It’s that time again – Festivus! A holiday for the rest of us, Festivus brings out the “best” in everyone by letting all of you know that I’m very disappointed in you. Especially certain games, developers, and industry stuff that deserves to be told off.
A quick Festivus primer, for the four of you who’ve never seen Seinfeld – Festivus is a holiday created by Frank Costanza to fight the commercialism inherent in Christmas. Instead of a tree, you erect an aluminum pole (for its high strength to weight ratio) and leave it unadorned (tinsel is distracting). There is a traditional meal – meatloaf on lettuce – and during dinner the Airing Of The Grievances is heard, where the head of the house tells everyone how they’ve disappointed him. Festivus ends after the Feats of Strength, which is a traditional wrestling match.
We’re going to focus here on The Airing Of The Grievances. These are, in no particular order (except for the last, most grievous entry), games, concepts, and development ideas that have really dropped the ball. Now, onto WHO DISAPPOINTED ME
Evolve – An asymmetric player versus player game with a neat hook – one monster, four soldiers. But the terrible launch and breakup of characters and monsters over a dozen different versions (and then all the Kafka-level confusing DLC releases, which took multiple dev blog posts to kinda sort out) means that playing a game generally involves scampering around stupidly. Such a shame.
Backwards Compatible Collections – Because I payed $400 for my PS4 to play Final Fantasy 7 again.
Destiny – Everything about Destiny’s cash-grubby post-release disappoints me. The big Taken King DLC released for the price of a game, and locked players out of content that was available when the game first came out. 7-11 and Red Bull tie-ins don’t make me want to buy either – they just make me feel dirty when I need to go to the gas station. $30 per consumable to skip a ton of content? What planet is this from, but more importantly PLEASE STOP GIVING THEM MONEY
Guitar Hero – FMV crowds, ugh. Plus releasing a bunch of crappy bands and lame B-sides is another disappointing, shameless leap to DLC for bands and songs you’ll actually want. True story – I bought Guitar Hero World Tour for one song by NOFX. The rest of the songs were alright, but I spent $150 pretty much to just play Soul Doubt. There’s nothing like that on here that would make me do that. Also, FMV crowds, ugh.
Metal Gear Solid V – Take all the great stuff about Peace Walker, strip it bare, and let internet trolls rampage your base. Peace Walker’s online support was damn-near perfect, MGSV had to shred it to bits. But at least we get Quiet and an otherwise good game. It’s just disappointing by the omission of the stellar online mode that really made Peace Walker worth playing.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 – *old timey radio announcer voice* JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT THEY COULDN’T DO WORSE THAN A GOOFY SKATEBOARD PERIPHERAL IN TONY HAWK RIDE!
Remakes, Remasters, Re-Releases – Darksiders, Homeworld, The Last Of Us, God Of War, Divinity: Original Sin, State Of Decay…
Payday 2 – A failure and total disappointment on so many fronts, this one hits home for me. The game is a unique, cinematic, pretty damn fun co-op shooter, but fails in spectacular ways. The PC version introduced stat-boosting microtransactions, after the developers crowed for years how they would never bring in a pay-to-win format. The XBOne version did not function out of the box, requiring a rebuild of the net code – which took 5 unplayable months. The PS4 version doesn’t include voice chat, an omission that makes no sense for a co-op game in 2015. Additionally, the console versions are something like 30 (not a typo! THIRTY) patches and updates behind the PC version. Don’t even ask about PS3/X360. That’s another article entirely.
Happy Festivus, everyone! Now go nail a clock to the wall as is our tradition. Any disappointing entries to add? Let us know here, or on Twitter at @GameGravy!
