Some game developers really try to make an interesting product or run with a new idea and fall flat on their face. Others simply don’t care and whip out something as quickly as possible as part of a cash grab, unfortunately it can be hard to tell which is which.
With all the amazing games on the PS4 there are a bunch of stinkers and according to Metacritic these are the worst. Whether it’s shoddy controls, atrocious graphics, or so many bugs you think you’re looking at an insectarium here are the worst of the worst.
10 Basement Crawl
On the surface Basement Crawl looks like a darker version of Bomberman for the PS4. It’s an amazing idea and fans longing for a modern Bomberman were stoked, but the end result was a game that wasn’t finished and was so broken it was barely playable.
It was a shameless ripoff of Bomberman, but one that was so focused on copying the game mechanics they forgot to copy the controls and interface. The other problem was that there were only four characters with no costume or color variation. Eight players would often struggle to remember which of the two obese woman in a gimp mask was theirs or not.
9 Road Rage
Road Rage was seeking to grab a few bucks during the hype created by games like Road Rash. The release dates being a month apart was probably not an accident along with the similar sounding names.
Honestly there’s no saying who had the idea first to do a modernized action packed motorcycle combat game, but Road Rage certainly didn’t do it better. Clunky controls, broken gameplay, bad graphics for the PS4, and with a linear map that wasn’t nearly as open as advertised this thing was a disaster.
8 Motorcycle Club
This arcade style racing game had a familiar but fun concept, give players ownership of a motorcycle club, let them buy bikes, hire racers, and then compete against the computer or players online. The problem was it did the bare minimum to deliver on what was advertised.
Players reported that the game felt empty and unfinished. The races were boring and repetitive, the sound effects were awful, and the bikes weren’t properly balanced. After a few races you had already done most of everything you could in this game and were grinding solely to beat the few players that were online.
7 Rugby World Cup 2015
Rugby World Cup 2015 was supposed to be a straightforward sports game, but somehow the developers messed it up royally. Critics complained that the AI wouldn’t behave like a real Rugby team, they wouldn't form the proper formations or go through with the play they were assigned.
There were also a number of technical issues with the controls being unresponsive or the game crashing altogether often resulting in a forfeiture. It was a step up from the worse Rugby 15, but it seems the developers tripped on the very low bar set by that game.
6 Yasai Ninja
Yasai Ninja was a quirky hack and slash game that had the player step into the role of a vegetable in feudal Japan seeking to eliminate evil vegetables with their ninja skills. The main characters, a sentient onion and broccoli, were awful to look at and the overall aesthetics seemed more befitting PS3 then the PS4.
The gameplay was also very simple with shoddy control. The entire game was over ten short missions later with absolutely no reason to play again. There was next to no challenge facing the endless horde of cucumbers, and most deaths were from your partner dying forcing you to start over.
5 Energy Hook
On paper Energy Hook sounds like a lot of fun, players parkour through the world with a type of grappling hook in the hopes of racking up a high score with tricks, wall-runs, and other smooth maneuvers. In reality this terrible pseudo platformer never fully delivered on this.
Assuming you could look past the awful graphics you were subjected to rigid controls, stiff animations, and a jerky camera that often was the cause of your failure. Some fans found the swinging mechanics to be fun, but everything else about the game was considered atrocious.
4 Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers
Cartoon Network: Battle Crashers was a side scrolling brawler that had characters from various shows joining forces to take down shard creatures. The gameplay mechanics were decent and the controls were fine, but there wasn’t much game to this game.
The entire thing could be beaten in three to six hours and it was considered hours of repetitive button mashing. The plot was very basic, the characters were very flat, and it just wasn’t very interesting or engaging. The $20 price tag probably didn’t help either and convinced a lot of people that this was nothing more than a cash grab.
3 Afro Samurai 2: Revenge Of Kuma Volume One
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge OF Kuma Volume One was a game that seemed unable to decide if it was a serious gritty adventure or a spoof of one and ended up being neither. It’s a hack and slash, 2D game that had incredibly broken controls and so many bugs it was often unplayable.
In fact the game was so bad that the developer pulled the game from all stores, issued refunds, and promptly cancelled the rest of the series forever.
2 Rugby 15
When a game’s one redeeming quality is that it’s not as bad as Rugby 15, you know the referenced game is going to be bad. Rugby 15 was a nightmare and critics didn’t have enough bad things to say about it. The AI was abysmal, the controls were chunky, and it often felt like scoring and winning had more to do with luck or bad AI then any skill by the player.
There were some fans thrilled to have a Rugby game for the PS4, but that alone doesn’t make a game any good.
1 Orc Slayer
The worst game for the PS4 according to Metacritic is Orc Slayer. Players were tasked with slaying an army of orcs using various weapons in a poorly made knockoff of the Painkiller games. The graphics were terrible, the gameplay was very simplistic and many critics felt it was a game built for the internet and then ported to the PS4 to make a buck.
The only redeeming qualities of this thin game was the low price of $3.99 and a very easy Platinum trophy to collect. Otherwise it was a terrible shooter that felt like it was built by a young child learning to become a game developer and not a corporation looking to showcase their skills.