With every passing year players all over the world are subjected to games both good and bad. To be brutally honest, people love a loser far more than a winner because we get some amount of twisted enjoyment out of seething our hatred upon something we know is a piece of complete and utter crap. So for the year 2009, I offer up to you the top 20 video games that made me scream in anger, roll my eyes with annoyance, and curse at the sky with dismay. I have a feeling that at least one of these resulted in a broken console, controller, or at the very least a cracked television. There are many of my choices that you may disagree with, or whole-heartedly agree with – either way let’s take a walk down memory lane 2009 – even if the walk is one of agony.
Editor's Note: These choices are not the opinion of the entire PlanetXbox360.com staff - it is meant for entertainment purposes only and is just one person's opinion. Sound off on this list by heading over to our forums, click here for the discussion on this specific article.
20. X-Blades: Rank this as one of those true pieces of garbage trying to slip quietly into the first quarter of 2009. You know the titles that have an in-your-face, sassy female character trying so hard to be likable but ends up being that girl in high school everyone knows, but kind of hates, that’s how you’ll feel about the main character here and really everything else offered. Clunky controls, exceptionally lackluster special effects and repetitive mechanics make jamming a pencil into your temples seem more appealing. Even on my nicest days, I couldn’t help but call X-blades trash and it ranks in on the list not only as a disappointing title, but as a shameful entry for the year on the part of SouthPeak Interactive and Ubisoft.
19. Velvet Assassin: Meet Violette Summer, former beauty dresser turned special operative for MI6 during World War Two. She enjoys doing hair, long walks on the beach and killing Gestapo agents. Seriously, I’m all for stealth-action and love Splinter Cell with the same love I only previously reserved for Metal Gear Solid, but this is just a joke. Basically skin Sam Fisher with that of Ms. Summer, set the game years before he would’ve even been born and boom, we have a piece of crap title that only masochists could’ve been happy playing. Yet another mistake for SouthPeak interactive, this is one of those titles that I can’t even begin to fathom how the hell certain games get made.
18. Lord of the Rings: Conquest: Okay guys, I have an idea, it’s rocky, but stay with me. You know Star Wars Battlefront? Yeah? Cool. Now, you know how it has all those awesome character classes, different factions, time periods, battles and multiplayer potential? Of course you do. Now, let’s take that and merge those playing mechanics with Lord of the Rings. What? They don’t have lasers or jetpacks in Lord of the Rings? But, well, they have arrows and those are kind of like lasers. And well, it’ll be fine, I promise. Come on, if we throw it together well enough, I’m sure nobody will notice how shoddy of a game this is, even if there really is a complete lack of fun among those terrible controls. No, I don’t thing Tolkien will be rolling over in his grave. We’ll be fine. Cut. Print.
17. Jurassic: The Hunter: The concept of fighting dinosaurs in a game isn’t unheard of when it comes to video games. Dino Crisis did a spectacular job spinning it in a survival-horror fashion while the original Turok on the Nintendo 64 still wins my annual “Best Raptor Encounter Award” out of the sheer fact that not a single game has been able to do it especially better quite yet. While there is a game on the horizon that has the potential, Jurassic sure as hell isn’t one of them. Taking its cues from the latest Turok as opposed to previous titles that made the overall gameplay enjoyable, the game essentially falls on its face. Nice try, but a classic case of bringing nothing to the table that hasn’t already been done before.
16. X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Not all comic book hero titles are created equal and that was never more the case with Wolverine. Being a licensed game, it coincided with the release of the film by the same name and like the movie completely dropped the ball. While it seems with all the reboots it has become trendy to make past canon a bit more flexible than usual, the title tries to overwhelm weak narrative with vicious melee. However, the game further fails in this area as well, leaving it to feeling massively repetitive. Despite better games coming out this year based on comic book heroes, the glaring issue that leaves the game without a leg to stand on is that you never feel like you’re playing Wolverine so much as playing Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine in a just utterly bad title based on a hideously bad film.
This feature list continues on the next page, please click below to reveal our next couple choices for the Top 20 Most Disappointing Games of 2009.
