Jeff's End of 2016 Awards - Part 2

As 2016 comes to an end, I'm sure many people will look back at all the negatives the year gave us, so I will too. Here are three games that, while they are definitely not THE WORST games of the year,  did end up being some of the biggest bummers in the video game year of 2016:

Runner-Up #1: No Man's Sky

It's well documented that this game received a less-than-stellar response upon release. Negative reviews all over the place, people asking (and granted) full refunds, which is a rarity these days, as well as a full-fledged investigation into overpromising and underdelivering. I will say I had this game preordered, played for about 12 - 15 hours on launch day, and pretty much saw everything there was to see. Truth be told, I probably saw all there was to see during the first 6 or so hours and just pressed on as I hoped the game would show me something. The game has since been patched, more content has been added and the investigation has been dropped, but for as much hype and attention this game was getting, plus all the delays in development, more was to be expected at launch.

Runner-Up #2: Street Fighter V

"Wait, but you like this game, Jeff. You said you want to spend more time with it." This is true, Street Fighter V is a good and fun fighting game...NOW. At launch it was an absolute mess. Which is evident from my live stream.  A connection to the server is required to basically do anything in the game, which isn't a new concept, but you think they would have learned from other games that have done it before. In order for this idea to work you need to have servers that aren't melted. What's worse is that when playing a normal mode like Survival, and you're about 5 or 6 rounds in, then the severs crash and erase all your progress. It was basically unplayable at launch. Yes, it's much better now and is a hell of a fighting game now, but it really felt like Street Fighter V needed a little more time in the development oven before being deemed ready.

"Winner": Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS

Yeah, I deem a Mario game to be disappointing. You know what would have been great? Being able to create Mario levels on the go with the 3DS and import them to my Wii U to finish, tweak and import...yeah, can't do that. Well it would be cool if I could search for my friend's levels or a specific level to play whenever I wanted to on my 3DS...yeah, can't do that either. The game will just randomly spin the wheel and give you a handful of levels to choose from, you can always ask for new ones but if you want a specific one, you're screwed. You can save a level to play later, but only AFTER you play it once, so you can't just think something looks cool and save it, you have to take time to play through it to decide if you want to keep it. Just so many strange design choices take something that could have been a supremely meaningful addition to one of the best things Nintendo has EVER DONE, and instead leaves me wondering "What's the point?".


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Alright, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Again, those aren't the worst games, just the ones that left a little bitterness behind. In Part 3, The Main Event. My Top 10 Games of 2016!