Games that let you down

[Boomer78]

The various gaming threads here have brought to my mind the stinkers. Have any games let you down after playing them? Old or recent, any games that did not live up to their hype?

My recent disappointments were Miasmata and Alan Wake. Miasmata has a great original idea... that of a scientist with a deadly disease who washes up on a deserted island and you have to use the local plant life to find a cure. Sounds creative and fun. Well, the graphics are ok, and the game play is kind of fun, and there's some kind of monstrous animal on the island that wants to kill you. But for me it's just boring as all hell. I'm about an hour into it and just can't get the motivation to continue.

Alan Wake. Ughh... total X-files ripoff. It's like they took the X-files, threw in some wannabe Stephen King pulp fiction, and sprinkled some Max Payne on top of it. I played it for a couple of hours and uninstalled it. Horrible game play, the story is cliche as can be, and the dark graphics and tone are more annoying and eye straining than mood setting.

Expeditions:Conquistadors is another that failed to live up to the hype for me. It's a fun game, and pretty original for a TBS game (no wizards or orcs for once) but it is slow as hell and worst of all is it's very linear and story based. The previews make it seem like you can just land your men on the coast and set off for adventure wherever you want. Not really. You have to deal with turncoats, rearm a fort, and choose sides in a local tribal war. But it's scripted and linear, almost seems like a rail strategy/RPG game if there is such a thing.

[DSWargamer]

Actually an amazing array of wargames which actually have a lot of very hard core fans, some even outright fanatical too.

Sometimes I buy games, that I never should have bought, all because I was certain there would be some sort of magic.

Actually, there really isn't much magic in computer wargames. If you are not playing it against a human, chances are you have lied to yourself at some point in your appraisal of it.

As I type, Battle Academy and ASL are likely the only games I know, where they are great vs a person, but still deliver fast easy fun even when played solo and don't require you to think going in to work, or a day's housework would be more relaxing.

[GaryChildress]

War in the East. I never really caught on to it for some reason. Actually loaded onto my computer, loaded the game, looked around, and then quit to desktop, never to return again. I don't know why but it sort of reminds me of TOAW only covering just the Eastern Front. I've been more into grand strategy games of late. I wouldn't mind a version of WitE that covered the entire ETO, sort of like WitP does for the PTO. But I don't know. Maybe I'll fire it up again and give it a whirl one of these days.

[cantona2]

Second War in the East. Massive disappointment. Was also let down by Eagle Day Bombing the Reich

[catwhoorg]

City of Heroes.

Not the game at all in any way shape or form, its closure whilst still turning a profit and the steadfast reluctance of the owner to even seriously consider options other than closing.

[Greybriar]

Outpost was the worst, I think.

[Alex777]

Napoleon, 1813 (Empire Interactive). If you confined yourself to reading the manual, you would see a clever, sophisticated take on a Napoleonic campaign - it looked like a great system (still does). In fact, the game is unplayable due to bugs, even with all patches applied.

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: Alex777

Napoleon, 1813 (Empire Interactive). If you confined yourself to reading the manual, you would see a clever, sophisticated take on a Napoleonic campaign - it looked like a great system (still does). In fact, the game is unplayable due to bugs, even with all patches applied.

I remember that one. I kept the manual and threw the disks out.

[Agathosdaimon]

oh boy Wargamer 1813 - i have mentioned this in other forums - it is an ingeniously designed game that had all the elements of realtime operational campaigning in 1813 with all the details of recruiting, order delays, OOBs up the wazoo, building and blowing bridges and depots and even the stances of teh various armies - play as napoleon and the allies will just keep giving you the runaround as was their strategy.

It has elements that work and still do work - provided you apply all the patches, it actualy even runs fine on Windows 7 until of course it just randomly crashes, or annoyingly in a tactical battle something in the ai's programming gets short circuited and all the soldiers just stop on the field like droids in phantom menace.- that movie came out at the same time, perhaps some inspiration taken from it.

You can however play the campaign game without a crash for hours on occasion, and also some of the scenarios. For me 1813 is the perfect game napoleonic game - almost, a big almost and its frustrating that it became an open source project too and still could just have some bugs fixed up in it and be playable
So i guess i love Wargamer 1813 in heart but ultimately its a let down.

Another big let down for me though was Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising, just seemed to be lacking content overall and its system for ordering your soldiers seemed a bit odd -

also Soeldner Secret Wars - anyone remember this one? all the hype about its full destructible terrain, shame there was much else done. The single games didnt make any sense even as just practice scenarios.

other let down for me DCS Combined Arms - what i thought would be on the same level as say Black Shark 2 as a stand alone game at least thats what i read it would be, but it seems just a pointless addition to that absolute turn off of a game world.

but maybe the biggest let down of all is M4 Tank Brigade - from the maker of M1 Tank Platoon. this fragment of a game has nothing in common with M1TP1 or 2 in terms of campaigns or scenarios but is just designed i think to be online tank demolition derby, i am not sure whether Will Bill just decided to hop on the World of Tanks bandwagon, but its a sad product for anyone expecting more than just some generic capture the flag maps with just a very very small variety of tanks or afvs. For it does offer its fine but this is only a small depth of gameplay. graphically, unless there have been some patches with upgrades of late, it would perhaps have graphics that are just a bit better than Heavy Gear, maybe still behind Mechwarrior 4.

[wodin]

DS..you know I like you but can you give knocking those who play the AI a rest mate.

[Ogontion]

@ Gary and cantona2,

I had a strange experience experience with GG's WITE - something that never happened to me before with wargaming. In my case I would get into a massive yawning fit when going through the tutorial. It happened twice, weeks apart, and it was difficult to fight the urge to nod off. I just couldn't get into it at all, but thought that the first scenario pack would pique my interest. What a mistake - I needed to go through the tutorial again and the yawns came back with a vengeance. After about 15 minutes I decided that there's a message here, and stopped my WITE snoozefest there and then. After a coffee or 2 I was able to eradicate it completely from my PC.

Regards

[Titanwarrior89]

[:(]Sometimes its not the game that lets you down but the after effects of your purchase.  Case inpoint, I  just recently bought a game from a certain game company(elicense which I hate)that I used too buy from but no longer.  Well I broke down and bought a bundle package on sale.  I actaully was 50/50 on buying it but I did.  Well I bought the Download plus CD.  For some reason I could not Down load their file-normally Its not a problem with my machine.  Now the odds are it was something in my machine(maybe norton) but what got me was that I paid for standard shipping but since the download didn't work, you would think that they would have said, np we will ship it on the 1-3 day shipping(which was( 10.00 more).  Since I was only receiving the CD's they owed me money-10 bucks, but they didn't make the offer.  So they made twenty extra off of me and it will be up to 7 or more business days before the games arrive.  

Their return policy says they don't do returns because their a small company, well I am a even smaller company.  Their tec support did try to help with the "Standard" questions...and I tried them all.  So now I really regrett my purchase.  Oh and they shipped the game 4 days after purchase.  Plenty of time to regroup and offer to quick ship it since they owed me ten bucks.  Never ever again, ever.[&o][:-][:o][:@][X(] 

Sometimes we treat them better than they treat us.[;)]

[Max 86]

All Ageod titles. All their games score the highest marks in every category except UI. Love the detail, maps, quality, different campaign eras, everything but the controls. I have never gotten past that with their games. Its like I know there is a great engine under the hood but the steering wheel is on the wrong side and instead of a gas and brake pedal, they have 5 pedals, color coded with 5 sub-pedals and I have no idea what any of them do. [&:]

[Boomer78]

That's ok, Max, may of us are in the same boat. I've been playing AGEOD titles since day one and still don't have a damn clue what half of the stats mean. I just take Lee, give him as many troops as possible, and bodily hurl him towards D.C. What's the blue bar at 3-1 casualty ratio mean? Who the hell knows, maybe it means Lee just upgraded to level 30 with more stamina and a bigger lightning bolt spell.

[balto]

Max and Boom, agree 100%.

I have Civ War 1 and I read the entire CIV War 2 manual and I read a lot of the forums.., I think Civ 2 will be the same 'mystery.' Is this a high quality game - of course. I just do not "get it."

[ezzler]

~Outpost - yep, that was a stinker. And MOO3.
And agree with the Ageod games..what the hell is going on?

[Punzer]

I could list several games here, but I'll leave it at Paradox Interactive's Hearts of Iron III. I bought it and two expansions at the same time and tried it out. I liked HoI2DD well enough and I figured that I'd given the game enough time to get the patches all the reviews claimed were needed to make it play. It looked fine, sure, and it did play, but… the starting OOB was total bs and needed a complete overhaul at the start of every game and the game elements were just plain unwieldy. The workload was so big it sucked every ounce of fun out of what should have been a recreational experience. Oh well.

[balto]

Pika, you just wrecked this thread. We were mentioning bad games and gave our reasons. HOI III is a masterpiece. Your personal tastes of big games does not belong in this thread.

Nothing personal, but no one should ever bad mouth HOI 3.

[Punzer]

ORIGINAL: balto

Pika, you just wrecked this thread. We were mentioning bad games and gave our reasons. HOI III is a masterpiece. Your personal tastes of big games does not belong in this thread.

Nothing personal, but no one should ever bad mouth HOI 3.

Okay… then. [:-]

This thread is about games that let us down. I stand by my post, your personal taste notwithstanding! [:D]

[Terminus]

ORIGINAL: balto

Pika, you just wrecked this thread. We were mentioning bad games and gave our reasons. HOI III is a masterpiece. Your personal tastes of big games does not belong in this thread.

Nothing personal, but no one should ever bad mouth HOI 3.

Why not? It's not very good.