Most disappointing game?

Moonbiter · Post by **Moonbiter** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:38 am

I mean, it's the easiest money making scheme on the planet. One quick sweep on the net will show anyone the incredible fanbase these games still have. People have no problem installing and playing the games again and again. Any small company picking up the franchise could make quite a pretty penny putting out expansion packs. The engine is there, it's safe and well established. The customers are there. So what's keeping them?

Dungeon Hack.... *eeewwwwwwwww*

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:18 am

Originally posted by Moonbiter
I mean, it's the easiest money making scheme on the planet. One quick sweep on the net will show anyone the incredible fanbase these games still have. People have no problem installing and playing the games again and again. Any small company picking up the franchise could make quite a pretty penny putting out expansion packs. The engine is there, it's safe and well established. The customers are there. So what's keeping them?

But you see, although the BG series did well, it didn't make tons of money for Interplay. They didn't own the product, and they had to pay for years of development on both games, even though BG2 used essentially the same engine as BG1. The revenues were split with Bioware. Whereas with IWD, 1) *all* the revenues came to Interplay, 2) Interplay had complete control over the product's development cycle, and 3) the game was a lot less ambitious, hence requiring fewer resources (people and time).

Think of it as the difference between buying something for $1500 and selling it for $1700, or buying something for $1000 and selling it for $1700. Of course, this is a gross over-simplification, but the point stands: even though Interplay sold fewer copies of IWD than BG, the costs were so much less on IWD that they actually saw a good profit. In the end, they didn't make quite as much on IWD as they'd hoped; and I tend to think like you they should have immediately put money into a BG3 from Bioware. But perhaps Brian Fargo was already worrying about the poor state of Interplay, and didn't want to commit that kind of money to a product that would take 3 years to produce.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:26 am

@Fable: Do you know something about Interplay being poor or something?

Moonbiter · Post by **Moonbiter** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:37 am

Interplay claims to be changing their direction to console games and shooter-em-ups because they're suffering from monetary problems.

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 9:46 am

Originally posted by Luis Antonio
@Fable: Do you know something about Interplay being poor or something?

The company went bankrupt a couple of years ago. Fargo sold its assets, and the new Interplay opened its doors.

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Wed Mar 17, 2004 8:59 pm

Front Page Sports Football Pro '99. I was such a fan of that seires, and waited forever for the game to be released. The date kept getting pushed back, and back, and back, and finally the game was released.

Unfotunatley the thing was absolutly unplayable as it was shipped. The game crashed constantly, bugs were all over the place including having your offense line up out of bounds, and the patches did nothing to fix it.

How bad was it?

The game was recalled, and I ain't seen another game from the series since.

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Thu Mar 18, 2004 8:47 am

Black & White and The Sims. Both bored me to death after a couple of hours.

Sim City 4. I love Sim City, Sim City 2000 and Sim City 3000 but Sim City 4...no, it sucks.

Digitalchimp · Post by **Digitalchimp** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:10 am

sonic and Yu

by far the most disappointing game is Sonic Heroes on x-box
I loved the sonic series' but this came along and IT IS CRAP! what industry reject came up with the concept for this game? im gonna give him a ghetto beating, where he gets hit lots, and I dont.

Also im disappointed With Yu Suzuki (creator of the shenmue series) why the heck is he refusing to release Shenmue 3? worried about profit, PAH, I'll buy every single copy if its released, and sell them off at an extortionate profit JUST TO SHOW HIM!

Grrrrr.

The Z · Post by **The Z** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 12:10 pm

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor - I wanted to like it, but I couldn't.

Lionheart - Never bought it, but the demo didn't please me too much. It was Black Isle's worst

X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter - No campaign, no Star Wars feel, no point. "Alliance" was much better

Dungeon Siege - Beat it, but it was boring by the end

fable · Post by **fable** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 3:27 pm

Originally posted by The Z
Lionheart - Never bought it, but the demo didn't please me too much. It was Black Isle's worst

Not actually developed by BIS, but published under their aegis.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 10:17 pm

Originally posted by fable
Not actually developed by BIS, but published under their aegis.

And yet, I saw no money from the venture

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 8:22 am

Originally posted by Aegis
And yet, I saw no money from the venture

I was waiting for that!

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 8:35 am

Originally posted by Aegis
And yet, I saw no money from the venture

Hey, the greeks should have royalties for your robbery! Ye got a license to use that link?

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:00 pm

Originally posted by Luis Antonio
Hey, the greeks should have royalties for your robbery! Ye got a license to use that link?

What link?

Also, as far as I know, Latin is free game

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 5:10 am

@Aegis - Sorry, misspelled - nick, not link!
lol!

Dorian_ertymexx · Post by **Dorian_ertymexx** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:10 am

Personally I loathe all the D&D games. BG1 was allright, it was cute. But the second took itself far too seriously. IWD1 had good soundtrack, and the by far coolest character-pictures of all these games. And that is all I can say about IWD1, really. The plot was silly, and the final bad guy (as always) impossible to whack without a cheat or two.

NWN was horrible, I have yet to finish the game. It just isn't worth my time. And I agree with the point stated above, the DM-thingie was horribly difficult. Morrowind I could learn and use to make almost anything, with DM it was a struggle to get a house to look the way you wanted.

Lionheart sucked too, I concur with above statements.

SPOILER:

KOTOR is on the edge, simply because it has that typical Bioware touch; all the NPC's talk to you as if they (and you) were 16. This works badly with the NPC's that are young, but it is loathsome to hear a fully grown, serious-minded Jedi go "I suppose"-ing all the time. The obligatory love-stories sucked; I had to let Bastila die my first time around with the game, simply because I refused to tell her I loved her. Cheesus! The worst of all was the death scene of the bad guy... "I SUPPOSE you are right, the light side wins" or somesuch. If I had a say in their company and products, I'd start off with banning the phrase "I suppose". Totally.
Other than that, I loved KOTOR.

EDIT:

I've added the spoiler tag to your post, simply because of the information you gave about KotOR. Don't want t oinadvertantly ruining some of the game for people -Aegis
I never even got started on Black & White, even though a friend talked warmly about it. It just felt silly. [/b][/QUOTE]

Dorian_ertymexx · Post by **Dorian_ertymexx** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 3:48 pm

Ooops. Sorry. I'm not good at knowing when things are spoilers. Thanks for telling me.

Aegis · Post by **Aegis** » Sun Mar 28, 2004 4:30 pm

No worries. Everyone's made that oopsie before

Gauda · Post by **Gauda** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:13 am

Originally posted by Coot
It was very much the same: hack 'n slash, and not at all in a interesting way. The story didn't grab me at all and neither did the puzzles.
It was disappointing because Bioware should have - and could have - made a better game; just look at BG, PS:T and even IWD1. I suspect they wanted to make a quick buck.
All of this is just my opinion of course... other people seem to like the game, if only for the 3e rules.

Neither Ice wind dale 1, nor planescape are bioware games, they are games produced and realeased by black isle using the infinity engine from bioware

Coot · Post by **Coot** » Mon Mar 29, 2004 6:34 am

I know, I know... it's been pointed out several times now in this very thread. I get the picture, ok?

I just thought of another very disappointing game: 'The Last Dynasty' from Sierra. It was one of the first pc games I bought and I was really ready for serious space battles (which I've been a fan of since 1977) but it turned out to be a very silly game. Does anyone remember this title?