Before starting with the list, it’s important to acknowledge that our opinion of these games is subjective – so while we may find them to be disappointing, you could have had a great time with them regardless. And if that’s the case, more power to you!

With that out of the way, let’s begin:

Godfall

When Counterplay Games showcased Godfall for the first time, it seemed like a great RPG with spectacular visuals and addictive combat. But when it was finally released, it turned out to be a disappointing experience that was rife with apparent flaws all around. The game is plagued with repetitive gameplay and uninteresting loot mechanics – all of which result in an experience that’s not worth sinking your teeth into.

Rustler

Jutsu Games tried to mix medieval elements with the chaotic top-down action of the original Grand Theft Auto games with Rustler, and while that combination certainly sounds enchanting – the end result is anything but. Rustler suffers from all kinds of issues ranging from poor game design to bland missions to technical issues and so much more. There are some cool ideas here, but they crumble under the weight of the shoddy moment-to-moment gameplay which makes the entire package a big disappointment.

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition aims to bring the experience of the PS2 era GTA games to a modern gaming landscape, and it could have been so much better if the developers put a little bit of effort towards it all. What fans got was an underwhelming package filled to the brim with bugs, glitches, and improvements that felt more like downgrades from the original experience. It’s easily one of the biggest disappointments of recent memory, and Rockstar’s conscious decision to keep vital information hidden from the public up until launch also made the whole situation so much worse.

In Nightmare

Maximum Games’ In Nightmare tries to instill the same feelings of distress and constant tension as Little Nightmares, but it fails to achieve that design goal by a significant margin. And that can largely be attributed to poor puzzle design that hinges on being frustrating throughout the entire experience, and a narrative that doesn’t have much in terms of interesting plot revelations or twists or really anything doesn’t help the game’s case either.

Balan Wonderworld

While post-release reports have shed more light on the disastrous development cycle that Balan Wonderworld had to endure, that doesn’t really soften the blow that fans received when they booted up the game for the first time. Balan Wonderworld had some interesting concepts going for it, but they were surrounded by a poor technical framework and half-baked mechanics that made playing through the game an exercise in pain.

eFootball 2022

Konami’s attempt at rebranding its Pro Evolution Soccer series has started off on a pretty bad note with eFootball 2022. This free-to-play soccer sim is plagued with game-breaking bugs at launch, and while post-launch patches have alleviated some of those issues – other prominent criticisms such as the lack of varied game modes and general polish within gameplay mechanics haunt the game’s fates to this date.

LEGO Brawls

LEGO Brawls fared as a mostly fine fighting game when it was released on mobile platforms as a part of a subscription service, but in a console landscape where there are so many better options available – some even free to play – it ends up being one of the worst ones of the bunch. LEGO Brawls has a super thin gameplay loop that goes along with an uninteresting progression system and little variety in game modes that makes it suitable only for infants and younger audiences.

MX vs ATV Legends

THQ Nordic’s MX vs ATV Legends could have had a strong run if it had spent some more time in the making, but as it stands now – it’s a game that has some neat ideas at its epicenter, but they get muddled up in a buffet of technical and game design problems that make the whole ordeal a lot more frustrating than it needs to be.

Werewolf – The Apocalypse Earthblood

Developer Cyanide’s latest Werewolf – The Apocalypse Earthblood is a game that should by all means have been a smash hit. Hell, it’s a game where you can turn into a werewolf and wreak havoc upon your adversaries with your bare hands. But in practice, Werewolf – The Apocalypse is plagued with an overwhelming amount of game design problems ranging from poor combat design to sloppy narrative and dull visuals makes this adventure a pure disappointment on so many levels.

Zorro The Chronicles

It’s not everyday that we get linear adventure games that mix stealth and action elements together, so when Zorro The Chronicles was released – it certainly piqued the interest of many fans. But that feeling of ecstasy was rather short-lived, as Zorro The Chronicles constantly bombards the player with one frustration after another. And even as a game meant for younger audiences, Zorro The Chronicles fails on more fronts than it succeeds.

Dragon Ball The Breakers

At first, Dragon Ball The Breakers seemed like a fun concept with its asymmetric multiplayer gameplay putting a fresh twist on the standard video game adaptation of this classic anime. But when the game was released, fans realized how shallow the game actually is. Dragon Ball: The Breakers is riddled with prominent issues ranging from a finicky camera system, ill-designed gameplay mechanics, and plenty of microtransactions to go along with it.

The Last Oricru

Soulslike games are dime a dozen these days, and while some are excellent takes on this newfound genre – others are anything but. As you might have already guessed, The Last Oricru finds itself in the latter category, mostly thanks to uninteresting writing and a wonky combat system. Story choices in The Last Oricru do hold interesting ramifications for the plot, but that doesn’t really amount to much in the face of other prominent problems with the moment-to-moment experience.

Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance

A co-op action RPG set against the backdrop of one of the most recognizable tabletop games of all time should be a surefire hit, right? Well, countless fans thought so – but Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance laid waste on those expectations with a bland product that’s rife with issues both technical and otherwise. The visuals are impressive to some degree, but taken as a whole – it’s a disappointing product that doesn’t stand up to the sheer potential of its source material.

Matchpoint Tennis Championship

Torus Games’ Matchpoint Tennis Championships might not be the worst game on the list, but it’s not a game that’s going to hold your attention for more than a couple of hours at best. The actual gameplay mechanics are fine if simplistic enough for the most part, but everything surrounding that is underwhelming – and that includes a barebones career mode with little personality and bland visual presentation among other issues.

Tennis World Tour 2

While Tennis World Tour 2 is a game that delves into the more technical aspects of the sport, Big Ant Studios’ latest finds itself on the receiving end of most of the criticisms that were addressed with Matchpoint Tennis Championships a while before. Tennis World Tour 2 could have been something great, but for that to happen – it really needed some more time in the oven.

Hunter’s Arena: Legends will be available for both PS4 and PS5 subscribers, which is a nice bonus given the pattern of PS5-exclusive titles on the service for the past few months. Other free games include Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, an online shooter based on the Plants vs. Zombies franchise. Choose from 20 different classes and either challenge other players in competitive Arena battles or face hordes of enemies in PvE modes.

Nacon’s Tennis World Tour 2 is the third free game in August and sees players partaking in tennis battles. Either create your own character or choose a pro. Compete in Casual and Ranked games to climb the rankings or simply take on friends in local and online matches. There’s even a Career Mode for building up your own team, gathering staff and sponsors to find success in the world of pro tennis.

All of these titles will be available from the PlayStation Store on August 3rd.

You have four different serve and swing types, each mapped to the face buttons. This is straightforward enough, but elsewhere there are some odd control choices. Movement and shot placement are both mapped to the same stick. This makes it remarkably difficult to move in one direction and try to hit the ball in the opposite direction. You get used to it eventually, but it never really stops being annoying. There’s other issues on the court that hold the game back. While it is a marked improved visually compared to it’s predecessor, it still doesn’t look particularly good.

"Tennis World Tour 2 hasn’t quite learned the lessons of the game it seeks to emulate. The game’s overall approach is solid, but several small issues build up, and result in a game less than the sum of its parts."

Character models are odd looking, with facial animations being particularly bad. The models also have a strange sheen to them sometimes, which makes them look less like people and more like plastic models. The animations fare similarly. Some are decent, but a few of the animations look downright goofy. Characters look almost comical as they dash and sometimes skip across the court. Admittedly, it is an improvement over the previous game, where animation issues actually affected gameplay. That isn’t the case here, but they definitely affect immersion. A big draw of sports games is losing yourself in the illusion of playing the sport. That’s a lot harder to do when the people in the game look so awkward.

Still, the biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content. There’s just not a lot to do here. And what is here is fairly straightforward. There’s a career mode, where you take a custom player through a professional tennis career, and there’s an exhibition mode. This is just a straightforward custom match option, where you set up a doubles or singles game with players of your choosing. But there’s none of the other modes that are often the selling point for sports titles like this. The game feels severely lacking in terms of content.

This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if what the game does have was excellent, but it’s not. It’s not bad, not really. It’s just simplistic, and offers nothing that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. The career mode is fun enough, but it doesn’t really do much. You go from tournament to tournament, with the final goal of reaching the world championship. And that’s pretty much all there is to it. You can choose to skip an event to undergo training instead, but this is a passive experience. Unlike other sports games I’ve reviewed, like UFC 4, where your training actually requires you to, well, train, here you just get a pop-up telling you that certain skills have improved.

"The biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content."

Aside from that, you can earn skill cards that can be used to provide yourself with boosts during a match, or to give hindrances to your opponents. But the problem is how you acquire them. You don’t purchase these cards directly. Instead, you buy packs of them that reward you with a random selection of cards. It makes you feel like you have remarkably little agency in actually determining your character’s playstyle. You don’t work towards anything. Instead, you just work towards abstract goals, like getting enough money to pay for a chance to get that skill boosting card that you want. This is the biggest problem with career mode.

Outside of the matches themselves, you just don’t actually do all that much. You don’t make rivals or friendships, you don’t train. You just watch a number go up that gives you a random chance of a card that makes other numbers go up. I never really felt like I was making progress. The game was progressing, sure, but I never really felt like a part of it. The tragic part is that the actual core gameplay of Tennis World Tour 2 is pretty decent. It doesn’t look great, and the controls can be wonky at first. But once you get the hang of it, play feels decently fluid. Doubles matches in particular can actually be a lot of fun.

And there’s a pretty wide selection of players, courts, and gear that you can experiment with. Different weather conditions can affect your performance in different ways. Honestly, exhibition mode is the most fun part of the game. It’s the only part of the game where you can really experiment, trying out different courts and gear and weather at your whim to see how things change. But even on the court, the fun doesn’t last too long. Different players don’t feel all that different from each other during play, and the cards didn’t really feel like they made all that much of a difference.

"Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game."

Half the time, I felt like I was watching a tennis match even as I was playing. Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game. I want to feel like I’m playing.

I suppose die hard fans of the sport who really want a tennis game can have some fun here. The experience on the court is decent enough, and the wide roster of courts and players may excite those who are invested enough to appreciate it. But there just isn’t much here to hold your attention for long. And what is here is surface deep, feeling average at best and bland at worst. Tennis World Tour 2 is an improvement over its predecessor, but it still doesn’t stand out in any way. If you’re really set on a great game of virtual tennis, I’d suggest booting up an old copy of Top Spin instead. You’ll have more fun in the end.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.