The 5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

2014 was set to be a year of fantastic, next gen games to celebrate the release of the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 and whilst there are plenty of new additions that are worth wasting your weekends on, there are plenty that failed to live up to expectations. In this countdown of the 5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 so far I spell out the drawbacks, point out the restrictions and remind us all that with big budgets and fantastic advertising there's still plenty of opportunity for hyped up games to fall short of their target. Consider these 5 short reviews, released individually, of some of the biggest games to hit in 2014 that simply weren't as good as everyone was expecting them to be. Below you can access all of them on their separate pages by clicking their link, these parts here are only a small extract and you'll find the main rant on their individual pages.

#5: Destiny  

Whilst Destiny is by no means a terrible game it still did not manage to live up to the expectations that players expected of a game with a $500M budget and the most prolific video game advertising of the year. As the release date snuck closer and closer everybody descended into a full scale, frenzied hype that this was the game that would define a next gen console and, when it was released, you could almost hear the sighs of disillusionment sweep across the country. I was expecting a game that was something a lot deeper and more fulfilling than Destiny turned out to be and, even with its non-existent storyline, you would expect its actual gameplay features to be well thought out... Read more

#4: Elder Scrolls Online 

This game was a knife to my heart though admittedly I would probably still go on to buy it on console when it comes out since there are supposedly going to be several changes to improve it. As a lover of Elder Scrolls and a ‘frequent flyer’ when it comes to MMOs I eagerly anticipated the return to Tamriel and, although I enjoyed myself to some degree, the game was disappointing. It was perhaps naively optimistic to hope that the joining of a famously single player game with some multiplayer aspects would result in something beautiful but instead the two parts clash constantly... Read more.

#3: The Sims 4 

To begin with, 'The Sims 4' has an extremely tiny world map that is ugly, unrealistic and uncharacteristically limited for a modern-gen Sims game. For instance, you can only visit one small section at a time that consists of roughly 5 lots and where the rest of what you see are all decorative areas, often with rather flat graphics when you go too far out, and none of which you can visit from this location. To visit other buildings such as next door you must go through a loading screen which is unusual, considering the size and scale of the 'Sims 3' neighbourhoods that were utterly seamless and without a single loading screen. Even stranger, in the Sims 4 the Sims no longer progress but simply age; a strange mixture of the previous two games resulting in a map of dead Sims that never did anything with their lives, I could reflect on the realism of that but it’s probably best I don’t... Read more.

#2: Thief 

In the end, 'Thief' turned out to be a watered down clone of 'Dishonoured' that insulted fans of the original series and bored those new to the game. I’m of the latter group; I never played the original Thief but knew of it and knew how much beloved it was but, without playing it, I can only talk about this 2014 revamp from my direct experience. To begin with, it doesn’t feel particularly up to date as everything is extremely linear and limited whilst I was expecting a more fluid, open world environment with some minor limitations. Worse still, the environments you’re limited to are extremely bland with hardly anything to interact with and without much room for experimentation leaving you very little point in trying to be creative about the way in which you go about things... Read more.

 
#1: Watch Dogs

So, did it live up to the hype? Unsurprisingly, no. In typical modern AAA game fashion it was little more than a huge wave of anticipation followed by the sound of lots of games clicking into consoles, boot screens, updates, some silence as players had a little whirl in their new playground followed by a gradual feeling of, 'well this is a mediocre experience' coupled with an intense desire to find something positive to defend their pre-ordering decision. Why is this? So many reasons, none of which make this a bad game (I cannot stress that enough for these posts) but plenty of which make it a disappointing game... Read more. 

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #1: Watch Dogs

Watching the release trailer for ‘Watch Dogs’ was exciting, I had remembered its reveal at E3 2012 and that futuristic characterization of Chicago looked and sounded stunning, imaginative, game changing. As the release date crept closer the hype didn't die down; it intensified and I too was excited, I was expecting something along the lines of 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' I guess but with a bit more 'Grand Theft Auto' thrown in for good measure. There was to be an open world; that part was important. Open world settings all the rage right now and if your game lacks one then prepare for criticism as its such a commonplace practice now in this genre of games that there's simply no reason not to. The hacking spin was, of course, extremely important as well as there's simply not enough good quality, intelligent futuristic games out there on the market right now so 'Watch Dogs' proved to be a valuable addition to the genre. So, did it live up to the hype? Unsurprisingly, no. In typical modern AAA game fashion it was little more than a huge wave of anticipation followed by the sound of lots of games clicking into consoles, boot screens, updates, some silence as players had a little whirl in their new playground followed by a gradual feeling of, 'well this is a mediocre experience' coupled with an intense desire to find something positive to defend their pre-ordering decision. Why is this? So many reasons, none of which make this a bad game (I cannot stress that enough for these posts) but plenty of which make it a disappointing game.

#1 Watch Dogs

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Genre: Action/Adventure 
Release date: 27th May 2014
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB: M - Mature

So after all that disk tray clicking and riding the hype train for two solid years what I ended up getting was something that looked pretty, though unworthy of a 'next gen' console, but which was weighed down by a predictable storyline, bland characters and a half-assed attempt at integrating hacking into a traditional action game. You play as Aiden Pearce, who turns out to be the most boring character ever to be conceived, who is doing all of this illegal stuff as a revenge mission because his niece was killed and sister kidnapped. In terms of storyline, that’s about it. It’s all extremely generic and clichéd and despite the rather disasterous situation poor Aiden's been put in somehow remains  completely unemotional. Perhaps it's the diabolical awful voice acting that's most noticeable in Aiden as his droning, stereotypically hoarse 'tough-guy' voice is simply a chore to listen to and does very little to offer him any character or emotional development. 

Voice acting aside, Aiden himself is a relatively poor protagonist and whilst I'm not getting into the debate of 'he's like Batman because he's on a revenge mission and is a criminal to stop criminals, and has a hoarse voice' I will point out that he has no redeeming qualities. He's an incredibly inconsistent character and never owns up to or accepts the terrible things he's actually doing to people resulting in a you having to play as someone who is formally known as a 'dickhead'. Whilst I accept that sandbox games tend to leave moral choices to the player this is no 'Skyrim' or 'Dragon Age' type game; Aiden Pearce is a character already conceived with scripted sequences and set choices, he has a backstory, sort of, a motive for his actions, in a sense, and a personality, if you can call it that. Games like Uncharted dealt with the moral inconsistency in a pretty simple way; they ignored the rising kill count and just gunned on with the storyline as though you'd never mowed down those hundreds of innocents. I don't like that, but you know, fair enough, you can't control a player's actions. Some games like 'GTA' and 'Saints Row' just let you loose on the world and don't apologize for how much of a sociopath you are; that's also fair enough, they leash those psychotic actions in and make them their own and that's kind of what I wanted 'Watch Dogs' to do, but it didn't; it copped out of it. So whilst you're running around as a vigilante, becoming more of a mass murdering monster hacker rather than a force for good, the game spends the rest of its time playing catch up and trying to account for why you're doing all these things. If I was supposed to pity Aiden for bad things happening around him, I didn't. He's pretty much impossible to love and even though his actions often turn out justified you only tend to find that out after you've already killed someone making it conveniently ok now. Well, that's not good enough really, nobody goes around just murdering people based on hearsay and scant details, nobody except Aiden and, for a vigilante, that makes him a pretty unprofessional one. Worse still, the guy doesn't even enjoy himself when he was doing all of these bad things so you can't pass him off as a regular video game sociopath and, whilst he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't hate it either. When I said Aiden Pearce was the most boring video character I meant it; he has no personality, not even a negative one, there's just nothing going on in that little head of his except a serious revenge plot that never comes up for a breather.

That's another thing; this is a serious, serious game. So serious it's boring and whilst I understand it's a serious topic with serious consequences and serious things going on... there's a reason why, in the 'Assassins Creed' series, nobody liked Altair and everybody loved Ezio; he had a goddamned personality and a sense of humour to boot. I'm going to leave Aiden alone for a bit because he's had enough stick from me and instead I'll focus on the 'glued together with string and cheap sellotape' storyline. 'Watch Dogs' is a game that takes itself too seriously and the very least I was expecting from it was some substance that justified the setting and premise the developers had been cawing about this whole time, but no. Maybe I was being naive or expecting too much but I was genuinely looking forward to a game that grabbed an extremely important political issue by the horns and tackled it in a way that was well written, well thought out and well researched. Mass surveillance and living inside a society that is terrified of being observed, especially with the frequency of hacking scares and institutes like Anonymous should have been enough fodder for a fantastic and insightful game. If you want it to be an action/adventure game with a shit tonne of shooting and driving then fine, that's ok, you can have you fun with it but remember what makes a game memorable and stand apart from the competition. If you're having trouble remembering I'll give you a hint; it's not six shirts all layered on top of one another,  and constantly being on your mobile phone, even in the presence of friends and family. 

Watch Dogs never quite gets to where its going, it has a good idea but the writing is terribly weak and unfounded in reality, its one of those games where it's really fun as long as you're not looking for anything with meaning or personality. There are plenty of minor irritants in the game such as a lack of jumping, no, really and the inability to shoot whilst in a vehicle, although considering how difficult it is to effectively drive what feels like a metal skip on roads covered in black ice it probably would be impossible to shoot and drive at the same time anyway. Strangely, you also cannot attack pedestrians with melee attacks except a scripted animation of a takedown where you tackle someone, this would be reasonable if you couldn’t due this due to a ‘don’t beat up innocents’ rule but you can shoot them to death and with almost no consequence as police presence is extremely limited. Strangely, the police AI is also something to be wary of as they'll always turn up with a shoot to kill mentality and will never attempt to arrest you and, if you happen to see a civilian commit a crime, they'll never bother attempting to do anything about it. Frustratingly, whilst the police have absolutely no way of entering the water they do have the ability to locate you even when you're neatly tucked away behind several walls in what was, presumably, an impenetrable hiding fortress. 

Now, whilst the game is by no means short it may as well be because after a few hours you’ll have seen everything there is to be seen in terms of gameplay and missions. As if that's not bad enough there are no more skills to utilize and you're left to trek diligently onwards through a deplorable storyline as you're left with very little reason to continue playing unless you're a completionist. What this necessarily results in is a game which is extremely easy as, having unlocked all of your potential abilities, you’re now incredibly overpowered and fighting against easy enemies for the rest of the game. In order to upgrade your equipment you must procure yourself some money but that too is extremely simplistic as you can hack approximately 25% of all NPCs and quickly acquire masses of wealth with nothing to spend it on. Similarly, whilst I was expecting a glorious, sprawling open world of future day Chicago where I could go anywhere, do anything, hack everyone, what I was left with were very few and limited opportunities to actually be the magnificent hacker I supposedly was and whilst the city is certainly an open world experience, it’s not a very interesting one due to the lack of interaction. 

Watch Dogs is essentially only successful because it's a laugh. There's not much depth to it, the side missions are extremely irritating and repetitive though are essential for leveling up so you just kind of have to put up with it. There are some pretty annoying mini-games that are surprisingly frequent but tolerable but overall the game is lacking in personality, originality and intelligence. It feels as though 'Watch Dogs' has picked up loads of gameplay elements from a lot of other games, mashed them all together in a new setting, put in some awful driving mechanics and thrown in a lazy explanation for why you're on a hell sent vengeance mission where you can do whatever the hell you want. On a positive note, the game is sort of fun if you can get beyond all of its negative points and if you enjoy messing about and don't care about the substance behind it all then it's a good game for that purpose. But for a game that’s supposedly digging at the political issue of living in a surveillance state it comes across from the point of view of a child who only understands it as a way of reading bits of information about people and stealing their money. All in all, the writers appeared to have either played safe to the point of boring or they cobbled together something at the last minute and given this game was announced two years ago and was pushed back a further 6/7 months that seems fairly unlikely. What this game boils down to is your usual sub-standard action game that's all bark and no bite; nothing really grabbed me, nothing made it stand out and whilst I would play it if I was really tired and just wanted to dick about for a bit I would never sit down, engage with it, and love it to the end. It's just not that good of a game. 

The Good:

• Some fun gameplay elements
• Nice setting; futuristic Chicago is very cool
• The open world setting is good, though didn't take advantage of its setting
• Graphics are decent, could have been better for PS4/Xbox One though
• Nice mission variety
• Good stealth elements
• Understated but effective skill tree
• Very good animations
• Fantastic soundtrack
• Enemy randomization offers up new experiences

The Bad:

• Aiden Pearce
• Money is far too easy to obtain and becomes meaningless
• The driving is awful, unable to shoot from a vehicle
• No storyline, diaboloical writing, flimsy
• Terrible voice acting
• Side missions are irritating
• The game is both far too serious yet unintelligent
• Morality is ignored then scraped back to no avail
• The hacking is quite tedious and not very dynamic
• Police AI is irrational
• Gunplay overshadows the hacking aspects
• Dodgy checkpoints, a lot of mission restarts, lots of insta-fail missions.

The Score: 7/10

Final thoughts: "It's surprisingly average for an action game but seems to think it's better than it is, that's probably the advertising budget right there. Aiden is a chore to work with, I have never hated a character as much as this guy, apart from that guy from Soul Suspect... Simply, this feels like a game that any developer could make, change a few elements and re-release it as the next big thing. Sadly, this game just doesn't impact on me in the slightest."

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

• #5: Destiny 
• #4: Elder Scrolls Online 
• #3: The Sims 4 
• #2: Thief 
• #1: Watch Dogs

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far) - #3: The Sims 4

Up next in my list of the disappointing games of 2014 (so far) is 'The Sims 4'; a game that was quite simply a step back in the much beloved series of life simulation games. Players have been dissatisfied with the conduct of EA for quite a while and the release of SimCity 2013 did nothing to quench that, Sims 4 was due to be EAs next big thing but, sadly, cracks were already starting to appear as more and more details about the game were leaked. 

Fans were furious at the lack of toddlers, dishwashers and swimming pools, a fair enough complaint, though they’d probably have been released as an expansion pack that's still beside the point as they're all revenue chasing scoundrels etc. etc. But, ultimately, I would have gotten over it if the rest of the game was fantastic. However, it's not, and there are problems that destroy what made 'The Sims' such a fantastic series of games and which consequentially renders the game unplayable for someone like myself.

#3: The Sims 4

Developer: EA Maxis and The Sims Studio
Genre: Simulation
Release date: September 4/5th 2014

Platforms: Microsoft Windows
ESRB: T - Teen



To begin with, 'The Sims 4' has an extremely tiny world map that is ugly, unrealistic and uncharacteristically limited for a modern-gen Sims game. For instance, you can only visit one small section at a time that consists of roughly 5 lots and where the rest of what you see are all decorative areas, often with rather flat graphics when you go too far out, and none of which you can visit from this location. To visit other buildings such as next door you must go through a loading screen which is unusual, considering the size and scale of the 'Sims 3' neighbourhoods that were utterly seamless and without a single loading screen. Even stranger, in the Sims 4 the Sims no longer progress but simply age; a strange mixture of the previous two games resulting in a map of dead Sims that never did anything with their lives, I could reflect on the realism of that but it’s probably best I don’t.

Whilst I disliked the constant evolving world of the Sims 3 as it allowed me little to no control over my entire neighbourhood, this is not what I wanted. What is the point in allowing time to progress for aging only? For some reason the dynamic story progression has been stripped and yet the micro-management style Sims 2 neighbourhoods are a no-go here either since everybody would be dead by the time you go to play them. For those attempting to play a thriving neighbourhood of individual personalities and complex relationships; that’s not going to happen, for those who enjoy an almost obsessive system of creating perfect Sims and perfect houses… you too will be disappointed. 

Whilst the designing of houses is ever so slightly superior to the Sims 3 and a few new additions have been slapped in like picking a whole room up and plopping it somewhere else, everything else is basically the same, but with a lot less objects and a limit of just 3 floors. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the build mode and it looks like it’s been refreshed for the new game but that’s kind of it really, things which I used to enjoy have been removed like terrain tools and the infamous ‘create-a-style’ feature which I fell in love with after I finally got used to it. The major problem lies with a lack of choice in objects and everything tends to feel extremely bare and a bit boxy due to the new furniture styles that make me feel as though I'm playing in a plastic dollhouse.Your options when creating a sim are limited as well with significantly less clothing and hair options to previous base games and whilst the intuitive click and drag style of designing the shape of your Sims features is a fantastic edition there exists gaping hole where so many features have been removed. Features such as body hair, favourite food/music/colour, multi-toned hair, skin sliders, zodiac signs and a few others have been taken out of the game for which is a blow for those who enjoyed that added level of personalization.

The Sims 4 is not a 'bad game' by a long shot and for those who are first coming into the series it will seem fantastic as the Sims series has always been at the front of life simulation games. However, for long standing fans of the series it will feel as though the game has been severely crippled with the game not taking advantage of more than 4GB of RAM and with dozens and dozens of removed features. I truly wanted to love this game as there are some fantastic additions such as multi-tasking, moods and an overall re-vamped apperance of the Sims themselves. Whilst there are plenty of good aspects it’s overall lesser quality results in a game that's been needlessly stripped back, emptied of content and severely simplified. As usual, I guess we'll have to wait for a dozen or so expansion packs to render this game playable yet with unavoidable problems like an excessive number of loading screens and extremely tiny maps I know that for many this is simply not good enough.

The Good:

• New UI is less invasive and nicely toned down
• The Sims themselves look brilliant, flawlessly animated, very emotional.
• If you enjoy the style, the graphics look amazing
• Sims are more intelligent with a lot more personality
• Build Mode is somewhat improved
• Less juggling of motives
• Charming in places
• Some interesting and quirky bits of content

The Bad:

• No Create-a-style
• An excessive number of loading screens for every little detail
• Sims just disappear whenever they leave the house to go to work.
• A lack of content in buy mode.
• Unrealistic, small world map.
• Create-A-Sim has a lot less options such as clothing/hair/extras
• A very limited and restricted world that feels empty constantly
• Anti-climatic life events that have very little effect on your Sim
• These 89 removed features

The Score: 6/10

Final Thoughts: "As many have said, this feels a lot like Sims 2.5 and whilst I prefer a lack of story progression I don't see the point in restricting playable areas to just 5 or 6 lots. I used to enjoy Sims for the creativity and perfectionism it allowed me but now there's very little opportunity to create my perfect world."  

5 Most Disappointing Games of 2014 (So far)

• #5: Destiny 
• #4: Elder Scrolls Online 
• #3: The Sims 4 
• #2: Thief 
• #1: Watch Dogs