2010: The Biggest Games Disappointments
2010 might have been a great year for video games, but they can't all have been good. GameCentral looks at the most disappointing titles of the last 12 months…
Naming the worst games of the year is never very interesting. After all, nobody was interested in hearing about Dead Or Alive Paradise or Kung Fu Rider the first time around, let alone the second. But there's nothing worse than wasted potential (well, apart from waterboarding), so instead we bring to you the year's most disappointing titles. Some are still enjoyable games in their own right, but none of them are as good as we were hoping…
Gran Tursimo 5 (PlayStation 3)
Thanks to petitioning by our sports/racing game reviewer Mr Pinkerton Sony's long-awaited driving sim did manage to squeak into the bottom of our Top 20 of the Year. But even the game's most ardent supporters admit that it has been a disappointment. You certainly can't see those five years of development in the underwhelming graphics, still brain dead artificial intelligence and terrible interface.
Alan Wake (Xbox 360)
Another game that seems to have been in development hell forever and which might almost have been better if it had stayed there. The graphics were excellent at replicating a Steven King/Twin Peaks style atmosphere, but considering the game's protagonist is meant to be a novelist the story and dialogue were laughably poor. The combat was fun at first but didn't evolve beyond the first tutorial, which considering that's all there really was to the game is unforgiveable.
Heavy Rain (PlayStation 3)
Easily our most controversial review ever, we hated almost every ponderous minute of this would-be interactive movie. For a game that is all about plot and character the script, voice-acting and animation were embarrassingly inept and the level of interactivity preposterously low. The ending was particularly insulting in that it proved you never had any real control of events at all. We're still interested in knowing what developer Quantic Dream is going to come up with next, but only because it couldn't be any worse than this.
Crackdown 2 (Xbox 360)
The original Crackdown became something of a jinx in 2010, with original creators Realtime Worlds self-destructing just six weeks after the release of massively multiplayer online game APB. But APB never looked like it was going to be any good, whereas Crackdown 2 was one of the year's most anticipated sequels. Developer Ruffian Games might have been new but they employed many of the same people that worked on the original game. Which perhaps explains why the sequel looked and played almost identically, except with even less variety, no proper story and worse graphics and controls.
Fable III (Xbox 360)
You know a game's doing badly when it forces you to reevaluate the whole series and wonder whether you hadn't overrated it from the start. Not only did it not manage to fix a single flaw from the previous games, such as the shallow combat and mountain of bugs, it actually made the whole experience more restrictive and repetitive. And then there was the parade of hopelessly misconceived new ideas, from the 3D menu system to the whole end game with you as king/queen.
Metroid: Other M (Wii)
Coming off the back of the Metroid Prime series, and one of the most successful transitions of a 2D franchise into a 3D game, we were excited to see a new take on one of our favourite game series. Other M though was an utter disaster, with unnecessarily awful controls, entirely linear exploration, and weak graphics. Worse than all that though was the terrible hatchet job done on heroine Samus Aran, who was transformed from a tough, laconic bounty hunter into a whiny, ineffectual doormat.
Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
We anticipate getting some stick for some of our other nominations but surely the prize for 2010's most disappointing game can be awarded with little controversy. We can't fault the courage of Square Enix's developers, but making a list of fan's favourite elements from the series - and then completely removing them all was utterly bizarre. There's no world map, no real towns, and you never actually talk to other characters, just overhear conversations from those nearby. Ruthlessly linear for at least the first 20 hours and with one of the most unlikeable group of characters ever assembled for a video game this was a near disaster from start to finish - saved only by the pacy and enjoyable combat system.
The worse thing for Square Enix is that the response to massively multiplayer online game Final Fantasy XIV has been even worse, although at least that has a chance to evolve into something more interesting over time.
