Biggest disappointments of 2010

Written by GoozerNation Staff Wednesday, 11 May 2011 05:00

Several members of the GoozerNation editorial staff got together to discuss the biggest disappointments from last year. Here now, are their thoughts on which video games bit the dust.

Erik Kubik:

2010 was a good year and a bad year for games. Looking back at some of the games which gamers could have done without included Medal of Honor and Fable III. But the worse was Kane and Lynch 2, which was terrible; I have to say it was worse than the first game. It had a short story, uninteresting characters and crummy multiplayer. By now Kane and Lynch 2 should have fallen into the $20 or less value bin; but even if it did I would still pass on it.

Medal of Honor could have been a revival of the series. Instead, EA gave the game a modern feel, which made it very similar to CoD. MoH just felt like it had been done before. At least if EA had stuck with the World War II theme it would have been different from all the other FPS games currently on the market.

I had high hopes for Fable III. It could have been great but everything that made Fable II amazing was removed from the game. Add in a slightly confusing story and a lame ending and gamers were left in a rut. For the most part it seems even the biggest fans are having issues finishing Fable III.

Brock Poulsen:

It seemed foolproof, and maybe that was the downfall of Dark Void: your character, voiced by none other than Nolan "Nathan Drake" North, finds a jetpack invented by Nikolai Tesla, and uses it to blow up aliens.  I anticipated a blend of high-flying dogfights and action-packed shooting.  Instead what we got were fairly competent flying sections and rubbish non-flying parts.  The jetpack allows the transition from airplane-style flying to hovering in midair, allowing the player to use more powerful guns, then switch back to the jetpack-mounted machine guns.  The flying parts were admittedly enjoyable enough, but they were mixed with on-foot gameplay featuring a semi-wretched cover system, awkward controls, and cookie-cutter bad guys.  The "vertical cover" system that was supposed to revolutionize the industry turned out to be a glorified hopscotch system that simply made for less-good cover-based shooting that used up and down instead of forward and backward, with less freedom.  Overall the game just feels somewhat sloppy and unfinished.

And then there's the escort mission.  The first time I can remember rage-quitting a game was Dark Void's escort mission.  The advantage of having a jetpack becomes moot when everyone else has a jetpack, and thus can attack you (and the helpless idiot you're tasked with protecting) from every conceivable angle.  I tried everything I could think of to keep him alive, from flying ahead to trying to force him into cover to using my own body to physically shield him from bullets, but all to no avail.  He was doomed from the start.  And so was Dark Void.

Honorable mention: Valkyria Chronicles II.  Not because it was bad, but because its PS3 predecessor was so good and the sequel was exclusive to the PSP.  That is a disappointment in my book.

Cole Burton:

Every year there is a huge selection of games for all sorts of players.  It is terrible when hyped games fall on their face, but even worse is when one of your favorite movie series takes your money and screws you over...two years in a row.

SAW 2: Flesh and Blood did this to us Saw fans.  With the movies now being wrapped up, we must pray they slash these video games.  Then, I won’t have to force myself to play anymore of Jigsaw’s messed up games.  I feel like I’d rather be put in one of his traps from the movies...

I could also spend time ranting about other games, the ones that stand out the most are Kane and Lynch 2 and Fable III, but I don’t have much to add on to what Erik Kubik said.  Here’s to 2011, may games pass on the disappointments, and savor the golden glory games.