Biggest gaming let downs

A look at the biggest disappointments in gaming for 2008

2008 is a year that many will remember for its impressive catalogue of high profile releases.  The standard was high in terms of the quality of games. However, with high standards come high expectations, and therefore let-downs were inevitable.

Just to clarify, a game need not be a complete and utter failure to make this list. It is merely a list of games which garnered more anticipation in the months leading up to their release, than they did critical acclaim.

1.       Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (PC)

Touted as the World of Warcraft (WOW) killer, AOC first surfaced via the rumor mill in 2003. As a spin-off of the popular Robert E. Howard novels, the concept of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based in the world of Hyboria garnered huge support.

Officially announced in 2005, Age of Conan took a further three years, and as the years passed by the anticipation only grew. Finally, at a time when gamers were on the lookout for a MMORPG that could replace WOW, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures went live in May 2008.

After five years of anticipation, it took only four months for most people to realize that the game is actually rubbish. Plagued by bugs and a clumsy game engine, along with a sub-par role-playing element, Age of Conan has been relegated to “the game that could have, but didn’t” status.

2.       Spore

Perhaps its early working title “Sim Everything” sums it up best. A game that aimed extremely high, in hindsight would have taken a miracle to pull off. Spore spent eight years in development, and three years in the public domain. The creator Will Wright, famous for the Sim franchise guaranteed the game a front page spot in gaming headlines worldwide.

While not a complete failure, the overarching commentary has criticized the game for lacking depth or long term appeal. It’s been said that it tried to do too much, without doing anything properly.

To add insult to injury, Spore was 2008’s most downloaded game, and its obtrusive digital rights management (DRM) fiasco left a sour taste in many gamers’ mouths.

3.       S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky

PC Gamer UK declared Stalker: Clear Sky “The disappointment of the year”. A game that held immense promise and ambition was let down by a buggy engine and interface as well as frustrating game-play mechanics.

4.       FarCry 2

A far-cry from being a complete failure, FarCry2 was perhaps undermined by an over-ambitious marketing team. Technically superb, and a good game all around, yet it could have been so much more if certain elements of the game-play had been better implemented.

5.       Haze

Originally announced at E3 in 2006, Haze faced a slew of development hassles. Some original ideas and a breathtaking game engine earned it special attention from the media. However, a week plot, shallow and unoriginal gameplay and a short and glitchy single-player campaign earned it poor reviews.

6.       Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

Its predecessor stood out in the years of cut and paste Diablo clones. It managed to breathe fresh air into a quickly stagnating genre. Unfortunately, unlike its forerunner, Sacred 2 did not bring anything new to the party. Not a complete loss however, as it did manage to provide a solid RPG experience and a breathtakingly beautiful game world.

7.       Turok

The original Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a 90s classic. Turok, released in March was relatively well received, but couldn’t  make the leap from average-good to excellent, ultimately disappointing anyone who had been dreaming of reliving the glories of the original.

8.       Too Human

Described by a MyBroadband forumite as a “Marmite game”, you either love it or hate it. Unfortunately, a good percentage of people who played Too Human were of the more negative persuasion.

An agonizingly long development process of almost 10 years may be the real culprit here.

Ultimately let down by a poor control interface and repetitive gameplay, it fell sadly short of the hype accumulated during its lengthy development process

9.       Supreme commander (Xbox360)

The tragedy of this title is that the game itself is a masterpiece, yet its implementation on Microsoft’s console was nigh on catastrophic. Bugs, poor optimization and general shoddy implementation spoilt a good game.

10.   Shaun White Snowboarding

For many, this was supposed to be the snowboarding game to end all snowboarding games. Unfortunately, the controls and physics disappointed, as did the uninspiring gameplay structure.

Gaming in 2008 - give your views

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