Raven Squad
This crotch-buster (opposite of block buster) came to us from the elite publishing company Evolved Games. The plan was to make the ultimate hybrid between a FPS in the vein of Call of Duty and military RTS. The result wasn’t exactly what the game designers had hoped for. Instead of a ground-breaking title that bent the boundaries of two popular genres, we ended up with a game that was barely playable. In fact, many said the only saving grace of this game was the fact that it was playable at all considering how bad the menu system and overall interface was. Just like the other games on this list, we wonder why it was even released. They could have claimed a loss on their taxes instead.
Operation Darkness
We all know that the Xbox 360 needs a lot more turn-based games for fans of the slower-paced strategy and RPG genres. Tell those same fans that a turn-based strategy RPG, set in World War II is on the way and you just made a lot of nerds VERY happy. (It’s okay, I’m a JRPG nerd; I can say nerd.) It’s localized and published in North America by Atlus and SEGA? This has to be good! Wait a second. Why is this game pulling down my pants and bending me over……. AHHHHH! Operation Darkness is a broken game that while not literally butt-raping fans, did screw us with horrible music, bad mechanics and overall sloppy design. Do you blame developer Success or do you blame Atlus for even bringing it Stateside?
Fighters Uncaged (Kinect)
You can’t fault Ubisoft for trying. Kinect was launching and it only made sense to try a fighting game with the new hardware. Why not? There have been fighting games where the player is the controller since the old EZonics webcam days on Windows 95 in 2D. Sadly the old games seemed to be a little more stable and well designed because like the rest of the titles on this list (minus Halo 3 ODST), Uncaged is busted from the ground up. The response to your punches, kicks and head butts are about as accurate as the skateboard in Tony Hawk RIDE. That is to say that it’s about 100% random. You might come out a star. You might come out a loser. Your actions don’t matter, because it’s like the game is just doing whatever it wants.
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad
Bikini Samurai Squad banks on a couple things – zombies and babes in bikinis. The premise has you controlling bikini-clad samurai as they hack and slash their way through waves of zombies. You almost think this might work considering the huge following that the hack-n-slash genre has. Ninety-Nine Nights knew how to do it correctly on the Xbox 360. No surprise, that game focused more on gameplay than bikini renders. The is only an exclusive in the US, but honestly we wish it was never released at all.
Halo 3 ODST
I know what Halo fans are thinking. Well, I know what the younger fans are thinking – “How can you put anything with Halo on this list?”. Mostly because Halo 3 ODST is a mix of testing features for Halo Reach and gameplay that could have been DLC for those who bought Halo 3. There’s also the fact that when MS proposed another Halo title so close to the release of Halo 3 (we’re talking back in 2007, two years before ODST’s release) Bungie felt they needed to get out of Halo’s shadow and once again MS ruined another great developer.
Honorable Mention:
Bomberman: Act Zero
Kengo: Legend of the 9
Black College Football: The Xperience -- The Doug Williams Edition
Comments
was it short and probably not worth $60? no, it should have been $40 or just simply the campaign as DLC and sat on firefight gametype until Reach came out.
Personally I disagree about the "story telling" aspect. While I did enjoy the graphical style and great soundtrack that really sucked you in, the writing was pretty awful. Originally they said ODST would fill in the gaps between H2 & H3; instead we get a boring love story and a vague explanation of a new species enslaved to the covenant.
perhaps it wasn't the story itself that I liked, but the way it was told. Wandering the city on your own only to piece together what happened to your team I thought was an original story telling method and kept me wanting to push forward. I don't know how the game could have been such an immersive experience if the story didn't back it up
If you were a bungie fan before ODST (I've been playing Marathon and Myst since the 90's) then I'd tend to think you still are today.
It was fun, just not worth $60. Bungie was adamant in it being a smaller game, but MS wanted it to be full retail, which was a mistake. I posit that altogether the package with ODST, the MP and the Reach Beta would have been worth $40 at launch. MS had a decent opportunity to cut into the poorer gamer's wallet with this and perhaps Crackdown 2if they had released both for cheaper than standard retail.
Fanboys might think that theese crapfests are good but to everyone not completely braindead it's obvious that Microsoft are just selling you the same regurgitated pig spit every year, Halo 2.5, Gears Of Bore 2.5, Flopza 3.1, etc, etc. What kind of a sad loser would defend such an obvious failure like the 360?
It seriously sickens me to see the new lows Microsoft have sunk to in 2011, they're either releasing the same crap like Halo which was boring 10 years ago and still is today or they're shoving kiddie crap like Kinectimals down our throats. The 360 is the laughing stock of the games indsutry and it's exclusive games prove that.
The game itself is wonderful; the feeling of loneliness as the rookie wanders the streets of New Mombasa is great as reliving the moments of your squad gives it a very detective feel to the game. The cutscenes are some of the best in the series and the dialogue is fantastic.
Either way, the game was great, IMO due to it's wonderful dialogue and while the game itself got better near the end, take into account that it's 10 levels of campaign, each 30min to an hour long, and 8 firefight maps. More than just a regular DLC.
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