Let’s face it, 2016 wasn’t exactly the best year in gaming, though not the worst either. From No Man’s Sky to Mafia III, hype and publicity was the order of the day and all we got in the end was either broken, incomplete or a straight up crap fest. Here are our 5 most disappointing picks in gaming for 2016.
1. No Man’s Sky
- Release Date: 9th August, 2016
- Platforms: Windows PC and PlayStation 4
No Man’s Sky, the most anticipated game of 2016, the game that was supposed to define the standards for gaming, the game that was supposed to change how we play and think about video games forever. Back to reality, and after numerous delays, death threats, and a lawsuit, we get a buttload of procedural-ly generated mediocrity, and Hello Games faces another lawsuit for false advertising. Mind you, though, they have been cleared of it now, but the name has been charred forever. No Man’s Sky is a game designed by hipsters, for hipsters. The colour scheme is entirely fluorescent shades of pink or green or blue, with a menu which is more or less “inspired” by Destiny. In essence, it accomplishes the same thing Bethesda did with The Elder Scrolls: Arena…in the 90s. Well played, Mr. Murray, well played.
2. Homefront: The Revolution
- Release Date: 20th May, 2016
- Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Linux and MacOS
You know a game is 50 shades of crap when it stutters on consoles. PC makes sense, might be a hardware thing, or a driver issue or maybe the game hasn’t been optimized to run well at the framerates you want it to, but consoles? Not to mention that the story is a drag as well. Don’t get me wrong, Homefront: The Revolution has a novel approach towards first person shooters, but it fails to deliver at every step of the way. The frames drop heavier than a spicy Taco Bell lunch after 6 hours, and are just as painful. Aiming is a little clumsy but you can get used to it, but the constant lagging and hanging (YES, hanging) makes it almost impossible to kill even a single target without emptying a whole magazine. There have been a few patches and bug fixes to improve the game, but it’s all too little, too late.
3. Mafia III
- Release Date: 7th October, 2016
- Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, MacOS
ONLY IF there was more to do in the open world of Mafia III. ONLY IF they hadn’t went for an open world model in the first place. ONLY IF the AI wasn’t so dumb it made yo mama look like Einstein. Mafia III is an ambitious game with amazing potential, but it ends up being a disappointment, thanks to the lack of gameplay elements and not-so-smart AI. The characters, story and the storytelling, however, are still amazing and could have been so much more. It would’ve done much better if they had just made it into a movie, because that’s what the cutscenes in the game feel like, and are honestly the best part about the whole game.
4. Ghostbusters
- Release Date: 12th July, 2016
- Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4
The joke of a tie-in that was the Ghostbusters game, is even more hopeless than the movie. It is a lazy, unambitious to grab some money from fans of the franchise, and funnily enough, it doesn’t even feature anyone from any of the movies ever. Instead, it puts you in charge of four random people without any motivation or character development whatsoever. The enemies and gameplay are as uninteresting as the main characters, and the RPG elements are as good as not being there. You know what? I’m becoming sad just thinking about it now. Let’s move on.
5. 7 days To Die
- Release Date: 28th June, 2016
- Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Linux and MacOS
More like, 7 days to load. Don’t get me wrong, the game provides a great insight about the zombie survival genre, with crafting and scavenging being key aspects, but the glitches and loading times make it a drag. The framerates drop constantly, then rise again, much like the zombies themselves. Additionally, the game also tends to seize randomly at times, sometimes within minutes, due to the auto-saving feature. The game shows promise on the PC, but right now it’s in the Early Access stage. So you can pretty much guess what that means. On the other hand, when it comes to consoles, 7 Days to Die is simply a bad, bad port.
What games disappointed you the most this year? Feel free to share with us in the comments!
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John Enfield
Biggest gaming disappointment for me was learning all of the new fps games I wanted this year required 64 bit windows. That’s just stupid. I’m not getting a new OS when what I have works great with everything I already have and would even make some of my current games unplayable.