2011 Top 5 Disappointments in gaming
Duke Nukem Forever
Yup, we know: It's a miracle this game ever made it onto store shelves. Its Rasputin-like characteristics are legendary in this industry. And we give all the credit in the world to Gearbox for striking a deal that gave fans the game they've been anticipating for more than 12 years. We just wish it had been, you know, a little more fun.
There's an undeniable retro thrill to Duke Nukem Forever for a while (and some players happily clung to that), but unless you were in the cult of Duke, you soon realized that retro gave way to outdated graphics and play mechanics, and those jokes that were so funny in Duke Nukem 3D were just sophomoric now.
This wasn't Gearbox's fault -- and it's hard to even blame 3D Realms -- but the game that everyone knew could never live up to the hype was still more disappointing than most people expected. We just hope that the next installment in the series, which will be all Gearbox, does a better job of blending old school and new.
Sony's handling of PSN hacking
The hacking was bad. The PSN downtime was annoying. But Sony's fumbling on the public handling of April's hacking incident was jaw-dropping. Denials, delays and a defensive nature by the company didn't earn it any friends. And CEO Sir Howard Stringer's prolonged silence on the matter was even worse.
Rather than being open with its users, the company went into a by-the-book defensive mode that's outdated in this age, and taught every publisher that got hacked in the inevitable copycat attacks how not to handle the situation.
Even Sony's formal apology seemed stilted and little more than part of the script. And consumers saw right through it. It wasn't until SCEA president Jack Tretton took the stage at E3 and gave a heartfelt and non-scripted apology that it felt like the company was finally eager to make amends.
Activision vs. EA squabbling
The sniping between Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts wasn't quite as nasty this year as it was in 2010, but it was still an unnecessary distraction. The two are rivals -- and there's always going to be some trash talking, but too many times, that discourse has threatened to overshadow the games, which is insulting to the people who work so hard on them.
Sure, at times, it's a guilty pleasure to observe these two going at it -- like watching a WWE match. But after a while, both parties tend to take it too far and it gets uncomfortable. We will say this, though: It sure would be a hell of a lot of fun to see EA's corporate communications chief Jeff Brown cut a promo with The Rock.
CivWorld
This, in theory, should have been the Facebook game that destroyed productivity worldwide. After all, there is no greater time sink in the gaming world than Civilization.
Instead, the game, developed by Take-Two's Firaxis studio and headed up by Civilization creator Sid Meier himself, turned out to be overly complicated, not especially interesting and, most curiously, kind of boring. Instead of muttering "Just. One. More. Turn," players wandered away and never looked back. CivWorld announced a series of "big improvements" in October, but it did nothing to draw people back.
But Take-Two isn't finished with the social space. Chairman and CEO Strauss Zelnick said in a recent earnings call, "Stay tuned, we have a lot more to say about social gaming in the coming months."
New IPOs
Whether you blame the recession, the company's financials or the European currency crisis, the back half of 2011 wasn't a good time to go public. Both Zynga and Nexon had very disappointing bows as they began trading. Zynga (well, the portion that's publicly owned) lost 10 percent of its value in just two days on Wall Street. And Nexon lost ground as well.
Neither company will suffer much from the stock performance (especially Zynga, which raised the money it wanted to without ceding any real control of the company), but for investors hoping to find inroads into new, expanding gaming and technology markets, the flat performance of both stocks was a letdown.
Posted:
Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39260/Gamasutra_Best_Of_2011_Top_5_Disappointments.php
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Comments
zAleexPosted:
Biggest disappointments
Mw3 (Mw2 is better)
Brink
Homefront
My retard friend wasted money buying theses games, but not me :P
Mw3 (Mw2 is better)
Brink
Homefront
My retard friend wasted money buying theses games, but not me :P
XHomerPosted:
TheBrownGuy PSN getting hacked was just ridiculous
also shows that PS3 needs to up their security
KiiLERPosted:
Gooooooooooooogle Wow I am sorry but where the **** is BF3? That game is crap.
that means nothing coming from you ....
ThePredaZorPosted:
bigtoygunSigshadow1 i think mw3 has to be at 6 or 7 ... its just crap.. i buyed halo its more fun and mw2 is also better .. just some noobtubers are annoying but thats everything.
Pareidolia Halo Reach is a terrible game, I have no idea how you could like Halo over Call of Duty. Well, you are probably 10, your grammar and spelling is terrible. Buyed isn't even a word.
Madiz88 Think for a second. What does Call of Duty have over Halo? The only thing is that you can be over powered, leave games and dash board without pennalty, hack the game because there are no servers in cod. Halo came in 2001 and the first cod came in 2003 i believe.
Call of duty and Halo are two completely different games in many ways, each have their goods and bads, you should not be trying to compare the two when they are not really even competing against each other. If you like Sifi then go to Halo but if you like the real war type stuff go CoD or BF3.
i think the whole option to reset all stats is the worst idea for MW3,MW3 could have had a lot more thought put into it than just a mw2 add on
How to hell is that stupid? That lets players who truly love the game and love leveling up lets them do it as much as they desire, it's not stupid you are
bigtoygunPosted:
Sigshadow1 i think mw3 has to be at 6 or 7 ... its just crap.. i buyed halo its more fun and mw2 is also better .. just some noobtubers are annoying but thats everything.
Pareidolia Halo Reach is a terrible game, I have no idea how you could like Halo over Call of Duty. Well, you are probably 10, your grammar and spelling is terrible. Buyed isn't even a word.
Madiz88 Think for a second. What does Call of Duty have over Halo? The only thing is that you can be over powered, leave games and dash board without pennalty, hack the game because there are no servers in cod. Halo came in 2001 and the first cod came in 2003 i believe.
Call of duty and Halo are two completely different games in many ways, each have their goods and bads, you should not be trying to compare the two when they are not really even competing against each other. If you like Sifi then go to Halo but if you like the real war type stuff go CoD or BF3.
i think the whole option to reset all stats is the worst idea for MW3,MW3 could have had a lot more thought put into it than just a mw2 add on
gmlukensPosted:
shadow1 i think mw3 has to be at 6 or 7 ... its just crap.. i buyed halo its more fun and mw2 is also better .. just some noobtubers are annoying but thats everything.
Pareidolia Halo Reach is a terrible game, I have no idea how you could like Halo over Call of Duty. Well, you are probably 10, your grammar and spelling is terrible. Buyed isn't even a word.
Madiz88 Think for a second. What does Call of Duty have over Halo? The only thing is that you can be over powered, leave games and dash board without pennalty, hack the game because there are no servers in cod. Halo came in 2001 and the first cod came in 2003 i believe.
Call of duty and Halo are two completely different games in many ways, each have their goods and bads, you should not be trying to compare the two when they are not really even competing against each other. If you like Sifi then go to Halo but if you like the real war type stuff go CoD or BF3.
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