Medieval 2 Total War
I looked forward to this game and followed the development up until the release. I even pre-ordered the "special" pack with a little statue of a gothic knight. But the game was lousy. The real time battles were enjoyable (after a few MEGA! patches) but the strategic side of the game was dull and the movement of the armies a drain. I liked the movement of HoMM IV, simple and got the job done, but M2TW's movement made the game a pain. The strategic AI was poor, there was no feeling of being outwitted by it. After much modding its still weird. I have to praise the work of my favourite mod Stainless Steel, it did alot to keep my interest, I only purchased the expansion because the latest version of SS, 6.1, needed it. I played M2TW for ages before realising to myself "no matter how hard you try, it is not going to satisfy you. It suggests that it will but it never quite gets there. A wonderful battle followed by strategic boredom". I loved MTW, M2TW was very over-rated by reviewers, but I guess they, like me, got caught up in it all.
I've been wanting to tell somebody that for ages, and none of my friends play games so they wouldn't understand.
Anyone else have a classic/memorable game disappointment moment?
Master of Orion 3 was definately one of the biggest disappointments ever. I still play MOO2 sometimes!!! I had such high expectations of MOO3, and it wasn't even remotely the same game, never mind that it was full of bugs and didn't work right when it was released.
It is interesting to see this thread is longer than its opposite thread, which is also in the Off-topic/PC gaming section.
I guess its interesting to see that alot of games people like are also disliked by others. I do have a contender for biggest disappointment, E.T. for the Atari 2600. Download a 2600 emulator and the ROM image for this game and prepare to go INSANE as you get old E.T. out of those pits, again, again and again. And again. But I think its a true contender for top disappointment because of the expectations of not the players but the designers and publishers. There was a rumor they printed more copies than how many 2600's existed and alot of cartridges were just dumped in landfill. A case for not letting marketing place deadlines on the designers.
You're making yourself look rather foolish.
I've never played a game so many times, had so many laughs and so many thrills, all from one game, and my first video game was Pong with the paddle joysticks. Every night playing is like a comedy, and my friends are still trying to get me to play almost every night.
We are in love with crap? Or we appreciate different things in video games?
To you, Sins is awsome to me it sucks. That's why I unistalled it from my system and left my copy to collect dust.
I have friends who don't enjoy Sins. It is mind boggling, but it can happen. Despite how successful its been, its not exactly a mass appeal game. Still a niche title and if it isn't your thing then so be it.
Not sure how you not liking Sins has anything to do with irony...
I'm sure it's been mentioned in this thread somewhere by now, but I'll throw in my vote for Oblivion. After playing hundreds of hours of Morrowind, Oblivion felt like a step backward in so many ways.
I liked ET. LOL I mean at the time, in 1982ish, it was as good as the other games for the system. But I do concede that looking back you can see how it was a pretty crappy use of an extremely popular character (oh the frustration of having a phone piece stolen from you). However, the Indian Jones game for the 2600 was just as bad and just as much a misuse of a loved character. I just think the system didn't have what it would take to make an interesting game out of those movies.
Now if you wanna talk about how great Yars' Revenge was...
Age of Conan - terrible all around
Command & Conquer 3 - C&C Generals was a much better game, all around.
Hellgate London - if it played more like Diablo, while trying to be less of an MMO, it would have been great (minus the bugs too, of course...)
Spore made me almost cry.
And that is why I should not post when I am tired. I can never fully express myself correctly.
No, the game is not crap. If it was I would not have enjoyed it so much.
The state they released the game in was crappy however. Rushed through production to get it on the shelves before Christmas.
I am just getting exhausted when a mediocre that has great potential is instantly thrown on a pedistal and worshiped.
Yes, I played it a ton as well. I was "uber cool" and got every achivement (minus one). I still get the urge to run around and kill zombies. This doesn't make it an awesome game.
The bugs it was released with were rediculous. Did you not own the game early on? If you did than you know how it was......but if you didn't let us have a look.
-Infected being able to switch sides and kill themselves and switch back
-Infected hunter infinite spawn trick
-Ability to skip any cresendo
-Machine gun uber jump trick
-Ability to walk through the whole game using just about nothing but melee
-Finals that required nothing more than 4 shotguns and a corner
-Infected completely blocking off survivors paths with enviorment objects
-Throw a molotov in an elevator? Thats a 50 foot fall
Need I go on?
Yes I know some games are released buggy, but this was a bit rediculous. It breaks Stardocks Gamer Bill of Rights.
+Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state.
+Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game.
I threw the second one on there because I hate Steam.
I just wish would hold out for better. L4D could be so great. I mean so really great. It could be the best there ever was. But some people will defend it to the death about how it is already there. At the best....and I mean the very best, L4D is no better than the average FPS. Mindless killing for the purpose of user relaxation.
You know, I can't totally disagree with that, but I can't really care too much either because they have fixed everything on your list anyways. It's kind of common anyway that millions of people playing are going to make these bugs evident. Did you personally find each of these bugs or did you, like me, discover them on a forum or saw someone exploiting in game because they had read how to on a forum somwhere?
-Infected being able to switch sides and kill themselves and switch back-Infected hunter infinite spawn trick-Ability to skip any cresendo-Machine gun uber jump trick-Ability to walk through the whole game using just about nothing but melee-Finals that required nothing more than 4 shotguns and a corner-Infected completely blocking off survivors paths with enviorment objects-Throw a molotov in an elevator? Thats a 50 foot fallNeed I go on?
I have played it since 2 weeks before release, I've seen every bug you mentioned apart from the hunter spawn and the molotov in lift one. Personally I can't believe you think any of them bugs are so obvious that they can't have slipped through to release. And of course all of them bugs / features are fixed.
See I think you're being rediculous, I've never heard someone be so harsh over so little. You want me to list Sins bugs on release? Because there were quite a few, but it would be bloody rediculous of me to say the game was a dissapointment to me. But perhaps that's because I write software myself that I am a lot more forgiving of post release bug fixing.
Finished state doesn't mean bug free, that's asking the impossible. L4D was released in a finished state and they gave post release support and fixed exploits pretty much as they were discovered.
See I think it is already the best cooperative multiplayer experience money can buy. The reason I would defend it to the death is because that is how I feel, and I stay true to my feelings. I'd concede that not everyone is going to feel the way I do, and I'm often dissapointed when I play a multiplayer game online with idiots who leave as soon as they are losing or whatever. But the difference between me and you is, I'm willing to concede mine is an opinion, whereas you are implying that anyone who has an opposing opinion to you is WRONG.
No. I do not believe that. That is why I am ending this here. Everyone has opinions. There is no right, there is no wrong; only hate.
By the by, I still do fire up the game now and then for some killing....If you want I can add you to my friend's list and we can get a game or two in together.
Going back on topic, Someone mentioned Oblivion as well as I.
Oblivion had such potential. A sequel to Morrowing, which was pretty darned good. Morrowind was a sequel to Daggerfall which was pretty darned good as well (for its time). But what ruined it for me was two things. In Morrowind they had the silt striders for "fast travel". You basically had to be at one and could only travel to certain other silt striders. This made it faster than running somewhere, but would sometimes still take multiple trips. Sometimes you had to take a boat. It made the world nice and large. In Oblivion you could instantly fast travel from anywhere to any town. In the middle of the wilderness, meh....just fast travel home. That really saddened me.
The ultimate kill for the game was the "basing creature levels on your own level" system. I will always hate this system. I had the expansions for Oblvion and accidently started the "Knights of the Nine", or whatever it was called, quest line. I completed it and had a rediculous set of armor that leveled with me and could be freely recharged. I had a free house. I was a level 5 when this happened. Needless to say everything was a cakewalk since then. I cakewalked through the arena and become the champion. I was cakewalking through the shrine quests (getting the ulimited lockpick sealed me as unstoppable). I never even finished the main story. I really wanted to for the story's sake.....but well...I was just getting bored. It was like having an infinite star on in Super Mario Brothers 3. Then getting the flutes. Then warping to the last stage. After a week with Oblivion I went back to Morrowind.
Was it Morrowind or Oblivion where the expansion has an assassin try and kill you to start the quest line? I bought the game with the expansion and I remember killing that Assassin and the armour I looted from him was crazy, I couldn't get better for way too long. Really screwed up the balance of my game.
Are you in the US? I'm in the UK and lag might prevent us from playing together?
Dark Brotherhood and their light armor!
It was Morrowind. That started the quest line that required the second expansion...where you got to meet the two other Demigods (not Vivic). I cannot remember their names but it was Sotha Sil? (Crazy clockwork guy) and that mean....well...to put it bluntly...bitch.
And yes, that armor was nice, but I eventually found better. I was always more into medium armor over heavy and light. That was one thing I loved about the game, you could have the best light armor in the game but if you were not trained in light armor, it was trash.
Oblivion starts with Capt. Picard of the Enterprise getting an unglorified death scene.
I do live in the United States.
I really could not figure out the gameplay. I thought it was a nice simple RTS like Star Wars Empire at War, guess I was wrong.
Another vote for MOO3.
Yars Revenge! I'm off to the sister thread to this one to post about that game
If your depressed and need a laugh Google Video (Google marketers love me and my free advertising for them) Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing and watch some of the reviews. One in particular caused me to cry it was so funny. I would have hated to have purchased that game.
My last big disappointment (and second-biggest overall) was Rome Total War. With the exception of the soundtrack and improved battle interface, it was a letdown in every way, especially after my superlative experiences with its predecessors Shogun and Medieval. AI and faction/unit balance was nonexistent, and the game was so unhistorical that even I couldn't suspend my sense of disbelief (and I'm generally not overly picky about such things).
It was -- to put it simply -- a steaming pile of horse dung. I didn't even bother getting Medieval 2, since I knew it would suffer many of the same problems (being based on the same engine)....and I was right.
If you're asking what my biggest disappointment of all time is, however, then chalk up another vote for Master of Orion III. I still want to weep when I think about what might have been....
Rayman Raving Rabbids:I would really have liked another platformer, but got the bunnies instead
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2:It doesn't even have Rayman in it!
Sins of a Solar Empire:Would have liked a worthy successor to Homeworld but in the end it was another 2D game. It's space people, space ships are not bound to the ecliptic plane!
Earth 2160:Earth 2150 was an awesome game well ahead of its time: full research tree, three completely different factions, very long campaigns, 3D graphics (there were even reviews which claimed it would hamper the game), played it for a very long time. E2160 was just a cheesy thing with slightly better graphics and a lot less depth.
1. Black and White: This was the beginning of the long, slow, and tragic putrification of Peter Molyneux. A man once responsible for such classic landmarks of gameplay as Populous, Syndicate and Dungeon keeper degenerates into a soulless, eye-candy pushing hack. If anyone out there harbours a desire to spend countless hours slapping a giant ape in a fruitless attempt to teach it not to eat its own excrement than this is the game for you. 2. Deus Ex 2: Infamy, infamy, the consoles all have it in for me. This abomination alone is reason enough for a fascist anti-console movement to suspend the democratic process, seize the apparatus of state, and burn all games consoles at mass rallies. Surrendering to totalitarianism is a small sacrifice to ensure something like this never happens again. 3. Oblivion: The anti-RPG. Loved by mentally disturbed LARPers who enjoy interior decoration, playing dress up, and sitting in darkened rooms pretending to be elves; loathed with an almost incandescent passion by the hardcore RPG community. For my part, I found the bland world design hugely disappointing after Morrowind. Sure Morrowind has it flaws, but it's one of most richly designed and cohesive worlds I've ever encountered in a computer game. Oblivion, in contrast, is the RPG equivalent of beige. 4. Rome Total War: Rome Total Siege - nothing else matters. There is no strategy, the 3D campaign map is an exercise in pointless micromanagement, both the tactical and strategic AI are worse than Medieval, and the 'tactical' battles are speeded up to the point of almost eliminating tactics. Thankfully there's always Europa Barbarorum. 5. Gothic 3: Broken combat, broken performance, broken save system, broken quest scripts, broken skills, broken NPCs, broken world mesh. The only thing that wasn't bugged on release was the into movie. Americans can count themselves lucky that they got the patched version. The European retail release contained a bug which accidently broke down the very fabric of reality, opening a rift into hell and unleashing eons old spirits of darkness to slake their unspeakable bloodlust on hapless gamers. I had to have my PC exorcised.
For me I think I have issues with comparing one game to another in the same genre, a few examples:
Diablo, I never thought a game would surpass the fun and longevity of it, I was wrong. Diablo II blew away my expectations and now I find the first one lackluster, the problem? Every similiar game like D2 is just shit, worthless junk that I can't stand. Sacred, Titan Quest and some I can't even remember the name of now, totally fucking useless they don't even come close to the feeling of D2 and yet they try to be similiar. The one "game" I compare to Diablo 2 is now a map for WC3 called The Black Road, such an awesome rpg map which somehow kinda gives the same feeling that D2 used to give me. I sometimes still suddenly install D2 and run through a difficulty or two just for the fun.
World of Warcraft, everyone hates it yet damn it feels smooth. Everything you do just feels like a really bugfree and god game, and oh wait it's a mmorpg game that usually known for being buggy as hell. Going to another similiar mmorpg makes you cry about how clunky those feel. If it's a totally different genre it's doable but if it's fantasy it's just not going to beat WoW.
Warcraft III and Starcraft.... these damned games have destroyed fantasy strategy games for me, each time I play a hero based fantasty strategy game I keep thinking, this felt much better in WC3. If it's a space strat game I keep wondering where the damned zerg rush is etc. Not to mention the massive amount of godlike scripted maps out there for both games.
Right that's a lot of Blizzard games let's take something else for once.
Command and Conquer, what an awesome game back in the day and I'm talking the first one. I liked it a lot and then came Red Alert, same thing but the story was very different and for some reason it had this new feeling about it not to mention that Hell Marsch music was awesome. Problem... Tiberian Sun I think it was, it totally shattered the C&C games it pissed me off so greatly that I have tried every other C&C that's been released and god I hate em all... the only true C&C games are Red Alert and the Original the rest are pure shite just look at it.... releasing em for consoles BAH.
Baldur's Gate series, bought em all, massive amount of CDs, hassle to install it all not to mention to combine 2 games and 2 expansions into one game nowadays to play it all in the BG2 engine. BUT DAMN IT'S GOOD, problem... I still haven't really found a RPG I like after the BG ones, Mass Effect, Fable they felt more like wannabe console shooters, nice story and all and enough for me to play through it but I just can't get the BG feeling back =/
If I could remember the names of the older games that disappoint me I actually might find a real disappointment nobody yet posted but comparing new games to the old goldies is a major problem for me.
Guess I'm not the only one.
Mass Effect - What a crappy port.
NWN2 - Why do the main games campaign must always be the worst one?
Spore - anything said about it.
Master of Orion 3 - the most awaited game, dissapointed me so much, I almost gave up gaming. Bought it, tried to give it a chance for several days, never played it again.
Heroes 4 - such a dissapointment. Uglier, slower and so lacking in ballance compared to its prequel.
Hellgate - boring.
Far Cry 2 - Looked pretty, but the gameplay is horribly repetetive.
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