Spore
Spore is another example of us being shown the gameplay in various game dev tutorials and E3 demonstrations but by the time the product is realised everything has been stripped back. Spore is the game where you take a single cell organism and evolve and grow them to be a space-faring super race, to explore space and meet other races.
The early stages of the game (i.e. evolving your cell to a space-faring race) were a little basic but ultimately ok. Thankfully the early parts were not too long as everyone was mostly interested in the space part anyway. Once in space you could terraform planets, change atmospheric conditions and see how those changes affect the lifeforms on the planet. You had the power to change planets and galaxy’s and see your repercussions through space.
Yeah, though what we got was something basic and childlike. Sure you could terraform planets by changing the temperature or pressure, and add new life forms on but terraforming was only to make it habitable by your standards, terraforming would never change the wildlife but would wipe it out if the pressure or temperature varied too much. Mountains and rivers were added with a paintbrush and you could change the colour of land, sky and water to various colours.
If this dumbing down wasn’t bad enough, the end game was very boring after a while most people just couldn’t be bothered.
Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 3 reaches my number one slot for disappointing video games and this is because most video games don’t wait 6 years to disappoint me. Mass Effect 3 had its problems sure, like a multiplayer you were forced into playing and in-game purchases which I’m against for a variety of reasons.
The biggest disappointment was the ending of the trilogy. Now bear in mind that Mass Effect players have made decisions and choices for the universe for years. They’ve had romances, witnessed deaths, crumbled civilizations and defeated powerful enemies, all of which were flavoured by the unique way we played our own Commander Shepherds. When we finally got to the end what were our ending options? Essentially the same cut scene just coloured in three different ways (blue, red or green). Bioware tried to make amends by releasing a slightly better ending in a patch a month or so later, but the damage had been done. Let’s hope Mass Effect: Andromeda can rectify these mistakes.
So, which games are on your disappointing video games list? Or do you disagree with any of the above. Let me know in the comments.
I think No Man’s Sky would have been better if it has been a space conquest game on a global scale, mixed with the warhammer universe. How did Battletoads not end up on this list?
I never played it, I heard it was crazy difficult. What was so disappointing about Battletoads?
It was disappointing that it was not only absurdly difficult, but it was difficult in the most simplistic way. It lacked depth and the dynamic story to keep me interested which was a shame.
I’d like to say how things have changed and improved over the last twenty years, but in some cases they still haven’t.