By Andrew Mendez

Disclaimer: a disappointing game is not a necessarily a bad game—rather, it means the game had a lot of potential and failed to live up to the expectations of its audience.

#5 – Fallout 4 (PS4, XB1, PC)

Fallout 4 is the fifth installment in the Fallout series and the first in the franchise to make it onto next-gen platforms. While there are several aspects that game succeeds at, there are also plenty of shortcomings as well. In a game where the player tends to fast travel to a variety of locations, it takes roughly between 30 seconds to a minute just to load up a new area. This becomes increasingly frustrating when you need to navigate to several different locations in succession. The user interface of the game can also be a major pain to navigate through. The map also lacks aesthetic appeal, and looking for sub quests can be a giant hassle once you get a fair amount of them.

The dialogue of the game also is lacking as it promotes miscommunication. The game gives you 4 options to choose from, but doesn’t tells you what it is exactly what you’re saying. The game also fails to tell you if what you’re saying is controversial or whether it will alter the story route in a certain way. In fact, the game doesn’t even tell you which dialogue opens up sub dialogues or which on one advance the plot. The lack of communication between the player and game detracts from the gaming experience. This is a huge step down overall from the fantastic 3 and New Vegas games, and a step in the complete opposite direction for the series as a whole.

The perk system is a disaster and the game doesn’t even tell players that perks can be upgraded whenever. Gamers are given the impression that perks unlocked like a form of skill tree, but actually, they can be viewed on the pipboy screen (along with your XP bar which lacks a number for some reason). The text is small and adds onto the lack of user friendliness.

The other reasons that this game made the list are for an accumulation of small quirks. The companion AI is incredibly unintelligent at times; for example, they just stop following you or get caught up in some debris or just walk around in circles. It appears that there sometimes is a lack of user detection. While there are some good standout quests, a lot of them are just “kill everyone in the building” or “go get this item for me”—a lack of quest variety can make a game rather dull. At the end of the day, Fallout 4 is a good game, but has plenty of room for improvement. For the PC players, put in some mods and go crazy and have fun with it! Otherwise, players new to the series should try previous versions to have the true, ultimate Fallout experience.

#4 – Evolve (PS4, XB1, PC)

Evolve won a multitude of awards at E3 the year before it released. Then the game came out and its popularity died off after a few weeks, not even months. Evolve had an interesting premise, but ultimately became repetitive and boring after playing for only a few hours. The game lacks a single player campaign and the multiplayer campaign is short, lazy, and completely forgettable.

The gameplay feels extremely hollow for an AAA title; in fact, it feels like one giant game of hide-and-seek which is even worse when the enemy is a pro monster. Evolve is unique in its own regard, yet it feels like the player does too much of the same thing. Even though the game offers several modes in multiplayer, the premise is still the same. If you want more variety, you would need to purchase new monsters.

The DLC practice in this game is absolutely abysmal. The game has nearly $120+ of extra content and most of it is just weapon skins. There are two monsters to purchase at a whopping $15 per monster. It’s a terrible practice and does little to increase the longevity of the game you’re playing. Evolve isn’t the worst game ever, but at a launch price of $60 with over $100 of Day One DLC for you to purchase, it’s not hard to see why the game didn’t last that long. Evolve is just a game that had an excellent idea with mediocre execution.

#3 – The Order: 1886 (PS4)

I rarely play a game that is beautiful yet boring, but that’s exactly what this game is. The length is completely inexcusable. Paying $60 for a roughly 5 hour campaign with virtually no replay value is a giant slap in the face for the consumer. The game tries to give players a cinematic experience and extends the gameplay of the game in strange ways. There are segments in the game where it forces you to walk through the landscape in order to prolong the duration of the game. Another strange inclusion is the naming of the chapters in the game. Full levels are labeled as chapters, but so are the cut-scenes. It seems odd to group levels and scenes in the same category.

The game is littered with quick time events. I can understand that the game wants to immerse the player, but it becomes tedious, drawn out, and extremely boring to press buttons for every single little thing that the game throws at you. Also the aesthetic of the widescreen bars on the screen loses its novelty very quickly and soon becomes an eyesore to deal with. The game has absolutely wonderful and stellar graphics, but this can lead to some objects look extremely out of place due to the resolution of everything else.

The Order: 1886 offers a mediocre story and beautiful graphics. It’s absolutely not worth the full retail price and is not the amazing game that Sony had wanted it to be.

#2 – Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 (PS4, XB1, PS3, 360)

How could anyone think this was a good idea to put on shelves and for a full price of $60? It’s broken, it’s clunky, and it’s full of bugs and glitches, which make it hardly playable. It’s a disaster and a shell of the series and it breaks my heart that it’s terrible. I stated above that just because a game is disappointing doesn’t mean it’s bad, but this is the exception. It’s arguably the worst game to come out in the last year and one of the worst of the decade. This is the final nail in the coffin for the THPS franchise, and after this game, I hope it stays dead. I’ve got nothing more to say about it.

#1 – Star Wars: Battlefront (PS4, XB1, PC)

Where do I begin with Battlefront? I don’t think this is a surprise to anybody. Let’s start with the immediately glaring issues of the game. The single player of the game is absolutely awful. It simply comprises of throwing the player into a battlefield and having you get rid of a lot of enemies. There’s no story at all to go with the game. It’s essentially a multiplayer-only experience.

Speaking of multiplayer, the matchmaking is really bad. There are instances of people who have just started the game being thrown into matches with people who are several levels higher than them. This type of unbalance hurts the game and rewards veteran players with easy games. Speaking of balance, there isn’t much in terms of characters. Players are allowed to choose to wield 2 grenades. This leads to a lot of explosions. Playing as the Hero and Villain Characters (All 6 of them, might I add) isn’t very fun either. Unless you’re Boba Fett, since he’s above and beyond the most overpowered character in the game. With the ability to use a jetpack and flamethrower, it’s easy to rack up kills playing as him.

There are also only a whopping 12 maps. Out of those 12 maps, 4 are only for Walker Assault and 4 are only for Supremacy. So basically, you have 7 other game modes rotating around the same recycled 4 maps. This gets really old really fast. You can only have so much fun for so long playing the same modes on very few maps.

This is where the most disappointing aspect of Battlefront comes into play. The game retails at $60 for all this barebones content and wants the buyer to shell out an extra $50 for the Season Pass. The Season Pass offers up 4 more heroes and villains, 16 more maps, and 4 new game modes. Why wasn’t this included in the release of the game? EA felt the need to rush out the product in time for the release of The Force Awakens to cash in on the hype of Star Wars. The fact that a game that was roughly 40% finished was pushed out into retail at full price is disgusting. To make matters worse, it costs almost as much as the game itself.

Battlefront has incredible art and sound design. It’s easily the best feature of the game. However, the limited maps, limited customization, limited game modes, and overall limited package of the game are painful as a fan of the franchise. I recommend just waiting for the inevitable complete edition a year or so down the line and paying $60 for it. That will be the real Star Wars: Battlefront game that everyone has been looking forward to. What was released in stores was nothing more than a rushed unfinished mess—more time should have been taken in the game’s development to ensure utmost player satisfaction.