The Top 10 Most Disappointing Video Games of 2013
09. Battlefield 4
Will the fact that prior to the launch of Battlefield 4 we were staunch Battlefield Warriors and fans make you think more kindly of us as we declare Battlefield 4 to be perhaps the worse SNAFU in the history of shooter gaming?
When we were sitting back in 2012 -- about this same time of year in fact -- and looking forward to 2013, the list of upcoming titles was so impressive and the track record for all of the developers and publishers so consistent and reliable that you will forgive us for being overly optimistic as we declared that 2013 had the very real potential to be The Best Gaming Year Ever!?
Well it did, damn it! And having Battlefield 4 be one of the games on that list made it even more so.
Ah, if we had only known. You see Alice, it turns out that you don't actually have to go down that rabbit hole for the world to turn all wonky and pear-shaped! All you have to do is slot a game in your console!
Now hindsight being 20/20 and, having the luxury now that it is Spring 2014 to look back on the Gaming Year called 2013, we can say with a lot of confidence: 'Oh Boy did WE get it wrong!'
Forget for a moment that B4 ended up embracing in and participating in the prevailing trend in the Shooter Genre to marginalize the single-player Campaign and Story Mode for the games in that genre because really, marginalizing the story in B4 may actually have been a blessing if you stop and think about it.
Considering the legacy that it inherited from its well-established shooter series, and the fact that it was releasing on not one but TWO Next Gen console gaming platforms, Battlefield 4 should have been poised to teabag the rest of the industry and snatch Game of the Year without breaking a sweat.
And it even might have. Well, if not for a list of bugs (some game-breaking) so long that you would need a commercial delivery van to transport all of the bug reports if they were printed out!
The list of just the bugs is so long -- and heartbreaking -- that we thought we would summarize it by offering JUST the major ones, as a list:
- Badly unbalanced jobs like Recon.
- Game-breaking Regen Glitches.
- Corrupted Saves.
- Game Freezing.
- Premium Status rendered moot.
Even the emergency steps developer DICE took when they lunged for and slammed a fist into the big red STOP button to suspended all development work on new content while the entire shop was re-assigned to bug stomping ended up being too little, too late.
In fact the problems with the game were so widely felt that it significantly impacted the P&L filings that EA made with respect to their company to the point that lawsuits have been filed on behalf of investors who, the lawyers say, may have been mislead by patently false and a prematurely rosy forward-looking assessment that was far too generous indeed.
At various low points in my experience with the game and particularly when new bugs were created by the fix efforts for old bugs, I caught myself wondering if it is even possible to fix the game? And then I wondered, should they even bother? It really is that broken!
When things were going really good and I played a relatively bug-free session I would find myself castigating myself for even thinking such thoughts, because when it is good, Battlefield 4 is very good!
Here is the thing you need to know though -- while B4 was in almost every respect a massive disappointment, that does not mean it is a bad game. In fact I probably shouldn't tell you this but I spent a few hours playing it today! And enjoying myself immensely...
That is the version of the story that was written up by Andy Chalk for Escapist - and by the way, paragraphs are our friends.
The situation that lead to the formation of the ESRB wasn't over a single game and it did not happen overnight - and as far as I know it was not a conspiracy.
It started with bloody gore and violence in Mortal Kombat and Doom, and the sexploitation games Night Trap and Rape. When the issue was brought to the Senate Commerce Subcommittee it was a combination of games from Capcom and Midway that were said to have excessive violence.
Remember this was just after Australia created an official government run approval system - that really hurt the games industry in Oceania.
As for the conspiracy - considering that Acclaim, Sega, Nintendo, EA and Id created and funded the initial committee that ended up creating the ESRB.
Good read,but I am confused. To the best of my memory it was in fact mortal Kombat on Sega genesis and night trap on Sega cd that caused all the big issue over video game violence not street fighter. Also it was Sega that worked with video game developers and instituted the first video game rating system not Capcom. You see after huge sale of mortal kombat over genesis over the sanitized super nes version Nintendo went to Joseph Lieberman to try and harm Sega and caused the big out cry over video game violence. I am pretty sure this is the situation that took place and Capcom and street fighter did not have much to do with it. Still enjoyed the article and I still need to check out Remember me. To bad about the original staff being let go.
Er,the Aliens from the Alien series do not live on human flesh and can't morph at will.Maybe you should watch them again.
Actually you are missing the point - if RockSteady had been hired to do the third game it WOULD have had improvements. What happened was the IP owner decided that the level of advancement in the game was sufficient to simply retread the engine with a different story on top and none of you would notice or care. Apparently they are right for some of you - but we do expect more.
He's got a point
You can't be dissapointed, if you don't have expectations in the first place. if you were expecting anthing from these tittles, then its your fault to get dissapointed.
first place whaaat?
You simply cannot expect the quality go up any higher than Arkham city lol, i mean it has to stop somewhere, jesus. insatiable gamers.
I actually enjoyed Batman Arkham Origins pretty much. It was what I expected to be after playing the previous two games from Rocksteady. Articles like this are the beiggest proof that gaming media has gone down the toilet. We get incredibly amaizing games every year, but now for some reason, to the gaming media they always turn out to be crappy disapointments. I seriously wonder what exactly are you guys expecting? Are you not entertained?