The release of Mighty No.9 after multiple delays and plenty of promise has reignited frustrated debate around crowd-funding. Irrespective of your views on the Kickstarter funding platform, it was clear from early on that the spiritual successor to Mega Man was never going to live up to expectations.
Undoubtedly one of the biggest disappointments in recent years, it’s among a number of major let-downs in gaming over the past decade. Join us as we go through our biggest disappointments of the past ten years.
SimCity
2013
The SimCity franchise is one of the most beloved in the strategy genre, and so the announcement of a rebooted entry had diehard fans of the series excited for a return to classic city-building fundamentals. Unfortunately, while the game isn’t terrible by any means, it was let down by smothering always-only restrictions, as well as a nonsensical shift towards city micromanagement. The traffic AI was a mess, Sims simply herded to whatever available slot there was as opposed to having individual routines, amenities seemed to have no significance on your city’s functionality, while population padding meant you were losing ten times as many people when destroying a building than what was actually listed to begin with. It did improve via updates, but after the brilliance that is SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4, SimCity was a major disappointment.
Duke Nukem Forever / Aliens Colonial Marines
2011 / 2013
Most of us probably saw this coming, but developer Gearbox did a fantastic job of making us think both games were going to be decent. While Forever‘s troubled development history (and the fact Duke Nukem games have never been that good to begin with) certainly set the scene for what would be one of the worst games of the past decade, it was the way Gearbox marketed Colonial Marines that frustrated gamers and Alien fans alike. I personally saw two demos of Colonial Marines about six months apart, and the game looked fantastic. Stunning visuals, exciting audio, exhilarating action. It seemed as though Gearbox really had brought the game back from the dead. Unfortunately, the final product was anything but good, with a game that look as though it had been plucked straight off the PlayStation 2. The multiplayer wasn’t terrible, but even where the game did okay, it was let down by terrible performance issues.
Sonic The Hedgehog
2006
We’d seen a couple of really solid Sonic games leading up to this 2006 release, with Sonic Rush and Sonic Advance giving fans of the blue-haired critter some confidence that the franchise was back from the dead. Unfortunately, this 3D quasi-open world game was a major disappointment for fans. It went on to be a commercial success for SEGA, although that’s perhaps indicative of the hype around the title ahead of release. Many gamers and critics bemoaned its unfair difficult and at-times broken controls, with many listing it as one of the worst games of 2006, and, eventually, one of the worst of the generation.
Red Steel
2006
Ubisoft’s FPS Red Steel was leaked shortly after the reveal of the Wii controller, and as you can imagine hype went through the roof for what looked like stunning graphics and great gameplay. You could tilt your gun! Such innovation! It was promoted as the premiere “mature” game to own at the Wii’s launch, but it turned out to be one of the worst games on the console. Its motion controls were clunky and often broken, while the graphics were shockingly below par for what we’d seen on the Wii, and Xbox 360 and PS3 up to that point.
Resident Evil 6
2012
Resident Evil 6 was a real mixed bag. It wasn’t terrible, and its story, graphics and AI were widely praised by gamers and critics. The problem was that it was as far removed from the series’ survival horror roots as you could get. The four campaigns that were offered were an inconsistent mess, although Leon’s campaign was undobutedly the best thanks to its focus on survival horror traits. Broadly, however, Resident Evil 6 felt more like a spin-off than a full entry in the series.
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Mighty No.9
2016
Mighty No.9‘s long development and frequent delays saw it go from one of the most anticipated in-development games to one of the most controversial. It frequently went back to crowd-funders to add in English voice acting and DLC, and trailers released close to launch seemed like major graphical downgrades on what was initially shown and promised during the game’s early days. Kenji Inafune suggested that the game be used as an example of how crowd-funded games can over-promise and be too ambitious, and that fans should be happy that they received anything at all. The final product received mostly negative reviews, with many saying it feels too recycled from Mega Man games, while also failing to offer enjoyable gameplay concepts for any new features added.
Too Human
2008
When Too Human was first revealed for PlayStation in 1999, it seemed like an epic new twist on the sci-fi video game. The team at Silicon Knights promised to offer a stunning futuristic world set more than 400 years in the future, and as expected, hype was pretty high. However, when Nintendo established an exclusivity deal with the studio, focus soon turned to Eternal Darkness and The Twin Snakes, and we didn’t hear about Too Human again until 2005. The story and characters were mostly praised, but it was the game’s unconventional use of the right analogue stick that held the experience back. Too Human was initially intended to be a co-op game, but that was scraped and as such the final experience felt shallow and dull.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
2015
The Tony Hawk series of games had fallen on hard times by the end of last decade, but there was still interest in a return to the series’ classic days of Pro Skater. When Activision revealed Pro Skater 5, hype was high that it could reignite the series. Unfortunately, the final product was riddled with technical issues, rendering the game almost completely unplayable, even after a launch-day patch that was bigger than the game itself. The game has certainly improved since, but its launch issues made it hard to enjoy and return to.
Mass Effect 3
2012
Mass Effect 3 is a spectacular game, and was understandably met with wide critical acclaim. But it was panned by diehard fans of the Mass Effect series, who felt the game’s ending was too simplistic and that it didn’t take into account decisions made in the first two games. Arguably one of the biggest gamer revolts of all time, Mass Effect 3 was mass-downvoted on Metacritic, despite achieving such high review scores. The endings lacked closure and had a number of narrative inconsistencies. A former Mass Effect writer admitted that Mass Effect 3‘s story writing process didn’t go through the same peer review process as the first two games. Bioware released free DLC to explain the ending, and eventually released an Extended Edition that attempted to tie loose ends in the story.
Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
2016
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst‘s fundamentals work just as well as they did in the original, but it’s additional gameplay features and a muddled plot drag it well below the quality of its predecessor. EA held off commissioning this sequel, concerned there wasn’t much of a market for it. In eventually signing off, DICE seemed forced to “reboot” a game that was already drowning in character and intrigue. They somehow managed to turn an empowered and likeable female hero into a dry, emotionless one, while also throwing in tedious gameplay features that undermine the brand’s parkour roots.
Call Of Duty: Ghosts
2013
Ghosts was Call Of Duty stalwart Infinity Ward’s first full entry in the franchise since 2009’s Modern Warfare 2. Sledgehammer helped develop Modern Warfare 3 after Infinity Ward’s falling out with Activision. Unfortunately, the studio’s time out from the spotlight led to the worst-reviewed and least commercially successful Call Of Duty game for years. Ghosts’ campaign lacked the explosiveness of the entries before, while its multiplayer component struggled innovate like others in the series.
What have been some of your most disappointing games of the past decade? Sound off in the comments below!