Doing a top 10 got me thinking about a bottom 10. After thinking of a bottom 10 and coming up with contenders I decided to put them in a nice little order and as such here are my bottom 10 video games I've ever played.
#10 - The Fifa franchise.
Developers: EA Sports
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, PSP, Mobile Phone, Nintendo DS and Wii
Release date: Annually, 1993-present.
Now knowing that I play, and enjoy playing, Fifa you mgiht be wondering why I've put them at number 10 of my bottom 10. Well its simply because they never get it right! Year after year people fork out ANOTHER £30 for a game, hoping that this year will be the year that EA bring out the sports game of all sports game. They never do.
For everything they do well, they decide to do something bad. The closest they've ever came to a perfect Fifa game is Fifa'08 on the PS2. The controls were improved, the games flowed better, they introduced two new modes: Area play and Be a pro. Area play was you picked an area (e.g. Striker, midfield) and you could only control players from that postion. Including goalkeeper =D. You see Fifa'08 for the PS2 had keeper controls ^_^. Unfortunatly you couldn't be a keeper in be a pro, where you either chose an existing player, or made a player, and had control of just them.
I was happy, however, after my PS2 dying and getting an XBOX360, my happiness went away. All the good that was done in the PS2 game was stripped from the 360 version. Well they still had the improved controls but the extra modes, the keeper controls and even the changing weather was taken away. In its place we got improved graphics and a much improved leveling system. I miss the keeper controls =(.
Unfortunatly there's still no chaning weather (nor a change of ngiht and day) nor keeper controls for fifa'09. I'm expectent on fifa'10. Yes, yes I will be buying fifa'10, because while they screw me over yera after year they are still enjoyable to play. Fuck you EA.
#9 - House of the Dead 2
Developers: Wow entertainment
Platform: Arcade, PC, Dreamcast, Wii, Xbox
Release date: September 9, 1999.
House of the dead is your run of the mill rail shooter, zombie apocolypse game. It does nothing great, it does nothing bad, its a very average game. SO why is it number 9? Because when I was younger I was forced to sit through my friends playing this game over and over and over and over and over and over again. Wankers.
Technically its not House of the Dead 2's fault, but I justify it by if it had been interesting it would have been so bad. So how can people play this game as much as they did? I think my wanker's comment sums that up. Seriously, Sam asked a friend round his from school who lived in Tavistock round his. When they started up House of the Dead 2 I left immediatly, playing football with the neighbourhood kids. Several hours later I see them walking past, Sam's friend from school looking extremely pissed off due to them having just played House of the Dead over and over and over and over again.
Unfortunatly the game can't take the full blame, it just made wankers even worse wankers. Though I shouldn't be too hard on it I suppose, it was made into a Uwe Boll movie, and nothing deserves to be made into a Uwe Boll movie. Nothing!
(Just listen to the shit voice acting!)
#8 - Kingdom Hearts
Developers: Square
Platform: Playstation 2
Release date: November 15, 2002
Kingdom Hearts is a game collaberation between Square and Disney. Yep, a games developer specialising in RPG's with complex plots about death, love and identity teams up with Disney, the biggest cartoon movie corporation that specialise in movies for kids dealing with death, love and identity. Match made in heaven =D.
At first I thought this was a bad idea. However after seeing a little kid with hair Dragonball Z characters dream about having a fight with Cloud from FF7, a very bad at taunting Cloud from FF7 I may add, I went out and bought it!
At first I thought I had harshly judged this game. It looked good and I got to see the Final Fantasy characters in new attire ... And thats about it.
The games about a kid called Sora, who has hair Dragonball Z characters would be jealous of that lives on a tiny island without parents. There he lives with his friends Riku and Kairi. Also living on the island is Wakka and Tidus from FF10 and Selphie from FF8. Now I can understand Wakka and Tidús living on an island with lots of beaches due to their blitz balling and the fact Wakka lives in Besaid. But why Selphie? Did they just think "This islands a sausage fest we need more females! Anyone with context? No? How about Selphie then?" However after completing the tutorial stage the island is blown up by the "heartless" and Sore is left drifting in space. You'd think the vaccum of space would kill him, but Sora recovers and finds himself in Traverse Town, meets up wiht Donald Duck and Goofy, and they decide to go out into the Disney 'verse to find Riku, Kairi and Mickey Mouse, who has ran away to destroy the heartless.
And here's where the problems start, you just go from Disney world to Disney world smashing the x button, now and again having to do something else to solve some sort of puzzle. This got pretty boring relatively quickly and once the novalty of the game wore off what was left was a pretty bland action RPG that I got bored of pretty easily.
Kingdom Hearts did however have a lot of famous faces doing the voices with Sora being played by Haley Joel Osmand (the kid from 6th Sense). David Borenaz as Squall was also pretty awsome. It also has Hayden Panettiere, before she was in Heroes, playing Kairi. Along with a lot of the Disney voice actors reclaiming their roles it was a pretty solid, and nostalgic, voice acting crew.
#7 - Diddy Kong Racing.
Developers: Rareware
Platform: Nintendo 64
Release date: November 21, 1997
What happens when you combine a side kick with Mario kart? You get Diddy kong Racing, a curious game that seems to try an emulate Mario Kart but at the same time improve on the already tried and tested forumula. So what went wrong?
The first thing that people will notice about Mario Kart is that its characters from the Mario franchise racing each other. In Kart. So perhaps Diddy kong racing is characters from the Donkey Kong franchise? Nope. Just Diddy Kong and a bunch of ... things that have never been in any game ever, and never has been since. Thankfully (except Banzoo Kazooy and Conker. But they don't count).This leaves a Mario Kart game without any of the charm or coolness of Mario Kart. Great.
Unfortunately thats not the only thing wrong with it. No Rareware decided the way to improve Mario Kart was to have boss races. Those of you who have played Guitar Hero 3 will know that boss stages in a type of game where boss stages don't work just make the game less fun and mroe tedious. Thats no different to this game. You have a one on one with a boss in a fight that if you make a single mistake you wont be able to win. No questions about it. Only way to win is to start again. This is not fun, its annoying and frustrating.
But are the races fun? Meh, your better off playing Mario 64.
#6 - DBZ: Ultimate Battle 22
Developers: A group of people who suck!
Platform: Playstation
Release date: July, 1996
Dragonball Z: Ultimate Battle 22 is basically the worst fighting game you play. It looks bad (apparently has sprites taken from a previous game), plays atrociously and is nothing special. The only reason this isn't higher is because I played it twice and gave up on it. It really is bad. Thats all I have to say about this game.
#5 - Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Developers: Sega
Platform: Megadrive
Release date: August 26, 1990
Micheal Jackson's Moonwalker is a crappy game, based on an even crapper movie, named after an awsome dance move that everyone in the 80's and 90's tried to emulate.
Like the movie the game doesn't seem to have any actual plot. You just take Michael Jackson through various levels, while wearing his suit from the 'Smooth Criminal' music video, kicking guys in suits, throwing your hat at guys at suits and occasionally dancing with guys in suits then killing them by grabbing your crotch. And everytime you attack someone Michael Jackson will shout out "Wooo". This might seem funny but when you think that the level is rife with bad guys, this gets annoying veeeeeeeeeeeeeery quickly.
What I remember of the game it was a cash in from the movie, and just stank of gimmicks. But what you going to expect from a game the revolves around a pop singer. You pull off trade mark dance moves, listen to bad midi versions of Jackson's music and get to watch him grab his crotch around small children.
I never actually owned this game, one of my friends had it when we were kids and we played it one rainy day while I had a bad cold. I remember this because his parents smoked a lot which made me even worse. We never played it after that day, possibly because it was rented or possibly because it sucked. Hard.
#4 - World of Warcraft.
Developers: Blizzard Entertainment
Platform: PC and Mac. Though I think you can only download the Mac version.
Release date: Febuary 11, 2005.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah. World of Warcraft. The game that has enslaved many a geek is in my bottom 10. One of the reasons being that is had enslaved so many people and I can't figure out why.
You pick a race out of Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnome, Ork, Undead, Troll or Tauren all having their own pool of classes to choose from. You then go out and press some number on your keyboard till things are dead.
Your quest for greatness is disctated by those around you giving you odd jobs such as "kill birds to get 10 feathers so I can make a nice comfy pillow" (note: This may or may not be a quest in World of Warcraft). Though you will eventually get more exciting quests like Killing large cats for its meat, occasionally you will also have to beat up a bunch of semi intellectual minions because your race has decided they are evil.
Though these things aren't the main thing wrong with World of Warcraft. no the worst thing is the falso sense of achievement it gives you. Your mosseying along the world of Lordaeron or Khaz Modan, killing things, completing quests, getting stronger and your there thinking "Yeah level 16! I can now do mroe quests! I can finally turn into a water creature so I can breath underwater and get a new weapon ^_^" and then you realise your paying £8 a month so you can achieve what amounts to nothing. Absolutly nothing. Not even the sense of accomplishment because nothing you do will impact the world! If you were to go back to the starting village and talk to the leader he'll still have a problem with goblins over populating the country side and killing travellers. Unlike offline games where you go through and actually make your mark on the land, in World of Warcraft everything will stay the same. The only one that changes is your weapons and armour.
It'd be alright if I wasn't paying £8 a month to achieve nothing but geek pride, but I'm not. So I said good-bye and I will never play it again. But thats the problem with online gaming, if your not a boring, lifeless nerd who would rather live out the escapes as Gakhath the Ork Shamen and finds the achievements satisfying, your not really going to find anything in the game. The only time I truely had fun with a mmorpg was FFXI when me, Leigh, Marc and Pete basically played the game our way and just had a laugh. Soon as you start playing these games the way their meant to be played they become a second job, or even a second life. And I don't need that, and neither do you!
#3 - Fable 2
Developers: Lionhead Studios
Platform: XBOX 360
Release date: Octobre 24, 2008.
I never played the original Fable but what I knew about it was that you roamed around a fantasy world, beating the crap out of who you like while trying to defeat some evil but shagging people along the way. Also your actions would be taken day and used as evidence against you to determine if you were good or evil.
Intrigued I decided to go out and buy Fable 2 to see what who I'd beat up, who I'd shag and where I'd end up in the good and evil scale. As it happened I ended up being bored and disappointed.
The game harpers on about giving you choice and that it is you who determines the adventure and the first choice it gives you is method of combat. Do you melee, soot or magic your way through the game? I chose to shoot my way through and it ended up I was a fool. The problem with shooting is that while it'll get rid of the hordes of expendible minions litering the country side, it doesn't work on bosses. You see if you shoot a boss they'll force lightning your ass! Making it redendent when you truely need it! Thankfully you'll get so many experience orbs that you'll be forced into spending them else where by the game continuously nagging at you about it.
Redendent choices are the key content of Fable 2 as everything that you can do is pretty much pointless and just filler material. Being a fan of the animé Naruto I've had all I can take with filler, so I don't take too kindly to it when its infected my video games aswell.
Two of the biggest time wastes and fillers are relationships and jobs. At one point in the game you'll get a quest from a ghost to chat up his ex-fiancé, who dumped him, until she falls in love with you, then when she's all happy you give her a letter from her ex-lover and laugh in her face as you reveal it was all a ruse and you think she's ugly! However after wooing her she told me a different story to the ghost. She told me how she had called off the marriage cause she felt they were too young. The ghost took this like a little emo kid and commited suicide. So going against the emo's wishes I got married. After this all she did was nag me about buying a house. This emant getting a job.
Now the problem with jobs is that they are so extremelt boring. There just little mini games where you press a when a circle is in an area of colour. Thats all. The higher combo's the mroe money you get. I did this while lsitening to Mumbo Jumbo with Matt and Chris one night and finally got the btich somewhere to live! Then she started on about a family so I decided to try and get her to have sex with me, however this was easier said than done as I didn't have the write emote to get her in the sack. *sigh* so I had to learn how to woo people to bed from a book. After that we had two children ... And thats it. I did all that for ... nothing.
Though it did lead to the funneist and most disterbing moment of the game where I noticed a monk that I had spent sometime talking to had fallen in love with me. Deciding to see if homosexuality was aloud I asked him back to my farm hosue for sex. After the blank screen and disterbing commentry on the sex from the monk I was brough back to the game and "+22" happiness rising from my childrens cots. Yes cheating on their mother with a man made my children very happy.
So the choices that can be made aren't worth making, but what about the plot? Is that good? Well your mision is to find 4 people that can help you destroy some dude that killed your sister and tried to kill you when you were a kid. I think he was trying to destroy the world or something. Though he had errected a massive tower that you get yourself imprisoned in to save Shepard Book. Seriously Shepard Books in the game. Even has the hair style he has in 'Serenity'. Thats all I know about the plot because soon after getting free from the spire with Book, my wife divorced me and I stopped playing. Just the boring combat and lacking plot made it seem pointless.
Another thing about the boring combat is how you can't die. Well you do but you get a few experience orbs sucked out of you and a scar, then your back on your feat kicking ass. This meant I spent the whole game in my boxers (except when they forced me to wear clothes while being a prison guard in the big spire. They also cut my hair, the bastards!) and only died a couple of times. Ones because I shot a boss and he force lightninged the bezeebus out of me.
The "bread crumb" feature also makes the game feel abit linear. The idea is to lead you to your quest points but that kinda takes any sort of adventuring out of the game as you just follow the flowing trail. If you don't follow the trail it'll keep changing what path it takes as it tries to force you onto your quest.
Overall the games boring filled with what amounts to filler. Even the shooting option is filler as magic and melee is so much more beneficial.
Also after playing the game, all the toil and strife, this is how you beat the final boss:
#2 - All the Wrestling games I've been made to play.
Developers: Lots
Platform: Multiple
Release date: The fact they were released makes me cry.
Wrestling sucks. Its a bunch of grown men in spandex acting out pre determined fights for the entertainment of sad, sad people. So a game based on this principle can't be good right? Right.
As you might have guess wrestling games are just fighting games, just much slower and much longer. In a stunning twist of fate the matches all take place in a wrestling ring. The same wrestling ring. Now and again with a cage around it, sometimes with a ladder in the middle, but always the same ring. The repetitiveness cannot be better embodied than with the ring.
So you fight as a selection of steroid built wrestlers (they might be able to kick the shit out of you but their testicles are the size of peanuts!) and have them fight other steroid users veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly. Seriously controlling them's like trying to controll an 18 wheeler with hippies tied to the tires. Fat hippies. And you just slap them until you think they've been slapped enough to be pinned. Sometimes you kick, other times you fling yourself from the ring ropes, other times you use the worst finishing moves ever.
Street fighting had Ryu's Hadoken. In Mortal Kombat you pulled the spin from your oppenents body. Hell even DBZ: Ultimate Battle 22 had you being able to blast your oppenents with energy beams. Here you have the peoples elbow. A move where the Rock takes off his elbow bad, looks around for a bit, runs to the ropes, bounces off to the other side, then while he passes his oppenent, who has stayed down due to suffering from Power Rangers bad guy syndrome, and he basically does an elbow drop on their head. WHY NOT JUST FUCKING DO AN ELBOW DROP? THE RUNNING DID NOTHING TO THE MOMENTUM OF THE ACTUAL ELBOW DROP! GOD DAMMIT!
Ehem. Sorry. But seriously the finishing moves suck. Though they do make you more prone to being pinned/knocked out. And god you'll want to all the advantage you can get, cause ti takes forever to finish these games! Fighting games know they can get repetitive, so the life bars aren't that long and you can finish a game easily enough. Wrestling games forget this principle and it can take you forever to get the pin. A single game can take over 10 minutes. 10 minutes of wreslting. God damn those were long, boring 10 minutes.
I hate Wreslting.
And the number 1 spot is ..........
FINAL FANTASY XII
Developer: SquareEnix
Platform: Playstation 2
Release date: Febuary 23, 2007
SquareEnix last release in the numbered series of Final Fantasy is also their most disappointing to date. Forget FFX-2 or FFXI, THIS is the pinnicle in bad Final Fantasying. But what makes this game so disappointing?
First it took almsot a full year between being released in Japan and releasing the pal version. So I spent a year reading shinning reviews, seeing perfect scores and hearing glowing opinions of the game. The game that I played embodied none of this. Though I am seeing a pattern in games getting perfect scores from "professional" reviewers and their actual worth.
apparently the story goes that two different teams were brought in to develop the game. One team was the original team who worked on the spin off Final Fantasy Tactics (a game hailed itself) and a team that worked on the final Fantasy numbered series. This, apparently, ended in some disagreements on how the story and characters were to be developed, in the end a comprimises were made.
Then you also have the fact that producer AND director of the game (also creator of tactics) had to pull out midway through for health reasons. SquareEnix then got two guys in to replace his director duties and a third dude to become executive producer (the guy created SaGa. Never heard of it? There's a reason), along with the SquareEnix president. Phew, four guys to replace one? A saying about chefs and broth comes to mind.
So the development team was a bit chaotic. And personally I think it shows. Mostly in the characters. There are characters in this game with so little motivation, or purpose that you could replace them with cactus plants, and you'd get about the same game as you get with them in. Then you have the characters with purpose having so little characterisation they end up having the personalities of used chewing gum, stuck on the underside of a table. Generally their unlikable, boring or pointless. Great cast of characters.
Then you have the plot. Its like they've taken a clichéd RPG plot and then taken out anything that makes it interesting, special or enjoyable and left us with the bare bones. People are calling it "more mature" because its "political" ... So an empire taking over another empire is all thats needed for something to be "political"? THAT HAPPENS IN 99% OF FINAL FANTASY'S YOU MORON! Seriously it happens like 20 times in FFVI alone! This plot isn't more "mature" or "political" it just no fun.
In a startling turn of events I'm NOT going to diss on the battle system. Its not a bad system. The enemies being on a free roaming map is a good thing. Sure it gets boring with the gambits, and you feel that your other characters are just supporting characters and not actually part of your party, but they've made steps in the right direction. You could easily be happy with the battle system if it had an interesting plot and characters. As it is it doesn't and as such the boring parts of the battle system are more seeable.
The licience board on the other hand isn't a good system. Its along the similiar veins of FFX's sphere grid, just more boring. Sure you can't see a board piece without purchasing a piece next to it, but why do you need to? You'll have bought all the magic and abilities you need WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before you need them, so you mgiht as well just purchase things hap-hazardly.
Also why are outlaws worried about licences? Do i have to flash the licence to the vendors before purchase? Will I be stopped on the street and arrested if I don't have the licence to wear a leather vest? Does everyone have to have a licence for their clothes? Am I taking the word "licence" too seriously? Either way its a silly concept.
Another niggling little problem, that in a better game might not niggle so much, is the gulf in level enemies and bosses. You can be pawning the enemies up and down the field, but come to a boss and they will eat you with a single bite. No competition. Bosses are supposed to be difficult, why their called bosses, but when I have to do an obscure side quest in order to do a decent amount of damage to an enemy, only people weilding long ranged weapons are able to hit consistantly, you know you've over done it. If you feel the need to add in side quests to make a boss easier its either a special boss or you've fucked up. If a manditory boss needs a side quest in order for you to beat it your a cock. A giant cock.
The last thing I'm going to complain about is the music. First Final Fantasy without Nobou Uematsu and it sucks. Though it does follow the general theme of the game; boring, bland and not as good as previous Final Fantasy's. Consistancy! Except the theme tune, "Kiss Me Goodbye". I like that song.
So overall the game was over hyped, over rated, boring, and a massive disappointment to everyone except most people ... Yeah I'm pretty sure America and Japan got a different game to us. No one could call the characters good, or the story interesting without a labotony or by talking about a different game.
