You'd think in 2014 when we're all firing off opinions into the nether like some sort of rant-based observational warship in the oceans of Twitter, we'd of learned to curb our expectations a little. These days the metric of opinion is either 'the best thing ever!' (usually typed in capital letters) or the experience at hand is only slightly more preferable to the bubonic plague. But how can you keep a level head when you're being assaulted from all directions by a constant stream of bright colours, explosive PR buzzwords and visuals that somehow always find some new way to make past experiences look enticing again? Franchises like Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty have ran themselves into the ground thanks to annual releases playing too much on the more forgiving among us who inevitably reconcile to thinking "Okay, just one more, then I'm done!" - only for those same people to realise they've pretty much bought the same thing again. Although those two examples are fairly recent, the issue of thinking you're buying into one thing only to subsequently end up with another goes back for as long as there's been trailers created for anything. When it comes to games we always want to champion a new property, as although there's something to be said about games sticking to formulas they've perfected, you just can't beat a completely new franchise coming right out the gate and nailing every aspect of its production in the execution. That being said, these are not those times, the following entries are compiled from a collection of disappointed feelings that stem from things such as misleading marketing campaigns, broken gameplay mechanics, bad graphics... and everything in between.
15. Watch Dogs
You had one job: Make our new consoles feel worth it. So let's get Watch Dogs out the way, as it's easily the most recent example of what appeared to be the entire online blogosphere rallying behind a title, only for the final product to conjure the sort of fan-fury reserved for major sporting events. What caused the major public outcry from everyone was twofold: Firstly many of us decided we were going to invest in the shiny likes of the PS4 and the Xbox One purely off the back of this high-tech GTA-tinged extravaganza back when we first saw it at E3 2012. A release date was then set for November the following year and all was well, as the new consoles were also arriving around the same month too. That date was then cancelled, and a much further off change of May 27th was now what we were staring at - albeit after the majority of us had pre-ordered or bought the new consoles. This didn't matter though, right? Surely the extension was just to further refine the gameplay, graphics and bugs? Nope, it was to tack on some ridiculously Saints Row-esque minigames, the most sellable one - Ubisoft thought - was that of controlling a giant mechanical spider around the city whilst your character was on a 'digital high'. As if the sinking realisation that the game could have been released the year prior wasn't enough sans these inclusions, the state of the graphics in the final version were quite considerably worse than what was originally shown. Ubisoft ensured us that the downgrade was made to ensure the game ran smoother, but when PC owners delved into the game's code and found a way to restore the game to it original - much better - state, the whole thing turned into a farce. It's one thing to change your game for the supposed greater good, but it's something else entirely when the fans themselves prove you wrong, and do your job better than you not weeks after release.
