SHELLSHOCK 2: BLOOD TRAILS

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails is maybe not completely without its redeeming qualities, such as its genuinely creepy atmosphere, but it is, at the same time, also a classic case of a game that is as unfun to play as it is conceptually interesting. Broken shooting mechanics and AI, terrible level design, frustrating controls, you name it- the game was riddled with issues that made it an absolute nightmare to play.

DUKE NUKEM FOREVER

Few games deserve a spot on such lists as much as Duke Nukem Forever do. After spending an interminably long time in development hell and changing developers more times than anyone could keep track of, the long-in-development FPS was brought to market by Gearbox, and it. Was. Awful. As broken and bland in its design as it was dated and abrasive with its writing, with a host of technical issues to boot, Duke Nukem Forever was an unmitigated disaster.

XIII (2020)

The original XIII, back when it first came out, may not have been special by any means, but it certainly didn’t deserve a remake as horrific as the one it got in 2020, which may truly be one of the worst games ever made. 2020’s XIII may have had some cool visual flourishes, but from a mess of technical issues to braindead enemy AI to painfully dull shooting to so, so much more, it was an atrocious time. A major overhaul in 2022 did sand out many of its rough edges, but it’s still a tough game to recommend.

MEDAL OF HONOR: UNDERGROUND (GBA)

We understand that Medal of Honor: Underground came at a time when it was common to see completely different versions of the same game for different platforms- but why the hell would you try to develop an actual first-person shooter for the Game Boy Advance? Unsurprisingly, it did not go well. Medal of Honor: Underground looked awful and was frustratingly limited in the gameplay department in ways that an FPS just cannot afford. Other than as a curious novelty (that stinks like week-old socks), there is no reason for this version of this game to exist.

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES

Everything about this game was an absolute dumpster fire. Gearbox and Sega made huge promises in the lead-up to Aliens: Colonial Marines’ launch, but the game itself fell spectacularly short in so many ways. Game-breaking AI issues, crippling technical problems (including a huge visual downgrade), and more combined in an experience that failed to satisfy in any real way. Hell, so bad was Colonial Marines that Sega and Gearbox literally got dragged into court over claims of false advertisement.

ROBOCOP (2003)

Coming after an unusually long development cycle of four years (for the time, at least), Titus Interactive’s RoboCop arrived in 2003 on the back of the promise of an authentic FPS based on the beloved sci-fi property, and roundly failed to deliver on that promise even the teensiest bit. Terrible licensed games were far from a rarity in those days, and given how repetitive, generic, and painfully dull it was, it was no surprise to see RoboCop join that list.

REDFALL

Until not too long ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that the studio behind the original Dishonored and 2017’s Prey would end up delivering one o the worst shooters ever made, but the sad and indisputable fact is that Redfall is that bad. Broken, buggy, and uninspired, it exhibits none of the ingenious design that Arkane is typically known for, all in favour of a co-op looter shooter structure that it also doesn’t do any sort of justice to. On top of ending support for Redfall and cancelling its DLC plans, parent company Microsoft also went on to entirely shutter Arkane Austin, which shall always be this game’s unfortunate and tragic legacy.

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES

Coming back to poorly received licensed games, here’s one that you may not even remember ever existed- which would be a blessing in disguise, because boy is this an awful game. Battle: Los Angeles launched in 2011 and was just as bland and forgettable as the movie it was based on. A shockingly short campaign that lasted under an hour and painfully dull level design and gunplay were just a few of its many glaring issues.

THE WALKING DEAD: SURVIVAL INSTINCT

The Walking Dead as an IP has had its ups and downs in gaming. Survival Instinct definitely falls in the latter category, and may even be so bad that it’s its flag-bearer. Focusing on the Dixon brothers, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct made thin promises of being a genuinely well-made game, before being roundly criticized by one and all upon launch for being a disappointingly shallow and broken experience, to the point of being downright unplayable.

GOLDENEYE: ROGUE AGENT

Rogue Agent was literally announced with the working title GoldenEye 2 back in the day, but the actual game couldn’t have fallen further from those implied heights. Though it hid some fleeting moments of fun in its innards, there was by and large just too much else that dragged the game down, including uninspired levels, lackluster gunplay, and a nonsensical story that was almost hostile in its disrespect for James Bond canon.

007 LEGENDS

We’ll stick with the man with the license to kill a tad longer, because we can’t really talk about bad Bond games and not mention 007 Legends, which may even be one of the worst games ever made, period. Conceptually, its promise of combining all eras of the Bond movies in a single, anthological experience was an intriguing one, but the game seemed much more interested in instead being a poorly made Call of Duty clone that did not even have the shooting mechanics to back up those ambitions.

TERMINATOR 3: WAR OF THE MACHINES

Also often known as the poor man’s Battlefield 1942, Terminator 3: War of the Machines is a rare example of a game where it’s genuinely hard to come up with legitimate redeeming qualities. In almost every way that mattered, this was a game that came up short in significant ways. It was ugly to look at, its awful level design made it a chore to play, it was riddled with technical issues, its multiplayer was downright broken- and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

FAR CRY VENGEANCE

The Far Cry series has generally maintained an admirable level of quality with its mainline entries over the years, but its spinoff offerings have stumbled in more worse ways. Exhibit A: Far Cry Vengeance, an absolute mess of a remake of a game that wasn’t that great to begin with. Vengeance checked almost none of the boxes that you want a Far Cry game to check, instead coming across as an underwhelming cashgrab with mindlessly repetitive offerings and downright ugly visuals.

ROGUE WARRIOR

How this game was allowed to release in any form, much less as a full-priced $60 release back in the day, will forever remain one of gaming’s greatest mysteries. Releasing in an era that was oversatursated with shooters, Rogue Warrior offered absolutely nothing of value. Rather than focusing on fun shooting and stealth and solid design, the game instead relied on horrible writing and dull mechanics, all delivered in a shockingly short campaign and broken multiplayer modes.

HAZE

Haze was one of several games to be billed as a supposed Halo killer in the lead-up to its release back in the day, and like every single one of them, it did not live up to that billing. On the contrary, in fact, it has rightly gone down as one of the worst games of its era. Though Haze could show fleeting flashes of quality from time to time, it was ultimately far too much of a mess across both its campaign and multiplayer modes to be remembered as anything more than than massive disappointment it was.

The story of the film and the game is of course how aliens come to destroy us because that is what aliens do.  Happens all the time, at least in film, games and books.  Ah yes books, does anyone remember those things?  Do they still give you them in school or do they just give you iPads?  Well way off subject already, the story is very basic in the game with the not so unexpected twist at one point, you are basically looking at your average Independence Day(it’s a movie)  game just not quite as good.  There are no actually cut-scenes, I mean no cinematic ones, they are all just comic book strip type pics shown in sequence with bubbles of speech coming from the character, along with real audio which was a plus.  Speaking of audio, characters like Michelle Rodrigeuz were well drawn out in the cut-scenes but the voices were clearly not the actors doing the voice overs.

The game actually has a lot of action in it but there is one huge factor that is a real problem in this game and that is its length.  I could literally beat the game on easy in around 20 minutes or so.  Of course it does take longer on higher difficulties and the enemies become harder to kill.  Of course you won’t be happy to hear that if your a console player the difficulty Achievements/Trophies do not stack.  You will have to beat the game on hard to the the hard Achievement/Trophy and beat again on easy for the easy Achievement/Trophy as the same goes for normal.  However every time you beat it on a different difficulty you unlock things like videos, pictures, concept art/video and what I though was the most interesting was the Mods that you unlock.  You can unlock ‘Hollywood Mode’ and ‘Double Phsyics’, which are quite interesting making the game much more fun.  The graphics of the game are actually pretty good for an arcade game, all the aliens and explosions were very life like.

The game mechanics are pretty basic and have a bit a fine tuning they good have used.  While reloading you can’t really do anything else like through a grenade for instance.  Every action you do whether it is climbing a ladder or reloading must be done while no buttons are being pressed and you are still.  Through out the game you will find three weapons, with your M4 Assault Rifle and Sniper being your main weapons, you will come across a Rocket Launcher during portions of this short game.  The Sniper in not very accurate and could not be more slow as not only is it a bolt action requiring you to de-scope on every shot fired it takes forever to zoom in but you can change you sensitivity along with a whole bunch of other option to suit your needs.  You also can sprint for such a short time that you would have never made into the marines.  Sprint for too long which around a whole second and you become winded and walk slowly for a couple of seconds.  That aspect is entirely unnecessary and might have even been a way for them to add length to the game in cheap way…. just kidding.  Unfortunately your M4 has no scope or red dot sight, only the iron sight which I never understand why they give modern day soldiers guns with iron sights in games.  Anyway that is basically your whole arsenal, two guns, a rocket launcher and frags which the alien seem to be very resistant too.

In a nutshell Battle: Los Angeles is not the best game but it has its moments.  It is really the sheer length of the game that holds it back for the most part.  With no multiplayer, such a short game is not going to cut it for that long.  On the other hand it is a decent adaptation to the film and when you are killing those aliens, it’s fun and action packed as well as graphically impressive for a downloadable title.  You get to mow down aliens on turret guns and shoot enemy ships down with missiles.  If this game was cheaper it might even have a higher score, but 800 Microssoft Point/ $9.99 for a 30 minute game is not my idea of a fair deal.  So I can not say that the game is worth the price but you may want to try out the trial and pick it up when it goes on sale.  If you loved to film to death and couldn’t get enough of it you may want to grab this but otherwise, your just not getting your bang for your buck.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.