You fav/worst/most disappointing games of 2010

[Mirage]

Best:

Mass Effect 2/New Vegas

Worst:

DA was a complete and utter disappointment. Lofty expectations? I wouldn't say so. I wanted a story I could get absorbed in, DA didn't provide that, or interesting gameplay/environments. Honestly, I had much more fun with the expansion (Awakening) than I did with the main game.

Medal of Honor, ugh what a waste of time.

As for Black Ops, haven't played it yet though I am tempted.

 

[Ridge]

All that new content is free, albeit slightly lesser quality. Not worth $10 if you ask me. I'm still kind of pissed at BIS for doing DLC shit like this, but eh.

Also, why don't you play with us?

I'll reinstall if I can get an IP...I had terrible luck connecting to servers. Could only get on to 2 or 3 populated servers, the rest just timed out or kicked me right off the bat.

 

[Viperidae]

Game still feels pretty balanced to me. I can think of no strategy that is unbeatable and nothing that can make a player dominate the playing field that can't be countered. Other than a couple of small things like making Natascha's effect fall off with distance I don't think any major rebalancing is needed. Your whole criticism falls down to "oh lol eets an or pee jee noa." Not liking the unlockables or new playstyle is fair enough and a valid complaint. TF2 is now WoW lololol isn't.

Can the FAN still root you into the ground? Yes? Is its short range damage still inconsistent? I don't know, I haven't checked in a few patches. Scout vs. Scout gameplay (which is integral to pro and Arena matches) is broken when the FAN can freeze another scout in his tracks because of the bug where it momentarily pushes you into the ground.

Does anyone play Spy in league play? Still no? I guess he must be balanced! Hard limit of one demoman per team? Balanced!

I wonder if me and my buddies can still chain pocket-medic uber-saw ubers. Nothing more fun than getting 4 ubers off in a row while the rest of my team mops up your sentries.

And nothing I said in that paragraph had anything to do with WoW. It was a joke on D2. Where do you think item crafting gets its rep from?

 

[Krynn72]

I'll reinstall if I can get an IP...I had terrible luck connecting to servers. Could only get on to 2 or 3 populated servers, the rest just timed out or kicked me right off the bat.

One of us usually hosts the game, so theres no dedicated IP we use. We don't generally play in public servers, and usually play custom missions. I'm sure out of all of us we'll be able to set up a server you'd be able to join. Especially since most of us are in the US.

 

[Ridge]

You guys use any voice comms, or just in game?

 

[Vegeta897]

We use Mumble.

In game voice sounds awful.

 

[jimbo118]

My fav games released this year were all rpg/3rd person shooter related:

Mass Effect 2
Red Dead Redemption
Fallout: NV

I also played bioshock 2 and splinter cell: conviction this year which I enjoyed.

 

[kupocake]

Matching the briefing of the opening list would require that I purchased 10 games made this year, and even with the way PC games depreciate in value, that's simply not going to happen. Still, I've actually had a good year for buying games on release day. I purchased two of them! :O Anyway, here are all six 2010 releases I actually played:

Exceptional:
Mass Effect 2: The original was alright. Enough to sell me on a visibly refined sequel, but full of so much shit it's hard to recommend. ME2 was three days of solid gameplay awesomeness. A game I truely struggle to imagine being more than slightly better. It's less of an RPG, but that would only have been worth getting irritated about if ME1 had been in some way a competent RPG.

Great:
Bioshock 2: Utterly unnecessary but totally welcome. Refined gameplay but too much in the way of reused enemies and props. Had I got this at anything less than an expansion pack price, I'd have complained a lot. What I did get it with was the chopped down Zavvi version of the artbook, and it's pretty obvious that the game could have been exceptional given a bigger time budget. But that almost makes the way they tied this rushed project up all the more impressive Almost. Most of all I felt that the antagonist was criminally underdeveloped. I know they had Andrew Ryan to live up to, but they started out amazingly. How many games can boast an upper-middle class literary-minded collectivist rubbish single mother as their main villain? I genuinely think that the multitude of female voices in the game world had fascinating potential. It wasn't the same old male-power struggles, it was just this emasculated bloke in a diving suit being pushed around by discarded women and psychotic little girls. Deserves just a little more credit than it gets.

Civilization V: A solid release in the series, it'll long have a place in my heart as the Civ where something clicked and I started playing it properly. It's just a shame that the AI still isn't capable of doing the same.

Monkey Island 2: Special Edition: As good as it ever was. The artwork was a lot more solid this time, and the animation less faithfully rubbish. So much better than the original, but then I've had two decades to get over the ending.

Meh
Shatter: Can't say I was disappointed in this rather left-field title. I'd rather hoped it would turn out to be a kind of Ikaruga for the Breakout clone, but it was pretty standard fare with some nice music. It'd be one of those games I reach for when I just want to play something for half and hour, but I'm the kind of person who hoardes such titles anyway, and other stuff is simply more interesting.

Huh?
Napoleon: Total War: I suck at this game and cannot judge.

 

[Hazar]

I have a hard time remembering exactly which games I played this year, much less which ones came out this year since I tend to look for obscure games quite a lot.

Enjoyable:

Bad Company 2. The great battlefield experience was made even more exhilarating with destructible environments and fast paced combat.
Borderlands. Terribly disappointing ending but a fun journey to get there. Perhaps a bit on the grindy side but I enjoyed it anyways.
Civ 5. Hooray for a decent combat system finally. Now I'm waiting for some interesting and well executed mods to come out.
Torchlight. Perhaps just a more refined Mythos but it seemed to catch on much more than the former. I'm a bit of a sucker for anything with a leveling up system.
Dirt 2. This was really my first hardcore racing game. There's something really satisfying to pulling off several high speed power slides in a row without losing control.

Disappointing:

Elemental War of Magic. I was hoping for a civ/rpg hybrid but the game was released way too early. Perhaps I'll check it out another 6 months from now.

Mass Effect 2. I know this is a controversial one since I see a lot of people putting it on their great lists. I went into the game expecting the same depth ME 1 had. What I experienced was a dumbed down nearly linear path to the finish line. Do a few story missions, do your party member missions, do another story mission and you're done. See a wall in front of you that's conveniently high enough for you to duck behind? Hmm, I wonder what that means? Maybe a fight is coming? I don't know where people got the idea that an inventory system is so complicated. I like picking out the best equipment for my party members but since they got rid of this you end up using the same gear for basically the whole game. Also, the whole "role playing" aspect of this game is way overblown. What it amounts to is whether you're a dick or not. You can't choose what faction you're going to follow (or even make your own path), you're stuck being the illusive man's bitch the whole ****ing game. Argh, just remembering all this shit has got me angry about it again.

 

[kupocake]

I don't know where people got the idea that an inventory system is so complicated. I like picking out the best equipment for my party members but since they got rid of this you end up using the same gear for basically the whole game.

I don't think anyone thinks the inventory system was 'complicated', it was just plain retarded. The problem wasn't the equipping of weapons etc. (though checking people's lockers to equip them properly was utter bullshit), it was an utter cluster**** of an item drop system that filled up your inventory every half mission. And what's this about getting to 'pick the best equipment'? There was no secret super-rare items that made this element interesting at all. You buy the Spectre armor, you spend the rest of the game combing rubbish out of your inventory by individually entering each locker screen and selling items one by one to the quartermaster. Calling that an 'inventory system' is far too flattering. It's a loosely affiliated collection of item screens.

Not sure I get what you're saying about the missions either. Outside of the what... five story missions, the first game's surface excursions may as well have been randomly generated. And 'linear' isn't a word I'd use to describe a game where 50% of the game's main missions are entirely optional. I get that Mass Effect 1's proper missions acted as extensive hub worlds in a way that isn't quite matched by Mass Effect 2's approach to having smallish cities with missions your travelled off to elsewhere, but I don't know. I was never in love with ME1's 'everything you need in one place!' approach to things. I hate it when games suddenly and conspicuously clear a room to allow combat just because you've taken on a mission with a talking head in an adjoining corridor. It's like being stuck in some hellish drama workshop.

And since I've talked about everything else, yeah I get a giggle out of cover ledges and half-assed morality systems too.

 

[Hazar]

I didn't think ME 1's item system was great by any means but it was better than nothing. It's been quite awhile since I played it but I don't remember it getting annoying to clear it out.

In ME there were actually lots of side quests you had to seek out and go exploring to do. In ME 2 it seems much more linear because you follow the simple formula of get party member, do party member mission until you run out.

 

[kazsymonds]

Good
Starcraft 2
Halo Reach
Minecraft Alpha
TF2 (still playing as much as 20 hours some weeks, 3 years after release)

Bad
Bad Company 2 (YAWN)
Red Dead Redemption (One of the most boring / dull storylines I've seen in a game + bugs + gash multi)

Haven't played Black Ops yet, don't know whether to buy it for 360 or PC, or if it's worth it on either.

 

[FrostedxB]

Haven't played Black Ops yet, don't know whether to buy it for 360 or PC, or if it's worth it on either.

Judging by all the problems the PC players seem to have had/been having, I'd recommend the 360. Runs perfectly for me unless the game host is just horrid.

 

[kazsymonds]

Judging by all the problems the PC players seem to have had/been having, I'd recommend the 360. Runs perfectly for me unless the game host is just horrid.

Yeah, but I kinda like the idea of being able to pick a server, I don't like the whole matchmaking shit. My PC can run it well too, but i'm worried about these problems PC players are having.

 

[Dynasty]

Dynasty, how the **** can you include Brotherhood and call it your GOTY when you haven't even played it?

I know I havent, its not even out yet, just thought I should jump on the bandwagon and scream GOTY remarks as a fanboy from the rooftops rather than try to justify any argument I have against GOTY predictions.

[Edit] Oh yeah, forgot about the awesomeness that is Dirt 2. Love that game.

 

[mortiz-Redux]

Good

New Vegas (haven't completed it yet but I'm enjoying the ride, despite the horrendous bugs)
Mass Effect 2

OK:
Castlevania : Lords of Shadow
Halo : Reach
Red Dead Redemption (like a previous poster said, was pretty boring for me, I guess I just couldn't immerse myself in the setting for whatever reason)

Bad:
Black Ops, just not feeling this one despite liking MW2.

 

[Avoidist]

Good:

Mass Effect 2
Starcraft 2
New Vegas

Bad:

Bioshock 2
RDR
Super Mario Galaxy 2

I realise there's a strange correlation between my pick of good games on the PC and bad games on consoles, but I just couldn't get in to those 3 games this year and enjoy them. Maybe when I've got time I'll jump back in and see if they are any better.

 

[Cpt Tenacious]

Fable 3, what a boring, uninteresting game, can't even bring myself to finish it.

 

[Cornerstone]

Mass Effect 2, cover shooter with retarded story.

 

[Paulaner]

Disappointing: Half-Life 2 Episode 3.

 

[Reflex]

Black Ops was really dissapointing, expected so much more.

 

[PvtRyan]

How the hell can you people dislike Bad Company 2?

 

[stemot]

How the hell can you people dislike Bad Company 2?

Because I'm a single player gamer and it's single player sucked arse. Not to mention the horrible DX10 performance, I still have to run it in DX9 mode (which looks exactly the same) for it to be playable.

 

[FrostedxB]

Bad Company 2 tried too hard to be a serious Modern Warfare type shooter. If they had stayed with the humorous approach like the original BC, it would've been better.
I did quite enjoy it though, especially the M1A1 Abrams mission.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

i love the MP for BC2 but yeah the campaign was complete balls

 

[kupocake]

Disappointing: Half-Life 2 Episode 3.

Well, you know Valve. Always rushing half complete games out in half the quoted time. Bloody 'Valve Time'.

 

[Ridge]

Well, you know Valve. Always rushing half complete games out in half the quoted time. Bloody 'Valve Time'.

I'm just annoyed that the idea was the episodes coming out within months of each other...its been what, 3 and a half years since the last episode?

 

[Paulaner]

I'm just annoyed that the idea was the episodes coming out within months of each other...its been what, 3 and a half years since the last episode?

Valve already admitted that episodes were not a good idea and they didn't work as intended. All this waiting should mean no more episodes, in my opinion. But let's not derail the thread.

 

[PoeticRocker]

As much as I enjoyed Mafia 2, I still feel very disappointed with the game's release. This is the type of disappointment I felt after seeing Indiana Jones 4. It's such a tragedy to see this game full of so much potential be completely wasted. I wanted the game to be as much as a masterpiece as Mafia 1 was. Sadly it didn't do so well commercially and we probably won't see the series continuing in the future.

So I would say Mafia 2 was the most disappointing game of 2010.