Ambition in and of itself is never a bad thing. There's no point setting out to create anything unless you intend it to be something special. But sometimes the best intentions and loftiest of goals go terribly wrong. Sometimes unrealistic aims and misguided execution ensure that said ambition becomes not a guiding light, but rather the deceitful glow of a deep-sea Anglerfish, beckoning towards nothing but the hungry jaws of failure.

Cinema has Waterworld. It has Dune. It has John Carter. It has Battlefield Earth. Games? They have this lot...

It was supposed to be: The PS3’s most striking and innovative launch title, not to mention the first non-crap game about dragons since Panzer Dragoon. Taking in the full gamut of flying lizard-based air and ground combat, it had at-the-time jaw-dropping visuals and a unique hook. It was also going to be the premiere showcase for Sony’s motion-control Wiitaliation in the form of a control scheme dominated by Sixaxis gestures. If you wanted a unique, early killer app that showed off everything the PS3 was capable of, Lair was going to be it.

But it went wrong because: Those Sixaxis controls stunk worse than a tramp in a sauna made of dead fish. Rendering the game an utter chore to play, they ensured that any fun that could otherwise have been found in Lair’s actual game design was imprisoned beneath an impenetrably thick layer of wrist-twisting frustration. Lair reviewed badly, sold badly, and while it was eventually patched to accept analogue controls (after Sony’s post-review campaign of “You’re just playing it wrong” failed to convince), the improvements came too late for anyone to care.

It was supposed to be: Last generation’s Mass Effect. An epic space opera spanning multiple worlds, Advent Rising told the story of one man’s survival of an alien genocide, by way of a script written by famed science fiction writer Orson Scott Card. Advent Rising was to be a truly groundbreaking action game, drawing on Halo 2’s dual-wielding combat, an innovative stick-flicking gunplay mechanic, psychic powers and an experience system. With a stirring score and seriously cinematic visual ambition, it was also but the first part of an even more epic trilogy that should have changed the face of gaming.

Like we said, last generation’s Mass Effect.

But it went wrong because: The technical execution just didn’t match up to the worthy concepts. Busted cut-scenes, unsophisticated enemy AI and generally shonky execution meant that Advent Rising was never enjoyable on the level it really should have been. When there are so many barriers reminding you that you’re playing a (quite messy) video game, it’s hard to get swept along in any tale, however epic.

It was supposed to be: The biggest, most explorable racing game ever made. Developed by Asobo Studio and published by racing supremo Codemasters, Fuel was to be (and was) the biggest open-world game ever, comprising a 5, 560 square-mile map, countless outposts and racing areas and a plethora of vehicle types. With the ability to go off-road, cross country, through-forest and over-cliff at every turn, including during races, it was supposed to be an utterly free, player-driven experience that changed the perception of the way racing games could work. Skyrim with engines. That’s what it should have been.

But it went wrong because: There were sloppy design decisions throughout. The map, although huge, was kind of dull and a little too empty, and littered with underwhelming destinations that took far too long to reach. An event selection menu disincentivised exploration somewhat, and a flawed map interface made the prospect rather more of a struggle than it should have been. Races could be great at times, but patchy AI meant that they didn’t really deliver on the free-form battles for navigational dominance that everyone was expecting.

It was supposed to be: A vast, evolutionary FPS from ex-star of id Software John Romero. Built at Ion Storm using the Quake Engine, Daikatana was to tell a sweeping time-travel tale comprising 24 levels, four completely distinct time periods, 24 weapons and 64 different enemy types. It also aimed to innovate via an array of problem-solving elements and some sizeable character interaction, by way of two ever-present sidekick characters who would be instrumental in solving the game’s puzzles.

But it went wrong because: Romero expected his young team to turn around the game in seven months. He was wrong.

Hamstrung by rapidly outdated tech, a mid-development switch to the radically different Quake II engine and the subsequent rebuild of nearly a year’s work, Daikatana also suffered at the hands of a disastrously shaky E3 ’99 appearance. After two years of delays, the game’s name was mud, and for publisher Eidos it was very expensive mud. $44 million mud, to be precise. Eidos took control of Ion Storm, and the game was released a year later. No-one liked it much. It was a mess.

It was supposed to be: A quantum leap for graphics technology, blurring the line between film and games. Using a supposedly groundbreaking new set-up, developer Digi-Guys claimed to be able to squeeze Hollywood-standard visuals out of current-gen consoles. Even the illustrious and hard-to-please Edge magazine had its interest piqued, after a studio visit demoed something akin to current-gen graphics running on an original Xbox. In fact Sony were so impressed that they made WarDevil part of their 2006 E3 reel.

But it went wrong because: There probably never really was a game past Xbox demo. Digi-Guys was mostly staffed by CG artists and animators with backgrounds in TV and advertising rather than game design. The game got external funding, but nothing worthwhile ever emerged. The studio founder eventually left and the project limped along for a little while before the company was eventually shut down. Recent inside word via Edge alleges that the game’s management were out of touch with reality, but until we find out more for definite, WarDevil will remain one of gaming’s most enigmatic cases of “WTF happened there?”.

It was supposed to be: A beautiful, densely layered, living RPG set in a startlingly believable recreation of ‘80s Japan. Spanning 12 games. With ideas far beyond the scope of traditional JRPGs, Shenmue combined open-world gaming, 3D fighters (its combat model was based on Virtua Fighter), dynamic events, an employment system and dozens of ‘real-world’ side activities. It was a next-gen calling card like few games have ever been.

But it went wrong because: Shenmue delivered on pretty much all of its promises. Even in this post-GTA landscape, its world is a spell-binding place to inhabit. But Shenmue’s ambition totally outshone its host platform’s ability to support it. Put simply, the Dreamcast didn’t sell. Shenmue was the most expensive game ever made at the time, and, not being the most mainstream or easy-to-explain experience, it sold respectably but not spectacularly. It eventually became the console’s 6th best-selling game, but every DC owner would have had to have bought it twice in order for Sega to turn a profit. So ironically it probably did as much to kill the Dreamcast as it did to cement its reputation.

It was supposed to be: The most impressive FPS design ever committed to a complex string of 1s and 0s. Planned as the evolution of Duke Nukem 3D’s pioneering level of player interaction (which itself pre-empted a lot of the work for which Half-Life was rightly lauded two years later), Duke Nukem Forever was to be the coolest, the most interactive FPS world ever imagined.

But it went wrong because: Ambition itself killed Duke Nukem Forever, or at the very least bludgeoned it into a stupor. Some game developments suffer from feature-creep. DNF had a 12-year feature-stampede. Compounded by the long development’s repeat engine changes, 3D Realms boss George Broussard’s penchant for updating the game's design every time a new innovation hit the market made DNF a bottomless pit of game development. Like trying to reach the end of a road that he was laying himself as he drove, Broussard’s DNF was a project he could never complete. Eventually, after 15 years, at least three game engines and the drastic downsizing of 3D Realms, Gearbox Software got the game out., Unsurprisingly, it was a shambles.

That's our list of the most over-reaching would-be epics. But are there any that we've missed? Any games that you think promised even more, yet delivered even less? Let us know in the comments.