It would be easy to pick the 5 worst games of the year, but instead we’ll look at the games with potential that failed to impress. There’s a few Phantom Menaces on this list, so lets look at where developers went wrong in 2010.
Fallout: New Vegas
While I was a huge fan of the original, this was unplayable to me. The whole thing is smaller in scope, uglier, glitchier (somehow) and with an uninvolving storyline. The beginning of Fallout 3 was a stunning tour de force, taking you from birth to your jaw dropping emergence from the safety of the vault into the scolding sun of the wasteland. New Vegas meanwhile sets you up on a dull revenge story against an even duller antogonist. Abandoning the epic storyline and oppressive bleakness of the original game, it also introduced features which added little to the fundamental gameplay. The realism mode simply gives you more meters which slowly decline until you find water food and other random bits and pieces. While Fallout 3 balanced inventory management, storyline and exploration, Fallout New Vegas is terribly paced and despite chugging through over ten hours of terrible dialogue and uninspired dungeons I simply could play no more. Heartbreaking.
Medal of Honor
A terrible, cynical title which was explicitly acknowledged by the developers as being an attempt to compete with the COD series. They backed down from including the Taliban despite milking the publicity their inclusion generated. Worse, they damaged videogaming credibility by stating that videogames were only entertainment and therefore could have nothing to say about contemporary world events. To top it all of, Dice wasted their time on the multiplayer component which was a sub-Battlefield affair instead of working on something more worthwhile. Oh, the singleplayer was bad too…
Hydrophobia
A long time coming, this title eventually emerged as a downloadable title. Looking dated and with terrible controls and repetitive, key finding gameplay, the whole experience was a let down. The developers confrontational style with the gaming press was the final nail in the coffin. How many times do deveopers of good games get in a fight with the press?
Crackdown 2
How did it take them so long to release this game? Its almost identical to the first game. While Crackdown was short of gameplay variation, Crackdown 2 is even more streamlined to the extent that the variety in the gameplay is completely gone. If you’re thinking of playing this, go back and revisit the original again instead.
Alien vs Predator
In the PC original, this game was innovative and stunningly atmospheric. The sound, real-time lighting and beep-beep of your heart monitor made this a terrifying, exciting experience. Coming back to the title, Rebellion seemed to simply have nothing to add to the formula. Dated visuals, archaic game mechanics and generic gameplay showed that while Aliens and Predators haven’t moved on, gamers have.