Gaming disappointments of 2010 part 2

Hello and welcome back to the bitch-fest that is my gaming disappointments of 2010. Ready for round 2?

FIGHT!

Sonic 4 Episode 1

As a kid I was as big a Sega and Sonic fan boy as you might ever have hoped to avoid. Given the choice between a fat plumber and a super sonic rodent with a totally radical 90's attitude I took the far cooler option. The 2d iterations of the series were my games of choice and I ploughed through any I could get my hands on, only the MegaCD based Sonic CD escaped me.



The one that got away.

As a teen I played each Sonic game in turn as they were released, right up to Sonic Adventure 2. At the time the first Adventure game was groundbreaking and whilst it wasn't a gameplay masterpiece it did at least capture some of what made Sonic great (whilst adding a fishing cat...the less said about that the better...). Adventure 2 refined the experience but continued on a path that was to trample my affection for the series - terrible voice acting, diabolical plotlines and a slew of needless side characters. In amongst those characters was the Anti-Sonic himself, a creature designed to appeal to the emo generation as Sonic had been designed for the 90's cool kids; Shadow The Hedgehog. After his arrival I gave up on Sonic, the time for my generations enjoyment of the series was over and it was time to move on as far as I was concerned.



Guns and motorcycles - when making fun games about blue hedgehogs running fast and jumping around wears thin you know you've got to make it EXTREME to keep the fans happy. Or not as the case may be.

I watched as the Anti-Sonic got his own game, more and more needless side characters piled up and the quality of the franchise as a whole gradually declined right up until last year when Sega finally anounced something I could get on board with; a 2d high definition sequel to Sonic 3, a true successor to the original games. Promises were thrown around about pleasing old school fans and returning to the roots of what made Sonic great. I was excite!
Time passed and the first pictures surfaced, along with the news that the game would be split into multiple "episodes" and my heart sank a little. It wasn't the 2d graphics promised, it was a 2d perspective with 3d models. It also sounded like Sega were going to try and charge full price for part of a full game, an increasing issue with DLC and one of my pet peeves.
"Okay, not the high definition sprites I was hoping for but also not the terrible 3d gameplay that had failed to evolve over the course of the franchise" I figured to myself. Problem was, on top of that, the jump animation looked off and the size of the screen around Sonic was too small. Balls. Seemingly minor problems at a glance, but in a game where charging at the side of the screen and accurately jumping is the core it's clear why it got me ready to write off the game well ahead of release.
And then a gameplay video emerged of a minecart level that looked to not only be a tad rubbish but also controlled by someone with spanners for hands. And damn did it look terrible. This never made it to the final game, but it didn't do Sega any favors to have the first look at what ought to have been a stellar return to form appear to be a gimicky mini game.


Relegated to the iPhone version of the game. Pity those who bought it.

Cut to the full release and I finally got to play the demo. Lo and behold, the problems I had seen in the trailers were still present and on top of that the way Sonics momentum worked felt very different to the original games in the series. Failed by inflated promises of past glory regained.

But wait! There might be hope yet for us die hard old school Sonic fans. Mere days ago a group of fans made an announcement and launched a site with a countdown for what will hopefully be a very strong kick up the collective sphincter of Sega -


You can always rely on the fans to give their fellow fans what they want.

This is a link to the teaser site, currently host only to a countdown. Here's hoping at the end of it there's something special to enjoy.

Resident Evil 5:Gold Edition
Starting to see the theme of disappointing sequels? Anticipation is a bitch and when a game like Resident Evil 5 comes along with a decent pedigree behind it and falls flat it tends to sting a little more than a stand alone game. Now admittedly I'm picking on a game that is in fact from 2009 but seeing as Capcom trotted it back out for a second outing last year with little but already available downloadable content to justify its release I consider them to be asking for it frankly.



Hmm, now where did that racially insensitive main character go?

Resident Evil 4 managed to redifine the franchise beautifully. Whilst it no longer involved zombies, new threats were added that at the time were enough of a change to make things interesting without completely altering the feeling of slow moving enemies unrelentingly attacking in cramped spaces. The atmosphere felt eerie, though not quite so much so as the locations of Resident Evil 1 or 2 for example. Gameplay was fresh, challenging and enjoyable, particularly in the case of the Wii edition when using the remote for manual aiming. It was easy to have high expectations of progression from the next game in the franchise, or at least that a follow up would match the quality of its forbearers. And yet Resident Evil 5 stinks.

I'm inclined towards leaving it there frankly, mentally retreading the game is a real chore, but what kind of pissy blogger would I be if I did? A shit one ladies and gents, I'd be a shit one. So for the sake of raising myself up to the dizzy heights of mediocrity I'll begin.
First things first. Daylight. When the initial previews of the game were going around it was one of the biggest gripes and one that held true when the game came out. There's no tension in wandering around deserted towns in bright sunlight, it's really as simple as that. And all that talk of characters sweating and attracting enemies, Capcoms justification for the setting, was rubbish.
Partner to the lack of darkness and shadow is the complete and utter lack of scares or even attempts at creating them. Right the way up till RE5 each game had at least one moment of pant wetting, unexpected horror; be it the dogs jumping through the windows in RE1, the T-1000 breaking through walls in RE2 or otherwise. Resident Evil 5 seemed to actively work on removing such scares. The best example of this is the way lickers, one of the most freaky fear inducing creatures in RE history, are relegated to caged animals literally waiting for you to take them out with consumate ease. If I'm not worried about what's around the next corner I'd might as well play Gears of War and be blessed with a far better control scheme and pace as well as musclebound cliches. Speaking of which...

Chris Redfield, a simple cipher with little to no personality, was turned from average man in over his head into a steroid abusing action man with arms like the thighs of a normal person. Instant fail in terms of evolving a character. I'm not interested in seeing a character that serves no purpose other than to be seen as my avatar within the world turned into a stereotypical alpha male fantasy. Capcoms reasoning? Attempting to appeal to an American audience. Poor show by Capcom seeing as appealing to the common denominator is no way to go if they want their franchise to last much longer.
Then there's Sheva, the latest in a string of typically stoic female ciphers. Except she's worse than any who have come before if only for one reason. Before the game even hit shelves some were in uproar over the apparently negative portrayal of Africans as animalistic and barbaric. Many came to the games defense arguing that Africa just happened to be the location, that the infection was the obvious cause of the seemingly barbaric acts of the trailer, but when Capcom released the game with an entire section of spear throwing infected tribe members their credibility fell apart. Then the following was revealed as an unlockable -


Wow Capcom, you take that famous xenophobia driven Japanese racism to whole new level.

I'd harp on a bit about the plot but frankly it was so bad that I never quite finished it, nor can I remember all that much of the specifics. I got to one of the very last boss fights and just stopped, never once feeling like I wanted to know what was coming. Repeated trampling of previous games plots and constant allusions to events never witnessed as being important resulted in the plot becoming laughable very quickly. Whilst previous entries had high camp value at times but regularly managed to keep in in check with enough tension and scares, in this case it was just pure campy tosh.

And finally, the additions added to the Gold edition. Three pieces of DLC, one of which is actually on the first RE5 disc but was locked away for money making purposes (multiplayer), two plot additions that undoubtably raised the convolution meter well above the fabled 9000. As well as that, another Mercenaries mode and some costumes are all you get. Hardly a reason to put what was already a below average game back on shelves.
What's more, and this is particularly silly, is that the Xbox version actually comes with a slip of paper with a download code for the content instead of having it on the disc, thus rendering the whole thing futile given that players who might have wanted the gold edition because they weren't online would be left in the cold (this is the only logical reason I can see for anyone to want to buy this re-release by the way).

And so my faith in the franchise is gone and it's going to take something special to get me back into it. My suggestion? A complete reboot taking the series back to the roots of a zombie outbreak with characters who are suddenly thrust into circumstances they cannot begin to understand. All this stuff about taking down Umbrella and visiting the remains of lab sites around the world leaves me far too cold, even in the bright sunlight.


So that's it for the bitchfest that was my look back at the crappier games of last year, though there is one main offender I've yet to dissect. It is the final nail in the coffin for a franchise and company I once followed and spent money on without question.
What might that be you ask? Well I'm not telling, but they do say that XIII is an unlucky number...