The Worst Video Games of 2012 So Far

IGN:

The staff joked recently that 2012 might be -- despite absolutely incredible games like Fez, Diablo III, and Mass Effect 3 -- the worst year in the history of games.

[NastyLeftHook0]

pESEnt evil 4 show dog

[Derekvinyard13]

this is a good list. blackwater should be on it to

[gaffyh]

These guys obviously never played that PSN game Smash 'n Survive, the worst game I've ever played, worse than Amy! Truly horrific.

[hilmart]

Pretty sure Revelations 2012 should be at the top of that list. It's not even mentioned...

[STONEY4]

The worse part is that the menus, HUD, and UI are literally ripped straight from Left 4 Dead. Literally. It's not even a mock-up. It's like they took the files straight from Left 4 Dead 2. The game's .exe is actually named left4dead.exe, or something similar. That's a whole new level of laziness.

[ALLWRONG]

Ninja Gaiden 3 and Steel Battalion are bad, Bloodforge I disagree.

[t0mmyb0y]

I was playing the Ninja Gaiden 3 demo thinking, WHAT THE &$%# is this shat. I couldn't believe they thought people would play this crap. #2 and #3 on the NES were the best lol.

[StrongMan]

Kinect Star Wars- 55 metascore
Diabolical Pitch- 56 metascore
Steel Battalion- 40 metascore

It don't get any worse than those 3 horrid games.

[guitarded77]

I really didn't think Kinect Star Wars was that bad. Sure it continued the the raping of the Star Wars franchise, but it had some fun moments... and some frustrating moments... and some lame ass moments... Okay, it was pretty bad. But I still like me a horrible game every now and then.

I also want to check out Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. I know it got horrid reviews, but it looks like there's some fun to be had with friends.

[kma2k]

remember the really crappy ones just make you enjoy good ones that much more! That applies to most things in life to lol

[TekoIie]

aaah i see what you did there.... Smoooth.... VERY smooth ;)

[t0mmyb0y]

huh?

[humbleopinion]

Oh, it does get worse... I guess you haven't checked the recent crop of Vita games:
Ridge Race - 44
Dungeon Hunter - 49
Reality Fighters - 54
Resistance: Burning skies - 59

[Blastoise]

Recent crop of Vita games?

Dungeon Hunter - February
Ridge Racer - February
Reality Fighters - February

...

[Hicken]

PSN Ratings:

Ridge Racer: 2/5
Dungeon Hunter: 3.5/5
Reality Fighters: 4/5
Resistance: Burning Skies: 4/5

I'd rather take the ratings of people that bought the game and spend time with it, over a random person who "reviews" games.

[humbleopinion]

Hicken, I wouldn't count on non-professional review rating, especially in cases where people don't even have to play the game before they rate it...

I think it would be pretty dumb to ignore professional reviews and instead count on anonymous people on the internet (which are much more fitting to your description of "random people": After all, Diabolical Pitch, Star Wars Kinect, and Steel Battalion all got around 3.5 stars as well if you look at Xbox Live ratings so considering that it's still worse...

[Hicken]

What school do these individuals graduate from to get their degree in professional video game reviewing?

Just curious, because I've never heard of such a thing, and some(many) of these reviewers are complete and utter crap, or biased towards or against certain systems or franchises.

Oh, and you DO have to at least own the game before you can rate it on PSN. Most people don't even do that, however; I can count on one hand the number of games I've rated, and I'd still have fingers left over. So I'd wager that people who went out of their way to rate a game on PSN played that game and are giving an honest opinion about it.

I will take that average over that of any professional reviewer. Otherwise, listening to an idiot like, say, Tom Chick, I would have missed out on Journey, which is my personal GOTY.

[doogiebear]

Burning Skies got a 59? I heard it was supposed to be good...

[GREW50ME]

Diablo 3 should be on this list, but advertising dollars aka BRIBES kept their review scores high. I'd put Diablo 3 below farmville, bruce lee, and e.t. as the worst game of all time, 0/10... because it is not a game. It is just a vehicle to indoctrinate people into accepting real money auctions, with a terrible story and only 8 hours of original gameplay... Blizzard is dead to me!

[yeahokchief]

Not just advertising dollars...If they put Diablo on their list they'd be blacklisted. Big sites like this can't call out the bigger publishers because they depend on them too much.

It would be like a kid saying nasty things about their parent. They'd get screwed. Smaller and more independent sites don't have as much to lose or as much at stake so they can call out the bullshit on the spot.

[Wingsfan24]

Lol, don't even try to act like you understand the industry.

[smashcrashbash]

That is what I talk about all the time. Gaming sites are now afraid to rate anything bad because of fanbases or just the plain fact that they are afraid of losing visitors to their site if they say anything bad about the popular games that many people INSIST are good no matter what. People tell me all about Kid Icarus Uprising crappy controls all the time but somehow it still gets high scores up and down the board despite the fact that any other game would have being penalized badly if their controls were not up to standards.

I watch critics rate game with high percentages and when I play them I wonder 'Is this the same game I have been hearing about with NO FlAWS and 10/10? While everything else not too popular gets all the hits they should have been giving to those games.

Then they suddenly wake up and remember that bad story,spotty controls,glitches, lifeless cutscenes, same old gameplay and repetitiveness are things to be penalized. GTA 4 for example wasn't even half as good as the others and yet it got sparkling reviews. Why? Because it was GTA and no one would listen to any site spelling out its flaws. That is why I like Yatzee. He says what needs to be said and doesn't care who hates him for it.

[AIndoria]

@PockyKing : You mad because he knows about gaming more than you do?

[vickers500]

@smashcrashbash

Yahtzee is a terrible reviewer. Funny as hell, but not a very good reviewer.

He intentionally looks for things to hate in games, and when he finds a flaw in a game, no matter how minor or insignificantly small it is and how little it actually detracts from the experience, he amplifies and extremely overstates its impact on the game.

He's a comedy reviewer, not really a serious reviewer, and while he is f*cking hilarious, if you base your decision not to buy a game on his reviews, you will miss out on like 90% of the good games out there.

For every time he "says what needs to be said", there's about 5 things that don't need to be said, things that aren't actually worth complaining about.

@GREW50ME

Wow, only 8 hours of gameplay? Or do you mean 8 'unique' hours of gameplay? If true, that sucks considering how long it's been in development and how little time and effort they didn't have to put into things like graphics.

But even still, when the price drops to 40 or there's a sale for it at 40 bucks, I'm going to get it. What I played of the beta was pretty fun (not full price fun, but still fun), so I'll still get it.

I won't pay a single cent of real world money in the auction house though (aside from the fact that it's a waste of money, I prefer to EARN my gear, not buy it), and although the always on DRM REALLY sucks, I'm pretty much never without an internet connection, so it shouldn't bother me too much. And by the time I get the game, the servers will have probably been fixed from the bandwidth issues (if they haven't already).

[Zweihanders]

That's why I don't read reviews from sites like IGN. They are terrible. Look at Final Fantasy XIII. I think that got like an 8 or 8.9 or something. I can't see how anyone older than 5 could enjoy that garbage. Sites like IGN just cannot give a game that big a crappy score though.
That being said, Diablo 3 should be nowhere near this list. It's nowhere near as bad as you say it is. I'm not saying it's a 9/10 but it's not near the bottom either. Average I'd say.

[DarthJay]

Diablo 3, at absolute worst, is a 7/10, and this is coming from someone who played his first Diablo game when Diablo 3 came out. I don't agree with the necessity of servers and I understand it was frustrating at the start, but the game itself is a fine game and doesn't belong anywhere near this list.

[Cajun Chicken]

Why does everyone hate Neverdead? I quite enjoyed it.

[ShaunCameron]

Let's just say it's a case of a game with interesting ideas ruined by poor execution. Just like the other Konami-published game that I actually bought the very first week it came out, Blades Of Time. The only thing remarkable about it was the $40 launch price.

[Y_5150]

I wanna try out Neverdead actually...

[yeahokchief]

Yeah these games are all pretty terrible.

Then again this is what you deserve to suffer when you inflate scores. Enjoy. Proud to say I didn't waste a second of my life playing any of these.

[D3mons0ul]

Wow, IGN wrote a "no shit" list

[urwifeminder]

I have not got a single new release this year lol something is bound to come out one of these days that i dig.

[OhMyGandhi]

worst year of gaming ever?
I highly doubt it.

[TheDivine]

I think its one of the best.

Resident Evil Revelations
Kid Icarus Uprising
Tales of the Abyss
Tales of Graces F
Mass Effect 3
The Witcher 2
Max Payne 3
Gravity Rush
Uncharted Golden Abyss
Xenoblade

And later in the year

The Last Story
Kingdom Hearts DDD
New SMB 3ds
Castlevania 3ds
AC3
RE6
Halo 4
and the wii-u launch

This year kicks ass especially if your a handheld fan. The 3ds has had one of the best lineups for any console ever. Im also waiting for persona 4 on vita.

[jetlian]

battle forge, res evil and ninja gaiden werent bad

[Run_bare]

I agree with AMY, I am glad not the only person that hate it with a vengeance, is a waste money on PSN. I hope the developer learn a lesson this.

[Blastoise]

You'd be surprised how many people bought it anyway...
As of today on the European PSN store a minimum of 1,312 people bought it.

Don't people even read reviews?

[Elvis]

It's a shame because some of these games had great potential.

[byeldell34]

no wii games?...

[Hanuman]

What the hell is a Wii?

[ShaunCameron]

Well the worst 2012 Wii games were deemed not bad enough to qualify for the list. It figures.

[byeldell34]

amy has a good story but the gameplay sucks

[claud3]

Lets say thanks to the companies that produced these awful games

[honkayjeezus]

I would have included Mass Effect 3 in that list, but this is IGN, so...

[Neko_Mega]

Amy wasn't to bad, I think theirs far worst games out their then Amy.

[clarkjudo]

Minus Mass Effect 3 unless your a baby and or a live and breathing die hard fan of the Mass Effect trilogy. :)

[TheLastGuardian]

2012 has been an increible year in gaming for me so far. I haven't played a game yet this year that I didn't like.

Just to name some of my favorites of 2012 so far: Twisted Metal, Journey, Jak and Daxter Collection, Velocity, Sorcery, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, WipEout 2048, Lumines: Electronic Symphony, Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack!!!, Super Stardust Delta and Gravity Rush.

[MagicAccent]

Game of Thrones may not be the most polished game ever in terms of gameplay, but storywise it's right up there with the Witcher games.

Seriously IGN, go write porn fiction or something, because you guys can't even spell "review" let alone make a decent one.

[Kran]

Doctor Who.

Nuff said.

[jjdoyle]

?

[Kran]

The Eternity Clock. Look it up.

[jjdoyle]

that terrible?

[Kran]

Yup.