It’s been a pretty good year for gaming. While the negative amongst us (and I’m sure the title to this article drew that particular crowd in – hi guys!) will have us believe that gaming is going to hell on a speedboat, there has been many a grand moment and technology is driving us towards a better overall gaming experience. However, there have been a few hiccups along the way in 2011. From major franchises failing to either innovate or impress, to anticipated releases of hardware just not happening, is has been a trying year for some. We have conformed to the cliche that is a top ten list (or is it a bottom ten?) to vent our frustrations. Let’s begin.
10. Minecraft
We were expecting it sooner! OK, so it’s no Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 (which is why it’s so high up the list), but Minecraft is a great game if you’re looking to kill some time. When we heard that Minecraft was finally coming out of beta and that an XBLA release was on the cards we expected it to be a week or two after the “official” release of the game, instead we have to wait until spring 2012. D’oh!
9. Kinect Star Wars and the R2D2 style Xbox 360 console
Delayed! This one is a personal disappointment. I had been looking forward to Kinect Star Wars and the special edition console for a while, so to hear back in August that both would be delayed until 2012 at the earliest was a massive let down. Still, not long now… hopefully.
8. Homefront
While only a blip on the radar to some, many FPS fans had been monitoring Homefront throughout its development, in the hope that it would break the dominance of the Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises within the genre and shake things up a little. That was certainly not the case and Homefront fell flat. The brief campaign mode didn’t exactly help either.
7. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
Besides the fact that a clearly aged man still had the movement, flexibility and strength that he possessed when he was much, much younger, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations didn’t really offer us anything special. I look at this title as the middle child of the franchise. I’m hoping that next time round there will be a little more substance, because what we have seen so far is good but (like Ezio) it’s getting old.
6. Jurassic Park: The Game
For a start the title is misleading. The “game” is more of an interactive movie. It reminded me a lot of the early Final Fantasy games – plenty of dialog but not much action. Final Fantasy redeemed itself because it drew you into the storyline and your characters developed with you, Jurassic Park doesn’t have these features. You may ask why we expected anything different. Well, many, many moons ago Jurassic Park had a SNES game and it was a blast. Our expectations were based on a romantic memory from our childhood, instead of our experience as adults. We won’t make such mistakes again.
5. Dragon Age II
I loved Dragon Age so the thought of a sequel was almost too much to bear, especially when I heard that the first lady of gaming herself, Felicia Day, was onboard. Unfortunately it just didn’t work out. The game was a letdown in pretty much every sense. I can’t help but feel that BioWare crushed a potential behemoth of a franchise in its infancy and the only explanation I can think of is the possible devotion of too much in the way of resources being given to Star Wars: The Old Republic as opposed to this title. I could be massively off the mark here, but it seems very plausible to me at least.
4. Dead Island
What should have been a creative and compelling zombie bashing masterpiece turned out to be just a zombie bashing bore. Dead Island is beyond repetitive and about as interesting as changing a light bulb.
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
It has to be said. MW3 just didn’t deliver. We were all hoping for a piece of magic, something to reinstall faith in the franchise again. Oh well. There’s always next year, ‘ey?
2. Rage
The graphics were incredible, so when we saw the gameplay footage and looked at Rage’s developers’ (id Software, owned by Bethesda) and their previous titles (Fallout and Elder Scrolls) we sort of assumed that the actual gameplay and storyline of the Rage would be of a similar standard. Well, as they say, assumption is the mother of all screw ups.
1. Duke Nukem Forever
OK, so we lied way back up there at #6. We will make the same mistake again. We really, really wanted Duke Nukem Forever to be something great. Something that would reignite the franchise. It just didn’t happen and this has led to a lot of frowns at Xbox360Cheats HQ! I’d like to say maybe next time, but from what we’ve seen of Duke lately I honestly hope they just leave him be from here on.
PS: Hopefully this list will also help you decide what games not to ask for if you are the winner of our Xbox 360 Game Giveaway!
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I agree with the Star Wars Xbox 360 console, but not because it was delayed, only because of the price. For that price, I’d of expected 2 controllers and a 500GB HD. Never played Duke Nukem, but the demo was garbage. Battlefield 3 was too short, graphics was a mixed bag, worst in the series. Homefront was also rubbish. Dirt 3 was a mixed bag, the tracks are very short, a rushjob by Codemasters, nowhere near as good as the second one. I’d also include Forza 4 which only had 5 new tracks which I thought is the biggest skank of 2011.
Disagree wholeheartedly re BF3 and Forza 4!!! Have to agree on the Star Wars console price though, it is ridiculous and will only, I think, appeal to hardcore fans. Which is a shame, they are really screwing us on that one.
biggest let down..lack of exclusiv games. no reason to use xbox, when you can get a ps3
Riiiiight – you mean like Metal Gear Solid, Forza (the ultimate racer – Gran Tursimo whatt?), Gears of War. Biggest let down of PS3, overhyped games – the price!