Worst year ever for big games, my advice for 2024 is stop pre ordering, hit them in the wallet, watch streams and at least 2 or 3 reviews before you buy (as long as mine is one of them) be patient, give the game a few days before u buy, read the forums and see the user reviews, the big critics are mostly a bunch shills protecting their business, not wanting to ruffle the feathers of their PR contacts. Have a great new year and don't miss my GOTY vid on New Years Eve.
People should have taken this advice 10 years ago. Big studios are just pushing the boundary to see how little they can do for the most profit. Pre orders are just straight us a scam. If you can wait for a game x years then you can wait a few days to see if it's shit or not. Pre orders are just conditioning people to be stupid with their money. Also my favorite kind of steam review: Game's buggy af and unfinished, give them a few years - Positive review. People get scammed to pay full price for half the game and then are happy to spread their chicks for these studios after...? I'll be honest, I don't know if I can blame these studios if people are this stupid. After all it's people that feed these scams. Maybe if the game is shit stop defending it just because you were dumb with your money that you can't recover now and start being angry that the studio shafted you instead. It's called Self-justification look it up on wikipedia and stop doing it ffs. This is why games are shit now, because people let them be shit.
I remember the day when i did not fully realize how problematic pre ordering is. Sadly even a big part of the ''gaming community'' does not realize how big of a problem pre-ordering games is. Its a bit ridiculous. Take CD-project red for example, who spend 316 million on making cyberpunk.. of wich 142 million was spend on marketing the game. Yes.. they spend 142 million dollars on marketing their game so 8 million people would pre-order it. Imagine if pre-ordering a game was not a thing. They could take the 142 million dollars and invest another 18 months into the game to make what it was supposed to be at release, and it would have probably sold just as well just be everyone learning how good the game is. Look at how well valheim sold with zero marketing. Look at how wel Baldurgs gate 3 sold with very little marketing compared to cyberpunk. Its like me spending a lot of time and energy giving my future wife papers and asking her to sign it with her and my lawyer and hoping she will sign the contract in where it states she will have to be in a relationship with me for at least 10 years, instead of me taking that time and energy and investing it in myself and improving myself to be a better man so the relationship will be so good she will stay with me for the rest of my life anyway. Its just stupid as shit both from the sellers and buyers perspective.
Starfield is my worst game of the year because of the massive hype, Bethesda's lies, the doubling down on their hype and lies rather than accepting criticisms and any negative player feedback.
The most baffling thing about that game was how the very same people who would praise and excuse an AAA game being released in an absolutely atrocious state, were absolutely outraged by a Kickstarter project released in less than optimal state.
To me redfall wins over gollum because gollum wasn’t nearly as pretentious and the studio basically came out saying we didn’t have the skill and we’re sorry. Redfall is still full priced, had the backing of Microsoft and Bethesda, and tried to make it look amazing before release as well as getting creators to talk about how great it was. Gollum it seemed like they released quietly.
I think Diablo 4 wins, with Starfield a close second for worst game of the year. I put Diablo 4 ahead because price, reputation and pollution of a franchise we thought we valued really adds to something infamous.
"Minimum Viable Product". The core concept at the heart of the most pervasive software development business methodology in use today: "Agile" Development. They teach this cynical racket in universities and consultancy firms - it has its insidious little fingers in almost every development studio now. What is the *minimum* *viable* product they can sell you? Then they set a delivery deadline - before dev even begins. Anything that doesn't meet the timeline, anything that exceeds the minimum...gets cut. And not another ounce of effort is spent. That's "AAA" games.
The saddest part with the hype, the paid shills giving it glowing reviews fooling so many into cope mode where they literally force themselves to play 100s of hours of a terrible fraud of a game simply because... "Skyrim in space" etc.
Not to mention the development time and budget it would've had. That makes it the biggest fail of all. It's like they learned nothing from their previous games.
Danke! Und alles Gute für das Neue Jahr! Thanks, Mack! If a game is bad, it can still gives us enjoyment when you rip them apart in your reviews. Keep going and have a great start into 2024! I saved some money listening to you first. Please accept my thanks. All the best!
man... I'm so glad that in 2024 the message is still "don't preorder games". well over 10 years now of this. Totalbiscuit had his infamous rant about this while playing starcraft 2 on stream... that's how long this has been THE issue. The average person is just not capable of learning.
I see the same comments on defending garbage products Either: "it's a fun game" Or "let people enjoy things" I guess we cannot criticise anything ever again as you can just say "let people enjoy things" as a defence
Reviewers defending games released in 2023? Surely not! Why would people whose jobs depend on the advertising income and special treatment from the companies whose products they're reviewing be defending the products of those companies? It's a real mystery! Answers on a postcard, please.
I'm not sure we can hit them in the wallet. The hordes of idiot consumers are vast and to make things even worse these companies don't even need to make many sales of their actual product because the ESG mob will funnel money onto them as long as they spew out their propaganda.
@@henryjohnson-ville3834 Hey, look on the bright side! He buys them with the sole purpose to show people how tripe they are so that less and less people bought them, which ultimately means that these brain-dead developers are supported less and less as well. He sacrifices his money to do us a much needed community service, so if anything, he's the true hero here. One we don't deserve, but desperately need.
@@henryjohnson-ville3834on certain sites you can return within a certain amount of time, if you've played for less than 2 hours i think on Steam, but like his patreons are giving him money to do it too save us from having to and providing education and entertainment. Its a good system
The problem with bad games is that no matter how bad a game is, how many bad rev. the games get, give them some time and they are mostly positive. Most gamers are just the biggest idi..... on this planet. There is just no other word for it. No matter how bad a game is, people will cry and still love it + support that crap and totally forget about them being bad. NPCs the whole world is full of NPCs
Don't forget they delayed Starfield for a year to make it better, so it wasnt "another cyberpunk" ....imagine what it would have been like if they released it when they were going to without being afraid of the backlash.
Unfortunately preaching to the choir with the pre-order message. All the uninformed people who buy because it's a big IP they heard about or they get sucked in by the pre-release hype and trailers. It's hard to stop kids, casual gamers (who don't watch reviews etc.), parents and grandmas who don't know better buying these games. We who follow YT reviewers we like, reddit etc. are in the minority.
Bethesda thinks we just hit 2004, not 2024. They're out of touch with modern-day gaming. But, we all know there will be 1 million pre-orders for their next title.
As someone who’s the head of a small indie developer, I hope that you’ll one day talk about a game my company makes. I feel like you’re one of the few people who’s actually honest.
For me Starfield is the absolute worst, a game with a record, massive IP's and budget that produce that level of shite for me is even worse than Gollum and Kong. For them to fall this far is a travesty and Todd trying to defend it is most shameful. AAA is full trash.
It seems like video games have reached their limitation as a medium. The idea and expectation for a thing to continue to improve and get better forever is unrealistic. Most new games are a copy, combination or improvement upon another game. You’ll never get back the feeling of your first FPS. Once you have played enough games, you have played them all. That’s why nobody gives a crap about the story anymore. Not that corporatism isn’t also to blame, the insidious leech that it is.
@@keithlol Limitations as a medium? you're just looking at these couple of triple A titles and forget the ocean of innovation that comes out each year? So much nonsense..
@@keithlolI keep seeing young kids repeat how amazing each subsequent year of gaming is. It’s like collective denial and ignorance(?) of what games used to be. When Skyrim is an objectively better game than Starfield, something is really sick in the gaming industry.
@@keithlol An 'old' man and u were young when wow came out? That's cute, I've been gaming since late 80's lol. Nothing new sure..I see alot of sequels yeah. But lots of quality, Diablo and Baldurs Gate are not on this list. Atomic Heart is a cool 'new' shooter for example. We just gonna casually ignore the entire console library that Mac never talks about too? Pc triple A was mediocre this year maybe, but there is more than just the usual suspects.. An ocean of cool indy titles for example or Nintendo that will ever keep innovating on gameplay. I own a switch, ps5 and a PC and I am never dissatisfied.. Can't even keep up with my own list of gems I want to play because there are just too damn much.
It's unfair that Starfield is being measured up to No Man's Sky. I mean come on, it's totally unrealistic to expect a multi-billion AAA studio with over 1500 devs to pull off what a tiny indie studio of 4-6 people pulled off... 7 years ago. Temper your expectations, people! I bet there's that one guy who legit thinks I'm being serious. Somehow.
Starfield steam review score drops to Mostly Negative. Mack was ahead of the curve as usual, and got a load of stick for it. Mac was right, Mac is wise.
Bethesda spent a crap load of money to add they/them to Starfield. What a waste. A lot of that money could have been used to add content which it desperately needed. I used to love that studio .
It has to be Starfield because it's a big release with a legacy to live up to. Picking on bad games by inexperienced studios with limited budgets isn't fair. Really it should be different categories depending on that. Also 'Biggest Dissapointment'. Starfield should win BOTH Biggest Dissapointment and Worst Game of the Year. Other games can win Worst Game of Indie and Worst Game of Small Studio.
Thank you for another great year Mac! I've been watching since 2016 and I really appreciate all of the hard work you put in. Have a great new year sir!
My favorite part of Starfield is when the love interest is killed and you actually hookup with another chick in the Eye before the corpse is tagged and bagged. Just brilliant writing....I give it 10 glaucoma afflicted asthmatic hippos out of 10.
I'm a Yamiks fanboy (Streamer), love Farmer Cop (Farm Sim), and a host of other content creators but your channel BY FAR mirrors my own attitude, view, and sense of humor. THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS!! You never cease to amaze me or make me laugh. So THANK YOU for making otherwise miserable situations a little more bearable.
Gollum for sure.. I saw someone else playing it and even I got angry lol. People hated mass effect andromeda but that game had the best combat in the series with "tired" faces and some early woke era script but Starfield had no vision and their creation engine or whatever is just done, good luck with that in TES 6
I really appreciate you Mack! I have watched EVERY video on your channel and I always look forward to these videos every year lol. Hope you’re in good health!
I think Redfall, for the size of studio and budget behind it, has to be Worst of the year...even once it dropped there were devs from it c admitting they didn't wanna make it , couldn't wait to finish it, and even that they knew it sucked and was broken on release. To ne, Gollum was bad, but playable...Redfall wasn't even playable.
I took the bait like an idiot for Starfield. Never again, Bethesda is now dead to me. Didn't have a decent PC rig, so I bought a new XBOX Series X just for Starfield. $500+ for that pile of steaming trash. The only consolation is there are actually some really good games on XBOX Game Pass, not including Starfield of course.
What a steaming pile of absolute banter piss this year of gaming has been. Can't wait to see what the next shovel of shite Mack brings us in the new year 🎉
Starfield was 100% what I expected. Actual Skyrim in space. Buggy, limited, mostly unimaginative. Played 300 hours, had a blast. Felt sorry for the hype swallowers.
I agree that 2023 was the worst year for gaming. I recently started buying PS2 and PS3 games that I never got around to playing in the past, because I am realizing that we were previously in the golden ages of gaming. I have paid a lot to get some PS2 games like Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill Origins.
2023 was great for me. BG3. JA3. Rogue Trader. Dave the Diver. Dredge. Octopath Traveler 2 and a few others I haven't mentioned. I just avoided the type of games that Mac plays.
@@majorgear1021 I cant believe that there are still people like you who think bg3 is just bear sex and nothing else. the game is practically an immersive sim with the sheer number of ways you can approach things. you can do things you wouldnt even think of doing
As far as I'm concerned, this year was absolutely incredible tbh. BG3, one of the all time best game I have personally played. Path of Exile, three absolutely banger leagues. Escape from Tarkov, awesome new update + wipe that's a couple days old (still buggy mess, but enjoyable) Rust, lots of cool updates Lethal Company, should I say more? The Day Before, just to troll those who are still reading I know that technically even BG3 isn't a full AAA game and I mentioned only 2 new releases, but still, I'm happy with the gaming I did this year.
@@WorthABuyreviews Yeah, somehow I'm not surprised in the slightest. We truly have a "rotten core" problem, even though in my opinion the AAA industry wasn't the core of gaming for over a decade at this point.
There's an interesting documentary about Gollum here on RUclips about what went wrong and why, but only in German. TLDR, the developers are not to blame. It was the management and the executive floor of the company that made such a mess of the thing. Some of the developers weren't paid and tried everything what they could, but they knew from the start that it wouldn't work.
Well of course. It's very rarely fault of the people who actually program the game. When Mack says developer, he means the company which was developing the game
Your a absolute LEGEND mack, your one of few that speaks the truth and tells how is, people need to stop being in denial and pull there heads out there backsides and realise there getting scammed left and right for half arsed games at best or this mockery will just continue.
This is the true Video Game Awards! Nice work, Mack! I had the displeasure to try some of this stuff myself and I'm still pissed I wasted time trying to find something good in Starfield.
I usually agree with you but I do think this has been the best year in a while for games. But it has had some truely shocking games as well. But its 100% had some good ones. BG3, Armoured core. RE4. Dead space. Diablo 4 is good even if people wont admit it. The finals. Ready or not. CP2077 PL. Remnant 2 very good. Hogwarts was good for what it was and it riled up the mental cases. Fallen order was good even if it released in a shoddy state. Lies of P sleeper hit. Where as last year there was, what? elden ring the only good game all year
This is the new standard until people stop preordering garbage. If a car dealer started selling Fred Flintstone's car for $100k and hyped it up, people would line up for it.
As usual you hit the nail right on the head Mack. I've seen so many people defending starfield and it's baffling. As someone who played nearly 70 agonizing hours of starfield just because people said that's what was needed to give it a chance. Starfield would have been outdated if it released in 2013 let alone 2023, it's not even close to immersive, and everything that made bethesda games special is long gone. Compelling story, interesting characters, immersive world, and good graphics. That's what's basically required for any modern RPG, and starfield fails miserably at every single aspect. Starfield, just like all the other games on this list is a disgrace to the entire industry, and every dev involved should be ashamed of themselves and heavily consider a new career. To my knowledge the only high budget / AAA title to release this year that was actually good was baldurs gate 3. Not a single other good title all year, shit's depressing. Thank god for larian and bg3. Starfield is so unbelievably disgraceful I'd call it a joke but that implies it was funny but no its just the industry is fucked.
I'd say Redfall is the worst game of the year, coming from a well established studio with a solid record. Stanfield is the biggest disappointment of the past 10 years.
If you go back to your video "Starfield Preview - It Blew me Away" you can see my comment, 9 months ago, talking about how awful Starfield would be due to it being a disjointed loading screen simulator. Can't believe I managed to call it so early. Golumn deserved worst game of the year, £42? I wouldn't pay £20! Looking forward to the New Year stream!
How can you say this wasn't a great year for gaming. It gave us Gollum and all the memes you could ask for. When Disney failed to make us laugh at least the Games industry provided. xD
When I saw you the field and the dog I was sure Starfield would finally win something. Gollum must be absolute terror and Kong Skull Island must be the true horror Malenia refers to during her fight in Elden Ring.
Props to you Mack for staying consistent and honest with your fanbase and the industry, it's a disgrace the state gaming's in and you are one of the voices I search for in these dark times.
It makes me sad to see the state of games now. It was so fun and incredible in the 80's and 90's. It isn't anymore. They release garbage and eternally charge more and more for DLC, until it is now insanely expensive.
The 80's and 90's were also filled with trash. The worst thing was we didn't have internet so we relied on magazines. Some magazines would guarantee high review scores for exclusive access to a new game. Unfinished, overpriced, garbage and scam games have been with us since the dawn of gaming. Gamers have been burned from the start. At least we have the internet now so we can get a true reflection of the quality of a game. The problem we have now is plonkers who are pre ordering games and knowingly paying for unfinished games hoping they'll get better. The industry will not change until we do
Worst year ever for big games, my advice for 2024 is stop pre ordering, hit them in the wallet, watch streams and at least 2 or 3 reviews before you buy (as long as mine is one of them) be patient, give the game a few days before u buy, read the forums and see the user reviews, the big critics are mostly a bunch shills protecting their business, not wanting to ruffle the feathers of their PR contacts. Have a great new year and don't miss my GOTY vid on New Years Eve.
People should have taken this advice 10 years ago. Big studios are just pushing the boundary to see how little they can do for the most profit. Pre orders are just straight us a scam. If you can wait for a game x years then you can wait a few days to see if it's shit or not. Pre orders are just conditioning people to be stupid with their money. Also my favorite kind of steam review: Game's buggy af and unfinished, give them a few years - Positive review. People get scammed to pay full price for half the game and then are happy to spread their chicks for these studios after...? I'll be honest, I don't know if I can blame these studios if people are this stupid. After all it's people that feed these scams. Maybe if the game is shit stop defending it just because you were dumb with your money that you can't recover now and start being angry that the studio shafted you instead. It's called Self-justification look it up on wikipedia and stop doing it ffs. This is why games are shit now, because people let them be shit.
I remember the day when i did not fully realize how problematic pre ordering is. Sadly even a big part of the ''gaming community'' does not realize how big of a problem pre-ordering games is. Its a bit ridiculous. Take CD-project red for example, who spend 316 million on making cyberpunk.. of wich 142 million was spend on marketing the game.
Yes.. they spend 142 million dollars on marketing their game so 8 million people would pre-order it. Imagine if pre-ordering a game was not a thing. They could take the 142 million dollars and invest another 18 months into the game to make what it was supposed to be at release, and it would have probably sold just as well just be everyone learning how good the game is. Look at how well valheim sold with zero marketing. Look at how wel Baldurgs gate 3 sold with very little marketing compared to cyberpunk.
Its like me spending a lot of time and energy giving my future wife papers and asking her to sign it with her and my lawyer and hoping she will sign the contract in where it states she will have to be in a relationship with me for at least 10 years, instead of me taking that time and energy and investing it in myself and improving myself to be a better man so the relationship will be so good she will stay with me for the rest of my life anyway.
Its just stupid as shit both from the sellers and buyers perspective.
@@jameswayton2340lmao why was this so fun to read
Starfield is my worst game of the year because of the massive hype, Bethesda's lies, the doubling down on their hype and lies rather than accepting criticisms and any negative player feedback.
I understand, but i’m definitely pre ordering gta 6, there are some games out there that can keep their promise!
I still go back and watch the Kingdom Come Deliverance rant every once in a while. Thank you Mack for always letting it fly for us.😂
Kingdom come deliverance was a great game
Same. That rant is so good
I'd like a private bath... for two
yeah its the review that convinced me to get it. and i have hundreds of hours in it :) praying for a sequel
The most baffling thing about that game was how the very same people who would praise and excuse an AAA game being released in an absolutely atrocious state, were absolutely outraged by a Kickstarter project released in less than optimal state.
Thank you Mack for your honest reviews :)
Forspoken: 👀
WorthABuy: 'Err no you were January.. Get back 'ere y'prick!👈'
😂😂😂
LOL, Flop-spoken thought it had escaped!
Saying I told you so is one of life's underrated pleasures.
You're the reviewer with the most integrity, Mack. Keep up the good work.
To me redfall wins over gollum because gollum wasn’t nearly as pretentious and the studio basically came out saying we didn’t have the skill and we’re sorry. Redfall is still full priced, had the backing of Microsoft and Bethesda, and tried to make it look amazing before release as well as getting creators to talk about how great it was. Gollum it seemed like they released quietly.
I think Diablo 4 wins, with Starfield a close second for worst game of the year. I put Diablo 4 ahead because price, reputation and pollution of a franchise we thought we valued really adds to something infamous.
agree.
Redfall has been fixed a lot.
Starfield wins because of all the shills and hype and budget and development time.
Didn't D3 do that just a few years earlier?
I remember watching your Forspoken review and thinking it couldn't get worse than this in 2023. Little did I know 😅
2023 has been such a let down, I actually had to go outside to find entertainment elsewhere.
Now I’m married with 2 kids …
I can absolutely picture this Gollum in a black hoodie drinking cheap alcohol in your local park.
"Minimum Viable Product". The core concept at the heart of the most pervasive software development business methodology in use today: "Agile" Development. They teach this cynical racket in universities and consultancy firms - it has its insidious little fingers in almost every development studio now. What is the *minimum* *viable* product they can sell you? Then they set a delivery deadline - before dev even begins. Anything that doesn't meet the timeline, anything that exceeds the minimum...gets cut. And not another ounce of effort is spent. That's "AAA" games.
Starfield should get the "award".
If anything, it should get it because so many people are still in denial about it being a pile of rancid shite.
The saddest part with the hype, the paid shills giving it glowing reviews fooling so many into cope mode where they literally force themselves to play 100s of hours of a terrible fraud of a game simply because... "Skyrim in space" etc.
@@distantthunder12ck55 everyone I disagree with is a paid shill yadiya I have no thought of my own and I project it onto others yadiya. zzz.
@@distantthunder12ck55 or maybe they just enjoy the game lol, not everyone has to have the same taste.
Not to mention the development time and budget it would've had. That makes it the biggest fail of all. It's like they learned nothing from their previous games.
@@blob22201 ratio
Danke! Und alles Gute für das Neue Jahr!
Thanks, Mack! If a game is bad, it can still gives us enjoyment when you rip them apart in your reviews. Keep going and have a great start into 2024!
I saved some money listening to you first. Please accept my thanks. All the best!
"dead matter is still in early access - it might get better !"
haha, deep cut.
You sir are absolutely the only reviewer that I trust. Thanks for playing these games so we don’t have to! Happy New Year to you and yours!
"so we don't have to"
Amen, brother!
Why?
sincere question, why is Mack the only dude you trust for game journalism?
@@Retrofire-47for me hes the most honest, can you tell me others you think are good?
@@Retrofire-47 It’s his absolute honesty. He’s a straight shooter and I like that.
Him and 21Killoton.
man... I'm so glad that in 2024 the message is still "don't preorder games". well over 10 years now of this. Totalbiscuit had his infamous rant about this while playing starcraft 2 on stream... that's how long this has been THE issue. The average person is just not capable of learning.
Isn't it odd that Japanese games never get worst game of the year? They actually have quality control over there.
"Gollum looks like a chav" had me in hysterics!
Me too glad im not the only one, with me being from the same area as mack it made it more funny
He just needs to be wearing a hoodie now......!
Hahahaha ay
Sadly I see to many Gollums hanging around the Town centre 😂
too many*@@Mark-nh2hs
I see the same comments on defending garbage products
Either:
"it's a fun game"
Or
"let people enjoy things"
I guess we cannot criticise anything ever again as you can just say "let people enjoy things" as a defence
Reviewers defending games released in 2023? Surely not! Why would people whose jobs depend on the advertising income and special treatment from the companies whose products they're reviewing be defending the products of those companies? It's a real mystery! Answers on a postcard, please.
Hit them in the wallet is truly the best advice!
Happy new year Mack and family, have a wonderful 2024.
I truly hope he pirates the games, otherwise he supports these brain-dead developers too! Kinda hypocritical, no offense of course.
I'm not sure we can hit them in the wallet. The hordes of idiot consumers are vast and to make things even worse these companies don't even need to make many sales of their actual product because the ESG mob will funnel money onto them as long as they spew out their propaganda.
@@henryjohnson-ville3834 Hey, look on the bright side! He buys them with the sole purpose to show people how tripe they are so that less and less people bought them, which ultimately means that these brain-dead developers are supported less and less as well.
He sacrifices his money to do us a much needed community service, so if anything, he's the true hero here. One we don't deserve, but desperately need.
@@henryjohnson-ville3834on certain sites you can return within a certain amount of time, if you've played for less than 2 hours i think on Steam, but like his patreons are giving him money to do it too save us from having to and providing education and entertainment. Its a good system
My absolute caviar is the people that pretended Alan Wake 2 was a masterpiece for month then complaining it didn't sell.
The problem with bad games is that no matter how bad a game is, how many bad rev. the games get, give them some time and they are mostly positive. Most gamers are just the biggest idi..... on this planet. There is just no other word for it. No matter how bad a game is, people will cry and still love it + support that crap and totally forget about them being bad. NPCs the whole world is full of NPCs
Redfall. For a company like Arcane studios who develpoed the brilliant Dishonoured series what the hell went wrong with Redfall
I’m sure there will eventually be a documentary about it.
ye but they also made deathloop which might be the most overrated game ever made.
It was corrupted by bethesda and after is was buried by microsoft.
The dead matter review killed me 😂
Redfall looks like it has the same enemy AI as Starfield.
Don't forget they delayed Starfield for a year to make it better, so it wasnt "another cyberpunk" ....imagine what it would have been like if they released it when they were going to without being afraid of the backlash.
Worth a buy? Many of the games aren't worth playing even if they were free. A person's time is worth something.
"Let's have a look at all the shite..."
No, please don't make me remember this rubbish. 🤮
Shartfield just can't get a win, can't even win the Worst Game of the Year, sad.
One of the worst years I've ever seen since I started gaming, it was horrible..... Every AAA company failed horribly
I never preorder games anymore. I wait for them to go on sale to 40%-50% off. By that time all the bugs are fixed.
Happy new year Mack! thanks for all the awesome content.
Unfortunately preaching to the choir with the pre-order message. All the uninformed people who buy because it's a big IP they heard about or they get sucked in by the pre-release hype and trailers. It's hard to stop kids, casual gamers (who don't watch reviews etc.), parents and grandmas who don't know better buying these games. We who follow YT reviewers we like, reddit etc. are in the minority.
Happy New Year Mack and Mrs Mack, looking forward to the next 12 months of rants.
Bethesda thinks we just hit 2004, not 2024. They're out of touch with modern-day gaming. But, we all know there will be 1 million pre-orders for their next title.
As someone who’s the head of a small indie developer, I hope that you’ll one day talk about a game my company makes. I feel like you’re one of the few people who’s actually honest.
For me Starfield is the absolute worst, a game with a record, massive IP's and budget that produce that level of shite for me is even worse than Gollum and Kong. For them to fall this far is a travesty and Todd trying to defend it is most shameful. AAA is full trash.
Look at the releases of 2005, how did we fall so hard ?
It seems like video games have reached their limitation as a medium. The idea and expectation for a thing to continue to improve and get better forever is unrealistic. Most new games are a copy, combination or improvement upon another game. You’ll never get back the feeling of your first FPS. Once you have played enough games, you have played them all. That’s why nobody gives a crap about the story anymore. Not that corporatism isn’t also to blame, the insidious leech that it is.
@@keithlol Limitations as a medium? you're just looking at these couple of triple A titles and forget the ocean of innovation that comes out each year? So much nonsense..
@@XpRnzwhat innovation? I’m an old man now… I see nothing new. Shit WoW came out when I was a young man and is still on life support.
@@keithlolI keep seeing young kids repeat how amazing each subsequent year of gaming is. It’s like collective denial and ignorance(?) of what games used to be. When Skyrim is an objectively better game than Starfield, something is really sick in the gaming industry.
@@keithlol An 'old' man and u were young when wow came out? That's cute, I've been gaming since late 80's lol. Nothing new sure..I see alot of sequels yeah. But lots of quality, Diablo and Baldurs Gate are not on this list. Atomic Heart is a cool 'new' shooter for example. We just gonna casually ignore the entire console library that Mac never talks about too? Pc triple A was mediocre this year maybe, but there is more than just the usual suspects.. An ocean of cool indy titles for example or Nintendo that will ever keep innovating on gameplay. I own a switch, ps5 and a PC and I am never dissatisfied.. Can't even keep up with my own list of gems I want to play because there are just too damn much.
It's unfair that Starfield is being measured up to No Man's Sky. I mean come on, it's totally unrealistic to expect a multi-billion AAA studio with over 1500 devs to pull off what a tiny indie studio of 4-6 people pulled off... 7 years ago. Temper your expectations, people!
I bet there's that one guy who legit thinks I'm being serious. Somehow.
Starfield steam review score drops to Mostly Negative. Mack was ahead of the curve as usual, and got a load of stick for it. Mac was right, Mac is wise.
Thanks! Greetings from Norway.
Bethesda spent a crap load of money to add they/them to Starfield. What a waste. A lot of that money could have been used to add content which it desperately needed. I used to love that studio .
It has to be Starfield because it's a big release with a legacy to live up to. Picking on bad games by inexperienced studios with limited budgets isn't fair. Really it should be different categories depending on that. Also 'Biggest Dissapointment'. Starfield should win BOTH Biggest Dissapointment and Worst Game of the Year. Other games can win Worst Game of Indie and Worst Game of Small Studio.
Thank you for another great year Mac! I've been watching since 2016 and I really appreciate all of the hard work you put in. Have a great new year sir!
My favorite part of Starfield is when the love interest is killed and you actually hookup with another chick in the Eye before the corpse is tagged and bagged. Just brilliant writing....I give it 10 glaucoma afflicted asthmatic hippos out of 10.
I'm a Yamiks fanboy (Streamer), love Farmer Cop (Farm Sim), and a host of other content creators but your channel BY FAR mirrors my own attitude, view, and sense of humor. THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS!! You never cease to amaze me or make me laugh. So THANK YOU for making otherwise miserable situations a little more bearable.
The worst games of the year should be called the Gollum awards
Gollum for sure.. I saw someone else playing it and even I got angry lol. People hated mass effect andromeda but that game had the best combat in the series with "tired" faces and some early woke era script but Starfield had no vision and their creation engine or whatever is just done, good luck with that in TES 6
Starfield was said to be Skyrim and a No Man Sky Destroyer all in one... Lol fallout 76 beats it lol
If scams are exempt, what is Dead Matter doing on the list?
its has no official announcement of shutting down yet so yeah
Bad year for big games, good year for my backlog. I was finally able to have time to play some games I had on my list for a long while.
I really appreciate you Mack! I have watched EVERY video on your channel and I always look forward to these videos every year lol. Hope you’re in good health!
I think Redfall, for the size of studio and budget behind it, has to be Worst of the year...even once it dropped there were devs from it c admitting they didn't wanna make it , couldn't wait to finish it, and even that they knew it sucked and was broken on release.
To ne, Gollum was bad, but playable...Redfall wasn't even playable.
Seriously props for being one of the honest ones about Starfield. Love your hilarious and honest reviews
I took the bait like an idiot for Starfield. Never again, Bethesda is now dead to me. Didn't have a decent PC rig, so I bought a new XBOX Series X just for Starfield. $500+ for that pile of steaming trash. The only consolation is there are actually some really good games on XBOX Game Pass, not including Starfield of course.
Gollum actually had entertainment in the form of it's so bad it's funny.
Even flying the skull and crossbones i feel like i have been ripped off with a lot of these games.
It’s all mostly dogshit games nowadays . If the Disney’s Star Wars franchise can reach the cinemas then god help us for the future . Good times gone
What a steaming pile of absolute banter piss this year of gaming has been. Can't wait to see what the next shovel of shite Mack brings us in the new year 🎉
it's so funny watching people changing their whole personality to "next AAA Game" and then they defend it to death for months to come.
Thanks Mack for all the top reviews and content. Only honest reviewer I trust. Happy new year and keep up the good work in 2024.
And shame on the Tolkien estate for allowing their grandfather’s legacy to be used like Old Meg by anyone willing to throw money at them!
How on Earth are games like Gollum and Kong still available to buy on storefronts? Trading standards…
Alan wake 2 was superb lol completely disagree. Agree with the rest
'I'd rather paint the wall with my tongue than play this..' 🤣😂
That wheeze killed me at 4:12
Starfield was 100% what I expected. Actual Skyrim in space. Buggy, limited, mostly unimaginative. Played 300 hours, had a blast. Felt sorry for the hype swallowers.
I agree that 2023 was the worst year for gaming. I recently started buying PS2 and PS3 games that I never got around to playing in the past, because I am realizing that we were previously in the golden ages of gaming. I have paid a lot to get some PS2 games like Silent Hill 3 and Silent Hill Origins.
2023 was great for me. BG3. JA3. Rogue Trader. Dave the Diver. Dredge. Octopath Traveler 2 and a few others I haven't mentioned.
I just avoided the type of games that Mac plays.
We’re in the golden age of cr*p games, that is for sure.
BG3 and its bear sex turned me off.
If BG3 isn't your style then go play Rouge Trader, pretty good CRPG in 40k universe or go see an amazing comeback from CP2077.@@majorgear1021
Emulate
@@majorgear1021 I cant believe that there are still people like you who think bg3 is just bear sex and nothing else. the game is practically an immersive sim with the sheer number of ways you can approach things. you can do things you wouldnt even think of doing
As far as I'm concerned, this year was absolutely incredible tbh.
BG3, one of the all time best game I have personally played.
Path of Exile, three absolutely banger leagues.
Escape from Tarkov, awesome new update + wipe that's a couple days old (still buggy mess, but enjoyable)
Rust, lots of cool updates
Lethal Company, should I say more?
The Day Before, just to troll those who are still reading
I know that technically even BG3 isn't a full AAA game and I mentioned only 2 new releases, but still, I'm happy with the gaming I did this year.
I agree 100% great year for gaming, 27 games feature in my GOTY video and only 1 is AAA
@@WorthABuyreviews Yeah, somehow I'm not surprised in the slightest. We truly have a "rotten core" problem, even though in my opinion the AAA industry wasn't the core of gaming for over a decade at this point.
There's an interesting documentary about Gollum here on RUclips about what went wrong and why, but only in German.
TLDR, the developers are not to blame. It was the management and the executive floor of the company that made such a mess of the thing. Some of the developers weren't paid and tried everything what they could, but they knew from the start that it wouldn't work.
Well of course. It's very rarely fault of the people who actually program the game. When Mack says developer, he means the company which was developing the game
Starfield won an award for most innovative game of the year. How?
Hilariously in the same awards where RDR2 won an award for continued development....even though Rockstar have dropped support for it. 😂
Your a absolute LEGEND mack, your one of few that speaks the truth and tells how is, people need to stop being in denial and pull there heads out there backsides and realise there getting scammed left and right for half arsed games at best or this mockery will just continue.
Great job Mack. However if "The Day Before" is a scam so is "Dead Matter".
You weren't lying
That dead matter video was hilarious mate
Got tears on my dumb face as I write this Mac
Lmao the greta thunberg how dare you finished me
This is the true Video Game Awards! Nice work, Mack!
I had the displeasure to try some of this stuff myself and I'm still pissed I wasted time trying to find something good in Starfield.
I got scammed by Starfield. I would rather own a pet Banther.
I usually agree with you but I do think this has been the best year in a while for games. But it has had some truely shocking games as well. But its 100% had some good ones. BG3, Armoured core. RE4. Dead space. Diablo 4 is good even if people wont admit it. The finals. Ready or not. CP2077 PL. Remnant 2 very good. Hogwarts was good for what it was and it riled up the mental cases. Fallen order was good even if it released in a shoddy state. Lies of P sleeper hit. Where as last year there was, what? elden ring the only good game all year
This is the new standard until people stop preordering garbage.
If a car dealer started selling Fred Flintstone's car for $100k and hyped it up, people would line up for it.
You're wrong about Starfield. It ran great. Todd Howard even said himself it was optimized for PC. He can't lie 🙄
As usual you hit the nail right on the head Mack.
I've seen so many people defending starfield and it's baffling. As someone who played nearly 70 agonizing hours of starfield just because people said that's what was needed to give it a chance. Starfield would have been outdated if it released in 2013 let alone 2023, it's not even close to immersive, and everything that made bethesda games special is long gone.
Compelling story, interesting characters, immersive world, and good graphics. That's what's basically required for any modern RPG, and starfield fails miserably at every single aspect.
Starfield, just like all the other games on this list is a disgrace to the entire industry, and every dev involved should be ashamed of themselves and heavily consider a new career.
To my knowledge the only high budget / AAA title to release this year that was actually good was baldurs gate 3. Not a single other good title all year, shit's depressing. Thank god for larian and bg3.
Starfield is so unbelievably disgraceful I'd call it a joke but that implies it was funny but no its just the industry is fucked.
ah now listening to this is going to be worth opening a beer for... brb!!
I love you, man. Never change. Oh, and that poor bell of yours.... I almost feel sorry for it.
No one does a rant as good as this channel 😂
I'd say Redfall is the worst game of the year, coming from a well established studio with a solid record.
Stanfield is the biggest disappointment of the past 10 years.
This was a brilliant video! Thanks for all the entertainment over the years! All the best in 2024 Mac!
we have test drive in 2024,i feel like i know whats going to happen.😂😂
If you go back to your video "Starfield Preview - It Blew me Away" you can see my comment, 9 months ago, talking about how awful Starfield would be due to it being a disjointed loading screen simulator. Can't believe I managed to call it so early. Golumn deserved worst game of the year, £42? I wouldn't pay £20! Looking forward to the New Year stream!
I think Microsoft secretly made Gollum just to distract ftom Redfall and Starfield 😂
How can you say this wasn't a great year for gaming. It gave us Gollum and all the memes you could ask for. When Disney failed to make us laugh at least the Games industry provided. xD
Comparing gollum and Kong with starfield can't take this clown seriously
Starfield is just as bad as a game as Gollum. Shallow and dumb.
@@taomahNEGEV nah you are just an idiot that repeats stuff he listens online
@@centralbasedagency9334 old does not mean lack of attention gta iv is a great game, it's a pointless comparison
When I saw you the field and the dog I was sure Starfield would finally win something. Gollum must be absolute terror and Kong Skull Island must be the true horror Malenia refers to during her fight in Elden Ring.
Props to you Mack for staying consistent and honest with your fanbase and the industry, it's a disgrace the state gaming's in and you are one of the voices I search for in these dark times.
Telling someone to stop pre ordering today is like telling someone there's only two genders. They just don't get it. 🤡
It makes me sad to see the state of games now. It was so fun and incredible in the 80's and 90's. It isn't anymore. They release garbage and eternally charge more and more for DLC, until it is now insanely expensive.
In the future, you’ll pay $300 for a new digital game and be happy. - Sony
The 80's and 90's were also filled with trash. The worst thing was we didn't have internet so we relied on magazines. Some magazines would guarantee high review scores for exclusive access to a new game. Unfinished, overpriced, garbage and scam games have been with us since the dawn of gaming.
Gamers have been burned from the start. At least we have the internet now so we can get a true reflection of the quality of a game. The problem we have now is plonkers who are pre ordering games and knowingly paying for unfinished games hoping they'll get better. The industry will not change until we do
at least we still have indie games!
Even 2000s were great, some great games came out in that decade like Witcher, dragon age origins, halo, gears of war.
Happy New Year Mac!
Think the title “worst year for big games yet” has been a reoccurring theme for the last few years
Skull island, Dead matter or Starfield is worse than Gollum.
Think you forgot 1 with tons of issues this year but was release regardless and sadly so is...Cities Skylines 2
Merry Christmas Mac!