End of Year Community Awards: Most Disappointing Game of 2014

The voting for various categories in the Pastapadre Community Awards continues with Most Disappointing Sports Game. It’s the only recognition from the awards that no game would want but several candidates can’t avoid.

Previous “winners” – or losers I suppose – have been NBA 2K14, NCAA Football 13, NCAA Football 12, and Madden NFL 11. This year three titles really stand out from the crowd unfortunately. NHL 15, EA Sports UFC, and RBI Baseball 14. 

The most botched release of the year – involving deception from EA Sports, awful communication and treatment of the series’ dedicated fan base, and anticipated features and content missing from the product – came as a huge surprise to many. NHL 15 was expected to be a contender for Sports Game of the Year. It drew raves out of E3 and other events where the game was carefully shielded so no one would discover the truth about it. An NHL game wasn’t released last year to give the company additional development time to release a fully featured effort this year. So much for that promise. Sadly despite sales that plummeted it’s evident the company really hasn’t learned from any of this either.

Built for the new consoles hopes were high for EA Sports UFC – it certainly looked to be at the very least technologically impressive. However with the demo and then eventually the retail release serious flaws in design were discovered. The game was built more to appeal to a casual audience that was never going to be interested in it and in doing so it failed to resonate with the actual fight fans who would have championed it. Thin offline content hurt it as well. It’s worth noting that the game has gotten much better in the six months since it released but so many consumers were lost back then it can’t be saved from a nomination here.

The announcement of the return of RBI Baseball at first generated some excitement. Most probably wouldn’t remember that though because everything that came after was a disaster. MLB Advanced Media didn’t promote the game prior to release and then released it over-priced hoping to sucker people in based on the name alone. The game lacked necessary content (didn’t even track stats!), had poor graphics, and maybe worst of all was flat out dull to play. It was for all intents and purposes a port of a mobile game. MLBAM also promised post-release support, that they would be adding online play over the summer and releasing roster updates throughout the season – neither of which ever happened.

Previously
♦Best Gameplay
♦Best Franchise Mode
♦Best Career Mode
♦Best Presentation
♦Best Online