Top Ten Most Disappointing Games Of 2009

2009 is almost gone, and, looking back, there has been numerous key moments in the gaming industry: Capcom has managed to revive the fighting genre single handily with “Street Fighter 4.” The Wii has been receiving titles that are actually marketed towards gamers with doubledigit ages. And Star Wars fans have been drooling at the many developer walkthrough videos for the upcoming Star Wars MMO by Bioware. To say the least, in term of gaming, things are looking good.

With that being said, this doesn’t necessary the gaming industry did a perfect job this year. While sale records have been broken, there have been a few games released that received a ton of hype but failed to fufill their promises. The rules for this year’s list remain the same as last year: Any game that I was personally hyped about and didn’t meet my expectations is a candidate for this list. Because I only have a Wii, 360, and my PC, don’t expect anything from the handheld consoles or the Playstation 3.

10. Madworld

I know it’s very strange to label “Madworld” as disappointing game when I’ve given the game a favorable review, there’s a logically reason behind this.

“Madworld” was developed by Platinum Games, but they didn’t always go by that name. A few years ago, they were called Clover Studios and worked under Capcom, many artistically unique games were released by them, such as “Okami” and “Vietiful Joe.” It was one of their games in particular that had me hyped about “Madworld,” “God Hand.”

“God Hand” was a visually poor beat’em up that didn’t receive great reviews. It was released on the Playstation 2, and it was the last game created under the Clover Studios name. While the mainstream public didn’t bite, those of us who wanted to challenge ourselves and enjoyed punching people in the face got one hell of a game. I won’t list the features, but you can search on Youtube to see how the game works. It might be a good idea to do so, and then compare it to videos of “Madworld.” You might see a resemeblence.

And this is where the disappointment comes in. I liked “God Hand” and when I saw “Madworld,” I was hoping for a next-gen upgrade to the underrated game. Instead what we received was a dumbed down version of it. “Madworld” is still a great game, and you should try it if you haven’t done so, but considering this game from the same guys who made “God Hand,” I was disappointed with this one. [Continue Reading]

Less Than Five Days Until Modern Warfare 2: Why Failure Is Impossible

“Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” came out almost exactly two years ago, and took the shooter market by storm. It has since become the absolute standard port of call for the FPS genre, with its tight, intuitive console control scheme and deep, multi-layered online achievement system. In a matter of days, Infinity Ward intends to unleash their new monster, “Modern Warfare 2,” and I’d like to take a moment to outline why it simply won’t go wrong for them. [Continue Reading]

E3 ’09: Modern Warfare 2 Eyes-On Impressions – War Is Beautiful

In advance of going to this year’s E3, there were only a handful of games at that I was really, really looking forward to seeing, and Activision’s “Modern Warfare 2” was at the very top of that list. The original was one of the best first person shooter games ever released, and the follow up could only get better. As a general rule, I do my best to not have expectations of games before I see them, mostly because I usually get let down, but I slipped on this one, and I had really high hopes for “MW2” … and it lived up to every single one of them. [Continue Reading]

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Trailer Blows More Than Minds

For all of the games that I play, there are only a very few that I truly stay on top of the development for, and at the top of that list is any “Call of Duty” game developed by Infinity Ward. In other words, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how amazing “Modern Warfare 2” is going to be. [Continue Reading]