TWP Awards 08: Most Overhyped

Phwoar. 2008, year of hype. Or should that be 2007, seeing as most of the buildup and preliminary coverage of these attention seekers was last year instead.

Winner: Home (PSN)

Yes, yes, its finally out. And although Im a fan of the service to an extent, it is nowhere near what we were promised throughout last year and this. The Game Spaces shown at E3 and later still have yet to appear in Europe. Mobile and web access was shown at E307 but is as of yet nowhere to be seen. There's no trophy room. And the game launching is severely limited. Come on Sony.

Runner Up: Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3)

Oh Rockstar may be the kings of tease (speaking of which, where is LA Noire?), but the worryingly uninteresting code shown late last year to various media outlets made it clear that the game was in no state to come out. But prior to those previews came the trailers. The very first of which crashed most of the game-related internet. And yes, I was up, stealing my neighbours wireless connection to watch it.

Runner Up: LittleBigPlanet (PS3)

Purely for the extra year in development and the late showings of the Share section of the game, LittleBigPlanet is possibly the only game here that managed to live up to the expectations of it. Bar the online service, the servers for which don't really give a seamless experience.

Runner Up: Fallout 3 (PS3)

Gah, how did this happen? Such a tedious end game, but such an interesting and intriguing lead up. So much media coverage, and I just don't understand it. Did anyone actually get to play the game pre-release?

Runner Up: Haze (PS3)

Another game, like Fallout, that seemed so interesting before release. Unfortunately, this one bad game lead to the death of Free Radical the developers, and I can't see that being the case if it hadn't been quite so overhyped.

Runner Up: Sonic Unleashed (PS3)

Some apparently 'leaked' screenshots and video showing the 2D sections of the game apparently going back to the series' roots turned up earlier in the year, and I don't think anyone on the internet believed they were anything but deliberately released. Unfortunately the rest of the game (about 85%) is terrible.