Not-so-epic gaming moments

*SPOILER WARNING* Oblivion came out way over a year ago... but if you still haven't played it this post contains spoilers.

Just because I'm a pessimistic, joy-hating jerk, I feel compelled to make a post cataloguing the biggest anti-climaxes you've experienced when playing games. A lot of these will probably concern the endings, since innumerable games start you off with a dazzlingly beautiful intro, but at the end can't manage more than a feeble "thank goodness Dr LazerGlans is dead forever! But wait! What's that coming out of my head? It's a spaceship! OMG INEVITABLE SEQUEL!" But any severe let-down moment will qualify.

As an example, there's a moment in Oblivion which is funny and shouldn't be. You spend the latter half of the main quest trying to drum up military support from all the main cities in Cyrodiil, in preparation for the climactic final battle. Each ruler, once you have performed a suitably silly quest, says "very well, I shall send a crack unit of my finest troops to help you". Feeling smugly confident, you make your way to the final Oblivion gate along with a few other soldiers, and await the arrival of your legions.

Until you realise that those few other soldiers in fact are your legions. When Baron Flatulentius told you he was sending you a crack unit, he really did mean one single unit. You might feel a little peeved at this, were it not for the fact that the unstoppable hellspawn hordes pouring out of the Oblivion gate consist of three old dwarf women with wings, a goth teenager wearing bad vampire teeth, and a stoat that appears to have set itself on fire.


IN A TIME OF WAR...
(badda-da-dum da da-da-dum)

SIX ANCIENT ARMIES...
(shot of six guys scratching their crotches and looking bored)

UNITE AGAINST THE GREATEST EVIL THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOOOOOOOOOWN...
(one tired-looking wolf tries to bite a deer but gets hooved in the face and slumps off, whimpering)

IN A BATTLE SO INTENSE THAT SMALL POOPS WILL ROLL OUT OF YOUR TROUSER LEGS.
(a soldier sits down heavily; there is a sad cracking sound followed by a dog-like death rattle).

THEY WERE PREPARED FOR HORRENDOUS FRAMERATES. THEY WERE PREPARED FOR INANE FANTASY RPG DIALOGUE. BUT NOTHING COULD PREPARE THEM FOR...
CRAPFIGHT.
ON PCs EVERYWHERE, MARCH 07.

So, give me an example of your biggest non-epic gaming moments. Or, alternatively, stop being so negative all the time! Jeez.

Uh FF7.0starter0

I'm guessing that's just a +1 post or something? :|

Just because I'm a pessimistic, joy-hating jerk, I feel compelled to make a post cataloguing the biggest anti-climaxes you've experienced when playing games. A lot of these will probably concern the endings, since innumerable games start you off with a dazzlingly beautiful intro, but at the end can't manage more than a feeble "thank goodness Dr LazerGlans is dead forever! But wait! What's that coming out of my head? It's a spaceship! OMG INEVITABLE SEQUEL!" But any severe let-down moment will qualify.

As an example, there's a moment in Oblivion which is funny and shouldn't be. You spend the latter half of the main quest trying to drum up military support from all the main cities in Cyrodiil, in preparation for the climactic final battle. Each ruler, once you have performed a suitably silly quest, says "very well, I shall send a crack unit of my finest troops to help you". Feeling smugly confident, you make your way to the final Oblivion gate along with a few other soldiers, and await the arrival of your legions.

Until you realise that those few other soldiers in fact are your legions. When Baron Flatulentius told you he was sending you a crack unit, he really did mean one single unit. You might feel a little peeved at this, were it not for the fact that the unstoppable hellspawn hordes pouring out of the Oblivion gate consist of three old dwarf women with wings, a goth teenager wearing bad vampire teeth, and a stoat that appears to have set itself on fire.


IN A TIME OF WAR...
(badda-da-dum da da-da-dum)

SIX ANCIENT ARMIES...
(shot of six guys scratching their crotches and looking bored)

UNITE AGAINST THE GREATEST EVIL THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOOOOOOOOOWN...
(one tired-looking wolf tries to bite a deer but gets hooved in the face and slumps off, whimpering)

IN A BATTLE SO INTENSE THAT SMALL POOPS WILL ROLL OUT OF YOUR TROUSER LEGS.
(a soldier sits down heavily; there is a sad cracking sound followed by a dog-like death rattle).

THEY WERE PREPARED FOR HORRENDOUS FRAMERATES. THEY WERE PREPARED FOR INANE FANTASY RPG DIALOGUE. BUT NOTHING COULD PREPARE THEM FOR...
CRAPFIGHT.
ON PCs EVERYWHERE, MARCH 07.

So, give me an example of your biggest non-epic gaming moments. Or, alternatively, stop being so negative all the time! Jeez.Ninja-Vox

After the first 30 mins of GeOW...i was extremely let down. I mean, I hadn't seen such high scores for a game since Resident Evil 4, which I loved. And all this has to offer for me is 6 hours of ducking and shooting with 5 different weapons? not-so-epic game from epic.

Thx for ruining that quest for me :(Setsa

No offense, but if you're concerned as to spoilers, when i said "one example involving oblivion..." you should have stopped reading. Even then, if you continue on to read "the latter half of the main quest consists of you gathering..." SURELY you'd stop reading then?

You can hardly read an entire paragraph then complain about being hit by a spoiler.

Oh most definately.

0starter0

You can and will get moderated for that. Dont post just for the sake of it.

[QUOTE="Setsa"]Thx for ruining that quest for me :(Ninja-Vox

No offense, but if you're concerned as to spoilers, when i said "one example involving oblivion..." you should have stopped reading. Even then, if you continue on to read "the latter half of the main quest consists of you gathering..." SURELY you'd stop reading then?

You can hardly read an entire paragraph then complain about being hit by a spoiler.

After the first 30 mins of GeOW...i was extremely let down. I mean, I hadn't seen such high scores for a game since Resident Evil 4, which I loved. And all this has to offer for me is 6 hours of ducking and shooting with 5 different weapons? not-so-epic game from epic.

HoldThePhone

Even i dont like Gears, but it's hilarious how the fanboys have cut down the game length over the months.

Review-time - "9.6? Man, this 12 hour game doesn't deserve that score..."

Later... - "Man, you're still playing that 10 hour piece of junk?"

Even later.... - "I hate that 8 hour trash..."

And now - "That 6 hour game blows".

Heck, we'll have cows and haters claiming to have beaten it in half an hour before long.

[QUOTE="HoldThePhone"]

After the first 30 mins of GeOW...i was extremely let down. I mean, I hadn't seen such high scores for a game since Resident Evil 4, which I loved. And all this has to offer for me is 6 hours of ducking and shooting with 5 different weapons? not-so-epic game from epic.

Ninja-Vox

Even i dont like Gears, but it's hilarious how the fanboys have cut down the game length over the months.

Review-time - "9.6? Man, this 12 hour game doesn't deserve that score..."

Later... - "Man, you're still playing that 10 hour piece of junk?"

Even later.... - "I hate that 8 hour trash..."

And now - "That 6 hour game blows".

Heck, we'll have cows and haters claiming to have beaten it in half an hour before long.

im no fanboy, the game was 6 hours 0_o. And the 3 multiplayer modes didnt cut it for me either. It's a good game, but the 9.6 leaves me speechless.

Were you playing co-op on the easiest difficulty by any chance? :|Ninja-Vox

Not the easiest.

Were you playing co-op on the easiest difficulty by any chance? :|Ninja-Vox

oh well im sure playing on insane would make the game much longer. but i really had no desire to go thru that s*** again.

In Co-op, me and my friend beat in in 5 1/2 hours no kidding. Single player was around 7-8 hours.0starter0

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]Were you playing co-op on the easiest difficulty by any chance? :|HoldThePhone

oh well im sure playing on insane would make the game much longer. but i really had no desire to go thru that s*** again.

[QUOTE="HoldThePhone"]

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]Were you playing co-op on the easiest difficulty by any chance? :|smokeydabear076

oh well im sure playing on insane would make the game much longer. but i really had no desire to go thru that s*** again.

no it was fun you're right. But I had no desire to go through it again.

[QUOTE="HoldThePhone"]

After the first 30 mins of GeOW...i was extremely let down. I mean, I hadn't seen such high scores for a game since Resident Evil 4, which I loved. And all this has to offer for me is 6 hours of ducking and shooting with 5 different weapons? not-so-epic game from epic.

Ninja-Vox

Even i dont like Gears, but it's hilarious how the fanboys have cut down the game length over the months.

Review-time - "9.6? Man, this 12 hour game doesn't deserve that score..."

Later... - "Man, you're still playing that 10 hour piece of junk?"

Even later.... - "I hate that 8 hour trash..."

And now - "That 6 hour game blows".

Heck, we'll have cows and haters claiming to have beaten it in half an hour before long.

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"][QUOTE="HoldThePhone"]

After the first 30 mins of GeOW...i was extremely let down. I mean, I hadn't seen such high scores for a game since Resident Evil 4, which I loved. And all this has to offer for me is 6 hours of ducking and shooting with 5 different weapons? not-so-epic game from epic.

DrinkDuff

Even i dont like Gears, but it's hilarious how the fanboys have cut down the game length over the months.

Review-time - "9.6? Man, this 12 hour game doesn't deserve that score..."

Later... - "Man, you're still playing that 10 hour piece of junk?"

Even later.... - "I hate that 8 hour trash..."

And now - "That 6 hour game blows".

Heck, we'll have cows and haters claiming to have beaten it in half an hour before long.

In TP when when Zant revealed himself to be a bats&*t crazy monkey man.

It came out of no where.

I definitely agree with Oblivion. Anyway, another anti-climatic moment was in Fear, when

[spoiler] you kill Fettel and the only thing that was left to kill you were dark shadow things. Those were a cake walk. I mean, with the game's great enemy A.I. you would have thought they could have done a better job giving you something truly awe-inspiring in the last moments of the game. But no, they just kind of flew after you...and that was it. Nothing intimidating, nothing special at all. They look cool but that was about it. [/spoiler]

I definitely agree with Oblivion. Anyway, another anti-climatic moment was in Fear, when

[spoiler] you kill Fettel and the only thing that was left to kill you were dark shadow things. Those were a cake walk. I mean, with the game's great enemy A.I. you would have thought they could have done a better job giving you something truly awe-inspiring in the last moments of the game. But no, they just kind of flew after you...and that was it. Nothing intimidating, nothing special at all. They look cool but that was about it. [/spoiler]

DrinkDuff

Halo had an epic ending and that is what Halo 2 lacked if you ask me.smokeydabear076

True. Cliffhangers have no place in videogames which take two or three years to make. My problem was what they did with the gameplay to make it more "epic" however. It ultimately u-turned and made the game feel far less epic than the original. When you come out of the doors on Assault on the Control Room and see the grunt blasting away on the shade turret, the morter tank pinning down the small bunch of marines who are hiding under the trees, and the two ghosts prowling around for anyone who steps out of cover - THAT was epic.

Seeing a wraith tank on legendary made you crap your pants. You had to come up with some clever way to take it out. On Halo 2, they throw three of the things at you and you just annihilate them all with the readily available rocket launchers. Banshees too, went from flyers you had to hide from until they expose themselves to some gunfire before you bring them down, to an armada of flying vehicles which you blow up with ease thanks to the auto-death rockets.

It's as if they though more=more epic. It didn't. It just made you feel like a walking bringer of annihilation as you blow up one tank after the other.

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"]Halo had an epic ending and that is what Halo 2 lacked if you ask me.Ninja-Vox

True. Cliffhangers have no place in videogames which take two or three years to make. My problem was what they did with the gameplay to make it more "epic" however. It ultimately u-turned and made the game feel far less epic than the original. When you come out of the doors on Assault on the Control Room and see the grunt blasting away on the shade turret, the morter tank pinning down the small bunch of marines who are hiding under the trees, and the two ghosts prowling around for anyone who steps out of cover - THAT was epic.

Seeing a wraith tank on legendary made you crap your pants. You had to come up with some clever way to take it out. On Halo 2, they throw three of the things at you and you just annihilate them all with the readily available rocket launchers. Banshees too, went from flyers you had to hide from until they expose themselves to some gunfire before you bring them down, to an armada of flying vehicles which you blow up with ease thanks to the auto-death rockets.

It's as if they though more=more epic. It didn't. It just made you feel like a walking bringer of annihilation as you blow up one tank after the other.

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"]Halo had an epic ending and that is what Halo 2 lacked if you ask me.Ninja-Vox

True. Cliffhangers have no place in videogames which take two or three years to make. My problem was what they did with the gameplay to make it more "epic" however. It ultimately u-turned and made the game feel far less epic than the original. When you come out of the doors on Assault on the Control Room and see the grunt blasting away on the shade turret, the morter tank pinning down the small bunch of marines who are hiding under the trees, and the two ghosts prowling around for anyone who steps out of cover - THAT was epic.

Seeing a wraith tank on legendary made you crap your pants. You had to come up with some clever way to take it out. On Halo 2, they throw three of the things at you and you just annihilate them all with the readily available rocket launchers. Banshees too, went from flyers you had to hide from until they expose themselves to some gunfire before you bring them down, to an armada of flying vehicles which you blow up with ease thanks to the auto-death rockets.

It's as if they though more=more epic. It didn't. It just made you feel like a walking bringer of annihilation as you blow up one tank after the other.

The last fight in Twilight Princess. Especially considering that the one before it was.

Also, the last boss in RE4. Ugh.

[QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"]Halo had an epic ending and that is what Halo 2 lacked if you ask me.smokeydabear076

True. Cliffhangers have no place in videogames which take two or three years to make. My problem was what they did with the gameplay to make it more "epic" however. It ultimately u-turned and made the game feel far less epic than the original. When you come out of the doors on Assault on the Control Room and see the grunt blasting away on the shade turret, the morter tank pinning down the small bunch of marines who are hiding under the trees, and the two ghosts prowling around for anyone who steps out of cover - THAT was epic.

Seeing a wraith tank on legendary made you crap your pants. You had to come up with some clever way to take it out. On Halo 2, they throw three of the things at you and you just annihilate them all with the readily available rocket launchers. Banshees too, went from flyers you had to hide from until they expose themselves to some gunfire before you bring them down, to an armada of flying vehicles which you blow up with ease thanks to the auto-death rockets.

It's as if they though more=more epic. It didn't. It just made you feel like a walking bringer of annihilation as you blow up one tank after the other.

i agree with all pouints about Halo. Thats where Halo 2 failed, they couldnt recapture the same feeling as you got during assault on the control room or the silent cartographer.

Also the final boss in Okami

[spoiler] A giant mechanical ball with laser canons is the embodiment of all evil....WTF? I though this game was supposed to be based on japanese mythology? [/spoiler]

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"][QUOTE="Ninja-Vox"]

[QUOTE="smokeydabear076"]Halo had an epic ending and that is what Halo 2 lacked if you ask me.hazuki87

True. Cliffhangers have no place in videogames which take two or three years to make. My problem was what they did with the gameplay to make it more "epic" however. It ultimately u-turned and made the game feel far less epic than the original. When you come out of the doors on Assault on the Control Room and see the grunt blasting away on the shade turret, the morter tank pinning down the small bunch of marines who are hiding under the trees, and the two ghosts prowling around for anyone who steps out of cover - THAT was epic.

Seeing a wraith tank on legendary made you crap your pants. You had to come up with some clever way to take it out. On Halo 2, they throw three of the things at you and you just annihilate them all with the readily available rocket launchers. Banshees too, went from flyers you had to hide from until they expose themselves to some gunfire before you bring them down, to an armada of flying vehicles which you blow up with ease thanks to the auto-death rockets.

It's as if they though more=more epic. It didn't. It just made you feel like a walking bringer of annihilation as you blow up one tank after the other.

i agree with all pouints about Halo. Thats where Halo 2 failed, they couldnt recapture the same feeling as you got during assault on the control room or the silent cartographer.

This thread is gonna be a minefield of spoilers.

And here's my mine.

The Darkness

[spoiler] Ok, so you're a dude with the command of a demonic power from hell or somesuch. You have the power to create a huge swirling black hole that can crush an entire building and kill everyone inside by sucking them into this vortex. You have the power to spawn razorsharp tentacles and totally slaughter a room full of people in a matter of seconds by impaling them, have your demonheads eat their faces and your army of darklings ripping them apart.

Sounds great doesn't it? Should make you feel like an all powerful badass right? Wrong. You see, all the badass stunts are uninteractive cutscenes. It shows you all these totally awesome scenes of mayhem and destruction with Jackie using the tentacles to walk around like Doc Ock and just laying the smack down on everything like some kind of demigod. And when the controls are returned to you, what can you do? You can flick one puny tentacle around and need to take cover like a pansy when getting shot at.

Mike Patton shows you all this awesome stuff you can't do with his powers. It just totally sucks and is the most anticlimactic final level I can recall. It pisses me off just thinking about it. [/spoiler]

[spoiler]

The Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivionwere pretty disappointing. I was hoping for some very hard assassinations but none of them were really memorable. I was expecting to be taking on kings and their elite bodyguards (though that would seriously **** up the main quest) but the largest targets were only members of the Dark Brotherhood and a retired Imperial Watch captain. Not very satisfying overall. Well, except for the time someone put a hit on that blasted dark elf that insults you at the beginning of the game. Oh, did I enjoy paying a visit to him.

The ending for the Dark Brotherhoodwas pretty anti-climactic. I was expecting much more from the traitor. His diary made him sound insane yet when he announced he was the traitor, he didn't sound like the madman I was expecting. He was also way less intelligent than I thought he would've been. Yeah, really smart to announce you're the traitor when the top members of the Dark Brotherhood are around. You just wasted your entire life gaining the trust of everyone else only to do something that stupid and die.

Maybe those assassinations would've been tougher if I never learned Chameleon or Soul Trap and never had the ability to enchant armor at the Arcane University. The enemies aren't exactly smart againstme with a permanent 100% Chameleon provided my armor isn't destroyed in addition to 100 in Sneak and 100 agility points.

[/spoiler]

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)
[spoiler] :| [/spoiler]

Is it against the rules to intentionally spoil a game? I wanna tell people the ending so that they don't have to go through it. I'd be doing a good deed.

After reading one of the halo novels and playing both halos some thing make no sense at all. In the cutscene of the first level of halo 2 MC is strong enough to drag a bomb that must weigh at least 4 tons but he can't kill the weakest enemies with one melee attack. also, the sparten solders were trained for hand to hand combat. if so why can't you do punches or kicks and not disarm soneone.Rougehunter

Because that would be stupid. You dont know how much the bomb weighed... and he didn't even pick it up, he had to drag it across the floor. If you killed every enemy with one strike, and ninja kicked every elite's weapons from it's hands do you think it would make for a fun game?

Gears has pretty lame climax I thought the RAAM General was a "mini-boss" somebody you'd kill to get to the last mean mother F alive.

This guy from the PC version looks like a much better boss than the RAAM cheap vampire

[QUOTE="Rougehunter"]After reading one of the halo novels and playing both halos some thing make no sense at all. In the cutscene of the first level of halo 2 MC is strong enough to drag a bomb that must weigh at least 4 tons but he can't kill the weakest enemies with one melee attack. also, the sparten solders were trained for hand to hand combat. if so why can't you do punches or kicks and not disarm soneone.Ninja-Vox

Because that would be stupid. You dont know how much the bomb weighed... and he didn't even pick it up, he had to drag it across the floor. If you killed every enemy with one strike, and ninja kicked every elite's weapons from it's hands do you think it would make for a fun game?

Also the final boss in Okami

[spoiler] A giant mechanical ball with laser canons is the embodiment of all evil....WTF? I though this game was supposed to be based on japanese mythology? [/spoiler]

Shinobishyguy

Yeah the ending was confusing. Also

[spoiler] Why did the guy in my sig become a main character all of a sudden? I didn't like him the 3 times he was in the game, why make him Okami's sidekick? Also what's with the final boss becoming so huge of a character, we didn't even know anything about him till the end of the game! [/spoiler]

Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy)
[spoiler] :| [/spoiler]

Is it against the rules to intentionally spoil a game? I wanna tell people the ending so that they don't have to go through it. I'd be doing a good deed.

InsaneBasura

Such a bad game, first half was just trucking along building up the awesomeness and then it just broke down into an utter mess and peice of junk. Definitely one of the better examples of a game that could been something but ended up being a whole lot of nothing.