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Towards the end of every year we look back not just at the games that have thrilled us to our heart’s content, but also the titles that have built us up just to let us down. The games that unlike Rick Astley, we can easily give up to the bargain bin or angry video game critics to tear apart years after the fact solely due to the lackluster quality that was ultimately presented despite the hype prior to the release. Sometimes, we know a game is more or less dead on arrival or even before it stumbles out of the gate before falling flat on its face, occasionally it might be during the demo or even after you’ve sunk thirty hours into it. Regardless, when a game disappoints, it usually serves its bad attitude up on a silver platter. So, prepare yourself for the ten games that really blew us away with the shock and awe of utter crap throughout the course of 2010.
10. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock: Activision continued to milk their dying Guitar Hero franchise to the content of the die-hard fans out there that were anxious to be served up the exact same thing all over again. While the career mode has been replaced by a quest narrated by Gene Simmons, who surely wasn’t being kept busy with his pitiful excuse of a reality show, the quest is still at it’s heart nothing more than what Guitar Hero fanatics and even those who only know the name of the franchise are intimately familiar with without introducing anything that really shakes the series or genre up. Pitifully so, it seems the only thing that might have been remotely different were the songs on the disc, but with every previous song being available, it kind of makes you wonder if the franchise has any additional music to tap that the significantly better Rock Band hasn’t already allocated. Ultimately, the game really failed to excite anyone, despite arriving a month before the much lauded Rock Band 3 and only illustrates that Guitar Hero is pretty much treading water at this point.
9. Army of Two: The 40th Day: Yet another example of a publisher and developer setting out to serve up the same old thing to gamers who would be all too ready to swallow it right up, 40th day didn’t really do anything except improve on the flaws of the original Army of Two. The same AI issues were persistently apparent throughout, almost glaringly so, with single-players discovering their computer-controlled compatriot consistently failing to be up to the task of blasting through the game. And if you could make it through the game without needing a friend – AI or otherwise – then the game might have been able to cut out a major problem to begin with – but sadly, the AI only serves to break any kind of immersive quality the game had going for it. As far as the narrative, it would be easy to dismiss it as nothing more than B-Grade action film fodder and that is exactly what I plan on doing, unless you’re one of the frat boys out there who get their kicks blasting through a mindless game with a beer and a buddy – then you’ll feel right at home in a world of Private Military Corporations and intrigue that spans the globe. In the meantime, I’ll be more than happy to play through Rainbow Six: Vegas again.
8. Blood Bowl: Despite being a Games Workshop Tabletop game, and a really great one at that, this title proves that just because something works exceptionally well in one particular medium doesn’t mean that it will translate to the digital realm exceptionally well. In this case, it was only marginally acceptable. For those not in the know, Blood Bowl is described as Fantasy Football in the most literal sense possible – Goblins, Elves, Orcs, Humans and Dwarves compete against each other in the gridiron. The problem is that where a player’s imagination could fill the void adequately when competing on the tabletop, the digital presentation was not exactly what anyone expected. In fact, it just plain stunk as far as the masses were concerned. For a company that has allowed Warhammer 40,000 to be done as video games multiple times, and be lauded as hits, it’s disheartening to see that this title couldn’t even compete with Madden, let alone Mutant League titles of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era.
This feature top 10 list continues on the next page, please click below to see our next couple choices for the top 10 most disappointing games of 2010.
