It’s been more than 20 years since the turn
of the century, which means, one, I’m very old now and therefore, two, you kids need
to get off of my lawn. In terms of video games, though…well, that
still makes me feel old. Did you know that since the turn of the century
we’ve been treated to no less than four generations of consoles? It’s true. From the PlayStation 2 and Xbox which launched
in 2000, all the way through to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X slash Xbox Series S launches
in 2020, we have seen some amazing progress. There have been fantastic follow-ups to long-standing
franchises, brand-new IPs, and more technological advances than you can shake a Wii-mote at. But we’ve already celebrated the good stuff,
and I’m getting grouchy in my old age, so I think it’s about time we took a look at
the worst games of the century so far. Besides, if there’s one thing that we at
TripleJump are well versed in, it’s the worst games ever. Well, worse than most… I’m Peter from TripleJump, and these are
the 10 Worst Games of the Century So Far. 10. Umbrella Corps When you’ve churned out as many games in
the past 25 years as the good people down at Capcom, you’re bound to drop a couple
of clangers. Since 2000, the Japanese developer has released
more than 25 Resident Evil titles alone, and though several are considered some of the
best games of all time, just as many lie on the opposite end of the spectrum. We must give an honourable mention to Resident
Evil 6, which is considered to be by far the worst of the eight numbered titles, but sadly
we couldn’t give it a spot on this lis , partly because it’s not that bad, but mostly because
Umbrella Corps clearly took one look at everything Resi6 did wrong, loudly declared “hold my
beer,” and then proceeded to poop right in everyone’s shoes. Figuratively. Don’t get us wrong, there’s nothing inherently
bad with multiplayer shooters, but Umbrella Corps felt very much like a generic FPS with
nothing more than Resident Evil branding slapped all over it. Achieving an abysmal score of 38 on Metacritic,
the game was lambasted for its technical flaws, unintimidating enemies, and overall lacklustre
gameplay. It’s certainly at the bottom end of the
Resident Evil pile, therefore and its spot on this list is much deserved. 9. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness Now, I don’t want to imply that there’s
any kind of correlation or causation between titles containing colons and being a bad game,
but all I will say is that you can expect to find the offending punctuation in seven
out of ten of the entries on this list. 8 if you include the implicit “Resident
Evil:” that ought to be in front of Umbrella Corps but officially isn’t. We’re watching you, colon. You stay away from us. The first few entries into the Tomb Raider
franchise were incredibly good, praised for everything from their revolutionary graphics
to your ability to lock your butler in the freezer. Sadly, the series’ sixth instalment failed
to live up to its predecessors, although its story was looked upon semi-favourably and
it sold incredibly well, at least before word got out. However, the game’s numerous control, graphical,
and technical problems were more than enough to brand it as not only the worst Tomb Raider
entry ever, but one of the worst games of all time. The Angel of Darkness was received so badly,
in fact, that it caused the next two games in its planned trilogy to be scrapped entirely,
which let’s face it, was probably for the best. Right, if you’ll excuse me, I’d better
go and get Winston out of the walk-in. My morning coffee’s not going to make itself,
is it?! 8. The Simpsons Wrestling Usually when you put two good things together
you end up with something that is at least equal to the sum of its parts. A good example: Burgers are great. Cheese are also great. Put them together, and you’ve got yourself
a tasty treat, my friend. The same should apply to The Simpsons Wrestling;
we like The Simpsons, and Adam says we’re contractually obligated to enjoy wrestling,
so this 2001 title really should be a slam-dunk. Which I think is a wrestling term, but I’m
too afraid to ask Adam. It doesn’t take Professor Frink, however,
to deduce that its inclusion on this list means that The Simpsons Wrestling is a less-than-satisfactory
game. Despite having all of the ingredients for
what could have been a fun if forgettable fighter, the title has been relegated to the
proverbial trash can of history, with critics and players alike panning it for its poor
gameplay mechanics, lack of new ideas, and just for being an overall waste of a license,
really. There is a small amount of fun to be had pitting
characters against each other if, and only if, you’re a die-hard Simpsons fan. And the voice acting… is okay, which is
about the closest thing to a compliment I can come up with. You’re welcome, Simpsons Wrestling 7. Bomberman: Act Zero We have all, at some point, gone through something
of an image crisis and made attempts to update our look, be it with a drastic haircut, a
new wardrobe full of clothes, or that ridiculous fez that Ben keeps wearing round the office. Will you PLEASE take that off? You look like an idiot! Clearly whoever furnished Ben Peter with his
preposterous headwear was responsible for Bomberman’s unwelcome makeover in 2006’s
Act Zero. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of grit
in my gaming sandpit, but just as I wouldn’t go into Outlast expecting a falling-block
puzzler, I don’t play a Bomberman game to look at shades of grey and feel sad about
the world. Playing as some Bombermen, players are tasked
with fighting their way to the surface of the Earth in order to escape the planet, which
sounds like a decent enough idea on paper. But, in practise, it was very poorly executed. In addition to the character’s ugly new
look, players reprimanded Act Zero for its stupidly long loading times, repetitive gameplay,
and general all-round shoddiness, achieving a dismal average of on Metacritic 34. If you’re thinking of making a first-time
foray into the world of Bomberman, the little cartoon hero has appeared in over 70 titles
to date, so we would suggest that you pick up literally anything that isn’t this. 6. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric I don’t think it’s unfair to say that
when a developer refuses to offer advance copies of a game to reviewers, a whole bunch
of alarm bells start ringing. It doesn’t make you look cool and mysterious;
it makes us think that you’re trying to sell as many copies as you can before the
public realises that your game is a pile of tosh. Such was the case with Sonic Boom: Rise of
Lyric, which was only made available to critics on release day, presumably in the hopes that
Sega could claw back a few quid before anyone realised that the reviews would be composed
exclusively of four-letter words. Achieving a thoroughly embarrassing score
of just 32 on Metacritic, the game was slated by fans and reviewers alike for, above anything
else, being boring, which is indeed one of the worst crimes a game can commit. Tedious level designs, dreary puzzles, and
an uninspired combat system all contributed to Sonic Boom’s poor reception, and whilst
its buggy state at launch was also a serious problem, it’s not as though the game would
be much better if it were glitch-free. Still, it was only released on the Wii U,
so at least we can sleep at night, safe in the knowledge that very few people could subject
themselves to it. 5. Aliens: Colonial Marines This game has a colon in the title and the
word “colon” hidden in its name, so you know it’s bad. The problem with adapting any form of media
into another, especially when the original is held in high esteem, is that comparisons
will always be drawn. You need only look at the parade of terrible
movie adaptations of video games that we’ve all been subjected to over the years. Sadly, one game that will always stand firmly
in the shadow of its big-screen counterpart is Aliens: Colonial Marines. Based on James Cameron’s 1986 sci-fi action
romp, Aliens, Colonial Marines set out to capture the essence and exhilaration of its
source material…and failed at basically every turn. The game invokes none of the fun, suspense,
or atmosphere of the film, and its glitchy AI makes the aliens themselves seem less like
threats and more like strangers hurrying away to catch a bus. Luckily, just over a year later, Alien: Isolation
came along to prove that a good game based on the film franchise is more than achievable. Now go and sit in the corner and think about
what you’ve done, Colonial Marines! …if you can nav-mesh your way over there… probably
not. 4. WWE 2K20 Speaking of shoddy, buggy messes of games,
number four is WWE 2K20. 3. Warcraft III: Reforged
Oh hang on. Email from Adam. Ah… it’s also in my contract to actually
talk about 2K20 in this video. Okay, here goes… Released in October 2019, WWE 2K20 was the
twenty-first entry into the video game branch of the WWE/WWF franchise. It was also, incidentally, a complete sham. You’ve no doubt seen countless compilation
videos of the numerous glitches and bugs that plagued 2K20 at launch, and although it’s
funny to laugh as Barbara gets herself tangled in the ropes, do try to remember that this
is not a victimless crime. A lot of poor sods actually paid good money
for this steaming pile of ploppers! If you can look past all of that however…
well, WWE 2K20 still isn’t very good, and although critics did have some nice-ish things
to say about the character creation suite, that really was where the compliments ended,
with players maligning everything from the graphics to the new control system. Still, at least the franchise has gotten back
on track with the release of 2020’s WWE 2K Battlegrounds… Hang on, it says here that Battlegrounds was
a completely forgettable wrestling game and that the WWE series has hit rock-bottom. It also says to read that last sentence like
it’s a wrestling joke but I don’t get it 3. Warcraft III: Reforged We can only assume that Warcraft III: Reforged
looked back on the Diablo Immortal incident of Blizzcon 2018 and thought “Hmm, I wonder
if we can recreate those feelings of disappointment in video game form!” The original 2002 title, Warcraft III: Reign
of Chaos, received universal acclaim from both critics and players, sitting at a very
respectable 92 on Metacritic. On the other hand, whilst earning a middle-of-the-road
score of 59 from the pro reviewers, Reforged has garnered a score of only 0.6/10 from players. No, that’s not a typo; it doesn’t even
reach the dizzying heights of 10% according to “fans”. Among their complaints were missing features
that had been promised by Blizzard, a plethora of technical issues, and graphics that were
worse than the original allegedly. To add insult to injury, because Reforged
shares Reign of Chaos’ client, players of the latter were forced to update the game
to a newer version, imposing many of the unwelcome changes onto the original. The situation got so dire that the developer
began offering refunds to anyone who had been disappointed by the title and, at the time
of recording, players are still split on whether or not the game is worth bothering with at
all. I’m kidding, of course. The answer is no. 2. Alone in the Dark: Illumination Let’s take a moment to analyse the title
of this one, shall we? If you were alone in, let’s say, the dark,
then that would be quite scary. If you were to then switch on a light, illuminating
your surroundings, you’ve probably eliminated at least 70% of your anxiety. Under normal circumstances that would be great,
but when it comes to survival horror…well, do you see the problem, Alone in the Dark:
Illumination? Although the Alone in the Dark franchise has
never quite managed to repeat the critical success of the 1992 original, the first four
sequels were at least adequate survival horror titles. Scraping an utterly dismal score of 19 on
Metacriti thoughc, neither critics nor players had a single good thing to say about Alone
in the Dark: Illumination, with one reviewer even going as far as to claim that Uwe Boll’s
tragic movie adaptation of the franchise was better. Do you know how rubbish you have to be if
you’re worse than something Uwe Boll made?! The idea of enemies that are only vulnerable
in the light is not a terrible one, but once again we’re lumbered with a game that’s
all talk and no trousers. Aside from horribly unbalanced gameplay that
doesn’t bother adjusting the difficulty dependent on the number of players, with the
single-player experience being brutally hard, the main complaint is that the game feels
unfinished, and it has more bugs than afternoon tea with Timon and Pumbaa. 1. Ride to Hell: Retribution There aren’t many games that leave me lost
for words, but I am genuinely struggling for where to start with a game that received one
reviewer’s "Lifetime Achievement Award for Total Abhorrence." Considered one of the worst games ever made,
up there with the likes of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Superman 64, Ride to Hell: Retribution
does absolutely nothing right. It was originally slated to be a Grand Theft
Auto-style game set in the 1960s, which sounds great, so of course Ride to Hell: Retribution
didn’t do that. The title was panned universally for absolutely
everything, including its generally broken gameplay, poor writing, worse voice acting,
its terrible attitude towards women, and those awkward “adult” scenes in which you do
the nasty fully clothed. We’ve been able to find at least something
nice to say about most of the games on this list, but there really is no compliment that
we can pay to this utter skid-mark of a game. So, without further ado, I’m pleased to
award Ride to Hell: Retribution the TripleJump and Stoke-on-Trent Award for Apocalyptic Failure,
and proudly crown it the worst game of the century so far. It’s going to take some beating, though
we can’t recommend that anyone try. Please… no more of this!
