Games you were excited for..then disappointed with

[Lord Helmet]

You know, there have been lots of threads about how much Pac-Man or ET sucked, etc. This topic got me thinking, what games were you really excited to see coming out, then when you got them...you were really disappointed?

 

I was a HUGE Pac-Man fan back in the day, and I remember very clearly how excited I was that Pac-Man was coming out for the VCS. I also remember getting the game on the first day (along with that really cool Atari Pac-Man tshirt...I really wish I still had it )

 

I got it home and popped the game in...and was FINALLY PLAYING PAC-MAN AT HOME. You see, I recognized the difference in the arcade game...but I didn't care. It was only years later that I came to the conclusion that the game was a turd. Back then, I played the crap out of it...made up patterns for it just like at the arcade. I absolutely loved it.

 

It seems like the games I most looked forward to were the arcade conversions. I would see the ads in Atari Age or Electronic Games for new arcade ports that were being released, and want every one of them. Truth be told, I was never disappointed...I just loved playing the arcade titles in my living room, and BEATING THE CRAP out of them like I never could at my local arcade.

 

Hindsight...yeah, alot of those games were crappy conversions, but at the time, I couldn't give a crap, I loved them all (and still do in a way)

[Gabriel]

I wasn't really disappointed with Pac-Man. It was about standard in terms of the amount of liberties taken with the original game. After all, Space Invaders and Asteroids were far from anything like their arcade counteparts except in the broadest of definitions.

 

Hmmm. Games that disappointed me?

 

It's safe to say that Swordquest: Earthworld disappointed me. I had been built up by the propaganda to expect Adventure II. Instead I got an "exciting" game about randomly dropping random objects in various rooms to get numbers to appear on screen. What a turd.

 

One game I very unfairly was disappointed in was Super Breakout. For some unfathomable reason, I got snowballed by the game's advertising campaign. I was a sucker for space themed games. When it didn't really have the in game space theme that the print materials alluded to, I felt misled.

 

Of course, if I had just wanted to play the game instead of get involved in pointless backstory, I wouldn't have had any problem.

 

Basic Programming wasn't up to my expectations. I'm not quite sure what I thought it would be, but it just seemed lame.

 

Jedi Arena was pretty pointless as well.

 

I don't know why exactly I had wanted Pitfall II. I had kind of liked the first one, but didn't own it. Maybe I thought Pitfall II would scratch the itch. I got it home, plugged it in, and... Well, about 10 minutes later, I realized all there was to the game was miles and miles of the repetitive "mine." I kept playing the game (because it was my last new one for many years), but I hated it and only played it out of sheer, mind numbing boredom.

 

Star Raiders was a big let down too. I wish I had begged for Starmaster instead. But, eventually I got the awesome Atari 5200 version of the game, which kind of made up for the suckiness of the 2600 port.

[hbomb]

Defender was a big let down for me. I remember spending lots of allowance and orange picking money on this game only to find it sucked mammoth testes. The graphics were ok, but the gameplay was horrendous. Your ship disappeared when you fired and the cluster alien ship when hit, broke out into this 4 dot sprite thing that moved as one. Just very disappointing overall.

 

I didn't mind Pac Man at the time. I think I even played ET and didn't really care.

[shadow460]

Pac Man was the first, then Miner 2049er. Geez what a hunk of crapola. Three levels out of ten!? No wonder my dad never sprung for the second one. He got the awesome Apple II versioin instead.

 

But the one turd I waited the longest for is different. My dad oohed and awed over an Imagic title back in the day, but never did buy it. Twenty years later I finally bought it. I worked and worked on the cart and finally got it to boot up.

Fathom wasn't worth the 20 year wait or the effort I put into fixing it.

[+Random Terrain]

I wasn't really disappointed with PAC-Man. It was about standard in terms of the amount of liberties taken with the original game. After all, Space Invaders and Asteroids were far from anything like their arcade counterparts except in the broadest of definitions.

Space Invaders and Asteroids at least seemed like the programmers tried to give us a good version of the games. I was not disappointed in either one. Pac-Man was a big disappointment because it looked like the programmer didn't even try. It's as if he never played the arcade game. It's like someone sent him a memo that briefly described the gameplay and he went from there. He seemed to have no respect or love for us, no concern for anything other than his bank account.

 

I was also excited to get the first Swordquest game and then was disappointed. It showed less love and respect for us than that mess with the Pac-Man name on it. I was expecting another adventure game in the tradition of Adventure or Superman, not a collection of poorly done rip-offs of existing arcade games. Yep, that's what gamers want alright, an unplayable pile of crap and a comic book.

 

I had high hopes for Pitfall II. I read about how much better it was supposed to be than Pitfall! and how it had cool things in it like a balloon and being able to swim, so I bought it when it was new (I think it was with my own money that I earned mowing yards). The game looked kind of pretty and the music was better than anything that came before, but they managed to take a fairly boring game like Pitfall!, extract the one thing that was fun (swinging on vines) and inject one of the worst gameplay ideas ever invented: losing ground by going way back to a save point. I liked the idea of not dying and having no time limit, but I'd rather be punished by having an Incan ghost come and take some of my treasure and possibly make me move a little slower until I collect an object that will refresh me, but do not make me lose ground.

 

I also thought that since Pitfall II was the most advanced 'adventure game' ever made for the Atari 2600 that it would at least have randomly placed treasure using controlled randomness. Wrong! From treasure to enemies, it's the same game every time. Zero replayability with the bonus of frustrating gameplay and no vine swinging.

 

You know, I was excited every time I got a new game and then was usually disappointed in some way. Really fun games, especially replayable ones, were rare.

[Atari-Jess]

Atari Superman!

NES Superman!

Superman 64!

 

...I smell a pattern...

[godzillajoe]

I would have to say Solaris. I never had this in the initial run but recently got a copy and I dunno, seems pretty "eh."

 

Maybe I should read the manual but it just seems like a fancier Buck Rogers Planet Of Zoom.

[Foxsolo2000]

Amidar without a shadow of a doubt. I so loved the arcade game that when I heard Parker Bros were releasing it I went straight out to get it. Boy was I gutted to discover the pile of crap that they called Amidar. it made Pacman look like a masterpiece in comparison

[Lord Helmet]

You guys that mentioned the Swordquest games hit it on the head. I DO remember thinking that those games were going to be the coolest adventure type games of all time. Everyone that had a subscription to Atari Age magazine saw the ads and the jewel encrusted prizes etc.

 

Then the first game came out, and it was the most boaring thing on the planet. I was disappointed with that one.

[joeybastard]

James Bond. The pictures in comic books always showed a guy with a gun climbing on a train. Instead we got a weak semi-fun Moon Patrol rip-off.

 

GI Joe. Although I like the game as is, before I bought it I expected it to be more along the lines of Commando or Frontline. As a kid when I got it and saw that it used a paddle my first thought was, "Uh oh....." I gues I never saw a screenshot before I bought it.

Edited July 31, 2006 by joeybastard

[G.Whiz]

Yeah -- Pac Man, Swordquest, all the obvious. Asteroids as well for me. Pitfall II I didn't mind, but I agree that there could have been a bit more gameplay thought put into it -- why make an essentially linear adventure with all these rooms when you could make a whole map like Adventure?

 

Anyway, the biggest disappointment for me was Barnstorming. The artwork on the box clearly shows the airplane doing a loop on the front of the box -- I actually had to read the instructions to find out that in fact you could not do a loop at all...

 

~G

[ATARIPITBULL]

Pac-Man, E.T., Swordquest, Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back and Basic Programming come to mind.

 

[Vic George 2K3]

Swordquest was a real let-down. In 1982, one was expecting a game much closer to Mattel's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons than some arcade Tron wannabe of sorts mixed with running around through a bunch of rooms swapping stuff in and out of them.

 

And of course, Basic Programming had me thinking this was going to turn my humble 2600 into a somewhat powerful home computer for running BASIC games, at the very least.

Edited July 31, 2006 by Vic George 2K3

[Crazy Climber]

I was never truely dissapointed with a 2600 game that I purchased new. Back then I would just keep playing it until I made it fun. Maybe it's because I was a lot younger then but I don't think I give new games as much of a chance as I did back then. If I don't get into a newer XBOX game in the first few days I usually move on to something else. I loved all my Atari games including Amidar, E.T., Pac-Man, Star Wars, and plenty of other stink bombs. Now I've tried three times to enjoy JAWS for the XBOX and I just can't do it, plain and simple the game sucks. I need to start buying 2600 Homebrews.

[bode]

But Pengo disappointed me. I waited to see this alucinant music and the sound of the labyrinth if forming and… nothing… Worse he is that my Atari did not have key dificult A/B and for this reason the game was quieter still. ET to disappoint me? Never! I did not have manual, nor reviewed, nor tips… I had that to discover what to make in the brute force. Attempt and error. When looks the ship searching the ET I called all my friends the street to show as it is that it had that to be made! Until today in Brazil it has people that she does not know that ET has an end.

 

Forgive for the google English! :-)

[darklord1977]

superman 64 sucked.. i remember my cousin being excited for that one

 

but the most recent game that i was looking forward to was "BLACK" for the xbox the demos looked amazing when i got it home i went thru a few levels i was unimpressed it seemed rushed no style at all it looked like there was no thought put into it. still, its fun to play for all of 20 minutes worth a rental not a buy.

 

and sure it looks awesome and everything..but i found " GOD OF WAR" to be sort of a let down the reason was there are not any direct codes for the game..You will die all the time in this one...and second i was turned off by the hidden puzzles throughout the game...sure they were easy and all..but it took away from the rush of snapping arms bashing skulls..hopefully part 2 will be better from the E3 demo it looks like it will be worth the wait but im wondering why wasnt it for the playstation 3?..

Edited August 1, 2006 by darklord1977

[King_Salamon]

I for one really enjoyed playing Superman on the 2600... rented Superman on the NES and enjoyed it. It was an interesting game... as for the 64 version... I made sure I stayed away from it as I heard countless claims of lameless on that one.

 

Now for my choice of big disappointment:

 

Donkey Kong (2600) - Begged and pleaded with Pops to mail order it and $50 US and some extra duties and taxes later I had it! Complete with a crushed box (but I didn't care then!) I eagerly slapped it in the 2600 and was somewhat like... ugh. But it was okay... then I played it for a while and realized it only had two levels. Then about 2 months later we saw the game at a local department store for $3.99 Canadian. Whoops...

Edited August 1, 2006 by King_Salamon

[Laner]

I was pretty undiscriminating as a child - I enjoyed just about any game out there. If I had to pick one game I was really disappointed with, Donkey Kong would come the closest. I don't think I ever actually owned it though - just borrowed it from a friend.

[pocketmego]

James Bond. The pictures in comic books always showed a guy with a gun climbing on a train. Instead we got a weak semi-fun Moon Patrol rip-off.

 

GI Joe. Although I like the game as is, before I bought it I expected it to be more along the lines of Commando or Frontline. As a kid when I got it and saw that it used a paddle my first thought was, "Uh oh....." I gues I never saw a screenshot before I bought it.

 

 

Definately GI-JOE for me. I thought as a kid and I am even MORE sure now that GI-JOE started life as a completely different game and the license was simply plugged into it. They made it an Action Man game in the UK to go along with their Action Force comic evolving into what we called GI JOE in the States.

 

A freakin Combat knock-off would have been better than this piece of turtle crap.

 

-Ray

[Lord Thag]

Maybe I should read the manual but it just seems like a fancier Buck Rogers Planet Of Zoom.

 

Yeah, read the manual! Solaris is one of the best games on the system. Saying it's like Buck Rogers is like saying a Jaguar is like a wagon because it has wheels. Seriously, give the game another shot. It's my #1 favorite 2600 game!

 

My biggest disappointment was Star Voyager. I got it after Star Raiders and Starmaster, and I was expecting another great Imagic game with lots of cool features. What I got was a very reptative shooter with little depth. I was bummed. Since then, however, I've come to appreciate the game a bit more, but back in the day, I was really let down.

[elviticus]

Donkey Kong was the only game I really felt let down by. I loved the arcade, so I bught it right away, and it was just missing too much. I expected bad graphics, but I found it really repetitive and dull. Still played it a lot though- I didn't get games very often back then, and it was still KIND of Donkey Kong.

 

Also agree with Swordquest series, those games all sucked bad - WAY worse than Pac-Man or ET, in my opinion.

[Rom Hunter]

Zaxxon.

 

I borrowed a loose cart from a friend and hadn't seen any 2600 screenshots of it when I plugged it in.

 

I was shocked to the bone...

 

I like playing it now, though.

 

Edited August 1, 2006 by Rom Hunter

[Marc Oberhäuser]

Super Kung Fu -> No ending.

[joeybastard]

Super Kung Fu -> No ending.

 

Good call, I played that game every day for months trying different things assuming I did something wrong that there was no ending. It wasn't until coming here 20 years later that somebody mentioned that and I realised I hadn't screwed it up.

[Shawn]

Yars Revenge was kind of a disapointment. I thought it was gonna look like the cover of the box. Still played it alot though.