Most gamers enjoy the feeling of being in command, whether dominating a battlefield from the point of view of a dauntless solitary soldier or enjoying a skybox view of the wanton destruction their armies are committing in the name of victory. Well, soldier, the fortunate thing about strategy games is that we get to choose our campaigns (especially with the fantastic RTS Starcraft II hitting Mac/PC this past week). After all, there are few things more absolutely god-awful than being stuck in Russia during the winter or playing a terrible game that makes you wish you had decided to play a sports game or one of those games that has a ‘z’ at the end of it where you have to take care of digital children. Now, I’m not gonna lie to you trooper, many of these are on the Xbox 360, but there is one in there hidden amongst the chaff that is just absolutely terrible and should’ve never been created – a monster of sorts. You know it, you love it, but damn it if the people responsible for keeping it under control didn’t go mad with power. Stay frosty men.
10. World in Conflict: A game from Sierra and Massive that was initially shown in 2007 for release on the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 that was supposedly a reimagining of what happened in the late 1980s when the Berlin Wall doesn’t fall and the Cold War doesn’t end culminating in the invasion of the United States of America and World War III. The game seemed to have the best nuances of Red Dawn and Command and Conquer, making it a must have title and highly anticipated by those in the gaming community who were excited to have a well constructed RTS on consoles. Additionally, Massive repeated showed off how excellently they believed World in Conflict would be on the two next-gen systems. Just one problem though, the game never arrived. After waiting through various E3s and watching the game release on the PC with differing critical responses, WiC never showed despite repeated promises from the developer. I suppose it’s a cheap knock, but a confirmation never existed refuting the release of a console version, which just adds insult to injury – leaving us all to wonder whether or not the game is still in Developer Hell.
9 .Tropico 3: Tropico 3 is a Kalypso game allowing players to jump into the well-shined shoes or boots of a leader in control of a small cuba-like island in a sea very reminiscent of the Caribbean at the start of the Cold War. Frankly, it couldn’t get any closer to the aesthetic if they tried. While I’m sure there were 10 people out there who appreciated the game making an appearance on the Xbox 360, what at least half of them would tell you is that the game was just bad. And I mean Cuban Missile Crisis bad. For a series that is usually so much fun, it comes as a wonder why such efforts would be endured to bring the game to a console when it is clearly a better experience on the PC. That’s not to say that the PC is better or vice versa, but as a choice of to port or not to port this game – they probably could have abstained and not broken anyone’s heart.
8. Star Trek: Legacy: My problem with Star Trek: Legacy is that I grew up torn between Star Wars and Star Trek – while I eventually developed an understanding that both have their flaws and Star Wars is clearly superior – I find it disheartening that this shoveled fan service of a game would be trounced out for players to absolutely hate. Not only was it bad on the 360, it was just bad overall. Tersely, they haphazardly attempt to make every single Star Trek fan possible happy by including ships that span across the entire timeline of the canon universe. The problem however, is that in their attempt to please everyone, they pleased no one. The controls were pitifully bad, the combat felt clunky and terrible and the overall story arch was one that even Voyager fans couldn’t happily swallow. Suffice to say, this game was absolute shit and there’s no turning back on this ever reaching gamers – no matter how much time travel you use.
7. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars: Okay, this is one of the slightly better strategy games to arrive on the 360 – not saying it was excellent, I’m just saying that it didn’t control in a way that made me want to take a sharp stick to my eyes. While the game doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, sticking to its beloved formula – there was some definite quality to the title. But that’s like finding the one clean spot on a rusty, broken down car. Either way, it’s still a terrible car. Either way, this is another title that was haplessly brought over from the PC to the 360 for the sake of name recognition and the hope that some people could be duped into buying what ultimately serves as nothing more than another hunk for the trash heap.
