Video Games: Least Favorites

Now, before you read this list, I have to make one thing very clear: this is not a list of bad video games. This is a list of video games that I thoroughly did not enjoy. Some of them are highly-acclaimed, but I don't really give a flying fig what the critics say. I found them boring, frustrating, overly complex, or something else. Some of them I've completed, others I couldn't stand to play long enough. As with the favorites, this is a "soft" order, primarily by how disappointing I found the games compared to how good I thought they would be.

And today I will not be lazy, and fix the HTML code so they're reverse-numbered.

EDIT: All of these games (with the exception of Super Smash Bros.) were played on Xbox 360. It was brought to my attention that I should have a fairly consistent standard of review, so this is just a disclaimer that I'm not basing any of these opinions on cross-platform experiences.

Least Favorites:

10. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo 2008)
    Anybody who has ever talked to me about video games should know that I intensely dislike this game. I've never been a huge fan of the Super Smash Bros. series, but I did play the first two games and got at least a moderate level of enjoyment out of them. Not this one. This is one of the most annoying fighting games to play, because it requires a very specific and odd set of skills revolving primarily around air-dodging (read: flying) back to the level after you get knocked off. Some characters like Kirby and Metaknight make sense in this regard, as they can actually fly. But when I blast Solid Snake or Pikachu off the edge of a platform into oblivion, then they "air-dodge" their way back, it completely breaks my desire to play anymore. When I play a fighting game, I want to know the win conditions. If you ring-out, you lose. If you take 100% damage, you lose. Super Smash Bros. takes these standard fighting rules and throws them out the window, instead relying on "smash attacks" to force a super ring-out. That's the only way to win. You can beat your opponent bloody up to 999% damage and still lose. Every time I've ever played this game, I just get a sinking feeling of powerlessness. Especially when someone gets that one pickup item that allows them to do a screen-wide smash attack that basically blows everything else away instantly. I've never had any fun playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl and I never will. I also don't own it, and haven't picked it up in years. The only reason it's on this list is because it stands out to me as one of the definitive games that left a sour taste in my mouth. A close second is the Wii Mario Kart, which was leagues worse than Mario Kart Double Dash on the GameCube (which was a delightful game to play).
9. Aliens vs. Predator (Sega/Rebellion Development 2010)
   If I had to summarize this game in a single word, it would be "uninspired." It doesn't hold a candle to the original Aliens vs. Predator that came out in 1999, nor the excellent sequel Aliens vs. Predator 2 from 2001. Neither of those were perfect (the former having excellent atmosphere but not as good mechanics, and the latter having excellent mechanics but not as good atmosphere), but this game seems to take the flaws of those two games and combine them; it has neither a good atmosphere nor good mechanics. While playing, I always felt as though I were fumbling to control the character. As a marine, my weapons were largely ineffective against even basic alien enemies, forcing me to use a ridiculous block/melee attack combo that makes absolutely no sense (the movies always seemed to show that if you're in close range combat with an alien, you're already dead). As an alien, the marines were blind and had severe short-term memory issues, forgetting that I killed a man a few yards away from them mere seconds ago and proceeding as if everything was just dandy. As a predator...well, I only played the first predator mission, because at that point I was already bored with this game. The campaigns are ridiculously short (about five missions each), so I can only assume that this game was built primarily for multiplayer, which I never even bothered to try. I don't even know if the servers still exist. I don't intend to find out.
8. Prototype (Activision/Radical Entertainment 2009)
   Prototype is a twisted and evil combination of every possible annoying mini-game you can imagine (escort missions, chase missions, escort-chase missions, timed boss battles, etc). It's rather unfortunate, because the game world (New York City) is cool, the parkour-style movement and powers are really fun to play around with, and the story is pretty intriguing too After playing through too many frustrating mini-game-style story missions though, I just couldn't bring myself to do any more. One of the most annoying things in the game is the way that the soldiers patrolling the city will attack you with a ceaseless and indefatigable vigilance, even when there are dozens of more dangerous monsters all around them. It didn't help that I watched my brother play some of the missions I had yet to play, only to discover that more frustration was in store than I could possibly imagine. I just don't have the heart to play anymore. I imagine the developers sitting in a room before starting this game, brainstorming a list of every mission gamers typically hate so that they could include them in the main story. It's unfortunate, because almost every aspect of the game is really neat and innovative. Just not the story missions.
7. Dante's Inferno (EA/Visceral Games 2010)
   This game is clearly a God of War rip-off. That's not what makes me dislike it. The problem is that it's not a perfect God of War rip-off. It's so close, yet so far. They tried for the same kind of epic scenery, but the entire game takes place in hell. After a while, the scenes blend together and everything is more-or-less the same. The controls aren't as polished or effective, and the weapons and powers aren't as good. The game has a weird level-up system that involves choosing between "dark" powers (that focus on the scythe weapon) and "light" powers (that focus on the ranged magic cross attack). The cross is borderline overpowered, except in certain circumstances where it's completely useless. As a result, trying to decide what powers to level up is a nuisance. The enemies are weird and gross, but not really in a way that's scary or unsettling. The puzzles and traps are infuriating, especially the ones involving timers and the exploding zombie things. It's far from being a truly bad game, but it falls in the shadow of its predecessor and its greater. There's no way to fully appreciate it after playing God of War. And why did Dante's wife/girlfriend go to hell because he cheated on her? That's just not fair.
   
   
6. Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks 2008)
   The next two games I didn't put very much time into, because I was quickly disillusioned. My problem with Fallout 3 is extremely specific, and not representative of the whole game. Even knowing this, I have to place it on the list because the experience I had with it was really dissatisfying. See, in Fallout 3, you have guns. Whenever I have guns in a game, I assume it's a shooter. That's not an unreasonable assumption, all things considered. When I starting assigning skill points, I skipped over the skill that grants "action points" to use with the VATS in combat. I figured, what do I need VATS for? I've played plenty of shooters, I'll just use my shooter skills to kill bad guys. The answer, of course, is that you're not supposed to play like a shooter. You're supposed to use VATS to do the work for you. So there I was with my one action point per combat scenario, attempting to fight off mutants and giant ant things and bandits, and it wasn't working. My guns were ineffective without VATS. I might as well have been shooting spit balls. So I quit. I don't want to play a game where I have to choose between doing any kind of noticeable damage and aiming/shooting my own guns. A gun is a gun in my book, regardless of how many skill points I put into my targeting-computer skill tree. It should kill things without requiring three full magazines of steady fire. I may yet try Fallout: New Vegas, especially considering my experience with my next-least-favorite game and its sequel...
5. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2K Games/Bethesda Game Studios 2006)
   I almost didn't play Skyrim because of this game. I'm glad I ended up taking some time to try it despite my reservations. I really did not enjoy the time I spent playing Oblivion. Choosing a race and class and skills at the beginning is extremely complicated. Before playing Oblivion, I had no experience with The Elder Scrolls. It isn't beginner-friendly at all. I remember sifting through what seemed like 40 different classes, the distinction between each being skills that I wasn't familiar enough with to actually make a meaningful choice. After I chose a custom class with a few skills that just sounded cool, I set off into the game world to be harassed by wolves. Then I found out that I could gain skill points in athletics (or something like that) by jumping. And I asked myself, "do I really want to play a game where I have to level up a skill by jumping, over and over again?" The answer was a resounding no. There were just too many skills in Oblivion. It was too complex for me to sit down and get into. I stuck it out for a little while, venturing into the titular realm of Oblivion and facing off against some demon-imp things which made short work of my inexperienced self. That's when I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I had no idea what was going on, there were 4,000 different skill trees to develop, and the combat in one of the first battles killed me. Oh, and the third-person view (which I greatly prefer  to the first person in Skyrim) was terrible. It made for a very negative entrance into the world of The Elder Scrolls, which fortunately was vastly improved when I later played around with Skyrim.
   
   
4. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts 2008)
   This is hands down the most frustrating game I have ever played. It's worse than Prototype, because it doesn't even have the sweet parkour moves or the giant city to run around. A big part of the problem is that every Force-sensitive character in this game is obscenely powerful for no apparent reason. Remember in Star Wars when Darth Vader ripped down giant trees, smashed TIE fighters into each other, and made towering leaps, all with the Force? No? That's right, because it didn't happen. In The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda lifts an X-Wing by concentrating deeply. Yoda is canonically one of the most powerful Force users ever. But this game isn't satisfied with that namby-pamby stuff. If you aren't slicing AT-ST's in half vertically, ripping airlock doors open, or dragging Star Destroyers out of the sky with a mere thought, what are you doing with your life?
   
   You ask, what's wrong with that? It's a game, and cool awesome powers are cool, right? In theory, yes. The problem is, in order for this game to be anything close to a challenge as you run around blasting the life force out of everything with just a flick of your wrist or a wink of your eye, the enemies have to be incredibly, unrealistically tough. Storm troopers die pretty hard to a blast of Force lightning. So give them impenetrable energy shields! AT-ST's are prone to being sliced in half vertically (I think I mentioned that earlier). So give them homing rocket launchers and super armor! Make up some super powerful new Imperial soldiers that would have crushed the Rebellion to a pulp! Give the emperor's personal guards lightsabers and Jedi training! The result is a game in which the player character is exaggeratedly strong in the Force, and the enemies have the most ridiculous arsenal imaginable. It's too much, because those enemies outnumber you hundreds to one. Throw in some excruciating boss battles (that junkyard guy with the metal legs and weird lightsaber-staff, Shaak Ti, and sure-why-not Darth Maul), and this game is a cocktail of rage-inducing gameplay. The on-screen prompt for the Star Destroyer pull was 100% useless as well, forcing me to look to the internet for a walkthrough just so that I could do it properly. The story was nothing great either, being a shoe-horned tale of Darth Vader's "secret apprentice" that sort of explained the beginnings of the Rebellion unnecessarily. And there's a sequel, too. I think I'll pass.
3. Borderlands (2K Games/Gearbox Software 2009)
   Borderlands is one of those co-op based RPG games where looting stuff is basically what you do. Loot to find better weapons, and in lieu of that loot to find stuff to sell to buy better weapons. I don't necessarily have anything against that aspect of gameplay. However, I quickly discovered that Borderlands is almost impossible to play single player. I don't necessarily have anything against that aspect either. However, it's also an RPG complete with skill points and weapon proficiencies. Again, that's not something I necessarily have anything against. When you combine those three aspects though, you get a game that is hard to enjoy except under a specific set of circumstances. You need to have a group of friends who are willing to accomodate your play style, who allow you to loot when you need to, who won't rush, and who (basically) have the same level of experience with the game as you do. When I tried Borderlands, I had none of those things. Playing as Mordecai the sniper with a couple guys who just love to punch/machine-gun-at-close-range everything and blast through the game, having already beaten it multiple times and amassed a fortune in game-dollars, is not even remotely fun. Since playing single player isn't really an option, Borderlands has basically nothing to offer me. Also, the quests are glorified errand-running, consisting of either killing someone or finding X of Item Y and bringing it somewhere. Whatever story there is doesn't really have much play, at least during the beginning few hours of the game that I played. So I just quit playing. I won't be buying Borderlands 2.
2. Half-Life 2 (Valve/Sierra Entertainment 2004)
   It wasn't until about a year ago that I decided to finally play through Half-Life 2 and its subsequent expansion episodes. I played through about 70% of it previously before my computer had issues and would no longer run it, but I started again from scratch with the Orange Box edition on Xbox 360. Half-Life 2 introduced the Source engine with its revolutionary physics, and while I admire the achievement, the game only served to kill the proverbial horse and then beat it. Over and over and over again. There were just too many bland physics puzzles based on balancing a see-saw with some barrels, or lowering an elevator with some barrels, or making a bridge with some barrels, or floating some barrels in the toxic waste. To be fair, there were some cool moments in the game like unleashing the ant lions on Nova Prospekt prison, crossing the support beams of a massive bridge, and blasting Combine troops with the super-charged gravity gun. But the rest of the game just didn't have it. It was too easy to miss plot-relevant conversations if you weren't standing close enough (read: six inches away from) speaking characters. The silent protagonist aspect wasn't as effective as the first game because in this one there were more characters milling about and actively addressing Gordon. The story itself was hidden in the world, as Valve is known for doing, but in this case the story needed to be active and engaging rather than relegated to graffiti and NPC conversations. I never got the sense that I was in a story. Instead it felt like I was leading Gordon Freeman down a predetermined path because that was the goal of the game.
   
   
   And the straw that breaks the camel's back comes straight out of Episode 2. The final mission was nightmarish. I tried it several times before giving up completely. There was no way I could 1) throw sticky bombs at striders while 2)surviving against hunters who shoot me and destroy the bombs I'm trying to shoot at the striders, while also 3) trying to drive a clunky-controlled car around a small town, 4) on a time limit. Combine the infuriating number of difficult things to do here with the lack of engagement in the story, and you get me just skipping over the level entirely to see the game's finale. Which was a cliffhanger (that's okay) that has yet to be resolved by an Episode 3 or a Half-Life 3 (that'ts not okay). Screw you, Half-Life 2.
1. Mass Effect 3 (EA/BioWare 2012)
   The first question I'd ask myself about this is, "How can this game be #1 if you've played it for over 300 hours?" Well, that's easy: almost all of that time was spent on multiplayer. The multiplayer really isn't too bad. It's a little repetitive and the reward unlock system is often frustrating, but I can derive satisfaction from unlocking new things and winning matches (which, on higher difficulties, is no small feat). Plus, the DLC has been fairly steady and, more importantly, free. Thus, I've kept enough interest to play with a small group of friends.
   
   
   That said, Mass Effect 3 easily deserves the top spot on this list. It's no contest at all. Mass Effect 3 brought very little to the table. To be specific, it brought improved combat mechanics and weapons, and that's literally all. The story was an unmitigated disaster, which wasn't as apparent watching it unfold, but in retrospect it's clearly a debacle. Most side quests were nothing more than errands that didn't even involve leaving the ship; the only saving grace was the Reaper chase mini-game that was amusing and granted the really cool Reaper horn noise if you scanned too many times. The level design towards the end of the game was bland. The enemies weren't threatening or difficult, and the fake-impossible pseudo-boss-battle with Kai Leng (where he had unlimited shields and an invincible gunship) was annoying and cheap. There was no payoff with Harbinger, the big villain from Mass Effect 2 with his constant taunts and threats; he was relegated to 20 seconds of screen time and had no speaking lines. The high points in the game, fixing the Krogan genophage and winning Rannoch back for the Quarians, were overshadowed by an idiot plot and relegated to almost complete irrelevance outside of their respective missions and a "war assets" score. The gaming journalist Jessica Chobot of IGN was given a voice role for an avatar character. Conflict of interest? What's that? Perhaps most insultingly, numerous blatant lies were told by high-level developers during the marketing campaign, even up until the week prior to the game's release, about game features and content. Mass Effect 3 was a disappointment and a PR catastrophe.