Some games just don't live up to we expect from them. :\
Whether its because of tremendous hype or the standards of the genre itself, the games on this list were in one way or another- a major disappointment.
Disappointing isn't the same as outright bad- in several of these games, the good still manages to outweigh the bad, but the disappointments still shine through.
Empire: Total War is unquestionably one of the biggest disappointments I've run into in recent memory. It's a cringe worthy example of how little it sometimes takes to utterly ruin what should otherwise be an excellent game.
Empire had the skeleton of a new great Total War game. The series seemed to have made the shift in time periods and battle tactics almost flawlessly- for the land and sea battles both were a joy to control.
Despite this excellent setup however, it all meant absolutely nothing thanks to one excruciating flaw: the AI.
When it's 'Expert' AI is worse than Rome: Total War's 'normal' AI- there is quite clearly a problem.
Suffice to say, Empire's AI was a ludicrous disaster, no matter how high you set it's skill level. Empire's AI couldn't maintain a decent firing line or formation of any sort, it was utterly incapable of defending its artillery, it was comatose when it came to its general unit, it's strategy for attacking forts and cities was appaling, etc.
In short: The AI single handedly ruined the single player- which was the bulk of the game's content.
The original Homeworld was an outstanding game. And it's standalone expansion Cataclysm was also pretty good.
So the question must be posed: how did Relic mess up the direct sequel so badly?
The main culprits were a confounding drop in unit variety and the infuriatingly inferior formation options.
One of the reasons the original Homeworld was so good was the amount of control you were given over the composition and control of your fleet. Why Homeworld 2 threw so much of this away is still quite baffling.
Before Empire at War, the Star Wars series apparently seemed to have some sort of curse when it came to the RTS genre. (If we don't count Galactic Battlegrounds that is- even though that was essentially a copy and pasting of Star Wars onto Age of Empires 2. We can't blame them for copying such a solid blueprint.)
Was Empire at War the game that finally broke this curse? For some people perhaps. But the game's numerous flaws could not be ignored.
An incredibly dense interface and poor AI were the main issues. The dense interface made merely moving troops and fleets from planet to planet a chore. And then there was the AI, whose most common tactic in land and space battles alike was 'Randomly move units throughout the map' (And maybe pull off an all-out attack during space battles only).
The result was a tedious single player game. The multiplayer was not much better though, due to the terrible interface and lackluster ground battle map design.
Elite Squadron was supposedly what Battlefront 3 turned into after Free Radical's closure. Rebellion decided to test the main idea Battlefront 3 had- simultaneous land and ground battles- and test it on the PSP rather than a home console.
It was certainly ambitious, perhaps a bit too ambitious for its chosen platform.
The single player was a bit of a train wreck due to an appalling campaign and the fact that the game's main selling point- simultaneous land and space battles- was only partially represented.
You see, in the game's single player, the game only has actual gameplay going on at the map the player is at, while all of the other maps are randomized.
This wouldn't be too big of an issue, if it wasn't so blatantly obvious. When you first go into the map you didn't start on, the bots start spawning several seconds after you arrive- as if they had never been there. And when you leave- the bots are frozen in place until you come back.
At least the game's main selling point is present in the multiplayer. But the player count ultimately isn't high enough to really do the game's ambitions justice.
The premise of Spore was quite an appealing one. Many couldn't wait to get their hands on the game's robust creature creation tools and watch as their creature evolved to eventually start traveling the galaxy.
Sure, the end result was quite shallow overall, but the majority of Spore's phases were at least enjoyable. The cell phase was fun while it lasted and didn't overstay its welcome and the creature phase was highly enjoyable due to the creature creator. The tribal phase was a bit too simple and the civilization phase lost quite a bit of the game's character, but both still had some sort of redeeming characteristic. (The tribal phase redeeming itself through character,and the civilization phase arguably having the best gameplay in Spore)
And then there was the space phase, which was supposed to be the biggest and most promising phase.
How unfortunate that this wasn't the case. It was the exact opposite really- the space phase was the worst of the bunch.
Not only did the ship controls and combat leave a lot to be desired, the space phase was ludicrously repetitive overall and got old real fast. Unlike the cell phase, the space phase quickly overstayed its welcome as a result.
Mario Kart is easily the most popular of the mascot kart racing genre, but back in the day of the Playstation, Crash Team Racing was a great competitor for the series. Compared to Mario Kart 64 at the time, it could be argued that CTR was the better game.
Given the comparisons in popularity of the two mascots and how Nitro Kart turned out though- its not too surprising that Crash's kart racing never caught on like Mario Kart did.
Nitro Kart was not a bad kart racer at all- it was just that it didn't do enough differently from CTR to make itself notable. It also didn't control quite as well as CTR did and had inferior track design.
Civilization Revolution was the series' first jab at the home consoles. As such, the streamlining and changes that had to be made were not surprising or disappointing at all.
The result of these changes was a perfectly enjoyable civilization experience that fit well on consoles.
The only real disappointment that did plague the game stemmed once again from a single source: the AI.
Revolution's AI was just way more aggressive than it should have been. It went out of its way to declare war on you no matter what- as if it wanted to convince you that conquest was the only way to win.
As a result, the variety of the single player was devastated- as the AI went with the same tactic every game.
If the game had come with a list of AI options and personalities- then this aggressive AI could have fit in. But it was the only AI available in the game, providing a major disservice to the game's single player value.
