Which are the worst/most disappointing games you've played, and why?

[Sullla]

It's easy to come up with a list of "worst" games; just find any one of a number of shovelware games. You know, the kind of games bought by clueless grandparents who don't understand video games. For example, I received a game called "Bart and the Beanstalk" for the original Gameboy many years ago; it was a Simpsons retelling of the Jack and the Beanstalk legend (yeah... it was just as good as it sounds...) Poor gameplay, bizarre level design, horrendous collision detection and controls - you get the idea. These games are not hard to find.

For a game to rank highly in terms of disappointment is a bit different. You need to have a game that was highly anticipated before it came out, not simply some drivel shovelware. It shouldn't be a surprise therefore to see some high-profile games on this list, as the disappointment is relative to the expectations ahead of time.

My biggest such game was the PC title Master of Orion 3. Now the original Master of Orion is an absolute classic, and one of the best turn-based strategy games of all time. The sequel was still decent, if not so good, and after years of delays, the third installment finally came out in 2003. Heck, IGN even gave the game a 9.2 in its review - a NINE! The game HAD to be good, right?

Well, it turned out to be an unplayable pile of doodoo. The interface was unbelievably complicated, documentation was poor or non-existant, the manual was garbage (telling mostly the "backstory" of the galaxy instead of telling you how to play!), the graphics looked like something out of 1996, the AIs were all insane idiots, and the game literally would play itself without you doing anything. You could click "next turn" 100 times, and the game would settle new colonies, research technologies, fight battles, and actually win the game without your lifting a finger. It was about as much fun as using a spreadsheet. Master of Orion 3 is one of the all-time stinkers, right up there with Daikatana and Duke Nukem Forever (if not as well known).

I still can't believe I paid $50 for that pile of garbade. Morale of the story: I've never trusted any IGN reviews ever since (Metacritic score is 64, user rating 4.3). Because either their reviewer was a complete moron, or he was paid off, and either way I'm not trusting them again!