I’ve played a ton of games in 2016, and beat more games than your average gamer.
With titles ranging from 1987 through 2013, spanning 13 different home consoles, I’ve
experienced plenty of gaming greatness.
However, I’ve also experience some pretty lousy games.
So on today’s episode of 5 games I present My Top 5 Worst Games of 2016.
Coming in at number 5 is Finding Nemo.
On the surface, one should expect a game like Finding Nemo to be a cash grab, licensed game,
bargain bin fodder.
However, it was developed by the folks at Traveller’s Tales, who have developed some
awesome games dating back to the 16-bit era like the excellent Toy Story, up to the modern
era, with a never ending stream of Lego games.
However, Finding Nemo was not a high point for Traveller’s Tales.
First, the game is structured like a platformer, with linear level design, simple attacks,
and a hint of puzzle solving, rather than an adventure game, with a wide open 3D ocean
to explore.
Unfortunately, the water levels in most platformers kind of suck.
And that is all you are going to find, in Finding Nemo.
The result is a platformer, without platforming, which is about as dreadful as it sounds.
At times, Finding Nemo does contain some clever puzzles to solve, some fun gameplay where
you have to utilize two characters with different abilities to progress, and some challenging
gameplay where you need to maneuver your way through water currents obstructing your path.
But a majority of the game is boring levels posing little challenge or fun, and a large
helping of chase levels which are far more tedious than entertaining.
While the controls are responsive, and the graphics occasionally above average, there
is little here to appeal a child, let alone a fan of 3D platformers.
Finding Nemo is far from the worst game I’ve ever played, but in 2016, it ranks near the
bottom.
Number 4 brings us to the infamous CD-i.
While I personally think the system is way over bashed, there is also little doubt there
is a lot of suspect software available for the system.
But I’ve never played the Zelda games.
Instead, let us take a gander at different product from the 1990’s, full motion video
games.
Chaos Control was released in 1995, well after the CD-i had been deemed a failure, and was
also available on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
However, as the CD-i is a considerably weaker system, it does require the digital video
cartridge, making the cost of entry quite high.
Getting the positives out of the way, Chaos Control features some great voice acting,
decent animation and CGI.
Even better, the controls are pretty responsive with the CD-i mouse.
Unfortunately, this is still a basic Full Motion Video shooter, where you shoot designated
spots on the movie playing in the background.
Being an FMV game, sprite work will cover up the enemies embedded on the video, which
looks goofy as hell.
This also means after you defeat a wave of enemies, or a boss, you are just stuck watching
the rest of the video play out, not exactly engaging gameplay.
This isn’t a terribly difficult game either, and I beat it on just my second try.
I do appreciate the high production values, decent set pieces, and I also feel the mouse
is the preferred input for these FMV rail shooters, but at the end of the day, there
is a reason FMV rail shooters don’t exist anymore.
They just aren’t very satisfying.
Clocking in at Number 3 is Zathura, available for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
If you’re not familiar with Zathura, it is the spiritual sequel to the highly successful
film Jumanji.
While I can’t speak for the quality of the film, I can tell you Zathura the video game
is pretty underwhelming.
At it’s heart, Zathura is a third person action game with some platforming elements.
Unfortunately, it fails in almost every way.
There are a variety of different ammunition types to collect and fire, but the enemies
don’t seem to have a weakness, making experimenting with the different ammunition a fruitless
endeavour.
Speaking of firing at enemies, the targeting system often fails to target the appropriate
enemy, the enemies themselves take far too long to go down, and the melee combat is bad.
So as a whole, Zathura fails at action.
It also fails at being adventure game, or a 3D platformer.
While the controls are smooth and responsive, the levels are linear without anywhere to
explore, and few tricky areas test your platforming prowess.
While there is some variety to the set-pieces, these don’t change up the gameplay sufficiently
enough to ever prevent the entire ordeal from being a boring, repetitive, waste of time.
However, the biggest problem with Zathura is the game simply never changes from the
moment you fire it up, to the moment the credits roll.
Simply run through the same looking corridors over and over while firing at the same enemies,
over and over.
It’s boring, it’s tedious, and is probably best avoided.
The Number 2 spot belongs to Bionicle.
This one was developed by the folks at the now defunct Argonaut, who gained world-wide
acclaim with the beloved Star Fox for the Super Nintendo.
Unfortunately, Bionicle doesn’t even come close to capturing the charm and talent the
company once possessed, and really shows how far Argonaut fell before finally going bellow
up.
Nearly everything about this game is bad.
The graphics look ok on the surface, but the frame rate drops dramatically whenever there
are practical effects on the screen.
The targeting system works ok, but is marred by a camera that lags behind the action, or
points at the ground when there are enemies in the air.
While there is a deep Bionicle universe with a ton of characters, history, and movies,
the story found here in the game, is a mess.
Instead of using clips from the films, Argonaut made their own CG and not only is it below
average, half of it seems to be missing as the story is impossible to follow, with key
plot elements not being explained, at all.
But worst of all, the game is insanely short, with just a handful of levels.
The game attempts to play like a contemporary 3D platformer, with snowboarding levels and
minecarts, but what are normally diversions in better games, end up being entire levels
here.
There is even a chase sequence, which seems to be a hallmark feature in crummy licensed
games.
While I appreciate how Argonaut tried to give each of the Toa there own thing to do, the
whole experience ends up feeling half finished and half assed.
This brings us to the worst game I’ve played this year, which happens to be Pinball for
the CD-i.
Games like this are how the CD-i earned it’s reputation for being one of the worst consoles
ever.
Pinball is quite simply, a joke.
The flippers were clearly designed by someone who had never actually played pinball.
They face downwards, do not move the pinball in any sort of realistic way, and are somehow
not the worst aspect of the game.
That would be the actual tables.
There are 4 tables to choose from and each is somehow worse than the last.
There are no modes to activate at all, and very few goals or objectives to complete.
They are also terribly designed, and again appear to be created by someone who had never
actually played pinball on an actual pinball table.
Your flipper can run out of energy and stop working, holes in the playfield and poorly
placed bumpers, assure your pinball will almost constantly drain, which make for an extremely
poor game of pinball.
In short, playing Pinball does not feel like playing pinball, which is kind of the point
of a Pinball game.
The presentation is equally terrible, with some of the saddest looking graphics I’ve
ever seen in a home console game.
I find baffling someone actually got paid to do the art in this game, and I’m using
the word art rather loosely.
The sound effects are equally awful, featuring very basic sound effects, and no music during
the actual gameplay.
In short, Pinball for the CD-i offers no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and is easily the worst
game I’ve played in 2016.
So there you have it, the top 5 worst games I played in 2016.
Of course, these are not the worst games of all time, and I’m sure all of you have games
you absolutely hated during 2016.
So be sure to leave a comment and let me some of the worst games you played this year.