Posts Tagged ‘disappointing’

22 Dec

Best of 2019: Top 10 Disappointments

Posted by vagrantesque in Best of 2019, Lists. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Sadly, 2019 was a particularly great year for gaming media and enthusiast media channels to grab quick reactionary views, such was the glut of controversies great and small throughout the industry. The year also offered its fair share of dud movies that had promised something bigger and better. Luckily, this list only has ten slots, so I’m just going to focus in the things that let me down based on my own personal expectations, a.k.a. the pieces of entertainment media most relevant to me. So expect a bunch of tiny things (with one exception) that probably won’t matter to you.

Super keen to get this over with and start on the positive stuff tomorrow.

.
-◊-◊-◊-◊-

VR BEST OF 2019 DISCLAIMER

This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. To agree with me 100% is rarer than an EA game without microtransactions. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.

-◊-◊-◊-◊-

.

.

10. So why did Crackdown get delayed again?

Crackdown 3 at last saw the light of day as a real, released product in 2019. Hard to believe it was announced five years ago at E3 2014, promising an ambitious competitive multiplayer mode with 100% destructible environments using “the power of the cloud”. The game’s initial release window was 2016, but complications with that cloud system pushed it to November 7th, 2017 – the same day as the superpowered Xbox One X. That delay brought the need for cloud computing into question, but most of us on the customer and enthusiast side weren’t exactly qualified to draw any conclusions about that. The focus of the marketing was now on the game’s campaign anyway – featuring Terry Crews!

But then the game missed its last real hype window when it was delayed out of the window of X launch title and into late 2018. Which apparently wasn’t enough, because it actually came out in March of this year. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast playing the game, but nothing about it feels particularly cutting-edge or screams “this needed to be delayed”. There is always a reason for these things, of course, and I’m glad the game wasn’t outright cancelled, but until some candid interview with a former Microsoft executive spills the beans years from now, I’ll be left wondering just what on earth was going on behind the scenes for all those years. The series deserves better.

Continue reading →

22 Dec

Best of 2014: Top 10 Disappointments

Posted by vagrantesque in Games, K-Pop, Lists, Movies, Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

VR_Bestof2014

Last year I began my year-end countdowns with a list of a more negative flavour than the stuff I’m usually inclined to write, but it received a pretty substantial amount of attention (who knew?) and was a refreshing challenge to put together, so here we are with its 2014 return. I present my opinion on the top 10 entertainment media disappointments of 2014.

In the early months of the year, I didn’t have much of a list building. Almost every widely anticipated movie proved to exceed expectations rather than dip below them, and as for videogames, despite a relative six month drought of major releases, there was always something good to play. Then, in the second half of 2014, things started to unravel, with huge, emotionally charged media stories abounding over controversial issues. They were mostly gaming related, which stung a bit, but that was fine with me in at least one department, as it ensured I wouldn’t have to think up a new type of list for 2014. Here we go.

.
-◊-◊-◊-◊-
VR BEST OF 2014 DISCLAIMER
This list represents my opinion only. I am not asserting any kind of superiority or self-importance by presenting it as I have. My opinion is not fact. If you actually agree with me 100%, that’s spooky. Respectful disagreement is most welcome.
-◊-◊-◊-◊-

.

10. Interstellar fell short of the hype

One could make the point that no movie of 2014 felt the weight of expectation more than Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Many people, myself included, waited with baited breath for more details to be revealed about the sci-fi epic following a highly cryptic opening teaser and an even less transparent first trailer. Few would disagree that Nolan’s highly impressive track record justified the kind of hype afforded to Interstellar, but when the disappointing first wave of reviews came through for the American release of the film, that hype backfired. Then, as my free time began to dissipate due to new commitments, a lot of my friends started to see it without me, and several of them raved about it. So my hopes were raised again – then I saw it myself. While I do think Interstellar is a good movie, even a very good one, I just can’t get past its messy attempts at sentimentality which, for me, place it below every other (admittedly excellent) Nolan movie thus far. It’s a compliment to the director, really.
.

Continue reading →