While 2011 did offer up some pretty great games as illustrated by our 2011 Better Than Jesus Awards, it also offered up fail in epic proportions. From “network intrusions” all the way down to the botched launch of certain 3D portables, there always seemed to be a big load of shite just around the corner acting as a counter balance to all the good we saw in 2011. With that I present this years nominees for the Golden Turd…
Remember to cast your vote for your ’2011 Golden Turd’ pick at the bottom of the page!
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Playstation Network Hack – Sony
Nathan Schmidt – Don’t get us wrong, it’s not the actual intrusion into Sony’s Playstation Network that earned them a nominee for this year’s Golden Turd. Everyone gets hacked, it’s just one of the things that were going to have to deal with and protect ourselves from moving forward. Sony earned themselves a nomination due to the balls ass way they handled things after the intrusion occurred. While we all knew that the network had been hacked, it took Sony a fucking WEEK to inform us that our personal information had been compromised.
That’s a week customers could have spent changing passwords, getting credit cards re-issued, etc… Even then Sony attempted to down play the extent of the intrusion while allegations of violations in PCI Compliance started to fly. It wasn’t until multiple governing bodies in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and others started expressing concerns over how Sony was handling the situation before we got some real answers into exactly what happened, what was taken, and where Sony was in their investigation.
Your statement indicated you have no evidence at this time that credit card information was obtained, yet you cannot rule out this possibility. Please explain why you do not believe credit card information was obtained and why you cannot determine if the data was in fact taken.
As stated above, Sony Network Entertainment America has not been able to conclude with certainty through the forensic analysis done to date that credit card information was not transferred from the PlayStation Network system. We know that for other personal information contained in the account database, the hacker made queries to the database, and the external forensics teams have seen large amounts of data transferred in response to those queries. Our forensics teams have not seen the queries and corresponding data transfers of the credit card information.
- exert form a letter to SCEA CEO Jack Tretton from U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal
In the end the Network came back up, we all got some free games, and Sony laid out a road map on how not to handle these types of situation in the future. I still lost a month of Portal 2 Co-Op though, and there is no compensation for that you filthy rat bastards!
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Nintendo 3DS Launch
Nathan Schmidt – I find it amazing that in an industry that has had so many examples of how not to launch a new platform, nobody can seem to get it right. Take the 3DS for example, it’s launch was nothing short than a mouthful of steaming hot cock (while I’m sure some readers may enjoy a mouthful of cock, I generally prefer not having my mouth full of man-meat…but that’s nothing a bottle of wine and a back rub can’t change BAZINGA!).
When will the big three learn that your platform is only as good as the games you launch with it. It’s a lesson that Nintendo learned the hard way this year as sales of the 3DS started to slide as a direct result of the rushed, incomplete, and altogether shoddy games we had to choose from.
Did Nintendo really think that games like Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D, and Tobidasu! Puzzle Bobble were going to move units? Hell even the amazing port of Street Fighter IV, a new Professor Layton, and Ridge Racer 3D aren’t enough to warrant a $250 price tag. Sony made the same mistake when it launched the Playstation 3, but Nintendo obviously was not taking notes.
In the past, there have been price drops for video game systems some time after their release in order to broaden the user base further. However, never before has Nintendo chosen to issue such a dramatic price drop less than 6 months after a system release.
We are all too keenly aware that those of you who supported us by purchasing the 3DS in the beginning may feel betrayed and criticize this decision.
– exert from Satoru Iwata apology letter to 3DS early adopters
It’s a shame because whether you appreciate the 3D aspects or not, the hardware is impressive. Lower than expected sales numbers forced Nintendo to adjust their financial projections and cut the price of the 3DS down to $169 just months after it’s release. This enraged early adopters of the platform who paid top dollar for their systems. In an effort to appease the masses Nintendo introduced it’s “Ambassador Program” which promised early adopters of the system tons of free games. All of which probably wouldn’t have been necessary if a stronger line-up was in place at the time the system was launched. Well that and not quite such a ridiculous price tag for a portable. Anyway, there is always the Wii U launch line-up to look forward to:/
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The Return Of The King
Nathan Schmidt – Really Gearbox, REALLY! Duke Nukem Forever is the game you release to hail the return of the king? Hell those shooting mechanics were so bad that they couldn’t even compare to Duke Nukem 3D, let alone any current generation shooter. I know retarded monkeys (or mentally challenged monkeys for the politically correct among us:) that could design better levels than we saw in DNF. And you have the balls to take shots at Valve’s puzzles?
Let’s not even get into the ridiculous lack of weapons to choose from, or the load times and terrible pacing that made me want to put my head in the microwave. All of these shortcomings seemed to get worse as players progressed through the game. Although I’m not sure if that was the result of a technical issue, or the fact that my mind was on the verge of collapse from the boredom that was setting in. Top it all off with the “we just don’t get it humor” and what you have is a giant shit sandwich that many of us suffered through because it was Duke Fucking Nukem!
Despite what Randy Pitchford and Gearbox would have you believe, Duke Nuke Forever would have been a bad game had it released with a normal development cycle alongside games of that generation. This one should have just been shelved as it is the epitome of poor development, whether that is because 10 years of stop and start development, or Gearbox slapping on fresh coats of paint to hide the shit at it’s core, it just doesn’t matter. The game sucked balls!
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Duke Nukem doesn’t pay for lap dances, or fetch shit for strippers! You thank the king for allowing you to grind up on him, and he better bust a nut or there will be hell to pay…fucking Gearbox. BALLS OF STEEL MY HAPPY ASS!
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Online Passes
Nathan Schmidt – Online passes hit the mainstream in 2011 with many publishers instituting them to curb the sale of pre-owned games. It’s not like the industry sees record growth year over year or anything, oh no. Publishers want more, and if that means charging you an extra $15 to play the online component of a game you bought pre-owned so be it. You see they figured out that it’s much easier to fuck with the customer, than it is to fuck with a giant corporate entities like Gamestop or Bestbuy.
It’s not like it’s a huge fucking hassle to enter that long as balls code with a controller or anything…oh wait it is. Hell it took me 45 minutes to enter all the codes that came with my copy of Battlefield 3, and by the end of it I didn’t even want to play anymore (BF3 sucks ass btw). The beauty of console gaming it that it is free of all the nonsense that comes with PC gaming. You pop in the disc and you play, that’s fucking it. Well at least that’s the way it used to be.
There has to be a better way than heaping more nonsense on your customers. If you have a problem with Gamestop selling your games, and you not seeing a percentage then take it up with them.
And fuck all of you that scream “support the developers”, it’s like you have forgotten that pre-owned games used to be new games that were sold at full retail price. This means the developer got their cut. If a game doesn’t perform and a publisher or developer blames the used game market, maybe it was just a balls ass game.
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Dragonball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi
Shaquil Hansford – Ultimate Tenkaichi was, without a doubt, the most devastatingly violent middle finger ever thrust into the faces of any fan base ever. No exceptions. If you disagree, you are wrong. Previews of this game made it seem like a dream come true. Dialogue during battles between related characters in the Dragon Ball Z universe. Amazing animations as each character powered up. Gorgeous graphics. And, most importantly, a story mode in which you could create your own custom Saiyan. All of this, plus the near-perfect gameplay from the Tenkaichi series? I’d pay twice as much as the average game for something like that.
Then the game came out. And I played it. And then I took the game out, to see if something was wrong with my disk. And then I played it again. There are no words to describe the unspeakable, mind-warping vortex of terror I went through, just from trying to complete the tutorial. Quick time events that, once completed, lead to further quick time events, which are each mere components of a much larger, much more terrifying, overarching quick time event.
The day it came out, I went to a friend’s house. He’d also gotten the game, and I wanted to check up on him. He hadn’t been answering my calls. I knocked on his door, only to find it slightly ajar. Slowly entering, calling out to him, I wondered what had happened, as I noticed his living room in disarray, the TV knocked over, the couch flipped, the table broken. When I got into his room, he was sitting facing the TV, with his back to me. I slowly turned him around to find that his face had been warped and gnarled! Ultimate Tenkaichi was such an unmitigated disaster that it drove him to utter madness! DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU.
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