So I was thinking about this game this morning and my reaction to it. The hype train drove me to buy this game, and I was lucky enough to get a steam refund after 5 hours of play. But my question is: Do you duders think NMS is hottest mess material? I think the game has a strong case for Most Disappointing Game, but in a technical sense I never had trouble with NMS, no frame rate issues or corrupted save issues. But between Hello Game's radio silence and Sony kind of throwing them under the bus I'm starting to think NMS might have a case for hottest mess too. What do you guys think? What other hot messes have you encountered in 2016?

In a year where that GSGO gambling shit went down? Nope.

I think it is going to be between No Man's Sky and Street Fighter V, can't think of anything worse than those two.

As bad as NMS was on release compared to the hype, it's not even close to the total wiff that VR has been.

@shindig: I forgot about that, great point. Man, that CSGO Lotto non-apology was painful.

as was pointed out above, Street Fighter V has to at least be in contention with the recent Rootkit debacle along with all the other stuff with how they've failed to deliver outside of the core gameplay in many people's eyes (and stuff like 8 frames of input delay is also putting even the competitive scene off somewhat).

@skullpanda1: let's ignore all the high profile art exhibits which are getting rave reviews and focus on steam early access and you might be right but I think vr is doing alright at this early stage as a whole. Everyone I know is talking about the Bjork installation they got going on in London right now

I would think the CSGO Lotto is a bit more.... youtuber related then video game related. So far there is a controversy but more or less that was it, nothing came out of that.

I think Street Fighter V has a really good chance due to Jeff and Jason's fighting game love and how messed up the game became.

I would think Mighty Number 9 with its situation or No Man's Sky would be mentioned but I am not sure how strongly any of the gang feels about them to argue that case.

I would think No Man's Sky will get a mention but I do not recall them getting into the hype out side of a curiosity.

I think it's in great shape (probably the leader) for biggest disappointment. But I think that given the game isn't completely busted it isn't really a hot mess. A lot of the disappointment came from people hyping themselves up to buy a game they never were going to like anyway. I mean, it's a collectathon RPG. If you like those it's actually pretty good, problem is a lot more people bought it than actually like that kind of game.

Street Fighter has driven a lot of its loyal fans away over all the garbage that happened this year.

The Hot Mess category is wide open this year due to Ubi's relatively few AAA releases.

I know a lot of eyes aren't pointing that direction, but the console releases of Kerbal Space Program are kind of a hot mess. "if it's your only option it's better than no option" - that's the level of praise earned from Scott Manley.

Thing is, Giant Bomb saw a lot of that game at events and never truly got their hopes up.

I wouldn't say it whiffed at all. Yeah, it's slow going right now, but that seemed like a given. It's still an ultra-niche product due to the price of admission, and devs are still figuring things out software-wise. Way too early to write VR off yet.

VR hasn't been a total whiff though and even if it has, it's still not a hot mess because the category is all about fuck ups and buggy games as far as I understand it, right?

The Palmer Luckey thing is a mess though lol.

@yesiamaduck: ... Yeah, this is a gaming website, so we talk about games.

@onarum: I think I'm just making a valid point on how VR isn't a mess because it's succeeding in a certain market. It's narrow-minded to call VR a flop because there aren't any essential games yet. The hardware is good, it's slowly getting an audience and I'm hearing more and more people in the everyday life talking about VR experiences they've been to which has left an impression strong enough that they want to buy one as soon as it becomes affordable. I reckon as soon as the barrier to entry falls the sales will ramp up for home units on the back of these exhibits which will hopefully lead to better software.

Everyone can agree on SFV. No man's Sky is possible, but doesn't seem to reflect how they've talked about it. Luckey is political. Jeff still likes VR.

I'm not saying the crew hates VR. I'm saying that for a device with such a high cost of entry there is nothing out now that justifies that purchase.

Right now it's a $1k Wii. Something neat to show as a demo to friends/family but no substance.

I do hope that October brings some quality titles for PS VR that turns the ship around.

I could see SFV for Hottest Mess and NMS for Most Disappointing

Some people aren't aware that it isn't just the launch of SFV that was a clusterfuck, it has been a long wait for half-step updates and remains a janky experience. Rage quitting is still not solved and the current system punishes not only the quitter but also the person who was quit on in some cases.

Stuff like this from a few days ago doesn't help either.

I'm glad I quit playing it, isn't as good as previous games for me. Patiently waiting for the rebalance/refresh update coming next year to see what they do with it.

Capcom are lucky they have the Street Fighter name on this product, if it was a King of Fighters, Guilty Gear or Mortal Kombat game, it would be killed off and forgotten by now.

The PR was a mess, but the game itself?

Nah...

I think Sony overall is the hottest game-related mess of 2016.

There is no possible way anything could beat SFV in the hottest mess category this year. SFV could possibly win Hottest Mess of the decade I can't think of anything off the top of my head that has been this poorly managed. No Mans Sky was a mediocre game with a poorly managed PR campaign, the game itself wasn't fundamentally broken (at least not past the first patch). They might as well not even bother with nominations for the category and just give it to SFV now.

We've still got a console launch (PS4 Pro) and a reveal (NX), and an entry-level VR peripheral (PS VR) to go this year. Do not underestimate how much of a mess any of those three could be. NMS was never really a mess, even if the PC version was not optimized well. As others have stated, Most Disappointing is highly probable.

Edit: E3 could also be a case for Hottest Mess. It was a shadow of its former self, with so many publishers jumping ship left and right on convention floor booth space.

Hottest Mess? Probably not. Most Disappointing/Biggest Disappointment? Most likely, at least as a top three finalist.

@ivdamke: I don't know about hottest mess of the decade, I mean Halo Masterchief Collection is still a thing that exists.

Even for Most Disappointing, I wouldn't have it as a sure shot. Street Fighter V takes one of these. I mean, its an exclusive Street Fighter that launched without ... like... most of its content.

It has to be between No Man's Sky and Street Fighter V for Most Disappointing. I can't think of anything else even close with the Bomb crew. There are a number of contenders for that final spot: that new Pac-Man Championship Edition game, Star Fox, Mighty No. 9, Quantum Break, Battleborn, etc. I have a feeling Dan will lobby hard for Star Fox. Personally, I'd just give the last spot to a blanket "VR Gaming," but Jeff seems to think it's fine.

Personally, I think Street Fighter V deserves Hottest Mess and NMS deserves Most Disappointing.

That might've hurt it, but the root kit is what is going to give it a real shot at taking a category.

@lasse_momme: Did Master Chief collection install malware onto your PC? Did Master Chief collection fail to support certain modems traffic preventing certain people playing at all past 6 months into its release? Did Master Chief collection launch with half a game that was 80% online modes that were barely functional for 1 and a half weeks? Did Master Chief collection deal with net traffic in a way that certain connection setups receive 100% of the lag while the other side of the connection receives 0% of it? I could go on and on.

I don't know much about the debacle with Halo but if it seriously did worse than those questions then yea you're right but I highly doubt it, especially the malware thing.

@ivdamke: pretty sure it didn't contain any malware, but it was in fact so utterly and completely busted in terms of online that it was virtually impossible to actually set up a game. The single player portion was supposedly better but still fucked in a number ways. If you haven't Reading up on the wholewhile debacle of it's release I Can strongly recommend checking out some of the bombcast discussions about it on youtube, they go more in depth with how fucked up the online component of that thing was.

I would say that Street Fighter V will take Most Disappointing and Hottest Mess, with No Man's Sky getting an honorable mention in both categories. VR will maybe get a mention in Most Disappointing, but I doubt it.

Let's also not forget that Last Guardian is a potential contender for both, what with its long development time.

Maybe most disappointing, but probably not hottest mess. And don't forget there are 3 more months of hot messes just waiting to happen.

SFV has to take hottest mess. That game has been a burning dumpster fire since the betas

I'm not sure Last Guardian will make it in time for deliberations. Also, I'm not sure how disappointed the GB team will be, it doesn't sound like any of them have been particularly excited about it. To be frank, I'm not sure how many people are still excited about it either, I would imagine there's quite a bit of fatigue towards it and sentiments of "fine, whatever, just release it".

I don't even see it taking most disappointing. They didn't seem all that excited about it prior to release. It really depends on how they define the category this year. I think their most disappointing game is yet to come. (Please don't be Titanfall 2)

While I had my hopes up until last year for NMS, at some point where they didn't show too much of the gameplay I became worried. So for me personally it is not that big of a blunder, but I think it might be considered objectively a hot mess considering how many people bought it and how this is probably the last time when people will fall for the early access trap of "think of the potential!".

SFV sounds like pissed it's fans off way more, though I think the fighting game crowd is more selective.

Steamspy report way more people bought NMS, so I'm not sure what's worse, pissing off more people or pissing of a more selective crowd.

Source:

http://steamspy.com/app/275850

http://steamspy.com/app/310950

Hottest messes will probably be Street Fighter V.

Also don't forget that new games could emerge broken, like the recent ReCore.

And we have no idea how PS VR is going to land yet.

Also Alex somewhat enjoyed No Man's Sky so I don't see it winning either category really.

@skullpanda1: VR is on a great track. Tons of great stuff out already and lots more to come.

Hottest mess is usually about the media and messaging around a game. And that has certainly been an insane mess for No Man's Sky. That being said a lot of that mess was created by the fans around the game, which GB usually takes less into account when doing their GOTY discussions. So I'm not sure it'll win, but it should easily be in the top 3.

Maybe I've just not been looking in the right places but its not been a messy year, all told.

Street Fighter is close to the heart and therefore probably a bigger dissapointment. And when a game actively becomes a hazard , it's a good candidate for hottest mess.