16 years is a long time in video games, considering the medium has only really been around sin⛦ce the seventies. When Microsoft launched the Xbox in 2001, people thou✤ght it would never be able to compete with Sony and Nintendo but, after three versions of the console, Microsoft has definitely made itself a titan of the gaming world.
But a console needs software and the Xbox hasn't been shy about what games get released on its service. From the o💫riginal Xbox, to the 360, to the One, there are tons of terrible, lazy, unfinished games that you've probably never even heard of, let alone played. Microsoft would definitely prefer you go on being ignorant of these games but I'm here to shine a light on the dark, seedy underbelly of the Xbox lineup. Ranging across all three systems and including Xbox Live Arcade💖 titles, these are in no particular order or ranking, but have been pulled from the bottom of the Xbox pages. We've got games from publishers that never released another title to major studios who really should have known better. There are some big celebrity names attached to a few of these too, proving that success at the box office is no guarantee of good taste. (Though, in some of these cases, that's no surprise.)
It also deserves to be said that I know making a video game is a lot of work and shouldn't be taken lightly, so🙈 I don't mean any disrespect to t🤡he people who worked hard on these titles. That said, off we go!
25 Just Look At The Box For 10ไ 🐻Hours Instead
I was always curious about this game because the art style on the box looks like a mix between Samurai Jack and Batman: The Animated Series, the two best action cartoons of all time. But Bruce Timm this is not: Drake is one of the unfortunate casualties of the early-2000s struggle with making third person action games. Reviews of Drake say that while it's mechanic of holding two d♕ifferent weapons in each hand that can target or fire independently is cool, it just doesn't work.
This is pretty egregious as Max Payne had already been out for two years when this was released. It doesn't help that the story is apparently complete nonsense, despite the developers creating and releasing a comic book to help tell the story, a tactic Hollywood would use a few years later to trick people into seeing Jumper and Cowboys & Aliens.
24 ♋ Game About Bad Bikers Is Bad
From what I can gather based on the many, many Let's Plays I've watched of Ride To Hell, someone wanted to make a Sons of Anarchy game so they wrote "Sons of Anarchy game🍃" on a napkin and tried to꧋ jam it into a USB drive.
The subtitle, Retribution, even hints that this is some kind of installment in an ongoing franchise. What, you may ask as you stare into the box marked to $1.99 in the bin near the digital cameras at Walmart, does our be-mulleted hero seek retribution from? Does he achieve it? Was there a game before this one titled Oopsey A Big Mistake? Was there planned to be a sequel Ride to Loblaws: Regrocering in which, having found Retribution, our hero merely lives his life in peace?
23 🌟 Remember When Batman Games Were So, So Bad?
It's easy to forget the time before Batman: Arkham Asylum completely reinvented video game superheroes while simultaneously launching a major franchise with a fresh take on 50-year-old characters. There's a reason Arkham was such a revelation: Batma🐼n games until then had been almost u🔥niversally terrible.
Batman: Dark Tomorrow is the nadir of bad Batman games. Its design is bad, the controls are bad, the camera is another victim of the early-00s third person camera virus. This is a Batman game where you have to stop and handcuff everyone you knock out. This is a brawler with no blocking. You, as Batman, fight giant rats in the sewers. Do you have to handcuff the rats? I don't know, and I never will. At least it's better than Superman 64.
22 𒁏 Tony Hawk 5ucks
After ten years away, the Tony Hawk franchise came back in a b♍♚ig way in 2015 and "a big way" I mean "It was rushed, buggy mess that almost ruined all your good memories of the franchise."
The skateboard boom of the late nineties has a lot to owe to Tony Hawk Professional) Skater, the man, and maybe even more to Tony Hawk Pro Skater, the video game. Everyone I knew was obsessed with this thing and even more so by its sequel, the combination of combo chasing, fun environments, and the fluidity of the movement was incredibly addictive. I didn't even like skateboarding: all the guys I knew who skated were jerks. But man did I ever like this game! THPS 5 is a disaster and was received as su🥃ch by consumers, it's so bad that Tony Hawk to make a new game.
21 Loveable Creep's Nephew Is Just A Creep 🐲
Leisure Suit Larry was the Cinemax of the old point-and-click adventure game craze of the 90s. And 'edgier' alternative to Monkey Island and Space Quest, the Larry games weren't actually edgy- they were like pre-teen boys giggling over cable TV stuff l💃ate at night on a Saturday, where the lure of ladies was a sacred promise whispered into lunch bags at recess.
The reboot of the Larry series started with LSL: Magna Cum Laude (get it?) and was… not well received. An inexplicable sequel was rushed out the door by Team 17, who make the Worms games, and seems to be completely aware of how bad it is. Self-aware irony and obvious references to body parts aren't funny on their own and a protagonist who is a huge creep in the movie industry makes this one even worse now than it was when it was rele𝓡ased 9 years ago.
20 ও The Game You Can Only Buy At Toys R Us 🔯
Straight up:said this game "...may just be the worst first-party game in console history." Ouch, not much room to breathe there, Sneakers. So, you're this mouse and you're trying to steal food back from… rats? Who stole your food? Right away I've got a note for this plot: why not 🐽be stealing food from humans? It's like we're seeing the sequel to the original game,ꦉ where the food was stolen from humans.
Anyway, I'm not here to story edit this terrible video game that was only available at a single retailer. You're not just constrained by the story: you actually play this game on a track, like a train, and can only move back and forth on it. OH! So how about a game where you're a toy train filled with food, and you have to avoid the mice so they don't steal yo𒆙u food?
19 The Game Even🀅♑ Vin Diesel Said No To
Listen: there's going to be a lot of movie games on this list. Young readers may not appreciate the relatively sparse offering of movie games in general, let alone terrible ones, but in the 00s, every movie got a game regardless of its appropriateness for gameness. Fast & Furious: Showdown takes the anthology route: putting the action scenes from all the FF movies up to 2013 in one game.
Now, I'm not here to argue that the Fast and/or Furious franchise isn't the greatest action franchise of all time. But there are plenty of underground street racing games with ridiculous action set pieces. I'm not saying I don't want a level where I drag a giant 🐓vault through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, but you gotta do it right. And if notorious media hog Vin Diesel says no to having his likeness in your game, maybe it's time to reevaluate your venture.
18 𝄹 China's First Xbox Live Game
Imagine you're a game developer in the People's Republic of China. You've got all these great idea🐟s for games that fit the strenuous media censorship rules of your country but no one will ever see them outside of Asia. You get the amazing opportunity to develop a game for Xbox Live so you pool all your resources and pitch… this.
Crazy Mouse is a pretty literal title, all things considered. I suppose you would go nuts if you were forced to run through 32 puzzle mazes in a poorly coded, generic video game from China. Maybe if this was an exploration of the psychological toll of constan🔜t testing and observation it would be interesting, but💜 it's basically a mashup of Pacman and Bomberman, but without the tight controls.
17 I Wanted To Destroy Someth🦹ing B♛eautiful
The Fight Club video game is either the greatest example of an entire team of people missing the point of a book and a movie, or 🙈a super long-game joke on the people who missed the point ꦫof the book and the movie.
On paper, a game with the same disdain for toxic masculinity and materialism conveyed in video game tropes is not a bad idea. It could have had the same narrative impact as the revelation in BioShock, especially if the violence was as impactful as the fights in the game. Instead, you get a clumsy Virtua Fighter knock-off with none of the technical complication or character creativity. Th🤡e inclusion of an unlockable Fred Durst deepens the possibility that this game is aware of how vapid it is and was developed as a form of satire, but it never lets you in on the joke.
16 Rugby's FIFA Thꦍis Is Not
I don't know anything about rugby. I know it's got handsome sweaters and more brutality, but the players wear almost no protection at all. It's like football, American football, but with more kicking and pushing. Eve🗹ry review of this video game I read spent a lot of time explaining what rugby was so that it could more easily explain why this rugby video game is bad. I still don't really understand how rugby works, but I do understand why this game is bad.
Rugby is very much a team sport, but this game seems to put all the attention on the player. The game basically stops if the player🍒 isn't doing anything, you never get penalized, (you can tackle anyone you want for any reason) and it's really easy to win, even on the higher difficulties.