Electronic Gaming Monthly's Worst Reviewed Games of 2002

Kabuki Warriors

#7

Between Halo, Munch's Oddysee, Dead or Alive 3 and Project Gotham Racing, I would say that the original Xbox had a great launch. But, as is always the case, with the good comes the bad. If Master Chief is going to leave his mark on the best reviewed list, then it only seems fitting that Kabuki Warriors does the same thing on worst list. With a score of 2.5 out of 10, this lazy beat 'em up is the bottom of the barrel for the Xbox launch line-up, somehow managing to out-suck Shrek, Fuzion Frenzy and The Simpsons: Road Rage. When we read Milkman's lone review, it's easy to see why.

"Slogging my way through 40-plus monotonous levels, fighting endless waves of faceless kabuki clones, using the ONE available attack button, quickly became a chore. So, I indulged myself." He explains that instead of actually playing the game, he just mashed the attack button while surfing the web. "Forty-five dreary minutes later, I looked at the TV and found that I reached the boss level. There the difficulty spiked enough so that I actually had to grip the controller with both hands. What did I get for my inconsiderable efforts? A staff credits roll, identifying the people responsible for putting me through this ordeal." In a world where Dead or Alive 3 is available, there's no reason to give this game a second glance. With a score of 2.5 out of 10, Kabuki Warriors suffers the fate of being completely forgotten about.

Driven

#6

Long before Sylvester Stallone was taking a victory lap with final Rocky and Rambo movies, he was speeding around a very different kind of lap. Driven on the GameCube is based on the long-forgotten racing movie from Die Hard 2 director Renny Harlin. The film has an atrocious 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, and, I hate to say it, that's not far off from the terrible video game. Who asked for this?

"PlayStation 2 drivers have been swerving to avoid this wreck of a game since last November, and GameCube owners should follow suit," advices Shane. "You'd think that a game that has simple controls, only automatic-transmission cars and extra lives would be a delightful romp, right? Nah. Unforgiving physics make ever collision catastrophic -- if you hit a wall or another car, you've likely lost the race." If you're looking for some positives, you won't find many here. About the only things Shane liked were the "jamming soundtrack and celebrity voiceover work by Sly Stallone." "Much like the film that inspired it, this game isn't even worth a rental." It's hard to argue with that. With an average of 2.5 out of 10, you can go back to not remembering that Driven was a thing.

Dragon Ball Z: The Collectible Card Game

#5

The one thing I've learned from studying these old reviews is that criticism that was a deal-breaker one year may be completely insignificant a couple decades later. A good example of that is Dragon Ball Z: The Collectible Card Game, which was hammered by all three EGM critics for being ... a collectible card game? These days, it's common to see accurate recreations of popular board and card games, but Electronic Gaming Monthly seemed almost offended that THQ would port this type of thing to the Game Boy. Chris even starts his review by mocking Dragon Ball Z for being like a Checkers video game where the only difference is not having to clean up the pieces. As somebody who likes checkers and hates cleaning up, that actually sounds pretty good to me.

Jeanne shared this opinion, noting that "unless you're a freak who's got Dragon Balls of steel or meet to trade DBZ cards on Friday nights, make like a tree and leave this one alone! Battle definitely isn't for the non-hardcore crowd." Pretty much everybody agrees that the tutorial does an awful job teaching you the basics and that this is only for die-hard fans of the card game. "All you have to do is shuffle through your hand to see if it lets you play a card in it or not, then sit and watch as the same boring sequence of screens (no animation) flash by." This game certainly doesn't sound flashy, but these reviews make it sound like there's no reason for it to even exist. "What's the point?" asks John. The problem is that he quickly glosses over the answer to his question: You're a fan that wants to play on the go, you don't have a ton of friends to play with, collecting cards in real life is expensive and so on so forth. Look, I haven't played this game and I'm not saying that it deserves to be on the Best of 2002 list, but based on these reviews, it just sounds like Dragon Ball Z: The Card Collectible Game was unfairly maligned by people who weren't into the source material. I would be curious to see what fans of the original card game thought of this Game Boy Advance release. I have a hunch that their score would be better than an average of 2.5 out of 10.

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

#4

When it comes to games based on movies, Star Wars has always had an edge. Electronic Gaming Monthly raved about Super Star Wars, Episode 1 Racer and both Rogue Squadron games, and even the lesser titles received mostly positive marks. But there was a disturbance in the force when THQ released Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones on the Game Boy Advance. This was not just a frustrating mash-up with terrible gameplay, but also EGM's worst reviewed Star Wars game by quite a large margin.

"I can't think of the last time that I played such a horrifically fecal excuse for a game," starts Shane. "Seriously, did no one think to look back to the Super NES Super Star Wars for inspiration? Instead, we get this moronically simplistic turd that rips off, of all things, Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero." John gave the best score with a 3.5 and complained that it's "just another poorly designed, obviously rushed movie-based title with little going for it besides the license it's based on." He liked the idea of bouncing between side-scrolling action and Star Fox-inspired 3D levels, but found both insufferable to play through. He leaves us with this terrible advice: "Do yourself a favor -- go see Episode II instead and blow the extra money on Raisinets." With a score of 2.2 out of 10, Attack of the Clones is somehow even worse than the movie.

Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon

#3

On paper, Bruce Lee should be the perfect video game hero. Although he died in 1973, his cinematic legacy helped to influence an entire generation of beat 'em ups and fighting games. Yet, try as they might, no developer has been able to capture his magic. They tried back in 1995 with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, but the misguided fighting game only managed to punch up an average of 6 out of 10 on the Game Gear and an even lower 4.4 on the Jaguar. The sad truth is that Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon would kill for scores as high as a 4 or a 6. With a 2 out of 10, this early Xbox game is easily one of the worst reviewed games of the year.

Shane agreed with me about the potential of Bruce Lee: "Imagine controlling the late martial-arts maestro as you recreate scenes from his films. Well, put those lofty dreams on the shelf and steer clear of this stinker, especially if you're a fan of Bruce's work." He was surprised by all the fighting moves, but "all the moves in the world can't make the game fun, as the combat engine crumbles due to imbecilic computer A.I., poor collision detection, a terrible camera and a retarded lock-on system." Once again, I bet Shane would word that a little differently these days. With the lame gameplay and gaudy graphics, Quest of the Dragon shames Bruce Lee's legacy with a 2 out of 10.

Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

#2

Ladies and gentlemen, it's the Star Wars vs. Star Trek fight that none of us asked for. We know the EGM editors are fans of Star Wars, but are they also Trekkers? Based solely on the reviews, the answer is clearly no. With the exception of Star Trek: Invasion on the PlayStation, which received an average of 8.3 out of 10, most games in the long-running franchise have earned middling scores. Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force couldn't even muster that relatively low bar, earning a 2 out of 10 and becoming one of the worst reviewed games of 2002.

I'm sure the game is bad, but the reasoning is ... interesting. Kraig chooses to start his review this way: "Aside from porn stars, no one likes sloppy seconds." Yeah, this is going to be a rough one. He argues that Elite Force is a shameless rehash of a year-old computer game "based on the lukewarm Trek series best known for Borgette Seven-of-Nine's bust size." To be fair, he concludes that "virtual jugs" aren't his thing, and even if they were, "it wouldn't matter since these blocky graphics make hers look more like lunchboxes." He later complains that the choppy movement nearly gave him an epileptic seizure and that the first-person shooter is barely playable. I don't know if EGM is a fan of Star Trek, but after reading this 2 out of 10 review, it's clear Kraig isn't.

Mortal Kombat Advance

#1

The problem with chronicling EGM's best and worst games is how they always leave me feeling old. It's easy to laugh at the enormous sprites in China Warrior or Cloud Master's cheesy 1990s box art, but it's different when we're talking about 2002. That was the year I first started freelance writing, and Mortal Kombat Advance was one of my earliest reviews. That fact alone has made writing this episode a bittersweet experience. I love the nostalgia that floods back to me every time I read a review of Kabuki Warriors or Driven, but hate how close we to celebrating the 20th anniversary of those games coming out. I also hate Mortal Kombat Advance, because it really is one of the worst games ever made.

Although it's not the lowest scoring game of all time, this unfinished Midway shitfest is the very first game in EGM's history to earn a perfect 0.0 score. "No, this 0.0 score is not a misprint," starts Dan Hsu. "Yes, MK Advance is that horrible. A lot of bad fighting games are out there; I can say without hyperbole that this one is a million times worse than all of them put together." Dan suggested a more accurate description of the game that sounded something like this: "More than 20 playable characters! Each one features a tiny handful of moves that you may or may not be able to execute. And once you do perform them, we don't guarantee that they'll work properly. Watch missile attacks pass right through your opponents at long range. Check out three, count 'em, three completely unoriginal modes that you've seen countless times before, and only one of them you can play by yourself."

With a score of 0.0, you would think that Mortal Kombat Advance has to be the worst reviewed game of all time, but Jonathan ends up inflating the average. With a rosy score of 1.5, he says that "since Mortal Kombat's roster is largely comprised of two dudes multiplied and color-swapped, Midway had plenty of space left to make MK Advance pretty." Ooh, finish him! "The designers apparently had zero time to complete it; between the bugs and intoxicated spaceman physics, no sane individual would have let this out the door voluntarily." As somebody who suffered through the game, I can attest to the accuracy of these reviews. This is one of the most painful gaming experiences of my life, and with an average of 0.7 out of 10, Electronic Gaming Monthly agreed, making it the worst reviewed game of 2002.