GamerNode: Columns - Daily Q: Which games were big disappointments?

Guitar hero 3, the songs are too easy, and the thrill is gone.

STALKER was a huge let down. I'd followed the early hype, and what was released was nothing like what they originally had designed. Don't get me wrong, after the initial disappointment and not playing the game for over a year, I decided to reinstall it and realised it wasn't actually a bad game, it's just not what I was expecting.

Bioshock was also slightly disappointing, but like STALKER, not a bad game.

Hmm, I still have yet to play STALKER, but I'm really interested in it. I hope it doesn't let me down, too.

Undoubtedly, Halo 3 was the biggest, recent disappointment for me. The hype promised so much, the review scores were heralding the second coming, and I was totally underwhelmed by the third installment of the series. Next on the list is of course GTA IV. I had fun playing it and the expansive game world made my jaw drop. But it didn't live up to the high scores of 10 for me. A fine game, but it will be forgotten by the end of the year.

If any of these purported DLC promises pan out, GTAIV may be remembered again just in time for the end of the year. A game that perhaps wasn't fully deserving of the incredibly massive acclaim it somehow garnered, but it was one I certainly ended up being satisfied with. I did a good job of hype-dodging on that one, after the let-downs that were Halo 3 and, to a much lesser extent, Bioshock (come on, it did initially start as the promise of a rather open-ended, persistent world of continuous interaction that somehow ended up becoming a rather linear HL2-style experience that didn't bring anything terribly new to the table...), I'm starting to figure out that ignoring the hype wagon is generally for the better.....

Bioshock. A guy at work had been telling me about it and I eventually hopped on the kotaku hype bandwagon. It was still really good but not as amazing as I thought it would be.

@Wasabi: I had the exact opposite experience, I went in with very low expectations and was overwhelmed by it.

In terms of a series' decline, I'd say the Turok series. The first and second were technical marvels for the N64, yet from then on (bar the exception of the short-lived, but good Rage Wars), the series has been utter crap.

Now, specific games... Super Mario Sunshine, Quake IV and Doshin the Giant.

Enemy Territories: Quake Wars. I'm a HUGE fan of Quake, and I certainly learned to love W:ET, but ET:QW was just so boring. I got into the beta, so I got to experience what it was like a few months before launch, and after the initial shock of new game wore off, I realized that it was something that tried so hard to be fun, but failed because of the way they attempted to do the actual gameplay. It was a sad month of trying to love it.

And I'm glad someone agrees with me about No More Heroes. I too want to love it, but it just falls short in so many departments that enjoyment isn't possible.

I thought GTA4 delivered, but everyone should have their own opinions. Mario Kart was a letdown. Talk about no innovation. Fun, but not a must own title. Marvel Nemesis. That one hurt like a kick to the groin. Spider man vs. Iron man with a guy that shoots electric bolts out of his arm in destructible environments? And it sucks? Haze sucked too. And the wii in general. Take away SSBB and galaxy, and you have a steaming pile of crap. Actually, it is too easy to name disappointments. How do you mess up Conan! Why does he not feel like a powerful character! And don't even start on movie licensed games. How does that happen? Is there some conference developers attend that says: " We are going to take Optimus Prime, Superman, Batman, Neo, The Godfather, and even freakin' Beowolf, and make them suck."

STALKER wasn't what it should have been. The early reports promised an open world that you could drive around in, meeting NPCs that were actually interesting, but what we got was a big, pretty lifeless world with NPCs who either trade sausage with you and talk about random crap in broken English or shoot you on sight. This coupled with a buggy UI and mediocre performance (given the visuals) kind of spoiled it for me. It took so long to make, and by the time it made it to stores after all the delays, it still lacked a whole lot of polish.

Oblivion was a letdown too, in my opinion. I really honestly hope that whoever made the call to have the entire game world level up around you/with you was fired, as it completely destroyed the whole concept of progress as it stands in other RPGs. Want to take down that portal to a demon-filled fiery underworld? You're better off doing it at level 1 than 20. That pissed me right off. There's also the fact that your whole battle against the plane of Oblivion really amounts to running into randomly spawning portals, killing what moves, pulling a few levers, and taking a stone, all with the exact same scenery for each gate. Some of it really makes me wonder what they were thinking.

Hm, Enter the Matrix. Made me mad I bought it without trying it out first... Great, it's got cuts-scenes not in the films... Gameplay is horrible.

Bloodrayne. Although I like it with cheets on, playing it by itself was too frustrating.

Everquest. Boring as Hell.

Evil Dead: A Fistfull of Boomstick. Regeneration was so much better, only short.

Those are the ones standing out right now...

Halo 2. From the first game, I followed it solidly. When I got it, I got through it and felt a part of my soul escape when I finished it.

Fable. Glorified promises that were never delivered. And a boring game as it is.

Doom 3. Was interested at the prospect of 3d Doom. It was just badly designed enough for me to end up hating it. Being contantly stuck indoors, weapons that look and sound stupid, enemies with very litle imagination...The only thing that was good about it was going to hell...and even that took forever.