The 10 Most Disappointing Games of 2008
By Chris Kohler December 12, 2008 | 6:23:00 PM Categories: Game|Life Awards 2008
You've read about some of our favorite games of the year. Now it's time for the disappointments.
The games below, chosen by the usual panel of Wired.com contributors, is in no way supposed to be a list of the worst games of 2008. Those are all for the Wii, cost $10, are about dogs and/or babies, and we wouldn't be caught dead playing them. No, these are the games that let us down the most this year. Most of them are actually good games. But they failed to live up to the hype, or didn't deliver on their promises. Perhaps we were just left wanting more. Either way, here are our Most Disappointing Games of the year.
10. Age of Conan (PC)
MMO fans tired of World of Warcraft had high hopes for this so-called WoW-killer. So it's too bad that its developer vastly overestimated its own capabilities. Though Conan had great ideas, like the innovative combat system, Funcom shipped the game months before it had ironed out the most glaring bugs or added enough content. Devotees who had spent months poring over every screenshot and snippet of information prior to release found the resulting product to be an utter mess. — Earnest Cavalli
9. Tom Clancy's EndWar (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC)
At demos and hands-on preview events, this looked like the most accessible and innovative real-time strategy game in years, one that could help the genre find a new audience on consoles. We loved the stripped-down interface, the nonstop action and the voice recognition system that let you bark orders into your headset and watch your troops respond instantly. The voice input system was near-flawless, but EndWar was plagued with the same age-old problems: balance issues, spotty AI, janky pathfinding and a weak single-player experience. Ironically, Civilization Revolution, a console strategy game that didn't set out to reinvent the wheel, ended up making a much bigger splash. — Chris Baker
8. Too Human (Xbox 360)
No game in 2008 had as much negative word-of-mouth as Silicon Knights' action RPG. On release, it neither owned the haters nor made prophets of the believers: Too Human turned out to be a flawed but enjoyable experience. The most disappointing part about it, though, was that it was over so soon. Perhaps designing a game as a trilogy isn't the best idea, when it means splitting a storyline into three parts and ending the first the very moment that the plot actually becomes interesting. — Chris Kohler
7. Stalker: Clear Sky (PC)
They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when we saw the trailers for Stalker: Clear Sky, we couldn't help but get excited about the haunting atmosphere, gorgeous visuals and the promise of improved AI. The finished product was quite pretty to look at, but suffered from a number of flaws that made sitting down and playing a chore. The first Stalker was interesting because you had to explore the world on your own, but Clear Sky's all-knowing GPS gadget killed that. And it was filled with even more bugs than the original — which kind of makes sense, since it's a prequel. — Nate Ralph
6. Mirror's Edge (Xbox 360, PS3)
For pure exhilaration, very few games in 2008 compared to the first-person parkour play mechanics of Mirror's Edge. Unfortunately, the same thing can be said about pure frustration. The shallow, unnecessary combat and obtuse level design meant that you died over and over (and over and over) again. DICE has created what could be a promising new genre, and we can't wait to play the expansion pack and inevitable sequel. But it would be irresponsible to celebrate their achievement without mentioning the glaring missteps that marred what otherwise would have been a contender for our Top 10 list. — Chris Baker
5. Dead Space (Xbox 360, PS3)
A gorgeous, seamless interface? "Strategic dismemberment"? Survival horror in space that (sort of) doesn't involve zombies? And a fantastic story penned with help from the esteemed Warren Ellis? Dead Space seemed like a guaranteed thrill ride. Alas, we've already seen Aliens, and played Doom, so it was more of a second go-round. The whack-a-mole combat is only barely propped up by a gimmick where leg-shots are the new headshots. The boss fights are inane and repetitive. And for the record, dimming the lights and slapping up bloody, gory wallpaper doesn't automatically make a game scary. — Nate Ralph
4. Prince of Persia (Xbox 360, PS3)
The Sands of Time was a masterpiece that ranks among the best videogames of the last decade, but its sequels were not. In some ways, this reboot got the acrobatic action series back on track: The graphics, music, and story are pitch-perfect. But the gameplay has been simplified and streamlined to the point that not only are players never challenged, they are rarely tasked with doing anything other than tapping a predetermined series of buttons to watch canned animations play out. What's even more disappointing is that so many gamers are unquestioningly lapping up this ample serving of style over substance; here's hoping the inevitable sequel is more balanced. — Chris Kohler
3. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
When Nintendo revealed Wii, it was widely touted as nothing short of a revolution in the way we would experience games. True to form, Zelda: Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy were both excellent updates that made good use of Wii's new features. But when it came time to take its go-kart racing game for another spin, Nintendo crashed into a tree. Not only does Mario Kart Wii completely fail to innovate in any meaningful way over earlier entries in the series, the awkward wheel peripheral that shipped with the title actually made gameplay more difficult. And the castrated battle mode was the airbag that failed to deploy. — Earnest Cavalli
2. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Xbox 360, PS3) (pictured, top)
LucasArts sunk a bunch of development time into the physics and animation engines that powered what was supposed to be the awesomest Star Wars game ever. Throwing Stormtroopers off cliffs and destroying environments using Force power was supposed to be like living the movie, but instead it was an utterly pedestrian action game. The brief glimpses of fun that it offered were drowned out by a host of poor design decisions, and the ridiculous Imperial Star Destroyer segment was the very last straw. — Chris Kohler
1. Spore (PC)
After years of unprecedented hype — no small amount of it coming from the pages of Wired magazine and Wired.com — Will Wright's evolution game Spore was something less than a Big Bang. While it was fascinating to observe how players created new creatures and shared them with the Sporepedia tool, the actual videogame at the core of all this user-generated content was disappointingly simple. The primordial soup of assorted gameplay tropes never did give birth to an evolved supergame. Spore may very well be remembered as introducing concepts that will change the way we play games, but that didn't make it fun. — Chris Kohler
https://blog.wired.com/games/2008/12/...ointing-g.html
The 10 Most Disappointing Games of 2008
