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Top 10 Worst Games of 2016

posted in: Opinions, Reviews

When a video game is good or great, we notice it. When a game is disappointing we try to overlook flaws and still find some enjoyment with it. When a video game is bad, there is no saving it. Bad games unfortunately exist, and these titles were among the worst to ever grace gamers hands this year.

10) Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Fortune

While it didn’t make it stateside, the game is import friendly so I’m throwing it on this list. Nothing more than a fan service…thing (and I say thing because calling this a game is giving it too much credit) I see no reason to justify the import price on this unless you like hands free gaming. I see no redeeming quality in this title because even the volleyball portion of this game was poorly done, whereas in previous titles the volleyball was actually soundly designed. I guess ogling scantily clad women is a genre unto of itself seeing as how import sales for this were actually decent for a niche title.

9) Bombshell

What appeared interesting when initially unveiled, Bombshell looked to be a twin stick shooter revival. However, the game was strangely billed as an Action RPG which is far from the truth and its story is a blatant rip off of Duke Nukem’s story and is also plagued with severe technical issues throughout and the dialogue is laughably awful. It’s fun to play but everything else just falls so short that I can’t recommend anyone playing this thing unless you can do so for free.

8) Hardware: Rivals

I remember hearing about this game and it was touted as Twisted Metal mixed with Call of Duty. It is unfortunately neither and is just awful in regards to design, controls and technical issues. The only enjoyment I got from it was how laughably bad the game was.

7) 7 Days to Die

This game provided a novel idea mixing the Minecraft style of crafting and throwing in a zombie apocalypse however it is plagued with flaws. Terrible controls on the console version made it damn near unplayable on those systems. The in-game animations are awful and the game consistently contains framerate drops. It also doesn’t help that the combat is bad and made even more painful with monotonous gameplay.

6) Harmonix Music VR  

2016 saw VR be pushed to the console forefront with PlayStation VR. This title does the peripheral a disservice merely by existing. Awful controls and nonsensical gameplay leave many to wonder how and why this even got made. I think the only way to garner any sort of enjoyment from this is if you are either stoned or drunk or both.

5) Ghostbusters

Sluggish controls, repetitive level design and overpriced for what it offered, this Ghostbusters game is the definition of a cash-in. It was so bad and terribly done that the studio that developed it filed for bankruptcy mere days after releasing it. This is the best example of lazy design because it feels like they took a generic top down twin stick shooter and slapped a Ghostbusters skin on it and didn’t bother to do any sort of QA testing on it.

4) Cartoon Network Battle Chasers

Speaking of cash-in games, how about one where we take some Cartoon Network characters and throw them into a poorly done beat-em up side scroller with awful hit detection and sluggish controls and cringe worthy music. The levels are empty and feel like they copied and pasted the same panel for screens on end and pushed them into the game.

3) Alekhine’s Gun

This game had a fantastic premise, touting a Cold War era spy and offering things that made the Hitman franchise popular. Unfortunately, the game is a profoundly glitchy mess with bad controls, unskippable cutscenes, no auto saves, poor pacing and its antiquated graphics make it an awful experience to sit through. I’ve heard that a patch released that fixed the technical issues but I haven’t cared enough to check it out and honestly, neither should you.

2) Solbrain: Knight of Darkness

I have no idea what this game was even attempting other than taking the barest bones components of a hack and slash game, throw it into bland open environments and fill it with generic enemies that come in waves. The game is also in danger of being pulled from digital stores thanks to it blatantly stealing assets from other games. There just isn’t enough in the game to justify buying it. It comes across as a game that strips away any personality and just feels like a tech demo for a college students game design project. Tons of pop-in, incoherent hit detection, no way to save progress, bland gameplay and a ton of enemy glitches (I had bad guys fall through the ground and couldn’t finish the level) make this game just terrible and awful and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

1) Umbrella Corps

I’m wondering if CAPCOM learned anything from their previous online games that they’ve put out like Raccoon City and this time around we got CAPCOM’s cringe worthy attempt at an E-Sports shooter. Clunky mechanics, terrible AI and an overall awful sense of game design have led to what is not just probably the worst Resident Evil game ever made but quite possibly one of the worse game’s ever made.

Follow Kenneth Cardez:

DEE CORe Editor-in-Chief

DEE CORe Editor-in-Chief. DEE CODE podcast host. NYC-based gamer dad. The Manliest Maid Guy. Writes stuff. He is Doom.

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