Part of me wonders if I just haven't become more cynical. After all, that's bound to happen with age, right? Yet I can't help but think that these last months have really been something special when it comes to bad games. And I don't mean bad as in "meh", in fact I would almost be glad for a "meh" game at this point. No, these last months or so, I've seen and played more sh*t than I ever thought possible with quality ranging from "just bad" to "OMG I can't believe someone actually thought this was worth publishing without suffering from brain surgery performed by a donkey with a carrot".

Buggy games, unfinished games, broken games, games with no original redeeming features whatsoever, games lacking even basic features, it's ridiculous. How do these developers stay in business!? Of course not all games can be AAA-masterpieces, but one would think that more games would at least be up to a standard where one can say "well, at least it works?".

This year's list of best/worst games is going to be a tricky one. Tricky because so few games actually worthy of being on it have been released this year, and also because so many horrible games should be on it. I pray that Battlefield 4, CoD:Ghosts, Watch Dogs, and Arkham Origins might sway my opinion in a more positive way. With a little luck, maybe Rome II will be finished at the end of the year and ACIV will remember that it's supposed to be about assassinations. I'm not gonna hold my breath particularly long on those accounts though.

...is putting it nicely. I cannot for the life of me understand the thought process of many people who "review" games on this site, and many others.

Note: This is a rant. I like ranting.

Want to complain about a game? Fine. Want to praise a game? Fine. I don't care what your actual opinion might be on any game, but for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, don't write a "review" when all you are doing is one of the following things:

1. Saying nothing except "DIS GAEM SUXXX!!!!" or "DIS GAEM IS AWSOM!!!". This adds NOTHING of value to anyone, just rate the game whatever you want instead and move on.

2. Pasting the same 2 lines over and over because you don't have the brain capacity to write 100 words. Pasting the same 2 lines over and over because you don't have the brain capacity to write 100 words. Pasting the same 2 lines over and over because you don't have the brain capacity to write 100 words.

3. Write in your native language on an English website. Det är skit-irriterande och hör inte hit! Om jag läser en engelsk hemsida så räknar jag med att kunna förstå vad som sägs där också. Hur kul är det att behöva översätta det här till exempel?

3. Copy/pasting other people's reviews instead of actually writing anything at all of your own.

4. End a review with "I have nothing to else to say, so here are some dots....................................................................................................................................................................." to reach the minimum words.

5. Can't spell or use English grammar properly even if your life depended on it.

6. Complain about things or features that have absolutely nothing to do with the game itself (political views/religion etc).

7. Spoil the entire storyline instead of talking about the game's features.

8. Copy/pasting magazine articles/plot summaries/official game summaries instead of actually reviewing the game.

9. Pasting the game's official features, system specs and other pointless data in order to reach the 100 word minimum.

10. Praising shitty games to the high heavens because they are not "the worst thing ever" and saying good games are crap because they didn't sh*t gold in your hands. That is not what constitutes as actual criticism.

11. Only rates games 1's and 10's. There is a scale there for a reason!

12. Rating a game (usually AAA-titles) a 3-5, calling it "the worst game ever". You have not played the worst game ever. I have.

If I can think of any more, i will add them to the list. To summarize, if you have nothing worthwhile at all to say when reviewing something, then shut the hell up instead of wasting people's time and server space!

There, now I feel much better. "Cynicism - AWAY!"

This should be fun! I have even played games beside these that were even worse, but I spent so little time on those that I won't even count them here. The list as follows:

10. Confrontation: As a wargamer who actually owns a couple of the miniatures this game is based on, this was quite disappointing. Boring combat, no story and ugly graphics. I would like to tell you more, but I fell asleep after 15 minutes, and when I woke up I was in Narnia.

9. 7554: Vietnamese CoD on a budget. Incomprehensible story, some frustrating moments, and no originality what so ever. Or fun.

8. Dark Souls: GAH! I hate this game! I suck at it. Aside from being a horrible port, it also has some of the most aggrevating design choices I have ever encounted. Die, mothaf*cking ledges, die!

7. Carrier Command: Someone told me this was a strategy game? Well, I didn't even get through the FPS part before tossing this. The controls are awful, and so were all the gameplay elements. I'm told the strategy part has some lovely pathfinding issues though.

6. The Expendables 2: Run, shoot, run, shoot. I got through the first 5 levels, then I ran and shot myself. I feel better now.

5. Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse: I actually managed to finish it! I almost cried when it turned out to be another level in the game, but I finished it. I felt shame afterwards.

4. Realms of Ancient War: You found a helmet! You found another identical helmet! You got swamped by another 200 spiders! You uninstalled the game! You win!

3. 007 Legends: Generic shooter with some of the worst controls I have ever had the displeasure of using. Managed to beat it though, and much joy over not having to play it more was had. Huzzah!

2. Deep Black: Reloaded: 2-3 types of enemies, 2-3 types of objectives, 2-3 types of environments., 2-3 bullets in the brain. Problem solved.

1. Uprising44: The Silent Shadows: Do you like to be able to aim in your shooters? Do you like competent AI? Do you like a good story and voice acting? Do you like decent stealth mechanics? Do you like RTS? If you answered yes to any of these questions, avoid this game like the plaugue. They don't get much worse than this.

1. Far Cry 3: The story felt a little lacking sometimes and the game do become rather repetative, but the amount of fun I had with this game had me playing 16 hours straight and messing up my sleeping rhythm again. Not many games can do that, so kudos!

2. XCOM: Enemy Unknown: A game I almost skipped out on entirerly, and I'm really glad I didn't. Like the Total War series, XCOM allows you to forge your own story and characters, and the upgrade system combined with the excellent combat made this far more addicting than I would have thought possible.

3. Max Payne 3: A bit worse than the earlier ones, but a really good story, great graphics and challenging gameplay combinded with the best video game music track of the year make this a winner in my book.

4. Dishonored: Though the story was rather weak and anti-climatic, and the Chaos system a dud, Dishonored's gameplay was almost as much fun as playing DE:HR or Thief 3. I want more!

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II: The same, but better. Black Ops II offers a familiar experience that still manages to entertain. Great in-game balance and less frustrations than MW2, and a decent PC port at that.

6. Alan Wake: Great story and atmosphere, decent gameplay. The second part could be better, but the first really makes this game worth it.

7. Borderlands 2: A decent story unlike the first game, and an overall improvement over the first game. Can still become rather repetitive and dull after a while, however.

8. Mass Effect 3: THAT ENDING! WHY?! The rest of the game was worse than ME2 in most aspects, but the story still managed to tug on my heart strings, which is rare nowadays.

9. Diablo III: First playthrough is awesome, after that it becomes rather dull. DRM and auction house suck. Still, the first 16 hours of looting and killing monsters was a ton of fun.

10. Hitman: Absolution: A better story than earlier Hitman games, decent gunplay, but frustrating stealth system and save points. Could have been much better, but still really entertained.

Rather than having to remember what games I played which year (or rather, came out which year), I'm going to do a year-by-year list of my favorite games from these years for those sweet trips of nostalgia later on.

2006:

1. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

2. Medieval II: Total War

3. Company of Heroes

4. Rainbow Six Vegas

5. Hitman: Blood Money

6. Half-Life 2: Episode 1

7. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade

8. Titan Quest

9. Dark Messiah

10. Condemned

2007:

1. Call of Duty 4

2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

3. Crysis

4. BioShock

5. Gears of War

6. Portal

7. World in Conflict

8. Half-Life 2: Episode 2

9. Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

10. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

2008:

1. Fallout 3

2. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition

3. Mass Effect

4. Assassin's Creed

5. Grand Theft Auto IV

6. Crysis Warhead

7.Call of Duty: World at War

8. Rainbow Six Vegas 2

9. Dead Space

10. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

2009:

1. Dragon Age Origins

2. Batman Arkham Asylum

3. Mirror's Edge

4. Resident Evil 5

5. Borderlands

6. Prototype

7. Battlestations: Pacific

8. Red Faction Guerilla

9. The Saboteur

10. Dawn of War II

2010:

1. Mass Effect 2

2. Battlefield: Bad Company II

3. Assassin's Creed II

4. Fallout: New Vegas

5. Just Cause 2

6. Metro 2033

7. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

8. Mafia II

9. BioShock 2

10. StarCraft II

2011:

1. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2. The Witcher 2

3. Battlefield 3

4. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

5. Portal 2

6. Total War: Shogun 2

7. Batman: Arkham City

8. Dead Space 2

9. L.A: Noire

10. Crysis 2

And when I say fail, I mean as in not being a good game, not in number of sales. It seems MW3 is unfortunately doing better than BF3 in pre-orders even on the PC so far, but hopefully, BF3 will likely sell more in the long run. And I'm not saying that as a BF fanboy, I really used to love CoD, but it has stagnated. Badly.

Anyway, the reasons why MW3 won't be particularly good are many. I honestly don't get how people can still be defending this game and keep a straight face. Even if BF3 wouldn't be coming out this year, MW3 would still fail, and lying to yourself by saying that "COD is BEAST! yall are all haters! and Cheap people, really 15 is not expensive for maps, only cheap and lil kids cant afford it. get a job or beg ur parents. MW3 is going to be Awsome! 60 bucks is nothing cause the game is going to be great!" (actual quote from a CoD fanboy).

The reasons why MW3 will be adequate at best:

1. Three different developers. "Why is that bad?" some might say, "surely that means they have more manpower to make it even better!".

Unfortunately, no. After the fallout with Activision last year, IW lost about half its staff (most likely the more talented ones), and became a shell of its former self. Apparently the studio is "rebuilt" now with new people (whom in their likelihood have never made a CoD game before). Of course, that wouldn't be nearly enough, so Activision also threw in Sledgehammer Games, whom never made a game before. So now we have the less talented half of IW, rebuilt with some newbie developers, and Sledgehammer Games making the SP. So far so good right? Not really...

Finally, we have Raven Software making the MP. Now, at least Raven have some good games under their belt and they have also made map packs for CoD before, so at least they have some experience with the game. Unfortunately, they went out saying that they expect a 95+ score on average in the upcoming reviews. 95+? In a game series whom at its top has a 92-94 score on MetaCritic? Do they seriously expect that a rehash of MW1 will give them a higher score than the original game? Even the critics has started to say that the series feels unoriginal, giving MW2 an 86 and Black Ops 81. How do they expect to get a HIGHER score when the later games have gotten less and less, when they are just using the exact same formula? On top of that, Raven hasn't made a game even above 80+ in score for about 10 years now...

Another problem with using different developers is that communications will suffer. I am pretty sure they are not working together in the same building, or even the same city. So IW will do one part, Raven one part, and then Sledgehammer games will run to IW with scissors and glue to help out with copy/pasting MW2.

2. IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME! People are saying that every CoD since MW1 has been a copy/paste job, and to a decent extent, I agree. WaW was CoD4 in WWII, MW2 was CoD4 on crack with crappy matchmaking and imbalances, and Black Ops was CoD4 with a lot poorer net code and optimization. MW3 is MW2. Period.

I watched the trailers with low expectations... and was actually bored!

Diving scene from MW2: check

Boat scene from MW1: check

City under siege from MW2: check

Boat chase from MW2: check

Blow up door and shoot people in slow mo including guy rushing at you with knife from MW2: check

Same weapon skins and sounds as in MW2: check

Following around a guy in tightly scripted environments: check

A sh*tload of explosions as in every CoD ever made: definitely check

I couldn't find a SINGLE original thing in there. Not one. If people think the series is stale NOW, just wait until MW3 comes out. Oh, I will definitely play the SP campaign just to have played through the story, but i am not planning on buying it any time soon, unless I can find it extremely cheap and don't have any friends available to play BF3 with, which is unlikely.

3. Activison hate. Might be the biggest one actually. Won't really affect the GAME per say, but it's definitely affecting the community, which seems to be smaller and smaller, despite the game selling more and more up to this point. It also seems that the only people still defending this game (about 10% of forum members) are about 12 years old and cannot spell to save their non-existing lives. In the entire "fanboy war", I have seen maybe 2-3 comments from a CoD fan that was actually readable.

On top of the hate for Activision, there's the "Guitar Hero-syndrome" where releasing too much of something popular will eventually kill it off completely. I don't think it will happen to MW3, but maybe the CoD after that. People are already getting fed up with CoD online, but it seems the ones actually buying the game are the 12 years old whom aren't even allowed to register (let alone play the actual games). However, I have a feeling even this will fade as eventually even those brats must realize that they have been playing the same game for 5 years but paying for a new one every time. Maybe. I'm an optimist.

Rant over.