Our TeamXbox 2011 Game of the Year awards continue today with an award that is more-so about shame than celebration. This year has seen a selection of fantastic games, but it has also seen some truly disappointing ones. This time, we look at which game was the most disappointing with our Biggest Disappointment of 2011 award. Can you guess what game took first place? And, no, it wasn't Duke Nukem Forever.From its initial unveiling, Bethesda promoted BRINK as the next big thing in online shooters. Trailers carried taglines like “Revolution Begins”, touted the SMART movement system, developers promised no two games would play alike, the game’s graphical style and customization were highlighted, and the eight vs eight team-based gameplay was described as the new way to play team-based FPS games.
Then BRINK came out. The “story-based” experience meant that the single-player campaign and the multiplayer mode were played on the same 8 maps, handing out the same objectives over and over. The online system was initially broken, and the unique graphical style was a blurry, muddled mess. And the gunplay never really felt satisfying, with the different weapons and unlocks rarely feeling like they made a difference in playstyle.
Not all of BRINK was done poorly, though. The SMART movement system allowed you jump over obstacles and leap off walls, helping keep the maps and gameplay a bit more interesting. And the customization system was as robust as promised, allowing you to create a unique character. Unless you wanted to create a female character, as they were left out. But for all of developer Splash Damage’s experience in creating tight team-based shooters, the few things BRINK did decently isn’t enough to cover up the uninspired gameplay, and strange development decisions, like the lack of a pregame lobby.
Truth is, BRINK isn’t a horrible game. If you managed to play with a good team, the game started to come together and you’d get some exhilarating matches in. Problem is, those experiences were few and far between. BRINK promised a lot, and let us down in nearly every single one of those categories. With more time in the development oven, BRINK could have been a good game. Instead, it was unfinished, messy, and lackluster. For all the hype and promise, this makes BRINK our most disappointing game of 2011.
Biggest Disappointment of 2011 Dishonorable Mention: Duke Nukem Forever
Let’s not deny it -- most people expected Duke Nukem Forever to be some degree of bad. Its disastrous development phase made it the stuff of legend. Some may have been tempted to buy it just to see what a game looks like after a decade of development, or perhaps because they thought it’d have a few redeeming features that would send them on a nostalgia trip to the days of Duke Nukem 3D. They should have saved their money.
DNF is painfully unfunny, tedious, horribly dated, and an all-around mess. The biggest disappointment with DNF lies in the fact that the game’s infamous development period was more exciting than the actual finished product. DNF isn’t just a bad game; it is the type of game you give people you hate when you want them to know that you hate them.
