Electronic Gaming Monthly's Worst Reviewed Games of 2008 & 2009

Destroy All Humans!
Path of the Furon

#5

When EGM first reviewed Destroy All Humans back in 2005, they thought it was ... fine. It managed to earn a solid enough 7 out of 10 from the critics, mostly on the strength of a ridiculously awesome concept. The editors also liked the 2006 sequel, though worried that the franchise may be doing little more than treading water. Four years and just as many games later, and Electronic Gaming Monthly is officially over THQ's B-rate sci-fi series. A killer concept alone was not enough to keep this franchise from drowning, and it seemed painfully clear that the developers were not going to do what was needed to take Destroy All Humans to the next level.

Andrew was quick to note that open-world action games have come a long way since the days of the PlayStation 2: "You wouldn't know it from Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon, a game that feels both woefully dated and curiously incompetent. The aesthetics fall equally flat: While Furon's certainly the shiniest Destroy All Humans! to date, it's an absolute mess in motion. Textures load in close proximity, the speed's constantly in flux, and structures pop out of nowhere as you approach them via jetpack." He was also frustrated by the tepid missions, repetitive action, easy campaign and complete lack of online modes. It's a game that feels like a relic of the past, and not in a fun nostalgic sort of way. Between the unwillingness to move the franchise forward and the rampant technical problems, Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon earns a score so cheesy that you can practically see the string attached to the 3.5 out of 10.

NFL Tour

#4

When Electronic Arts secured the exclusive rights for the NFL, many worried that it would leads to years of barely upgraded Madden installments. In reality, what we should have feared was half-assed games like NFL Tour, an over-the-top football game so bad that it will make you yearn for the days of NFL Street. Todd explained that "the 7-on-7 game is semi-fun on offense, with a simplified reversal system that will have you tearing through tackles if your button timing's right. But the game completely falls apart on defense. I couldn't stop any team over the course of four downs. In part, that's because running backs won't go down. I counted nine broken tackles once, and I simply couldn't find a way to counter the endless string of dekes and dodges."

When Garnett fired up the game, he worried that he had accidentally fired up an old Dreamcast game: "That offers no excuse for the utter lack of creativity on display here, such as the generic beach-volleyball stadiums for each city. Nor does it explain only giving me 20-some-odd premade faces to choose from for my "custom" character. And even back in the days of Blitz heyday, the developers knew you needed a little balance between offense and defense. NFL Tour's last-team-with-the-ball-wins emphasis on offense deflates whatever air this pigskin had left in it." With an average score of 3.5 out of 10, NFL Tour ties as the fourth worst reviewed game in EGM's history to be published by Electronic Arts. Speaking of which ...

Skate It

#3

Fun Fact: Skate It was the exact moment I gave up on the Nintendo Wii. While all my friends and colleagues were still fully bought into the futuristic promise of motion controls, it was this unplayable spin-off from Electronic Arts that broke the illusion for me. After spending way too much time struggling with even the simplest tricks, I realized that life was too short and motion controls have a long way to go before they are an adequate replacement for the good ol' game controller. After that, I was never able to look at the Wii the same way ever again.

Apparently, I was not the only one, because Electronic Gaming Monthly's review echoes my frustration word for word. Mike complains that Skate It is what happens when a developer doesn't understand a system's limitations and overestimates its audience's abilities: "This is most apparent in the game's Party Play feature, where you and a group of friends take turns skating against each other. Not all at once, mind you -- you need to share a single Wii Remote. In one of these scenarios, I had to put together the best "line" by executing a series of tricks. So I drew a circle in the air with the Wii-mote, and got a pop-shuvit. I did it again and got a varial heelflip. A third time, a kickflip. The same undifferentiated motion resulted in three different tricks. That's cool if I'm messing around, but not when I'm trying to execute one specific trick." He complained that even the slightest twitch of the Wii-mote would create wholly new effects, and frequently, it's one you don't even want. And before you ask, Skate It is actually worse on the Wii's Balance Board. No matter how you attempt to play it, Skate It is a tragically bad game that gets even the most basic fundamentals wrong, which is why it ultimately ended up scoring a 3.5 out of 10.

Legendary

#2

For a lot of people, Legendary is one of those no-name first-person shooters that has been completely forgotten to time. For me, however, I will always remember being introduced to this terrible game at an off-site E3 event where I interviewed the developers in a very hot and incredibly small hotel room. It was called Legendary: The Box at the time and the preview build they had me play kept crashing. This happened four or five times, with the poor game designers getting increasingly frazzled with each subsequent freeze. There I was, watching a developer breakdown in front of me as he had the worst day of his professional life, and all I could do was wonder if watching him frantically swap out systems and make small talk would ultimately be a lot more fun than actually playing the game. And, as it turns out, I was right to be concerned, because even with the shorter name, Legendary is a Pandora's Box of terrible ideas that are executed in the worst ways possible.

I feel a little bad for Philip, who reviewed Legendary without the funny image of watching the developer scramble around that tiny hotel room. For Philip, it's just another crummy game and not this great story he crams into every conversation, no matter how inappropriate it is at the time. In his review, he pinpoints two big problems that keep Legendary from stacking up with the other triple-A shooters on the market: "First, it takes linear level design to the greatest extreme I've ever seen in a shooter. A single, tiny path through the short tutorial area in the halls of a museum is forgivable, but any illusion of reality shatters when main character Charles Deckard exits onto the streets of New York City ... only to have debris fall around him in just such a way that leaves only one lone, cramped passageway to the next building." Philip also hated the battles against the mythical boss creatures, the cheap deaths, the subpar graphics and the bland selection of guns. Earning a score of 3.5 out of 10, Legendary is a bad game from an inexperienced developer that would later go on to kill both the Ninja Gaiden and Lost Planet franchises. You almost have to go out of your way to do that much damage.

Castlevania Judgment

#1

Leave it to Konami to ruin both Castlevania and fighting games. When the company that gave us Contra and Metal Gear announced that they would be making a one-on-one fighter based on one of their most popular and enduring franchises, long-time fans of the Belmonts got excited. Unfortunately, that excitement was short-lived, because you could see that Castlevania Judgment was going to be about as much fun as getting a stake through the heart repeated just from looking at the very first screenshots. Somehow, things only get worse when you see this dumpster fire of a 3D fighting game in motion. This should have been yet another awesome exclusive for Nintendo's newest system, but with a D- score and four paragraphs of hate, this Konami bomb is the posterchild for what not to do on the Wii.

Richard needed more than garlic and holy water to review this newest Castlevania game: "Beyond the strange art direction, Judgment suffers from jarring mechanics that disregard established fighting game conventions. The uncompromising camera displays the action in a bizarre, disconcerting manner that tracks players in a 3D area filled with environmental hazards. And in combat, the camera's way too difficult to control. The camera isn't the only shortcoming. Character design stands at the center of every fighter -- and unfortunately for Castlevania's cast of vampires and vampire killers, Judgment leans dangerously over the edge. In the end, Castlevania Judgment is a strange misstep for the beloved series, one that Konami hopefully learns from." Given the awesome characters and the amazing art that has always gone hand-in-hand with the franchise, it's baffling that a company could make a fighting game this bad. It's one thing to publish a bunch of Hudson stinkers, but this is one of Konami's most beloved franchises. With a score of 2.5 out of 10, Castlevania Judgment clearly doesn't need any blood in order to suck.