Continuing on from our guilty pleasures, we now move onto each of the staff's biggest disappointment of 2019. Sadly not every experience comes out the way we were expecting whether from technical issues or simply from a lack of polish as it was rushed out the door. In either case, here is our team's reflection on the topic.
Nick: WWE 2k20
The WWE series is a regular contender for guilty pleasure with me, because the character customization, over-the-top stories and progression make it a ton of fun... when things work properly. Problem is, this year 2K shifted development teams from Yukes to their own in-house team Visual Concepts and the results were disastrous. Physics-defying visual glitches, progression breaking-bugs and incomplete content on release set this series back years. There are pockets of amusement to be had here and there, but not enough to justify what feels like a rushed and incredibly disappointing release.
Pierre-Yves: Eternity: The Last Unicorn
Oh boy… I don’t even know how to say how disappointed I was in this. It had all the makings for a great PS2 retro throwback and it just didn’t work. On any level. The gameplay was almost less than basic but tried to implement Dark Souls like precision. The camera angles were old school Resident Evil 2 styled but unlike inspiring horror, they just made you die and turn around in circles. Finally the story and the puzzles just didn’t do anything. For as much as I wanted to love this one… I just couldn’t for a lot of reasons.
Robert: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint
It's fairly easy to know where to start here … My brother and a close friend spent literally hundreds of hours (nearing the thousands of hours mark) playing Ubisoft's spectacular Tom Clancy-based open world pseudo-MMO games. From the hills of Bolivia in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands to the plagued winter streets of Tom Clancy's The Division to the utter mess that is the weird combination of those two titles … Breakpoint. I guess the name fits, as this may very well be the breaking point for the single-player Tom Clancy titles. With weird occlusion issues, poor performance, an utterly empty and lifeless world, and no real incentive to continue playing after a few hours, Breakpoint was a huge disappointment and a massive letdown by Ubisoft. Just thinking of the game has made me depressed, thanks Ubisoft…
Susan N.: Anthem
I'm going to be brief on my massive disappointment this year, which shouldn't surprise anyone (at least, I don't think so...) When I first watched the trailer for E3 back in 2018, I had high hopes for Anthem. It looked polished, it had flying, and it would be another shooter that I might actually want to play (because those are rare in my books). Unfortunately, most of our readers know the story from the grapevine. It was all over Twitter and other social media sites about how poorly Anthem launched. In fact, there is a very long article out there which detailed the development process of that game, and it sums up exactly why I don't put games on pedestals anymore. I wanted Anthem to be good, much like most of us, but unfortunately the whole development had no direction and it showed on launch. Now, I know that there is going to be a complete overhaul of the game, but honestly the game has left such a sour taste in my mouth that it would take a goddamn miracle for the game to even make a passing interest. Spare me the flaming. I'm just saying how I feel about it.
Richard: Super Neptunia RPG
It really hurts to put a neptunia title in this slot. I’ve been a fan of the series, even the spin offs, but this one in particular just felt…lacking. It didn’t have that punch that most of the neptunia titles have in their characters or story setting, and the battle system felt a little sluggish and unrefined. I know what they were going for, and I appreciate the valkyrie profile style battle system, I really do, but super neptunia rpg felt like a game that tried to be both a neptunia and valkyrie profile title, and met in the middle with unfortunately mediocre results. While by no means bad, per se, it was rather disappointing.
Natasha: Kingdom Hearts 3
It is with a heavy heart that I have to put my favourite series of all time in this category. The build-up of 13 yrs of waiting came to a startling realization when I played through half of this game and I was still missing the sense of wonder and pure joy I thought I'd have for this game once it was released. I'm not bashing it for its visuals, fighting or music. Those are all top grade, but the story felt rushed, some of the world's were boring, normal mode was easy, even hard mode is not challenging, Kairi is still USELESS and there where ZERO Final Fantasy characters in a half Disney, half Square Enix game. I just hope the dlc can bring this game some salvation.
