Biggest Disappointments

[A user named cat]

1 million unsatisfied gamers, I presume then. Couldn't someone had sued them for false advertisement? Even the game manual made mention of features that were nowhere to be found in the actual game.

That had to have been a first.

The English version was advertised as the first fully voiced rpg. They even changed the voice of the deathknight to accomodate the fans. I hear that it was shit none the less, BUT the German version didn't have ANY VO.

Yeah that was a pretty funny situation. The demo had some awful sounding nerd voicing a damn deathknight and everyone complained. The replacement was definitely an improvement, but still sounded like a nerd just with added voice effect filters. Larian still seem like a good company though with a friendly team, I look forward to their next game they've been working on. Plus they already have Kirill signed on to do the soundtrack again which is a plus. They need to look at what worked for Divine Divinity and improve on the mechanics and polish.

 

[Andhaira]

A game built on Divine Divinity engine would be amazing even today. All they hade to do is make it turn based OR Rt with Pause. And make it party based.
lol I wonder if that guy installed Gorasul. lol...what a totally utter, worthless piece of crappy game that, buried underneath some cute grafix.

 

[Longshanks]

Lionheart, mostly interested because of SPECIAL, setting and association with Black Isle, turns out the combat, setting and game in general pretty much stunk.

NWN1 I suppose, was expecting BG quality, it didn't quite get there.

 

[Andhaira]

If they had stuck with turnbased combat for lion heart it would have been good. I mean really, just copy/paste the fallout engine.

 

[Durwyn]

A game built on Divine Divinity engine would be amazing even today. All they hade to do is make it turn based OR Rt with Pause

Erm... IIRC Divine Divinity HAD RTwP... you could pause and drink potions, i think...

Gothic 3... I've been playing it for couple of days, simply charmed by it's beauty, when i realised that underneath open-ended beautiful world and many quests with meaningful choices, there is no story at all...

 

[Andhaira]

You could always alternate between reading a good book while paying gothic 3.

 

[Durwyn]

You could always alternate between reading a good book while paying gothic 3.

It's a matter of personal taste, not alternative... Sandbox should never stand above story in cRPG... When it does, it's just Sims in fantasy setting and with combat.

 

[Andhaira]

True. You should go and pos tin the C&7C vs Story thread I put up a few daze ago.


Sadly most ppl think meaningless quests and gameworld affecting are better than a good story.

 

[POD]

From memory, Dungeon Lords was called out for I still can't believe they had the gull to release a collector's edition even before patching it up and adding in missing features. Talk about scumbags, Dreamcatcher should be put out of business.

That's GALL, not GULL. But I Like "gull"; having the gull would be like having an albatross around your neck, which is exactly right for Dungeon Lords.

Of all the disappointments, Mistmare stands out for me: intriguing opening setting, but completely unplayable. At least you could play some of the other disappointments, even if you didn't want to. Speaking of Bradley, I didn't think that much of Wizards and Warlocks (predecessor to Dungeon Lords) either; both big letdowns from Wizardry 7.

Ultima 8: Pagan, just awful; made Ultima 9 look good by comparison.

 

[Ghoulem]

The first time I had sex.

As for greatest cRPG-disappointment I would have to say it's either Planescape Torment, NWN or Gothic III.
They were all praised to the skies, but they all turned out to be lies. The only good thing about these games was that they kept away the flies.

As for non-RPG disappointment.
Rise of Legends

What annoyed me was that Rise of Nations was better than Age of Empires, and instead of implementing RON to AOE or just make RON2 they made Rise of Legends that initially seemed so nice with it's steampunk setting, but turned out to be a sad sad disappointment. We were all hoping for an improved campaign map and they gave us the direct opposite. And then AOE III came which was a shitfest game trying to be Warcraft III and RON in one game, resulting in some half-ass unoriginal cliché RTS.

 

[Mantiis]

As for greatest cRPG-disappointment I would have to say it's either Planescape Torment <snip>.
They were all praised to the skies, but they all turned out to be lies. The only good thing about these games was that they kept away the flies.

Why don't you just fuck the hell off.

Lionheart easily for me - played the demo, loved it so much that i went out and bought the game. To this day i still haven't finished it.

 

[Ghoulem]

And why the fuck should I do that?
I was talking about my greatest disappointment. Not the enthralling emotion you get while playing shitty games.

Don't get me wrong, great story, great characters, but a lousy fucking game.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

 

[Texas Red]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

You. I enjoyed becoming a mage and growing in power, acquiring spells from unusual places and having special boons from being a caster. and I didn't mind the combat at all. In fact, I would rate it above such games as NWN 2(where the combat isn't the main complaint) just because it doesn't have retarded amount of options from which you always choose a single one, and piles and piles of loot.

 

[Ghoulem]

It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

Because it made me feel like a Romanian sewer kid roaming through dumpsters for my next fix of glue.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Yes, palying mage was quite nice from combat perspective. Because of nice spell animations, that somewhat enhanced the sense of being teh powerful wizaard. I didn't play as a warrior type though, but i suppose it's too booring.
Anyway, combat sequences in Torment were so far and between, that sometimes i even urged for some little combat encounter, while reading another screen with copious amounts of branching dialogue.
Ans yes, generally Torment's combat was no better or worse than most infinity games. It sucked.

It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

Because it made me feel like a Romanian sewer kid roaming through dumpsters for my next fix of glue.

I'm sorry.

 

[Blacklung]

1. Oblivion: For nearly every reason already mentioned.

2. NWN: Ditto

3. STALKER: Sure it leans more toward the FPS side of things, but I was hearing quite a few promises about more C&C, working factions, A-Life, and quests which weren't quite so 'do the same thing over again for more money until you get bored.'

4. Daggerfall: Despite all the praise by fellow codexers about this game's superiority to Morrowind, I found the lacking. Certainly it was no SMALL game if you are judging purely by space alone. However, the actual content left much to be desired. It was randomized to the point of being almost sterile in presentation. Great effort might of been made to produce these effects, but in the end, the game lacked a true personality. There might have been dungeons and prestige with factions, but the motivation was lost quickly when one realized there was absolutely no point. No true story, no great benefit...even the 'grand' magical items were too much too fragile to be of any benefit other than the last giant dungeon...which I never made it to because of lost interest.

 

[Andhaira]

Daggerfall was great for its time, so was Arena. Morrowind was better than them both though.

 

[Binary]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

You're basically saying that all the RPG aspects suck. I agree, PS:T should have been an adventure game. As an attempt at being an RPG, it fails.

 

[Lumpy]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

You're basically saying that all the RPG aspects suck. I agree, PS:T should have been an adventure game. As an attempt at being an RPG, it fails.

As an attempt at expressing a logical opinion and acting as a smart person, you fail.
But we've already had this discussion, so meh.

 

[Binary]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

You're basically saying that all the RPG aspects suck. I agree, PS:T should have been an adventure game. As an attempt at being an RPG, it fails.

As an attempt at expressing a logical opinion and acting as a smart person, you fail.
But we've already had this discussion, so meh.

Oh you're the troll that "decides" discussions by starting your replies with "Moron."

Even in the other topic no challenge was made on the assumption that PST was sub-par on everything but the story. Good adventure, lousy RPG.

 

[MasPingon]

Well, characters and story in Torment pretty much IS the whole game. And it is praised exclusively for just that. Noone ever says it has great combat or interesting character developement possibilities. It's not clear where your dissapontment came from.

You're basically saying that all the RPG aspects suck. I agree, PS:T should have been an adventure game. As an attempt at being an RPG, it fails.

As an attempt at expressing a logical opinion and acting as a smart person, you fail.
But we've already had this discussion, so meh.

Oh you're the troll that "decides" discussions by starting your replies with "Moron."

Even in the other topic no challenge was made on the assumption that PST was sub-par on everything but the story. Good adventure, lousy RPG.

I disagree. When someone is saying that moon is made out of cheese or P:T is not crpg, you can call him a moron without any explanation

 

[Ghoulem]

Your logic would put Erasmus Montanus to shame, MasPingon.

 

[hicksman]

Ultima 9, Oblivion, Anachronox, Betrayal in Anatara.

I eventually got into Anachronox, but only after I let it sit for 5 years.

Does Deus Ex 2 count? its not an rpg, but that game sucked bigtime compared to dx1

 

[ghostdog]

NWN 1 - Praised to be something like BG3 but it had boring story and repetitive combat

NWN 2 - It was said to have a good story , a party , better in every aspect than NWN1... but it had that horrible camera. I'll start it once again now that mask of the betrayer is out, maybe I'll get used to it after a while.

KOTOR2 - Because it could have been a lot better. An ending that was unfinished due to lack of time , combat with sith enemies that didn't even use lightsabers and died like flies, and battles with bosses that finished in seconds one way or another. I think the whole battle system needed a redux.