Worst game you bought this year?

[A13x]

As above.

I purchased Duke Nukem Forever Collectors Edition for $150, never opened it, regret purchasing MW3 more than it.

The entire time I was playing MW3's campaign, I could not absorb myself in it, every time I tried to relate to a character, or just enjoy the over the top set pieces, I was consistently being pulled from the experience by the snore-worthy gameplay.

I enjoyed Homefront's campaign more, and the first half of that game had me falling asleep and simultaneously tearing chunks of hair out in frustration, but it made up for it in the second half of the game, and the story was actually interesting.

MW3 was not at all compelling, I continued playing in the hope of something exciting or enthralling occurring, there were a few epic moments in CoD4 and MW2 which were genuinely thought provoking, this game though was utter dogs balls.

Follow, shoot at the mans, and then watch as your homies shoot rubber bullets at more mans until you can hit them with your actual bullets. The triggers used by the game were so obvious that it became an absolute exercise in tedium, and slow motion door breaching.

CoD4 pioneered some great gameplay elements like cinematic slow motion and near death experiences, but they were used in moderation, it feels like every new game in the series is doubling their usage, and it is in no way satisfying when it happens, a stark parallel to the final pistol shot in the CoD4 campaign, which actually left me in awe and gave me chills.

After the over the top yet dull end of the most recent game, I jumped into multiplayer, but as I had not been playing 24/7 like everyone else, it was just an exercise in getting trounced by people who had unlocked all the weapons, memorised all the levels, and generally invested a lot more time in playing the game.

Ordinarily I would be all over Call of Duty's multiplayer until I have reached the level cap, and then move onto other games, but with Battlefield 3 being out, and MW3's multiplayer feeling like a massive step back after so many hours spent in BF3, along with no way to fix the god awful FOV they limit you to (it honestly feels like you've got toilet rolls taped over your eye sockets to look through), I would say the game has been quite unsatisfying.

Roll on MW4!
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<3

[admeister]

Hyperdimension Neptunia

I'm with Pagan's Mind on this one, it sucked. I bought it because I enjoyed Trinity Universe, and the games are quite similar, yet I had very little patience with HN. It somehow managed to suck all the fun out of Trinity's system, which really surprised me.

I still plan to buy the sequel though, since it looks way better.
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"The first person to prove that cow's milk is drinkable was very, very thirsty." - Fact Sphere.

[IISpacebreakII]

I'm like Jarrod where the worst game I've played this year is still a good game. It's pokemon White. I can't get over how much I wish it was just more of the same old crap.

There are some series of games where every few games I'd like it if things changed a little, like Gears of War and Assassins Creed and such. But pokemon, I want every game to be an exact clone of the last with the addition of new areas/minigames/pokemon...maybe.

The scaled exp system really annoys me too, so far you can only really level up on trainers pokemon so in essence the game is forcing you to be at a certain level for every pokemon fight. I'm getting really beaten up by gym leaders but I can't train in the wild because it takes a phenomenal amount of time as my pokemon are only like 2 levels stronger than the wild pokemon so I only get about 30 exp if that. It's frustrating, but I'll leave the rant here as there are numerous changes I dislike here.

[StorminNorman]

Need For Speed Shift 2.

While it's admirable that EA are delivering a new "driving sim" franchise to compete with Forza and Gran Turismo, NFS Shift has a long way to go before it can be taken seriously.

The biggest problem with the game is that its physics are completely broken. They work fine in the early stages, but once you start modifying cars and racing in the much faster classes, the game reveals a number of serious problems with its physics model that render it unplayable. Cars develop uncontrollable wobbles when they really shouldn't, and the cornering physics are weird and floaty.

It sounds like a minor niggle, but you have to remember that the kind of people who buy GT and Forza are the kind of people who will spend hundreds of hours playing them, and a lot of them have good racing wheel setups that can really bring out these kind of flaws.

Ultimately, if EA wants the NFS Shift franchise to be taken as seriously as Forza and GT5, it has a huge amount of work to do.

The other reason to hate on this game is that its existence is the reason we can't have Porsche or Mount Panorama in Forza 4. Thanks, EA. Thanks for being a giant bunch of dicks.

Honorable mention: Dragon Age 2, a game that still doesn't have an ending.
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Twitter | XBL: Tamaaya | PSN: stormo | GameCentre/Steam: StorminNorman

[grim-one]

Worst game? Duke Nukem Forever. Not that I regret buying my Duke bust at all =)
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[ObsoletE]

yeah probably Duke Nukem Forever as well. but i was expecting it to be bad, so does that really count?

was Gran Turismo 5 this year?
cos that was a monumental letdown after such a development cycle. i've no idea what they were doing for 6-7 years? cos it can't have taken that long to upscale those GT4 models...

DragonAge 2, for not being DragonAge Origins. i didn't mind having to play a given character instead of making your own, quite liked it actually, but i can't understand how they filled that disc considering they must've only created 4 maps.
I think the only game i can think of that comes close to the amount of Copy-Paste terrain was World of Warcraft, but at least that would use different lighting, or block certain paths to make them slightly different.
I honestly felt that it was intended as a series of DLC/xpacs for the first game, to follow on from Awakenings. each act to be released every few months, which would've made sense, because we would probably have forgotten all the terrain maps between releases, so they wouldn't have been so damn obvious. but i reckon some suit decided they should be bundled as 1 game.

However, i found LA Noire enjoyable, for the most part.
it was retardedly easy once you worked out the game's mechanics, and i kept expecting something to evolve, to add a change (and i don't mean suddenly becoming some weird 3PS during the final act, cos that was just broken too...), and i think it tried to do too much... the "on patrol" bits and random radio calls could've been cut quite happily, and more point-and-click-ness could've been added instead, but whatever, i just loved the story.
i don't think i could ever play it again though.
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[myzz]

I've been waiting to play LA Noire, it doesn't seem as bad as u guys make it out to be.. is it that bad?????
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[PixieGirl]

^ It's had raving reviews as far as I know so its probably good to the majority, it just depends on how much you take PalGN people's opinions into account I think they're the minority

I enjoyed it, it did some things right, some things wrong, and its not game of the year material but it's different and tries something new.
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[GooberMan]

It's also the most played new IP of 2011.

I quite enjoyed it, even if the whole open world thing was entirely unnecessary and the flashbacks were ham-fisted in to the narrative and the AI acted retarded on many occasions and the end devolved in to a action-noir film rather than the adventure game it had been up till that point. It's certainly got the highest quality script of any Rockstar game though.

</off_topic>

I still don't know what the worst game I've bought this year would be. Maybe Homefront, although the last mission was worth the $30 I paid for it (got it through my friend at THQ when it was new). I certainly had to ignore my game-developer goggles quite often playing Duke Nukem Forever, but I genuinely enjoyed it. Especially the shrunken sections. It's no Serious Sam 3, but it was still fun.
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[NinjaBlade]

Worst game I bought this year? Can I choose two?

1st - Tekken Hybrid. Just a joke, no need to give this demo disc more attention than it deserves. Thankfully EB are cool, and I was able to take it back.

2. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Not a terrible game per se, but not really the Castlevania I was looking for. Too Westernised I guess, and that framerate, boy...

[Esposch]

Child of Eden. It was both boring and pretentious.
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[kartanym]

I don't think I've had a really bad gaming experience this year, come to think of it. Last year The Force Unleashed II won hands down, and nothing I've played this year has been as bad as that.

If I did choose something, I felt LA Noire was a little underwhelming at times. Not bad, far from it, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

And am I the only one who didn't play the Duke?

[FeralOni]

no, i didn't play the duke either.

the only let-down i've had this year was Space Marine... it just got samey feeling way too quick, plus the controls just felt so slow
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R.I.P. DEJA VU - 21/08/2010
R.I.P. Tanya - 16/04/2011

[Denogawa]

I'll third Tekken Hybrid, what was Namco thinking? And I LOVE Namco, which makes it all the more painful.

[DancesInUnderwear]

[Esposch]

You can no longer grind levels as easily, meaning that you need to have naturally strong pokes like Darmanitan or catch a new Pokemon with a type advantage to beat a gym.

While it was a subtle change for most people, it prevented him from playing the game the way he likes to.
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[kartanym]

Honestly, I don't think it's changed enough *shrugs*

[shinhawk]

[Benza]

does arcade edition really count as a new game? It was just an add on for Street Fighter, that's kind of like counting lair of the shadow broker as it's own game and not just a part of Mass Effect 2.
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[JackSlack]

Mortal Kombat Collection, for 'I knew it was bad going in'.

LA Noire for most surprisingly bad game. I really wanted to love it, I truly did, but in the end it's still trying to be a TV show.

[shinhawk]

[Cro]

I'd say Kinect Sports Season 2. First game was wicked.. then this thing comes out... with Darts? seriously darts must be the dumbest 'sport' they could put in there. Baseball the motion detection ruins what could be fun, but was already done well on the Wii years ago.
Then there's tennis, which is a step backwards from table tennis on the first title.
American football and skiing are good, and then they go with golf, again, Wii Sports did it better and years ago.
Even for $35 I feel ripped off.
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[ZNMS]

Beowulf. Yes, I know it's an old game and having purchased the game for $2. How bad could it be, right? Right? Even if you want to play the game just for the achievement points, it's just not worth it.
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[Coltaine]

Oh my, I bought quite a few disappointing titles this year.

Alice: Madness Returns

Bought it for the surreal art and concept. The game was batshit ugly, which was wat let me down in the first place. So much so that I thought there was something wrong with my 360. Was also incredibly choppy, dull and repetitive. Only lasted 8 hours in this game.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Thought it was like AC2. That's what made it bad for me. While I've finished AC2 like 4 times now, and it really is once of the best games I've ever played, Brotherhood was a complete letdown. I was expecting something new. The only new aspects were a few in-game gimmicks that reminded me of the Wii for some reason. And the mulitplayer aspect was also dull as shit. I really wish they just skipped to ACIII without all these other bullshit games. Also why I haven't yet bought Revelations.



Dragon Age II

This was the worst. I've ranted about this game so many times on so many different forums. It sucked. As a standalone game, yeah, maybe 6/10. As a sequel to DA:O? WTF. What made DA:O great for me was that it did not bend over to be another flashy RPG. DA2, on the other hand, had your tank running around with heavy armour, a massive two-handed sword, hitting the enemy unit 7 times in 2 seconds while doing a spinning twirlie midair after every 4th hit. It was terrible. And the story was worse.
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[Benza]

Really Brotherhood? That's a first. Most people consider it better in every way then 2.
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