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30. Amy
Horror titles are meant to scare you while you play them, not scare you away from ever playing another game again. But that's the case with Amy, because the entire game is one big escort mission through a slog of unavoidable fights with crappy combat and a frustration level thats through the roof. It's enough to give one nightmares.
The idea of guiding a defenseless child through a Silent Hill-like town of horrors may be promising, but it's the rest of the package that makes Amy such a chore to play. If you attack an enemy that's within your reach, you expect to hit that enemy. If you see an item on the ground, you expect to pick it up when you approach it. None of this is guaranteed in Amy, even though its basic game design, and it makes us want to throw our controllers at our televisions. Sorry Amy, but you're on your own.
29. Little Britain: The Video Game
Let us first say that the UK is a lovely place full of wonderful people, so don't let this game turn you off to the entire country, ok? For those unaware, Little Britain is a comedy sketch show that airs on BBC, and someone thought it'd be a good idea to create a video game version of an episode. We'd respectfully disagree with that notion, as this game is proper horrid.
It makes theoretical sense that bringing a sketch-based TV show to a video game calls for a minigame collection. However, when theres only eight minigames to play before the end credits, we're not sure anyone bothered actually releasing this at retail, especially when trifling content offers nothing in the way of laughs or fun. Majorie Dawes and Vicky Pollard may be funny on TV, but their video game counterparts forgot to bring the laughs with them.
28. Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust
Like the pervy uncle who shows up every Thanksgiving with a new stripper girlfriend and another hilarious story from Reno, game journos have given Leisure Larry games a pass out of respect for his history and past triumphs. That all ended in 2009 when Team 17 cast Larry's nephew, Larry Lovage, as a sex-starved production intern for Laffer Studios in a game that seemed more concerned with cramming unfunny dick jokes into every situation than actually making of them the slightest bit engaging.
Even the combined might of the Unreal engine and the voice talents of Jay Mohr, Artie Lange, and Carmen Electra couldn't make up for the menial missions and borderline broken controls. Looking back, it's likely Box Office Bust was a top-secret government experiment to see how much players could withstand in order to see a computer character get laid.
27. Attack of the Movies 3D
Featuring dated graphics and derivative on-rails action scenes, the only thing Panic Button Games's stinker managed to attack were players' relationships with family and friends, which were likely torn asunder after being exposed to this depressingly ugly and un-fun shooter.
We know what you're asking: How can a family-friendly entertainment product with 3D be so terrible, you heartless, cynical monster?! First, how dare you. Second, Attack of the Movies 3D used the red-and-blue cardboard glasses 3D, and not the polarized 3D technology more commonly seen today. So you can add misleading advertising to list of reason Attack of the Movies 3D was a bust.
26. Street Fighter: The Movie
Like that fateful day when you realize Santa is a load of marketing, it seems as though Street Fighter: The Movie was made specifically to ruin everything you remember loving about your childhood. By replacing the gorgeous pixel art of the various early games in the series (think World Warrior through the first Alpha) with cheesy digitized actors from the piss-poor film, you'll find that a dude in a ripped karate gi and a headband does look, well, kind of dumb in real life. Thanks for nothing, Capcom.
Much like Jean-Claude Van Damme's actual acting, it doesn't help that that the characters looked totally lifeless. Worse, the game let you cancel special moves into other specials, thereby making any sort of balance busted with constant near-infinite combos. Then again, if you're the kind of jerk that likes to watch the girl from ER beat up on Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue and a sickly, disaffected Raul Julia, well, this games for you, Mr. Heartless.
25. American McGee's Bad Day LA
American McGee's Bad Day LA was pitched as thinking man's Postal; a satirical sandbox game that would skewer American politics and lay bare its obsession with manufactured fear through a mix of unique visuals, innovative game play, and razor-sharp social commentary. As you can guess by its inclusion in this list, Mr. McGee's pet project ultimately failed on all fronts, offering a mess of schoolyard humor, annoying stereotypes, and gameplay that made Postal look like Grand Theft Auto IV. Set in Los Angeles amidst a string of natural disasters, Bad Day L.A. saddled players with saving cliche characters in environments scrubbed clean of any of the promised charm, innovation, or fun.
American McGee may have a sterling resume that includes Doom, Quake, and the Alice in Wonderland reboots, but we're guessing Bad Day L.A. has since been filed under the other projects category. As for us, we'll fondly remember his open-world attempt as the runner-up for the 2006's Anti-game of the year. And by fondly remember we mean forget until the end of days.
24. Extreme Paintbrawl
One of the biggest red flags a game can have is the word extreme in the title. More often than not, extreme means poorly executed or mediocre instead of the over-the-top action the word on the box brings to mind. Extreme Paintbrawl belongs in a league of its own however; the only thing extreme about this is its extreme awfulness.
Extreme Paintbrawl is a lesson in everything that can go wrong with first-person shooters. Ugly, blocky graphics offer nothing but sore eyes (why does the CO2 cartridge on the gun look like the Tin Mans oil can?), and on the rare occasion that our paintballs actually DO make contact, you can shoot an opponents chest and somehow have that count as a headshot. We'd recommend actually going on a paintball trip than taking part in this PaintBrawl; real-life paintball might actually be less painful.
23. Dragonball: Evolution
A perfect case study in bad movie begets a worse game, Dragonball Evolution tried to mix the live-action Dragonball movie with the established gameplay of the Budokai series. That means instead of crisp anime character models perfectly cel-shaded, we got renders of Chow Yun Fat in a Hawaiian shirt. Joy.
The fighting aspect didn't help things either, as it took everything that made the Budokai games great and bastardized it into a shadow of itself. And the story mode is told through static images of the actors in front of bland backgrounds. We all knew a live-action Dragonball would never work, so why a companion video game was made well never know.
22. Rambo: The Video Game
Rambo should have translated well into the video game world. The movie follows a man being hunted by the authorities and fighting back, which we players have seen PLENTY of times before. And this isn't some 8-bit crapfest either; it came out in 2014, when people should know better. So why, then, is the official Rambo adaptation such a disappointment? It should have been Stallone's finest gaming hour; instead it was a big ol' letdown.
You might have expected a Rambo first-person shooter; you got Time Crisis: Rambo Edition. The light-gun format did not translate well to average controllers, creating a major input problem that even the PlayStation Move couldn't solve. Couple that shock with over-the-top (even for Rambo) cop and mercenary killing, and this is one '80s revival that should have stayed in the '80s.
21. Bomberman: Act Zero
We'd like to take a quick aside and apologize. Chances are, you woke up today like any other day thinking that Bomberman was a hallowed franchise by Hudson starring a cute legion of helmeted protagonists. Then you stumbled upon this page and realized that for a brief moment of absolutely lunacy, Bomberman needed to become gritty and edgy. This is the mess that was left behind.
This is a classic example of simply not leaving well enough alone. While still relatively true to the classic formula of blowing up your competition in the middle of a grid field, the concept was dragged into the HD era via a third person perspective mode and a vastly overhauled aesthetic that had critics and players scratching their heads or shrugging their shoulders. You may be surprised that this failed experiment brought Hudson to go back to basics with the classic White Bomber look and feel. Then again, we know you're smarter than that.
