N-Europe Needs You! Worst GameCube Games

[Emerald Emblem]

Sonic DX was undoubtedly one of the biggest piles of garbage on the cube. God, god awful voice acting, gameplay, level design, graphics - the lot. Compared to Sonic Battle Adventure 2, it was as if someone had just thrown up and served it inside a game case.

I find this quite the over exaggeration. Best voice acting in any Sonic game to date if you ask me. I find tonnes of replay value and enjoyment in it. The graphics I can agree with though, apart from the playable characters the graphics remained the same as on the dreamcast when there was more potential improvement in the graphics for the whole game, I also agree that one or two levels were poorly designed and the game had it's share of glitches. There have been worse games on the GC than SADX.

[Cube]

And Cube, c'mon you know Sunshine was a good game it just didn't quite live up to your expectations that's all.

 

My expectations weren't exactly high...

[Dyson]

Pokemon Colosseum, ouch.

[Tellyn]

Pokemon Colosseum, ouch.

 

That's been in my possession for more than a year and I still haven't played it due to memory card storage issues. Well the card I got off /nando/ recently has loads of blocks, so I suppose I should start it soon.

[Hellfire]

My expectations weren't exactly high...

 

I'm sorry, but no, just no. As wrong as this would sound in another context, your opinion is wrong.

[Ellmeister]

I liked sonic heroes!

 

Sonic riders however

 

I also liked shadow the hedgehog. I am one of the people that don't have any particularly bad games in my collection, just weak ones.

 

The charlie's angels one looks rubbish.

 

Was P.S.N.03 that bad? I thought it looked quite good!

[Patch]

The problem here is that most people don't buy TERRIBLE games, so can't really list anything other than the weakest games we have in our collection.

 

Agreed. I don't own any bad Gamecube games. I have some that are average, but I wouldn't call them 'the worst Gamecube games'.

[Girly hiyaz!~ Gamer]

"Metroid" Prime 2: Echo's

 

 

I also hear Batman Dark Tomorrow was reaaaaaaaaaally bad.

[mcj metroid]

officialy charlie's angels is the worst.. The game was so bad sony wouln't allow it on the ps2.

 

But in my experience sonic heroes was dire.

 

"Metroid" Prime 2: Echo's

 

 

I also hear Batman Dark Tomorrow was reaaaaaaaaaally bad.

 

you haven't played many gamecube games have you?

 

From what I've played, it's a draw between Turok Evolution, Super Mario Sunshine and Reign of Fire.

 

.......oh dear

[The Bard]

Some fucking idiotic suggestions.

 

Die Hard Vendetta was appalling.

[dan-likes-trees]

What do you mean? Charlies Angels got rave reviews!:

 

 

(Skip forward to 1.30 and watch, most amusing)

 

In all seriousness though, I can't think of any GC games i bought which id call awful... thats what you get for reading reviews i suppose. There were disappointments though, Starfox Assault springing to mind, or Starfox Adventures.

[mcj metroid]

haha ubisoft strikes again:)

[Ten10]

Well I don't think I have any stinkers in my collection, but from playing games at other people places I would say:

 

Anything with Beyblade in it

Anything with Hotwheels in it

True crime --- sorry sucked

Also never played but probably wouldn't need to Pokemon channel

 

Also I think you guys should do a unsung heroes one too. For that I vote homeland.

[Josh64]

18 Wheeler.

You go at 5 miles and hour, to do a level that lasts 2 minutes, of which there are 4 levels. When you complete the game, its back to the start screen.

No fun can be had with the game.

WaveRace also sucked IMO, I don't see why people like it so much.

[mcj metroid]

WaveRace also sucked IMO, I don't see why people like it so much.

 

i agree with this. Besides oh so amazing water effects(which actually aren't that amazing) It's sich a bore fest gamecube launch and no gamecube launch.. BUUUT i tend to hate all realistic racing games so i'll lt this pass(Even though i'd hardly call it realistic)

It's hardly the worst gamecube game.

[blender]

games are only bad when you pay too much for them. I am not going to complain about a fifa game that cost me 97p. But I will complain about metroid which was a borefest and cost me 39.99

 

fifa 2002 > metroid

[killer kirby]

All Harry Potter games

[mcj metroid]

games are only bad when you pay too much for them. I am not going to complain about a fifa game that cost me 97p. But I will complain about metroid which was a borefest and cost me 39.99

 

fifa 2002 > metroid

you casual casual gamer.

[mr_bogus]

dan-likes-trees: That video's convinced me. Charlie's Angels is officially a stinker.

 

Time for some impressions that are longer than 1 sentence saying "i hated that game", methinks.

 

PART 1: GAMES THAT WERE JUST PLAIN CRAP.

The ones which would probably have been better off buried in the Nevada desert.

 

Spyro Enter The Dragonfly

Ths only gamecube game I ever returned the same day I got it. This looked like an inexperienced development team got hold of a big license and had no idea what to do with it. From the frontend menu it started hindering you, with unintuitive layout, strange buttons for navigation, and "WTF?!" loading times. The game itself looked like it had some good ideas, but were poorly executed in a very repetitive way, with awkward controls and an erratic framerate.

The next in the series, Spyro: A Hero's Tail, developed by Eurocom, was a great return to form for the series with smooth gameplay, great dialog and story, nice music & sound, and interesting scenery.

 

Goldeneye: Rogue Agent

This game does not even deserve much of a writeup. Groin gnawingly repetitive scenery, bad AI, illogical level layout, bad sound (apart from the title screen music), disjointed levels, bad quality cutscene videos, you name it. There are 4 Bond games on the cube. Do yourself a favour, play one of the other 3 instead.

 

Buffy: Chaos Bleeds

After the enjoyable "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" on Xbox, this should have been a game to look forward to. Unfortunately, it has repetitive gameplay, awkward controls, repetitive gameplay, last-gen 3D models & facial expressions, repetitive gameplay, and repetitive gameplay. It also has repetitive gameplay. Seriously, you will fight the same enemy over and over and over again, ad nauseum. Oh, and Willow looks like Cilla Black (make of that what you will).

 

PART 2: GAMES THAT FELL HORRIBLY SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS

These are based mostly on opinion - games I'd been looking forward to, but felt dissapointed on actually playing. Possibly not candidates for this list, since despite bad design decisions, they were still developed with effort and quality.

 

The Incredibles

After seeing the excellent movie, this seemed like a fun way to relive scenes from the film and enjoy using the characters' various abilities. What I didn't realise was that these were scattered out in an unforgivingly balanced game, which, the further you played, showed more and more signs of rushed development. I can't even remember the number of times you had to fight that metal sphere, each incarnation containing even more frustratingly elaborate attack patterns than the last. Apparently some kid got arrested for murdering his baby brother after playing The Incredibles. All I can say is that, with the level of frustration brought on by that game, I'm not one bit surprised.

 

Super Monkey Ball 2

Super Monkey Ball was, and still is, in my opinion, one of the most fun and original games of its generation. After playing that game to death, I was very excited to try the sequel, despite warnings from multiple friends about it being a lot more punishing than the first.

 

How right they were. Within a couple of hours of playing, I realised that Super Monkey Ball 2 must have been designed by a complete sadist. The game constantly goes out of its way to be as little fun as possible, works against you at every given opportunity, and uses certain mechanics for absolutely no reason other than to annoy the player. What is the point of starting a level by having to turn around and roll backwards, to hit a switch which makes the platforms slow down to a usable speed? There is no challenge here, only an extra frustrating chore every time you fall off and restart the level. This is one of many examples of how the game constantly works against the player to hinder the flow of the game.

 

Metroid Prime 2

This one hurt. This one hurt a lot. Being a great Metroid fan, I couldn't wait to try the second in the Prime series, after the amazing experience that was MP1. To describe what was wrong with MP2, I'd like to begin with what made its predecessor so great. The first Metroid Prime had pretty scenery, one of the most atmospheric soundtracks in gaming history, gameplay balanced with a fine tooth comb, and playing it had a constant feeling of the game helping you along, wanting you to explore and rewarding you for discovery.

Metroid Prime 2 was designed to constantly hinder your progress, and if you put down the game for more than 1 day you would have no idea where you were. The goals were very vague, with no feeling of why you're actually doing what you're doing, and the only scenery that stood out was in the Sanctuary Fortress (the last section in the game, by which time a lot of players would have given up). Add to this an easily forgettable soundtrack, forced backtracking along the longest routes possible, and almost all of the scenery repeated in a dark world which, until almost the end of the game, constantly damaged the player every time they attempted to adventure off the expected path.

 

PART 3: TITLES THAT SUFFERED FROM LAZY GAMECUBE PORTS

The Saturn suffered from it, and the PS3 is currently getting a few of these. Games which were made on another system, and a quick port churned out without any apparent care whatsoever, dropping any features or graphical effects that didn't just work off the bat.

 

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

Allow me to begin by saying that the game itself is not at all bad. In fact, the original PS2 version was great fun, especially in co-op. The cube conversion, however, is filled with frustrating slowdown, which should not happen on a machine almost 1.5 times as powerful as the original hardware. There are also some noticeable cut corners in both graphical details, and sometimes sound.

 

Spiderman 2

Mainly omitted graphical effects make this the most inferior of the 3 console versions. Reflections in windows, water effects, shadow & lighting effects, which make the Gamecube look way less powerful than it actually was.

 

XGRA

This game had all the good things going for it: Beautiful graphics, great sound (music by BT in a futuristic racing game, what more could you ask for?), interesting track mechanics and scenery, and following XGIII (which had been a great racing experience at the start of the generation, after the disappointing Wipeout Fusion on the PS2).

What wasn't accounted for, however, was one of the most unpredictably erratic framerates ever. So just as you're speeding along at 300mph toward a corner, everything starts stuttering and jerking, you lose control completely, and bang into the sides of the track. Interestingly enough, it wasn't just a lazy cube port this time round; all 3 consoles' versions of the game suffered equally.

 

PART 4: SUPPOSEDLY BAD GAMES, WHICH I ENJOYED UNEXPECTEDLY

These games are included on this list because a lot of other people didn't like them, so they may still be candidates for the "Gamecube's Worst" collection. However, I still enjoyed them.

 

Defender

This was slated by reviewers for not being worth the £40/€60 price tag at the time, which it wasn't. But I remember finding this marked down to £10, which made it well worthwhile. It's a basic elaboration of the original arcade game, but in 3D - fly around, shoot things, pick up the cheerleaders, save the world, fly through the warp gate, shop for upgrades. If you can pick this up dirt-cheap, it may prove as enjoyable to you as it did to me.

 

Enter The Matrix

Another game picked up a few months after its release for a tenner, this game provided a lot of fast, smooth & slick beat-em-up action, and gave a good insight to the stories of 2 of the less major characters in the second film, with extra scenes shot on the set with the original actors.

 

Super Monkey Ball Adventure

Everybody hated this game. Reviewers, friends, people on forums, even Santa himself. However, by the time I played it, I knew what to expect (apart from the ridiculously long loading times), and rather than being frustrated at not getting puzzle after puzzle a la Monkey Ball 1 & 2 (the fact that it's around 1/2 hour before you even get to play your first classic stages probably didn't help), I found it really sweet and enjoyable. It is, however, a very difficult game, and I don't thing I ever got even halfway through it.

 

Star Wars: Rebel Strike

Everybody loved Rogue Squadron. Rebel strike was similar, but with on-foot sections that ruined it for a lot of people, especially the dodgy walking/running animations. However, considering it was similar to the first, but with improved graphics, the added on-foot sections (bad or not, they were an addition, not a replacement for something that made the previous game great), and included the whole of Rogue Squadron as co-op, this to me was definitely a worthwhile addition to the series.

 

Smashing Drive (US import, naughty naughty)

Very basic arcade game, racing through a city, terrible soundtrack, but was a lot of adrenaline pumped arcade-style fun while it lasted. Well worth the equivalent $CAD of £10 I paid for it at the time.

 

Donald Duck Goin' Quackers (aka. Donald Duck: Quack Attack)

Crash Bandicoot clone. Nothing too special, but enjoyable and kept me playing to the end.

 

Sonic Heroes

Once i'd come to terms with the glitches, and still stuck it out, it turned out to be the closest 3D experience to the 2D Sonic games at the time. Oh, and the music from Casino Park is made of pure win. Note: If you have a Freeloader, play the US version of this, as the PAL one has a serious framerate sync issue, in both 50 and 60hz modes.

[mariosmentor]

Turok Evolution

 

Star Fox Assault

 

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

 

Goldeneye: Rouge Agent

 

Fireblade

 

Those are the games I completely regretted buying.

[D_prOdigy]

All these suggestions of Metroid Prime 2 really make me want to take a knife to society.

 

Do these people also think Die Hard 2 is the worst film ever made? Or that Closer is the worst album ever recorded? I mean, come on.

[darkjak]

Doshin the Giant

Yippee, a port of an N64 game. That wasn't good in the first place.

 

Tony Hawks Underground

Tony Hawk joins the trend and comes out in a free roaming itteration, named Underground. With the crappiest car physics ever, ugly ass graphics, flawed controls and boring missions, this is definitelly not a game to buy.

 

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Yay the cops are back! Gone are the bad things noone liked in the first place, like replays, customisable rides and somewhat acceptable graphics... err wait. What's that? You want replays? You liked to customise your cars? You don't like graphics that looks like a blurry mush? You don't want a slowmotion thing that enables you to take curves tighter than a virgins c**t at full speed, so that all the challenge dissappears? OK, this game is maybe not for you. Well, it's most certainly not for human beings.

 

Universal Studios

 

A game so bad that I actually had suppressed out of my memory. It's crappiness is legendary. Basically a bad minigame compilation, which is too messed up to be called casual. So crap, I don't even want to waste time finding a screenshot.

[Fresh]

Well the only games I bought that utterly disappointed me were Metroid Prime 1 and 2. Hated the first one and in some slight hope they had made the second bought that as well.

[Ten10]

Robocop. End of thread. There were N64 games with better graphics.

[darkjak]

18 Wheeler.

You go at 5 miles and hour, to do a level that lasts 2 minutes, of which there are 4 levels. When you complete the game, its back to the start screen.

No fun can be had with the game.

WaveRace also sucked IMO, I don't see why people like it so much.

 

I can't say I've played waverace: Blue Storm, but I have played Waverace 64, and that game kicked butt. Only bad thing was that there were too few modes and too few cups. As far as I know, those things and everything else was improved at least slightly for the GC itteration. So my personal comment is: this game does NOT deserve to be on this list by far. This game was a bit like: "Ok, not the best". This thread is about the games that are more like "OMFG, this sucks monkeyfucks, what kind of s**thead decided to actually release this garbage".

 

People here tend to write "oh, this game didn't match the ludicrously high expectations I had, hence it sucks". There are plenty of GC games I could rant on about. I still haven't got past the WWI stage of Eternal Darkness because the boss is impossible to beat. It was annoying to try to find out where you're going in Metroid Prime and I hate that Wind Waker is cel shaded. But I know that none of those games deserve to be at the list of the ten worst games on the format.

 

So next time you write: think twice. This is about the worst games in GC's existance, not the worst games you have purchased.