The Nintendo Switch is coming very, very soon, and if you are a big Nintendo fan, you already have your own pre-ordered. So what are you going to play once you bring it home? After all, you don’t want your new piece of electronics to just sit there and look pretty. That new Legend of Zelda looks pretty good, so there’s one. And then there’s… 1-2 Switch which could be all right. And another Skylanders? And Just Dance? All in all, a dozen games or so are guaranteed to be released at the same time as the Switch. If you think that’s slim pickings, think again. Did you know that the Nintendo 64 was released with only two games? And that the Panasonic 3DO had a single game released as a launch title?

Now the Nintendo 64 and the 3DO were lucky enough that the (very few) game(s) released as launch ༺titles were at the very least decent. Quite often, there seems to be a correlation between the number of games released alongside a new system and a game’s chances to suck. That is, the more launch titles a system has, the more likely it is for most those games to be terrible. Maybe it’s because the technology is new and hasn’t been mastered yet, or maybe it’s the frenzied rush to get a product out the door at the proper date just so a game can be first and benefit from uninformed buyers who might get overly enthusiastic with their new console.

Those are the games you will find 🃏on this list. The forgotten titles that punished the early adopters. The games supposed to exemplify a shining new technology, but which spelled regrets for those who wait𝔍ed in line outside of a Best Buy on release day.

These are the 25 worst launch games in history.

25 Basic Math (Atari 2600) ✱

The Atari 2600 was a technological wonder when it was released in 1977. No longer confined to the arcade, gaming could now be enjoyed at home. And not just different variations of Pong! Atari buyers could get into their new hobby with a bunch of flashy games, such as racing game Indy 500, a tank battle game called Combat, and, uh, Basic Math.

Basic Math is a calculator simulator which is as simple as its title. The “game” asks you random arithmetic questions and you must provide the answer which you think is right. The colour of the background and of the equations changes occasionally, which is nice. There are sound effects which let you know if you answered right or wrong. There’s not a whole lot of things tᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚo do really. It’s more homework than video game.

The biggest difficulty in the game is figuring out the controls. Operating a calculator (or a reverse calculator, I guess, since you are the one providing the answers) with nothing but a joystick and one button is far from intuitive. I do not know if they ever planned a sequel, but I don’t think the world was holding its collective breath for Advanced Calculus.

24 Black Hole Assault (Sega CD) 🌃

First of all, hold on, because this is far from the last time that the Sega CD will appear on the list. Sega really wanted to go all out to demonstrate its new console’s abilities and a good way to really impress the crowd is to release a game which satisfies a fantasy that a lot of gamers seem to have. Black Hole Assault pits humans fighting aliens using giant✨ robots as thei𓆏r avatars and, from that description alone, it should have been a winner. However, the game’s depiction of combat is somewhat disappointing.

As you travel through admittedly cool-looking locales, your robot jumps, kicks, and sometimes jumpkicks its way through the galaxy. Your robot has a special move, but using it depletes your energy, so why would you use it? The jumpkicks are just as effective. You would think that gigantic machines fighting each other to death would be less boring than this, but we are only at number 24 on this list. Black Hold Assault is far from the only offender here.

The only good use of the Sega CD’s technology is the anime cut scenes, which were pretty well-done for the time. On the other hand, the develꦫopers were so proud of their anime that the introduction by ওitself lasts almost 10 minutes.

23 ꦗ Knack (PS4)

Here’s a disclaimer: Knack is not that bad of a game. The gameplay works and the main character is charming enough. However, Knack is also extremely vanilla and it was the complete opposite of what gamers expected out of a PlayStation 4 launch title. The announcement trailer made it seem like a cuter God of War (or a more bad-ass LittleBigPlanet). Instead, it was little more than a compe🎃tent 3D platformer. Dare I sa🔯y, it was a bit shallow.

Knack’s flaw is not that it’s ugly or that it’s devoid of fun. It’s that it looks as if all of it would have been possible on the PS3. A good launch game should show off a little bit and it should give the new console a reason to exist. It doesn’t have to be an eye-melting display of the latest graphics technology, but it should at least come up with some new tricks that weren’t possible before. Explore the new controller, use the interactivity or the new online features, anything to show the early buyers what’s new. As it is, Knack is average-to-good, but it did nothing to convince the undecided crowd💯, and maybe worse than that, it failed to deliver on its own prom🃏ises.

22 🤪 Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods (Atari Jaguar CD)

The Atari Jaguar CD is a little-known console which barely sold 20,000 units in its lifetime. More of a peripheral than a console, it sat atop the Jaguar in the same way the Sega 32X did with the Genesis. With such a limited run, only 11 games were ever released for the add-on, a number smaller even than the Virtual Boy’s library. I imagine that the Jaguar CD owners drank up those games like thirsty desert travellers at an oasis. I can only imagine their dismay if, by chance or by choice, they ended up with Highlander: The Last of the Macleods.

Based on the animated series of the same name, Highlander stars a crudely designed 3D animated character walking amongst pre-rendered environments to solve puzzles and fight monsters. To ensure maximum uncanniness, the character was animated through motion capture, giving very slow, but very human movements to a faceless jumble of sharp polygons. Imagine a very early and much more brightly-lit version of Resident Evil. Or better yet. Imagine that episode of The Simpsons wh🐎ere a 3D version of Homer walks into the real world, but stretched out for hours.

21 ꦏ Kileak: The DNA Imperative (PS1)

While most consoles in the mid-90s were content with having a port of Doom showing up in their lineup, Sony decided to one-up everyone with an original first-person shooter developed in-house which was released at the same time as the original Playstation. Kileak looked sleek for its ꦗtime, but it was decidedly a one-trick pony. What it did, it did well, b🍌ut the only thing it did was long, lifeless grey corridors.

As Matt Coda, a dude running around in an armored suit, the player is charged with exploring a bunker and its long, grey hallways. Once an entire floor has been cleared of enemies, you can find an elevator, get to the next floor, and realize that it’s the exact same very long, very grey series of corridors, only rearranged in a different order. The lack of diversity and excitement left the audience cold, and despite a sequel being released a few years later, nobody really remembers Kileak that fondly.

As for that Doom port, the PlayStation did get its own about two months later. It sold a lot more than Kileak.

20 💃 Kabuki Warriors (Xbox)

Kabuki Warriors’ problems are very diverse. It’s a button-masher which tries to masquerade as a legi𝕴timate fighting game. It’s disarming in its simplicity, completely devoid of difficulty. It also features nightmarish wax mannequins in elaborate costumes fighting to the death. Everything about the fighters looks fake. Their skin is too shiny. When they get stabbed, they ble🔴ed in long, uninterrupted jets, like a play made by The Addams Family.

The game tries very hard to be authentic, writing the characters’ names in Japanese, and leaving a lot of menu options in their original language, but it e♕nds up being confusing. The animation is stilted and none of the hits have any weight behind them. There’s a button that makes your character do a kabuki dance in the middle of the fight, but your adversary isn’t going to stop just because you decided you had better things to do than fighting.

Kabuki Warriors just feelsꦰ unfinished. It had an idea, but it got lost somewhere during development.

19 ✅ Combat of Giants: Dino𒐪saurs 3D (3DS)

There’s an inner child living in all of us. That child would probably still go berserk🍸 for a game which features dinosaurs 🧸fighting against a background of erupting volcanos. You can even equip the dinosaurs with weapons and armors. How awesome does that sound?

And then, the fighting starts. Your dinosaur can either bite or slowly charge at the other one. The enemy dinosaur will glow red befℱore attacking, just to make sure that you can dodge and never lose a fight. 💦Repeat any or all of these moves until you win. The stakes are extremely low.

Combat of Giants should have been an easy slam-dunk just with those two words: Dinosaurs and Fighting. Instead, it finds the most simplistic interpretation of its premise and never tries to get to the next level. The fighting is repetitive and the in-between is an unnecessary, tedious and aiml🅷ess trek through 𝓀the prehistoric land until you find your next challenger. It’s the kind of game where you need to put in some serious work to ever lose.

I remember Primal Rage being similarly disappointing as a kid, but I’d say it wins the dinosaur fighting games crown by defa🌠ult.

18 ♊ Donkey Kong Jr. Math (NES)

Oh man, did I love Donkey Kong Jr. as a kid. The ColecoVision port made me learn its three screens by heart before I even entered school. I would hum the music while eating my Froot Loops in the morning. When my parents brought an NES home, I was elated as I had already seen the revolutionary machine at my cousin’s place. Because we didn’t have much money for games, we rented them instead. One day, my parents showed up with Donkey Kong Jr. I was so happy! I know that one! I bet it looks even better on the NES, and maybe 🐼there’s extra levels, and maybe…

Only it wasn’t Donkey Kong Jr. at all. It was Donkey Kong Jr. Math, DK’s nerdy little brother. In this game, numbers appear at the top of the screen, and DK Jr. must get to the answer through various contri🐼ved means. So let’s say that the number “12” appears at the top. You will then navigate DK Jr. to the vine that has a “9” on it, then get the plus sign at the bottom of the screen, then make your way to the “3,” except that you accidentally caught the “7” instead, so you will make your way to the minus sign, and so on until you either die of boredom or somehow become a super genius because you helped a baby gorilla climb a bunch of vines. Math games at launch were all the rage for a while.

17 Fighting Street (TurboGrafx-CD) ൩

The Street Fighter series has achieved legendary status over the years. The most popular entries, like Street Fighter 2, keep getting ports and re-releases because history has proven that if a new console is released, someone will buy a Street Fighter game for it. If you have been following the franchise for long enough, you’ll have noticed that the original Street Fighter never gets ported or re-released and there’s a very good reason for that. Street Fighter is not a very good game when compared to its siblings. We know that now, but the sequel had not been released yet in 1989. NEC, the TurboGrafx-CD’s manufacturer, acquired the rights to the game for release on its system and decided to cleverly rename it Fighting Street.

Featuring a red-headed Ryu, Fighting Street allows you to fight your way through a roster of characters which includes Sagat, Adon and Birdie, but which also marks the only appearances of luminaries such as Joe the karate master, Mike the boxing champion, and Lee the karate boxer. The characters are too stiff, the special moves too few, and the crisp gameplay had not been nailed yet. After such a disastrous first effort, it’s a miracle that Capcom persisted and tried again with Street Fighter 2. As for the TurboGrafx CD, I would love to say that its fut💃ure was just as bright, but it never really was more than a distant thirdꦰ to Nintendo and Sega.

16 🍒 Reꦚd Steel (Nintendo Wii)

When the Wii was anno🥃unced officially, the focus was almost entirely on its revolutionary controller. The motion sensor was said to be able to emulate whatever movements the player was making. So, Ubisoft asked, what if you hold it like a gun or like a sword? Hell, why not make a game where you have a gun AND a sword?

The concept of Red Steel is, quite frankly, exceptional. Make your way through the Japanese underworld while shooting bad guys and challenging Yakuza bosses to katana duels. Can’t really ask for more than that. Unfortunately, the Wii controller under-delivered. While it could mimic a bowling ball or a tennis racket with ease, a katana was a bit too much to ask. The controller can only detect broad swings, reducing the duels to wild arm flailing while you try to dodge your e🍰nemy’s attacks. As for the gun, it’s a bit more precise, but the game used the Wii remote as a mouse stand in, significantly slowing down your movements.

The concept would finally be fully realized three years later, as Nintendo released the Wii Motion Plus, a device actually capable of detecting precise movements. Red Steel 2 capitalized on the new technology, making the disappointment of the original a distant memory𝐆.