Biggest flop of 2009.

In judging this category, I have a few criteria. There needs to be a substantial amount of hype built up around the title in question. It almost certainly has to be a first party exclusive in order to accomplish this hype barrage. There is no gaming fan like the corporate sheep, who will latch on to a title based on exclusivity alone. The title needs to have a large budget and a fair amount of advertising. Lastly, there needs to be a good amount of media attention surrounding this game.

For all of these reasons, my biggest flop of 2009 has to be Killzone 2. Now I know a lot of you are thinking, "What the hell are you talking about? The graphics were uber 1337!"

Yes I know. The graphics were good, and some of the body flop physics were pretty good, but I'm not inclined to enjoy a game based on just visual appearance. I have a rare habit of demanding content in my games.
The campaign.

What can I say. Whenever you introduce boss battles into a shooter and the title on the box ISN'T Metal Gear, I've got issues with you. The cloak battle with the colonel towards the end of the game had to be one of the most tedious and boring things I've ever had to endure. The campaign in general was nothing special as far as I was concerned. There were many times when the fact that this game began development 6 years ago showed. Where was the co-op? This game would have been much better with this feature, and in this day in age, its almost a must. There were no moments/ aside from the cutscenes, that I was really impressed with Killzone 2's campaign.

Multiplayer

I will tip my hat to Sony and the developers for offering a very smooth gaming experience. Aside from that, you have to wonder who thought up this stuff. Cloaked snipers? Movable spawns? I mean come on. In any game it was inevitable that opposing spawns would basically be right on top of each other, producing a spawn shoot die chain reaction that took the fun right out of the game. I do think that their idea for producing a game type that envelopes all modes was a good one, but the execution and rules for each mode ruined it. Saboteur? Are you kidding? If you think I'm alone in my harsh judgment of the online play, just look at the online numbers. They can't even sustain 5,000 on any given day, while dinosaurs like halo 3 continue to support well over 100,000 on a nightly basis.

The controls.

Here we are. The single largest flaw in this game. I don't care how pretty a game is. If there is significant controller lag, the game is trash. For those of you that claimed there was no controller lag, you just weren't paying attention. The developers themselves finally acknowledged this after weeks of denial. This lag made sight aiming almost useless unless it was at distance.

The wrap up.

Now maybe I'm being a bit harsh here, based on my own expectations on the game, but when I see all of the resources spent on this title, and the years of development, I wonder what happened. I would kill for that kind of attention from Sony for my beloved Socom series. Wouldn't you?

Tell me what you think. Feel free to disagree, agree, call me an idiot. This is your home too. I read all responses.


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