Plus, lists are always a good time! So, here we go...
Resident Evil 5 - The follow-up to possibly the best game of the previous generation unfortunately had huge shoes to fill. This game was announced very early in the 360's life, and if I remember right, might have even been one of the reasons I got one in the first place (well, besides playing COD2 in HD for the first time). I might need some correcting here, but I specifically remember this game took a couple of years and several delays before it finally launched. I'm not saying the game was bad, it just wasn't RE4 . I wasn't a fan of the control scheme, and the story just wasn't up to par.
On a side note: The co-op was very welcome, but since 3N3MY, Lead, and Skatch were already paired up I had the unfortunate experience of playing with Capt. Unreliable aka Amateria. No offence to him, but having to wait days in between plays killed the experience.
Halo 3 - I might receive some flack for this but come on... it just wasn't that good of a game. The campaign was lacking (and kind of dumb), and being the first Halo on this generation, it had HUGE expectations. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed it, but I lost interest in the MP very quickly. I honestly blame the Beta. I got into it on day one via a download code (as opposed to Crackdown), and loved it immediately. Then, when the game finally launched the multi experience was completely different. I wish I could be more specific on this, and maybe Skatch can help me out, but all I can say is that they experienced a bit of the Gears of War Syndrome where they changed the game so much that it wasn't the same game anymore. To their credit, they only changed it once, and not every 2 weeks.
Call of Duty 3 / Gears of War 2 - I know this is cheating but it's hard for me to separate these two because they are both follow up games to, what I feel, are two of the most important games of this generation.
COD3 - Trey Arch, you really botched this one up. The campaign sucked, and it just felt like a terrible copy of COD2 which many might consider to not even qualify as a game of this generation. It's only saving grace was that the MP could be fun at times if you had a group of friends to play with. And to think, I purchased this game instead of Gears of War 1... yeah, a terrible mistake.
GOW2 - Boy... how can anyone completely eff up a MP experience more than Epic did with this game. If you played the game the day it came out, put it away for 3 years, and tried playing again, you wouldn't even recognize it. Everything from the way the shotgun fires, to the smoke grenades with an identity crisis, to the simple concept of the chainsaw... everything is different. Despite all of this, I played the hell out of this game. I think it's because I knew what it was, and felt that they were just one update away from making this game perfect. Man, was I wrong. Luckily, they campaign and horde make this still a game to pick back up.
Man, this could be hard... a lot harder than finding awesome games.
ReplyDeleteFFXIII - having been a big fan of the series since I played VII while suspended from college (don't ask) for three straight days (I played III and Crystal Chronicles years earlier), I was pretty excited about this game, some of the sci-fi settings. And after falling in love with and conquering XII, I was ready for this one. 18 hours in, I traded it away in disgust. The battle system was an insult to the FF franchise, there were no levels (an RPG without levels is like a car without an engine), and it was big cutscene after another. I missed the freedom of roaming the world in XII and the dark story of VII. Oh well...
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 - I know, I know, it never came out but that's why it's on here. Don't promise us 3 episodes of a continued story and then leave the game on a cliffhanger and never release the third episode? It's just as bad, if not worse, than TV shows that end on a huge, open story arc because some corporate executive felt they weren't getting enough millions of viewers. Poor Gordon Freeman... (the only thing that could offset this is an amazing HL3) (btw, I could write a whole blog on missing game sequels)
Tabula Rasa - One of the rare MMOs that looked good, I got in the beta with some friends and had some fun. Definitely had a better feel than WoW when it came to combat. When the full game came out, it turned out to just be another try-to-find-your-way-around-this-mountain-for-5-hours types of games and I quickly lost interest. Then the whole game eventually shut down cuz no one wanted to play it.
Honorable Mention: Huxley - the awesome (in theory) MMOFPS that had a beta several years ago: a beta so bad I couldn't complete the first jump in the tutorial due to lag. The game has since vanished... good riddance...
JR...are u serious about episode 3 not ever going to see the light of day :-( that's grim..I pray the announcement of HL3 is only just round the corner to make up for it, along with a brand new engine, or Source 2.0.
ReplyDeleteAnyways on topic now...
1. Army of Two
Loved everything I saw about this on the build up to it's release but when it hit it really didn't live up to my personal expectations. It seriously lacked variety and creativity, gutted it didnt work out. I've Army of Two - 2 sitting on my shelve unopend. Waiting for a rainy day. Hoping it can go some way to winning me back over, because as a concept the game is totally up my street. Half Baked.
Gears of War 2
Loved the SP, absolutely hated the MP. Classic case of adding too many features without thinking through the consequences. Gears 3 looks and sounds like it's going some way to winning the fans back over so i'm keeping a very close eye on that one. Beta in about 3 weeks time in case you've been living under a rock for the past month or so. Excited.
3.Far Cry 2
Graphically and technically one of the best games i've played this gen, unfortunately from a gameplay stand point it completely and absolutely sucked. Massively repetitive, broken gameplay mechanics. Some Kudos goes to them for the MP and create a map feature but apart from that essentially the MP sucked too. Poo.
More shooters again..maybe i really am a shooter whore..(see last paragraph in top 3 games topic for reference).
Skatch... I think it's time to branch out.
ReplyDeleteGood idea!
ReplyDeleteBayonetta - It's a great game with a legendary developer, BUT was too tied down by Japanese gaming conventions. My biggest gripes are the way overused repeating bosses, arena style combat that ruins the cohesiveness of the game and the ridiculous story.
This is modern day gaming and we're still rehashing bosses?! Seriously that boggles my mind.
I love a crazy story in a game or just a bad one or a cliched action story, but it was not only absurd it was dumb and awkward....
The action did rock, but I couldn't bring myself to play it a 2nd time.
Halo 3 - I'm with brjahu on this. It was the first game for the 360 and it should've fixed what Halo 2 broke. It didn't and even Reach is still stuck in a dated style. They're trying to be more modern with jet pack and shield lock, but it's just ruined the game even more.
I will admit....I bought and sold that game like 5 times. I just kept wanting to love it AND play with you guys, but holy hell.....there's no game I've ever swore at more.
Uncharted 2 - It's a really good game, but I stand with Salad on this. It's too....damn full of itself or something. It went on too long and overstayed it's welcome.
I rolled my eyes a lot when I realized that there were more magically bizarre creatures just like the first one.
I got really really really really tired of the tons and tons and tons of enemies that never stopped coming. It got too action heavy and should've stayed focused on the environments, puzzles and platforming.
Why the hell are there hundreds of enemies in an area that Drake found supposedly the only entrance to????
The MP is surprisingly good though, but with as much hyping as brjahu did on this game....I expected more...or at least some restraint on behalf of the developers.
sKatChUK, I think a screenshot surfaced at some point with some artwork with some ship that connected Portal (never played through it) to HL but that's about it... Episdoe 2 came out Apr 11, 2008 so 3 freaking years ago! Why are we waiting 3 years for an expansion pack? We should wait 3 years for the next game while we're playing the expansion packs. Anyways, it's all speculation but it seems unlikely... It was a year and 8 months or so between episode 1 and 2. But with no word and no release date for episode 3... it's looking bad.
ReplyDelete1. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts - a major departure from the platforming excellence of Banjo-Kazooie on N64, this one made you ride around in vehicles. Sometimes you had to build them yourself. Tedious and boring. On the other hand, it was very colorful and had that same cheeky humor. It still sucked. Bad move, Rare.
ReplyDelete2. Ghosbusters: The Video Game - while technically acceptable and featuring a fun story for fans of the series, the game has one MONUMENTAL flaw: the campaign is only 1-player. I don't understand game developers who will make a 1-player game based on movies that feature a team of FOUR guys who go around shooting ghosts with unlicensed nuclear accelerators. The same can be said of the TMNT game. What were they thinking?
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - the campaign is brief, silly, and convoluted. The multiplayer suffers from just trying to have too much stuff going on. Too many perks (which obviously weren't tested enough I'M LOOKING AT YOU, COMMANDO), too many weapons, infinite noob tubes, etc. Unfortunately, I can't completely rip on the game, because it does feature Spec Ops, which is a gleaming, golden nugget in the diarrhea mess that comprises the rest of the game. This game, along with Black Ops, the PS2 and the Wii are proof that bloated sales numbers can't change the fact that a product is garbage.