Limbo (on PS4)
Limbo has been out for a while now, but only released on PS4 this year. Technically, nothing marred Limbo's launch; I just wasn't a fan of the gameplay. I enjoy puzzle games — Max The Curse of Brotherhood flowed well and forced you to think in order to solve puzzles. In order to complete many of the puzzles in Limbo, you are forced to not only figure out what to do, which could be time consuming enough, but also execute it with such accuracy that it made me wonder what the hell was actually going through the minds of the developers.
The noire typed background in black and white really set the scene, but players shouldn't have to time a jump to the trilionth of a second in order to clear a plummet to your death. There's a fine line in puzzle platformer games where if you cross it, the fun and strategy becomes frustration and disgust and unfortunately Limbo's developers didn't stop before they crossed it.
Do you feel the same way about any of these games? Let us know and which were your most disappointing games so far this year?
(Editor's Note: The opinion expressed in this piece is strictly that of GameZone's Mike Boccher and not a reflection of the GameZone staff)
Ultra Street Fighter 4
This is Dimps' second game on the list. Ultra Street Fighter IV easily tops the list of games which definitely didn't live up to its title. The only Ultra thing about this game was the length of time launch issues persisted. Between matchmaking not working properly, input lacency, audio issues and more, organizers at the Evo Championship were forced to abandon the PS4 version of the game and run the tournament on the Xbox 360 previous generation of its competitive platform. When the game released on PS4, it took about six weeks to fix the issues. It only just received its final patch last week. The launch issues are gone along with the buggy audio that made no sense; but with those issues that Capcom was aware of at launch, the game should have been delayed in order to avoid the negative press.
Dragonball Xenoverse
Originally scheduled to launch in February, Dragonball Xenoverse was delayed a week in order to make sure the players had the highest possible gameplay experience. This sounds great and all, but unfortunately it didn't come to fruition.
Immediately upon launch, users on all platforms began reporting server issues and failure to connects. Both Bandai Namco and Dimps, the game's developer, stated they were aware of the issue but it still took about two weeks to get the issues ironed out. Online gameplay modes — Online Battle and Online Parallel Quest — wouldn't work for me on either Xbox One, Xbox 360 or PS4. When I did connect, the battles were brought into space and were repetitive. Choosing one of the three moves, the game didn't require much in terms of strategy other than just picking the one move worked. It was almost as if the servers themselves got hit with a Super Saiyan and the title never really recovered. Dragonball Z, as popular of a TV show as it is, was never that huge of a video game title. The addition of the social space in Xenoverse opened the door for a new type of experience that may have tied players into the game a little bit longer. Unfortunately the server issues lasting two weeks led a lot of players to abandon the game early.
The Order: 1886
Pretty sure The Order: 1886 is on everyone's list of disappointments. Regarding its length, yes, The Order: 1886 is short; but, it's not too short. A full play through completing all I could do in the game took me about 8 hours. It's not incredibly long, but also didn't deserve the flack it received, such as being touted as the first AAA game that could be completely livestreamed in a single vine video. After all, Ryse Son of Rome wasn't that long but it's still to this day the best looking game of the current generation.
Where The Order did fall short, though, was in its execution. Four of the game's chapters (levels) existed merely as unplayable cutscenes. And when you did get a chance to play, combat was incredibly faulty, loaded with redundant quicktime events. Now, I'm not against QTEs. As I said I loved Ryse Son of Rome. In The Order, however, the combat scenes that featured them forced you into insta-death if you missed just one. Fighting vampires in Victorian England could've been handled so much better. Bloodborne is proof of that. The Order: 1886 could have been a ground-breaking game for Sony, but unfortunately fell short in execution.
With 2015 halfway in the books and our list of most anticipated games for the rest of the year already out for you, we wanted to take a look at the flipside of the equation.
Through the first six months of 2015 we've seen many games released, but not all of them lived up to expectations. From just not living up to the marketing hype to launch woes and connectivity issues that plagued the gameplay experience, below are five of the most disappointing games of early 2015, listed in no particular order.
Evolve
Turtle Rock and 2K set the bar insanely high with Evolve and there was no way it could live up to the hype. The Left 4 Dead creators set out on a mission of a 4 v 1 online multiplayer with 4 hunters trying to take down a monster that was constantly evolving and trying to kill them with incredibly over powered attacks.
The premise sounds good on paper, unfortunately that's where it stayed. The alpha and beta left me skeptical, but I tried the full game anyway. Many of the pre-launch issues were present after not being fixed in either the alpha or beta. Extremely long loading times, a convoluted DLC system and overall lack of availability led to the game's drastic early downfall.
When the game would load, it would take much too long to locate the monster. When you did come face to face with the beast, your life expectancy tended to take a huge turn for the worse as their attacks were one shot kills in many of the occasions. This made reviving your teammates much too difficult as the time required to do so left you vulnerable to the monster's attack. An always online game is okay when it has an intriguing premise and Evolve certainly has that. However, following through on that premise is where Evolve fell short as the game's issues are brought to the forefront. Season 2 doesn't appear to be any better as the only major change appears to be new characters/weapons with no back end changes to note.
