2011 was a disappointing year in general - full of goodness but not greatness - but some games managed to sail under even the lowest expectations. Here are the top duds and bad trends of 2011.
Dragon Age 2: Here lies the nightmare scenario that so many predicted - the EA-ification of BioWare. Dragon Age Origins was a sprawling affair with a lot of dry spots and annoyances, but it was still an epic adventure with a ton of great content. Alas, DA2 could not say the same, and in many ways, it serves as the poster child for the problems of modern AAA gaming: a rushed production schedule, simplified combat, and a 'try-to-please-everyone-and-thus-please-none' design mentality.
Mind you, the CORE of a great game is within, and with a proper-length development cycle, this could've been a B+/A- game. Sure, the combat would've still been too Dynasty Warriors-ish, but the characters are pretty decent and it was nice to be involved in a non-apocalyptic story for once. (The game's core story, a parable about political extremism, is both well-written and very relevant for a modern audience - pity it takes the plot 20 hours of build-up to get there.) But that's not the game we got.
The issues are legion and entire Web servers exist to catalogue them. The same six dungeon environments recycled over and over. A world where everyone is bisexual, due to BioWare's deranged obsession with romantic subplots. (I have nothing against bisexuals, but a world where everyone exists to be your potential lover is just contrived fanservice.) Hyper-fast combat that eschews the strategy of Origins. A "realistic" fantasy world where enemy reinforcements magically appear to drag the fights out. It's a mess. The fact that it's an oddly compelling mess teases as to what could have been.
Mass Effect 3 now has an even bigger burden to carry: complete an epic trilogy and provide closure to millions of obsessed fans, AND it must wipe away the sins of its sister franchise. DA2 was something of a wake-up call to BioWare and they're allegedly studying Skyrim's success for the inevitable DA3. Sounds good, except for...
Bugs: Bugs are a part of the hobby - c'est la vie. But there's a difference between surprising glitches due to outlier player behavior, and plain-old corporate indifference. Skyrim is collecting dozens of GOTY honors despite varying degrees of instability across all platforms - the PS3 edition, in particular, can be a car wreck for some users. Yes, yes, games are more complex now. But games are ALWAYS more complex now. And development teams have dozens if not hundreds of people who should be on top of these things. Hell, even when they ARE on top of these things, the publisher doesn't care and simply needs to get it out by Date X to placate the shareholders. God, even Nintendo - the Isle Of Stability in gaming's stormy sea - has shipped two flagship titles with game-busting bugs. Yes, the glitches in Other M and Skyward Sword CAN be avoided, but a player shouldn't have to read spoilers and walk on eggshells to play a $50 product.
Let me tell you kids a story about the old days. We had something called 'the PC gaming industry,' or as we now call it, 'Steam and Blizzard.' It was a giant back then. The games offered a complexity that consoles could not, thanks to stronger hardware and more robust control options. PC gamers were seen as more mature and ambitious than their console brethren, and were given software to match. It was magical.
But the PC gaming industry grew complacent. It took advantage of our love and assumed we wouldn't mind. It began shipping broken games and figured we'd buy them anyhow, using patches to repair our investment. Sadly, we complied for a while. So the publishers pushed it even further and began shipping glorified betas that bordered on unplayable. By contrast, console games were mostly pristine, since developers couldn't lean on the crutch of patching. The student became the master.
But consoles are on-line now and have hard drives. Patches are in play once more. And surprise, surprise: Santa is bringing us broken toys again. This will not end well. Don't believe me? Ask The Ghost Of Gaming Past.
Duke Nukem Forever: There was little chance of this being any good. It was hard for anyone to imagine it being THIS bad.
And I don't want any excuses. If what Gearbox was given was trash - which I have no problem believing - then it should've been thrown out. Fans had waited a dozen years; what's another few? I'd rather wait a bit longer to justify the hype than be given a turd-in-a-box for my troubles. Hobbled by dated mechanics, ancient production values, and painfully unfunny humor, DNF was a weak payoff for gaming's longest-running joke.
The PSN: Remember the sales pitch? "You get X-Box Live forever - for free!" Apparently, this package also includes incessant firmware updates, choppy service, poor download speeds, dead weekends, and the occasional enormous hacking incident where all of your personal and credit information gets stolen. But think of the savings!
Showing the kind of class and awareness that only true scumbags can manage, Sony began pitching their PSN Plus 'upgrade' service about ten minutes after coming back on-line from a poorly-handled hack attack. Now PlayStation users can pay for the kind of 'free' services they were promised out of the box. But don't you fret - Sony is constantly giving away middling Genesis games for download as compensation for their rank arrogance and slapdash security. As entire warehouses of unbought PSP Gos can attest, Sony is never too big to fail. It takes real skill to steal the Crown Of Evil from Microsoft, but by God, they were up to the task.
Hyperdimension Neptunia: NIS somehow takes an ingenious idea - an RPG with characters and a story that serve as metaphors for the infantile console wars - and makes a brutally bad game from it. It was a long winter for NIS until Disgaea 4 saved their hide.
Bionic Commando Rearmed 2: "You know what this franchise is missing? Jumping! Why hasn't anyone ever tried that before?"
Annual Releases: It's funny: gamers used to mock the Madden series for coming out every year with slightly tweaked mechanics, but it's okay when Call Of Duty or Assassin's Creed do it. 'Cause those are gamer's games, or something.
Look, I'm a big boy. Modern Warfare 3 made a billion dollars - money comes first. But there's something to be said for restraint. Mario and Zelda have lasted 25+ years because Nintendo knows enough to keep it to one or two games a generation. The narrative is "damn, when is a new Zelda coming out?", not "geez, another Call Of Duty already?" The old expression says that you can shear a sheep a thousand times, but only butcher it once. And too many companies are reaching for the axe. I mean, look at Assassin's Creed - you've set up a template where you can make a game in any time period but still tie it to one big story. There's no reason to keep cranking out annual Ezio adventures with the same engine except for the bottom line.
It's paying off for now, but just ask Tony Hawk or the Guitar Hero people what it's like to get squeezed over and over before fans get a chance to breathe. Even the once-respected Ratchet and Clank is devolving into a zombie franchise. Ditto for Killzone. Or any fighting game series where they make a new version every four months. Instead of making another decent game on the fly, sit down and make something special. Both sides need to exercise more patience.
Anyhow, let's hope 2012 is a great year both for games, and in general. Happy holidays.