With the closing of every year we can take a look back at those games that affected us. From the sublime, masterful greats such as Heavy Rain, through to the duds seemingly destined for the bargain bin at launch.
I would like to point out that I did not play all of these games. Thanks to prudence, research and patience, I managed to avoid some. This article focuses on what was wrong with these titles.
So without further waffling, let’s jump in.
Final Fantasy XIII + Final Fantasy XIV
Starting out we have Final Fantasy. Oh, Square Enix, how far you have fallen! Honestly, for some time now, I’m just not sure what they have been thinking over at Square HQ. The last two games in the beloved franchise have drastically taken a turn for the worst, and here is a summary why.
First we have FFXIII, which is a gorgeous beast, but lacks where it matters, i.e. personality. FFXIII is a clear attempt to make the JRPG genre more accessible to Western audiences, and its fails dismally. The end result is a game that may as well be called Final Fantasy for Dummies.
Gone is any sense of world, instead you were given a tube, albeit a very long tube. Sure, it was a pretty tube containing a bit of misdirection in the middle which falsely paraded as exploration, but in the end all there was, was the tube.
Next under the hatchet is the combat system, which initially seemed amazing, but once you got used to the flashy style, you promptly found that there was little substance. Basically, just mash the Auto-Battle command to win! Would you have liked some added depth to the combat system by being able to control your party members? Well you can’t have it. Now mash auto-battle and shuddup!
Then comes the abysmal MMO – FFXIV, being their second MMO offering, working off the foundations of an MMO industry stalwart – FFXI. Square Enix’s desire once again to Westernize was their downfall.
FFXIV was released in shambles, albeit pretty shambles. You basically ended up with a beta version of the game, and they knew it. In utter desperation they upped the free month, (standard with most MMOs) to three, in hopes that people might stick around hoping for a miracle. Trust me when I say that not much has changed.
The desperation did not end there. In the first major update they removed the ability to list server population numbers in an attempt to hide the fact that active user numbers were declining sharply.
So, a bad year for the Final Fantasy brand. Even the DS title was extremely weak. The Square Enix fanboi inside of me died this year – R.I.P 1997 – 2010.
Aliens vs. Predator
This combination was an idea forged in heaven. Take two of the most brilliant aliens ever created, throw in some squishy humans with big guns, and you have a recipe for greatness – it worked for the first two games after all…
This reboot failed hard in my books. The marinesegments were a cookie-cutter experience matched with awful voice-acting. The levels, while nice to look at, were uninspired. One of the major mechanics – melee attacks – felt off thanks to a shaky camera. The lame mini-game and a lock-on function that was a bane rather than the boon also hurt the overall enjoyment of the game. Rock, paper, scissors is still not fun! Especially now that I am 28!
Online could have saved this game, if done correctly. I recall having a lot of fun in the first two games in this franchise, but again it fell apart, primarily because trying to find an online match was nigh on impossible. Matchmaking at release was pathetic, and was even more challenging for us South Africans, as it was impossible to get a decent ping.
Alpha Protocol
As far as I am concerned, Obsidian Entertainment make game ridden bugs. Perhaps they pay Chimpanzees from the local zoo to do their quality control and testing, who knows. Hell, even their recent offering, Fallout: New Vegas struggles to get “its polish on”, but Alpha Protocol took the cake.
The premise and ideas behind this game sounded amazing. It was set to be a spy / espionage game with deep roleplaying mechanics, matched with a flexible system where you could play the tough guy, blowing stuff up, or become the suave stalker with formidable hand-to-hand skills, taking out baddies with silent takedowns. Sadly, some of it worked, but the majority of it stumbled.
The AI in Alpha Protocol was pathetic. Sometimes enemies react normally, other times you could walk right up to them to be met with no cognitive response. The controls (if you can call them that), also made the experience frustrating. You would get stuck to surfaces, and trying to move around stealthily was hazardous to your health. Add to this the usual slew of bugs and you have an AAA dud.
Medal of Honor
Here we have another reboot which failed. In the shadow of games like Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2, it was just so much more apparent.
To start off with, the single-player was short. Like, done-in-one-sitting short. It also suffered from numerous clichés. Medal of Honor was supposed to be a more realistic take on war, but instead, it was just another over the top modern military FPS. It relied heavily on uninspired set–pieces, and ultimately fell flat.
The console versions also suffered from stability issues and all versions looked shabby compared to the aforementioned staples. Online fared a bit better, but offered nothing really worthwhile that was not done better in other games.
Dark Void
I remember when I was a kid after watching The Rocketeer movie, I fell in love with the idea of flight via a rocket-powered pack. I zoomed around my garden at high velocity in the ecstasy of childhood. So, when I read about this game and the people involved in it, I thought we had a winner. Sadly, like all the other titles here, it smashed into the ground before it even took off.
Once again, questionable AI takes center stage, making for a very dull and tedious experience. Add to that the ever popular health regeneration system, and you have a game that is about as taxing as snapping the disc in half (which is what I recommend you do).
Even flight, which had its moments, became dull and frustrating. Add to this, terrible lip-syncing and stilted animations, and you have yet another failed opportunity.
Dishonourable Mentions
All of the games below showed promise, even on their first outing – sad to see they learned little to nothing.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Crackdown 2
So which games did you find a huge disappointment this year? << Share your views in the forums
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