When the original Xbox was released in 2000, it was already behind the 8-ball. Sony had taken over the market with the newly released PlayStation 2, and while Nintendo fell behind in terms of sales, they no longer had to worry about SEGA taking a share of the console market, as the Dreamcast would be the last system the company produced. Replacing the newly absent SEGA from the hardware portion of the industry, Microsoft had a lot of ground to cover if they were going to survive with the industry's established elites.
The Xbox has seen its fair share of success with a number of titles that are well renowned, even today. Halo: Combat Evolved was one of the pioneering titles that proved that first person shooters could make their case of home consoles. BioWare took the Star Wars property and turned it into one of the best console RPGs of all time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The racing scene even made its mark with Project Gotham Racing until the Forza series made its way around.
But with the trust of gamers with the aforementioned best sellers on the system, it can serve as a red herring sometimes to the occasional flawed product to come out on the inaugural Microsoft platform. A plethora of battle royale and 2D fighting games make up a vast majority of the weakest sections of the Xbox's lineup (some of which you'll get to see for yourself shortly) and tricked us into forking over the cash for an experience that did not meet our investment half way. These are twenty games that released for the original Xbox that completely sucked, yet found their way into the homes of many.
20 Everything About This Game Is Toxic
In the world of extreme sports, we've come to be amazed by the sheer terror of watching someone on a skateboard or BMX bike pulling incredible stunts on the half-pipes and big air gaps of the X games. The flip tricks, backflip flairs, and 900s of the world's most daring athletes have led to a number of extreme sports video games, such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. Like the days of the 1990s where developers began to flood the 3D platforming genre thanks to the success of Super Mario 64, the same can be said on a much smaller scale in the world of extreme sports. Toxic Grind, which released on the Xbox in 2002, was part of the extreme sports adapted lineup. The problem with what gives Toxic Grind its knock is how it attempted to portray the incentive to the game's sports story. Participants in Toxic Grind are initially faced with the threat of death in almost all areas of competition (it makes real life extreme sports feel like a walk in park, which is saying something) that creates a disconnect with the player. You just want to shred it out in a well designed skate park, or be able to pull the nasty Mctwist onto the pink hotel in Tony Hawk's Underground. The rest of what Toxic Grind offers is extra baggage that keeps players away from these kind of games are all about.
19 This Game's More Than A Little Loony
Some may think that you can slap a popular TV or movie character in a game, and it will sell the product like hotcakes. But video games that fall into that category more often than not fall short, rather than drive success for a development company. The Looney Tune gang was introduced as part of a battle-royale style game in Loons: The Fight for Fame, pitting members of the group against each other in a free for all, Power Stone inspired layout filled with mini games and powerups to use against the opposition. Where the game falls short is that for a licensed game, Loons sure does take a lot from other well established games in the past few decades. There are a multitude of mini-games that take core concepts of well known arcade games, such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man. For a property as well established as the Looney Tunes, you'd think Warthog Plc. would have been able to pull enough material from the cartoon and whip up something that felt fresh for gamers. Cleary, that was not the case here.
18 These Cars Belong In The Junkyard
The nuts & bolts of a racing game are what can make or break the product. You have to have the right sense of speed, handing, stops and starts, and AI difficultly scaling. But to incorporate cause and effect towards your driver depending on your racing styles and habits is a sure case for your game to spin out, crash, and burn. Pulse Racer's futuristic racing setting places pits the car and the racer as one. If you accelerate too quickly or turn a corner too tightly, your character will suffer from one of its predetermined health problems (really???) and cause you to lose control of the car for a short period. What happens when a track has a bunch of long straightaways that force you to put the pedal to the metal? WAIT!! You can't, because the driver's going to pass on in the middle of the drag section. Too many bends and curves to handle, be prepared to launch head-first into the wall avoidably. Any critic that had their stab at the game would have told you the same thing when discussing Pulse Racer: "Throw it in the trash."
17 The Title Is As Basic As The Game
Trigger Man is a title that offers players little to nothing impressive. From its enemy AI to the unnamed character's motives to the terrible story that it contains, Trigger Man is bad in everyway. As a third person shooter that takes elements of games such as Grand Theft Auto and the original Max Payne from 2001, you play as an unnamed "clean up" guy, whose sole purpose is to simply mow down anybody who opposes you. But the mechanics and features that are familiar in third person shooters are either non-existent, or executed poorly. You can't pick up certain enemy weapons once they've died, the movement and cover system is shallow at best, and the video/audio designs are abysmal. Everywhere you look when (or if, hopefully) you play Trigger Man, you just see bad. Bad, bad, bad. Oh, and then more bad....
16 These Sports Ain't That Extreme
SX Superstar is another game that falls victim to the extreme sports family that misses the mark. While the core gameplay isn't the worst part, but the lack of any substance can be troubling for anyone who may have purchased the game. Between five different modes that stretch across five different race locations, you'd think to have twenty five different iterations. But wait, not every mode can be used at every race location? Well get ready to cut corners then. I won't get into the specifics of which modes are available for which race, but not being able to play World Record mode on three of the five races can spark a disinterest for some. Everyone wants to have a great experience playing games, that's much is obvious. But SX Superstar feels like an appetizer compared to the main course meal that a game is supposed to feel like.
15 There's No Magic Here
For a game that focuses so much on magic, Nightcrawler doesn't exactly do a great job on giving players any sort of agency to use it. Placed in the typical high fantasy setting that these types of games associate themselves with, players will be able to control the game's main character, Arran, along with having access to only four different types of spells: fire, ice, light, and dark. Games before Nightcrawler have done a much better job at giving players options when it comes to magic use, such as the Final Fantasy series which gives you dozens of different elements types.
When you get to the game's story, it feels as though every part of the story's progression is intentionally dragged along farther than it needs to. Large groups of bugs that attack have to be tediously taken out, and side quests come off as and "snatch and grab" style of play. Taking a step back to look at the game's progression as a whole, and Nightcrawler looks like a bare skeleton with no meat on the bones. There's a game here, sure, but it lacks any sort of fun factor or replay value aside for anyone aside from diehard fans.
14 The Dinos Are The Only Good Part
Capcom's Dino Crisis franchise delivered what some would consider a good mix of what a Resident Evil game in a Jurrasic Park world would look like. Prehistoric beasts coming at you from all different angles all surrounding your goal to understand why they've mysteriously appeared in the present day. After releasing the first two games of the series between the PC, PlayStation, and Dreamcast platforms, Capcom decided to make their third entry, Dino Crisis 3, an Xbox exclusive that launched in 2003.
The futuristic adaptation for the franchise didn't sit well with fans. The 300 years+ time period may have turned out ok if the game offered a lot more in terms of enemy variety. Cutscenes and voice acting in the game wasn't too shabby, however the series decided to go with a free moving camera for the game rather than the fixed positions from previous entries. This never worked out well. Enemies were nearly impossible to dodge, let along track and take down. Dino Crisis took a risk by letting players of their leash, but it turned cause every other part of the game to suffer because of it.
13 Underused Special Traits
There's a lot to be said when your game beats out an established Xbox franchise such as Halo, and that's exactly what Brute Force did in its first week of release back in 2003. A lot of the hype surrounding the game was the inclusion of the game's four different teams members (Tex, Hawk, Brutis, and Flint) having to use their special abilities together in order to take out the opposition. Turns out that the frequency of cooperative ability usages in the game were scarce at best, instead leaning more towards the third-person tactical shooter style. The character's unique traits were basically unessential, and the marketing plow tricked many people into think they were truly picking up something that would feel a bit more fresh from the numerous shooters on the market. That wasn't the case with Brute Force.
12 A Failure Of A Fighting Game
Kabuki Warriors has been panned in almost every way imaginable. The control scheme for the game is the most shallow that any 2D fighting game has ever had, to the point where one reviewer from GameInformer said that he was able to beat some of the early fights by simply, "sitting on the controller". Graphically the game may not look terrible, but if you want to the best looking fighting game on the market, you may want to invest in one of the Tekken or Bushido Blade fighters rather than this one. Making things worse, every level is identical aside from the painted backdrops. There are some many other fighting games out there that do a much greater service for fans of the genre. Surely there were a number of players back in the early 2000s that saw the style of Kabuki Warriors and were probably excited to get their chance with another classic 2D fighter. Let's hope they'd seen a review or two before running out to buy the game at all.
11 This Would Have Been Better As An Online Game
What's a multiplayer battle royale game without access to online play? Better yet, what does a game with the aforementioned lack of features, plus split screen equal? Stake: Fortune Fighters is that answer, and these two notable traits of the game combine to make what is a cumbersome and boring game. Stake pits up to four players in a free for all style game with a split-screen feature that was woefully misjudged and implemented. Think about it. If you're in a combat based game with your friends, you're all going to be within close proximity to each other once you start dueling it out. The screen just becomes a hot mess of fists flying in all sorts of directions. There's no way to comprehend what's taking place. There's even more to be ashamed of with Stake: Fortune Fighter than just the multiplayer experience. The combat is lackluster, the maps are oversized and leave a small number of areas in the game suitable for fights to take place, and it simply feels unfinished. Seriously, if you want a better version of this game, go find a SEGA Dreamcast and pop in Power Stone. You'll enjoy yourself much more afterwards.
10 An Awful Arcade Port
Arctic Thunder has been a mainstay in what remains of public arcades. So how do you create buzz about a game that's part of a now lesser piece of the game industry pie? Throw it on a console. That's what Midway did in 2001 by putting Arctic Thunder on PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Arcade games tend to follow a similar format regardless of the type of game it is. You pop in a couple of quarters, play a race (probably with a ridiculous AI that can catch up to you in seconds if you're ahead), and be satisfied and get off. But with a console, you have all the races at your disposal. Sure, the AI might still keep things tight to the end, but console gaming isn't a "one and done" idea. Even though the console port of Arctic Thunder does offer a few more races than its arcade counterpart, you can't go back and replay races once your in career mode, you have to advance. There's no selection tool to pick which race you'd like to play, and the fun factor begins to wear off fairly quickly. The best way to experience any racing game from the Thunder series is by paying fifty cents a race, and not locking yourself in on a full game purchase just to have them all whenever you'd like.
9 How Can You Make Gang Wars Boring?
Unlike how Bad Boys Miami Takedown's terrible to an extent, Crime Life Gang Wars couldn't strike that same chord even if it tried. The game tries to pull from the Grand Theft Auto series with its free roaming features. This only should have pulled players into the urban gang war that is Crime Life, but it doesn't, which can only mean one thing: the rest of it is awful in comparison. At lot of times if you'd encounter fights like the one that's shown above, the enemy AI usually would find itself running rampant, and throwing wild punches as well. If you want a true urban game with good combat and gunplay, just play a Grand Theft Auto game. The dialog and features made the game laughable.
8 Paying Top Dollar For... Nothing
The biggest crime that Maximum Chase commits is that it's a fairly short game that was listed at full price at launch. Maximum Chase consists of ten different levels in its story, while alternating between driving and shooting. The gameplay has been considered to be alright at best, but the way the game progresses and racing levels pan out, there's not rime or reason to go back and replay them, further staking the claim that the full priced game was a complete ripoff. You can replay the missions in a cinematic mode, and that's not to shabby, but the lack of any additional features a B-list acted cinematics don't justify the cost of this game. The thought that Maximum Chase was a worthy investment to gamers is as believable as you being able to take out an SUV in the game with a pistol. The ends just don't meet.
7 Failing To Take It To The Next Dimension
What X-Men fan wouldn't want the chance to go toe-to-toe with their compatriots and enemies? X-Men: Next Dimension gave players the chance to find out which of their favorite X-Men was the best of the best in a Tekken style fighting game. However X-Men: Next Dimension is geared more towards fans of the comics and movies rather than those of fighting games. There's a nice long story played out with this one compared to most fighting games, with Patrick Stewart contributing the narration. When it comes to the gameplay though, character's combat traits and personalities don't help to identify between them very well. X-Men: Next Dimension isn't the worst fighting game on the market, it's just that there are a ton of them that are.
6 Horrible Game, Horrible Graphics
Honestly, all you have to do is look at the quality of the screenshot above you to realize what a poor choice it was to put a game like Bad Boys: Miami Takedown on Xbox. If not being able to figure out which character is Will Smith and which is Mike Lowery isn't enough, the substituting voice actors dialog is filled with a plethora of vulgar and racists lines, making the game hilarious for all the wrong reasons. The game's gunplay and combat are terrible as well, with bad response time when trying to lean into cover, and boss fights that required an unnecessary amount of gunfire to take down. Maybe you'll play this game is you're looking for some uncomfortable humor. But I suggest you don't do that to yourself.
5 Where's Tony Hawk?
You feel bad for anyone who picked up Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt back in 2002. It had the nuts and bolts of a good Tony Hawk and Dave Mirra game, with its timed arcade style gameplay and level based objectives one would think you'd spend hours completing. Not the case here though. Gravity Games Bike may be one of the worst technically created projects in the history of video games. The scoring system in the game in completely flawed in that players are rewarded for repeating tricks, rather than lowering their value as they're executed more frequently. Trying to balance grinds or even executed trick variations are confined to tightly timed windows to executed, a gameplay mechanic that doesn't belong in a game that has an emphasis on player freedom. Not to mention the game's collision detection and physics are awful, and in a game that demands those features be perfected, it's never a good sign. Stay away, stay far away from Gravity Games Bike and go find yourself a Tony Hawk game.
4 The Least Exciting Quest
Sometimes you just know a game will be good or bad by seeing who's developing or publishing a game. Since Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon was being published by Universal Studios, you'd start preparing yourself for the sub-par game reviews that were about to come out. Bruce Lee is depicted as a beat 'em up fighting game, which comes as no surprise given the actor the game is based off of. But trying to function through the game was troublesome to handle. There was no in-game tutorial, meaning that players would have to either button mash their way to victory without much knowledge of how to actually play the game. Along with a story with a bad plot, the game's rather extending load times made the game slug compared to the expected quick gameplay you should expect out of these beat 'em ups. Using Bruce Lee as the face of a new fighting should have been an exciting one to experience, but it delivered a knock-out that not everyone would have liked to see.
3 The First Rule About This Game Is Don't Talk About This Game
We've all been told to never judge a book by its cover. But for Fight Club on the Xbox, feel free to judge to your heart's content. For a property that has had so much success over the years from its books and movies, one would think that a video game adaptation would be served the same amount of TLC. When Fight Club released late 2004 though, all fans of the franchise got was a generic fighting game with the Fight Club skin slapped on top of it. Fighting moves in a game are bare bone for a series that has given us some of the most gruesome and graphic forms of punishments you rarely see in action movies. Fight Club was a game that should have been easy to identify with compared to other fighting games. However other fighting games seem to have more of a presence here than the intended property has itself.
2 Pitting Your Favorite Celebrities Against Each Other
There seems to be a common theme with bad Xbox games being in the fighting genre. Based off of the TV series that started in the late 90s, Celebrity Deathmatch puts players in the infamous ring with cartoon portrays of real-life celebrities in a fight to the death. Everyone's got their own unique moves, like Dennis Rodman's thousand basketball arsenal to stomp out the competition. But fights are hardly difficult, and if played right can last barely a full minute before you come out the victor. The commentator dialog is repetitive as well, with lines repeated multiple times in one fight. Given the already arcade-like speed of your time in the ring, it can leave an unappealing ring in your ears. When Celebrity Deathmatch first launched, it only cost consumers $20. Even with that kind of budget priced game, it's hardly worth the investment.
1 The Worst Game Since E.T.?
Releasing in 2003 after only SIX months of development, Drake of the 99 Dragons has been touted as one of the worst video games not only on the Xbox platform, but in the history of released games. If there's ever been a game that you don't want your project to be compared to as a developer, it's the Atari 2600's E.T. in the early 1980s. Critics universally panned the game upon its release in the early 2000s for the same reasons. An unfinished and incomparable story, a terrible controller layout (which used both triggers as respective firing mechanics for Drake's dual pistol weapons), and a collaborative camera/aiming control scheme that caused everyone all sorts of trouble. The studio that worked on the game (Idol FX) had originally decided to adapt the game into a comic book and television series alongside the game. At least there's some atonement knowing that those mediums very saw the light of day themselves.