Welcome one and all to our new Saturday club feature ‘Controversial Club’. As so much of our content is positive, charming and a lovely read we thought we’d start a weekly article where we can get a bit of rage out, or just generally be dicks! I introduce our controversial club, a place where we can all write about things that get on our nerves, rub us the wrong way and generally go against the norm.
This week we’d thought we’d discuss our least favourite mega-hits; those games that sell like hotcakes but end up breaking our teeth like granny’s rock-hard scones!
Joe
For me, my personally least favourite game that sold excessively well was, surprisingly, GTA V – Now before I rant, let me quickly clear something up; yes, the gameplay is good, and the characters are good, but all things considered, they’re just… Good. Never great.
GTA V in terms of world, soundtrack and the overall base content was, to say the least, disappointing – All you really get is a big city, a mountain, some strung-out towns and an airbase to mess around in, and this feeling of non-progression by not unlocking new areas feels somewhat underwhelming – The soundtrack too seems much less involved than GTA V’s predecessors, with my only memorable songs being “Convoy” and “El Sonidito”, as opposed to the many memorable tracks in Vice City, San Andreas and even GTA IV.
Finally we have GTA Online. Good god was this a prime example of wasted potential. Instead of expanding the game in meaningful ways, we got… New cars…? Yay..? New weapons…? Ok… And no new map locations…! This began a frightening trend with Rockstar as they stopped giving us expansions and worthwhile content and were solely selling GTA V for GTA Online’s overpriced gimmicks.
Such a shame, really.
Javier
The big one that popped into my mind, which it’ll surprise no one to see here, is Battlefront 1. My god that game was so disappointing. I really loved it when I first put it on, loved the star wars setting and the FPS gameplay but really quickly came to realise it was any standard online shooter just with a star wars skin, there was nothing that special about it. And I hate online FPS games anyway!
I remembered the old Battlefront games being absolutely incredible fun but this was an absolute disappointment, which many of us who rushed to buy on release day felt.
The other big one was Mafia 3, 2k’s fasted selling game. Now this isn’t an awful game but it just didn’t live up to its predecessors. I understand that it’s had various free updates since which have improved it vastly but I played and completed it before there were any big updates.
And that’s the thing I did finish the whole thing but I can’t say I sat there with pure glee on my face my entire time. The mechanics were often clunky, the game was glitchy and there was no customisation at that time. The story and violent combat made it a good game but overall it was a massive empty world with missions that were very repetitive .
Luke
Destiny 2 for me. Even though I missed the hype of the first game so all the issues purists had with the sequel weren’t there for me I still have a lot to hate with Destiny 2.
The actual storyline was just fine but the postgame was just empty trash and one of the most boring experiences of my life, I hoped for a game I would keep me entertained for 2 months – but what I got was 2 days
Will
Every year in the UK, social media is abuzz for a day or two with hype over the re-release of a decades old title. Girlfriends are told “see you in a month!”, and millions of pounds are spent on virtual trading cards showing the face obscure north African athletes, which seems to make the players so excited that there’s probably a noticeable bump in the amount of boxer shorts sold that week.
I speak, of course, of FIFA, the series that represents everything wrong with annualised sports franchises.
FIFA seems to sell better than a puppy that eats student loan debt, and even though I’ve been trying to figure it out since I was 14, I still can’t fathom why. I used to think it was because football fans are all idiots, but then that was probably just the ironic elitism of my shortass, acne-encrusted, can’t-hold-a-conversation-with-attractive-women teenage self at play.
Sports games are infamous for being the exact. same. game. released every single year. I’m not kidding- they’re not just similar, they actively re-use most of their assets between years. The only real feature I know that has ever been added is a career mode with an actual story. Which is a good start, I guess. But then, that’s exactly what Titanfall 2 did. And that was released 2 years later, with a completely rebuilt multiplayer mode.
But people continue to buy FIFA. Even though all they do between most years is tweak the numbers to fit the current football season.
Therefore, I am left to no conclusion other than “Not all football fans are idiots, but some are and they all buy FIFA annually.”
Put it this way, guys: you and all your mates skip one installation of FIFA, play 2018 for two years straight, and instead spend the money on tickets to, you know, an actual football match. At least that way, you actually get a new memory, rather than the same memory you made aged 14 with slightly nicer graphics.
Ben
For me, it’s not just a specific game that I didn’t like, its an entire genre of game. Sepcificaly horror survival games. Games like Outlast, Slenderman and FNAF. I understand the way that people enjoy the exhilaration of being chased through the dark corridors of a haunted building, but it’s never worked for me.
I don’t even enjoy watching horror films so maybe this makes sense, but the number of games that have come and spawned series’ specifically designed to make you jump, is just something I can’t get behind.
Josef
Beloved by many, GTA IV was an awful experience for me. Every few years I’d try this game again after all the hype and excitement around the scene. Then every time I would be disappointing. Visually the world is so dull and I didn’t feel the encouragement to go crazy and have fun. Unable to do all these sorts of things there was no real reason for me to continue playing. Having tried the multiplayer on both PC and Xbox 360 I just felt empty.
I much preferred Red Dead Redemption from around the same time which provided and exciting location and one of the most fun multiplayer modes I’ve had the pleasure of playing. To look back and remember this game just doesn’t hit any good nerves for me and I’m turned off of the series in general because of it.