Written By: Tyler Selig
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| Now complete with flashy images. |
But First, A Quick
Update On The Blog:
I know it’s been a long time
since you’ve heard from me, and that’s simply because a) I haven’t known what
to write and b) I haven’t been playing many games the last week or so, except
for Payday 2 and Path of Exile, but I don’t feel like I’ve experienced Path of
Exile enough to throw up a review (perhaps at a later date because I feel it is
a game worth talking about).
But don’t stop paying attention
to the blog yet (haha), because I got a smorgasbord of content coming. Some of
the content that should find its way onto this very blog in the near future
include:
-
PS4 unboxing video.
-
First ever video of me and one of my brothers
talking shop on various game related matters. I intend this to be a series, but
the people on it won’t always be the same.
-
Reviews of games such as Killzone: Shadow Fall,
Resogun, Contrast and Super Mario 3D World, among others.
-
Various rants and raves.
-
Naked pictures of girls (just kidding).
-
We’re also going to be into Awards Season soon,
so at the end of the year I intend on making an event out of my video game
awards. I milk this shit so bad.
I know you’re thinking, “Okay
Tyler, onto the worst games,” and we’re almost there. I just want to say that I
am always looking for people to write for this blog. I want to try to get
content up daily or at least every second day but since I’m by myself it’s a
little difficult. So to anybody reading this, feel free to email me at artbathedincrime@hotmail.com (if
you’re some person on the net I don’t know), or if you know me in person
(unlucky bastard) then just message me or do that thing where you talk to me in
person. I am also putting some of my friends who haven’t written on blast right
now… get your shit together and write for me! You know who you are!
And Now On With
the Show
There are a lot of bad games, and
I avoided most of them. I’m pretty good at guessing what will be worth my time
and what won’t, though I’m a flawed human so some snuck through. Some games are
too easy to pick on, but these are games I legitimately wanted to play. It
would be so simple to play some of these stupid movie-tie ins, shitty kids
games or shovelware and make a list of those but I didn’t go that route
(partially because I just know to avoid those).
To celebrate the release of the PS4 this week, and the Xbone next week, I figured now was a good time to post up my worst console games of the current gen, before a lot of us move onto the future (unless you're a PC Gamer because then you've been in the future for a long time if you have the money).
So let’s do this.
15: Grand Theft
Auto 4 (PS3, Xbox 360)
I’m going to admit that it’s
probably a technically sound game, and if you’re into this kind of thing you
probably like GTA 4. Maybe it’s a little unfair to place it in the same list as
some of the TERRIBLE games that are in this list, but I just plain didn’t like
GTA 4. I know what they were trying to do, and it just didn’t really appeal to
me, not like some of the others.
14: No More Heroes (Wii)
There are things to like about
No More Heroes. Admittedly the action is pretty decent and it has that Suda51
stylistic flair. But there are certain gameplay mechanics that absolutely sink
this game for me, and they seem so little but they make me hate the game, like
when you’re riding your motorcycle or whatever and it seems like an exercise in
boredom rather than a game or even a statement on things.
As it stands, this is the only
Suda game I don’t like, and I’d defend all his other games gladly because I do
think he is something special within the industry.
If I had played a lot more
absolutely terrible games, maybe this wouldn’t have made it on this list but it
is a deeply flawed game and I can’t bring myself to play it.
13: Ninja Gaiden 3 (PS3, Xbox 360)
It pains me to include Ninja
Gaiden in here. The last couple were so good. They were technical action games
where you really had to try. Then Ninja Gaiden comes along and simplifies it to
the point that it’s easy and there’s no thought involved. That in itself isn’t
terrible, but it’s Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden deserves more, so without the
excellent combat the game suffers and there isn’t really anything else in it to
save it. It can’t even rely on having a wonderful style or memorable
characters, because it’s just blah all around.
12: Arcania:
Gothic 4 (PS3, Xbox 360)
There’s
very little that bores me more than a generic fantasy setting. This is a generic
RPG with a generic fantasy setting, and whatever charm was in the previous
games was taken out of this one.
11: Haze (PS3)
I can safely say that the only
thing that interested me about Haze is… a jump scare. And that’s pretty sad
when that’s all you have going for you.
It’s a shame that the developers
of Haze turned out such a steaming pile of poo-poo, because Free Radical made
Timesplitters and Timesplitters is the mad note. Haze, on the other hand,
suffers from no real action set-pieces, terrible AI that makes Snooki seem
smart (oh how relevant I am), and just boring gunplay in general.
Oh and you spend a lot of time
in a helicopter with them talking. And they talk like douchebags.
10:
Lost Planet 2 (PS3, Xbox 360)
I really wish I could have
gotten more into Lost Planet 2. Not even doing a partial “Let’s Play” with a
friend made me actually enjoy this game. It’s just a generic Sci-Fi shooter.
9: Hunted: The Demon’s Forge (PS3, Xbox
360)
Believe it or not, I had
extremely high hopes for this one. A co-op 3rd person shooter with a
fantasy setting seemed like something I’d be into. Oh boy was I wrong. This
shit is just plain boring and brings absolutely nothing to the table that would
make me even tell people that it’s worth playing.
8: Kane and Lynch: Dog Days (PS3, Xbox
360)
I actually really like the first
one! I know!
I’m pretty forgiving of Kane and
Lynch: Dead Men, but I’m not so forgiving to this piece of shit. I know they
tried to make it all gritty but it really just seems lifeless. Nothing is as
satisfying as in the first one, and I’m aware that there are a lot of people
that would disagree with me that the first is even a good game… so the second
would be especially terrible.
Well imaginary readers of this
blog, I agree that Dog Days is awful, but you’re wrong on the first one! It was
fun, this one was not.
7: Lucha Libre AAA 2010: Héroes del Ring
(Xbox 360, PS3)
A game that takes the legendary
AAA pro-wrestling product and tries to make it into a game excites me, because
we don’t get to see that. I actually had extremely high hopes for this one so I
went in excited. Boy, was I ever disappointed.
Wrestling games have taken a
major dip in quality since the N64 days and I don’t feel like that’s nostalgia
talking because I played one of them a while back and they were still a ton of
fun, despite not having the amount of power that we have these days to make
games that astound us. The gameplay mechanics were just solid and that
foundation allowed them to make some pretty incredible stuff. Developers should
just take the old engine and update it.
So I haven’t really been truly
in love with a wrestling game since those days, and Lucha Libre is one of the
worst wrestling games I’ve played because none of it works and it takes a brand
that is exciting, entertaining and just straight up fun, dilutes it and gives
us this poor excuse for a wrestling game.
6: Supremacy MMA (Xbox 360)
Speaking of poor excuses for
something that is exciting, here we have Supremacy MMA… one of the worst
fighting games I’ve ever played. This sentiment is made worse by the fact that
MMA is an extremely thrilling and unpredictable sport that I love, and they
decided to strip the game of that.
They wanted to show the
underground world of MMA and I actually don’t really have a problem with that.
I’m not going to decry it for that on the grounds of “BUT MMA ALREADY HAS A
HARD ENOUGH TIME BEING ACCEPTED” because… well it’s a game. I’m not involved in
the politics.
What I will decry the game for
is being complete and utter shit from the ground up. Poor controls, and
gameplay that doesn’t even feel like MMA. This isn’t an MMA game, it’s a
fighting game (in the vein of a Street Fighter) that tries to dress up like an
MMA game. There’s a difference, and this one does it so poorly it’s not worth
playing.
5: Quantum Theory (PS3, Xbox 360)
Here’s a game that wants to be
Gears of War so hard. So, so hard.
I’m not the biggest fan of
Gears, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the first one. I guess I
just peaced out of the series because 2 was pretty good, and when I played 3 I
just didn’t enjoy it anymore. But I can respect the place that Gears of War has
in the canon of Video Game History (whatever that is… look I’m just trying to
be nice).
Quantum Theory must have taken
the code from Gears because it looks and plays the same except somehow it
manages to fuck it up. This is what happens when a developer wants to
capitalize on the success of a major game, ladies and gents.
4: NeverDead (Xbox 360, PS3)
I’ve tried pushing the memories
of bad games out of my head and for the most part I’ve succeeded, but as far as
I can remember, NeverDead had an interesting concept: you were immortal and you
lost body parts and had to regain them. I think that this idea had a lot of
potential but they failed completely because the dismemberment angle just ended
up being a chore, and who could imagine getting dismembered as being anything
other than a good time.
But it doesn’t stop there. The “levels”
are poorly designed, the control scheme is terrible, gunplay lacks any oomph
and the swordplay is straight-up boring and uninspired.
NeverDead should have NeverbeenMade.
Oh snap.
Don’t worry, I’m soon done.
3: Dark (Xbox 360, PS3)
Here we have a new game… fresh
from this year.
You play as a vampire which
should be fun because hey, at least it isn’t zombies. It’s a stealth-based
game, and since you got superpowers, there should be a lot of fun to be had
here. Think a game like Dishonoured, only… not. Then you have Dark.
Nothing feels right about this
game, and because of that, nothing feels right. Stalking your enemies for that
smooth kill is just not as much fun as it should be.
Dark should have been left in
the dark. That’s right, I went there.
2: Conflict: Denied Ops (PS3, Xbox 360)
You’re going to laugh at me
internet but I’m a huge fan of the Conflict series. I know that they don’t play
as smooth as they should, but I love them. Give me Conflict: Desert Storm,
Desert Storm 2 and Global Terror (also the Vietnam one but that one isn’t quite
as good) any day of the week. I think they’re just a damn good time and I have
good memories with ‘em.
But Conflict ended up being a
completely generic shooter. I guess people might say that the other ones are,
but listen, in Denied Ops you couldn’t even pick up enemy guns. You couldn’t do
something that most shooters allow you to do these days.
The rest of the game is just
shit too. Nothing is good about it, it’s just that one particular gameplay
choice always stuck out to me, and they shit on my beloved Conflict.
1: Rogue Warrior (PS3, Xbox 360)
You can make a bad shooter, and
they certainly did with Rogue Warrior, but how many times can you hear one man
curse and be a shithead before you just check out of the game? This is what
Rogue Warrior wrestles with.
All he does is swear and I know
it seems silly but I swear to Kojima that that’s what the developers were
banking on to make this game stick out. It must be because they didn’t get
anything else correct that makes a good shooter a good shooter. You just go
through the bland levels doing things you’ve done a million times, only worse,
and he curses people out.
Rogue Warrior is really godawful.
So that’s
it, those are my worst console games of this generation. Agree, disagree, love
GTA 4? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading.
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