The gaming industry sees quite a lot of exciting, new releases every year. But just like any other industries, it’s still got its fair share of bad apples amidst the ripened ones. While we’re still fortunate to be blessed with some very good games this year, there are some stinkers worth being mentioned that you definitely should avoid.
Considering we’re halfway into the year already, let’s review and see just how bad the gaming market had been by looking over what we consider to be the worst gaming titles in 2019 thus far. Some of these games are worser than others, but in the grander scheme of thing, you shouldn’t touch any of these titles with a ten yard stick.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
Sniper Elite V2 Remastered
It’s a damn shame that such an iconic title turned out this way. The original was released in 2012 and it was an extremely good entry into the action - stealth genre back in the day. In the past few years, there had been some new instalments in the series that got quite a lot of opportunities to improve the experience. With the remastered version of the classic game, the developers have truly found their chance of bettering the game. Nonetheless, it just serves to show just how badly the original V2 has aged.
If you’re looking for a similar stalking and sniping experience, there are far more better games out there that can give you what you need.
Anthem
BioWare was once one of the top dogs of the gaming industry with the infamous Mass Effect series, and it is simply painful to see it going down in infamy following the release of Anthem. The game did have a lot of great concepts on paper, however, horrible executions made all of the plannings and conceptualising for naught.
The flight mechanics actually feel great, but that’s the only thing about the game that the developers can actually be accredited for doing correctly. Other than that, the missions are repetitive and without any vibrancy. The game shows a visible lack of contents and polish. The combat system felt as if it was an afterthought rather than a major part of the game itself. Down to the narrative and player-to-player social elements are done halfway and without substance.
The game clearly shows a lot of potentials. But sadly, all of them were not caught on by the developers.
The Lego Movie 2 Videogame
Every year, the Lego series of TT Games followed the same formula, and in spite of that, it’s been pretty effective for the series and the company. But there’s a breaking point when the formula wears thin, and that breaking point is The Lego Movie 2 Videogame. The unappealing combat system, a dull open world, and chaotic narration are just a couple of problems that can be observed in this disaster of a game.
Layers of Fear 2
Out of all of the game genres, horror is probably the hardest to properly pull off. While anger, excitement, frustration, sadness, and love are easy emotions to pull out of players, it is not easy to get fear right.
The first Layers of Fear did it correctly, in fact, too correctly. Daresay it is one of the best horror games of its kind. But the successor Layers of Fear 2 is a complete disappointment in comparison to the original. Rather than deviating from common horror tropes that had scared us so much in the first game, this one feels like a rushed checklist that raced to cross out as much cliche horror devices as possible. The developers wield badly written and presented horror scenes at the player like grenades, and the entire game just shows a disappointing lack of creativity that serves to bore veteran horror players instead of giving that rush of adrenaline.
There are a couple of sights and sounds that are indeed interesting and amusing to see. But unfortunately, that’s the only good thing I can give them game’s credits for.
Fade to Silence
Fade to Silence is not a complete train wreck and still with its own merits. However, the things that are actually commendable about the games are all abstract ideas that were poorly executed, or not work at all. For a survival game, the survival mechanism is extremely limited (Which is already a dead giveaway). Technical issues plagued it from the launch up until now, and the open world that the developers promised to be expansive and teeming with contents is just uninspired and broken.
Just like similar failures before it and on this list, Fade to Silence holds in its hand some very interesting ideas, but it did not do them justice.
Left Alive
Before the game actually launched, there was a substantial amount of hype surrounding Left Alive. The stealth focused gameplay, the narrative focused campaign, and pretty great conceptual arts made by Yoji Shinkawa, the game actually looked like a promising replica of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear and could have been very well received.
That’s not the dream scenario for the developers, however. It’s a long way from the extremely polished and detailed world of Hideo Kojima. Gameplay was lazily done and unoriginal, as well as a pile of issues that the game could not help but be bogged down with. You’re far better off just leaving this game where it is: On the shelf and untouched.
Jump Force
Just like Left Alive, Jump Force brewed quite a cloud of hype when it was first announced at E3. Catchy characters in a crossover fighter game with explosive and eye-pleasing combat? Quite a lot of people signed up for the game. Yet in reality it’s far from being the game that it promised during the presentation.
One thing about this game is that even though the combat is very entertaining, it is offset considerably by bland storyline and repetitive combat. Everything comes together to form a totally disappointing affair.
Xenon Racer
The racing genre doesn’t have a lot of appetite for arcade racers, dominated primarily by simulation games that aim to deliver the most realistically looking cars and most physics compliant driving and handling mechanics. From the very start, Xenon Racer looks like a rocky title to begin with. Although it should be given credit for bravely trying to go against the trend, bad AI programming and strange, finicky controls more or less killed the game.
FIMBUL
Things could have gone very well for FIMBUL. It has stunning visual, the setting of the game is quite engaging with a decent blend of Norse mythology and a well written plot line. But alas, everything else are big letdowns. From the lacklustre combat mechanic, to the fiddly and messy camera, as well as an entire list of bugs that is too long to be written down. This, coupling with a rather short experience makes the game an overall failure in spite of the fact that it actually showed half-baked promises.
The Grand Tour Game
There are plenty of games adapted from TV shows and films. But from what we have seen in all of those years, only a small fraction of these titles actually prosper. Unfortunately, the Grand Tour Game is not one of these games. It’s a strange concoction of bad ideas mixed together with the episodic structure of the original TV series. But the thing that destroys the game in general is that even though it is a game, it lacks gaming. The Grand Tour Game is half-baked and constricting, transforming into a title that relies mostly on fan service and little else.
R.B.I. Baseball 19
If you’re a fan of baseball, unless you want to have an excuse to hate and leave the sport then pick up anything else but this calamity of a title. Stick with the classics like MLB The Game. If you don't have a PlayStation, pick up anything else but this. This thing lacks completely soul and substance. It is dull, boring, down to the mechanics that are not at all engaging to the player. There aren’t much to actually do in the game, either. All in all, in term of a baseball simulation game, look elsewhere. Anything is better than this.
Our World Is Ended
Even in the title, you can see that there’s something peculiarly strange about the game. After all, there aren’t a lot of games that actually went out of its way to put a period at the end of the title, either, like Our World Is Ended. It would be great if the peculiarity of the game translates to a new, amazing gaming experience.
That’s not the case, as you must have been expecting. There’s a long litany of problems that break down the game into a disappointing mess. But the worst thing has got to be the narrative that makes use of unjustifiable offensive jokes and storyline devices used shamelessly and excessively. It tried to field the art-style of visual novel, but not only it flat out did not work, it just served to exaggerate further its faults instead of getting players to look the other way.
Pumped BMX Pro
What’s the common saying again?
Yeah, never judge a book by its cover.
Though in this case, you should take a look at its cover and heed the warning from the very start. It was clear from the very beginning that this is a game that you would want to stay far, far from. For such a sport game that requires an extremely accurate and natural control scheme, Pumped BMX Pro failed at that most basic requirement. The depth of its mechanic and technical aspects don’t even go deep enough for it to be considered as a successful game in term of concept.
Warparty
There are no other genres that respect mechanical aspect of game design and atop all else, strategic depth. Somehow, for being a RTS game, Warparty missed on both counts. The game lacks an overwhelming amount of sophistication in its design and filled with different issues that should make anyone even remotely passionate about strategic game avoid at all costs. Uneven and unbalanced AI, technical issues such as pathfinding damaged playability considerably.
It is not a horrible game, yet it is not exactly stellar for you to be excited about.
Feather
Feather - true to its name - revolves entirely around moving a bird on a serene flight path across a beautifully made environment. The gameplay experience is quite therapeutic and the art style cannot be faulted. Yet, there aren’t a lot of things that you can actually do in the game.
The gameplay can be experienced from top to bottom in under or around one hour depends on how you play it. And while I am pretty sure that most players come to the game for a peaceful experience, it doesn’t worth at all the price point that the developers branded it with.