Patrick's Note :  I have no idea why the formatting on this entry is so screwed up.  Apparently the Xanga text editor leaves much to be desired when copying and pasting from Microsoft Word.

And now for the part of this list that saddens me : The Worst Games of 2005.

There are so many, many ways to judge a game's badness. Bugs, crashes, poor design choices...the list goes on. The games that I have selected for this dubious honor fall into one or more of these categories. This award, though, should be taken with an even larger grain of salt than the 'Best Of' list. This is because I played even fewer 'bad' games in 2005 than I did 'good' ones (although after finishing some of them, it certainly felt like they had taken up more time). I did my research before renting or certainly purchasing any games, and therefore rarely came upon any true stinkers. However, exposure could not be spared in certain cases. On that note, on with the awards.

The Very Worst Games of 2005

Number 3:

Burnout: Revenge

Poor, poor Criterion Games...they had such ambition. Sadly, this ambition either screeches to a halt, or vaults well beyond enjoyment, depending on your perception, in Burnout: Revenge.

Remember Burnout 3? Remember the fun we had? Well that's all gone, it's safe to say. I mentioned earlier that the new crash mode in Revenge is a sin unto gaming, and I still stand by that accusation. The new meter-thing at the beginning of each crash junction is unnecessary, and a little intimidating for noobs, frankly. Also, even though an interactive replay mode was promised by EA in the game, it wasn't delivered. In fact, no replay mode at all is included in the game, which is quite upsetting. Throw in “tap this button really REALLY fast or else nothing will happen” segments to enable your once sacred crashbreaker, and this mode is nearly unplayable compared with the last one in the series.

Onto racing: what I consider the meat of the Burnout series. It's broke. Simple as that. They broke it. I beg this of you: what fun is traffic racing if the traffic doesn't impede you? Does that ring odd to anyone else? Zipping between two cars stopped at an intersection at 180 miles an hour used to be the crowning pee-in-your-pants moment of these games, and now it could matter less. Feel free to slam into as much traffic as you see fit, consequence free...we don't want the game to be too difficult for you.

And why the hell did you get rid of car classes? That was just dumb.

Number 2:

Pariah

I certainly hope the pointless night-vision shot above brings back the nauseating memories of a certain other pointless night-vision scene in a film that will here go unmentioned *coughRollerballcough*. Sadly, I played Pariah longer than the other two games on this list, but I am rather proud of discarding it the fastest (if that makes any sense). Perhaps an explanation is in order:

After playing through roughly 8 hours of Pariah's single-player campaign, I reached what I found out later to be the final boss. At the time, I had no idea that this was the final boss because I really had no idea what the story was, but that's a different point entirely. Anyways, after battling the boss for nearly 20 minutes and working her health bar down to roughly 25%, she miraculously filled her own life bar back up to full. Instantly. Without explanation. I did not take the time to stare, dumbfounded into the television set. I did not swear, as I am apt to do in such situations. I did not even cast the controller away from my body, out towards the offending game. No sir. Instead I opened the XBOX disc drive, retrieved the DVD-ROM, placed it into its respective Gamefly envelope, and placed it on the mailbox. Out of my sight and life forever.

And now, here's why:

I'm sorry, but I had to put up with a lot in my playtime with Pariah. The worst offender has to be the story itself. Please excuse me if the next few sentences seem less than cohesive, as they are the only semblances of reason that I could pry out of the game. The story starts on a medical transport ship, and you are apparently a doctor. The plane crashes and you wake up with a sub-machine gun in your hand and proceed to shoot your way across a series of hills and forest locations, killing every person you meet along the way...for some reason. Upon breaching a rather secure-looking building in the middle of the forest, another cutscene begins, and apparently the building falling down around you. After you wake up outside of the rubble, the woman that you were transporting stands before you. She then runs away and you are assaulted, etc. etc. etc. blah blah blah.

Again, I'm very sorry that that last part was neither interesting nor sensible, but if I had to sit through it you do too. While the story is certainly the main reason that I loathed Pariah, the list does go on from there rather quickly. Besides the fact that there were only two useful weapons in the game, I also had problems with the thrown in driving sections (during which I would immediately exit the vehicle upon entering, only allowing myself enough time in the motorcycle/tank/car with a gun on top to trigger the next wave of enemies). Throw in a healthy dose of poor level designs and incapable AI, and you have yourself the second worst game of 2005.

Number 1:

Legend of Heroes (PSP)

I apologize in advance for not putting a terribly recognizable game here in the top slot, as most of you probably have never heard of this atrocious RPG for Sony's handheld. However, I will try to illustrate the horrors of this game to you as well as I can.

I suppose first I should establish what I was looking for when I picked up LoH. I was expecting a game with strategic battle sequences, where creativity and forward-thinking would be rewarded. I was expecting exploration and difficult item/equipment choices that could make or break your band of fighters. In short, I was expecting a game that wouldn't feel like I was being led around by the hand; being shown each portion of the game when it was good and ready (Note: these are not unheard of expectations)

First off, the main offender in the game is the battle system. While, yes, it might seem strategic at first, what with your one or two main fighters, your support character, and your magic wielder, very quickly the fights breaks down into a guessing game. With no indication of which characters perform actions in what order, setting up enemies for combos is completely impossible. The worst part of this infraction is the fact that all of the actions in the game are ranged, meaning that if you want to cast a spell on your entire party, you must first assemble them into a tight group before casting. If your caster decides to use the spell before your party is assembled, none of your party members receive the spell, and only your frustration will be enhanced. Also, the fact that your enemies appear to be able to perform several actions per turn, such as moving and casting a spell subsequently, confused and frustrated me even more.

I suppose the lack of exploration in the game needs little explanation. To ease development, the creators built an entirely linear game with no chance of straying from their neat little path. The game map is literally a row of towns that you must visit in sequence to progress throughout the game. Anytime you wish to go someplace other than your next waypoint, your friend “Mile” will pop up on screen to remind you that you shouldn't paint outside of the lines (“Mile”, by the way, is easily the worst name I have seen in a video game this year. An odd note: the game uses the word “Milo” in place of the English measure of 5,280 feet, and “Mile” as the name of your sidekick. Sounds like a typo to me.). Also, the developers apparently realized that the game they had made was far too short so they decided to lengthen it by forcing you to backtrack for as long as an HOUR in some cases, just to extend the putrid story.

It goes without saying, I suppose, that the story was terrible. Characters, motivations, I'm not going to mention much besides the fact that I really wanted the protagonist to get injured and not be able to complete his 'quest'. That's not harsh, is it?

Also, quick one: the game looks like trash. I'm personally a fan of the ¾ view, sprite-based RPG's (especially of the SNES era), but this game looks terrible. The enemies appear to have been painted by a sick penguin, and the heroes have literally the exact same body, with different hair colors. For shame...

Finally, and probably not the most surprising of complaints about the game, is the inventory/weapon system. It's pretty standard fare for an RPG, so I guess I shouldn't criticize the game too much over it. Basically, you go to a new town, they have your next level of sword/shield/armor/etc. And you purchase it and equip it. Every time this gives you an incremental advantage over the last sword/shield/armor you had equipped but still, the materialist in you wants the new one I suppose. I only wish that there was some sort of visual reflection of the different weapons in battle. Every sword looks like the very first one you got at the end of the tutorial: terrible.

I really don't know what the hell happened with this game. It started off so promising: confident developers granting early interviews showcasing different aspects of the game, a solid translation from a top-selling Japanese franchise...it really is too bad that there really wasn't any game behind their clouds of smoke.

Wh-shew!  Glad that's over.  Very depressing, indeed...

-Patrick