I think a lot of people would agree that 2017 was one of the best years for video game releases we have seen it quite some time. Possibly dealing with the rule of sevens that has the internet believing that all years ending in a seven are bound to be a good year for gaming, 2017 only solidifies that trend by having released multiple amazing games across all platforms. 2017 definitely was a great year to be a gamer.
Yet, with every year that is flooded with a plethora of great video games, you’re bound to obviously get a few stinkers thrown into the mix as well. For every Breath of the Wild, you are bound to get a few disappointments such as Star Wars: Battlefront 2 as well. But not all bad video games are big budget titles like Battlefront that still manage to hit big sales but ultimately don't impress.
There have actually been so many bad video games released in 2017 that there is a good chance you actually haven’t remembered them all (or perhaps you haven’t even heard of some of these titles). Many titles actually draw our interest initially, but shortly after the game’s release, we realize the game didn’t live up to our expectations and we quickly try to throw it to the back of our memories as well. With that said, here are some of 2017s worst video games you likely don’t remember… or at least tried hard to forget.
20 Best Left In The Past
Double Dragon 4 was probably a game that slipped under a lot of radars when it released earlier in 2017 and it’s weird that a game that released at a budget price and revisited the beat ‘em up genre's style of the NES days didn’t get a little more attention. Then again, maybe it’s best that this series stays in the past. The truth is, this is a game that relies entirely on nostalgia rather than doing anything new (as opposed to say Double Dragon Neon) and Double Dragon is just a game that hasn’t aged terribly well. Repetitive gameplay mixed with ugly graphics and poor hit detection make this a rather forgettable entry in the series. If you want to reboot a series, fine, but this is not the way to do it.
19 Not Quite The Blast You Remember
There’s actually a lot of fun that could be had with Super Bomberman R on the Nintendo Switch. Bomberman has a way of being pretty entertaining regardless and it’s still light years ahead of that terrible Bomberman Xbox 360 reboot so I actually feel a bit saddened to put it on this list. So why did it make the cut? It’s a bare-bones entry in a series that was released at almost full price when it should have been a budget downloadable game. Yes, it’s got the classic Bomberman action and a story mode to boot (but really, who plays Bomberman for the story mode?) but there was just not enough content to do it justice and the online framerate dips made the game almost unplayable. It’s fun with a group of friends, but otherwise, this is a terrible version of a classic game.
18 This Would Have Been Better Twenty Years Ago
I always felt that the original Star Fox was a little overrated when it first released as it seemed like it was the fact that it was a 3D title on the SNES was its main attractive quality rather than actual gameplay. The framerate always felt a little too choppy for me to really enjoy it and it wasn’t until the series debuted on the Nintendo 64 that it really felt right. It’s neat to finally see Star Fox 2 get released on the SNES Classic, but ultimately it’s proof that Nintendo was in the right for ditching the SNES title for a more modern take on the game. Star Fox 2 is a game that’s hard to enjoy by today’s standards, but it’s still interesting to see the different mechanics that made their way to later titles in the series.
17 They Still Can't Get The Blue Blur Right
Sonic Forces is a game that I really wanted to like, having been a big fan of Sonic Generations a few years back. It seemed like Forces was going to be quite similar gameplay-wise. It did quite a few things similar to Generations such as having modern and classic Sonic stages, but it didn’t bother to improve on the faults of Generations such as sloppy camera and cheap deaths and somehow made these things worse. Worst of all, it stripped the lively and whimsical world of Sonic and tried to give it a more gritty and dark story which is just something that doesn’t work in the franchise (We’re looking at you, Shadow the Hedgehog). Save your money and get the far superior (and cheaper) Sonic game that released in 2017, Sonic Mania.
16 A Far Cry From Its Glory Days
There’s no denying the fact that Halo’s popularity has been dwindling over the past few years, arguably since the Xbox One got its start. Halo Wars is a game that we’re surprised we even got a sequel to and Halo Wars 2 is one of the few Xbox One exclusives to really make a splash on the system in 2017. Sadly, this RTS game was ultimately seen as lackluster compared to its predecessor on the Xbox 360 and it was an extremely watered down version of a game that should have had way more depth. Yes, the game was pretty good for newcomers to the genre, but overall, the game was too simple to get much replay value from and the mediocre story only helped to make this game one of 2017’s many disappointments.
15 A Boring Game For A Boring Movie
Pixar’s Cars franchise has always come off as the most uninspired of the company’s animated films to me which is why it is so baffling to me that they have already released an entire trilogy while we’ve had to wait so long for a sequel to The Incredibles. For most people, Cars 3 probably went in theaters and left before we even noticed, so it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that we also forgot that a video game called Cars 3: Driven to Win was released alongside the movie (and it was even on the Wii U!). But like most movie tie-ins and like its subject material, the game failed to impress many and was really probably only entertaining for the youngest of audiences. It’s a tough pill to swallow when there are just simply better racing games on the market.
14 Nostalgia Just Isn't Enough To Make This Game Fun
Yooka-Laylee was a game that had enough hype surrounding it that it should have been at least decent enough for us to remember it less than a year later, yet sadly, Yooka-Laylee was a game that led to an abrupt disappointment and the game quickly trickled toward the back of our memories afterwards. The game wasn’t exactly terrible, but it wasn’t necessarily good either. It focused way too much on reigniting that flame we had with the Nintendo 64 Banjo-Kazooie games by pretty much trying to copy the formula down to almost every little gameplay detail, yet it just didn’t wow us the way that Banjo did twenty years ago. Nostalgia can definitely play a trick on our minds, but Yooka-Laylee shows that a lot of games that we have fond memories of didn’t age as well as we think they did.
13 How Does This Trash Get Released?
I admittedly purchased Vroom in the Night Sky for my Nintendo Switch because I couldn’t help but be curious about the eshop’s early offerings when I got my shiny new console and while the game was cheap and I wasn’t necessarily expecting to be dazzled, I ultimately ended up with 999 pennies worth of garbage. You play as a girl named Luna who must open portals by flying a magical scooter around and collecting Stardusts, yet the controls are too sloppy and the gameplay is extremely bland. On top of that, the translation was so poor that it was actually laughable (but dare I say almost worth the price of admission?). Thankfully, the eshop is now filled to the brim with amazing indie titles and we can forget that Vroom in the Night Sky was one of the Switch’s few offerings in its earlier days.
12 A Game As Ugly As Its Protagonist
Here is a game that was one of the lowest reviewed games of 2017 but still gained some attention just because it was so bad. Troll and I was a video game that seemed like it had a generally good concept on paper, but ultimately fell flat in execution. While the idea of switching (or playing cooperatively) between Otto and the Troll in order to solve puzzles is a novel idea, the game suffered from too many issues to be considered half decent. The entire game was buggy and filled with glitches and the controls made the game almost unplayable. It was stuffed with extra gameplay mechanics that were entirely unnecessary and the whole game was ugly as the Troll as well. Then they have the nerve to release the game at fifty bucks? No thank you.
11 Not Such A Mega Game
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle was a side scrolling beat em’ up game for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 that hearkened back to the glory days of the genre and similar Power Rangers games that came before it. Released closed to the underwhelming Power Rangers movie, this side scrolling game seemed like it had a lot of potential, but ultimately was a disappointment much like its film. Sure, the beat ‘em up genre has grown tired over the years, but this game was just straight up tedious and repetitive and lacked any of the flair of previous Power Rangers games. Not only that, but the art style left much to be desired as it looked like more of a Flash game on the internet which simply didn't fit the tone of the series.
10 1, 2, Snooze
1-2 Switch is an example of a game that ultimately performed well largely because it was one of the few Nintendo licensed launch games for the Nintendo Switch but unfortunately the only reason its sales match what they do today was largely due to a rather deserted launch window for the console and many consumers wanted at least something else for their console after they were done saving Hyrule. 1-2 Switch is less of a full-fledged game and is more akin to that of Wii Sports or Nintendo Land, yet sadly, it really isn’t filled with enough meat to make it a full priced game and pales in comparison to Nintendo’s previous pack in titles. Sure, the game displayed some of the more interesting features of the Switch, but it’s a game that people likely played for a few minutes before it was put back on the shelf forever.
9 People Actually Asked For This
Night Trap is a video game that was ultimately re-released this past year only because of it becoming a cult classic due to some ridiculous controversy surrounding it in the 90s as the game was considered to be way too violent for the time. By today’s standards, the game is extremely tame and the entire game is overly campy and it’s hard to believe there was any demand for this re-release at all. Regardless, we got Night Trap: 25th Anniversary Edition and much like the many versions that came before it, it’s a game that was never all too fun to play and could really only be enjoyed by video game aficionados who enjoy this little mark on video game history. The game is definitely worth a few chuckles, but even people who like the game won’t deny that it is a terrible game.
8 He's Still Got A Few Lives Left...
It seemed like Black Forest Games was simply trying to troll the internet when they announced Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back as Bubsy has pretty much been generally received as the laughing stock of all video game mascots since the 90s. While I have some fond memories of the original game over twenty years ago, the series quickly spiraled out of the public’s eye as the games got worse and worse and the character has always been seen as a wart on video game history, so its revival feels completely unnecessary. If the game had been any good, it might be fair to give the furball a chance, but once again, Bubsy fails to impress and released with yet another mediocre, short, and forgettable platformer. We’re hoping this cat’s nine lives are almost up.
7 We Want A REAL Version Of This Game
When Nintendo announced that it was going to be putting some of their own games on mobile devices, fans got excited for the potential, but no game felt like it was a better fit than Animal Crossing. Its quick pick up and play nature felt perfect to always have on the go and since it’s been a while since we’ve forgotten our neighbors in New Leaf, we were ready to bounce back in with Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. The excitement quickly wore off though after downloading the game to our phones and we realized it wasn’t much more than a bunch of fetch quests. Sure, it’s hard to complain too much about a freemium game, but all Pocket Camp really managed to do was make us crave a core entry announcement for the Nintendo Switch sometime soon as this game was likely deleted off most phones rather quickly.
6 One Of The Saddest Lives We've Ever Seen
This is another one of those titles that you can kind of say that it is so bad that it is actually kind of good in a way. Life of Black Tiger was originally released as a free to play mobile game a few years back and was later ported to the PlayStation 4 for a price… that’s your first red flag right there. The game offered nothing extra in quality and strangely enough, Sony promoted this game, even though it has been dubbed as one of the worst console games in existence. It was technically underwhelming and the same could be said about its gameplay which suffered from terrible controls. There really was no excuse for this game to have been allowed on the PlayStation store being nothing more than shovelware.
5 Far Away From A Good Game
PlayStation VR has been fairly underwhelming in its first year and it has had little to offer in terms of Triple “A” games, usually sticking to smaller budget titles. Farpoint was Sony’s attempt at making something a little more grandiose for the headset and was meant to be the must have PlayStation VR title, but it still didn’t offer much in terms of quality. From a visual standpoint, Farpoint was impressive and utilized the Aim controller quite well. Sadly, the game was far to linear and combat was extremely repetitive and while the game looked stunning, the player never really has the freedom to immerse themselves in the world the way they should be able to. It was a decent effort, but also a reminder that virtual reality, while looking cool, doesn’t necessarily lead to a better gaming experience.
4 There's No Excuse For This Lazy Port
We’ve already seen that the Nintendo Switch is capable of some pretty fantastic things and ports of higher end Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games can be down on the less powerful console… just look how fantastic Doom turned out to be! So Nintendo fans were probably excited to hear that WWE2k 2018 would be making it to Switch, the first time the series has made its way to a Nintendo console in years. By no means is WWE2K 2018 a terrible game, but there is just no excuse for the Switch version. The graphical downgrade is to be expected, but even with it, the game is a buggy mess and the framerate dips to almost unplayable levels. This is a game that could have benefited from a longer development cycle, but it hit store shelves clearly unfinished.
3 An Uninspired Journey
Rime is a game that maybe deserves a little bit more credit than it got, seeing as the world it takes place in is visually stunning and was an interesting one to take in, but even that can't save it from mediocre gameplay. Rime’s fault is within the fact that the game itself was often times too shallow and the puzzles that were often times too frustrating to make progression through the game. It’s too bad, because a lot could be said about the world Rime takes place in, but sadly, it was ultimately overshadowed by better indie games that released the same year. While it’s beauty was well received, most people have played games like this before and better versions such as Journey. While it may have been a fun romp for a few, it is a game that will ultimately be left back in 2017.
2 We Really Wanted This To Be Fun
Micro Machines World Series is a game that I was admittedly excited for when hearing about its development. I absolutely loved these table top racing games as a kid and I couldn’t imagine the formula being messed up with a modern title. For the most part, the design of the game stayed true, but the game lacked enough tracks and diversity to keep things interesting, and in a game where precision is key, courses were just littered with too many obstacles to make the game fun rather than frustrating. Wrap this all up with the fact that the title’s online mode is pretty much barren and you have a game that you’re pretty much going to be playing solo (other than a pathetic attempt at local multiplayer). And loot boxes? Why loot boxes??
1 We've Seen Better Games Like This
We can no longer count how many Lego-inspired video games have released over the past decade and on paper, Lego Worlds seems like it is the perfect fit for the little multi-colored blocks. An open world, sandbox style game where the player uses their own imagination to create? That’s Legos in a nutshell, yet the game surprisingly fell flat of its potential and the whole do-it-yourself function failed. This was mainly because actually building anything in the game was way too cumbersome and tedious. Yes, Lego Worlds has a lot of potential and I’m sure some amazing things could be built in the game. But ultimately, there are just better games in the genre that have already been doing it way better for years (Minecraft, anyone?). Also, not launching with online functionality was a huge misstep.