Well I guess if I have to look back at everything I played for the most part it was a giant collection of failed MMO's (what a terrible year for MMO's) and a ton of first person shooters.Other than that most games were total shit.
I am not going to go into great detail about each title but I will list a few:
Biggest Let Down: Champions Online. What a piece of dreck. The best fun was watching all the idiots that dropped a ton of cash for lifetime and 6 month subs to get this game. Told you from the beta it sucked. And now Star Trek Online will follow suit. I took a punch to the balls on this one after the shit title that is Warhammer Online kicked me in the stomach. I predict more free to play garbage from these two titles this year as their player base shrinks.
Worst RTS I played for about 2 hours: Universe at War: Earth Assault. This game had me assaulting my recycling bin within a few hours. I even was loaned this title to play it. Price tag in the Target bargain bin: $5.99. Not even worth it.
Best RTS I played: I relived Company of Heroes a TON and also Dawn of War 2. Yeah I know CoH is not 2009 but this is a list of what I played so deal with it
Biggest Hyped Game I cannot Finish: Fallout 3. Everytime I go to play I cannot get into it. I feel like I should be playing an online game where this stuff counts and is saved.
RPG I was done with without even really trying: Dragon Age: Origins. I just couldn't get into this one. I don't know what it is. Maybe too much chit chat or the way it feels like the entire game was created by scenario designers on the forum I don't know. But by level 3 I was bored and moving on to Torchlight.
Best Console Game I played: I shut my XBOX360 down due to lack of fun, but I did have a blast in Red Faction: Guerilla
Best Console Game I played on the PC instead of a shitty console: Red Faction: Guerilla and good old Mass Effect 1
Biggest MMO Surprises: Fallen Earth, Runes of Magic expansions and the suprisingly good Allods Online gameplay. Would I play any free to play MMO as my main. Nah. But still they were worthy of hard drive space for at least a week. Fallen Earth is not F2P but as a niche title it is doing well and dispenses with the usual cliches.
Favorite First Person Shooter: Borderlands. I hate the multi player, it sucks ass and Gamespy can die in a fire. However the single player game is addictive as hell and environment is cool and unique with awesome characters and emotes.
Grindiest EMO MMO I tried: Aion. Holy shit the goth teenagers prayers were answered with this one. I lasted until...level 10.
Biggest First Person Shooter Let Down: Deadspace. Got it cheap, but hate the controls and the gameplay. Not a big fan so glad I did not pay full price. Not better than Doom 3.
Best Wargame I Played: Birth of America 2 and Napoleons Campaigns (TIE, same creator). Also a nod out to Field of Glory by Slitherine which I picked up near the VERY END of the year. AGEOD keeps making awesome games but now they have been bought by Paradox so that is probably the end of that.
Worst Wargame I played: Europa Universalis 3. No thanks. Paradox keeps releasing buggy over inflated games that last about 1 hour on my hard drive. Blech. This is really a strategy game, but I simply cannot stand the combat, the real time crap they try to force on it and the overall interface.
Biggest Wargame Letdown: Empire Total War. I don't know what it is but past the oooh and ahhh factor the game has no staying power with me. This was my last attempt in the series. I am done. The ship combat was cool though.
Best MMO: Do I need to type this. It continues to be World of Warcraft and their LFG Dungeon Finder system was a better release than many so called "Triple A" MMO titles.
Biggest Gaming Letdown: My entire XBOX360 console, from the rip off that is XBOX Live to the lack of titles I find even remotely interesting to play on my 52" HD TV. Back to the PC I go. I wish I had gotten a PS3.
Best game I keep reinstalling on Steam: TIE. Call of Duty World at War and any Left 4 Dead title. Nothing beats the total destruction, violence and gritty realism of these titles.
Award for dumbest trend that people fall for: Pre ordering shitty MMO's that people don't even try out before they drop 60-70 dollars on them. When will you people learn to stop supporting this garbage.
Coolest Movie I Saw that was not a huge blockbuster: The Road with Viggo Mortensen
Worst movie I saw in the theater: The Stepfather. And yes I even saw Obsessed with Beyonce. Stepfather was THAT bad.
Best WoW Podcast: Blue Plz with Total Biscuit. Preach the truth and do not stop.
Worst WoW Podcast: I don't really have a worst one, except for WoW podcasts that do not TALK ABOUT WOW. Look I realize it gets slow, but don't tease us with crappy show notes. Some shows are annoying and I guess the one that I unsubscribed to was Casually Hardcore. I just didn't click with that one. I need to go back and see if it has changed.
Predictions? I don't really have any this year. Not much to say that isn't obvious. I will enjoy seeing the majority of bloggers getting ripped off again by another Cryptic title as they post about it for around 3 weeks then forget about Star Trek Online. I look forward to more expansions for shooters and RTS games coming out and probably a bunch of really shitty MMO's taking a dirt nap and going away for good.
First - STO, not gonna do it. You know my prediction of Sci-Fi MMO's. If it ain't EVE, it ain't gonna do well.
ReplyDeleteAs to your "Biggest First Person Shooter Let Down" = Deadspace.
Uh...NOT an FPS...lol.
Horror Survival dude. Thus, if you do NOT like Horror Survival, with puzzles, and slow mod action (yet, Deadpsace actually was much faster than most Survival titles), then no wonder it failed for you. The RPG elements mixed with the standard Resident Evil style of gameplay really paid off. I played it twice. Too bad you slam it for doing something it was not suppose to do.
PS: Doom 3, different style of game, thus, two different viewpoints...I like both for their genre.
As to Aion, may be Emo, may be a grind, yet it also is a major success...talk about the insanity. My wife played 20 minutes and refuses to ever touch it again. Falls into LOTRO territory for us.
Well, hope that 2010 works out better for ya. Cheers!!
Ok good point on Deadspace. I really couldn't categorize that one. I considered Doom 3 survival horror as well but I admit it lacked puzzles.
ReplyDeleteI played the Witcher more than Dragon Age, thanks for that suggestion
Oh yea...never thought to mention Dragon age...oh yea, because it just does not feel worth mentioning.
ReplyDeleteI tried to like it, and it felt fun at first, but eventually the dialogs is what kills it. Too chatty and dragging me through a miasma of text is not my idea of fun.
Witcher really has some charm...so does Divinity 2, bugs and all. Div 2 was worth my time, as it is fun to play, and that is what counts.
Cheers
Great list, OE pointed out Deadspace not being an fps, but otherwise good job.
ReplyDelete"their LFG Dungeon Finder system was a better release than many so called “Triple A” MMO titles."
ReplyDeleteThis was the final nail in the WoW coffin for me. I played WoW since before beta, on Mal'Ganis, which was the first high pop PvP server. Those times were great. The world was busy and populated, world PvP was fun and easy to find. You knew EVERYONE. Queue for a BG and you fought with and against people you knew, did an instance and it was the same. The server community was important and dynamic. Rivalries and alliances were created. You entered Warsong Gulch, looked across the field, saw who you were up against and knew right then how tough the fight was going to be. You hunted for certain people in the battlegrounds. It was fun.
Now, everything is cross-server. You have no idea who that person is across the field from you, because he is on some other server. Rivalries are few and far between. Now with the cross-server LFG it is even worse. It is like a series of one night stands, fun for a short time but it can all seem so impersonal.
In addition, because of the fact you can now queue for an instance anywhere, no one runs around in the world anymore. They all sit in Dalaran, waiting for the infamous "pop". It is like the greater world has become a virtual chat room, while everyone sits around awaiting the queue to pop.
Frankly, it has killed the server communities and it sucks.
[...] Posted by brannagar in Uncategorized. trackback While doing my daily blog reading, I came across this post by Hudson of Angry Gamer. Now, I agree with most of what he has to say but one quote, in [...]
ReplyDeleteNice list and I'd have to agree with most of it specifically the Dragon Age bit, I'd advise you to attempt to finish Fallen Earth just to see how pathetic the ending is....... no really it is that bad.
ReplyDeleteAs for WoW being top dog, yeah I'd agree but the old beast is getting tiresome and badly needs Cataclysm asap. I personally had more fun in Fallen Earth but WoW will probably resurface for me when I get to roll worgen :)
Interesting summary of 2009! I have mixed feelings about Dragon Age, and I can tell you what killed you: They are by far talking too much, too much interactive movie. This gets better later on, but the game has definitely a problem that can severely impact my enjoyment by interrupting me all the time with too much voice acting and blabla in a cutscene. I hope they don't do this for SWTOR, this would be a desaster. But right now I quite like Dragon Age, the story has appeal, but also drawbacks as I mentioned.
ReplyDeleteFallout 3: Might be similar to DA:O, but it is much more open and has less lengthy dialogue, so you should give it another shot. :)
Regarding the Total War series: IMO they should have given Medieval 1 the siege features of Rome: Total War. Not even Medieval 2 was as good as the first Medieval, which had much better strategy and tactics. There were challenging fights, and setting up your army and different kinds of troops did matter.
Not so much more in Rome or Medieval 2, and EMPIRE: TOTAL LETDOWN improved the interface but all in all it was buggy, slow and unenjoyable. And the battles become even blander. The game engine just does not shine in the age of rifles, imo. It is most useful for the medieval period, and I personally think Medieval 1 and Rome marked the prime of the series, after that it went downhill and Empire is really lousy.
Very nice observations! I think you are right about Dragon Age. This is why the WORLD NEEDS DIABLO 3..
ReplyDelete