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Well, you've got your best of E3, and now, we've got the other guys.
Most of the people who made the stuff that made this list also made
stuff that made our best list, which is kind of strange...you'd
think they'd know what quality was.
The 10 Worst Things About E3 2003:
Clayton's #10: Unlimited Saga
SaGa Frontier was the most poorly received game of the initial array
of titles Square brought over to the U.S. So, naturally, they follow
it up by brining over two sequels. This looked and played bad in
Japan, and it looks and plays bad here, so now I know it wasn't just
the language barrier. The first must avoid title from Square Enix.
Rick's #10: Maximo vs. the Army of Zin
Honestly, given how many complaints there were about the first game,
I'm a bit surprised that they bothered making a second. But when the
game play hasn't moved forward at all (yes, a single jump is still
worthless), the graphics have changed to the worst cel-shading ever,
and the presence of undead robots powered by fairies, you have one
of the most idiotic sequels to hit.
Clayton's #9: Charlie's Angels
If you buy this game, you are either stupid, or not really a gamer
of any type. There are going to be enough 3rd person licensed action
games out there on the market this year, and honestly, none of them
looked quite as bad as this one. The graphics looked clunky, the
animations were weak, and the women in the game were about as
successful convincing you that they were doing kung-fu as the women
in the movie were.
Rick's #9: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Sure, it sounds like an excellent game. I'd love the chance to do
some of the fun stunts from that movie in a game. Except it's nearly
impossible to do them. You end up instead in a third rate imitator
of Dynasty Warriors with slightly better graphics. This really
dashes my hopes for an Iron Monkey game, too.
Clayton's #8: The Konami Twin Snakes Trailer for the Nintendo
GameCube.
Honestly, the worst video I saw there. The game itself looks
fantastic though. However, when you're trying to come up with
various 3 word acronyms to fill "NGC" in with, and you're coming up
with "No Good? Cannot Be!" you deserve to be fired. Either get some
people who have more than one creative bone in your body to draw
inspiration from.
Rick's #8: Resident Evil: Outbreak
Hey, Capcom made this list twice with lousy sequels, and yet they
aren't getting Worst Sequel of E3. Wow. But this game, for the PS2,
involves you controlling eight characters through Raccoon City,
because you never had enough to keep track of in these games. The
graphics are barely on par with the very first PS2 games and death
cannot be slower (let's wait five minutes to turn into a zombie,
sure). The RE team just doesn't care about consoles other than the
Gamecube anymore.
Clayton's #7: The XBox
Let's see, you've got yourself a console for 2 years, "enough money
to make Solomon blush" backing you, and you still can't show more
than 2 good playable games at E3. At least you can now use it for
karaoke thanks to MadCatz.
Rick's #7: Starsky & Hutch
Hey, let's take the basic concept of "Seigi no Mikata," and build a
crappy racing/shooting combo around it. You can't aim your gun at
all, the driving is a poor use of the GTA3 engine (but Rockstar is
milking that one for all its worth), and the ratings system has no
sense to it whatsoever (if they're using the same system as the
Nielsens, I had 400% of the American viewing audience watching me...
sweet!). Not to mention that nobody remembers Starsky and Hutch,
making it one of the weakest licenses ever.
Clayton's #6: American Idol
Uh. Virtual being a wannabe. Where do I sign up to plunk down $50?
Way to go Codemasters. If nobody remembers you in a couple years,
you'll know why.
Rick's #6: Street Racing Syndicate.
Somebody here really wants to be a combination of "The Fast and the
Furious" and Gran Turismo. And in fact, it was at the show - Sony
was showing Gran Turismo 4. While Dreamcatcher had great booth babes
(a rarity this year), its obvious that they had the money to spare
because they cheaped production of this game. I have to cry to think
of the poor controls, the lousy graphics, and the fact that the
sucker crashed. But yet it wasn't as bad as my game #5.
Clayton's #5: Eye-Toy
The peripheral that always gets the most laughs after the show year
in and year out, is when someone does something that involves a
camera. This year, it's Sony. They're using the camera to make a
series of incredibly stupid games. The camers tracks your movements
and you do stuff like stop ninjas from hitting your head...except
Rick was actually using his head to stop the ninjas...from hitting
his head. If they use it to import your picture into like NBA Live
or stuff like that I'd be ok with it...as a gaming device in and of
itself it's hands-down the Worst Peripheral of Show.
Rick's #5: Simpsons Hit & Run
Another E3, another Simpsons title to land on the Worst 10 list.
This also has to b3e the worst imitation of Grand Theft Auto, with
you switching cars by calling people on the phone, stupid missions,
absolutely terrible graphics and control, and the amazing ability to
crash the system just by playing long enough. Honestly, has anything
worthwhile in the past 5 years had the Simpsons name on it, in any
media?
Clayton's #4: Viewtiful Joe
I guess I have Capcom props for making the first big title with an
obviously homosexual main character...oh wait, he isn't? Oh well,
that was ALL that I could congratulate Capcom for about this game.
At least it isn't coming to multiple consoles like we had initially
thought. GameCube owners, you alone will know the shame of having
Viewtiful Joe on your console.
Rick's #4: American Idol
Thanks to Dance Dance Revolution, rhythm games have become huge.
Some games, like Taiko no Tatsujin, are endearing with their little
oddities. And then you have the psychotic Darwinist creation called
American Idol. Pretty lousy in terms of rhythm games in general,
featuring dreadful sound (an absolute killer in a rhythm game), and
feeding off of a rather lame license, the infamous Simon would love
a chance to rip this apart.
Clayton's #3: NBA Jam
Hey Acclaim, you may not have had your booth in the main hall, but
you made the Main Worst List! NBA Jam is so bad it looks like it
came straight outta the 90s. All it does is server to show exactly
far behind the curve NBA Jam is behind NBA Street, and NBA Ballers.
Rick's #3: Unlimited SaGa
Square actually had a pretty strong showing overall, with solid
games on three systems. However, Unlimited SaGa is the official
Worst Mistake of E3. The plot is flimsy and forced, and traveling on
the map is an exercise in frustration. Given how poorly received the
first SaGa game was on the Playstation, it's a huge wonder how we
ever got to this point. Hopefully, Square will stop giving us stuff
like this and focus on titles like Final Fantasy X-2 and Chrono
Break.
Clayton's #2: Seven Samurai 20XX
This is a disgrace to the movie it stole the title from. I don't
even like the original Seven Samurai and I still Kurosawa would be
rolling in his grave to see this much liberty taken with his work. I
mean...robots? Come on!
Rick's #2: Eye-Toy
Because making videos of yourself looking like a complete moron
never goes out of style, Sony brought out this peripheral for the
PS2. it superimposes you onto a video game background, and your
movements are your attacks. Can you keep ninjas from hitting your
head? Why bother? My head is ninja-proof, as it turns out - they
bounced off and I go through the inanity without taking a hit.
Mostly through my "windmill" style kung-fu (spinning my arms rapidly
in a circle). What was best about this was the guy immediately
before me who decided to act like Bruce Lee for the crowd, and got
killed before the halfway point. I wonder if I should have mentioned
the guy on arm braces that did better than him at it? Easily the
Worst Peripheral of Show.
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"Why pay for something that makes
you look THIS stupid?" |
Clayton's #1: The Eminem Music Video Video Game
Yes, that actually IS the title of the game. If Eminem's movie was
called 8 Mile, this might be best given the parenthetical title "6
Feet Under". Seriously, do people think that because he's becoming
mainstream with his Oscar victory that he's going now dominate all
media? Worst Licensing Idea and Worst Game of Show.
Rick's #1: The Eminem Music Video Video Game
This game sucks on levels that I had not managed to believe in
before this. Whether or not you love or hate his music (I for the
record, couldn't care less about his rapping), the concept is just
flat, the clips are vapid, the control is clunky, and there are
basically no options that are worthwhile. Worst Concept, Worst
Controls, Worst License, Worst Music, Worst Graphics, and the
massive Worst of Show - this game has managed to be, quite possibly,
the worst game ever made. I asked Clay if I should compare this to
ET for the 2600, and he said that was a horrible dis to ET. That
just about says it all.
Clayton's Dishonorable Mention:
The guys showing off Steel Battalion: Line of Contact. Way to go
guys, you have the most complicated controller in the show, and #1,
you don't have instructions out, and then you don't bother helping
the people sitting at the game. I'd never played before and by the
time someone bothered telling me how to start up my VT, I'd been
getting shot for 2 minutes. By the time I stepped on the pedal to
accelerate, I blew up. Great. Glad you bothered showing this to me.
Fantastic.
RPGs were almost an absolute no show if you weren't named Square.
Granted, there shouldn't be all that much "flash" to an RPG, so it
may not be something you want to show...but some of the games out
there had no "flash" at all, so that doesn't really make sense...are
there really no RPGs up until the next generation consoles?
Rick's Dishonorable Mention: the XBox
I found that the system had a whopping one game worth playing that
was not exclusive. Well, maybe if they actually had Halo 2 out for
play, that might be two. But MS is still just coasting on their
name...Microsoft should read up on video game history. Especially
the parts on the N64 and the Dreamcast. The XBox is clearly going
that route.
Linda & Erin's Worst 5:
Linda Dam and Erin Nakagawa are the people that we were crashing
with, and they were also testers on Final Fantasy X, and Kingdom
Hearts. So, for the female perspective we asked what they thought
about the show, as honorary Netjak correspondents. This is what they
came up with together, since they didn't make any mental lists like
Rick and I.
5. Final Fantasy XI
4. Frogger Golf
3. Nokia N-Gage
2. Eminem Music Video Video Game
1. Eye-Toy (Erin described this as "laugh out loud" bad.)
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