The worst games [Archive]

Ramses II CP

03-10-2008, 03:47

MOO3 was definitely horrible, but I picked it up out of a bargain bin for $2.50, so how can I complain? Read reliable reviews before you buy new games!

My actual worst game is ancient, from the 8-bit NES days. Astyanax. I completed or beat every game I ever owned for the NES except this one, including the almost equally bad puzzle game Legacy of the Wizard.

The worst modern game for me, relatively modern anyway, is Myth III. I knew three of the guys on the development team, and the crew was listening to the fans, they were saying all the right things... and, as usual, 2 months before Xmas they folded under the pressure from their higher ups (Take Two) and rushed a buggy, non-working game out the door. Within a week of the game being published the entire team was fired. They hung together and worked for free to release a crude patch to address the worst of the bugs, but multiplayer was still completely unworkable.

...and so died yet another project full of potential, slaughtered by the relentless demands of the absurd gaming industry. :thumbsdown:

This wasn't too long after Bungie sold their sou... I mean company to MS either, which is why Take Two had the previously excellent Myth franchise in the first place, so some of that bitterness travelled with the whole business too. :wall:

:egypt:

Mouzafphaerre

03-10-2008, 07:03

.

The worst games
We've got a dedicated section (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=130) for one of them right here. ~:handball:
.

Fragony

03-10-2008, 08:00

Sarathos

03-10-2008, 08:37

I wouldn'y really say bad, but I was really disappointed by Empire Earth 3. Why did they make it so animated? 1 and 2 were great but then they tried to make 3 'look' cooler and add the stupid voice-overs. But the World domination is fun.

Mikeus Caesar

03-10-2008, 08:51

.

We've got a dedicated section (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=130) for one of them right here. ~:handball:
.

http://xs225.xs.to/xs225/08111/blank-picard_facepalm557.jpg

Raz

03-10-2008, 09:51

Dynasty Warriors: Empires. Or something like that. Did it have a number in it somewhere?
Anyway, easily one of the worst games I ever bought. Also, Mouzafphaerre... that was hilarious. :laugh4:

Kekvit Irae

03-10-2008, 10:37

Quirinus

03-10-2008, 11:03

http://xs225.xs.to/xs225/08111/blank-picard_facepalm557.jpg
https://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/mr_cereal/awesome.gif

On-topic, I was quite disappointed by Empire Earth II-- frankly, I just can't see why such effusive praise is heaped on it. And Knights of the Old Republic was appalling-- the bugs were so numerous that I never got to enjoy the game itself for what it is.

Baby Boomer

03-10-2008, 11:35

And Knights of the Old Republic was appalling.

I am sure at least one person will disagree with your opnion; this game is worshipped in some places:balloon2: . (Not litreally, it isn't a religion)

I found Lord of the Ring's: Return of the King game awful. No bugs fortunely; but it was exactly the same to the moive (Exactly!) and was a tad boring. I can't think of anything else. (Though while I am on a role I thought Empire Earth II: Art of Supremacy was bad. A few faction's and a new contineant (*gasp*) and it make it a expansion?:no: )

rajpoot

03-10-2008, 12:07

Loki, wish I'd never bought it.

TinCow

03-10-2008, 13:59

Black & White - After the first map, it quickly becomes boring and frustrating. Never finished the game, despite three attempts to do so. I simply lose interest in it before I get that far.
Ultima IX - You don't know what "buggy" means unless you tried to play this out of the box.
MOO3 - I never got beyond the 5th turn.

Quirinus

03-10-2008, 14:13

I never played the first Black and White, but I think the second one suffered from the same problem as a few of you mentioned about the first. It has a great concept, but it lacks focus, IMO.

Ramses II CP

03-10-2008, 14:46

Black and White actually couldn't be finished before the first patch, it was that broken. The 4th scenario couldn't end. The patch took a long time to come out too, like 6-8 months IIRC. I kept my old saves and finished B&W, but I never played it again or anything. Most of my fun was building crazy cities, but still, I personally didn't find B&W all that bad. Boring, yes, but still functional and with moderately interesting multiplayer.

:egypt:

frogbeastegg

03-10-2008, 14:54

Another vote for Black & White. I knew it was bad by the middle of the first level. Where was my freedom? Where were the options? Where was the fun? Why the :furious3: wouldn't those villagers shut up whining?! This game single-handedly cured me of listening to hype.

KOTORII, in the sense that it would have been a great game if it had received another couple of months development. It didn't. It was a buggy, butchered mess and that makes a small part of my heart bleed each time I think of the game.

RTW. I'd like some AI in my strategy game please. The save/load bug fiasco iced the rotten cake with something putrid dug out of a sewer. BI pulled things back a little; I had to be convinced to buy it by an assortment of trusted org faces. Pity BI was completely uneven. Sometimes it had a nicely competitive AI, others it barely made a move for scores of turns.

Monkey Island 4. This was the point where I stopped thinking of the point and click genre as a patient in intensive care, and started considering it nailed in a coffin and 6 foot down in some very well compacted earth.

It's an old, old game now, but Wing Commander 4. Why? Why?!

The_Doctor

03-10-2008, 14:57

Star Trek: Conquest Online.:dizzy2:
Star Trek: Generations.:inquisitive:
Star Trek: New Worlds.:no:
Star Trek: Away Team.:wall:
Legion.:smash:

Kekvit Irae

03-10-2008, 19:24

It's an old, old game now, but Wing Commander 4. Why? Why?!

I'm going to have to add Wing Commander 3 to that list.
Great game, but certain events near the ending made me feel hollow, and I just didn't want to play anymore.
Damn you, Hobbes! You were my favorite character next to Angel! :blankg:

Ser Clegane

03-10-2008, 19:59

But for me, the real award for "worst game" goes to Master of Orion III. Epic space strategy, my ass -- that wasn't a strategy game; it was a management sim!! :furious3: When you add to that my excitement & anticipation for MOO3 (obviously before it had been released), it makes me ill just thinking about it. :sick:

another vote for that "gem" - Excel in space - what a complete and utter disappointment.

"Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor" was also complete drek - only redeeming factor was that (other than MOO3 for which I paid full price) I got this in some bundle of budget games (fortunately the game was so bugged when it was published that I did not buy it for full price).

Vladimir

03-10-2008, 20:47

I really think this spreadsheet bashing needs to end RIGHT NOW! :furious3:

frogbeastegg

03-10-2008, 21:10

I'm going to have to add Wing Commander 3 to that list.
Great game, but certain events near the ending made me feel hollow, and I just didn't want to play anymore.
Damn you, Hobbes! You were my favorite character next to Angel! :blankg:
That hit me hard too. WC3 was my favourite; I replayed it many times and each time I hoped I'd manage to find an alternate plot path which didn't feature that.

Bet you loved the game's intro :winkg:

Geoffrey S

03-10-2008, 21:15

Yeah, came as quite the shock. That moment threw a lot of cliches out the window.

Sarathos

03-10-2008, 23:50

And Knights of the Old Republic was appalling.

I am sure at least one person will disagree with your opnion

That would be I, I thought KOTOR was one of the best RPG's I have played. what I thought was appalling was KOTOR 2, why Bioware didn't make it I will never know.

Fragony

03-11-2008, 19:21

http://www.gamersglobal.com/news/647

Well good news, Peter Molyneux us going to shock&awe us with the greatest thing once again, somebody lock him up :laugh4:

drone

03-11-2008, 20:10

another vote for that "gem" - Excel in space - what a complete and utter disappointment.
For games I personally bought, MoO III was probably the most disappointing. I generally don't buy on release dates now, this game is the reason. After a while, I just uninstalled and went back to playing MoO II.

"Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor" was also complete drek - only redeeming factor was that (other than MOO3 for which I paid full price) I got this in some bundle of budget games (fortunately the game was so bugged when it was published that I did not buy it for full price).
UbiSoft was sly with Pool of Radiance. They knew it would suck, so they coded it to delete your systems files if you tried to uninstall it. ~D

Motep

03-12-2008, 00:06

I also liked KOTOR, but the second one was ALOT less than expected.

I agree with the fact that RTW needs better AI...

Some WWII game my stepfather bought for the computer a while back. All the cursor would do for me is point up...that gets really irritating in the middle of combat. My stepfather started to play it, and he wound up snapping it in half.

Emergency room 2-OMFG!!! Boring as hell...

Dino Crisis 3- worst camera angles known to man

Mummy:Tomb of the Pharoh- I fell asleep after about an hour...

Marshal Murat

03-12-2008, 02:15

How much time you got???

1. Black and White - It was fun for the first 5 minutes, then you realized that you had responsibilities and stuff, it got boring.

2. Shattered Union - I read some great reviews about it, and it was just not what I imagined. It was just bad. I got addicted, but it crashed before I defeated the Russkies.

3. Republic Commandos - An okay game, I had some fun playing, I won't bash it too bad. It lacked re-playability, the multi-player was a 'nade spam match, and you didn't feel like you were a commando.

4. BF 2142 - When you make fantasy games, or future games, can you make it more realistic or something? The guns had recoil people! Recoil! They can build big fancy ships that can be destroyed by blowing up some shoddily protected command consoles, but you can't eliminate recoil??? It was okay as a game, but not good.

Veho Nex

03-12-2008, 05:26

.

We've got a dedicated section (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=130) for one of them right here. ~:handball:
.

AHAHA :laugh4:

Kekvit Irae

03-12-2008, 05:27

E.T.
:juggle2:

Mikeus Caesar

03-12-2008, 07:04

4. BF 2142 - When you make fantasy games, or future games, can you make it more realistic or something? The guns had recoil people! Recoil! They can build big fancy ships that can be destroyed by blowing up some shoddily protected command consoles, but you can't eliminate recoil??? It was okay as a game, but not good.

Upon reading '2142' something clicked in my head, and i felt the need to scream out loud my distaste for this game.

Truly terrible. Buggy and flawed. The only fun thing about it was the mechs. And some of the maps were also pretty good. In fact, the entire game could have been good, but it was just entirely flawed.

Nobunaga

03-12-2008, 13:02

i would say: ROME: TOTAL WAR

mainly because of my high prerelease expectations due to CA advertising.

caravel

03-12-2008, 14:24

i would say: ROME: TOTAL WAR

mainly because of my high prerelease expectations due to CA advertising.
I disagree with this. While I would agree entirely that RTW was a big disappointment as a TW game, I disagree that it qualifies as one of "The worst games". There are vastly worse games than RTW.

Luckily for me I haven't played any of the games listed so far in this thread. I can't really think of any games that I've bought and would call the worst excpet C&C games, those have always been bad IMHO.

:bow:

TinCow

03-12-2008, 14:34

Just remembered another one. It was called "Campaign," it was a WW2 strategy game, and it was released in the early 1990s. You moved divisions around on a world map, and when they engaged the enemy it switched to a 3D rendered battle. The battle consisted only of vehicles (mainly armor) and you could command one of them, driving around the battlefield and shooting up the enemy. It was really, really bad. The strategy was non-existent and it essentially turned into a FPS with tanks. I kept playing it off and on for years, thinking I simply didn't understand how to play it properly, but I eventually concluded it was just a poor game and trashed it. I can't even find anything about it on Google. That probably says more about it than anything else.

Nobunaga

03-12-2008, 14:40

caravel

03-12-2008, 16:53

Martok

03-12-2008, 19:40

objectively speaking their are many games that are worse than RTW. However I was never disappointed with a game like I was disappointed with RTW. Especially with all the hype from CA. I remember a post from one of the developers that said that the game is not getting dumbed down and it will appeal to hardecore MTW and STW fans.

So for me (and mainly because of the huge disappointment I got) RTW is the worst game ever. I just can't play RTW.
I understand what you're saying -- RTW was my second-biggest letdown after MOO3 -- but I still disagree that it's actually a bad game per se.

If Rome had been the first of the TW series -- if STW or MTW had never been made (the gods forbid!) -- I suspect a lot of us would be gushing over how awesome the game was, despite its obvious flaws. As it is, I sometimes envy RTW/M2TW fans who've never played STW or MTW, as most of them will probably never know what they're missing (better AI, more immersive atmosphere, etc.).

So while I personally can't stand the game, I wouldn't characterize it as "bad". I would probably describe it more as a colossal disappointment and a massive waste of potential.

Now Master of Orion III, on the other hand, truly *is* a terrible game. ~D :whip:

edyzmedieval

03-12-2008, 22:39

Need for Speed Carbon (I bought the Collectors edition too!)
Civ City: Rome
Battlefield 2142
FIFA 2007/2008
NBA 2006/2008

Kenshin the vega bound

03-15-2008, 06:59

Heh you pc gamers dont know what your missing when it comes to crap games.

Being a console gamer since the late 80's I've played some awfull games.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQvuwu1CFHI

Is just one example. Perhaps the NES dispite having some classice games, also had the most crappy games for a console ever.

Kekvit Irae

03-15-2008, 07:07

I have to disagree. I am old enough to remember just how bad Atari games were.

TB666

03-15-2008, 12:08

In no particular order

Roma Victor - buggy, ugly, overly complicated, devs that refuse to listen to their test teams and fans(which they don't have many off).

Two Worlds- Buggy, old english with bad voice acting equals epic failure.

Trespasser - Not sure if anyone remembers this gem. Awful physics, aiming a gun was damn near impossible, the dinosaurs were dumb as hell.

Imperial Glory - Tried to be a TW-clone, failed in every way.

Legion Arena - Tried to be a TW-clone, failed in every way as well. For Odin's sake they even had damage numbers floating above soldiers heads.

frogbeastegg

03-15-2008, 19:53

Trespasser - Not sure if anyone remembers this gem.
Was that the game with the arm? I didn't play it. I did see lots of reviews panning it, and all of them mentioned this arm which you had to 'deploy' to activate things. There were screenshots with this awful looking arm poised next to the gun, reaching out into thin air in an attempt to be relevant. The graphics made it ook like a 6 day old severed limb your character happened to be carrying.

TB666

03-15-2008, 20:50

Was that the game with the arm? I didn't play it. I did see lots of reviews panning it, and all of them mentioned this arm which you had to 'deploy' to activate things. There were screenshots with this awful looking arm poised next to the gun, reaching out into thin air in an attempt to be relevant. The graphics made it ook like a 6 day old severed limb your character happened to be carrying.
Yep.
You did everything in the game with that arm.
It was really a nightmare.
Aiming are horrible, if you hit anything consider yourself lucky.
Trying to enter a code on a pad was hit and miss.
You couldn't just move your arm during those cases since you would hit the other buttons as well.
So you kinda had to aim(which was hard enough) move forward and hope that you hit the right number then move back, aim again and then move forward again.
Only thing nice in the game was that you were playing a female character and everytime you looked down you saw your huge cleavage with a tattoo the shape of a heart(which was your health bar btw, I'm not kidding, if you wanted to see how much health you got, look at your naughty bits) on the left boob.
They must have been drunk when they made that game.

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/5/199105/trespass_screen003.jpg
Says it all really

Kekvit Irae

03-15-2008, 21:00

Jurassic Park: Trespasser really was a pile of garbage, but it did have one redeeming value... it had the most realistic physics engine of its time, until Half-Life 2 came out six years later.

TB666

03-15-2008, 23:23

Actually games like Painkiller, Far Cry and Doom 3 had far superior physics engine then Trespasser and came out before HL2.
Hell I'm pretty sure that there were games out before even that with a better physics engine then Trespasser.
Of course it was pretty easy to beat trespasser since the physic engine was horrible beyond anything I have ever seen.
Pong had better physics then that game.

CountArach

03-17-2008, 08:16

Have to say it:

Medieval Total War 2

Biggest waste of my money ever.

Fragony

03-17-2008, 10:33

Jurassic Park: Trespasser really was a pile of garbage, but it did have one redeeming value... it had the most realistic physics engine of its time, until Half-Life 2 came out six years later.

The game still has a rabid fanbase, supposedly community fixed the game, and turned it into what it should have been in te first place. Game had tons of potential to be awesome.

Dutch_guy

03-17-2008, 12:45

Jurassic Park: Trespasser really was a pile of garbage, but it did have one redeeming value... it had the most realistic physics engine of its time, until Half-Life 2 came out six years later.

I remember playing that game years and years ago. At the time I couldn't care less that the gameplay was horrible, the only fault I could find with it was the rarity of actual dinosaurs in the game.

:balloon2:

Navaros

03-17-2008, 13:18

I always be sure to read a variety of professional reviews on metacritic and various sites with end user feedback to know if a game is good or not before I bother to touch it. That way, I play relatively few really bad games.

But Doom 3 clearly had many review scores that were bought, and as such it was the worst game that comes to mind that I've ever played. Endless repetition of the same 3 or 4 enemies over and over again. Most especially and most annoyingly, Imps. Not scary. Not fun. I ended up uninstalling if halfway through because of how mind-numbingly awful of a gameplay experience it was killing the 1500th set of Imps. Not to mention the environments which were just as repetitive. Worst of all it didn't even maintain the fast gameplay of Doom or Doom II, yet professional reviews lied and said things like: "it's just a beautiful looking shooter that provides the same addictive, gung-ho game that made the original so much fun to play." That's wrong. Doom had "run and gun" gameplay. Doom 3 only had (much worse) "crawl and gun (to the next scripted spawn point)" gameplay.

Quirinus

03-17-2008, 14:32

Legion Arena - Tried to be a TW-clone, failed in every way as well. For Odin's sake they even had damage numbers floating above soldiers heads.
Oh my god! I remember this game...... fell flat in every way, especially after playing Rome: Total War. The History Channel repacked it as "Battles of Rome" or something. So I was tricked into buying the same awful game twice. Didn't do much for my opinion of the game (or the History Channel, for that matter).

econ21

03-18-2008, 12:49

I agree with some posters that the worst game has to be a game that you cared about - that could/should have been good but was awful.

For me, it would Napoleon 1813. It should have been a Napoleon Total War that predated RTW. It had a real time strategy layer, better than RTWs in that you moved actual historical formations (corps, divisions etc). And it had a tactical battle layer. Sadly, neither layer worked but were instead completely broken. The strategic layer never led to significant battles or even led anywhere; the battles were equally flawed with enemy formations marching randomly and the same failure to even connect. My newly recruited French Imperial Guard marching off to join the enemy was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. But it pains me because if it had worked as intended, it probably would have been the best PC game ever.

The game designer tried much the same thing - with the same hopeless results - with an ACW game called the Civil War or such.

People lambasting RTW or M2TW should really play the above two efforts to get a sense of perspective. And play some mods ...
:creep:

Fragony

03-18-2008, 13:06

frogbeastegg

03-18-2008, 13:42

People lambasting RTW or M2TW should really play the above two efforts to get a sense of perspective. And play some mods ...
:creep:
If I say RTW looked set to be the game I had been longing for since the very day I discovered computer games, would that place it in perspective? If I added that it was made by a developer I considered to be the best in strategy games? RTW was my Napoleon 1813.

I always consider mods and vanilla games to be two very seperate entities. Gothmod improved BI IMO. That's Gothmod, not BI. Mods build on the base game, they don't become it and they don't replace it. IMO I shouldn't have felt the need to turn to mods. With a good game mods are a different flavour to explore. They're not a desperate scramble to find a way to make the game enjoyable.

I view expansion packs in the same light. BI improved RTW. That's BI, not RTW.

econ21

03-18-2008, 14:26

... RTW was my Napoleon 1813.

I always consider mods and vanilla games to be two very seperate entities. Gothmod improved BI IMO. That's Gothmod, not BI. ..

Well, we are going to go off topic here but just to give a quick reply:

I understand your viewpoint, but it's just not how I look at it. RTW was perfectly playable out of the box. I had a blast in my first (Julii) campaign - I think it was the first TW campaign I ever finished solo. It was an education in classical history (I had no idea the rise of Rome and Alexander the Great were so close in time; was largely ignorant about the successor states; had only a vague understanding of the Punic wars etc). I had a lot of fun marshalling a historical Roman army and fighting the Gauls in tactical battles was very atmospheric (it largely "felt" right and was exciting to boot). I really can't compare that with Napoleon 1813 where the game just did not work - it generated no significant battles at the strategic level and what tactical battles there were out of control events of great weirdness (the AI units just walking across the map and off it, while mine vainly struggled to get into formation and engage them). I think with RTW, you are comparing what you hoped would be your dream car with what turned out to be a Ford fiesta. With Napoleon 1813, I am comparing my dream car with a piece of scrap that I could not even start up.

RTW then blew up my laptop which dampened my ardour somewhat. And when I returned to it after a few months, I started to realise the big problems with it: notably the awful strategic AI (which just fails to bring enough boys to the fight) and the dodgy battles (cavalry and elite archers too powerful; terrible phalanx AI; weak AI tactics in general). I gave up on it for a while, but even then could regard it - as I regard say Morrowind - as an impressive technical accomplishment if not the kind of gameplay I enjoy. Just as the Morrowind world is amazing to look and hear, so seeing a RTW tactical battle in all its sound and fury was an impressive thing to me. So I could not say it was one of the worst games I had played even without mods.

Mods rehabilitated the game for me and again I can't share your perspective. For me, the mods are nothing without the core game. Gothmod is just a tweaked BI. It's like a P-51 Mustang with a better engine or more guns - same thing, just modified to improve it. I could not play RTR or EB without RTW and indeed they would not exist without RTW. So I attribute a large part of the credit for RTR or EB to the people who made the basic engine that the mods tweak. The fact that you can get much of the gameplay benefit of RTR/EB by just changing a few numbers in a couple of text files (ie slow down move and kill rates; boost AI income) makes this rather clear. Buying RTW opened up several years of playing RTR, BI, Gothmod and EB which I am still not done with. So in a very real sense, it counts as one of the best games I've ever bought - its faults out of the box not withstanding.

Kekvit Irae

03-18-2008, 20:55

Gothmod improved BI IMO. That's Gothmod, not BI.

Gothmod? What's that? A mod with a bunch of angsty teenagers who dress in all black and red and who don't like the sun and only listen to their faction leader, Marilyn Manson?
:tongueg:

Geoffrey S

03-19-2008, 01:42

Well that's dandy, a faction that eliminates itself.

Kekvit Irae

03-19-2008, 02:17

Well that's dandy, a faction that eliminates itself.

No, that's the Emo faction.

Artorius Maximus

03-19-2008, 04:25

I say that Stronghold II was the most dissapointing to me. I tried to like it, I really did, but I couldn't play more than ten hours total with it. It was laggy, took a long time to load, and the gameplay was very difficult. It was hard work just to train ONE SPEARMAN.

I would say: ROME: TOTAL WAR

mainly because of my high prerelease expectations due to CA advertising.

This is blasphemy! This is madness!

Quirinus

03-19-2008, 11:16

I say that Stronghold II was the most dissapointing to me. I tried to like it, I really did, but I couldn't play more than ten hours total with it. It was laggy, took a long time to load, and the gameplay was very difficult. It was hard work just to train ONE SPEARMAN.

This is blasphemy! This is madness!
Madness? THIS.... IS...... THE ORGGGGGGG! *boot*

:spammer:
Sorry, couldn't help myself.

frogbeastegg

03-19-2008, 15:04

Econ, where it comes to RTW, like KOTORII, I fear we shall never agree. ~:)

For me RTW was broken out of the box. The reason comes down to something I have never, ever understood about the game, and never shall. It's so uneven - two people can have a very different experience playing much the same settings, and not in a good way. Where the AI in your games tried to do things, in mine it very often did nothing whatsoever. It didn't expand, it didn't build, it barely attacked me. Shuffling stacks of its starting units about was about as exciting as it got. The only influence in that game world was mine, and I was playing on my own in the fullest sense of the word. Rebel settlements? If I didn't take them no one would. Pirates? If I didn't clear them no one would. Settlement upgrades? 50 turns into the game I'd be capturing enemy capitals which hadn't upgraded at all. And so on. I tried rushing, I tried playing at my normal slower pace, I tried sitting around doing nothing myself, and it just didn't help.

I have to call that broken; the alternative is saying the developers intended the game to be that way. I don't think the harshest of CA's critics would level that charge at them. I had numerous other troubles with the game, but I class them as design decisions I don't like rather than broken. Cavalry's overpowering strength was a design decision and I hated it, but I won't call it broken because it was intended to work that way. Neon faction colours were nasty, but intended. Etc, etc.

I'm not entirely alone. From time to time I did see other players reporting exactly the same thing. Not enough of them for me to spot a common cause for the problem.

Many of your comments about Napoleon tie in closely with my experience of RTW. To use your own analogy, I expected a porshe and got a shell with no engine and a single tyre.

But hey, we'll never agree. When we haven't had the same experience how can we?

If you want my dream car which turned out to be a Ford, look no further than Crusader Kings by Paradox. I'm semi amazed I forgot to include that before. Please, no one ask me why. I'd much rather continue to blot the game from my mind and be happy. Hmm, add Black and White to this category too. I neither expected nor wanted an RTS. Icewind Dale too. I hoped for something closer to Baldur's Gate than 'AD&D does Diablo'. Ah, actually I'll stop thinking about Fords entirely - the list is growing very quickly in my mind and it scares me. 13 years of gaming adds up to a lot of Fords. :sweatdrop:

Gothmod? What's that? A mod with a bunch of angsty teenagers who dress in all black and red and who don't like the sun and only listen to their faction leader, Marilyn Manson?
:tongueg:
This one (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=41879).

drone

03-19-2008, 16:02

RTW was fun at the start, but once I got deep into my first campaign it just fell apart. Much of this was due to initial bugs, the 2 key ones being the missile/melee attack value mixup and the load game issue. The combat AI was weak, and this was compounded by the strategic AI incompetence. It felt like I was playing computerized whack-a-mole beating up on small stacks roaming around. It also was too much like a job micromanaging your territory, agents, and stacks once your empire got large. I know some of these problems got fixed later, but it turned me off the game before those patches came out. I never felt the urge to reward CA's effort by buying BI, and just went back to MTW.

I was disappointed with RTW, but not as much as I was with MoO3.

Makanyane

03-19-2008, 17:40

Worst, load once and delete, ones I acquired:

Codename:Panzers (luckily only bought from bargain bin)
Empires: Dawn of the Modern World (trying to be Age of Empires and failing)
BladeRunner (good film - absolutely no idea what the game was trying to do....)

and Moo3 for me too, which is doubly annoying because we used to play the earlier version on LAN and loved it, so we actually bought two of the damn 'improved' game before deciding it was utterly unplayable!

Mouzafphaerre

03-19-2008, 18:47

.
I should have mentioned, once done with MiNO:

Age of Empires (any)
Civilisations (any)
The cartoon remake of Pirates!
Empire Earth (bad replica of an already bad thing)

:eeeek:
.

KarlXII

03-19-2008, 19:46

Big Rigs. Dear God. 4 boring trucks, you pass through scenery, fall through bridges (yep, RIGHT THROUGH THEM!) and go up mountains, completely vertically, at 180 mph of course. Don't buy it, avoid it like the plague, if you get this game, you're wasting your time, money and soul. I bought it for 5$, and I feel ripped off.

Quirinus

03-20-2008, 04:56

Age of Empires (any)
Civilisations (any)
The cartoon remake of Pirates!
Empire Earth (bad replica of an already bad thing)
I didn't quite enjoy the Civilization series either, though I suspect it's more a matter of personal taste than anything.

But I enjoyed Pirates!, in the brief time I played it (I played it in a internet cafe for an hour or so). I particularly liked the ship combat system-- both the cannoning and the fight after you board a ship.

Empire Earth I played when it first came out, and I enjoyed it. Granted, my standards have risen a lot in the intervening years (I can't stand to see 'China' brandishing legionary-look-alike Short Sword now), but you have to admit that the multiplayer was pretty fun-- especially towards the modern age-- nothing like strafing a bunch of Imperial Age grenadiers with WWI biplanes.

It's so uneven - two people can have a very different experience playing much the same settings, and not in a good way. Where the AI in your games tried to do things, in mine it very often did nothing whatsoever.
Why is that?

Kekvit Irae

03-20-2008, 08:06

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green

Crazed Rabbit

03-20-2008, 08:22

Xtreme Paintball

CR

Fragony

03-20-2008, 12:33

BladeRunner (good film - absolutely no idea what the game was trying to do....)

Owwwwww? Good game :yes:

Togakure

03-20-2008, 15:08

I'm careful about what games I purchase, researching first and usually waiting until the game's been out for a year or so. Thus, I haven't encountered many really bad games. The biggest disappoint that comes to mind for me was Masters of Orion III. I played the heck out of MOO II, and III had so much potential ... but the overall experience was very disappointing.

Another game that disappointed me in the same genre is Galactic Civilizations. It got excellent reviews and sold well. When I finally bought and played it though, it just didn't have the magic that prior games in the same genre had, for me anyway.

EDIT: Yes, of course the biggest disappointments in my gaming history have been RTW, M2TW, their expansions, etc. I've only sampled them on other peoples' PCs, not bought them. Sad to say, it's not likely that I will buy another TW game. The direction they've taken is not to my taste.

Adrian II

03-20-2008, 15:59

My worst buy ever was Knights & Merchants - stupid, repetitive, predictable to the core.

Crandaeolon

03-20-2008, 16:47

Worst purchase - MoO 3. Because of its great predecessor I tried to deceive myself into thinking the game was decent. Much grinding of teeth and pulling of hair resulted when that fragile illusion shattered.

While not objectively bad games, Titan Quest and GalCiv 2 never saw much playtime. The gameplay in TQ felt very dated after Guild Wars, and GalCiv 2 missed tactical space battles, an ingredient I consider absolutely essential in space strategy games.

I've had a lot of disappointments with bargain bin and other cheap games of course, but those probably don't count.

TB666

03-20-2008, 18:12

Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green
Well that game is kinda like Oblivion, you have to mod it to truelly enjoy it.
The X3 mod make the game far more better by adding 3 times as many zombies.

Quirinus

03-22-2008, 04:01

GalCiv 2 missed tactical space battles, an ingredient I consider absolutely essential in space strategy games.
I'd venture to say that maybe you've missed the point of the GalCiv games, which IMO is more of a nation-building sim that happens to be set in space, than anything.

Martok

03-22-2008, 04:38

I'd venture to say that maybe you've missed the point of the GalCiv games, which IMO is more of a nation-building sim that happens to be set in space, than anything.
I'm not sure he really missed the point per se. I think he's just saying that for him, he finds tactical battles between ships/fleets to be an essential part of space strategy games, and that therefore GC2 feels like it's lacking.

While I won't say that I think battles are essential in space 4X games, I admit I do enjoy them very much. GalCiv 2 is a great game, but I won't deny that I would've loved it if I could've controlled battles as well (instead of just watching them on the tactical viewer).

Crandaeolon

03-22-2008, 15:05

I think he's just saying that for him, he finds tactical battles between ships/fleets to be an essential part of space strategy games, and that therefore GC2 feels like it's lacking.

Yeah. Please, allow me to explain what I mean:

Overall the game is great, of course, and GC2 fully deserves its accolades. There's just nothing "in-depth" about the combat, even though marketing slogans claim otherwise. Reviews also spread false information. Gamespot quote:

In addition to playing with the default ships included with the game, there's a very cool ship designer that'll let you make your own. ... you can successfully take the approach of designing fleets of small, fast, and pesky fighters that may be effective against larger capital ships if you choose your weapons wisely (defenses are effective only against specific weaponry). Conversely, you may prefer fighting with huge space dreadnoughts, or perhaps mixed fleets. Prudent investment in espionage can give you a crucial advantage in discovering what weapons system the enemy is building, so you can design the most effective weapons and shields to counter them. But be aware that the AI is likely doing some spying of his own.

Sounds great, no? Intricate ship design, diverse weapons, hard choices, espionage. Too bad most of it is not true (or wasn't true in the retail version, I don't really know how the game has progressed since then.)

The space 4X genre has always been about epic space battles. Marketing and reviews both claimed that GC2 had interesting ship design and combat. As a fan of the space 4X genre I believed this, bought the game and got burned with a Civ in space instead.

GC2's promise of an "In-depth combat system for planning and executing strategic warfare" just didn't pan out. I was fully aware that the game does not have player-controlled tactical battles, but the simplistic rock paper scissors (beam, missile, mass driver), dumbed down RTS tactics (all ships focus-firing on one ship all the time) boring mechanics (attack was always better than defense in the retail version at least) and frighteningly ugly combat presentation (ships floating around randomly) are more suited to a board game for retarded monkeys than a space 4X game. IMHO.

I won't deny that I would've loved it if I could've controlled battles as well (instead of just watching them on the tactical viewer).

I'm not talking about player control actually, just that the "tactical" combat system in GC2 is a needless, brainless marketing gimmick. Space Empires and Dominions are good examples of how to make a good combat system without direct player control.

Quirinus

03-22-2008, 16:37

Oh my, yes, I agree with you on that. The space combat system was limp and for the most part not as good as expected. But I was disagreeing with you in this:

The space 4X genre has always been about epic space battles. Marketing and reviews both claimed that GC2 had interesting ship design and combat. As a fan of the space 4X genre I believed this, bought the game and got burned with a Civ in space instead.
Personally, the most gratifying GalCiv games I had were games where I didn't have to fight a major war or, in a couple of them, not even fire a single bullet to win the game, that is, by using diplomacy, trade and/or influence. The meat of the game for me was always the robust AI and the nation-building bit-- in effect, "Civ in space".

Also, (this is another personal reason) I played the first GalCiv too, which had literally spreadsheet ship combat, where all ships had a number for attack, one for defense, and one for hitpoints, and that was the sum total of their combat engine. So when I played GalCiv II, I was disappointed that it had no tactical ship control, but thrilled at the ship builder, and, if not completely impressed, then happy with the rock-scissors-paper mechanics.

Crandaeolon

03-22-2008, 17:36

Ah, I see now. Yes, I agree that combat doesn't really need to be a significant part of a 4X space game - interstellar politics and intrigue are easily worth their own treatment. However, prior to GalCiv games the genre used to pay a lot of attention to armed conflict, and that created certain assumptions.

I intentionally skipped the first GalCiv because conflict in it was so downplayed, it just wasn't what I expected from the genre. The second GalCiv burned me because by most accounts (marketing & reviews) the combat aspect was much improved. Perhaps it was, but it just didn't meet the expectations created by MoO2 and its ilk. I was also hoping for a game to atone for the abomination that was MoO3 but it didn't. And, I didn't really want a Civ-type game at that time, the Civilization series filled that space well enough. For these reasons GC2 was a personal disappointment to me, which is what this thread seems to be about.

EDIT: There were also a lot of other oddities in the release version of CalCiv2 that degraded the overall experience. Here is an old thread in the Arena with some arguments about the issues beginning on page 3.

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61790&page=3&highlight=galactic+civilizations+2

Quirinus

03-22-2008, 18:43

EDIT: There were also a lot of other oddities in the release version of CalCiv2 that degraded the overall experience. Here is an old thread in the Arena with some arguments about the issues beginning on page 3.
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=61790&page=4
I think a lot of these oddities and bugs were ironed out by successive patches-- for example, I'm almost certainly sure that the AI now does specialise on planets.

I didn't quite notice the problem with the universal production slider thing, because it was carried over from GalCiv until you mentioned it. After I read it I saw that it would indeed have improved the game quite a bit. I guess this is again the predecessor directly influencing expectations and hence indirectly enjoyment of games.

I don't think the controls are made to 'cripple' the human player versus the AI, though, it's more likely just an inherent flaw in the game. If each civilization has a unique code that can fight proxy wars, prioritize alliances and vote according to its interests, I don't think teaching it to specialise on planets would be an insurmountable difficulty.

On an unrelated note, one of the things I was annoyed about in GalCiv II was how some races are inherently hostile or well-disposed towards some race. For example, the Torians have an apathy towards the Drengin, the Iconians towards the Yor, the humans are good friends with the Altarians, etc. It does make the game more characterful, but it also removes an element of variety from the game. In the first game, every imaginable alliance, trade network, scenario can happen. Not so in the sequel.

Abokasee

03-26-2008, 19:33

Rise and Fall: Civilzations at war ~ This one was trying to be a TW with a small RPG element but I just didnt like it, I cant even take it back because I bought in canada for $60, (about £30) and when I tried to sell to a trade in place the people said it would only be worth £0.01 because it was a foegrin important... that sucked immensly, a worthy partner to the game at hand

Praetorions ~ Another TW wanna be

Ferret

03-27-2008, 15:23

micro commandos what was I thinking?!

Mek Simmur al Ragaski

03-29-2008, 00:36

The worst game ever that i have ever played has to be WOW, i had only played on it for 5 minutes before i got bored of it, good thing i was on my friends laptop, all you do is walk around killing stuff, nicking stuff, and others.

Also, its not on a disk, and i did actually really like it, but ill have to say Runescape2, completely bored, i cant even look at it without feeling drowsy, and i got to sleep at 4 o'clock and wake up at 9!

Mount Suribachi

03-29-2008, 15:04

Hidden&Dangeous, the sad part is that it was a good game at heart, but it was completily unplayable, never seen a game this buggy, wasn't even in the beta-fase. Such a shame because it could have been so good.

I always remember the PC Gamer review of that when someone called it a "bug-ridden piece of crap" and they said "no, its a bug-ridden piece of genius". After a while I tried to complete most of the missions on my own - much easier without your colleagues randomly deciding to come out of cover and firing their Brens at a German on the other side of the map.

For me - and this is going to be controversial - Operation Flashpoint. I *very* quickly became bored of all my squad mates contriving to get themselves killed in 30 seconds and being given the "mission failed" message. I'm like "well, what the hell am I supposed to do about that?" :furious3: I remember one mission, being driven to a wood in a jeep. The 2 other guys in the jeep managed to get themselves killed straightaway by a Russian sniper. I then spent over an hour crawling through that wood, killed the ruskie, drove the jeep back to base and...

[MISSION FAILED

:furious3: :furious3: :furious3: :furious3:

The other one that stands out is one of the NHL series....02 or 03? I forget the numbers as the years blur into one. Anyway, 00 and 01 had been hugely popular, each one getting more realistic, so of course EA decided to bring out this horrid, terrible arcade piece of trash. You think Rome dumbed down the TW series? You guys ain't seen nothing compared to what EA did to the NHL series. About the only people who liked it were 5 year olds. The next year was just the same. Thankfully after 2 years of awfulness EA started listening to the fans again and the games got much better. I still play 06 all the time.

Kekvit Irae

03-29-2008, 15:49

OPF gets more interesting with the Resistance and Red Hammer expansion pack, especially with the ability to keep looted weapons from mission to mission (you carry around a truck and you load up captured weapons in it) in Resistance, and the inclusion of the G36 and the Steyr Aug rifles (weapons so deadly and accurate, it's only present in a few missions). This helps make the game easier. But OPF is touted as a realistic shooter. If you go in thinking it will be like Crysis, you're in for a shock.

TB666

03-30-2008, 02:43

Well OFP isn't the worst but it was pretty damn bad.
Always pissed me off the fact that you weren't allowed to continue the campaign if you had too low ratings. Codemaster did the same on pretty all of their racing games at the time(finish atleast 3rd or it's game over) and that is what OFP will always remind me off, a war racing game.

Mek Simmur al Ragaski

03-31-2008, 17:14

Im not sure i hate a game in general, but games based on films really bore me, your so limited, its like being chained up, you have to go a certain way, the harry potter 2nd and 3rd games were all right, but the rest were terrible, also that Narnia game, Pirates of the Carribean and the new Spiderwick game all look completely useless and rubbish. I prefur games like TES Oblivion, where you can do whatever you want

Kekvit Irae

03-31-2008, 20:16

Pirates of the Carribean

Like RTW, vanilla PotC is bad, but there are many mods out there that turn it into a bag full of awesome and win. The same can be said for many games like Neverwinter Nights 2. Once you pop on a user-made AI mod, it becomes your new heroin.

Trivia: PotC was originally made as a pirate game with no affiliation with the movie. When the original movie came out, the developers jumped on the brand name bandwagon, slapped on the Disney logo and the Pirates of the Caribbean name, and rushed it out without any regards to fixing gameplay issues or such.

And don't even get me started on Pirates of the Caribbean Online. Free game? Yeah, it's free to play. But so is the Call of Duty 4 demo. And you'll get a LOT more fun and functionality out of the CoD4 demo than you will with the "free" version of PotCO. And that's what it is; a demo. You need to pay to upgrade to the full version. If I am going to pay for an online game, I'd rather play Pirates of the Burning Seas, which is WORLDS better than PotCO.