reasonably well, but when compared to the sales of Halo 3, you begin to realize that gaming accurately reflects the rest of society's entertainment; high-brow, revolutionary fare is ignored by the masses in favor of "wicked awesome explosions."

Please. Saying Halo 3 is only "wicked awesome explosions" would be like saying Star Wars is only "explosions and laser beams." Give me a break.

All of the Halo games have had wicked awesome explosions, sure. But they also have a deeply engrossing storyline, fantastic multiplayer, good AI, and unsurpassed world physics. Halo 3 is the best game in the series and was my favorite shooter (and many other people's) of the year. By no stretch of the imagination was it a bad game. Star Wars is full of light sabers and lasers - but obviously, if you look at it more closely, there's an intricate storyline with fantastic characters (in Episodes 4-6).

Sure, BioShock and Portal are arguably better games than Halo 3 but they didn't sell nearly as well. The reason? Exposure. Most people haven't even heard of Portal. There certainly aren't Portal trading cards, helmets, action figures, and TV commercials.

For christ's sake, you can't even BUY Portal on a console -- at most, an hour long game -- without buying a $60 package that includes another game I've already beaten (Half Life 2) and two expansion packs I don't want. If Joey asks for Portal for Christmas, his mom won't be able to find it in a store.

Sales figures are a result of many other forces besides the quality of the game itself, and that's reality. Microsoft went to bat for Halo 3 with their pocketbook, executed very well, and they reaped the rewards from it. BioShock and Portal did not pony up, and since most people don't know what they are, they aren't purchased at nearly the same rate. It has nothing to do with the average American only liking "wicked awesome explosions."

Wither Spore?

[GaryPatterson]

I remember when Spore was the next huge thing to hit gaming, and every game show had breathless gamers watching previews. Then we waited. And waited. And waited.

Years passed.

Still no Spore! It's an ambitious game, yes, but once you hit the third or fourth year of development, it starts seeming like it'll never get here. Games with extremely long dev times have a history of disappointing. I reckon "No Spore This Year" should be on the list as a disappointment of 2007.

Wither Spore?

Re:Wither Spore?

[LingNoi]

That's why the games industry should only market games that are already almost complete, they're such amateurs. The movie industry doesn't show adverts for a movie that still has three more years of production time. Doing so in the games industry leads to what you just said.

Re:Disclaimer: never played any Halo game

[doxology]

Deus Ex?

Re:Xbox 360 Hardware And Software

[Doctor_Jest]

I hate responding to trolls.... but.

They took a billion dollar hit to their bottom line to STOP the bleeding of consoles... they admitted (in no uncertain terms) that EVERY console they sold (up to that point) was potentially destined to fail... and fail for the SAME FLAW.

20% not high? 30%? How many consoles have to go back to Microsoft (and how many times), before you admit there's a flaw in the 360 that is VERY troubling and VERY problematic for their goodwill and future as a gaming company.

The failure rate of the PS3 is infinitesimal. Google is your friend. The Wii's also a solid performer. Compared to the 360 the PS2 launch console is more reliable.

You've been nursing Bill Gates' ballsack too long to notice the facts DO support his statement... and it's NOT fanboy rhetoric when the VERY company extends the warranty for a _SPECIFIC_ failure to 3 YEARS, for FREE. That had "class action dodge" written ALL over it, chum.

AC, indeed. Sometimes your asinine insinuations really get to me.