Could have become "game-of-the-year" games...but didn't

[Adagio]

What game(s) could have become the "game-of-the-year", but failed because of bugs or annoying features?

I just had a look at ther box of ctp2 in the store yesterday, and thought, that this game, actually could have been the game of the year, if it wasn't because of the annoying features, the game had (Like pw, piracy and such)... Actually it might even had become the game of the millenium, but because of those "features", the game doesn't even come close to consideration, if the game should be on the top 100 of best games ever...

Also, there's a game called Car Tycoon. The game is great, except for the fact, that within short time of the game, there's so many cars on the streets, that it takes years to get from one part of town to another... And that is not the only bug... the game is filled with bugs (Like having to start a "free game", stop the music, end "free game" mode, and then load the saved game... if you don't do itthat way, you will win/lose the game when loading a game... And when you have won/lost the game, you can't just keep playing... And one more thing: On the box, it says the game contains MP, but when opening the box, there's a small paper saying that MP wasn't done yet (And it never will, since they have cancelled the game, after making a few patchs... now they're making the sequel, though without to mention anything about this game (In a press release, I've read long time ago, they said the new game will contain exactly the same things as this game, but they're calling the idea NEW...)

Anyway, is there other games, that actually could have become one of the greatest games ever made, but failed in a few areas..?

[moomin]

I feel HoMM4 could have been a solid contender for game of the year if they'd actually had a game within the graphics.

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Daikatana.

[Adagio]

Could you also give a reason, what makes those games NOT the game of the year?

[Main_Brain]

Arcomage
Those who know it dont need no explanation and those who dont know it will never understand

[loinburger]

Civ 3. They could have actually given it a decent combat system etc., rather than take the List of Ideas and wipe their arses with it.

[moomin]

I think loinburger deserves an honourable mention for providing his reason in such a brilliantly vivid fashion.

[Main_Brain]

Jupp Colourful expression :_)

[Dis]

Neverwinter Nights. don't get me wrong this is an excellent game. And probably would be a game of the year in a slow year. But there is more competition this year. I felt they made it too actiony. Sure this is a matter of opinion. Some people probably don't like the deep RPG's. But action actually goes too fast. You can't keep up with the combat text in the box. Often after fights I have to scroll up for a long time to find out what I did wrong.

Because death should be avoided in RPG's. Consequently I want to learn from my mistakes to never let it happen again. Death in NWN is just not done right. Sure there are mod packs that fix this problem. But they have problems as well as this is an action game and the combat still screams by. You have to be very cautious to avoid dying.

But its still a fun game.

Civ3- well we all know the reasons for this. So many good ideas poorly implemented.

SMAC- actually this probably was the game of the year . But I felt it could have done better. A more vivid interface would have been nice. I understand its an alien planet that is dark, but that doesn't mean the rest of the interface need be dark. A few early bugs also hurt this game.

Fallout: tactics. This game just had the wrong designers with the wrong vision. Sure the premise had promise , but this game could have been the be all and end all of tactical combat. It wasn't.

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Dissident

SMAC- actually this probably was the game of the year . But I felt it could have done better. A more vivid interface would have been nice. I understand its an alien planet that is dark, but that doesn't mean the rest of the interface need be dark. A few early bugs also hurt this game.

SMAC game of the year? Which year? It's been out for several now.

[Dis]

1999 is when it came out

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Tuberski
SMAC game of the year? Which year? It's been out for several now.

Let's not talk about Which year, let's just take the games compared to the years that game was released...

[Urban Ranger]

Yeah, but upon which magazine do you base this?

[Skanky Burns]

War of the Worlds.

This game had 2 opposing armies, the humans and the Martians. The two sides were fairly balanced and different with the Martian units few but very powerful, and the humans weak but numerous. Fun gameplay where you decide when to attack them (and it then goes into a real-time battle mode) and excellent War of the Worlds-based music. Interesting research control.

Unfortunately, the game was not tested enough, leaving bugs such as a "disappearing ship" when attacking provinces that didn't have enough water to hold them in the tactical map, or the more general "not enough memory to load all defences units, deleting some at random" type of bug. Very annoying to build lots of nice defences and when being attacked discover that they aren't around any more. Units bunch up due to poor path-finding (causing many units to receive splash damage from near hits), and of course the game crashes sometimes. Auto-saves just before going into tactical battles though.

Another problem is the replay value, or lack thereof. Once you have finished the war using both sides, there is little to entice you to replay it.

All in all, it could have been so much more.

[Main_Brain]

WoW? are you serious that Game had one Crappy AI build a fence.. anywhere ... the enemy will try to walk over it doing big damage
Also I I missed MP (