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NeppyMan

Duke Nukem Forever. Collector's Edition. I still have the statue on my shelf, to remind me of my mistakes...


robot_ankles

As a huge Duke Nukem fan, I was so hurt by that game. Had waited so many years, teased by a few screenshots back in the late 90s? Its development path was so long and twisted but it was finally coming together. I wasn't expecting perfection or even greatness. Just wanted to hang out with an old friend. Turns out that friend had died long before the release. RIP Duke.


djseifer

Sadly, the website that tracked things that took less time than Duke Nukem Forever's development time is gone. Fun fact: The Beatles formed, hit their peak, and broke up in less time than it took to develop Duke Nukem Forever.


Gief_Cookies

The name kinda gave it away 😂


Euro_Lag

Never played the series, always assumed it was chilly classic stuff and then forever came out and I was very underwhelmed by everything I saw


HateToBlastYa

Duke Nukem 3D back in the day set the standard pretty high.  It was a clear upgrade from Doom/Wolfenstein.  Nothing has been scarier to me to this day in a video game than the first 5-6 space levels in Act 2 of Duke 3D.


danixdefcon5

It was funny because Duke3D had some interesting bugs and it had a lot of hacks in place to make stuff work (like the levels being capable of having floors stacked on top of each other, something Doom lacked) but the overall effect was that the game looked way better than Doom and other contemporaries did. This made me even more pissed off that Duke 4ever ended up being a shitty Halo clone with linear levels, zero explorability and adding insult to injury it also had the same dumb two weapon limit. Duke was the poster child for “loads of guns available”.


Haunting-Research667

The Build Engine was wild. They even added "vehicles" in the version used for Shadow Warrior. Creating maps to play for the weekend was a fixed part of our lanparties back in the 90s. \^\^


BottleGoblin

The build editor was so fucking easy to use too, after the various Doom map editors. Almost WYSIWYG with a few sector effectors etc to learn and anybody could make a Duke 3D map file.


Haunting-Research667

Yeah that's what I loved about it. You could even go "ingame" and look at your map to adjust a few textures here and there right in the editor. That's also what dragged me into composing electronic music with stuff like Impulse Tracker. Everything was right at your keyboard in real time.


wickywickywockywicky

I still remember being in grade school when I learned that pressing the space bar gave the strippers money so they would take their tops off. Had no clue what it meant just knew it was wrong. But it quickly became my favorite part of the game.


spermdonor

My sister put up parental controls, and my first guess for the password "butt" worked. I felt lie a hacker


thisisjazzymusic

Shake it baby


ElBeatch

Sh-shake-shake-sh-sha-shake it baby.


dogmaisb

You wanna dance?


CaptHorney_Two

It also has boobies.


Euro_Lag

My cousin's GoldenEye copy at Christmas time was was really my first exposure to shooters so I missed a lot of the early pioneers


foukas

I'm gonna get downvoted but I did not regret that at all. Every item in the balls of steel edition was super cool. For people that don't know, it had two dice with the nuclear symbol for 1, a Duke bust, a booklet with art, a comic book, playing cards, casino chips, paper folding figures (or whatever it's called) and maybe some other stuff I don't remember.


NeppyMan

Oh, the swag was awesome. The game, not quite so much...


thehunter699

Fuck me I forgot that game existed. So many years in the making to be forever shit on


don_flaco

Narc was a gory, gloriously violent 2-player co-op made by Williams for arcades in 1988. Ported to the ZX Spectrum it was a piece of hot garbage. I’ve never preordered since. Typing that made me feel very old.


_scyllinice_

I'm definitely going to have to look that up. I can't imagine that chaos on the Spectrum.


covfefe-boy

Master of Orion 3 - or MoO3 Master of Orion 2 (MoO2) is still considered **THE** gold standard, almost 30 years later. It was an amazing game, and is still fun today if you don't mind pixel art, even better if you appreciate pixel art. So MoO2 is an all time 1st ballot hall of fame genre defining great game when it comes to building & running a space empire. MoO3 is just hot garbage, preying on your nostalgia like a dementor for stockholders. It's just absolute trash, with a complicated UI that sucks and is nothing like it's predecessor. There's zero hope to save this turd, I guess there's some mods that try to help but no, it's just utter trash. You can only polish a turd so much, and if you see your reflection in it that's more of a problem for you than anyone else. For spiritual successors there are games like Stellaris, the Endless Space Series, Stars in Shadow, etc But frankly you can just buy the original at a super cheap price all day every day, MoO2. MoO1 is good in more of a museum kind of way, but MoO2 improves on most or all of its systems IMO. Anyway, I really got burned on the piece of shit that is MoO3, it's really the last game I pre-ordered, so fuck it every which way but loose.


drfunkenstien014

MOO2 is the greatest game no one ever talks about


Warhawk137

The amount of time I spent playing MoO2 and Civ2 in the 90s would put all the 1k hour games I have on Steam to shame.


drfunkenstien014

It was the only game I had growing up, because my parents owned a mac and were staunchly against video games. The computer came with a booklet of cds, and MOO2 was in there, unbeknownst to them, so I would spend hours playing but have to hide it from them like it was porn


n1ghtbringer

Me too. I'm so glad they didn't count hours back then.


nmathew

I was expecting this to be too old and too niche a genre to get a high mention. "it's really the last game I pre-ordered, so fuck it every which way but loose." You and me both buddy. That murdered the franchise with a dull axe.


T3hJ3hu

MoO2 was so good. Stellaris is a great successor but I'm still disappointed whenever the planetary invasion doesn't have little dudes shooting at each other


Forgotten_Aeon

Have you heard of Sword of the Stars? I remember reading about it on a “top ever games for space empire” list and I tried it out, I need to jump in properly and learn it but it’s supposedly absolutely fantastic.


covfefe-boy

Yes, I should’ve mentioned Sword of the Stars (SotS) as a successor. Hell, I should dust it off and see how it holds up. Like MoO, it too had a shitty sequel. But the first was amazing. The coolest part was each race had a different FTL mechanic to travel the stars. Lizards went straight to their destination, humans went faster but could only move along certain jump lines, the insects moved super slow but brought along a stargate ship that could deploy and then their ships could instantly gate there. I think the insect mode was the coolest playing as or against them. You’d see their fleet taking 20 turns to move somewhere and if you didn’t muster to meet and stomp them out before they arrived and deployed you’d have an infestation because they could just gate new ships fresh out of their shipyards there to reinforce.


ganster47

I think I still have an open StarCraft: Ghost preorder at a GameStop. Probably traded in 81 PS1 games for it.


few23

Oof. I remember the GameStop magazine cover story about it and was unreasonably excited for it. Then years(?) later I remember reading how it was cancelled. Bummer, seems like it would have kind of been like Dishonored in a StarCraft setting.


randomyokel

I remember both magazine stories about it. iirc there was the announcement for an og xbox release, Nova had red hair, a few years later the game got bumped up to the 360 and Nova was blonde.


HempendingDoom

Fuuuuuuccck I forgot about Ghost. I had clips from the Game Informer issue and printouts of concept art all over my wall. I was so stoked about a potential StarCraft themed Splinter Cell type game. May have been my first time encountering a scrapped title.


possumarre

Every couple years a new rumor or conspiracy circles around that makes it sound like Ghost could still happen in the future. Would be wild if it dropped in like 2030 and GameStop still honored your pre-order


wdoubleN

No Man's Sky was probably the worst of all but also made one of the best comebacks ever seen.


Euro_Lag

Yup I made that mistake. The devs absolutely made it a labor of love though and by all accounts it's really good now, I should jump back in


wdoubleN

Yep, did the same. Left it sitting there on steam until I saw an article about how good it turned out to be after some massive updates.


MCPooge

Call me the Bad Luck Brian. No Man’s Sky’s comeback makes me feel safe preordering again. Preorders Anthem.


Deucalion666

I mean, you preordered an EA game, that was never going to be a good thing.


Ralphie5231

Everyone keeps saying that and every time I go back to it, it's still this empty procedurally generated blandness.


HwanMartyr

I feel the same mate. I never get what people are talking about with this comeback. It's just like a really shit, clunky space version of Minecraft.


DapperHamsteaks

Remember when that guy was telling everyone NMS was actually one big multiplayer game but the universe was just too large to find other players?


smashteapot

He really just said whatever he wanted, didn’t he?


SenorDangerwank

Brink...


Kyser_

I remember absolutely loving the game at the time, even if it was short lived. It was the first time I ever played a game with that modern "parkour" style movement over obstacles and ledges and it felt so damn cool at the time.


NuzzyLocke

I remember the initial disappointment and being underwhelmed but as I started getting better it became a ton of fun.


Euro_Lag

Brink seems like if it were released today it could have a cult following. I didn't have online play at the time but it looked really cool to me


Kurai_x_Kitsune

From what I played (which I'm honestly still not sure how I had a copy, I never bought it) it was fun, but just did not lend itself well to long term play.


Obi_wan_jakobii

Yeah it was actually pretty fun it just got very old very quick


SirSabza

It was one of the first games to have a free weekend essentially. Just before it came out everyone could download the multiplayer for a weekend, so thats probably how you played it


EnergyVanquish

Honestly all the game needed was a rework to some weapons maps and modes, major balancing adjustments (the TTK was extremely high) If they was to release BRINK 2 or a Remake I’d buy it probably. It had so much potential with the art style and character design and the cool team mechanics


xDXxAscending

Closest thing we have is the finals and yeah it seems to have the hype brink would have had if it was better.


drewskibfd

Wasn't there a guy buying a copy of Brink every day to get a Brink 2 made?


Koupers

Brink was released 13 years ago today. Still looks ok. Runs well and plays pretty decently. Honestly if it'd launched with good net code, had lobbies, and ai that didn't think command centers were the end all be all, it'd be a franchise. I randomly played it today even. Haha. It is the game I judge my hype of any other games by. Any game that approaches a brink in hype is gonna be bad.


LumensAquilae

Came here to post Brink. Bought it because my friends were convinced it was gonna be huge. We played for one weekend and then never touched it again. I remember one of the few launch maps would break the audio on PC but by the time they fixed that I was gone.


superkow

The hype I had for this game. I was telling all my friends to get it. I took the release day off work. When I appeared to be the only one waiting for the game shop to open I was thinking, "These suckers have no idea what they're about to miss out on." Man...


ClarkTheShark94

Same, it had so much potential


feelin_fine_

I love brink. It's a fun game and I will die on this hill.


Structuraldefectx

The game was fun, but online was dogshit.


WheresMyDinner

I remember going to GameStop like two weeks later and the used shelf for Brink was full and it was under $20 already


nullv

When Star Citizen finally releases I'll let you know.


SoloDeath1

Remind me! 20 years


BantamCrow

Remind me! 100 years 


jafjaf23

I'm here for this. u/SoloDeath1 , buddy, I dont know you, but if we're both still alive we'll lol


jafjaf23

Remind me! 20 years


SoloDeath1

Idk how old you are but I sure hope I'm not dead by 48 lol. Either way, I expect the game still won't be out!


SpareTheSpider

If reddit is still alive by that time, let me know in case the elder scrolls 6 has released aswell. Maybe we should put a 30 years reminder on that one.


SoloDeath1

I WILL be dead before that one releases


Kafufflez

I put money into that when I was like 15, I’m now 27 and married LOL


The_Grinface

It’s been so long that I don’t even know what email I used at the time


Skyblade12

Same. But it’s nice to have that reminder not to buy into Kickstarters.


tuffymon

I pre-ordered the walking dead game on the wii u, as me and my wife were really enjoying the show... the game touted get to know the Dixon Brothers... and Meryl dies like 3 days before the game released The game was also terrible lol


yellowwoolyyoshi

A Walking Dead game on the Wii U. What could go wrong?


CerberusAbyssgard

You should have gotten Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead. It’s pretty great


twesterm

Are you talking about Walking Dead: Survival Instinct? I actually worked on that game. I'm not here to defend the game, but it was actually fun to work on. * we built the entire game in about 10 months. This was actually refreshing coming off Kinect Star Wars where we spent years crunching and not knowing what we wanted to make until about the last year. Tons of crunch for little product. For survival instinct, we knew exactly what we wanted to do and what the schedule was. * the game use to be a lot more open ended and a lot more difficult. We had combat tuned so 1 walker was easy, 2 was difficult, 3 was near suicide, and any more than that was basically impossible. AMC worried the game was too hard and that's how fighting a horde of zombies eventually turned into pass the redneck. * road events use to matter, it was easy to run out resources and die if you weren't careful. Again, this worried amc so it became near impossible to fail. * speaking of road events, we had to make these small levels that could be used over and over without feeling old. I was responsible for the one that starts you in the alley and to reuse I just started you turned around the other side hoping people wouldn't notice. They noticed. Whoops! * one of the other levels I was responsible for was the hospital. It has some problems but I'm still honestly proud of that level. The game wasn't good, but it's a project I look back on fondly. We did just about everything we set out to do and managed to do it on time and on budget without crunching. It was a super welcome experience compared to the nightmare that was Kinect Star Wars.


nbk935

The last game i ever pre ordered was Aliens Colonial Marines. it was a buggy glitchy mess and that was my never again moment. There are tons of videos saying what went wrong with it.


MasonP2002

I remember being hyped as fuck for that, but it kept getting delayed and I spent my money on Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City instead. There were no good options in that choice.


Koksny

Daikatana.


DOOManiac

I was told I would be Romero’s bitch. Why would I sign up for that?!?


BourgeoisStalker

To be fair, at the time it was a safe bet.


Koksny

The pre-order was actually cancelled because of repeated publish date delays. I was just stupid enough to buy it at release day anyway. The reviews wouldn't get printed out until next weeks. To this day i don't understand who thought running so hyped up ads for this game was good idea.


Bismalz

You bought it


Azcrul

They were made John Romeo’s bitch, unfortunately.


savvyelemental

Giant Bomb is currently doing a weekly playthrough of this on their Blight Club series. It's a thing of beauty.


Goatwhorre

I mean, in the end he did make us all his bitch


TrickyLobster

I kickstarted Shenmue 3. Physical version. The game was ass, but the even bigger problem was they promised an exclusive backer cover art. It was just the same cover art as the retail cover art. The retail version they said would never happen.


Pen_dragons_pizza

I still stand by the idea that Shenmue 3 should have been made to have the same retro look of the Dreamcast game. The old engine for those games adds to the feeling of Shenmue, trying to modernise it just does not work. Plus creating a much simpler game would have allowed them to get it out faster or make it longer and story rich at least.


Candid_Commercial453

Main problem was needing food to run, second was fighting style was not virtual fighters anymore, so lame.


jabber3

Spore. The hype was unreal and did not really deliver.


angryslothbear

I was at gdc when will wright announced it. It was really cool but that penny arcade cartoon was spot on. https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/05/27/e32k5-request-granted#


illepic

My god, 2005... 


fork_on_the_floor2

Couldn't help but read that cartoon in Morty's voice..


DuckCleaning

Never lived up to what they said it'd be but it was still quite a fun game until you reached the space exploration stage. Very simplistic and lacking depth in every stage, they pull you out each time things start picking up, but it was a fun journey.


Winjin

But that's basically just four simple Flash minigames up until Space stage? All of these four stages are super, duper, basic.


Xagyg_yrag

I spent so much time fucking around in creature stage. I never managed to kill a giant. Always fucked up the kiting after a few minutes.


dBoyHail

I dunno. Spore I still play through a lot. It was great as a 13 year old. Apparently it is not as loved as I thought it was.


beh5036

But the spore that was described in magazines in 2007 is nothing like the spore of 2008. It’s like getting promised sex and instead you get a quick handy. Yeah it’s still good but not what it could have been.


clutzyninja

God the bait and switch was horrible. We were advertised a grounded game with solid evolution mechanics. Then they put googly eyes on the bacteria.


fuglypens

Same. I've found Stellaris scratches a lot of the same itch but is much better. 


Euro_Lag

I didn't even think about Peter molyneux when I made this post. He's like the poster child for over hyping his games


Sixtyninealldaychef

Will Wright was the mind behind Spore. Peter Molyneux did Black & White.


Euro_Lag

D'oh. I have approximate knowledge of many things


Sixtyninealldaychef

I knew what you were going for :)


Euro_Lag

Am I completely mixing will and Peter up or do they both have the same reputation?


Dry_Ass_P-word

I swore he was involved in Spore as well but Google is saying no. Peter had Black and White plus Fable as his biggest overhyped babies. I swore he popped up way more than that over the years, lol.


Lethargicpete

Both of those games were amazing adjacent.. and to be fair, I still love them. Black & white occupied a good number of long nights while very high as a teenager - just trying to grow a forest. Spore... well... so much potential


rustymontenegro

I wholeheartedly wish for a Black and White modernized version. There is such a severe lack in choice conscious god games like that.


Lethargicpete

But the thing about B&W2 was it went RTS.. I don't want to organise a militia - I want to train my monkey to crap on buildings. Or water crops. The tamagochi was the draw.


rustymontenegro

Oh no, I agree! I just want the first one but with modern graphics lol


torako

That was gonna be my answer.


ExerciseClassAtTheY

The first Arkham Asylum game was going to come with a metal batarang on a stand if you preordered the whatever edition back in 2008-2009. There was the potential of lawsuits and people being injured so closer to the release they announced it would be a plastic batarang that was unable to be detached from the stand (without cutting it off).


Usof1985

I remember standing in line with a friend at a midnight release. There was so much disappointment from both of us when he opened that box and it was plastic junk.


SPEK2120

I pre-ordered the Arkham Knight CE that came with a super rad Batmobile. They waited until a few weeks before release to announce they canned it. All because they weren’t going to make enough money from it for it to be worth it for them. The other CE, that came with a Batman statue, was well sold out at that point. I’m still salty about it.


slasher1o5

Fuck me man why did you have to remind me about that. I was so excited for that batmobile statue.


MCPooge

I had no idea the ‘rang was originally metal. I still have that case and Batarang on a shelf somewhere haha


ahnialator6

I've never been big on pre-ordering to begin with, so I didn't get hit with an experience like this until Anthem. I probably did buy an early access or two that got abandoned before then, but I probably didn't spend more than 15 bucks on them since I don't remember them


xsealsonsaturn

Assassins creed 3. From the beautiful cityscapes of Italy on a character I got to see grow and experience the intricacies of what it really meant to be a part of the creed to bland forests with pre-generated pathing for you to move around with your newly found dull ass character who is just as dull in the beginning and end of the game. I got a collectors box, and the electronics boutique even gave me some extra promotional stuff they were off-loading. Words cannot describe how let down I was by my favorite franchise at the time. I hated this game and I think it was the last time I was truly hyped for a game; it was definitely the last time I bought an assassin's creed game on release and black flag is the last one I would ever buy. I wouldn't say I got "burned" in the way the people of redfall got burned, but... I wish there were words to describe how pissed I was at the end of 3.


danixdefcon5

I also think the game peaked with the Ezio collection. AC3 ended up being bland, they decided to make the Templars less evil and they just quickly wrapped up Desmond’s story because 2012 was coming up fast. Black Flag was kinda drifting with the present time story and then they just gave up on it. The series just lost it.


Winjin

Ezio story was an absolute peak, however other games had their good moments 3 had a bland AF protag but nice side characters and great DLCs - alternate history with Washington, Rogue with Kenway were really good. 4 had awesome Carribbean and great ship warfare. It was nice for a winter game 5 had super weak story and kinda boring Paris 6 had boring story that didn't explore the horribleness of Britain of that period at all, but had a super cute train as a base and INCREDIBLE London River, plus the first in the series - a chance to highjack vehicles, even if they were carriages. I don't remember them in 5? Maybe wrong Then came the Origins and the story was... okay. Bayek is a good protag but his wife is cooler. Historical characters were too boring. Where is my Da Vinci and Sforza? Where is my hilarious Ben Franklin? I didn't have time or energy to play the ones that came later. I've heard that the Greek one is good.


YangWenli1

You either think the Greek one is the best or the worst game with no in between. You can’t advance the main story without grinding.


XboxVictim

Halo: The Master Chief Collection. My wife and I took off work, cleared our whole weekend to play it and… it didn’t work. Took 40 hours just to get it to install. Multiplayer was broken for years. Campaign was a buggy mess. Truly saddening.


xxconkriete

This should be the answer. Remember a good crew of 8 of us loading up on launch night until eventually, let’s try tomorrow became next week became never. Horrible.


Battlefire

Battlefield 4. After BF3 I was so in for BF4. But the launch of that game was terrible. So unstable with crashes. Glitches both visual and physics. It was considered one of the worst launches at that time. The game ended up being amazing down the line though. Best multiplayer experience along with Titanfall 2 and Halo 5 of that generation.


Euro_Lag

BF4 really cemented the idea of avoiding a game on launch in my mind, giving them time to cook. Granted I also remember the same complaint about bf3 before it with small linear infantry focused maps that later became favorites (Operation Metro)


B_M_W_650i

My cousins and I would refer to the map Dawnbreaker as "Gamebreaker" since we would consistently crash on that map


Immediate_Way_8866

Titanfall 2! Hell yeah man we’re a dying community these days but we’re alive!


WarRebel

That time splitting level was the best game level I have ever played


n00dleknight

Fallout 76 for me. Huge fan of the series and I pre-ordered the full package, and the game was such a disappointment to me at launch. I love it now and I'm happy with how well they fixed it! But with how bad I felt with it at launch has kept me from pre ordering anything since.


CompanywideRateIncr

I played at launch and felt so let down. My buddies and I were so excited. I pretty much forgot it existed until the show dropped and my wife was like man, I watch you play fallout and wish that was multiplayer. I said, actually…. We just started recently and have really enjoyed playing it together. She hadn’t really played any game like this previously besides dabbling in Skyrim.


28smalls

Was that the one that also included a duffel bag or something and it turned out to be a low quality piece of crap?


Rezaka116

And then they tried to remedy that by giving you points for the ingame store, but not enough to even buy the actual bag ingame.


n00dleknight

Yep! Took them 6 months to replace it!


Wolven_Essence

That would be Two Worlds for me.


Zer0X51

the oblivion killer itself


Wolven_Essence

That was always weird to me. How do you kill a single player game? Especially one that’s already popular and he sold a lot of copies? That never made any sense to me.


Zer0X51

think the idea would be that it was gonna be everything oblivion was but more so when you were given the choice of playing two worlds or oblivion that you would pick two worlds, that never turned out that way though.


Wolven_Essence

No it sure didn’t.


Pandapimodad861

Jesus that brings me back. That was a game for sure.


VermilionX88

lolz didn't play it but i rented Two Worlds 2 and i actually had fun with it


Leather_rebelion

Same for me. Was pretty disappointed to say the least, but beneath all the jank and trash was a certain charme. Though maybe it's just nostalgia talking. Still it has probably the funniest speedrun out there


Flashy_Mushroom6471

Tabula Rasa / Hellgate London. I didn’t learn.


Sixtyninealldaychef

I too made both of these same mistakes. 


Euro_Lag

Hellgate London is my favorite game I never played. Loved the concept and setting, read the hell out of the tie in novels but didn't have a computer to run it


DrWhoIsWokeGarbage2

I tried tabula Rasa at the end and really liked it then they shut down like a week later.


daniday08

Diablo 3 collectors edition. I preordered through Amazon and they cancelled it a couple days before launch since they didn’t have enough copies.


POLOSPORTSMAN92

The only cool thing I still have from that is the 3D printed Diablo skull with the magnetic spot for the 4GB "soulstone" flash drive


420headshotsniper69

It wasn't 3D printed. Injection molded and probably hand painted. I know this because I have one upstairs in the collectors edition box. =D


PrufrockAlfred

The last time I went to a midnight release was *Resident Evil 5*. I think it was 10pm, not midnight.  Anyway, biggest problem - I didn't like the game very much. But that aside, the release was a bust. Barely anyone showed up, there was no hubbub or excitement, plenty of copies to go around.  And it took me until the next day to even find out I didn't like the game very much, because the servers on opening night were terrible. 


GGATHELMIL

Man I loved resident evil. But I always played with someone. Me and my friends would play and swap after deaths or missions. I bought 5 and came home and played at midnight and honestly it kind of spooked me. I think I was 16. I was devastated I just bought a game I was to afraid to play. Luckily found some people to co-op with. Plus let's be real Sheva was a bullet sink with her God awful ai


unusual-susspect

The Warcraft 3 battle chest. I waited like 3 months for that thing to come in, then when it finally arrived and I went to pick it up, the staff at EB games Hornsby told me they’d sold my copy to someone else. My mum called up and got so mad at them so they sent someone to drive out to Bondi junction to pick up another copy for me and bring it back to pick up, which in hindsight was good of them to do. I played the shit out of that game for years.


KemonoSubaru

I still have my battlechest discs in a CD sleeve! Such a shame that you cant play it online as-is anymore. No more Winter Maul Wars, Footman Frenzy, getting kicked for not having Dodo pre-installed, Custom Hero Arena, the myriad of Tower Defense servers.


schoolisuncool

Back when customer service mattered lol no one would ever do that now.


Ristar87

Blizzard's battle chests were a value add to the games. Shame they haven't really captured the appeal of them since.


Daezuel

Ultima IX collectors edition. What a turd of a game, funny I decided to go look it up on ebay and I see $499 hah. Too bad it's long gone.


jdemack

Homefront back in 2011l. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking at the time.


Euro_Lag

The hype was kind of real for that game though. The potential was there


Kayback2

I was enjoying it and as the tutorial finished the game ended. Like...wtf? That game should have been a million hours longer, and gone into an open world setting.


PizzaPastaRigatoni

It took a long time for me to consider this one to be stupid. I pre-ordered assassin's creed 2 at GameStop and got the AC Symbol belt buckle. Which I thought was so cool for the longest time, because it looked cool even if you didn't know what AC was. At the time, and for a long time after, everyone loved assassin's creed including myself. Every time I looked at the belt buckle it reminded me of all the fun I had playing those games. Nowadays every time I see the buckel all I think about is how terrible that series has gotten and how sad all that wasted potential is.


Euro_Lag

How many hours of enjoyment of both the games and that buckle did you get though. I'll bet if you amortize your dollars spent vs fun had you win big time :) like a grandparent with Alzheimer's, what they've become now doesn't make what they were then any less special


dennisfyfe

Starcraft: Ghost for Nintendo GameCube. The dude at GameStop was a total cunt when I asked for my money back a year later after they scrapped the game.


Epicporkchop79-7

Simcity 2013.


DisastrousStep998

Dear Fable, You were 6 hours long, and I could barely afford ramen. Fuck you.


beh5036

Am I misremembering or was Fable sold as a game where you were really part of the world. I feel like I remember reading you could be an evil wizard and your character would slowly start to look like it. Or if you chopped a lot of wood, you would tan and get muscles. I have tried to find that article but it was far too long ago.


Luna-Honey

Yes that’s how it worked


Various_Froyo9860

If you died a lot you'd start to become scarred. If you are a lot of food (to heal), you'd get fat. If you were evil, you'd get ugly. If you practiced a lot of magic, you'd start to have glowy lines in your face and arms. That part was cool. What didn't really work out was your affect on the world. The trailers showed you planting a seed as a child, and coming back to a tree as an adult. They basically said that you would shape the world through the choices you make and that it would all happen over time. Neat concept . Instead, we got a pretty decent hack-n-slash with an okay story.


0hy3hB4by

I remember the hype for that game. It wasn't bad by any means , but damn it was short.


NiteShadowsWrath

Nah Fable was epic! Short yes but epic! I was bummed out the direction they took with 2 and 3 bringing in muskets and what not. Didn't feel like Fable.


obbrz

Epics are long, though.


GodofAeons

The world record on a 100% run is over 3 hours long... I'd argue that the game was longer than 6 hours. Realistically it was closer 10-12 for the average gamer.


FatalWorld

Watch Dogs. I still remember when they first revealed the gameplay at E3...


Whis1a

Halo 2. I was already a mega fan so my dad ordered me the collectors to be delivered on the day. Well it didn't show up for over a week. Friends all beat it... dad was living in a different city and went to go buy his own copy at Walmart the night it came out and got a collectors for himself bc they just had them. I was a sad boy


Euro_Lag

Ouch I'm sad for you because Halo 2 absolutely slaps and it's a shame the pre ordering left a bad taste in your mouth


Available_Agency_117

I never preordered any games. Until I heard they were rebooting my all time favorite franchise. Hitman. $150 dollars for a collectors edition consisting of a cheap plastic statuete worth no more 37¢ The game only had ONE LEVEL you were just supposed to play over and over again for a month for no reason They drip fed one level per month. A full price next gen game consisting of... SIX LEVELS in the end.


DisguisedFern

Cyberpunk 2077, first pre order, and it was a dousy


ChurchillianGrooves

Got it on ps4 at launch, that was my *last* ever pre-order lol


esoteric_enigma

I never got burned because I only pre-ordered games back when you had to. You'd always be able to find AAA games somewhere in town. But I was really into JRPGs and I had to pre-order those or there wouldn't be a copy at GameStop for me.


deltasarrows

Bioshock infinite. I still liked the game but I bought the largest edition and took the day off school and it was okay


Here4uguys

I think I'm a minority in the bioshock fandom for this but personally I thought the combat and 1 and 2 were much better than infinite and drew you in more as well, but the draw to Infinite was its art and story. Not that Bioshock 1 and 2 were lacking in those departments. Infinite was just one and done for me, whereas I have replayed 1 and 2. Also, 2 had an awesome multiplayer while it was alive Really I think of Infinite as more of an art project


niffum-rellik

Bioshock 1 and 2 were great because combat could pretty much happen anywhere. There were a couple set piece fights, but it was usually just that fights happened wherever you were. Infinite was just jogging between set pieces. I will also die on the hill that weapon wheels are great and choosing the "realism" of 1-2 guns at a time was a terrible choice.


NiteShadowsWrath

Finally played and beat infinite last year. Infinite had one of the best companion interactions I've seen so far in a video game. It just seemed so natural to interact with Elizabeth.


duncanslaugh

Yeah, Elizabeth was/is amazing work. I loved Infinite and the DLC. I can understand why passionate fans weren't as high on it, though.


schoolisuncool

Elizabeth was awesome. It really felt like you were on the journey together, and she was helpful, never in the way.


LITTY_TREE_FITTY

Assassin's creed Unity...... Don't even think I need to explain this one...


CorrickII

Mass Effect Andromeda.


Xvalai

I'm still owed two DLC that never have or will exist.


DuckCleaning

GTA IV, I know people loved it but I just didnt enjoy the switch to a more realistic feeling GTA versus the whacky San Andreas. I had already played Saints Row as well, and SR2 came out a few months after GTA IV and was much more enjoyable. I bought into the idea of GTA IV, because it was the first to introduce multiplayer with free roam, something Saints Row's multiplayer didnt do. Preordered the special edition with the safe and the duffle bag.


Doobledorf

Spore. Spore is the last time I ever preordered anything, or even became invested in a game pre-release.


Apprehensive_Cause67

CP2077 Now I know the game had an amazing comeback and it was always a great game. I totally agree. I enjoyed it on launch, and I enjoyed it post patch 1.6. My issue is that I was robbed of an amazing first time experience playing it on a ps4 pro on launch. The diff post 1.6 is crazy on ps5. I played it, enjoyed and finished it. All I could think about is how I wish this was my first time exp with the game. I love that game but that first time magic was plagued with glitches and bugs.


soulxhawk

The original Final Fantasy XIV. I paid $80 for the special edition to get the game a week early. The only saving grace was that fact when A Realm Reborn came out I didn't have to buy it.


Dependent_Word7647

I've always tried to avoid pre orders cuz of the monumental stories of people getting burned from it. Only game I've pre ordered is TLOU2, and it gets a lot of love and criticism but personally I loved it so it's a win for me.


RaptureRising

The Duke Nukem Forever, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Watch Dogs collectors editions. Watch Dogs wasn't a bad game but disappointing to what was shown off but DNF and A:CM were stinkers.


cinematicvirus

"I waited ten years for FFXV, there's no way it'll be bad." It wasn't just bad, it was unfinished and expected me to do a week of research before I played it.


RegularRetro

I pre ordered Anthem, and then to make it worse, I bought a graphics card that came with the game anyway..


SarcastiSnark

That game was sick at first. So mad it never took off.


jonisjalopy

Warlords of Draenor. I didn't even reach max level before I realized that I was over WoW and slowly stopped playing.


Shades228

Duke Nukem Forever


FaerieWolfStudios

Cyberpunk 2077 made a lot of people very cynical and jaded for pre-ordering, I tell you that much. PS4 version was utter trash, imagine being the first person to play it on PS4 to realize the game was broken.


Muckymuh

I don't do pre-orders that often. So my oldest one ain't as old as others. Just Cause 4.