AC3 was overwhelmingly bad. They suffocated the fun core mechanics with shoddy, cyclical systems barely introduced.
SSX was weirdly hollow compared to the last generation's entries. It feels like it's infected by a Facebook game.
Darksiders 2 was just disappointing. Way longer than it had to be and with an incredibly repetitive structure.
I really thought Kim Swift did understand - I still do, especially considering Narbacular Drop was already a competent game. I suppose it will suffice as an example that you can't always attribute the success of a game to an individual.
No Mass Effect 3. No Diablo III. No Darksiders II. No Assassin's Creed III. Sleeping Dogs is in there inexplicably.
Sorry, your list is meaningless.
Far Cry 3 and Sleeping Dogs? No way in hell. I'd put them as my two biggest surprises of 2012. The fact that these are in here over stuff like Diablo 3, AC3 and ME3 is faintly absurd.
The rest of the list is solid, though. Amalur is the biggest waste of potential overall, I'd say, but RE6 was definitely the most cataclysmic in terms of franchise size.
Hey, Lollipop Chainsaw! I remember that game!
I'd actually really like to sit down and hear your thoughts about Suda51's entire body of work, since I think I had much the same experience with his recent games as you did. I think there's also a lot to say about contextualizing Suda's games in the Japanese game industry (and culture, generally)
How is Sleeping Dogs connected to developers of Bully? Huh? Rockstar Vancouver helped with United Front, or did you make a mistake?
To your comment and all the others like it, did you not read the first sentence of this article? If not, allow me to repeat it:
"Calling a game disappointing arguably has more to do with me than the game itself."
This article is explicitly an opinion piece. Just because someone's opinion does not align with your's does not render it "meaningless".
The Bully connection may be a reference to Mike Scupa, designer of Sleeping Dogs, who also worked on Bully.
Correction: different dash sizes, and one needs an extra space
"But once I realized there was absolutely no risk/reward trade-off in terms of how you progress through the game — folks who play on the easiest difficulty get the exact same loot and experience as folks who play on the hardest difficulty –I lost any desire to play it."
Far Cry 3 was one the most brotarded disappointments in gaming period. You have to be a real lunkhead to enjoy it. Childish story beats & a wall hack as part of the game structure. *yawns*
Far Cry 3?! really??! it is by far one of the big surprises of the year, i liked farcry and farcry 2, but this one really improves over them, when i saw this game in the previous E3, i was not very exited about it, but when i saw the reviews avove 9 all over the internet, i felt curious and then i got the game, afher 15 hour on it, i really, really feel impresed on how fun this game is, and i played halo 4, BO2, hitman absolution, dishonored, resident evil 6, mass effect 3 and a lot more and for me, far cry 3 is the game of the year, and about sleeping dogs, i don´t agree with that either, SD is a really good game too
I enjoyed Ridge Racer: Unbounded until I got stuck on those drifting challenges which kept me from advancing. Over and over and over, trying to score high enough to advance. F drifting and F that game.
Oh. I get it now. I think your criticism would be a lot more intelligible if you said, "It doesn't have any incentive to replay at higher difficulty levels" instead of "it doesn't have a risk/reward mechanic." The latter makes it sound like you're complaining about moment-to-moment decisions in the game (like whether to press forward now or go back for healing potions or something like that ).
I completely didn't get what you were on (neither in the article above nor in the podcast when you complained about this) until you made this comment.
Yeah, I figured that's how the list worked. I've yet to play any of the other LEGO games, though, so I probably wouldn't be too disappointed with LEGO LOTR. I really should get around to trying out at least one of them.
Woah, Torchlight 2 earns a spot on the "Most Disappointing" list for daring to let people of different skill levels experience the same game in full? I play on Normal because I find Veteran to be too punishing if I don't have a perfect build, and I find the difficulty progresses perfectly--for me--as I continue into the New Game+ modes.
This elitist attitude that some players simply deserve more stuff than others even in games that are non-competitive and soloable--see also: Dark Souls--is the ugliest trend that I think I've ever seen.
Black Ops: Declassified? The game that was supposed to be the Vita's saving grace and show how a great FPS can work on a handheld with the system selling "Call of Duty" brand name behind it too.
Instead what we got was a broken campaign that you can clock in an hour with terrible enemy AI, unskipable cutscenes, a toned down multiplayer allowing only 8 players, scaled down maps and server issues.
Not only has its failure shown you can't slap "Call of Duty" on the box and expect it to sell, but it has also put the Playstation Vita's future in doubt as it continues to struggle to sell. And when a games failure could cause the end of a video game platform I don't think anything else could top the list of being this years most disappointing.