Some may call these the Toilet Bowl awards. Others may call these the Bargain Bin awards as they all inevitably end up rising to the top of these $5 dollar bins. Whatever kind of awards you want to call these stinkers, it is entirely up to you. The games on this list are those you need to avoid. They left us disappointed. They left us shaking our head. They left us rolling our eyes and at times even throwing our controller. These games are the ones after only an hour in, you are fuming with yourself wondering why you dropped $60 bucks on this giant three coil steamer of a game. It’s okay. We have all been there, including pretty much everyone here at COG. So without further delay, let’s take a look at our crews picks for games that really left a fowl stench for us this year. Enjoy! Got a stinker of your own? Tell us about it in the comments section or join the community at GameCanadian!
Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons
“It has been an exceptional year to be a gamer… so exceptional in fact that I actually had a hard time coming up with my stinker of the year. Until I remembered ‘Double Dragon II: Wander of the Dragons’ on the Xbox Live Arcade. Do you remember that time when you were in 3rd grade and that bully held you down and tickled you until you peed your pants while another bully was knocking on your forehead yelling at you to name ten chocolate bars? OK, well maybe that was just me but as a basis for comparison Double Dragon sucked even more. You could add a third bully stomping on your gut until you shit yourself and Double Dragon would STILL suck more. An unplayable mess that to the last of my knowledge actually ended up getting pulled from the arcade due to mad crazy levels of suck. Seriously guys… it sucked.” – Shawn Petraschuk (CanadianBoarder)
SimCity
“As I wrote in my review of the game, SimCity seems obsessed with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Since release most of the broken online components have been patched, but the game still suffers from a crippling sense of claustrophobia, with cities being limited to tiny sizes. It looks and sounds great, but forget about trying to build the metropolis of your dreams with SimCity’s ill advised and silly limitations in place. Unfortunately building a huge metropolis is exactly what I, and most other SimCity fans, want to do, making SimCity brutally frustrating and disappointing.” – Paul Sullivan (Paulhammer)
“I wanted to love this game, I really did. I can’t even count the hours that I played the classic SNES version way back when. The new SimCity in 2013 had a lot of really cool ideas, but was overshadowed with problems, horrendous launch, and simply broken design concepts that makes the game not worth playing to this day. To play single player, you need to be connected online. To make a decent city, you’ll be forced to play multiplayer in a sense and with the horrendous launch that make the game completely unplayable for quite some time for most people, it was no surprise the amount of upset customers. This isn’t even factoring in the extreme restrictions on city size and other design choices that simply boggle me to this day. I really wanted to love you SimCity, I really did, but I don’t know how you’re going to come back from this, even if you decide to make a completely new game. I know I will be weary of the brand going forward.” – Adam Dileva (Variation)
Bioshock Infinite
“Bioshock Infinite was one of my most anticipated titles for 2013. A huge fan of the previous titles in the series, I eagerly awaited its release and despite its numerous delays, I was quite sure that it would be fantastic. Sadly, I was left extremely disappointed. While the story was somewhat intriguing and there were a few notable moments that were quite entertaining, I found the combat to be boring and repetitive, the pacing of the game was awful, and the end game tower defense gameplay was extremely frustrating, not enjoyable at all. While I’m sure this will be a GOTY choice for many, Bioshock Infinite is by far my most disappointing game for 2013.” – Jennifer Dingle (xxGENEVIEVExx)
Gears of War: Judgment
“I would have to give my biggest disappointment of 2013 to Gears of War: Judgment. Sure, it didn’t review poorly, and I even gave it an 80, but I just expected SO MUCH MORE in a series which has delivered game after game. With an opportunity for a new story, focus on other characters, and that tried and true Gears gameplay, I had hopes for a great experience, but alas it was just good. Sure, it may sound strange to give a game that was good the “biggest disappointment”, but in my heart it was as it didn’t deliver what I had truly hoped for, an epic (no pun intended) experience.” – Kirby Yablonski (The Outcast)
Marvel Heroes
“I hate being disappointed, especially by video games where the subject matter revolves around one of my favorite subject matters: super heroes. Way back when I first heard there was an MMO being developed around the Marvel Universe, my inner fanboy squealed with joy, and I could not wait to see what they had in store. The big day came, and by luck I got to cover the game in all its glory. Unfortunately it did not come as advertised. What we got was a repetitive, Diablo 2 clone populated with multiples of the same super hero running around. It was a mess that made little sense from a story perspective, and didn’t lend itself to feeling like you were “the” superhero you were supposed to be. There were a few bright spots here and there, but not enough to think of the game as a success. Yes, the game is free, but I guess you get what you pay for. I hope in the future the next developers who attempt an MMO set in the Marvel Universe will take more care with the license and listen to their fan-base.” – Matt Cullen (Canusky)
The Fighter Within
“This one was easy for me. The game that hands down gets my Toilet Bowl award for the worst game of the year is Ubisoft’s The Fighter Within. Honestly, I feel so bad for those people who paid over $50 bucks for this game. You really should get your money back. This game should never have been made. It screams everything that is wrong with the Kinect and only adds fuel to the fire for all those Kinect 2.0 naysayers. This games single player is 2.5 hours of my life I will never get back. Do not buy it folks. If you did, trade it in now!” – Trevor Houston (MRBIGCAT)
Zoo Tycoon
“Zoo Tycoon was a game I was looking forward to playing with my oldest son on our new console. We have quickly become gaming buddies playing Lego Games, Skylanders, Disney Infinity and a boat load of Super Mario. However, after playing Zoo Tycoon for a week or so it turned out to be a huge disappointment. We were hoping for something a bit more like Kinectimals, than a Zoo simulator from the way some people described it at times. Here is hoping for a sequel to Kinectimals for the kids (big and small) so that this family can have a great family title to play.” – John Elliott (JohnnyXeo)
Aliens: Colonial Marines
“A generation behind, Aliens: Colonial Marines was painful to play. The game felt empty, awkward and dated. Nearly everything felt clunky, the firearms felt weak and lifeless in a way that bores you rather than excites you, and the enemies AI was embarrassingly bad. Aliens: Colonial Marines was ultimately a bland game that once showed great potential, but instead fell on its face.” – Daniel Kozlowski (The Jugganautt)
“My biggest disappointment has to be the terrible Aliens: Colonial Marines. This game had such promise. With Sega and legendary developer GearBox at the helm, how could this go so wrong? Amid financial troubles within Sega, GearBox decided to outsource much of the game, with catastrophic results. Early and very promising builds of the game gave way to horribly pieced together chunks of crap. The game shipped with missing gameplay elements which later was remedied with patches, which caused immense glitches and more bugs than you can imagine. This one is just plain embarrassing!” – Frank Naresh (Alucardblack)
“You would think taking a popular Sci-Fi series like Aliens and giving the property to Gearbox would be a winning combination but boy were we all surprised with how lousy it was. The game was bug filled, the A.I. was horrible and it looked like an original Xbox game. The worst part about the game was it should have been scary and full of tension. Instead, it was as tame as can be. I want a game based on the Aliens series to scare the hell out of me. I did not get that with Colonial Marines.” – Josh Pellerin (Blizzy)
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon
“I was extremely excited and initially looked forward to this dungeon crawler. Being a fan of Adventure Time, I was entertained for about an hour until it was unbearable. The enemies are extremely bland and useless. Upgrading is harder than it should be since all unspent items are discarded at checkpoints. It’s a mindless hack and slash game that uses its name to draw in fans of the series. It might not be the worst game, but it definitely is one of the most disappointing since it had so much potential to be a great dungeon crawler.” – Judi A (MzDino)
Fast & the Furious Showdown
“This was definitely not your typical racer at all and gets my vote for the most disappointing game of the year. The graphics and physics in the game are awful. The story line was weaker than that of a commercial. The gameplay had awful handling and the list goes on. I was expecting more from Activision. I can never get my money back for this dreadful game.“ – Sean Hunter (NathanCroft)
Mario Party Island Tour
“On the other end though, despite having some fun with it, my most disappointing game of 2013 was Mario Party Island Tour. A change in formula is good from time to time, but it felt like too much. I simply can’t see myself ever picking this game over other Mario Party’s when my friends come around.” – Royce Dean