The 10th Hour 12.19.08: My Top 10 Least Favorite Games Received for Christmas

Posted by Derek Robbins on 12.19.2008

We've all gotten things for Christmas that we don't like. It happens, you have to feign enthusiasm so your relatives don't feel bad. Do you remember your worse though? 411's Derek Robbins remembers his ten least favorite games that he's received for the Christmas holiday.

Hello and Welcome to the 10th hour. As always, this is Derek Robbins, and before we hit this week's list, allow me to go off on a couple of tangents would ya'?

-The reason there was no 10th Hour last week is because I was going through finals week in school. I was able to do B3yond the Report because it takes less time for me to write since I just have to look up information and react to it. Now school is over, I got pretty good grades, and I'm free until late January. Ahhhhh yeah!

-I was looking for something to watch today, and I had the mis-fortune of landing on ESPN. Normally my television wouldn't reside on that channel unless it was Monday Night (sometimes) or unless PTI was on. So what do I see when I turn there? The god damn Yankees introducing CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett. I turned my TV off right away. ESPN IS NOT THE YES NETWORK. FUCK. I don't remember this happening when we signed Alfonso Soriano last year. I don't remember this happening when Barry Zito (He was still good then!) signed with the Giants! Bah….this is why I don't watch ESPN.

-So I've got my Death Knight up to level 78. I can smell 80, though I'm finally getting tired of the endless questing. I have a lot of money at least, but I'm nowhere close to the epic flying I so desperately need. It's amazing I can find time to play both WoW and Persona 4 – another soul robbing game – but I guess when school is out and friends are out of town, I have nothing better to do! Fuck yeah!

Reader Feedback

Seeing as there was no 10th Hour last week, I suppose I can't respond to how you reacted to my non-present opinions. I'll just assume someone said: "WHAT ARE YOU TWELVE?" or "Gears of War???????" and move on.

For what it's worth, I voted on the GOTY awards for the site last night. It should be noted that my opinion differed from most of my staff a lot of the time. I STILL say it'll be a crock if Smash Brothers Brawl doesn't win soundtrack of the year, and it's looking like that very well could happen. Dah. Oh well, at least the Persona 4 for story of the year wagon is still alive (Okay, well, it isn't…but I will try to curry favor for votes).



Top-10 Least Favorite I have gotten for Christmas

This week I'm ranking my least favorite games that I've gotten for Christmas, as is clearly obvious by the title. I mean, we have enough positive Christmas columns out there don't we? Let's bring on the negativity. I would have waited until next week to do it, but looking at the calendar I saw that the 10th hour writing day fell on Christmas day. So unless I write on Christmas eve – which is when I'll probably be traveling to Arkansas – there won't be a 10th hour next week.

Of course, it's not QUITE that simple. Some of these games listed aren't that bad, but are listed due to experiences I had with them. So, before you go off on me for not liking your favorite game (though, honestly, if any of these are your favorite game…), keep in mind that I may not actually think some of these are bad. You'll have to read to see what I actually think of the title.

10-) Final Fantasy I and II: Dawn of Souls(GBA) - I am a pretty big fan of Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy III (VI) was one of the first RPGs I've ever played, and the series has had me hooked ever since. If I were to compile a top-10 favorite games list off the top of my head – and not just pull the one I made for this site – there's a good chance two of the games from this franchise could make this list. To me, this is a special franchise. It's over-rated, sure, but I love it none the less.

So naturally, I had the desire to play FF Origins when it came out for the GBA. I ended up missing the PS1 port of the game, so I settled for the portable version. I wasn't really expecting anything special because these games were pretty out-dated, but I was at least expecting to play through them. Alas, this was not the case…and I ended up not enjoying these old-school JRPGs one bit.

Don't get me wrong, Final Fantasy I was a good game for its time. There's a reason that it was the final hope for Square. It was good. My first time playing it wasn't when it first came out in North America in 1990. The JRPG genre wasn't fledgling, I had experience playing superior games throughout time and I just couldn't get into it. There were too many random encounters, there was pretty much no plot, and the world just wasn't very engaging. I don't want to say it's a game I never want to beat – some day I wish to play all the way through it – but it's hard for me to force my way through the game. It's just…it's just aged poorly and I wasn't expecting that.

Now Final Fantasy II on the other hand, I can't even say that game was good for its time. It was just a weird, quirky little title with a weird, quirky level-up system. Just like FF I the story isn't very engaging, there are too many random encounters, but when you throw in that crazy leveling system it just becomes too much. The game, in my opinion, is darn near unplayable and is only worthy of a go if you are a die-hard oldschool JRPG fan. If you're not, don't even bother. FF I is the only game in this bundle worth playing if you want the trip down nostalgia lane.

So to sum it up, I wouldn't say the package of FF: Origins is bad, I will just say that by the time I got around to playing the first two Final Fantasies the genre had evolved too much for me to enjoy the game as much as I would have liked to. There's no doubt in my mind that if I had heard of Final Fantasy back in 1990 – and wasn't, you know, three years old – I would have appreciated the game more. I didn't though and the times have betrayed me. I just didn't like FF Origins. I figure unless you were stuck in a time-warp and didn't have access to the JRPGs of today, you'll probably feel t he same way. Kind of a shame when things like that happen, eh?

You'll have a lot of opportunities to feel that way too since FF I and II were both released – separately – on the PSP. Yay?



9-) Mario's Time Machine (SNES) - Who didn't love Mario when they were growing up? Hell, I still love Mario. I think Mario Galaxy is one of the best games of this generation, and if you disagree I just assume you hate fun. Well, imagine my young mind when I first heard of Mario's Time Machine. HOW could this go wrong I ask you? You take Mario, a guy who has appeared in some of the most legendary platforming games of all time, and give him a time machine? I mean, we could be getting into Turtles in Time territory here. Pure, un-mitigated awesome.

Obviously, you see the game on this list, so you know that it turned out wrong. How could they have messed it up though? Well, the plot is Bowser is stealing some of History's greatest artifacts and is trying to make one hell of a museum. Your goal is to return these artifacts to their original times. There isn't really any gameplay, you're just answering fill-in-the-blank style questions about history. That's it! I actually stuck with this game for a while in hopes that I would get to the ACTUAL Mario gameplay, but that never came. So sad.

I have distinct memories of bugging my father over and over again to help answer questions. They had a billion different options for me to choose, and I was young. I had no idea what the answers were and was pretty much lost the entire time I tried to play it. It would literally go like: "Alright, thanks Dad! I'll take it from here…" five minutes late: "DAAAAAD! I DON'T KNOW THIS, PLEASE HELP!" I assume it quickly became Dad's least favorite present he bought me as well.

Look, I'm all for releasing educational games. There are kids out there who would not know anything about ANYTHING if it wasn't for video games. To this day, I tell people that my puzzle solving skills originated from Zelda and the only useful thing I got until I went to college was the ability to read so I could understand games. I turned out alright, didn't I? What I don't like though is packaging a very reliable character who almost always appears in quality games, teaming him with a really fucking awesome title, and making one of the most underwhelming educational titles ever.

This is no Number Munchers, this is no Oregon Trail, hell…this isn't even that one game you play in Middle School where you're a fish and you eat your way up the food chain. (How in the world could they pass that off as educational? That was such a fun game) The only reason anyone even knows this game exists is because Mario is in it. If you took him out, this would just be one of many shoveware educational titles. Maybe someday Nintendo will make an actual IN TIME Mario game, but until then…Mario's only interaction with time is a waste.



8-) Pac-Man 2: The New Adventure (SNES) - For whatever reason, I see people talk positively on this game, and I can never figure out why. I've read reviews that actually praise it and call it a "Not so bad" title. I've tried to go back and play this game probably a million times since then, and every time I go back I ask the same question: "What do they see in this?" My assumption is that these reviewers gave the game decent reviews in the hopes that poor children would buy this game expecting a fun Pac-Man experience and instead get a pile of shit.

Why though would my Dad buy this game for me? It's not one that I asked for, unlike Mario's Time Machine, so there must be a good reason. My assumption is that he assumed, like any reasonable man would, that a Pac-Man title would have some actual Pac-Man in it. After all, I have a lot of fun memories of playing through Ms. Pac-Man with my Mom and Dad. To be totally fair, they do have some classic Pac-Man action in the game, but it's the same game I can play on the NES. So in that regard, my poor father was duped.

What perturbed me about this game right away is the fact that you have no direct control over Pac-Man. You cannot control him with the D-pad, instead your goal is to get his attention and have him do things on his own. As we all know, watching someone have all the fun for you is totally the perfect way to experience a video game. You get him to notice things by shooting a slingshot at them. How he interacts with them varies, but generally it takes a lot of trial and error. Pac-Man's mood also plays a lot into the game, and how he feels can affect whether you can or can't do something.

Now look, I can appreciate a good adventure game as much as the next guy. I think the Monkey Island titles are fantastic, and I loved Sam and Max, but man the adventure aspects of this game are just so basic. It's not so much skill related, there's very little thought involved in my opinion. What you needed to do was just shoot everything until Pac-Man decided that it was totally the thing you needed to shoot and interacted with it in some way.

This game is also quite the trend-setter. We haven't seen very many "traditional" Pac-Man games since Miss Pac-man. If I am correct, the last one was that one that took advantage of the DS/GBA connectivity wasn't it? We've had to play a lot of Pac-man world since then. Those games aren't necessarily bad, but I'll never look at Pac-Man as a platforming star, just a star of arcadey games. I think this game got a lot of people thinking about what it would be like if Pac-Man actually played like a platformer. All that crazy interacting you do, what if you could control it? So they fiddled around with it, and we got the Pac-Man that we saw last generation.

When will we be getting another Pac-Man game for a major console anyhow? I've seen games on the DS, but I haven't seen anything anywhere else. I figure they should consider releasing one for the wii since it'd be the perfect way to re-debut the little guy. Everyone knows Pac-man, and since a lot of Wii "gamers" are older, they'll probably have less trouble adapting to his re-debut. Plus, you can control Pac-Man through the maze with waggle!

Guh.



7-) The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Genesis) - The year I got this would easily be the worst Christmas I have ever had. My Dad was on leave in Korea, I was stuck in the middle of Arkansas, and we were going through some financially rough times. For a "hardcore gamer" in 1997, I didn't have a single "next-gen" console. The N64 was simply a fantasy I could dream of, the Playstation was…well, I really didn't know much about it to be honest. I knew Final Fantasy VII looked neat from commercials, but Sony was new and I knew little of them. I think the thing I wanted most was a Saturn, and that's horribly ironic because that's the only system of the three I would never own.

Back to the story though, it was Christmas day and I owned two practically dead consoles. All support was going forth to the N64, PS1, and Saturn. My Christmas list was desperately simple that year. It went something like: "Sonic 3D Blast, the lost world, a wrestling game." I got all three. All of which were just putrid, though at least I had fun with the Wrestling game a bit. I wanted to come up with support as to WHY the Lost World is so bad, but when I went to wikipedia to look up information about the Genesis version of the game, apparently they don't know it exists.

So I own some sort of artifact? Neato. Anyhow, the game plays in an over-head view. You can run in all directions this way. You essentially shoot dinosaurs and drive around the whole time. I honestly had no idea what I was doing when I played originally, and when I picked it up again to play with my brother David, I STILL had no clue what was going on. It's sort of a mess. I do know that the enemy AI acts appropriately. If you start beating up on an enemy, it will run away. Hostile hunters will pick up ammo off the ground, and everything will avoid traps and stuff that are on the ground. I guess that's neat…

But it STILL doesn't change the fact that for the majority of the time, I was just wondering around and shooting dinosaurs hoping that they would drop coins. I guess if you tranq five of them, a plane will give you some supplies. I'm sure the supplies consist of health and ammo. There's also first-person boss encounters to note, but I have a feeling you won't be sticking around with this game for very long.

Unlike the PS1 and Saturn versions of the game, there are not five different characters to choose from. You can't run around as a dinosaur and fuck shit up. You're just a boring little human shooting things, and there is just about a billion better ways to spend your time. If you have suckered any enjoyment out of this title, please let me know. You are a better man than I. After all, I got this in the year 1997, at a time when I literally liked any game that was playable. The fact that I didn't like it then should really say a lot to you now.

That's quite a shift to now though, eh? I just fucking hate EVERYTHING.



6-) Final Fantasy XI - No. Final Fantasy XI isn't a bad game. Actually, the first time I EVER played the title was earlier this year in demo form and I absolutely loved it. I suppose it helped that I was playing with friends of mine, but I thought that it felt like a JRPG in MMO form. It's quite a shift from WoW, and once I hit level 80, I might be tempted to subscribe. The characters and the story are interesting enough, so I don't see why I shouldn't at least give it a fair shake.

Of course, this game made the list so something must be up. It's not here for being bad, it's here for creating a scenario I'll never quite forgive. Final Fantasy XI is the only game I ended up getting twice for Christmas. I got it first for the PC. Due to my brothers getting more presents than me that year, there was even money attached to the case! So I took all the contents out of the box and tried to install it only to find that…IT WOULDN'T WORK!

The damn game took like two or three hours to install on my piece of shit old computer. I tried everything I possibly could to get it to work. I toned down the graphics, I shut off the sound, I did EVERYTHING and nothing would come out of it. I was very distraught. Before we ended up returning the game though, I did get to play Tetra Master, which actually did work. Let me tell you, that game as fun as hell. It's almost worth the price of admission to Final Fantasy XI alone. Of course, since the actual game itself wouldn't work I had to return it to the store. I don't remember what I got in its place, so obviously it wasn't anything special.

The next year, (at least I think) I got Final Fantasy XI for the PS2. This time, there was NO WAY that it wouldn't work. After all, it was on a console and those silly things don't have system requirements right? So I take my Network Adaptor, plug it into my HDD, follow all the crazy steps, put in Final Fantasy XI…AND IT DOESN'T WORK! What the hell!? I tried everything I could do to get it to work, I even called Square. Square, of course, was just about no help in this whole scenario. They said it was the Network Adaptor's fault. I went and bought a new one, and of course that didn't work either. It was the stupid hard drive. I tried running FF XI's disk without it and it ran fine, but with the HDD in it REFUSED to work. It was just infuriating. I probably cried out of frustration several times throughout this whole process, because I wanted to play FF XI really damn bad.

So after Square was just plain un-helpful and my PS2 fat was just plain un-cooperative, I gave up and returned the package to Best Buy. I ended up getting a GTA Double Pack and…something else. I don't remember that either, so it probably wasn't anything special. It turns out that FF XI not working on my PS2 was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because not terribly long after that my Fat PS2 refused to read games anymore and I wound up purchasing a Slim PS2. That PS2 slim still works fabulously to this day.

I could have went to FF XI when I had an X-Box 360, and again when I got a better PC…but something scares me about it. I worry that something will go wrong when I turn on the game. I worry that I'll go through this struggle again. Perhaps FF XI is cursed for me? Well, I ended up asking a friend for FF XI, so it could end up being the very first game I've got for Christmas three time. This time, it WILL work…but will it be worth the wait? We'll see.

The whole experience can best be described as frustrating.

- I really can't wait to finally play the retail version of this game.

5-) Various Tiger Games - We all know by now that kids are stupid. If you've ever seen a kid in a game store, you probably have seen a kid picking up some sort of shovelware. Of course, you can't blame them, because odds are you were like that at one point as well. I know I was. I was KING Shovelware back in the days, with a crown made of NES cartridges. I asked for some lame games when I was growing up, but let me tell ya'…these are probably the lowest quality I have ever out-right wished for.

You know what I'm talking about, don't you? They're the little hand-held Tiger electronic games that are very simplistic and cost a few dollars. They take place on a screen reminiscent of the original Gameboy and have art specific to the game pasted on the side. Some of them can look kind of neat, but none of them are actually fun. Honestly, to call some of them games would be a bit of a stretch.

One I am thinking of off the top of my head would be the Lion King Tiger game. You had to kill Hyenas and then you got to fight Scar. I remember not thinking the game had tight controls and often wondering if I was even in direct control of what was happening at all, but it's been so long since I've played I can honestly say that I have no idea if this is accurate. I do remember being disappointed – for WHATEVER REASON – that the game wasn't as good as the Genesis and Super Nintendo versions. No shit, really? God, I was one stupid kid.

The thing is, these Tiger games were all wastes of money. They were cheap, sure, but when actually playing them (if you can call it that), the ability to have fun is almost absent. Even placing main-stays into the games such as Sonic the Hedgehog or the Street Fighters isn't enough to guarantee you'll enjoy yourself. Actually, the Tiger games based on those games are considered to be among the worst by fans. Of course, this is probably because the fans of those series are used to a higher quality (well, maybe not Sonic fans…) and these severe downgrades can be viewed as a slap to the face.

I was looking up some Tiger game pictures, and I came across ones for popular NES games like Megaman 2, Megaman 3, and Simon's quest. So it seemed that Tiger was trying to appeal to the crowd that couldn't buy the console versions of these games. To be totally fair, the art on the game looks pretty cool and I wouldn't be ashamed of owning one…but I assume these play very poorly compared to the original versions. I was looking at the Sonic 3 Tiger LCD and it just looks like a poor-man's version of that game's emerald stages. Yippee.

So, unless you knew a kid who could pay attention to the same stupid stuff for hours at a time, Tiger games were a horrible, horrible gift to give. Even if they asked for them, you were a BAD PARENT FOR GIVING THEM. DID YOU HEAR THAT MOM AND DAD!? Maybe I wouldn't hate everything now if it wasn't for Tiger.



4-) Shaq-Fu - Who doesn't love Shaquille O'Neal? I mean, seriously, the dude is so goofy that it's really not hard to look at his antics and go: "Oh Shaaaaq". I mean, seriously, "Tell me how my ass tastes!" Hah, oh Shaq Daddy. Of course, as cool as he is today, it should be noted that in the 90's he was popular as all can be. He was in the movie Kazaam even. A movie so bad, that even a child version of me was like: "Jeesh…there's gotta be something better than this…"

So, what could possibly top the utter shit that was the movie Kazaam? Why…Shaq's very own game! Shaq Fu! What goes down in this game is just a simple case of ridiculous. Shaq, for whatever reason, heads into a dojo on his way to a charity basketball tournament in Japan. Once in that dojo he finds a portal that magically teleports him to the feudal era where he falls in love with some douchebag dog demon and they don't ever admit it ever. It was such a shitty premise that all anime based on it were cancelled forever takes him to another dimension. In this dimension, Shaq must rescue a young boy named Nezu from the mummy Sett-Ra.

Oh boy. That just sounds amazingly high-quality right? Shaq, a basketball player, must rescue a boy from being captive? Well look, I'm sure that Shaq would totally save a young man in need of rescue, but would he have the means to? Does he know kung-fu? Is he able to spar with the ancient masters of martial arts? I mean, this game is quite a stretch in believability. Now if they had his air-ness Michael Jordan go back in time and fight these guys with the use of the chaos dunk (he learned it from Barkley), perhaps I could believe that. Shaq though? I mean, look, I just don't see it.

Now, so far I've only mentioned that the story and stuff is ridiculous and haven't really touched on the gameplay. Well, I'll say it simply – it's not very good. The characters all look very un-inspired, the moves are all very lame, and the collision detection is way off. This game really was only made to capitalize on two things: the public's love for Shaq and the public's love for fighting games. Given that I was a lover of both things, my request of this game was only a natural thing. What I got was a steaming pile of shit.

The problem is? I actually at one point thought it wasn't THAT bad of a game. I wanted the Genesis version of the game because I heard it had an extra character and new music, I heard that it was so fun…and I wanted to believe it! I wanted to believe that there was no way that I could have asked for a bad game. Well, younger me, YOU DID! You ruined Shaq for the rest of my life. Now whenever I see him, I can't help but picture him playing that one red flaming demon guy in basketball like he does during the ending of Shaq Fu. Argh.

Luckily, for people like me, there is a site dedicated for destroying every copy of Shaq Fu in existence. So we can uphold the big man's dignity. Thank you Shaqfu.com!



3-) Sonic 3D Blast - This game comes from the aforementioned WORST CHRISTMAS EVER…so of course it's going to rank high up on this list. Sonic the Hedgehog was absolutely my favorite mascot when I was growing up. I would watch his cartoons, I would read his comic books, hell…I would even read his book about his missing shoes. You know, that one where he used Antoine's shaver to help his friends out of a net or something?

Given that this was allegedly Sonic's debut in 3D, I was pretty much forced to own this game. I was on a dieing boat of consoles and needed the hedgehog to bail me out. Without a doubt, that year Sonic 3D Blast was the game I wanted the most. I had to be there to see the hedgehog debut in the third dimension. It's interesting I say this, because today I just want him to stay grounded in the second dimension. Ah well.

They totally lied to us about this game being a 3D game. The game takes place in a 2D isometric point of view. As you can imagine, this makes control very awkward and you can often find Sonic sliding all over the place. Given the new way the game plays, some changes had to be made. No longer do you go from one end of a level to the next, now you must rescue Flickies (little birds). Once you rescue five of them, you're allowed to move on. This promotes exploration, which is cool, but it also has to change one other thing in order to allow you to explore more effectively: Speed. Sonic is all about running fast, but in Sonic 3D Blast he is as slow as can be. Slow Sonic is only cool when he needs to slow down in order to platform. It just doesn't work if he always moves slowly.

I talked about Sonic 3D Blast in depth during the last 10th hour, so there really isn't much else I can add here. If you want to see what specifically about the game pissed me off, check out this 10th Hour.

Really though, this would make the first time of many times that Sonic has disappointed me. From being the one franchise that could do no wrong, to a franchise that is nothing but shovelware, Sonic has undergone one of the more depressing shifts into mediocrity in video game history. It sucks.



2-) One of those 200-in-1 Gaming Devices - Thank God I never asked for one of these things. If you don't remember what I'm talking about, perhaps you'll remember this commercial: THROW YOUR VIDEO GAMES IN THE TRASH! This line would be accompanied by a hand holding up a game and dropping it into a trash can. There were many devices at the time that advertised hundreds of "quality" games in one device that would forever replace consoles. I imagine this would occasionally fool older people (it got my Grandmother) who had no idea what their grandchildren wanted for Christmas, but there IS a reason why you don't see these all over store shelves. They're really, really bad.

These "great" games, what they fail to tell you, are usually just one of a few games with several difficulty levels. These games could be interesting if their graphics weren't putrid. No, I'm not talking "old-school" graphics that are kind of neat to look at. I mean, looking at Adventure isn't a bad thing. It looks nice and old. These games all look like shit. Every single game is comprised of things comprised of blocks. Everything. There is no effort placed into making these games look good, you just have a lot of blocks doing shit.

You at least could guide your horrendously blocky things through various challenges though. You had a racecar game that was kind of fun I guess. And you had a uhm…Tetris thing? Oh, and they also had a space-ship shooter! Hey look, this may not have been a horrible game to put on the Gameboy or something, but for the most part all of these games are replicated elsewhere much more effectively. Oh, and with superior graphics as well.

I am by no means a graphics whore. A lot of my favorite games of all time have very simplistic looks about them. In regards to this generation, graphics don't matter to me at all. I figure everything looks nice and nit-picking is just a pain in the butt. But for God's sake, at least have some personality in your products. This device, which lord helps me I can't even think of a name for it, had NO SOUL. You're just character-less blocks doing very generic game-related tasks. You have no story, no reason to play, no lovable looking sprites…you just had a black and white game that you could play through if you wanted.

It would have been redeeming if the game had good music, but from what I can recall everything was just blips and bloops. Like, you know when you're watching two guys playing games on TV and you can hear them playing something? Usually you hear very generic video gaming sounds that come out of the 1970's. Picture that, but all the time. It's something you'll always want to have on mute if you decide to take the adventure of playing it.

I was really offended that the commercials suggested that I throw my games away. I mean, am I expected to throw away my good videogames for a compilation of cheap, soul-less, generic games? If I did that, I'm sure my Wii collection would be much bigger than it currently is. That doesn't seem like something I would want to do. As a whole, this device was made to sucker people out of money. Once you pay for it, they really don't care if you enjoy it or not. Just as long as you gave them money for it. Also, throw your games away so you forget what video games are supposed to look like.

Maybe that would help you.

- I couldn't find a picture of the device, so instead I went with the original number 10 game (I actually forgot about this until Drew brought it to my attention). I never got to play it until I emulated it years later because when I got it, I didn't even have a 32X.

1-) Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex (PS2) - There's never been a mascot who has had a quicker fall from grace than Crash Bandicoot. You may be thinking Sonic the Hedgehog, but at least he was respectable for the Dreamcast years. I think Sonic has only been pure shit since the day Sonic Heroes came out. Now Crash, he had three games in the sun. Also a kart racer. They were fantastic games that were worthy of praise. On the move to the PS2 though, Naughty Dog was not involved with the creation of the game. Universal took the helm. Reading about the game, I was really excited. It was going to be a supped up version of Crash Bandicoot with fancy new PS2 graphics!

Unfortunately, when Universal snatched up Crash, they forgot to capture his soul as well. Wrath of Cortex is one of the most un-inspired games I have ever played. Everything about it is so been-there-done-that. Like, it's almost as if Naughty Dog gave Universal a "how-to" guide when making this game. They just followed the script without asking questions. They didn't differ from the path taken, they didn't try anything new, they just went straight and I didn't much appreciate that.

The absolute worst thing about this game has got to be the load times. Holy cow are they bad. In the original, review copy of the game the load times were so bad that they even had a little game (collecting apples I believe) to do during it. When a game includes a game during LOAD TIMES, you know things are getting ridiculous. The minigame was removed from the retail version of the game, but the load times were kept. Why did you remove that? Maybe someone could have had fun? Oh well.

From this point on, Crash had no soul and he would never appear in another good game. Everything else Crash has been in has been total generic garbage that does nothing to push the genre forward. Crash just wallowed in mediocrity, while Ratchet, Jak, Mario, and The Prince were out there being legitimately fun and original games. Games like Twinsanity and Crash of the Titans are not just bad games, they're PUTRID titles that make current Sonic games look good by comparison. Horrible story, horrible humor, and just horrible everything drug this series down to the dirt.

Why does this game rank so high on the list though? Technically speaking, it's not the worst game on the list. Certainly, I got more playtime out of it than that shit I ranked at number two. The thing is, I really hated seeing Crash Bandicoot die in front of my eyes. I would get the privilege of buying Sonic Heroes and seeing Sonic die in front of my eyes, but Crash was a gift. Seeing him go from world-beating platforming star to generic platforming wanna-be was sad and I regret being a part of the shift.

The X-Box version of the game allegedly removes the load times, but that doesn't even matter. The game would still be a generic mess that isn't really worth your time. It still marks the death of the franchise, and I just don't like it.



Well, that's it for this week. As always, you can comment down below or send me an e-mail with your thoughts. Good or bad, I appreciate them, because I feel that they can help make me better at what I do. What were some of your terrible holiday presents? Do you have any interesting stories? Who knows, I may throw together a 10th hour next week right before I leave for vacation, so don't feel shy!

Before I depart though, let's take a look at what's going on around 411's game section, shall we?

Todd Vote, or as I will always know him TODDO, writes the new column Eye on the Future. He looks at X-Box 360 games coming out next year. Lookin' awfully Halo there...

This week, 411's latest free agent pick-up Mark Salmella writes Games Only a Mother Can Love and tells us about Corpse Killer for the Sega CD. He puts a lot of work into it. It's long, humorous, and worth your time. Plus, he tells you to comment or the site will be nothing but Robbins brother columns and you KNOW you'd hate that.

The Ogre returns from hospital leave (Hope you're feeling better!) with the Working Title. It's the Workies this week, so let Jordan know how you feel.

Greg Bruno pulls double duty this week. He writes a monthly column on getting your girlfriend to play games. This month it's Halo! It was even linked to by Bungie. Lucky Dog. I wish Sega would link to my HOW TO FIX SONIC column. He also does a What IF!? which features himself, 8-bit Jay, and me talking hypothetical.

Tommy Coloma writes The Release List. I am SO envious that you own Fate/Unlimited Works. That's a game I think looks awesome. I am also a huge fan of the anime, and I noticed that Rin and Saber are on the cover. Lucky.

Vincent Chiucchi writes The Hall of Shame and this week he inducts Mario is Missing. Good choice there. That game is another one that should have stayed "missing".

Tommy Coloma also writes Fact or Fiction. This week he asks things like whether the Spike Awards are respectable or not, whether FF XIII will be released in 2009 (No =( ), and whether Mad World is all style, no substance.

JDL, ANOTHER new face, filled in for Working title last week. What does that stand for you ask? It stands for John Dradshaw Layfield. Duh. He also does the surprisingly humorous Once in a Lifetime Game Report. I'm impressed, Dradshaw. It appears the Ogre is an ace recruiter.

Rod Oracheski writes Achievement Unlocked. He takes a look at how the economic slowdown is affecting the gaming industry. Word on the street is that he'll be getting his review copy of God of War 3 by Christmas.

Chris Vicari writes The PC-Spotlight. Apparently he reveals the Sims 3 PC requirements and fails to make the obvious Copy+pasting of the Sims 2 requirements into the column joke. COME ON VICARI. I TAUGHT YOU WELL!

Theo Fraser, writer of The Nintendophiles, tells us that EA and Konami are prepping top-tier IP for the Wii. Can I hear a: "THANK THE LORD!" EA seriously has gained a lot of respect from me this year.

I write B3yond the Report

Joe Roche writes The Full-Circle 360 News Report. Apparently Gears of War 1.5 sold 3 million copies. Yay.

Vincent Chiucchi writes The Select and Start News Report and lets us know that Spore, a game stacked with DRM, was the most pirated game of 2008. Well, at least you pirates are pirating shitty games that don't deserve sales.

AJ and Mike Minotti are the voices behind The Exploding Barrel Podcast. I let them down last week by not having a list up! Dah…I also think it speaks to the moral complexity of Fallout 3 that they had difficulties playing evil characters in Fallout 3. How is the WoW character going Mike? Isn't Northrend a lot cooler than the Outlands?

Well, that's it for this week. I'm out!

'til the crossroads

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