Without getting to deep into it video game players are gullible. They’re told repeatedly by people trying to sell them something that new game by hot developer will be the greatest thing ever. That Big Name Game 3 will be even greater than Big Name Game 2. The gamers buy the story hook line and sinker and for months before the game is released will breathlessly proclaim the upcoming game’s glory. And roughly 95% of the time they’re wrong. Sometimes the result is still a good game, it just doesn’t cure leprosy but other times it’s a complete train wreck that not even the most in denial of gamers can ignore.
So what upcoming games do you think will be the biggest disappointment?
It seems to me that Grand Theft Auto 4 may be going that way. The previous GTA games didn’t have a lot of competition but by the time San Andreas came along there were plenty of people copying their formula and the flaws in San Andreas were starting to come through. I think GTA4 is going to just toss out more of the same and the formula has been played out and the result is going to be disappointment.
GTA4 will run very well with me, since I live in the area that they based it off of, and the gameplay for all the GTA games have always been the same, but the game has replay value.
Heck yeah. I can see how Sims is a great game, since you get to control what happens in individuals’ lives, but creating an entire planet of odd species isn’t…the same. Spore sounds like it’d appeal to sci-fi lovers, but will also disappoint.
I fear spore, especially since they had to cut things like the entire aquatic stage (you go from a cell to a slug to some land dweller, can’t even be a fish). Don’t get me wrong my overactive imagination will make me love this game, it’s just I feel we’ll be missing a lot.
Also… this is Maxis, by a year after Spore releases…
Spore: Underwater expansion!
Spore: Air expansion!
Spore: Underground expansion!
Spore: Uebermensch expansion!
I believe Saints Row and The Godfather are held up as the best games in the “GTA” genre that aren’t actual GTA games.
And I have to take issue with the first paragraph of the OP:
This is just not true at all. I think it’s actually very rare for a game that is hyped up as something great turns out to be complete crap (Lair being the most obvious and recent example).
Is there a problem with hype in the video game industry? Absolutely. But the games that are considered big in their pre-release stage almost always turn out to be good games when they are released.
Personally, I think the idea that every “great game” has to be life-changing and innovative and be the second coming in ways that would make Jesus blush is a crock. A good game is a good game and if there’s room in the movie world for decent little, workman-like movies like Red Eye, there’s room for the same in video games.
Starcraft 2 isn’t even going to come close to living up to its hype. Blizzard is just another game company now, like any other. Like Bungee, they sold their soul to a mega game corporation and descended into mediocrity. They haven’t really developed a game since they sold the company, but the expansions and patches we’ve seen for WoW have all been a whole lot of “more of the same”, which makes sense from the point of view of someone making a billion dollars, but not from the point of view of an artist.
I agree with the Spore hype comments, too. It sounds an awful lot like the same kind of marketting used for Fable, which turned out to be barely mediocre. Developers might have grand plans for their games, but as soon as they start cutting content you know that their vision has been compromised.
I’m actually not very excited about anything coming out in the near future. Call me cynical, but when the FIFTH installation of a series (civilization) is the only thing that can make me want to spend money on a video game, I think either I’ve gotten to old for this stuff, or game quality has gone down.
I don’t think Lionhead was really at fault for Fable’s core design as much as they were at fault for failing to make Peter Molyneux shut the hell up: it was an adequate and relatively amusing action RPG, whose marketing was tainted by the fact that one of its developers got way, way too excited when talking to the press core.
When it comes to Spore, the two big selling points, at least for me, are the ability to (allegedly) edit or create the vast majority of game content and the fact that most of the game is procedurally generated and, as a result, largely nonlinear. I could see them screwing up the former by overstating the degree of customization possible, but the procedural universe seems to be such a fundamental (and easily engineerable) aspect of gameplay that I really can’t see how Maxis could overhype it.
That isn’t to say that I’m claiming it’ll be anywhere near flawless, of course: Maxis games, especially the Sims series, tend to be optimized really poorly, and even though Spore is supposedly being designed with efficiency in mind I could see it absolutely slaying a lot of systems. I think the decision to switch from a pseudo-realistic look to a cartoony look was extremely disappointing, if understandable given their technical constraints, and I think that there’s a real danger of tainting the entire experience by failing to include enough depth in each of the stages of gameplay. However, most of the marketing that I’ve seen has focused on the procedural content distribution engine that’s supposed to play a chief role in fueling replayability, and I’m confident that they’ll be able to pull that off.
I don’t think that’s always true though: developers almost always end up cutting content for a variety of reasons, and Wright went on records years before talk of removing sections from Spore to say that only about 10% of the stuff that he and his team come up with ends up going into the final product, and that the big challenge for him was figuring out exactly what to keep and what to drop. I’m disappointed that the developers removed the water section, but it helps to remember that the only reference to that section was from a demonstration video released at the 2005 GDC, when the game was far from being completed.
Personally, I think that 3D Realms should just give up on Duke Nukem Forever on the theory that it’s been overdue for a decade now and people expect so much it’s going to be impossible not to be disappointed by it.
To quote Computer Game Designer/Reviewer Ben Croshaw:
It seems to me that the games with the vaguest hype have the biggest likelihood to disappoint. So I’ll nominate Spore and LittleBigPlanet. If previews are think on paradigms/emotional development/procedural generation/global communities and thin on gameplay mechanics (you know… what actually happens when you sit down in front of the television with a controller in your hand), that’s a red flag.
Probably WiiWare in general, given the limited storage that the system offers and Nintendo’s extra-fussy regulations about their content. I imagine flash-quality games at best for the most part.
I’ll also add Fable 2, as Molyneux seems to be trotting out all of the claims that he made for Fable (but were stripped from the game before it made it to shelves) once again.
I do have to disagree about GTAIV, though; In my opinion, the reason for the success of the GTA games is how ridiculously immersive the sandbox world of the game is. San Andreas offered many great tweaks and still has not been matched by any GTA clone that’s followed in pure “living world” immersion. While games like Crackdown and Saints Row are fun action games, they don’t come close to scratching the whole involving “living world” feeling of even last generation’s GTA games. And considering that Rockstar has continually talked about focusing majorly on improving all of the elements that contribute to that effect with IV, I imagine it’ll raise the bar even higher once again.
I guess I just mean Nintendo’s ultra-protectionist mentality when it comes to stuff like friend codes, console codes, etc. will most likely carry over to the whole WiiWare experience. I imagine them being ultra-selective with what they allow to be published.
I actually don’t think it’ll work that way. A lot of developers have already praised Nintendo for how easy WiiWare is to develop. Of course they’ll have Friend Codes, but that has nothing to do with content restrictions, which again, Nintendo has not had since the early 90s.
People always seem to forget that BMX XXX was uncensored on the GameCube and censored on the “more mature” PS2.
GTA4 will not disappoint because it will deliver exactly what is expected - the classic GTA sandbox formula, except with better graphics in a New York City environment.
Starcraft 2 might be a bit disappointing because how many freakin RTS games have their been since Starcraft 1? Then again, I never played Starcraft.
After nearly being the most overhyped vaporware, I believe Spore will be the most overhyped disappointment.
Spore has been marketed as a sort of Sim Everything. Basically a combination of Simcity, Black&White, Civilization, Populous and Masters of Orion. It looks like a watered down version of all these games without the depth of any of them. The problem is I think they spent all their time making their editors so you can invent these retarded looking monstrosities but the actual game play is a bit weak and simplistic. You can’t create sprawling cities of Jackelopes. The cities are like Epcot pavilions. You can’t create massive armies. There isn’t the depth of Civilization. There are no space fleets, just you touring around tormenting other planets.
I’ll probably get the game anyway, but I wonder how fun it will actually be after I create my abominations.
