Now, not everyone gets everything that they want every Christmas. Sure, you can make your lists and your foot-tapping demands to bewildered friends and relatives who don’t quite know why you want the next “Telling Tale” game or whatever, but sometimes it can just be nice to get something that is a complete surprise.
Like most things though, that surprise can turn to horror if the game that you’ve been bought is a complete steamer.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of seven such games games that if you bought any one of them for a friend or loved one, then the only box that will be under the Christmas tree will be your coffin.
Read on!
Abyss Odyssey Extended Dream Edition
The notion of re-releasing a game which was pish to start with is always an interesting one and despite the in-built irony of such a practice they still just keep on happening. Abyss Odyssey Extended Dream Edition then, is one such example of this eye-rolling practice where its resurrection is roughly as pointless as its original conception.
A mish-mash of undercooked genre inspirations, Abyss Odyssey Extended Dream Edition is basically the gaming equivalent of salmonella with toweringly awful platforming and combat systems, eye-insultingly stiff animations and multiplayer modes that feel as much an afterthought to the game as quality assurance does to a WWE 2K title.
Coincidentally, our man Neil thought the game was brilliant and not the other thing at all, nope.
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma
If you’ve ever wondered just how much wrong a developer can squeeze into a videogame, you needn’t be curious anymore. Enter then, Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma. The first episode in a planned trilogy of diablocial awfulness, Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma, is a roaming hack and slash adventure based on the anime of the same name, which believe it or not, isn’t actually half bad.
Combining skull-screwingly banal combat with an hilariously broken upgrade system and the sort of visuals that would make the PS2 seem like a current gen console, Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma is remarkable for very little other than what must be a publisher in-joke where they decided to charge people for this tripe. “A disastrous experience all round”, the ever-suffering Neil Bolt called it.
Actually, so cataclysmically awful was Afro Samurai 2 that the developer cancelled the next two planned episodic instalments of the game and even offered refunds to the poor saps that bought the first episode when it was released.
A noble gesture for sure, but really, just make a decent game next time, yeah?
Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey
As it turns out, there are plenty of ways to make yourself look like an industrial strength prat without playing Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey. Certainly then, the most puzzling thing about Commander Cherry’s journey is why you would get involved with it in the first place given that there are much cheaper ways to accomplish the latter spectacle.
Standing as a potent reminder that games which focus on PlayStation Camera as the primary method of control are routinely horrid, Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey is a total entertainment vacuum whereupon anything fun or remotely compelling gets sucked past the event horizon of its ridiculous black hole of game design, only to never escape and never be seen again.
A platformer with a focus on having really bad body capture for a game that really, really needs it to be decent, you should avoid it like a rabid dog excitedly running up to you carrying a bag of explosive turds in its dripping maw.
Our own reviewing chap, Ben, didn’t think much of it either as it turns out.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Just how do you screw up a videogame about a legendary big-screen monster icon?
He’s meant to be a force of nature, and as a player, you’re supposed to feel empowered when you’re in control of this reptilian titan; feeling cities quake under your feet as you scrap with other monsters in what should be the riotous and epic confrontations. Somewhat tellingly, as you might well guess by its inclusion on this list however, Godzilla: King of the Monsters manages none of this.
Comprehensively undone by savagely unintuitive controls, first generation PS3-aping visuals and the sort of repetition that makes the Assassin’s Creed games feel like a breath of fresh air (oh you know it), Godzilla: King of the Monsters is arguably the worst treatment that the shambling radioactive behemoth has had since Matty Broderick decided to get all up in his scaly grill back in 1998.
That is how you screw up a videogame about a legendary big-screen monster icon.
Overlord: Fellowship of Evil
The fact that Overlord: Fellowship of Evil isn’t really an Overlord game is one thing, but the fact that game is practically bottomless in the depths of its failure, is quite something else.
A misguided attempt to bring what was once a classic formula kicking and screaming into the realms of Diablo-wannabe sub-mediocrity, forcing your PS4 to play this game is somewhat akin to having sprouts forced down your gullet at Christmas when you despise the little green hate lockers; so yeah, don’t do that, it’s horrible.
A wholesale abandonment of what made Overlord even remotely decent in the first place, the loan diamond in the rough here is, of course, Rhianna Pratchett’s writing which stands out like a tiny 21 karat gold ingot inserted into a particularly substantial looking elephant turd.
The very cosmos is offended by the existence of this game and funnily enough, so were we.
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Q*Bert Rebooted
You remember that thing I said a few paragraphs back? Y’know, about needless re-releases of games that just don’t need it? Yeah, this is another one of those.
A largely pointless reboot/remaster/re-whatever of the 80’s platforming icon, Q*Bert Rebooted fails at a crucial hurdle by not including online leaderboards but instead compensates for this glaring omission by including a bunch of unlockables that just feel utterly extraneous. Honestly, this game has been doing the rounds for thirty plus years in many different forms and as such, this reboot (itself a hand-me down of the previously released mobile versions of the game) is something nobody ever asked for.
Given the opportunity, Q*Bert himself would likely step up and verbally chastise the developers of this remake except he can’t because, well, he can’t speak proper-like. You can though – vote with your wallets and sack it off with venomous prejudice.
Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5
Listen, we didn’t review this because Activision didn’t send us a copy; presumably because they thought/knew it was going to be the colossal lump of brown stuff that later impressions revealed it to be.
We’re talking BMX XXX levels of humiliating garbage here with embarrassingly sub-PS3 visuals, glitches to the nines and the sort of almost admirable determination to churning out the very worst skateboarding game ever made. Indeed, from the horribly misjudged new Slam mechanic to the horrendous UI and overtly annoying online connectivity, just about everything was done by the developer to make Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 one of the absolute worst games of not just the year, but this console generation too.
Buy it for your friends and family if you like, just don’t be surprised when you see various colours of mucus floating around in your prawn cocktail after Chrimbo dinner.
So PSU folks, that’s our selection of seven games that we think would get you some Christmas punch of the face-bruising kind.
What are your worst games for ruining Christmas? Let us know in the comments!