READERS REACT

What games were you disappointed by?

Samantha Ferreira

Zelda: The Wind Waker. I was all hyped to explore the world; visually, it looked great, and every feature sounded stellar. Then I played it, and the sailing was tedious, and the latter game was basically a giant series of fetch quests and currency sinks. I tuned out and gave up.

Graham Plowman

Beyond Divinity on the PC. I loved Divine Divinity before it, a real sleeper hit, but the sequel failed to live up to expectations for me, and I never finished it. Still, Larian Studios then went on to greater things…

John ‘Snagultoof’ Davies

I enjoyed Arcadia on the Spectrum so I was really looking forward to Schizoids by Imagine when it came out, based entirely on the advert and inlay cover. It wasn’t a very good game at all to put it mildly.

Mark Page

Sega Touring Car Championship on the Saturn. Being late in the Saturn’s life I was hyped for this and it seemed a lot of the Sega mags were too. Sadly, it was a crushing disappointment. Graphically, it’s a mess with warping all over the place and an abysmal framerate making it look worse than other titles on the system.

James

Stuntman. It left me thinking, what kind of film crew would set up expensive shoots and expect a driver to do the whole scene in ONE TAKE with no practice runs or a proper brief? Frustrating is being kind. It was so hyped and it looked great. Such a good premise for a game.

John Ebbs

Impossible Mission 2 on the C64 – 96% in Zzap!64. Multiload, some rooms where you have to die to get out of them, and the puzzle part was not a patch on the original.

Zenoevil – Meaning Machines

Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars, which at the time I took to be a sequel to Miracle World, although now appreciate that isn’t quite right. Talking of which, why on earth didn’t they ever make a Master System sequel to Miracle World? [Agreed, it makes no sense - Ed]

Steven Noad

Controversial one this perhaps, but for me it’s Final Fantasy VII on PS1. Magazines were raving about it and it looked good, but upon playing it I found it boring and it did nothing for me.

Nukepowered toaster

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. The best way to fathom this is to consider a world where Game Of Thrones was followed up by a spin-off on PBS Kids. And even with the junk story aside, the judges were a truly horrid game mechanic. Who wants walls in their customisation sandbox?

Dave Tucker

Not sure many will agree, but I was really disappointed in Rainbow Islands. Bubble Bobble was one of my absolute favourites and all the reviews said Rainbow Islands was even better. It wasn’t.