Which games were a disaster? To what franchise?

[Erich van Loon]

I dunno, but I'm gonna place my money of Empire: Total War, Rome II: Total War, and Sonic 06.

Empire was very glitchy, sometimes units would shoot at a hill instead of the enemy. It gets the excuse of a new engine.

Rome II, oh my god...Glitches, glitches everywhere. Battles were some shitty capture-the-flag. Poor AI, and generally clunky gameplay. It does not get the excuse Empire did.

I think we all know the story of Sonic 06...

 

[Millim]

For me it's Soulcalibur V.

Okay, so the fighting is good and the character customisation is really good.
But the amount of game modes was limited, pretty badly.
I really wanted to like it because it had so much going for it, but the lack of diverse fighting style, lacklustre story just couldn't let me enjoy it.

 

[iGrievous]

Gears of War Judgement. Fuck that game and everything about it; it changed the core gameplay of Gears for the worst. The story was so fucking awful, it was one of the very few games that made me beg for it to be over. You'd think a game starring the comedic relief characters would be fun, right? Wrong, Baird isn't a sarcastic asshole and Cole isn't loud and flamboyant like they where in the original trilogy. Sophia was incredibly annoying with her constant "ALL MUH FRIENDS ARE DEAAAAAD!" bullshit, and the only interesting character was Padduk. Also, no Locust in multiplayer. Why? Because they opted to put in some stupid-ass cosmetic items instead of sticking to tradition and having the Locust be playable in MP. Horde or whatever the fuck this game's equivalent was a hybrid of Beast and Horde...and it fails at being both.

Karn was incredibly underwhelming as a boss; they build him up to be this apocalyptic badass capable of wiping out entire nations........and he gets wrecked by a squad of 4 people. Sorry, but RAAM is still the most badass villain in Gears who actually lives up to his reputation. I really hope they don't let the people who made this game touch the series ever again.

 

[Ediros]

Breath of fire 5 and 6 to the franchise. The first one could work well as a spin-off, the second is a worthless piece of mobile trash that is an official entry.

Prototype 2 better graphics but everything else was worse and they annihilated the lore and killed unorthodonx main character.

Farcryout 4

Need for speed most entries don't come close to a game from 2004.

 

[Risewild]

You guys have it so good now, back in my day...

Spoiler: Worst game

Now for franchises:
Final Fantasy X-2... I have nothing more to say... I bought that game after I beat Final Fantasy X on PS2 back in the day....

 

[Izak]

I really enjoyed MGS 5 but it did inadvertently kill the franchise, that's the only game I can remember fucking everything though.
EDIT: Postal 3, Sims 3, SimCity, Resident Evil 5, the Tomb Raider game on PS2, that weird post-apocalyptic Bomberman game and Mass Effect 2 all sucked to varying degrees, now that I think about it.

 

[MercenarySnake]

Deus Ex Invisible War for being a dumbed down console shooter with small levels.

Thi4f for pulling something similar to Invisible War like being turned into a restricted console game.

 

[Risewild]

• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel PoS (I am surprised no one already mentioned this one, I thought it would be here by now so I didn't wrote it in my previous post.)

• Command and Conquer 4 (it was so bad that the team who made it got fired because of the fans backlash) Bonus Hatred - I bought that damn game thinking it was like the previous ones!

• Front Mission Evolved (One of the most deep tactical turn based combat jRPGs franchise ever, with deep politics, characters, writing, Wanzer customization, factions, etc. And they go and turn it into a real time third person shooter ) Bonus Hatred - I bought that damn game thinking it was like the previous ones!
• Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim Smartphone - (Totally took a dump at a good franchise, the First Majesty game was awesome, had some problems and it was hard as nails but it was fun and rewarding, the second Majesty was fun but not as good as the first one *at least for me* but it still captured the feel and essence of the first. Now this abomination for smartphones/tablets was totally made to be a generic microtransaction app game, with the stupid timers for everything and buy this and that with real money from the store... Ridiculous)

 

[Ragemage]

• Command and Conquer 4 (it was so bad that the team who made it got fired because of the fans backlash) Bonus Hatred - I bought that damn game thinking it was like the previous ones!

Ayyy you too? Most people don't even know what the Command & Conquer series is nowadays. They haven't aged too well but Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer N64, and Generals: Zero Hour will always be my favorite 3 in the series. I hated Command & Conquer 4 so much. It's like they tried to take the series and turn it into some single player version of Starcraft. It was the first Command & Conquer I ever got a refund for.

 

[Millim]

Ayyy you too? Most people don't even know what the Command & Conquer series is nowadays. They haven't aged too well but Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer N64, and Generals: Zero Hour will always be my favorite 3 in the series. I hated Command & Conquer 4 so much. It's like they tried to take the series and turn it into some single player version of Starcraft. It was the first Command & Conquer I ever got a refund for.

C&C 4 is the only one I haven't played.
I heard it was pretty terrible, but kind of want to play it out of curiosity.
I know a lot of people didn't like C&C3 either (althrough I enjoyed that one)
Generals is the best however

 

[Risewild]

Ayyy you too? Most people don't even know what the Command & Conquer series is nowadays. They haven't aged too well but Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer N64, and Generals: Zero Hour will always be my favorite 3 in the series. I hated Command & Conquer 4 so much. It's like they tried to take the series and turn it into some single player version of Starcraft. It was the first Command & Conquer I ever got a refund for.

I still have the damn C&C 4 disks somewhere in my bookcase... I have no idea why...
I also still have my C&C Generals Zero Hour installed on my computer and play it from time to time, also I like looking for good mods for it and try them out.

 

[Ragemage]

C&C 4 is the only one I haven't played.
I heard it was pretty terrible, but kind of want to play it out of curiosity.

Trust me, it's not worth it. At least Command & Conquer 3 kept the original formula, even if it did kind of fuck with the whole "feeling" of the franchise by making the aliens a prominent part of it. Then again, Red Alert 3 had a friggin Chinese girl with telekenetic powers, who could also fly, blow people up with her mind, and looked damn good in a high school uniform despite being too old for it.

Command & Conquer 4 tries to reel you in by bringing back the series' most prominent antagonist, Kane (whom I love for being both a badass and a biblical reference), but even he's pretty skewered here. There's just no weight behind any of the voice acting. In the other games from the series, like Red Alert 3, the acting can be campy fun by having both Tim Curry and George Takei in the same game, which means the cutscenes can range from hilarious to serious. In Command & Conquer 4 they tried to keep all the cutscenes serious, and it just falls flat on its face. I gotta commend the actor for Kane, he's still trying after all these years, but even he can't save it.

That's not even going over the whole "checkpoint" system, where you basically send some tanks out, hold a point long enough, hold some more points, and then you win. It's boring and it really doesn't give any incentive to build a huge base like in the other games.

 

[ImperialLegation]

BlackSite: Area 51

This game was the last in the line for the Area 51 series. The Area 51 series first saw success with the release of two, now often iconic shooter arcade games. In 2005, Midway Austin released Area 51 in 2005 as an FPS for the Xbox, PS2 and windows, which received generally favorable reviews (7/10).

In 2007 the sequel to Area 51 was released, titled BlackSite: Area 51. The reviews gave this game a 5.5/10 average. I've played BlackSite and there really isn't anything too terrible about it, but the game is very lackluster. The only real difference between BlackSite and a generically below-average FPS is a morale system which gives your squad mates minor combat boosts and increases their performance if the player is killing enough aliens. The negatives of the game is fairly bland writing, an odd, but not terrible graphical design, generic, non-challenging enemies and a plot that automatically gave everything away to the player early on.

The game was just too poorly received to continue, and I assume it did not sell very well. This caused Midway Austin to be shutdown by Midway Games in December 2008.

 

[Riven326]

Mass Effect 3 - between the auto-dialogue, Shepard being a complete and utter retard, the horrendous writing (especially in the beginning), the removal of the neutral dialogue option, and the ending, uh... yeah.

The original vision for Mass Effect is something that was never realized. I'm hoping that with Andromeda they will finally get there and even go beyond it. But I'm still concerned about these games being made by people who think so little of their target audience. I think this is why the writing really suffers in Bioware's more modern games; it's like, "The people who play our games don't want an intelligent story with intelligent dialogue that makes sense. They want an interactive summer blockbuster movie experience! Michael Bay, man!"

Maybe that is what most people want, but it isn't what I want out of Mass Effect or any game that is trying to be serious. When you have an admiralty board in ME3 asking you for advice on how to combat the reapers, and Shepard's reply is "We either fight or we die!" ---- uh, yeah... thanks Shepard, now do you have any actual advice? It's completely pointless dialogue that tries so hard to create drama where it either already exists or doesn't need to. And that shit kind of shit was everywhere in ME3.

As a result of this happening with Bioware and some other studios that I used to hold in high regard, I've begun to look more seriously at what's been going on with indie games. This is where I've found real game developers still exist. With Triple-A games it's all about streamlining and simplifying the experience, dumbing it down for people who either don't play games or those that only play what's popular.

 

[CerberusGate]

Knights of the Old Republic 2 could count though it's now a cult classic. It ended the RPG series (due to its incomplete state which was a result of over-ambition by Obsidian and an excessively tight schedule by LucasArts) and only resumed later as an MMO that was tangentially related to the older KOTOR games. Dragon Age 2 could count as well, I remember the deserved backlash people had towards that game (along with a surprising lack of awareness as to why the game was like that).

I'll add Final Fantasy XIII (or the entire Lightning trilogy) as well. This trilogy was the game that hurt Square Enix's reputation because of how dull the characters were, how bland the writing was, how simplified the combat was and how restricted it all was (especially with Lightning Returns). Square even felt the need to poll fans to ask whether they would purchase FFXV or Persona 5 first, seemingly out of concern for their damaged reputation (and possibly wary of strong competition from Atlus).

 

[Crni Vuk]

For me personaly? Stalker - Shadow of Chernobyle.
I know a lot of people love the game, but I was so hyped for it back then. Considering all those crazy promises they made, you will be driving cars! No hellicopters! And there will be no quests, everything will be dynamic! And mysterious! In a huge open world environment! The final game, compared to that, was a huge letdown for me. It was a fun shooter for its time. But definetly not what they promised.
Hopefully Escape from Tarkov won't be the same, and they will deliver on their promises.

Another game that I consider a huge failure, but I havn't played it, is Colonial Marines. Heh, from all I have read and seen, if one game really deserves the title cash grab, it's definetly that.

 

[iGrievous]

Colonial Marines is one of those games that's bad on its own, but is extremely entertaining when you play with friends. AVP2010 is another example of a shitty game that's immensely fun with friends.

 

[Ragemage]

For me, a disaster of a game would have to be Final Fantasy X (10). It was the first Final Fantasy game where I ever really felt like "Wow, there are just way too many enemies."

I remember, near the beginning of the game, when you first arrive on the island (?), you have to walk up this cliffside to a village. Literally a straight line with no diversion/shortcuts anything, and I shit you not, no more than 30 minutes in the game I probably encountered like 10 different enemies on that single stretch of road alone. And it didn't get any better from there. I won't knock the voice acting because pretty much 99% of all games coming out of Japan had laughable voice acting back then. Still though, there were just WAY too many enemies all at once, and way too many sections where it was just a hallway. People always call Final Fantasy 13 a "hallway simulator" but I think Final Fantasy 10 was the first one to truly take that title.

I stopped playing this FF series after this one. I'd played all the ones up till 10 but 10 just killed the franchise for me. Probably for the best considering how much of a disaster 13 was and the fact I don't play MMOs so 14 would have no appeal to me.

 

[Millim]

I'll add Final Fantasy XIII (or the entire Lightning trilogy) as well. This trilogy was the game that hurt Square Enix's reputation because of how dull the characters were, how bland the writing was, how simplified the combat was and how restricted it all was (especially with Lightning Returns). Square even felt the need to poll fans to ask whether they would purchase FFXV or Persona 5 first, seemingly out of concern for their damaged reputation (and possibly wary of strong competition from Atlus).

I feel like the only person in the World who enjoyed FFXIII.
Saying that, I do feel FFXV is a massive improvement on the series and look forward to picking it up (I'll probably get the special edition with the Film).

 

[eissa]

crysis 3, a huge letdown compared to last three installment. they (crytek) butchered their own lore and the gameplay is fucking small in term of amount of level and hours. i was very excited to see more unconventional alien invasion plot from the games, even more so after reading the novel. but no, they killed the franchise with crysis 3 and no promise to continue that