Which gave me the idea of this topic really. Instead of picking or writing about the best of last generation, how about the worst (or most disappointing) of last generation? Cue this topic's creation.
With that said. Welcome to Elton John is Dead's "The worst games of last generation (or the most disappointing games of the last generation)" thread on BSN. I shall begin. (Sorry tickle267 but it's my thread so I go first. I'm not going to create a blank first post just for you.)
(And keep in mind this is my opinion although I will write my choices as factual in the following write-up, it's all just my opinion)
1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
This is probably a surprise to you all. "Why didn't he pick Skyrim which he hates so much?" you all ask. It's simple:
Oblivion was one of the first RPG's out on the 360. The sequel to Morrowind and this made what it was all the more disappointing and struck a deeper blow than Skyrim. Morrowind was a great RPG ("Hell has frozen over!" I hear you all chant but read on) but not a great game. The gameplay and combat system was absolutely atrocious which made going through the game an absolute chore but the story, the role-playing, the features, the world and the reward for exploring, the individuality of all the places (from the villages, cities, towns and dungeons) and the sense of mystery made it a great RPG as well as a unique one. Oblivion took all of that away and we were left with a bland RPG with copy and pasted dungeons, a poor plot, no consequences to actions, no restrictions in the guilds you could join (something that existed in Morrowind due to guild rivalry), a boring generic world and an average combat system ruined by repetitive AI behavior and level scaling.
The only good plot in Oblivion was the Dark Brotherhood storyline. Everything else was poorly written and the fact that there were no choices to make in any quest-line (including the main one) or any player-influence to change the story took away role-playing. The limitations here were startling. There were no options to betray the Fighter's guild and side with the rivals (as Morrowind would allow). There were no options to betray Martin Septim (even if you were a Daedra worshiper). There were no options whatsoever in these story-lines that significantly altered their plots. All the results were the same. The only role-playing therefore came from LARP (i.e "oh look at me picking flowers in the field! I'm just an average guy - who was released from prison after being told I would save the world from the elder scrolls which are never wrong - working in the field!" or "oh look at me killing this guy! I'm a mass murderer! Now can someone please tell me why this guy keeps surviving even though I'm shooting god-damned arrows into his ****ing brain?!!").
LARP in Oblivion only goes so far especially when the game is full of "vital" NPC's and limitations as to what you can and cannot do. And when the prospect of saving the world is constantly hanging over your head, it's hard to role-play an "average guy picking flowers in the field and trying to avoid trouble" isn't it? Evil characters cannot kill Martin Septim and good characters cannot infiltrate the dark brotherhood - in this supposedly non-linear open freedom game - to kill the night mother. The fact that simply surrendering to guards after a mass murdering rampage and then spending virtual years in prison has no further consequence really takes away from the LARP especially when you've got a guy in the same imperial prison for stealing who is always in there year on end for stealing a piece of bread while you come and go after mass murdering rampages (including several after breaking free from prison).
So what we end up with is a game with no recognition to what you're role-playing, limitations, linear stories and sub-plots, a horrible combat system combined with poor repetitive enemy AI and level scaling, a boring world that is just the "same" everywhere, copy and pasted dungeons with hardly any individuality between them and therefore no incentive to explore. I became tired of this game very quickly and it kept me captivated just enough to complete the main quest and a few of the guilds before I called it a day not bothering to explore its "open world". This boredom and want for a good RPG on a system starved of WRPG's at the beginning led to the next title on my list...
2. Two Worlds
Christ. Words cannot describe how bad this game is. Some have said "it's so good it's bad" like the movie, The Room. Truly though, one has to wonder how this game released in such a state and on the 360. I had just finished up with Oblivion before I went out on a whim and brought this (after seeing modified screen-shots made to make the game look good and reading previews months before describing it as a taste of an old school RPG with multiplayer) still wanting a good WRPG. I was then forced back into the same predicament I faced with Oblivion.
Yeah I played Two Worlds till completion. Unlike Oblivion, enemies didn't level scale with you and therefore the game was actually playable once you reached a certain level and felt a tiny bit like Diablo as you learnt new abilities and spells (and stacked and combined them to increase their powers) and got better gear and equipment. The customization however was one of the only good things about the game (maybe next to the variation of the world). Everything else was hilariously bad.
The voice acting in Two Worlds was poorly acted to the point where you would be laughing at how bad it was and it didn't help that the dialogue was written in BROKEN pseudo-Shakespearean English either. The poor voicing carried over to the death cries and pain screams of NPC's (one particular death scream had me in stitches on the floor, crying my eyes out with laughter, the first time I heard it) and Jesus, don't get me started on the crap that NPC's (including your own character) would sometimes shout out in combat. I lost it when my character started laughing himself after killing an NPC who let out a wimpish long screech as he died. What made this funnier was that said NPC was laughing himself during combat just before I struck the final blow.
The combat simply consisted of bashing down one button as you battled with the frame-rate and horrible camera. It soon became a bore and repetitive especially when you pick up on the combat exploits, bugs and near non-existent enemy AI. Some quests were horribly scripted (in both game engine scripting and script as in writing) and most involved delivering something somewhere, killing someone or simply visiting a location. Many quests even used the same scripts such as one where you deliver an item to a cave just for a vortex of energy to appear and kill the bandits within. This same script comes into play in other quests. My person favourites are where you do something and then hear from the quest-giver that "people died because of your actions" or "there's an army assembling as a result of your actions" but never see these consequences because the game developers were either too lazy or out of resources to implement them.
I guess the other good thing about the game was the non-linear story and multiple solutions to finish quests in the main-storyline even with vital NPC's dead. The story-line however was based on so many tropes and ended with two horrible endings (at least you had choices, I guess) that just left an even more sour taste in your mouth by the time you had finished playing.
But yes. I played TW through to completion just like I did with Oblivion because there was no other WRPG or game out at the time that I thought would keep me interested for long.
Reality Pump came back strong in 2010 although with Two Worlds 2 which was a massive improvement. The graphics had been improved to the point where the game looked amazing and truly next-gen as opposed to the glitchly and poor textures of the first game. It help that TW2 was built on a new engine with a new solid combat system and the good features of the first game (customization, spell creation, alchemy and multiple solutions to quests). The game topped all this off with an interesting world to explore, some unique side-quests and actual consequences to some choices you made in quests (my favourite is the one in chapter 3 which changes the path of that chapter).
3. Fable 2
You all know the story of this one. Peter Molyneux (aka the King of Liars and the joker playing card) tells everyone how Fable 2 is revolutionary, how your choices will shape the world and change the story, how every little choice you make will have a consequence (no matter how small it is). Molyneux tries to lure you in with promises and hopes but it's all just for PR and to build hype. Molyneux is really just a used car salesmen. None of these features exist in the game (at least not in the state he promises) and the features that do exist are half-baked and not as promised.
First up we have all the consequences: They are non-existent. You don't get to plant an acorn and watch it grow. An acorn is planted and grows while your character spends 10 years away in prison dropping the soap in the showers (Déjà vu Fable 1 where your character is tortured in prison by two eager guards). This acorn also grows into a tree so long as you make the choice to destroy the evil temple in the town the acorn is growing in as opposed to the good temple. So the whole feature behind this is not as promised. You don't get to plant it anywhere or watch it grow.
Your actions don't shape the land either. Towns do not arise from villages because you trade with them and give them money (as initially promised) and towns do not become desolate ruins because you go on a rampage in them. The only world-altering choice occurs during the beginning where your choices determines whether the slums of Bowerstone further deteriorate or become clean of criminals and open to trade. Every other choice is illusory and purely cosmetic. No one (like in Oblivion) cares if you've gone on a mass-murdering rampage because if you pay the fine you instantly become a saint again (well so long as you eat special food which increases your morality otherwise you have to live with the annoying screaming of NPC's who literally follow you about just to scream).
Gameplay is solid, at least in terms of a technical state. The non-challenging combat however and invincibility of your character means that everything gets boring fast. The consequence for "dying" soon becomes non-existent as you rack up experience with overpowered weapons and spells and rake in the gold fast and every minute from your rented homes.
The technical state of the game at release was something else though. This was a game that was bugged beyond belief (the executives and CEO of Obsidian were probably nodding their heads up and down with appeasement and satisfaction or perhaps even they were shocked). Two bugs were game ending and both occurred in the main story in obvious locations. The first occurred by going to a certain area prior to accepting a main story quest. The bug prevented a bridge from being built and therefore stopped you from going back to the mainland and therefore cut you off from all content including the main story. The second occurred while looking for the second hero in a tower. After a scene played the game would simply show a black screen. The way to prevent this was to run away as the scene plays out between the hero and his foe but what regular player would think to do this for the first time? How could testers miss this bug? Two bugged characters later and I was finally able to play through the whole game experiencing illusory consequences, easy dumbed down combat, lite RPG elements and a predictable story with an anti-climax ending. Suffice to say I never bothered with Fable 3 (and I'm glad I never did after all I heard about it).
4. Fallout 3
Another Bethesda game on the list. This truly was not a successor to the Fallout series. This really was "Oblivion with guns" as some described it and I guess that's only a good thing for those who liked Oblivion. This game suffered with the same flaws. We had:
- No consequences to actions.
- Linear plots and main story.
- Horrible combat system where the accuracy of guns was off. V.A.T.S just doesn't "work" in this game either and I feel it's out of place in an FPS.
- Copy and pasted underground systems making exploration a bore.
- The world isn't worth exploring due to the aforementioned problem carried over from Oblivion.
5. Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Many of you probably don't even know about this game or the series. I'll give a brief introduction: KuF started on the PC with "A War of Heroes" which was an RTS-RPG with obvious inspiration from Diablo. It later came to Xbox 1 with "Crusaders" and "Heroes" (which were well received and were different from the first in that they were RTS-RPG-action games with multiplayer) which both had solid gameplay and an excellent story. These games were both exclusive to Xbox so people expected the next KuF to also be exclusive to the 360 (which it was). People didn't expect that the genre would be changed along with the formula.
Gone was the management and command of troops as you battled as your hero character in real-time simultaneously switching to control troops such as archers, spearmen or catapults. Instead this was a pure action-RPG game that also replaced the Devil-May-Cry-esque combat of the Xbox games with button mashing Diablo-esque combat with abilities. This was the first major fault as combat became a bore, a chore and tedious (it didn't help that there was no ability to block and that you literally used the same moves over and over again by mashing on the same button). The second major fault was from all the rearranged levels in one chapter which just led to you exploring the same tile-set but in a different layout.
This game could really have been something great but ended up being nothing more than a quick way to make money for a studio that must have been struggling financially so they rushed a game out with the name of their best IP. Funny thing is, with a little more time, this could have been a great loot game. There's also a Dark Souls vibe with the game (although this came out long before DkS and even before Demon's Souls) in that it's set in a falling world where the only places of rests are "Guardian Sanctuaries" where are spread out in each level where you can rest, upgrade, buy and sell and progress the story via the dream world (where the only dialogues occuring and where your character will meet the spirits of other characters to talk to them).
I cannot fault the stories of the individual characters. The developers (as always) even got veteran voice actors from media and gaming to voice the characters and the writing was pretty good. The gameplay though? Tedious and disappointing especially with one the prior games achieved.
Kingdom Under Fire II (really the fifth game in the series) is going back to the formula of the games on Xbox 1 but is releasing exclusive to PC and PS3 (and probably PS4). Although it seems like vaporware now as it was announced five years ago with a few gameplay videos and information revealed each year but the release date keeps getting changed. Information is conflicting as well as it's described as a MMO but then as a Action Strategy RPG/ Multiplayer Online Action RTSRPG with the former being a single player offline mode with the story being continued from the prior games. No one can deny that commanding troops RTS style and then taking part in the action as your character on a battlefield full of over 1,000 NPC's fighting each other is amazing. Hopefully KuF2 does release soon although subsequent gameplay looks different to what was revealed five years ago.
Special Mentions:
- Risen.
- Skyrim.
- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (360 version).
- The Witcher 1 (good story but terrible gameplay and thoroughly disappointing after all the fans boasted about it. The sequel was a far improvement and amazing IMO though).
- Bioshock (a good game but way overhyped and couldn't compare to System Shock - which it was meant to be the spiritual successor to - or Deus Ex - which was also a spiritual successor to System Shock and I think it produced a superior result including with the latest release - therefore it was a disappointment for me).
Modifié par Elton John is dead, 06 novembre 2013 - 07:22 .
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