So
after a long contentious year, there stands a stack of terrible
games, some giftedly bad, others a sheer affront to the gaming
Zeitgeist. However they got onto this list, they are games that
really made a dent in arguments that video games are artistic
statements.
Right,
I covered the rules in a post last week, but just to clarify
everything. I'll do a quick summery:
It has
to be a full game released between 1st December 2013 and
31st December 2014, that is not a beta or in early access.
Episodic games count from the release of the first episode, so long
as the intent was to be episodic and not to sell a beta release.
Freemium games are exempt except in particularly egregious
circumstances. Remakes, ports and expanded rereleases can count
either if they are the first version of a game released in English or
are expanded to a sufficient degree that they could be considered a
sequel.
In the
end these are all subjective rankings, and I will show my working as
much as possible in the process of writing the list.
Now,
with that out of the way here is the bottom eight games of the year!
8:
Watch Dogs (Ubisoft: PC/X360/XONE/PS3/PS4)
Speaking
of subjectivity, this is a game I suspect might ruffle a few
feathers, because on the face of it it's not a terrible game, with
mostly functional mechanics and a few occasionally interesting twists
on the Ubisoft Open World formula. This is on the list for three
relatively minor things that in combination ruin the experience. The
first is the simplification of basically every aspect, with the
hacking on the go mechanic that is meant to differentiate it from
other open world games almost never coming into play except in the
most situational of circumstances. This spreads to the graphics,
gorgeous in trailers but fairly mediocre and choppy in game.
Speaking of mediocre and choppy, the PC port is particularly awful,
with low framerates, poor textures and stuttering abounding and
serving to ruin the experience further.
It is
the most classic, and frustrating case of a game with a great idea
that falls flat on the fundementals and simply ends up as a lifeless,
dull and largely unlikable game. A crying shame.
7: Duck
Dynasty The Game (Activision: PC/ X360/PS3)
Probably
on a lot of people's top spot for worst game this year, Activision's
take on the beardiest family in america caused a lot of eyebrows to
roll. How would a game based on a reality (using the word under
advisement of course) TV series pan out? The answer is generically.
Outside of the baffling and occasionally unintentionally hilarious
storyline (Any cutscene before a stealth section really speaks for
itself), the game is a set of rather shallow minigames in a rather
shallow open world. It's pretty low on this list in part because it
at least works completely, though the fact that it is above a game
that was almost completely broken on it's PC release speaks volumes
about the quality within. Whatever you think about the Robertsons and
the Duck Commander, this game commands you to throw it in the bin.
6:
Takedown: Red Sabre (505 Games: PC)
This at
first seemed like an excellent idea for a game. Bring back classic
tactical shooting in the vein of the sublime Rainbow Six 3, even
calling on a former developer of the title for support. Sadly the
game was astoundingly bugged and even when it wasn't constantly
crashing to desktop or sucking wind on fairly powerful PCs the actual
content of the game was ferociously limited, with multiplayer being
as unplayable a mess as possible. It is a crying shame that this game
failed to live up to expectations and served, along with several
other Kickstarter disappointments to really dent confidence in the
crowdfund as a medium for distributing games, which is the primary
reason why it makes it on this list.
5:
Rambo: The Video Game (Teyon: PC/X360/PS3)
Oh
dear. This is the first of many games on this list that are both
utterly dreadful and utterly deceptive. The Steam page of the game
suggests that your hard earned thirty pounds will garner you a crazy
yet rather alright looking FPS based on the most manly man in the
history of 80s manliness, John Rambo. However upon purchase the game
turns out to be an on-rails light gun game. You may have noticed that
there aren't any common light guns available for PC. The graphics,
while passable in screenshots are terrible in motion, not helped by
the fact that each of the stages has exactly one enemy type. Other
mechanics such as perks and the rage bar seem tacked on and other
than making the obligatory quick time sequences even less necessary
don't serve to make the game suck any less. On top of all this, the
dialogue is literally ripped from a blu-ray of Rambo, right down to
sound artefacts in the background. Lovely.
4:
Guise of the Wolf (FUN Creations: PC)
Oh
dear. This isn't a game that people likely remember, but the sheer
abject terror that is Guise of the Wolf can't be understated.
Featuring appalling character design, questionable cel shading
effects, an appalling mix of the most boring generic time consuming
puzzles and awful combat, and a profound sense of obtuseness
surrounding pretty much every other aspect. It is no combination of
fun, challenging or rewarding, but an experience to be suffered
through incredibly slowly.
3:
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Just as
we thought Sonic had managed to escape the throes of terrible gaming,
sadly Big Red Button productions drags the blue blur back into the
fold. The television show and indeed the 3DS game are at least
debatable in quality, however the Wii U release Rise of Lyric has a
budget game rip-off feel last seen with the reprehensible Ride to
Hell: Retribution. Sonic's trademark speed is limited to brief
on-rails segments, the beat-em-up mechanics are tedious, as indeed is
the different platforming sections for your four playable characters,
every single one of which seemingly having a fetish for Boost Rings
that moves into concerning by the end of the game. Add to that a
co-op mode that slows the game to a crawl, random slowdown anyway and
a pause glitch that allows you to jump infinitely off the edge of the
world, and you have a recipe for a disaster worthy of comparison to
the execrable Sonic 2006.
2: The
Slaughtering Grounds (Digital Homicide Studios LLC: PC)
2014
was a year in which Steam opened the floodgates, allowing pretty much
anything willing to pay their cut to release a game on Steam. This
lead to some abominable atrocities, zillions of straight up ports and
rereleases and a flurry of awful unfinished games so huge that Steam
altered its curation system to mitigate the damage. Then came the
Slaughtering Grounds, a game that brought back the dark old days of
shareware, with hideous graphics, a useless interface, controls
designed for someone with at least three thumbs and some of the worst
FPS gameplay seen on Steam. As far as attempts to co-opt the success
of Killing Floor go, this is possibly the most atrocious example, and
there is very little fun to be had.
Of
course the creators of the game seemed to disagree and created a
series of potentially libellous videos mocking critic Jim Sterling,
who voiced what can only be described as the truth. Bashing the
critics for skewing your work has never ever succeeded in doing
anything but making you look bitter, insecure and unable to admit
your product has serious flaws.
1: Air
Control (Killjoy Games: No Longer Available: PC)
The
other major trend of 2014 was the idea of Youtube Fodder:
deliberately bad games that would be made fun of by major content
creators in a bid to artificially create buzz and sales. Games like
Goat Simulator really towed this line, splitting the critics as much
as it split sides, while other games like Surgeon Simulator AE and I
Am Bread managed to succeed far more as games. At best this allowed
silly concepts to be released and generate a lot of interest, but at
worst it was an excuse to sell utterly broken unplayable games. Guess
which one Air Control is?
Air
Control, by the rather appropriately named Killjoy games is just
atrociously bad in every important respect. It's difficult to decide
where to begin, be it with the assets stolen from other games and
other game engine assets, the repeated ripoffs of Flappy Bird, the
controls that don't work and even have “Lock Mouse” buttons to
further cripple them, the fact that the game has a two part casual
mode which means nothing and crashes the game if you try to switch
between the modes, the litany of other game bugs, most of which are
game breaking, the questionable censorship of criticism by Killjoy
themselves, the accusations that critics simply have computer that
cannot run the game despite it looking like an 11 year old's first
attempt with Pie in the Sky, deleting criticism of the game as well
as requests for refunds and the sheer audacity of trying to charge
money for a game like this.
Some
have argued that this is all a satire of Youtube fodder and Steam's
curation policy or lack thereof but none of that stops it from being
the worst, most absolutely rancid and toxic game of the year, and
better yet because the game is no longer available for sale I'm not
enabling this kind of irresponsible behaviour among game developers.
After
that lark, come back to the Clinkening tomorrow for a far more
positive look on the year, and look out for the Isometrics Awards and
New Years Resolution post later this week.
Thanks
for Reading!
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