We’ve shown you all the things we’ve loved about the year 2011. Now it’s time to tell you all the things that disappointed us. We tried not to take the easy route this year by simply telling you we hate albums from bands we’re supposed to hate (we probably do), we didn’t want to just tell you a game sucks so we’re telling you why it was so bad (Duke Nukem…tsk tsk). We’ve taken on the role of a parent who isn’t mad, just disappointed. That makes it so much worse.
Ben:
Movie: Hangover II - Same premise with unoriginal ideas. Clearly the studio wanted to capitalize on the success of the first movie.
Music: I listen to Top 40 music so my repertoire of songs isn’t deep. I’m Canadian and can’t stand Justin Bieber
Video Game: It’s easy to rag on Duke Nukem so egg them on I will. The game is unpolished with boring mechanics set in a world of brown, more brown and lots of brown.
Technology: AMD FX CPUs aka “Bulldozer” - AMD released their next-gen CPU that performed no better than the Phenom II and in some cases, even worse. It failed to bulldoze, if anything it was more like a fail-dozer.
Amos
Movie: Conan the Barbarian - Ok, it’s an action flick and it’s a remake of an Arnold film. But I’m a big Jason Momoa fan and seeing how the original bar was pretty low, I expected more than Prince of Persia without a shirt. Rachel Nicols was hot as always but Gemma Arterton could save PoP either. I was looking forward to a no-holds-barred type of action film with over the top stunts and brutal sword play; instead all I got was lots of grunting and shaved man-boobs.
Music: Lady Gaga - Born This Way - I’m with Ben here. Top 40 and Sirius Hits 1 is my sort of music with a dash of new country thrown in for good measure. This makes my choices limited since I don’t really “look forward” to music. But with the latest Gaga album, I was hoping for more signature dance/pop hits like her debut but it ended up being a mash of pop-funk and inconsistent styles. If I’m listening to Gaga, I’m expecting Gaga, not Gaga doing her version of country blues.
Video Game: Ultimate/Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 - We’ve touched on this during our Christmas Special Podcast (podcast.gamerwok.com) but Capcom really stuck it to fans this time by releasing a full priced game with a limited edition and promising DLC, then only to release a 30% cheaper version with 20% more content and NOT allow for the previous owners to purchase the additional content via DLC. You buy a Capcom game expecting DLC add-ons and “enhanced” retail releases but for them to really screw fans of this long-time series is unforgivable.
Technology: Apple iPhone 4S - We had to wait since June 2010 for the next iPhone to be released and in October, we got the iPhone 4S. This was less of an upgrade than the 3GS was and all it had going for it was voice recognition, which Android had working (well) since Gingerbread. Sure there wasn’t a robotic woman speaking back to you and it didn’t have humorous answers to your silly questions, but that’s hardly enough to call it a new edition of a phone. They didn’t even change the form factor for God’s sake! And to add salt to the wound, it’s probably going to be another 16 months before we get the true iPhone 5 and for those of us sitting with an iPhone 4, that’s a long time to be using an Apple product without an upgrade.
Adam
Movie: Green Lantern. Being a huge comic book nerd it hurts to put this on the list, but Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds was one of the biggest disappointments of the year, for multiple reasons. Not only was it strange to see the man who played Deadpool in the Wolverine Origins movie as a DC Comics superhero, but the plot surrounding the film was abysmal. Coupled with an abundance of shoddy CGI and we have a one heck of a bust.
Music: Drake – Take Care. Don’t get me wrong, I do like this album, but I was still quite disappointed with it after Take Care dropped. The album features slower R&B style songs that take away from the heat that Drake and his YMCMB crew had garnered with Little Wayne’s ‘The Carter IV’. There are some noteworthy songs on this album, but as a sophomore release I expected more ‘bangers’ or songs that would tear up nightclubs as opposed to slow romantic ballads.
Video Game: Dragon Age 2. I expected so much more from this release, and while the game was fun to play, it was essentially Dragon Age 1 with a few minor tweaks. Dungeons were glitchy and seemed to be copied straight from the original game and the game became quite boring and repetitive quite quickly. After suffering through the game, the ending of the game was a major disappointment as well and left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Not something I would have expected from major market giants BioWare and EA.
Technology: iPad 2. I would have chosen the iPhone 4gS but since it had already been featured I figured I’d write about the tablet. I expected more out of this product and still do not understand why you have to utilize iTunes in order to keep software up-to-date. Though it is a tad smaller, it doesn’t seem like anything has really changed with this product.
Justin
Movie: Haven’t seen many movies in the past year, but I’d have to say Transformers 3. I knew it was going to be disappointing from the beginning, but the Michael Bay seems to enjoy killing my childhood memories. I won’t get into the amount of name changes, continuity bending and lack transformer screen time, but it was a lot. I fear for inevitable 4th that will come out.
Music: I’ve never really been disappointed with a certain album as I take music as it comes for the most part. Even if I don’t anticipate an albums/songs release there is one song that I’m extremely disappointed in. It’s a day of the week that begins with “F” and should be eradicated from the minds of those forced to hear it.
Video Game: For this one, I’m going to agree with Ben and say Duke Nukem. After 14 or so years of development the game was simply crushed under the expectations of the gamers who wanted to play it. It was bound to disappoint before it was even finished, regardless of how good it was upon release.
Branden
Movie: Horrible Bosses - Being a big fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I was very excited for Charlie Day and Horrible Bosses. Knowing the potential of how funny Charlie Day can be, I had high hopes for this movie. Unfortunately, it didn’t meet my expectations and I only found myself laughing a few times throughout the movie. For a comedy, that’s just not good enough.
Music: dredg - “Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy” - After 2005’s Catch Without Arms and 2009’s The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion, it was easy to have very high hopes for dreg’s newest album, Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy. The first three songs are solid, but after that, the level of passion and integrity present in their previous releases were nowhere to be seen…and that’s a shame.
Video Game: 2011 was mostly a great year for video games in my circle, but there is one series that I have now given up on: the Madden football series. Unlike the NCAA football series (which is significantly better than Madden in my opinion), Madden NFL 12 was just the same game as last year, with better graphics and improved rosters. I doubt I will ever buy a Madden NFL game again.
Lewis
Music: Justice – Audio, Video, Disco…Is my pick for most disappointing album of the year. When Cross came out in 2007 it was a monster. It was ahead of the curve for electro pop, went from heavy techno to uber pop and yet remained listenable from start to finish. AVD on the other hand is boring. Don’t get me wrong there are some great moments that will keep the endorsements coming and find their way into djs sets for years. It’s the painful and boring attempts at being too progressive that hurt AVD beyond listenability.
Jeff
Movie: My biggest disappointment in movies this year is that they seemed to have had such a good year I’m having trouble finding a movie I didn’t like. I got the advantage of reading everyone else’s movie picks and I’m sure I would agree with a few (Conan, Green Lantern) I missed those ones. Lucky year for me!
Music: REM’s last album, Collapse Into Now is my biggest disappointment. It’s painful for me to put that on the list because I really love REM but I guess that shows that it really was time for them to call it quits. This album wasn’t bad and it was likely a lot better than some other releases this year but this is about disappointments and this album was just not their best.
Video Game: I said on the podcast that Duke Nukem was my biggest disappointment but I think I’m going another direction here. My biggest disappointment this year was games that were being released without being finished. Battlefield 3 is one of my favorite games released this year. The only problem is that it took me hours, of uninstalling and reinstalling, to try to get PunkBuster to allow me to play it for more than five minutes online. For a game that is best online (Though they did a great job on the campaign this time) this is unacceptable. Finish your games before you release them!
Technology: My biggest disappointment in technology would have to be less on physical technology and more on the rules of technology. This was the year of SOPA and the war on internet freedom. It’s disappointing to see people working so hard to take away internet freedoms when you have so many people using those very same freedoms to promote or encourage sharing of new things.
