Although 2015 has been a great year for gaming, there have also been some games that didn’t live up to their billing. This happens every year, and it’s always disappointing. Whether you were anticipating these games or not, it’s still sad to see a potentially great premise fall through. These eight games suffered that fate this year.
Think we missed one? Tell us what it is in the comments!
Raven’s Cry
Raven’s Cry was first announced in 2011, but it didn’t get released until January of 2015. Upon its release, it quickly earned some of the worst review scores I’ve seen a game garner in years (It currently has a 27 on Metacritic). Poor combat, clunky dialog, and a plethora of bugs made for a game that was so poorly received the company behind it (Topware Interactive) pulled it from shelves and Re-released an updated version on Nov. 30, 2015. In short, it was a pirate game that managed to get almost everything wrong.
Hatred
As one of the more controversial games of the year, Hatred got a lot of attention prior to release when it was briefly removed from Steam. Once it finally released, we found that it was a boring, repetitive isometric shooter that offered little in the way of enjoyment. Instead of meaningful challenges, you just wandered the streets shooting everything in sight. There was no SWAT team that faced off with you, and even if there had been , the AI was so poorly done that it wouldn’t have mattered. Rather than controversial, Hatred was just forgettable.
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma Volume One
If you were a fan of the Afro Samurai franchise, you were probably looking forward to this sequel. If you haven’t played it yet, don’t. It’s nothing like the 2009 original, and where you might expect lots of gameplay, you can expect lots of cutscenes to get in the way. Even with a day one patch, it was still pretty broken. Some nice artwork and a good soundtrack are the only high points in this abysmal game. Here’s hoping they do better in the next two planned volumes.
Alone in the Dark: Illumination
The Alone in the Dark franchise has had an up and down history. The early 1990s games were solid survival horror titles, but the 2008 reboot was a disaster. The 2015 release, titled Alone in the Dark: Illumination, managed to somehow be the worst game in the series. Instead of survival horror, Atari rolled a cooperative shooter, of all things. Monsters can only be killed when they’re exposed to enough light (hello, Alan Wake, so you’re constantly turning on lights and lighting fires. With your co-op friend along and every light blazing, you’ll find you’re neither alone, nor in the dark. It’s an ignominious entry into a once great series.
Batman: Arkham Knight PC
While the gameplay of Batman: Arkham Knight is reportedly really good, many of us who grabbed the game on PC wouldn’t know it. That’s because Warner Bros. managed to give this game the worst PC port of 2015. Corrupted files, game-breaking crashes, and poor performance are everywhere. The issues were so bad, that Warner actually pulled the game off of Steam for over two months while they tried to fix the issues. Even after multiple patches and so-called “bug fixes,” the glitches and sub-par performance remain major issues. It’s a textbook case of how not to make a PC game.
Godzilla: The Game
If there’s one franchise that you really can’t mess up, it’s Godzilla, right? Right? Shit. This game looks like something from the late PS2 or early PS3 era, especially in the environments, which all seem to break, explode, and fall in exactly the same way. The controls are a mess, and the combo system is nothing short of infuriating, especially with how poorly Godzilla moves around. It’s monotonous, and even the ability to unlock other kaiju doesn’t save it.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
When Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5 was announced, fans of the series were super excited. When it released, that excitement quickly vanished. What should have been an easy hit turned out to be a buggy mess. Bugs aside, the graphics are sub-par, the controls were a mess, and the skating just felt worse than any previous game in the series. Nostalgia isn’t enough to save this game, which seems stuck between trying to emulate past titles and moving the franchise forward, and failing at both.
The Order: 1886
The Order: 1886 was one of the more highly touted PlayStation 4 exclusives before launch. It suffered delays, and was finally released in February of 2015, whereupon it was roundly criticized by most critics and gamers. Although the graphics in the game were phenomenal, the pacing was horrible, and the combat left much to be desired. It was also littered with quick-time events, something gaming has largely outgrown. It feels more like a tech demo intended to show off the graphical power of the system that happened to slip far enough into the console life cycle to find a much less forgiving audience.
