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4 Biggest Critical Flops in Gaming from 2019 So Far

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Critical Gaming Flops in 2019

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Anthem

Anthem was planned to be the next AAA “games as a service” title similar to other multiplayer shooters such as Destiny or Warframe.

Back when it was revealed, EA promised that they would put the story before the gameplay, but what we got instead is a buggy and incomplete game with a plot that left a lot to be desired.

You play the role of a freelancer, who teams up with other mercenaries to stop an evil dominion who are trying to get their hands on powerful, ancient weapons. Sounds cool, right?

It didn’t really pan to be all that interesting though. The story feels secondary to the highly encouraged multiplayer gameplay which becomes repetitive after a few hours, and it’s extremely grindy throughout for not a whole lot of reward.

If it had a story that BioWare used to be known for, that could have gone a long way for a lot of fans, but sadly that wasn’t the case this time around.

The gameplay, which is supposed to be the redeeming feature, is better than the story for sure, but even that is still not perfect. For example, our reviewer noticed a lot of issues with the enemy AI:

“It’s just a shame that the enemy AI is rather un-engaging, often aloof, and occasionally buggy. Plenty of times I would be gunning down a large shielded enemy for a few seconds before they even turned in my direction and by that time I had them dead to rights.”

Anthem was supposed to feel like an Iron Man game that let you complete quests with other Iron Man-type people!

EA did not come through with the promise of a fleshed out universe with deeper attention to the lore and now, Anthem has a Metacritic score of 56 for the PS4 version and a not much better score of 60 for the PC version.  The user reviews are even less kind.

Critical Gaming Flops in 2019

Jump ForceJump Force, xbox one x enhaned

You would think that a game filled with some of the most iconic characters from Shonen anime set in a realistic setting would be successful, Jump Force didn’t appease the fans like it wanted to.

For starters, combat looked super flashy when we saw it go down in the many, many trailers, but the graphically inferior cutscenes and shoddy voice-acting, the parts that weren’t shown too often, shocked early adopters, and thus, is the reason why Jump Force can’t stand next to other fighters like Smash and Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Jump Force was going in the right direction, but when you couple that with motionless characters in cutscenes, it doesn’t feel authentic. We dream about Goku fighting Naruto, but what’s the point if their interactions are devoid of any life.

If you’re a diehard anime fan, Jump Force will possibly scratch that itch for you, but once you peel the layers, this game sort of falls apart.

Ultimately, as our staff writer and anime aficionado Keenan McCall puts it, Jump Force failed to leverage its Shonen properties in a way that would be exciting for the shonen fan. There’s not enough meaningful, or interesting, interactions between them.

Most critics agreed, and Jump Force has a score of 57 on Metacritic. Average overall, but disappointing considering the hype going into it. Again, the user score is even lower.

Critical Gaming Flops in 2019

Left AliveLeft Alive

Left Alive launched just a few days ago and since it seems that a lot of outlets did not receive a review copy from Square Enix, it didn’t surprise us that early reviews turned out to be negative, very negative.

For those that aren’t aware of what Left Alive even is, it’s a new entry in Square’s Front Mission series with Metal Gear artist, Yoji Shinkawa taking care of the designs.

You would think that the games stealth, mech, and third-person shooter mechanics would play as smooth as Metal Gear Solid, but things didn’t pan out well for this one.

Critics bashed several of the gameplay mechanics featured in the game such as the imprecise stealth, difficult and unfair enemy AI, control responsiveness, and mission structure.

Critical Gaming Flops in 2019

Crackdown 3

Crackdown 3’s long gestation period and the addition of Terry Crews gave us small hints that this title would either be a game of the year contender or one of the worst Microsoft exclusives in recent years.

Oh, and Crackdown 3 needed to be a great game, as we really haven’t gotten much from Microsoft lately in terms of high-quality triple-A exclusives.

Crackdown 3 didn’t wholly fail at its goal, and it’s still a fun game in a lot of ways, but it was far from being the big-time Xbox One exclusive game that all gamers could get excited about. It’s a flawed game that is only going to appeal to some.

Not everything needs to be Red Dead Redemption 2, but the game really needed a bit more time in the oven (yes crazy to say but true), in order to modernize its gameplay a bit more.

Crackdown 3 might have been more of a success story if it ended up giving us a fleshed out world with interesting enemies, and possibly a few more one-liners from Terry himself, but none of that was present in Crackdown 3 and it’s just a shame.

Now, the game does have a score of 60 on Metacritic, which again isn’t terrible, but comparing it to other highly-anticipated exclusive games, it doesn’t make the cut. Fans agreed, and once again, their user scores were even lower.


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Author
Image of Greysun Morales
Greysun Morales
Greysun was formerly the Features Editor at Twinfinite and wrote for the site from 2017 to 2020. He eats ramen 12 times a week and will never get tired of it. Playing Games Since: 1993, Favorite Genres: Action-Adventure, JRPG, Platformers, and Anything With Ramen