Some games this year are just going to fall flat. Some will even crash and burn. Some may even come to surprise me and many others! But to compliment my “5 Games In 2019 That I’m Hyped For!” list, here is a list of 5 games in 2019 that I just have a feeling will be overhyped or just plain bad.
5. Skull and Bones
I’ve personally been excited for Skull & Bones since the initial trailer for it. And as much as I really enjoyed the naval combat in Black Flag, which the combat is supposed to be taken from, I just don’t know that it’s enough to make a full fledged game. I understand there are some different mechanics in the game and it is going to be multiplayer. But even with the differences, I am just not feeling that this game will do anything it wants to do in a solid and well realized way. The problems that come with this game are the problems that existed with the naval parts in Black Flag. There is a lot of nothing happening, until something does happen. And after a quick skirmish, you go back to drifting in the ocean until you find something. Now maybe I’m just overlooking many of the great things about this game. I’m sorry if that’s the case, and I hope this game does turn out really good. But I’m just not seeing it yet.
4. Crackdown 3
So here’s where maybe I’m a bit biased. But hey, I never claimed to not be biased. I’m not some hard-hitting journalist or something with integrity. I personally have never understood the appeal of the Crackdown series. They play too light first of all, meaning that there never seems to be much weight in your character and their actions. The structures and all always felt like you could run right through them and it may just kind of shift at a weird angle for long enough until it “fell”. And the gameplay has just always been lacking for me. You shoot things while running at a medium-fast pace and maybe some things die and maybe you die, or both. There’s nothing particularly exciting about it.
But let’s put all of my issues with the game aside and look at this new one that is coming out later this year. It already has the signs of a failed game. We have seen less and less of it each year it seems since it was officially announced. The game has been in development for more than 5 years, which could be a good thing, but could be a very bad thing. Remember Duke Nukem Forever? Yeah, that took a long time too and the payoff was not quite worth the wait. I also feel like the most that we’ve seen from the game is Terry Crews doing some live action trailers and the smallest bit of uninspired gameplay. So, I’m not particularly hyped for this game. Even if it is one of the few Xbox exclusives we will have gotten in quite some time.
3. Rage 2
I legitimately hope that this is not a disappointing game. It looks really fun and significantly different from the first game. Even still, I’m a bit concerned that expectations are being set too high for those paying attention and it won’t live up to those expectations. Part of what drew at least my attention to this game was how it reminded me of Borderlands, but with even more color. Now I think this will definitely be a fun game. But the number of people that I believe will actually pick up this game is rather small when compared to the other games that it will be competing against. I also believe that its comparisons to Borderlands will be detrimental to the game’s performance. If gamers expect this game to cure their Borderlands itch while we wait on Borderlands 3, then it will never be what they want it to be. It’s like when you are craving a steak but settle for a hot dog because it’s the only meat available right now. It may be a damn good hot dog, but it will not be anything close to that juicy steak you want.
2. The Division 2
When it first launched in 2016, I enjoyed the Division. For maybe a month or so. It had solid third-person cover-based shooter mechanics. And even though it wasn’t the best, it had a good enough loot system. There was content there that made the game fun, but to many, including myself, it wasn’t lasting fun. It had a lot of promise though, with the unique Dark Zone mechanic that the game had. You could enter this high-level area where you didn’t know who to trust. It was possible that you’d run into people that just wanted to join forces and help you get loot while staying on the lookout for other players that would try to kill you and take your hard-earned loot. And at any point, a “friendly player” may decide that they wanted what you had and would kill you for it. All interesting and exciting on paper. The problem was that instead of creating this tense, “who can I trust?” situation, I feel that most players just chose not to trust anyone. Which turned into you getting curb stomped every time you went into the Dark Zone when you weren’t max level and already had the best equipment.
The Division 2 looks to play similarly, if not exactly the same as the first, just in a different setting. Upon first seeing the reveal trailer for this, I was excited. I thought, “awesome! A new chance to see Ubisoft fix the problems with the first Division.” But there’s the problem: a sequel cannot just aim to fix the problems with the original. It has to do something different. It needs to take what made the original good and strip away the worst parts while adding new features that will not only provide fans of the original with what they like, but pull in a new audience that tries to convince them that the original is worth trying because of how good the sequel is. Based on what I have seen, this will not be the case with The Division 2. It looks to be more of the same that we got in the first game, but maybe with a different story.
1. Days Gone
I was really close to listing this game in my 5 most hyped for games of 2019 list. I thought it over real well and looked back at some of what we’ve seen on the game. My conclusion was disappointing to myself: it’s not unique enough. Especially re-watching The Walking Dead recently and having this world compared to TWD. I also noticed that the way the game plays look very similar to a lot of other zombie-shooters. In particular, it reminded me of The Last of Us. And there wouldn’t really be anything wrong with that, except that The Last of Us already exists, was more unique, and has a sequel possibly releasing this year (still not convinced that it will be ready for release this year). Nothing in the game really stands out to me any more as being particularly unique. Which may be fine, but only if what it does, it does extremely well. Like, better than everything that it is comparable to based on what we’ve seen. I just don’t see that happening. And I’m kind of just fine with that, seeing as there are plenty of other Playstation exclusives that are just around the corner.
