Why do you have to have a "Lich King".
In terms of results, the 2021 that has just passed has undoubtedly become a "game year", whether it is a highly anticipated heavyweight masterpiece or an eye-catching surprise, it can only be said that there are only a few.
This can be seen in TGA's "Most Anticipated Game Award" for two consecutive years.
At the 2020 TGA Awards, Eldon's Circle of Law stood out from God of War 5, Halo: Infinity, Horizon: Forbidden West, Resident Evil 8: Village, and breath of the wilderness sequel as the "Most Anticipated Game" voted by players. However, a year later, the only thing that has changed on this list is that "Starry Sky" has replaced the already released "Resident Evil 8" and "Halo: Infinity", and "Eldon's Law Ring" has won this award again...
This is probably more emblematic of the blandness of the gaming industry in 2021 than "Game of the Year" in "Two-Player Trip" – for players looking forward to the debut of epoch-making works, "this year has passed, and it seems that it has not passed".
Compared with the traditional sense of "masterpiece", most of the nominees for the 2021 "Game of the Year" belong to the "genre game", and in the minds of many players, this selection can only be counted as "the general among the shorts"
However, if we look at the games that make players angry, however, we will find that this is a year of "storms".
1
To say how fierce the competition for the "worst game" of 2021 is, it has to be mentioned how the laurels of the "King of Bad Reviews" on Steam have changed hands several times in a few months.
In the first half of the year, Paradox released the new DLC "Leviathan" for Europa League 4, adding to the game, which has been released for 8 years and has a total of more than 30 DLCs. However, when players paid $20 to buy it, they found that the only function of this DLC was to make the game unworkable.
And when the development team fixed the flashback glitch, and the buyers were finally able to enter the game, they found that the content of this DLC not only "borrowed" a lot of mods made by the player community, but also the value was not even as balanced as the player, and the players laughed at themselves that "the speed of playing bad reviews cannot keep up with the speed of new bugs"...
The game naturally encountered a lot of bad reviews, like a rare "bad reviews" label, the praise rate fell all the way below 10%, for a time, you can't find a game on Steam that is more brutal than it is scolded.
You may have seen the "bad reviews" label before, but a rating below 10% was indeed the only one at the time
But less than a month later, CA, the developer of Total War: Three Kingdoms, broke with previous promises and announced that the game would not update any follow-up content. Disgruntled players flocked to the game, and the game received nearly 5,000 bad reviews in a few days, which was also branded as "bad reviews".
If it weren't for the many positive reviews that had been accumulated before and Steam's new mechanism of "removing short-term off-topic evaluation scores", "Total War: Three Kingdoms" would have been able to compete with Leviathan in front of the throne of "King of Bad Reviews".
The Steam platform finally eliminated the bad reviews that broke out in those days on the grounds of "off-topic reviews", so that the game returned to "special praise"
This makes Leviathan's status seem even more difficult to challenge, and no one expected that the battle for the title of "King of Bad Reviews" would become white-hot at the end of the year.
At the end of September, "Pro Evolution Soccer" 's latest game, eFootball 2022,' "shines.". Originally, everyone had long been accustomed to the "rotten" sports new year game, and did not have much expectations for this work, but if it could be comparable to the previous game, it would probably not encounter too many bad reviews.
But eFootball 2022 still breaks players' imaginations. As a makeover of the series, it has been labeled "psychological horror" by players with its frightening character modeling and a large number of incredible bugs, and has received more than 15,000 bad reviews in just a few days.
Whether it's weird character modeling, poor feel, or problematic AI, it's enough to raise players' blood pressure
"eFootball 2022", which once fell below 8% in the praise rate, pulled the "Leviathan" off the horse without suspense, put on the crown of "Steam Bad Review King", and in almost all the "worst games" list at the end of the year, it did the list.
But it is not without challengers.
For FPS enthusiasts, it would have been a memorable year: the three shooter series of Battlefield, Call of Duty and Halo competed on the same stage for the first time at the end of the year, which was a sumptuous Chinese New Year's Eve meal. As a result, "Battlefield 2042" almost made players spit out overnight meals while on the Steam best-seller list.
This game adds a new vehicle "hovercraft", which turns out to be a nightmare for all players. Despite the sci-fi background of "2042", everyone still can't figure out why such a hovercraft can go to the sky, the armor is harder than the tank, and the speed is faster than the 86 of Akinayama.
Everyone was knocked out by the "mud boat"
Behind the "mud boat" problem is the problem of poor game optimization, bugs, outrageous hit judgments, etc., and the game play design is more typical of the "entertainment" and "competition" sides are not flattering, making it difficult for new and old players to swallow this breath.
"2042" is naturally also a "tidal wave of bad reviews", with a rating of 10%, and it is about to challenge "eFootball 2022". However, at this time, the major update of the remedial nature of the development team stopped the decline, pulling the game back to 70% of the bad reviews, and struggling to maintain a state of "mostly bad reviews".
"2042," which costs $60, has 50,000 bad reviews, which is more than the total number of reviews of the free "eFootball 2022" and is a win in some ways
The year is approaching, just when everyone thinks that no one can shake the status of "eFootball 2022", but they have killed Cheng Jin halfway - that is, the domestic game "Three Kingdoms Kill".
The game, which has been in operation for more than 10 years, suddenly landed on the Steam platform in mid-December, seemingly to attract fresh blood, but in terms of results, it has become a window for veteran players on other platforms to vent their long-accumulated dissatisfaction, and nearly 10,000 players have caused the praise rate of "Three Kingdoms Kill" to fall below 7% in less than a week. On the website "Hall of Shame", which collects steam bad review data, the Three Kingdoms kills the current Lectra and firmly occupies the top spot.
Konami: "I thank you"
2021 has passed, but in the comment area of "Leviathan", there are still EU4 players who vow to let "Leviathan" return to the top of the "inferior list", and there are also Three Kingdoms killers who come to give "Leviathan" praise in order to maintain the status of "Three Kingdoms Kill" - the tug-of-war on the title of "King of Bad Reviews" is still quietly going on.
"The hatred of black powder is sometimes deeper than the love of real fans"
2
Obviously, not all bad reviews land on Steam, and many players have scorned many players far more than these games. But without Steam's evaluation mechanism, it's hard to simply quantify how unpopular a game really is.
But even so, in this year, there are still many games that have become phenomenal "bad reviews" with hard power, especially "replica games" have become the hardest hit areas - many big factories have even fried "fried cold rice".
The first to bear the brunt of this is the "tragically remade" Pokémon Pearl/Diamond. Since the project was unveiled at the beginning of the year, the remake of the pokémon brilliant pearl/crystal diamond (hereinafter referred to as the "DP fork") has caused a lot of scolding, because its rough real graphics do not look like a game that will be released in 2021.
The protagonist can laugh, the fans can't laugh
Players decided at the time that this was a performance of the production team's insincerity to "cut the fans' leeks", and when the game was officially released in the fourth quarter, the "original" replica also made many players who bought the game shouted that they were deceived - the new version added very little content, and many bugs in the original version were accepted as ordered, which made people cry and laugh.
"The trainer is going to the sea again"
If the bug that follows the original may still be an Easter egg, some new situations are even more bizarre. Players can not only use bugs to copy rare glitter Pokémon, but even use each other's skills to dye their own Pokémon in battle.
It can't be said that there is no fun at all
Despite making a lot of jokes, the DP replica as a whole still inherits the fun of the original game, and the MC player rating is maintained at about 5 points, which is not too ugly.
Another replica of diablo 2: Hellfire Reborn was not so lucky.
Just like the DP fork, everyone's expectation for "Diablo 2: Hellfire Reborn" (hereinafter referred to as "D2 Fork") is only to use the new era of graphics to present the game content of the year, and Blizzard can also be regarded as completing this task, the improvement of the picture effect even exceeds the expectations of most players, watching the D2 fork will help Blizzard wash the shame of the MC score of 0.5 of "Warcraft 3 Remake".
Warcraft 3 Remake was the first game on the MC to break below 0.5
But soon, it was discovered that the game, which was mainly online, didn't seem to be ready for so many online players. The inability to log in and disconnect is just a common occurrence, and more serious is the unpredictable problem of falling gear back to the file - which can be said to be a fatal injury to a "brush treasure" game.
Serious network problems quickly changed players' attitudes from "true incense" to "RNM, refund money!" ”
One is the player who is waiting in line at the login screen and can't even enter the game; the other is the player who brushes out the equipment he wants, but turns his head to find that his character file is backwards to the people of the previous day... Sandwiched in the middle, Blizzard has made little practical improvement beyond saying it is "solving."
Player dissatisfaction began to erupt, and the game's user ratings on the MC went all the way down, with the Xbox version falling directly below 3 points. Under the pressure of public opinion, Blizzard also had to open the "one-click refund" link on the official website again, but this time the object of refund changed from the Warcraft 3 remake to the Diablo 2 remake.
The subsequent Blizzard quickly fell into the whirlpool of public opinion of the company's internal scandal, but the mess left by the D2 replica gradually faded from everyone's vision. It was also at this time that a veritable dark horse in the game replica circle appeared in 2021 - that is, the GTA Ultimate Trilogy (hereinafter referred to as the GTA Trilogy).
The game includes a high-definition remake of GTA3, GTA: Vice City, and GTA: San Andreas, with less than a month between public release and release, a "blitzkrieg", but it is even more rapidly removed.
This so-called high-definition remake is like the result of some kind of automatic optimization software, the model is "reverse optimization", bugs are flying, some of the original content has been castrated without any new material, it can be described as a plate of insincere cold rice, but the price is as high as 70 US dollars.
There is probably only one that can "hd optimize" the hex nut into an iron rudder
What's more, players have found that a large number of old songs that have disappeared from the game due to expired licenses are actually intact in the game data, which not only reflects the laziness of the production staff, but also raises a series of legal problems.
Seeing the East Window incident, R Star immediately stopped the sale of the GTA trilogy, and then disconnected his own game platform on the grounds of "maintenance", so that players who purchased the game could not open the game.
R Star spent a few days "repairing" the game launcher, apologizing for further optimizing the game, and stating that it would give the original trilogy to the purchaser as compensation, which can be described as "small and low". But at this time, the game's wind reviews have long been overwhelmed, and the MC score has fallen all the way to 0.5 points, breaking the previous record set by "Warcraft 3 Remake", and finally adding a lot of color to the "Bad Work of the Year" battle in 2021.
3
To sum up the year of gamers in one sentence, it is probably "happy players are similar, and unfortunate players have their own misfortunes." ”
In previous years, the industry has also been full of shoddy or disappointing masterpieces. But many works like 2021, "you sing and I debut", challenge the player's bottom line in various forms, is indeed a rare battle.
The culprit is often cited as THE COVID-19 pandemic – many projects have been heavily affected, teamwork has become difficult, and the construction period has been lengthened, resulting in repeated skips of tickets for old projects and difficulties in carrying out new projects. After two years, many game companies have difficulty in holding back the ever-increasing costs, and finally let the game rush to market, ushering in a round of bad games.
However, the game industry is one of the very few industries in the entertainment field that has benefited from the epidemic, and in the past two years, the global game market size and industrial revenue have risen sharply, and the stock prices of many game companies have broken through new highs, and it is difficult to say how much economic pressure has been borne at the company level. Especially looking back at the strong competitors of the above years of bad work, you will find that most of them are "cold rice" or "New Year goods", which belong to the category of less production pressure in the industry, and the degree of "pulling crotch" is different from ordinary people, which obviously cannot be blamed on the epidemic at the same time.
Therefore, the expansion of the market is also considered to be the source of the manufacturers' "rot" - as long as the traditional sense of "masterpiece" can be introduced to the market, it is easy to succeed in sales, compared with word of mouth is obviously less important.
This is also confirmed by the above-mentioned games - under the tide of bad reviews, the first week of "Battlefield 2042" sold more than 4.5 million, the second highest in the history of the series; the DP replica also dominated the sales list around the world for many weeks after the release, and the joke of "scolding and remembering to buy" was once again a slur...
To a certain extent, these "kings of bad reviews" are also because of their good sales and popularity, which can frequently break all kinds of low score records. There may not be many more mediocre and clumsy games on the market than these works, but few people care about it, and the rating is more likely to be swayed by a small number of "true love fans".
Baraan's Whimsical Wonders is one of the lowest-rated games in the media in 2021, it was released by SE, created by the founders of Sonic, and also has a good skin, originally pinned on high hopes, but the result is so poor that it is speechless, just because the game sales died and no one asked, I don't know whether to say whether to say it is a blessing or a curse
Players who play bad reviews fall into a paradox: they try to make a game a recognized "king of bad reviews" through ratings, express their dissatisfaction, and use this to dissuade latecomers who try to buy; but such a move can also become "reverse propaganda", adding topicality to the game, there are always unbelieving players to try "how bad this game really is", and even because of low expectations, they feel that these games are "not so bad"...
And the game manufacturers to deal with the players' bad reviews offensive seems to be more and more comfortable, "apologies", "refunds" and "free updates" have become the three axes of the peace, making players seem to punch on the cotton, and there are very few cases that can really remedy the game to a satisfactory level.
Behind the intensification of the "King of Bad Reviews" battle, it is also common for bad reviews to become more and more difficult to have a practical impact on big manufacturers, making players more aggressive and emotional when playing low scores.
Such a "bad review battle" actually began to appear in 2020, after "Warcraft 3 Remake", "The Division 2" DLC and "Madden Rugby 21" also broke the bad review record, resulting in the MC for the game area to introduce a special rule that "it takes 36 hours after the game is released to be rated"
Fishing is not without cost. According to financial reports, the market growth rate brought by the epidemic to the game industry, especially console games, is slowing down significantly, a major reason is the lack of excellent AAA works, it is difficult to retain new users.
epilogue
The film industry has a "golden plum" award that imitates the Oscars, and every year it will select various awards such as the worst films, the worst male and female protagonists, and ridicule the film works that are deeply hated by the audience for a year. Now it seems that the gaming industry is also enough to host such an awards ceremony, at least in 2021, it is likely to be more intense than the "Game of the Year" selection.
It's just that for gamers, who really wants to see the "King of Bad Reviews" play hot, but there are few good games that can immerse themselves in it.
The past year has also been the first year of the PS5 and XSX, but it is clear that there are still few works that can make people really feel that they have entered the next generation, and everyone can only comfort themselves with "developers are adapting to new consoles, new engines".
Many players are looking forward to the new year, the game industry can reproduce the scene of "fairy fight" four or five years ago, ushering in a wave of excellent works.
Dream back 2017 is good, dream back 2018 can also be
Unfortunately, no one knows how many of those highly anticipated masterpieces will land smoothly in 2022, but at least, I hope that 2021, which makes gamers "don't want to stay for a second", can indeed become a rare "bad year" in history.