When “craptacular” doesn’t quite cover it! 5 games which really failed to hit the mark.

You know the drill, there’s a game in the works that you’ve been waiting to be released for ages, the buzz around its release reaches fever pitch proportions, then it comes out and it’s a smash hit! Well, for every such title, the video game industry has served us up just as many duds that manage to achieve precisely the opposite of the above.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at 5 absolute stinkers of games that failed in truly epic fashion!

Contents:

1. Superman: The New Superman Adventures

2. Fast and Furious: Crossroads

3. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5

4. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

5. Redfall

Superman: The New Superman Adventures

We kick things off this week by taking a trip back to the late 1990s with a title that’ll be familiar to connoisseurs of sup-par games the world over, Superman: The New Superman Adventures (or Superman 64 as it’s more commonly known).

Whilst few can deny that the prospect of unleashing your inner “Man of Steel” and kicking the dastardly Lex Luthor’s butt seems like a tantalising prospect on paper, Superman 64, unfortunately, failed to deliver on pretty much every count. 

Despite being showcased at E3 no fewer than 3 times (1997, 1998 & 1999), as well as receiving some positive press coverage during development, Superman 64 was utterly panned by critics for its unresponsive controls, technical flaws, repetitive gameplay, overuse of distance fog, as well as its poor graphics, and has since long been regarded as one of the worst video games of all time.

Given that it had already been delayed by 18 months when it eventually came out, it does make you wonder what they were doing all that time as they clearly weren’t fixing this hunk of junk!

Fast and Furious: Crossroads

It’s time to shift things up a gear and shift our attention to the world of racing games now with this week’s second title, Fast & Furious: Crossroads.

Whilst nobody was expecting this title to reinvent the wheel (no pun intended), as it had shameless “Need For Speed” clone with Fast & Furious branding written all over it, the end game was so even duller than a front row seat at the world paint dry championship.

Although they did manage to get the likes of Vin Diesel to lend their likenesses and voices to the game, a toxic combination of terrible handling, yawn-inducing gameplay and thoroughly underwhelming, dated graphics meant the Crossroads went from 0-flop faster than a Bugatti Veyron can crack 100 km/h.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5

To say that nobody was expecting miracles ahead of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5’s release would be the understatement of the century. 

The emergence of new competitors such as EA’s Skate, with its intuitive innovative “flick-it” controls, as well as the fact developer Robomodo had seemingly been doing their very best to undermine everything that made the original THPS games so great with the release of titles like much-maligned THPS RIDE, meant a game bearing the Birdman’s name wasn’t the draw it once was back in 2015.

That being said, Robomodo really managed to outdo themselves with this one. THPS5 was developed in just a matter of months due to licensing issues and it shows as the clunky controls, uninspiring gameplay, poor level design, as well as the fact this game is glitch city, led to this title getting absolutely panned by the critics.

Luckily, Activision learned their lesson and got Vicarious Visions to help out with 2020’s remaster of the first two games, which was an absolute smash hit.

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

While Middle Earth has served as the background for a number of enjoyable games down the years, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum most certainly wasn’t one of them.

Whilst the basic idea behind this game, i.e. you control Gollum as he traverses Middle Earth in search of Bilbo Baggins and the “precious”, seemed appealing, unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired. In addition to the perceived downgrading of Gollum’s character model from pre-release footage, this title also attracted criticism for its dull mission design, which meant variety was in short supply and made completing this game feel like an absolute slog.

What’s more, bugs and stability were also heavily prevalent in this game, with one publication initially being unable to review this game until the release of a day-one patch due to persistent crashes.

Redfall

Last but not least, we round things off this week with some FPS action in the shape of Redfall, which was released at the start of last month.

Given the sheer amount of FPS games on the market nowadays, the one thing which such a title needs to do to stand out from the crowd is bring something a little different to the part. Unfortunately, however, Redfall, which sees you battle human and vampire enemies, didn’t manage to accomplish this.

Despite pushing back Redfall’s release to May 2023, Arkane Studios didn’t appear to put the extra time to good use as the end result was an uninspiring, looter shooter which felt unfinished and was besieged by utterly woeful AI.