The Top 7... Unfunny games

They tried to make us laugh. Instead, they just made us angry

Words: Mikel Reparaz, GamesRadar US

Email this article

Bookmark

Bookmark this Article

1. Shrek Extra Large
2002 | GameCube

Remember that scene in the movie where Shrek grabs a guy and farts in his face and then breathes fire on him by eating a hot pepper and then lights a fart to propel him onto a rooftop where he punches Humpty Dumpty, who farts an eggy green cloud so noxious that Shrek belches in protest before farting? If you don't, it's because nothing even remotely like that ever happened in Shrek.

However, the designers of the first Shrek tie-in games apparently came to the sad realization early on that their efforts were never going to be as funny or as charming as the movie that inspired them. Why they decided to compensate by filling the game with flatulence is anyone's guess, but there it is: one of the smartest animated films of the last couple decades, reduced to a long string of farts.

Above: Whenever you think you've got it bad, remember that knight and be happy you're not him

It doesn't stop with the green ogre's lethal gas attacks, either. Shrek Extra Large, an expanded-but-still-crummy GameCube port of the already awful Xbox Shrek game, kills any potential for pre-scripted comedy by having some old lady with a storybook lifelessly narrate its cinemas. And in the game itself, you'll be confronted with an unending parade of ugly characters (Shrek in particular looks to be a few chromosomes short of his big-screen counterpart), hideous environments and music that sounds like it was recorded in a sewer. It's a potent package of brown-tinted ugliness that pushes its gross-out factor way past the point of comedy and straight into nausea. Not even Postal 2 can claim that. Well done, Shrek. Today you are the king of awful.