Daemonica, Jade Empire, and Force Unleashed come to mind immediately.

Where do I vote for “Worst Profile Pic of 2009″?

You mean where do you get nominated for that? You don’t really need to. You’ve already won. =)

You didn’t like Jade Empire Alaric? I thought it was pretty decent, but then again, I was a huge fan of the KOTOR series, so I’d eat up just about anything from BioWare.

What didn’t you like?

Ryan, I don’t know, I think it was just very poorly made. Terrible graphics, laughable dialogue, truly contemptible plot with a single twist that you could see coming from a mile away. The characters were flat and boring, the enemies mostly uninspired, the locations … well you get the idea.

I love RPGs, I really do. If you noticed I’ve been bugging everyone here about Dragon Age lately. I’, hoping for a good RPG and I’m just afraid that Bioware pulled another NWN or Jade Empire / Mass Effect, the latter two being nothing but crappy clones of KotOR. Fortunately everyone seems to think that Dragon Age is closer to Baldur’s Gate than either of those. I’m actually considering buying it now.

Halo 2 was pretty bad. It was three times as bad on the PC too and I played the PC version all the way through to the end.

I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.

I can’t figure out why I liked JE lol. It wasn’t groundbreaking to be sure but at the time I think it filled my void for rpg/action. I can’t really say that Halo 2 was a disappointment because I skipped Halo but many of my gaming friends would agree. Happy New Years BTW!

Some of my picks, and they’re only from the past two years…
Hour of Victory, Two Worlds, Art of Murder:FBI Confidential, Code of Honor 2.
*Ugh*

funny, Halo 2 might be my best game of the decade. Never understood the criticism of Halo 2, but I never loved the original, thought it sucked honestly.

Wow Ryan, I’m surprised at your choice of Halo 2 as the worst of the decade. It’s no secret that I’m a huge Halo fan. Like you I enjoyed endless hours playing the original Halo with friends and eventually brought it online with Gamespy acting as a bridge to trick my Xbox and play people all over the world. Needless to say that when I heard Halo 2 would have a robust multiplayer component I was floored.

I can understand you saying that you didn’t enjoy the maps or weapon balancing but the game that you played at launch was completely different in that sense to the game that is still available today. Bungie provided countless updates to better balance the game and maps and provided us with new maps (even though we had to pay for them).

Halo 2 is the game that defined on-line multiplayer on a console. It is the game that every online console FPS game since has strived to be. Bungie themselves improved on the concept with its followup Halo 3. I can understand you being disappointed with the game since the original is so dear to you but to say it is the worst game of the decade is almost shocking (which I’m sure is why you chose it).

As for my worst game I’m not sure I could narrow it down to just one. Brute Force is up there as well as Jade Empire (which I even purchased the CE edition of). But if I had to narrow it down to something I think I would say any of the Resident Evil games of the past decade. Take your pick. I hate the controls. Actually 5 wasn’t the worst because it controlled a little better but still not a great experience.

Fanboys of Halo multiplayer should relax their reflexes a notch.

Halo 1 single-player is one of the best experiences I had during the entire decade. It was so promising, that everyone in the industry knew that a successor would be a huge succe$$ and then Bungie delivered Halo 2. Out of the box one of the worst experiences (not the worst) I’ve had in both single and multiplayer.

Then the fixes started coming out and the fans got their day in the sun after months of patches. But for the rest of us it was a little too late, we had moved on. Of course Microsoft spent huge marketing dollars to keep the game hype in the press. Gaining a growing number of fans that would pay them to play the game online. Then console pro-gaming leagues (with dollars from MSFT) came out to promote Halo multiplayer as a sport and the rest is history.

I have a few friends in the industry and not once I’ve heard a developer tell me that they strive to provide a Halo multiplayer experience, but Turks may have data that I’m not privy to. I think the most imitated multiplayer format started with Counter-Strike in 1998. Realistic weapons in realistic environments. Count the games that use that format. Most of Halo weapons are actually aligned with Quake and Doom. Alien weapons that in Quake were called: Railgun, Rocket Launcher, Plasma gun, etc.

Anyway all arguments have two sides. I like the Halo franchise, but will not continue to throw money at MSFT unless Avault tells me that the next game is worth my hard earned cash, instead I’m waiting for the release of the third iteration of one of the best franchises of the decade: God of War. Now how many games have imitated that franchise? Uncharted anyone?

If you’ve read this far and you have not played God of War, do yourself a favor go buy the bundle (God of War 1 & 2) for 30+ bucks right now, and be prepared to be wowed by how a game can be fun, have a great storyline and be graphically violent at the same time. Yes! Pull the eye of a Cyclops, decapitate your enemies or slash them with their own swords. The game makes graphic violence fun, and relevant for those that know a bit about Greek mythology.

Alaric, I respect your points. Honestly, I did think it was weaker overall when compared to the KoTOR games, but I still found plenty of enjoyment in it. I also really love Asian stuff (I mean, come on, look at my picture, I’m ghostly white, skinny and a gamer. I’m such a stereotype.) I suppose I’m in the same boat as Anthony, and I was just able to look past some of JE’s shortcomings. Shame you didn’t enjoy it.

Turks and Bill, I’m certainly not saying Halo 2 was poorly made from a design standpoint. It controlled fine, ran fine and all the basic mechanics that made the original Halo so playable were there. But the substance wasn’t. They ruined a lot of things that were my favorite aspects of the original.

For example … the weapons. In our group, we didn’t really play with alien weapons, isn’t our style, so let’s ignore those. In the original Halo, the game was finely balanced (in CTF-style, open-ended games on Blood Gulch and Sidewinder) because each weapon had a purpose. The assault rifle was your basic fall-back weapon, and excellent against overshield. The pistol was your standard weapon, excellent at medium range and great in short and long range situations. The shotgun was dominant at close range, and the sniper rifle was dominant at long range. The bazooka was a great anti-vehicle weapon that took great skill (and some hilarious luck) to utilize. In Halo 2 that was all shot to hell. The pistol was useless, the SMGs were little popcorn shooters, the battle rifle was miserable and the bazooka had a lock-on feature (seriously?). Then there was the energy sword, which took the magic out of an unexpected “whack.” It was almost like they wanted to duplicate some of the funnier moments of a good Halo match and make them more common place. I wasn’t a fan of that.

As for the levels, I never played one that was as exciting as Chiron or Chill Out. We used to have epic shotgun/no shields matches on those levels that would last hours. In fact, when I look back at all the old Halo maps, the only ones that weren’t any good were Wizard, Rat Race and Battle Creek. The rest were stellar. I can’t think of any I truly enjoyed in H2, except maybe Coagulation.

Then the single player…. Well, I honestly didn’t like the single player/co-op of Halo, it was just so miserably boring. So the fact I didn’t like Halo 2′s single player wasn’t a big let down, I didn’t expect much in the first place.

I can understand why folks love the game, as there was definitely a more robust online component available when compared to the original Halo. (I was right there on XBconnect with you Turks.) But Halo 2 didn’t really offer me anything I was terribly interested in. It’s the worst for me only in the sense that, when I think of bad gaming from these past 10 years, Halo 2 will spring to my mind well before anything truly terrible like Army Men: Green Rogue or Tomb Raider does.

Of course, right as I call out the original Halo for having a bad single player experience, the big boss praises it. I need one of those flashes from Lost so I can go back in time and rewrite that .

(Although Angel is absolutely correct when it comes to God of War. That series is magnificent!)

Angel, were you being sarcastic or did you mean it when you said that Halo single-player was one of the best experiences in this past decade? If you were serious, then … WHY?! And HOW?! Even if we pit it against other FPS titles only, did you really think that it was good? Or are you only comparing it against other console FPSs (of which I know nothing)?

You’re probably right Angel in saying that they don’t strive to deliver that same experience but can’t it be said that they want the success that Halo 2 had? I think that is why I found this to be a strange choice. Even if I throw my Halo love out the window I can’t deny that Halo 2 was the first console FPS whose online component took off. Heck it was even the first title to show that the “fanboys” would pay money to have content delivered to the living room on to their console. That is more of what I meant when I said that developers strive to be like Halo 2. Not necessarily the experience that it delivered but to have a successful online console FPS. Can you really deny Halo 2′s impact for online multiplayer on consoles? That’s why I think it’s one of the best of the decade.

Just read your comment about XBconnect Ryan. That’s hilarious! I’m sure you were one of those guys who destroyed me on CTF Blood Gulch over and over.

God of War is fantastic too as I’m learning with the GOW Collection on PS3. Like Angel said, buy it!

Man, you really think Halo 2 was the worst game of the decade? For sure the campaign portion of the game was equal parts boring and frustrating, I’d concede that any day, but I enjoyed the multiplayer. Halo 3 is far more unbalanced in multiplay and it’s Xbox Live matchmaking system sports even fewer game type choices than Halo 2. It’s many small map packs, which at first had to be purchased separately, are required to play in most game types and each came with perhaps only one good map. They cut Blood Gulch/Coagulation and brought back Sidewinder in a completely ruined form as Avalanche. Halo 3′s campaign was little, if any, improved from Halo 2. I think if either of these games was going to be the worst or most disappointing of the decade it would be Halo 3…

Way to roust ‘em up, Ryan! ;D

Halo freaks don’t like Halo 2. Halo 2 freaks don’t like Halo 3. Halo 3 freaks don’t like ODST. All a generalization of course, but the love of one game doesn’t make the sequel poor because it’s different. Halo 2 had fantastic maps and a great assortment of human AND covenant weapons. Matchmaking was fast and simple, and Big Team CTF matches were as legendary as anything I’ve ever seen in gaming multiplayer.

Turks says: “I can understand you saying that you didn’t enjoy the maps or weapon balancing but the game that you played at launch was completely different in that sense to the game that is still available today.”

Maybe this is just me speaking as a reviewer… but first impressions mean *everything*. We review the game we receive; we don’t have the time or inclination to write a new review every time the producers release a patch. I haven’t played Halo 2 because I don’t own any consoles, and the PC version is for Windows Vista or 7 only, and I’m still using Windows XP. If I were to play it NOW, I would play it with the patches, which you say really improves the game. Had I played the original game, however, it would probably be on my list of “worst games of the decade” as well (but not THE worst. I can think of plenty of other games that fit that bill better than Halo 2.)

Hahaha Andrew, I try, I try. I’m definitely enjoying all of these various opinions. I’m surprised some folks even agree with me. Good stuff.

Bill, I think your generalization is spot on. And had I not gone in to Halo 2 with “Halo Blinders” on, I might have found plenty more enjoyment in it. But as it is, I was only concerned about playing this specific title with my close buds, and none of them wanted anything to do with it either, so it got tossed aside. I spent little time online, and that part of the game might have been great, too, but at that specific time, it was SOCOM 2 or nothing when it came to online gaming in the my house. I had no desire to explore Halo 2 online, at least, judging from what I had already experienced.

Cameron, I honestly haven’t put any time into Halo 3. When it was released, the group I “halo’d” with had gone its separate ways. So unfortunately I can’t comment on it in relation to Halo or Halo 2.

I think Marcus also brings up a great point. Look at what IGN did with SOCOM: Confrontation. By all accounts the game was a mess at release, so they gave it the score it deserved at the time and stuck with it. I couldn’t agree more with the decision, even if the game is fine now.

While I didn’t review Halo 2, I can only base my opinions on the game I played at the time. As Turks suggests, it might a completely different game now, but I can only go off the experiences I had.

I gotta’ jump in on this to offer one point – and this is purely aimed at Halo 2′s single player campiagn.

I found the midpoint twist where we not only took control of the Arbiter, but also empathized with his plight (and in a way – the Covenant’s) was as ballsy a narrative move as Kojima’s 2nd act substitution of Raiden for Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2. It was gonna’ piss some people off but it was done for the greater good – to add some needed complexity to the tale.

As some games blend the barrier between cinema and home entertainment, these curveballs keep me on my toes, eager to see what’s coming next. The Arbiter, as voiced by the awesome Keith David, quickly became one of my favorite characters and if there’s one thing that annoyed me about Halo 3, it’s that Bungie listened too closely to gamer’s complaints and marginalized a compelling character in that sequel – a game I feel pales in comparison to Halo 2.

As for the multiplayer, I won’t comment because this 37 year old gamer has long grown tired of getting teabagged by 13 year old punks when gaming on X-Box Live.

But worse game of the decade? Not when you’ve played Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball. ; )

From now on, we are no longer going to post any kind of “the best of…” lists. Instead, we will do “the worst of…” They seem to generate much more discussion.

I completely agree with you Alaric. Great job Ryan in starting a great conversation. To your point Marcus, I understand that. As a reviewer myself I do agree that first impressions are everything but when I’m looking back at the whole decade I personally have to look at where the game progressed to and what its impact was on the industry during the decade. I think great examples are WOW, Burnout Paradise, and Team Fortress 2. These games were mere shells of what they would become later on in the decade. Especially since games released after them probably stole a lot of ideas from them and implemented them better compared to the other games initial release. Personally I can’t deny them what they became when making a decision based on 10 years of games. Enough with that though because in the end it’s personal opinion and I respect it.

I thought of another game that I think was worst than my initial choice for the Resident Evil games and that’s Perfect Dark Zero. When the 360 released this game was paraded around by MS as being the next big shooter on the console and I remember all the buzz about how the Halo killer was finally here. Unfortunately it didn’t even come close. The game had forgetable characters, a weak story, and weapons that at first glance appeared to be amazing but they performed horribly and were very unbalanced. The controls were shotty at best and the multiplayer, well lets just say it was not that great of an online experience. Post launch there was nothing that could be done to save the game with patches. MS and Rare just took the shame and went on to make…Viva Pinata. There it is, I’ve made up my mind, Perfect Dark Zero was the worst game of last decade.

Turks – You are on to something. The original Perfect Dark was an ambitious console FPS whose home (the N64) couldn’t really contain it. The sequel arrives on the powerhouse 360 and was supposed to be the reason behind M$ courtship of the beloved Rare and it landed with a complete thud.

I think Perfect Dark Zero is easily my most disappointing game of the last decade simply because it failed on so many levels that its predecessor excelled at.

Thanks Turks. And as Ed mentioned, you’re certainly on to something. I think we can all agree that Perfect Dark: Zero was a major disappointment. That game was bad.

I respectfully disagree, Halo 2 may have been bad, but Halo 3 is far worse.

Perfect Dark Zero was the only game I bought at launch. By 8pm that night, I was playing Hexic – which came preloaded on the hard drive. ’nuff said.

Wow Turks, good call. My legendary story of traveling out to a media truck in the middle of nowhere to play Perfect Dark in an empty parking lot tells you how much I loved Perfect Dark and how much I wanted Zero to rule. Um, I still haven’t played Zero, and I’m still waiting for Rare….

Blah! on the whole concept of judging a game based on it’s “impact on the industry.” For example Perfect Dark Zero sold over a million copies and was one of the first games to be re-released under the “Platinum Hits” list. That’s impacting… oh and taking a sampling from all the “major industry sites” Perfect Dark Zero received generally positive reviews. It got a 9.0 at GameSpot, which claimed that it “championed the Xbox 360 with its excellent assortment of single and multiplayer game types, as well as its incredible good looks and dynamic, intense action”. IGN gave Perfect Dark Zero an 8.4, and 1UP an 8.1. Metacritic’s review average for the game is 81% based on 75 reviews, and GameRankings’s review average is also 81%, based on 97 reviews.

My point? The great thing about the Adrenaline Vault is that we don’t play by industry rules. Our writers (or podcasters) should not care about the “impact a game had on the industry.” What matters to me, as Avault’s publisher, is only what our reviewers think of a game. If an Avault writer thinks a popular game with a huge fan base is the worst of the decade, then so be it. We certainly don’t have to agree, but we should not have to use arguments based on third party speculations that have nothing to do with the writer’s own experience.

That’s hilarious Ed! I know my wife and I did the same thing. The next day I went out and purchased Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 2. Maybe Infinity Ward owes a lot of their success to Rare and MS for making Perfect Dark so bad that the over one million people who bought it also purchased and fell in love with the Call of Duty series. HA!

I think that’s why we’re all here Angel. We all undestand that Avault does not play by the rules and love it. We have one of the most diverse communities on the net. I just hope that Ryan lives up to his New Years resolution and keeps his blog posts coming because this one has drummed up a great discussion.

Yeah, and I also like how this large response thread hasn’t turned into one of those argumentative cat fights you normally see on the web. Strong opinions are being intelligently explained and counterpoints offered, what a concept! Thanks Ryan for starting this great conversation.

@Alaric…No love for Mass Effect? Probably one of the better games of all time.

Isaac, WHAT?! How exactly was Mass Effect one of the better games of all time? What specifically was good about it? It was just a remake of KotOR with different alien models and no lightsabers. Everything else was identical. Even having to run across your own ship for 10 minutes just to talk to your crew.

Maybe you liked the dialogue? It’s really nice having being able to chose between such varied and intricate courses of conversation as [Mother Theresa], [Inanimate Object], and [Hitler].

If not that, then it must have been the overwhelming overabundance of FedEx quests that struck your fancy? Nothing quite like taking item A and bringing it to scumbag B to earn experience. Not sure exactly what it was that I experienced while doing it, but it was worth points apparently.

Could it have possibly been the fact that you had to run 1083248957 times between two characters standing in different corners of the same room in order for them to have a conversation? It’s kind of funny how of a whole bunch of advanced, space faring civilizations not one managed to develop cell phones of some sort.

No, wait, I know! It was the exploration of generic planets, with the same bloody building on all of them that you felt was marvelous role-playing?

Anyway, in all seriousness, I’m only being sarcastic because I’ve had this conversation dozens of times, and so far nobody was able to pinpoint exactly what is so good about this game. If you can, please do so, I’d be interested in hearing it.

@ Alaric: For one, opinions on games are like opinions on movies and books and are subjective to the player. My experience with Mass Effect I like to attribute to a great book you cant put down. From the moment I started it to the moment it ended it was an amazing experience I didn’t want to end, and when I wasn’t playing it, it was all I could think about.

Mass Effect to me was great game, and based on its “91″ rating on metacritic its not a stretch to say most others would agree with me. I try not to nitpick on annoying details as long as its great gameplay and a great story which I would say it was on both.

I also loved KOTOR as well, but ME is no clone of that, and I am highly anticipating the soon to be released Mass Effect 2.

Hmm… well… good for you I suppose. =) I’m happy that you are happy, but personally I found both the gameplay and the story to be pretty generic. To me at was like a book that I could and would put down. (I took a months-long break between starting and finishing Mass Effect.) As to the Metacritic score, those mean nothing. If I’m permitted to use OmegaBob’s™ favorite argument, “Just because the masses loved Titanic doesn’t make it the best movie of all time.” I do agree with you though, it’s a matter of taste and therefore subjective.

You guys know you are following in the footsteps of the great Amiga Power

While I would not call it the worst in terms of play because there was so much worse but based on never realized hype, oh yeah but Doom 3 came pretty damn close for the same reasons.

Funny thing is I bought every Halo and hated every one of them. From level design to vehicle controls I just hated it.

This is the worse game I have ever seen and is worse than Big Rigs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfV2OzEHwg

Alaric: My reasons are entirely subjective. As you know Halo was released in November 2001. It was the first coop game that Alexander (my then 6 year old son) and I played together. We probably played it ten times on all difficulty levels.

But beyond the bonding experience, Halo single-player did have some great highlights: the introduction of a halo type planet supporting life in a low gravity environment, the solo cyborg hero plot line (actually borrowed from a previous cool game – Crusader: No Remorse), the AI that needed a main frame system to interact and exist, the plot twist of battling the covenant type enemies to be surprised by an entire new class of physically deformed enemies: the flood. The levels that allowed some creative solutions (like being able to steal a banshee on a bridge to bypass the entire snow ground level). The music, one of the best and most memorable of any game. The secret ending when finishing the game in legendary.

But most of all I remember that while originally playing Halo I felt sorry for Master Chief, he was a faceless hero that was not entirely human and was seen as on oddity by the troops around him, but still he battled humanity’s worst enemies and put himself in harm’s way for us. Of course all this got watered down in the sequels that relentlessly sought the lowest possible denominator and focused exclusively on mass appeal. That’s one of the reasons Halo 2 was such a disappointment for me.

It is extremely fitting that AVault names a FPS as the worst game of the decade!

Just like Half-Life 1 was the worst game ever made (up until 1999), Halo 2 will now join its craptastical ranks! Kudos for the pick!

Actually we all know what the worst games ever are. Everyone here is just too chicken to actually say it. Well, I certainly am.

Do it alaric!!… say it!… and in my opinion halo 2 is not the best game I’ve ever played. I never owned it so I only ever got to play the campaign on coop with a friend. So to me memories of halo 2 mean spending time with mates as well which could well cloud my judgement however i thought it was well made and well rounded as a game!

to me the worst game of the decade is wave racer on the gamecube. I got that game because a lot of people recommended it to me however at no point did i feel that the controls were actually reacted to my commands with less than a half second delay.. even compared to last generations games i felt that the graphics were poor. It was such a dissapointment for me that put a chink in my nintendo fanboy armour!

ps ive been coming to this site literally every day since years before the overhaul… so i thought that at long last i’d comment on a post!!

Hahaha Chip, I can’t decide if the actual content of the game, or the lyrics of the song make that video. It’s all so fantastic.

Thanks everyone for the amazing discussion! I’m interested in hearing what Alaric is eluding to, though.

P.S. Eat something and put a shirt on!

Alaric, does the game you allude to rhyme with Fall Faspect Farfare,hahaha?

Umm… No comment.

Great news, Angus! I’m in receipt of a new pic, and Ryan does indeed own a shirt. Be on the lookout for it later this afternoon. Unless ofcourse the masses would prefer the series of shots he sent to go into the Avault calendar?

Hahaha oh yeah, plenty of shirtless pics out there that I can provide. Just ask Angus.

WOOOO

[EDIT]LOL! “Error: Your comment is too short. Please try to say something useful.” NOT BLOODY LIKELY! [/EDIT]

Really, guys, a discussion of the worst game of the last ten years with absolutely no mention at all of Mage Knight Apocalypse? Awful controls, little to no AI, crappy weapons, a camera that was programmed by a lobotomised giraffe? Also no mention of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor? Jaws Unleashed? Left Behind: Eternal Forces?

I think the article and subsequent discussion reads more along the lines of the most disappointing games of all time. A competently made game that just doesn’t live up to a gamer’s expectations can hardly be called a bad game, in my opinion.

Still, kudos to Ryan for sparking off a lively, interesting discussion.

Deon: You make an excellent point. It seems that we are discussing the most disappointing games versus the worst game of the decade.

I can’t believe I forgot Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. That was arguably the worst game ever. AND it formatted people’s hard drives.

Worst game catagory, Superman 64, yikes.

No, sir. No. Sonic the Hedgehog IS the worst video game of the decade.
In fact, I find it laughable that rat’s “”fans”" really think it’s making a comeback- all of the games since then that I have played at least are not all that better. And then I come to find out almost all before weren’t too good either despite what “purists” claim, only that “Adventure 2 Battle” one being of any real interest to me. Sonic should have gone the way of Bubsy. Hopefully it will.

Other than that, Big Rigs and Drake of the Ninety Nine Dragons came up as being complete crap to me, alongside some less than stellar floppers that found their way straight to GameTrader upon release. There was this one game based on those fisher guys from the History Channel. They were big about six years back but have since faded into obscurity, and there was this game that was made that I thought was borderline unplayable and perhaps the worst concept I’ve ever heard.