I for one loved to get hyped about the upcoming releases in gaming. Some games do actually end up producing the goods in the end and delivering on that hype, but then there's the vast majority that don't. The games on this list were so overhyped that gamers found themselves with a bitter taste in their mouth after the product they were promised just failed to deliver. These are the worst of that bunch.
#10 Homefront (2011) (6/10)
The idea of America being invaded by North Korea was one that got me sexually excited. That's such a good idea for a storyline that I hope future games do justice because this release wasn't what I expected. All the developers had to do was create a plausible story that engaged the player and then mix this in with some good combat mechanics, but no, they couldn't manage either of those. The game looked and felt like a low budget turd, and the campaign was short and didn't tell a good enough story considering all the effort spent to promote this underwhelming product. Aside from a few moments added for shock value this was an uninspired mess that just ruined the potential of such a good idea.
I will admit to enjoying the multiplayer, but buying this game for the multiplayer experience is sort of missing the selling point. In any case 'Call of Duty' and other similar shooters are much better to play, so there was absolutely no reason for anyone to buy this. The final sales were less than stellar despite the huge marketing for the game. In a single year 'Homefront' shipped 2.6 million units, which is half of what rival 'Black Ops' shifted in just 24 hours. Despite this commercial failure there is a sequel arriving later this year, but not surprisingly that's not had the immense coverage that this promising title once had; funny that.
#9 Medal of Honor (2010) (5/10)
This was a game released at the time when 'Medal of Honor' was going to quite literally shoot back into the public eye and directly compete with modern shooters that at one time had been inferior to this long running franchise. However this was not the reboot gamers had in mind, and the awaited huge changes to the franchise weren't exactly met with enthusiasm. Nobody really wanted an ultra realistic campaign set in Afghanistan, and in all honesty the results were quite fucking boring. The previous twelve 'Medal of Honor' games were set in World War 2, and so in a similar way to how the original 'Modern Warfare' revolutionised the genre 'Dice' decided they too would follow suite. That didn't work, and comparing the two products is embarrassing.
The problem is that 'Modern Warfare' had an amazing campaign and genre defining multiplayer, which this far more recent 'Medal of Honor' game didn't. The features that were included in the game bombed in comparison to the competition, and so not surprisingly 'Medal of Honor' is now a buried franchise in the very large graveyard of first person shooters. In reality the game was a commercial success, but when you release a game like this that tries to follow the trend of many other shooters it becomes hard to compare it to anything else, and that's the same problem that many fellow gamers had, not surprisingly preferring the competition substantially. However DICE didn't learn, and they actually released a sequel, 'Warfighter', 2 years later. 'Warfighter' wasn't very good either, and needless to say 'Medal of Honor' hasn't been back since.
#8 Watch Dogs (2014) (7/10)
When 'Watch Dogs' was first revealed out of nowhere, to say I was just a little bit excited would be the understatement of the century. The trailers and gameplay looked unbelievably good, and I was convinced that this would be one of the best games of this generation. The reveal was so good that 'Watch Dogs' won 90 awards for the E3 presentation, but that declined to one after the actual release; an award for the most disappointing game of the year. The problem was that despite a brilliant premise this game was executed to a standard far less than what everybody was expecting. Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed my time with this game, and there were some great features that supported the originality of the design, but there was still that overbearing feeling of disappointment over everything this game promised. The hacking features may have been great fun to play around with, but in reality the features highlighted as unique aren't anywhere near to being genre defining.
The real heartbreak with this one is that what was once promised to being an innovative game was reduced to the status of just another big budget RPG. Ubisoft even tried bribing reviewers and lying about the graphical capabilities to give this better reviews than it deserved, and to an extent that worked. At ten million sales 'Watch Dogs' certainly wasn't a commercial failure, and was actually one of the most successful games of the year. But in my opinion it's such a shame that this ended up being a rather average RPG with just elementary mistakes being made. The plot was really dry and poorly paced and the characters were the poor showing that Ubisoft gives us now. The setting was about the most lifeless I've ever experienced in a title of this magnitude, and the game ran about as smoothly as falling down a flight of stairs. This just shouldn't be happening in such a well funded project, and so it comes as no surprise that many gamers were left disappointed with a title that once showed so much promise.
#7 Haze (2008) (4/10)
This mess was meant to be the next 'Halo'. Yeah, fuck that. 'Halo' manages to combine a good story mode and sublime multiplayer options, but this had neither of those things. The narrative was dull and pointless, not gripping at all and lasted ten seconds, and the multiplayer wasn't much better. The whole game centered around a war on drugs that makes soldiers fight fearlessly despite the drug having hallucinogenic effects. Not exactly a Halo synopsis is it? Aside from the story the mechanics were just plain awful and the gameplay was some of the clunkiest I've ever experienced in a shooter.
When you compare this product to 'Halo', which is what the developers themselves did, then it becomes clear what a mess this was. 'Halo' is a game that makes you want more of the action, where as 'Haze' was doomed to begin with, substituting promise for bland, bland features. Who even remembers this game existed? I'm not sure anyone even bought it, which is a massive fail considering how heavily the thing was marketed. Some Halo killer.
#6 Kinect Star Wars (2012) (2/10)
Kinect and Star Wars. Surely if any combination was going to get gamers to love the Kinect system for gaming it was this one; at least that's what gamers such as myself stupidly told themselves when this title was first announced. The result of hugely predictable hype was not just a bad Kinect game, but also quite possibly the most disappointing title of all time. In retrospect the concept of really becoming a Jedi in your own living room was too good to be true, and not surprisingly gameplay was clunky and mostly non responsive, meaning that Jedi feeling was nowhere to be found. Realising they couldn't deliver on their huge promises the developers decided to expand the experience by putting in other half assed game modes such as the now infamous dance mode. SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING? It's a good job this game wasn't popular otherwise the sight of Boba Fett doing a low rent version of the YMCA would have killed this beloved franchise. This game was a farce, not the ultimate Star Wars experience that was once promised.
#5 Spore (2008) (6/10)
'Spore' was a fucking good idea. The developers weren't a million miles away from good execution either, but when you consider just how hyped everyone was for this game it's a bit disappointing to find the results filled with basic gameplay that feels just feels so tedious to play for hours on end. The critics for some reason loved it, probably because they only played through the story mode once, therefore not realising that repeated playthroughs gave a very repetitive experience. The finished product didn't feel like your own planet, and the message of creation just got lost in a half assed strategy and half assed arcade game.
The one element of the game that did live up to the hype was the creation features that thankfully gave gamers a little respite from the extremely linear gameplay that simply followed the same rinse and repeat formula. I did appreciate the ambition, just not the execution. Instead of one big game it became five smaller game modes weakly linked together that don't quite merit an inclusion on their own. This was a game that had the potential to be mentioned in the same breath as legendary creation games like 'SimCity' or 'The Sims', but unfortunately that's never going to be the case. It wouldn't be a bad move for someone else to pick up on this idea though, as this idea does have all the makings of a great game.
#4 Too Human (2008) (4/10)
Oh yes, this is the infamous flop that became one of the most expensive products ever released into the video game market. 80 million dollars were spent to make this pile of shit over a ten year period, spanning three whole consoles as more money was pointlessly wasted on this title stuck in developmental hell. That still didn't stop this game from generating hype, but the only way the game repayed gamers with that amount of suspense was with an anticlimactic product. I suppose this title was a predictable flop, but after ten years you at least expect a game to be built to a higher standard than this garbage.
'Too Human' was a really boring game to play in end, and had countless little nagging errors such as the combat system and storyline that just shouldn't be appearing in a release of this magnitude. The whole premise was centered around a combination of Norse mythology and sci-fi, which in short just didn't work, and as a result the level design suffers. It's hard to convince gamers that their hype was well placed when the premise and combat just don't work, so it's not surprising that 'Too Human' hasn't become a classic over the years. The game was meant to kick-start a trilogy, but after the woeful sales caused by a decade of disappointment the franchise was shelved. Oh dear.
#3 The Elder Scrolls Online (2014) (6/10)
What do you do if you have one of the most loved and respected franchises in gaming? Well you take a huge gamble and try and shift the series into an MMO whilst secretly trying to milk gamers of their hard earned dollar. Not only was the result not even near the quality of previous games in the franchise, but it wasn't a particularly good MMO either. At one point in time the concept of a bad 'Elder Scrolls' game was mindblowing. The name on the cover alone is enough to generate tonnes of hype, which I suppose is why die hard fans were pissed off with the finished product.
'The Elder Scrolls Online' took seven years to make, which only generated more hype in a game that in many people's eyes was an ambitious yet exciting direction for a much beloved franchise. Just imagining multiplayer 'Skyrim' is enough for some gamers to happily cream themselves into a heart attack, but I doubt they're doing that now considering how disappointing this product was. This was a game more annoying than anything. In a game franchise that usually makes the player go 'wow' with the incredible content and design this release seemed to have the piss poor attitude of 'that'll do'. That's just not acceptable in a game of this magnitude, and so not surprisingly this title had to rely on reputation alone to get sales. To find out how well that went you just need to do a quick 'Google' search to find out that the game's now been re-branded as 'Tamriel Unlimited', but that's still not enough to save what could have been an amazing game in theory.
#2 Star Wars Battlefront (2015) (7/10)
EA knew we were desperate to get this classic franchise rebooted, but nobody wanted a soulless cash scam that plays no differently to any other generic shooter. I have to say that looking back this disappointing release was an inevitability and was never going to live up to the immense hype generated. We all got too excited at the announcement, but then along came news about all that paid DLC and the restricted gameplay that had nowhere near the freedom of the original games released ten years ago. I just don't understand why EA would purposely put in less content than a ten year old game, but then you remember that EA are cash whores that dance on the grave of legendary games to generate revenue.
This new 'Battlefront' just didn't have that same charm as the originals, and at times it's borderline dull when compared to the originals which were in my opinion the most fun I've ever had in a game. Those games kept the formula simple where as this one tried to become another 'Battlefield' clone, sucking all the life out of the game in the process. The biggest mistake however was giving it the name 'Battlefront'. That's such a burden for a game that could never follow what I perceive to be one of the greatest games of all time. This standalone game however will not go down in history like the originals, and will actually go down as one of gaming's missed opportunities to give such a legendary name the sequel that gamers were craving for.
#1 Destiny (6/10)
Funny how the top three games on this list have been released recently. Turns out modern video games are all mouth and no trousers. Take 'Destiny' for example, a game bought by the public based on false promises. 'Destiny' however generated so much hype that on release it became the best selling release for a new franchise in history, although that may have had something to do with Bungie banning pre-release reviews of the game which would have revealed a far more accurate picture of this supposed epic MMO. I never thought I would ever say a game that looked as good as 'Destiny' did to begin with would be boring, but how the hell did the creators of 'Halo' manage to fall into that trap with this hugely anticipated release that showed the promise of a great game.
'Destiny' piled up disappointment after disappointment. This wasn't the epic MMO we imagined, and was actually a very restrictive world with such repetitive missions that never told a decent story or at least one you felt was worth the purchase. The only positive was the combat, which was admittedly fantastic, but when you consider that similar huge shooters manage to master far more than that it soon becomes clear why 'Destiny' did not become a fan favorite. The worst part was that this huge project ended up feeling like a grind, and that's just an outrage for such a heavily funded release that was built by some of the best talent in gaming. Yes the expansion packs may have made up for the lackluster launch, but this game will always go down as one of the most disappointing launches in gaming history.
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