Jimquisition: The Shi!*iest Games of 2013

[Sir Shockwave]

Personally, I would have put The Bureau: XCOM Declassified and Sanctum 2 somewhere on the list there somewhere, but oh well - your choices, Jim - and either way, putting All the Bravest at the top quells most gripes coming from me.

Happy New Year to you, to which we can Thank God for you for X3

CAPATCHA: Scot Free, as the two games above managed to get off... X3

 

[GundamSentinel]

Wow, seeing this I can finally appreciate how much shit I've been able to dodge this year. Of most of those I've heard or seen how bad they are, but this gathering of shit is pretty scary. :O

 

[mjc0961]

Kinda surprised that Batman: Arkham Origins wasn't among them. Other than that pretty agreeable.

Basically Origins, LocoCycle, and Knack were vying for that 10 spot. Knack "won" the tussle after deliberation.

Why, exactly? I would argue that Origins was objectively shittier, for it launched with pretty nasty bugs that hampered progress unless you could pull off some other glitches to get around it. Knack... Well personally I'm enjoying it even if it is rather simple, but it's also got no near-game breaking bugs that I've encountered or heard about.

I also think arguments could be made that there are shittier games still than both Knack and Batman. Gears of War Judgment, Star Trek, Gone Home, Ryse,

Hell, I'd make a case for Battlefield 4, GTA V, and Forza 5/Gran Turismo 6 before I'd talk about Knack or Batman, even if they are shitty in terms of business practices rather than shitty in terms of being a shitty game.

Knack isn't my game of the year by any means. There's plenty of better games you can play this year, but there's certainly more than 9 worse games you can play too.

I am going to be that person but I really enjoyed Knack I found it fun in its simplicity and it brought back nostalgia feelings of psone era. while not a game of the year I would not not call it shit imo.

At least we're not alone.

I think the game pretty much shows off that some people just shouldn't be in charge, regardless of their contributions. Cerny's a lovely individual, he's had his hands in countless beloved IPs, I love his energy for making games, I still don't mind him offering his support for any game dev that wants it. BUT... he's not director material. Keep him as a designer, a programmer, hell even a producer, something he has experience in. I feel he had too much creative control in Knack, and wanted to make something I can only call Retcon Retro, something seriously old-school with a new coat of paint. I just don't think you can do that with platformers anymore, because for that genre 'retro' is just a nice way of saying 'simple', which doesn't work like it did in 1996.

Well there's part of your problem right there. Platformer? Knack isn't a platformer. Which parts of the game that is about punching things made you think it was a platformer? Did you even play it? I don't think you did.

Knack's more of a beat'em up kind of game. A very simple one, but what you do in the game is run to an area that has some enemies and you punch them until they die. Then you go to another area and punch some more enemies until they die. Then you might find some relics to make you stronger before you go to another area and punch some more enemies until they die. Have you figured out where I'm going with this yet?

And quite frankly, I like that the combat is more simple with an emphasis not in wailing on enemies until their massive health bars finally drain, but on avoiding getting hit. I've tried playing things like God of War and they just bore me to tears because one simple room of enemies can take what feels like an eternity to clear because even the simplest grunts can take quite the beating before they finally die and let you advance to the next bit of enemies you need to kill. With Knack, the enemies only take a few hits but Knack himself can also only take a few hits, so I feel more like they are battles of skill rather than battles of fucking attrition. It's not about mashing the fuck out of the attack button, it's about watching all of the enemies in the area and looking for openings where I can attack without getting myself killed.

But what Knack certainly is not about is platforming. I mean really, where did you get that idea from?

 

[PunkRex]

I never played 'Ride to Hell' but those sex scenes... my God, just... no.

 

[PunkRex]

I also think arguments could be made that there are shittier games still than both Knack and Batman. Gears of War Judgment, Star Trek, Gone Home, Ryse,

Judgment wasn't that bad, they added a fair amount of new enemies and those challenges spiced things up quite abit. It was a lil shorter than the other GOW games but not insultingly so.

 

[mjc0961]

I also think arguments could be made that there are shittier games still than both Knack and Batman. Gears of War Judgment, Star Trek, Gone Home, Ryse,

Judgment wasn't that bad, they added a fair amount of new enemies and those challenges spiced things up quite abit. It was a lil shorter than the other GOW games but not insultingly so.

I respectfully disagree. The mini-mission campaign style destroyed the feel of how the previous games played. Most of the challenges were so mind numbingly easy that activating them added no challenge to a player familiar with the franchise. Between the plotholes and doing absolutely nothing interesting with Cole and Baird's back-stories (and nothing interesting with the new characters), the entire story of the game was something that didn't need to be added to the Gears universe. They changed the controls, which would have been fine had it been an improvement, but it wasn't. So they screwed up the controls and made everyone relearn the buttons for no benefit to the player. The competitive multiplayer modes were boring and co-op? They removed Horde mode and added in whatever that other nonsense was (can't even remember what it was called, that's how dull it was). As for adding a fair amount of new enemies, that on its own doesn't do anything to make the game good. Yeah it has new enemies, but that doesn't help fix any of the other problems the game has now does it? In fact, the fair amount of new enemies is one of the problems as I mentioned above.

The only good bit about Judgment was the Aftermath campaign that shows you what Baird and Cole were doing while Marcus was getting a submarine during Gears 3. They should have just release that bit as Gears 3 DLC (which would have improved it as there would be no enemy and weapon plotholes in it that way) and left the rest in the dumpster where it belongs.

And no mention of Gone Home...

I have officially replaced "Still a better love story than Twilight" with "Still a better love story than Gone Home." for whenever I feel like meme-shitting on a crappy love story.

Also we can probably do "Still a better horror game than Gone Home" as well.

 

[testiou]

I have officially replaced "Still a better love story than Twilight" with "Still a better love story than Gone Home." for whenever I feel like meme-shitting on a crappy love story.

Also we can probably do "Still a better horror game than Gone Home" as well.

Well it's best PC Game of 2013... With a story that I can sum up in 2 sentence. And the whole game is only about the story.

20$... for that... I'm still to mad to talk about it...

 

[josemlopes]

I also think arguments could be made that there are shittier games still than both Knack and Batman. Gears of War Judgment, Star Trek, Gone Home, Ryse,

Judgment wasn't that bad, they added a fair amount of new enemies and those challenges spiced things up quite abit. It was a lil shorter than the other GOW games but not insultingly so.

I respectfully disagree. The mini-mission campaign style destroyed the feel of how the previous games played. Most of the challenges were so mind numbingly easy that activating them added no challenge to a player familiar with the franchise. Between the plotholes and doing absolutely nothing interesting with Cole and Baird's back-stories (and nothing interesting with the new characters), the entire story of the game was something that didn't need to be added to the Gears universe.

It never tried to be something more, it was always marketed as some sort of bonus experience out of the trilogy, something more focused on small and quick encounters, it could almost be considered a challenge mode sort of game where stars and scores matter more then story.

I still didnt enjoyed it much (what got me the most was the lack of content primarly because the other Gears games always packed a lot more even compared to other games) but it isnt enough to call it bad when you had different expectations to what it was going to offer.

 

[PlasmaCow]

I want gas-mask Jim Sterling as a video game baddie =P

 

[balladbird]

Ken's Rage 2 sucking is disappointing. I bought it and the first one last week because of how much Jim goes on about Dynasty Warriors. I figured that since I love Fist of the North Star and enjoyed Sengoku Basarai (SP?) that it would be a good purchase.

If you're a really big fan of Fist of the North Star, then Ken's Rage 2 is more pallatable than for casual fans or outsiders. The game still suffers from a sharp decline in overall quality from Ken's Rage 1, but it's not necessarily a chore to play, and it's fun to explore the "what if" scenarios for some of the characters.

I didn't hate Rage 2, though I felt ripped off paying the 49 dollar price tag... still, I got to finally play as Jyuza of the clouds.. so I can't bring myself to be too mean to it. XD

 

[redknightalex]

I'm so happy that I didn't play a single one of those games and I have never even heard of half of them so at least I was able to keep away from this awful, but good, list.

At first, I thought Beyond: Two Souls would be in here but, as Jim himself said, it was a mediocore game for him and this list was really for the shittiest. Same I think goes for Batman: Arkham Origins and Gone Home (which I really enjoyed and get why so many have put it on their top lists for 2013). ATB certainly gets a lot of well-deserved hate and while I'd argue that there still is something to the Final Fantasy name, SE really failed on this cash-grab.

I am surprised, as others have said, that Sim City wasn't on there when Jim trashed on it for a good three or so episodes this past year and was a solid fail-back point, much like Aliens: Colonial Marines. GTA Online could have been put in the honors section because it wasn't it's own game.

Although why is there a game called Ken's Rage? Seems a tad 90s....

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't see what's wrong with shitting on a game like that once in a while, but I also can't see a justification for Jim Sterling using multiple spots on his list just for "HEY, IOS, YOUR GAMES BLOW".

So Joe's histrionics are fine, but making a list of shittiest games that includes two IOS games is too much?

Jim didn't hammer on the IOS itself any more than he said "hey consoles, you games are broken." His estimation of Final Fantasy may be a bit over the top, but come on. It's not the full-blown tantrum Joe went for. ermagerd you'll break your ipad its so baaaaaad!

Then again, I really can't be bothered to care much about most free to play games, whether they are truly free or have an up-front price.

Still, Jim's argument about harming the brand is legit since Squeeeenix seems to think this is one of their only marketable franchises. Joe's argument seems based around the fact that a franchise with few to no good games got another bad game and doesn't consider the hardcore market. It's almost as though he literally feels entitled to a good Star Trek game.

Or his persona does, because I still think Joe's full of shit. I think he's almost as cynical as the companies he rails against. Almost, because no one person has that much cynicism in their soul. Believe me, I've tried.

Joe's lost his mind over pretty much every Star Trek game to come out since I've become aware of the guy. I've come to think either he is the most childish person ever given a YouTube channel (which is saying something) or he's cynically playing with over-the-top theatrics, just like his other crap (Cobra Commander representing the EVIL VIDYA GAME COMUHNEEZ, Evil Joe being behind Ride to Hell, and the usual vanity crap reviewers do to pretend they have something to offer beyond criticism about video games). and he only has two modes: plastic but obviously fake and angry but possibly (only possibly) honest. It's a shame that the latter only comes out in pet project reviews and the same dozen or so games everyone else dogpiles on. but back to the skits for a second....

I could live with some framing or something. It's sometimes amusing when reviewers dress up as Captains for Star Trek reviews or something. But the ongoing, tedious bits Joe often does? Blech. Even the "Skeletor" bits here were nothing on par with that. they were still essentially framing.

 

[2xDouble]

Star Trek: Trexels

Having recently watched Angry Joe's review on Star Trek: Trexels I half expected this one to make the list. Admittedly, it came out very late in the year and it's quite possible Jim never had the 'privilege' to play it.

Then again, it's entirely possible the game isn't as bad as Angry Joe makes it sound.

I was gonna say almost exactly this, but upon further review, ATB is easily Trexels' equal in shittiness and downright brand rape. All the Bravest doesn't even offer the shit minigames Trexels forces you to wait hours and tap screens for, opting instead to focus purely on the waiting, paying, and tapping. But, at least ATB offers flashy spells and attacks during its shitty cow-clicking timer simulator, so... there's that. I call it a draw.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Also we can probably do "Still a better horror game than Gone Home" as well.

well if your going to group it into categories that it doesn't belong in I guess you could say "still a better fighting game than gone Home" or "still a better platformer than Gone Home" ect.

 

[Master_of_Oldskool]

Whoa. Our two big critics have opposing opinions on Survival Instinct... and they have to do a show together. What will happen?!

Nothing interesting, probably.

More importantly, who else wants to see Jim play Scarecrow in the next Batfleck movie?

 

[hentropy]

Do iOS games really count? As bad as some of these games really are, it just seems to focus on the crap the AAA industry does, which is understandable, but there are metric f-tons of crap on the app store, from games that literally just try to scam kids out of their parent's cash to just awful rip-off games that also try and scam you out of cash. It's more or less the MO of iOS/Android games, and complaining about it is like complaining that a used car salesman just lied to you to sell you a car.

 

[PunkRex]

Judgment wasn't that bad, they added a fair amount of new enemies and those challenges spiced things up quite abit. It was a lil shorter than the other GOW games but not insultingly so.

I respectfully disagree. The mini-mission campaign style destroyed the feel of how the previous games played. Most of the challenges were so mind numbingly easy that activating them added no challenge to a player familiar with the franchise. Between the plotholes and doing absolutely nothing interesting with Cole and Baird's back-stories (and nothing interesting with the new characters), the entire story of the game was something that didn't need to be added to the Gears universe. They changed the controls, which would have been fine had it been an improvement, but it wasn't. So they screwed up the controls and made everyone relearn the buttons for no benefit to the player. The competitive multiplayer modes were boring and co-op? They removed Horde mode and added in whatever that other nonsense was (can't even remember what it was called, that's how dull it was). As for adding a fair amount of new enemies, that on its own doesn't do anything to make the game good. Yeah it has new enemies, but that doesn't help fix any of the other problems the game has now does it? In fact, the fair amount of new enemies is one of the problems as I mentioned above.

If you found #31 easy than I salute you as you're obviously some kind of wizard king. I didn't find the change to the controls all that jarring but Horde's removal was a twat move.

 

[Lt. Rocky]

Godamn I love his Skeletor impersonation.

Jim really needs to voice a bad guy in a game..