Worst Game of 2014

We are kicking off our 6th annual Game of the Year awards with the Worst Game of the Year. With each new year, there’s both a new and existing crop of developers that intentionally or unintentionally wake up and think to themselves, “How can I make a mark on this industry?” Some succeed beyond their wildest dreams, some become encumbered by their own hubris (and consequently sweep our most notorious awards) and some just outright fail.

Oddly enough, the over-hyped Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed: Unity netted nominations for the worst games of the year. It’s amazing when you consider that when fully patched and lacking any issues, both games are decent. Since they were marketed to be amazing, however, they automatically become less than great when they fail to live up to expectations. Mix in never-ending heaps of bugs and you’ll likely find them to be the worst games ever made.

Alas, neither is the worst game of 2014 (or any other year). Escape Dead Island was a uniformly horrible exercise, especially when you consider that the events of the game may or may not have happened. There was only one clear winner though and sadly, it’s not the first or second win of his career.

Nominees:

• Assassin’s Creed: Unity
• Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
• Escape Dead Island
• Watch Dogs

Winner: Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric

Where does one begin?

Over the course of his illustrious career, Sonic the Hedgehog has gone from being Mario’s greatest rival to Sega’s biggest running joke. With each new Sonic game after the admittedly solid Sonic Adventure 2, Sega came up with new gimmicks for good ol’ blue. A romantic relationship with a female princess? A talking sword? Colourful little critters? A werehog? An entire reboot of the franchise? It’s telling that Sonic’s greatest success in the past few years has been Sonic Generations which re-captures the magic of the franchise’s highlights.

Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric unfortunately takes it to brand new lows. From the redesign of the characters to the awful humour and focus on melee combat, Sega was determined to neuter every last bit of the hero we loved with Rise of Lyric. The saddest part? This is par for the course of Sonic and pretty soon, there will be yet another attempt at making him relevant again.

Note: GamingBolt’s Game of the Year categories, nominations and awards are selected via an internal nomination, voting and debate process. You can check the rest of categories and the respective winners here.