Top Ten Turkeys of 2010

Another year, another list of games, another batch of turkeys. 2010 might have been a great year for games, but it’s had its fair share of rubbish too. Let’s take a look at the games we wish we’d avoided.

Naughty Bear

The tale of a mentalist teddy bear who kills other toy bears on an island. It’s just like The Most Dangerous Game! But with bears! And once that novelty wears off you’ll be in for literal hours of repetitive gameplay, glitches, dull mechanics, and clunky action in a game that tries so hard to be irreverent.

Hydrophobia

The combat is lacklustre, you’re constantly hunting for keys for locked doors, the map is just strange, the cover system is useless, and the signposting system they have here is vague at best. Welcome to Hydrophobia! If you didn’t hate water before you will now!

Sonic Free Riders Kinect

Dr. Eggman is holding another EX World Grand Prix and it’s rubbish. This game has been called one of the most broken titles on Kinect, riddled with lag and failing to register simple jumps. While most actions simply involve leaning you are forced to dramatically and awkwardly bend just to turn. Being the controller is exhausting.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

For that special person in your life who enjoys both J.K. Rowling and bugs that make playing games feel like some sort of cruel dare. The newest Potter game in the franchise has been critically panned for its lacklustre and glitchy combat – Harry slides about the scene mid-fight as Ron and Hermione attack NPCs that aren’t even there. Stupefy!

Final Fantasy XIV Online

A cinematic, narrative-based MMORPG that only lets you pick up a limited number of quests per day, stunts your experience points so you don’t level too quickly, and is widely thought to be completely incomprehensible. Final Fantasy 14 leaves you wondering “wait, what am I meant to be doing now?” at every given opportunity. The response has been so negative that almost every aspect of the game is being patched in the next few months.

Dead or Alive: Paradise

Oh Dead or Alive. The game that teases but never gives you anything beyond a nice graphics engine, jiggle physics and hours of tedious volleyball. The game even fails to be a decent peep show and is little more than a low-rent flirting sim stuck inside a dress-up simulator stuck left to collect dust in a bargain basement of mini-games.

Kung Fu Rider

Launch game for the PlayStation Move that harnesses the quirky casual gaming genre by giving you a premise about a Hong Kong businessman and a sultry lady-type who ride chairs down hills. If you enjoy games whose irreverence has a shelf life of three minutes then Kung Fu Rider is for you. But after the first few minutes the game will feel incredibly shallow, with very little in terms of gameplay and surprisingly clumsy motion controls.

Quantum Theory

Renowned for being the worst Gears of War clone available on the market, Quantum Theory is the un-ironic Spinal Tap of shooters. While it tries to be a generic shooter title it doesn’t seem to realise how lazily it embraces design traditions that make it feel like a bizarre satire. Its game mechanics are clunky and lazy, it looks unpolished, the shooting is terrible and the rest is pillaged from the leftovers of GoW.

Fighters Uncaged

Kinect’s Fighters Uncaged is only successful at pointing out the issues of the Kinect peripheral. Ignore the fact that its fights feel long-winded and pointless, or the issue of the looping audio taunts that often are unintentionally hilarious and bizarre. Kinect has issues interpreting the most basic combat moves, only ever registering about half of the kicks and punches that you throw and repeatedly reading your duck-moves as head-butts.

Prison Break The Conspiracy

You play Tom Paxton! Hello! You’re an agent sent to observe a prisoner at Fox River Penitentiary in a game that milks the Prison Break series, lets that milk ferment, and then creates low-grade cheese. Prison Break is a poor man’s stealth game, with camera angles that zoom so far into a scene it’s difficult to tell what is even happening, dull prison fist-fights and truly bizarre AI. Some NPCs might spot you across the room, others have trouble spotting you even if you stand directly in front of them. Just stick to the show.

For more end of year content, head over to our Game of the Year 2010 hub. Amongst other things you’ll be able to watch videos in which we talk about each game in the Top 10.