I have already covered my top 5 choices for 2016, which you can read in case you missed it. Let’s take a look at my pick for the worst games of the year, now once again please keep in mind this list is based on the games I have personally played and nothing else, so your views may differ but I welcome your input in the comments section below. This is why you will not see the dreaded Ghostbusters game or the horrible abomination that was Umbrella Corps on my list. I simply neglected to waste my time and money on these poor excuses for entertainment.
5. Battlefield 1 – EA DICE
Why is Battlefield 1 on my worst list when it got almost universal acclaim? For one simple reason: I honestly just did not enjoy this game that much. The single-player campaign felt like Call of Duty set in WW1, and I found all the protagonists of the 5 different “war stories” to be bland and uninteresting for the most part. I will admit that I did have some fun in the huge multiplayer matches, and it must be said that it was quite thrilling to be running around on foot with tanks blasting each other whilst a plane swoops by overhead charging headfirst for the enemy zeppelin, but for all these rare moments of pure action and joy, I just could not find myself constantly engaged in the title.
My friends and I played this game online for a couple of weeks, but it did not capture me as much as some other multiplayer games have this year (I’m looking at you Titanfall 2), and we all quickly grew tired of it and I noticed my friends list started to show everyone playing various other titles. For this reason, it lands the number 5 spot on this list.
4. The Division – Ubisoft
The Division was a game I was extremely happy to get my hands on, the E3 footage alone was enough to get my heart racing with pure excitement and anticipation. Unfortunately, the final game that we received seemed to be a pale imitation of what we all believed we were going to get, a common trait with Ubisoft it would seem. Don’t get me wrong, I am not stating that I did not have fun playing this title, because I would be lying if I said that, what I am saying is that the game seemed to fail with almost every aspect it wanted to offer, and instead of a great overall game we got many subpar components haphazardly thrown together.
The gunplay was serviceable at best, the fact that the damage was based on a “hit points” system much like many RPG’s meant that some enemies could take multiple clips of ammunition and grenades before they could be taken down, even with headshots, which completely took me out of the realistic gunplay and setting the game strived to portray. Furthermore, the UI that tried to be revolutionary and different ended up coming across as more annoying than it wanted to due to constantly blocking my field of vision and placing far to much orange colored text on my screen.
The game was fun to play with my friends online and the added addition of the “Dark Zone” — the PVP component of the game — made for some fun and tense times, especially when you attack another player and get a bounty placed on your head for going “rogue.” At the end of the day, the game just failed to deliver on its promises and the user count quickly dropped as the novelty of the constant rinse and repeat hunt for new gear and items wore off. The newly added survival DLC has been said by a representative of Ubisoft to have brought back a large number of players — whether this changes will need to be seen.
3. Watch Dogs 2 – Ubisoft
It would seem Ubisoft failed me twice this year. The first Watch Dogs was another game that promised amazing graphics and gameplay during its E3 presentation, but when released angered many gamers due to the watered down effects, presentation, and gameplay. Despite this, I actually quite enjoyed the game, and I was one of the few people to not outright hate the anti-hero of the story, Aiden Pierce. Fast forward to 2016 and we are blessed with Watch Dogs 2, a sequel to the original that takes place in San Fransisco as opposed to Chicago, and replaces Aiden Pierce with Marcus Holloway. This title received pretty good reviews from critics (despite the abysmal sales) and was generally seen as an improvement in almost every way over the original. I do not agree with this.
In my opinion, I think the original title was far superior, sure we get a few more toys to play with this time around, improved graphics, a more upbeat story with wacky characters who seem to have a penchant for everything fluoro colored, but I just did not find myself enjoying this title at all. The gunplay lacked any real sense of feedback and constantly made me feel like I was using toy guns, the driving was far too floaty and hard to control, and most importantly I felt that the main characters of the story were portrayed as trying way too hard to be cool and hip, and ended up annoying me rather than helping to invest me in their fight for justice over the corporation, Blume. I simply could not connect with the characters.
All in all, I just did not have as much fun with this game as I did the original, I quickly forgot about it and moved onto a different game I was more eager to play.
2. Pokémon Go – Niantic, Inc.
Ah yes, Pokémon. Every 90’s baby has fond memories of not only getting up early enough to watch the anime on TV but also spending hours playing the wildly popular titles Nintendo constantly pumped out. The next obvious step in this effort for world domination was inevitably going to involve bringing the franchise to the profitable mobile gaming market. This game to us in the form of Pokémon Go, a game that tried to emulate the gameplay of the series in an augmented reality style to truly make you feel like a real Pokémon master. However, this game was utterly mundane and never captured my imagination and attention, unlike the millions of people worldwide who made this app an absolute phenomenon, so much so that even leading media outlets were reporting on the success of the title, for good and bad reasons.
The game essentially was more of a walking app that featured Pokémon capturing, utilizing specific landmarks as gyms and shops, but simply flicking a ball at a Pokémon without the battle component the series is famous for made for a shallow and tiring experience.
Whilst I must give the game credit where credit is due in regards to the fact that it brought fans across the globe closer together, the shallow gameplay was just not enough to keep me invested, along with the shameless excuse to force users to pay for more items via microtransactions.
1. Homefront: The Revolution – Deep Silver
My number one choice for the worst game of 2016 goes to this utter piece of garbage. I read some bad reviews for the title but I am not one to simply follow what others say and thought the title looked interesting enough to me to warrant purchasing it. The ability to modify your weapons ammunition on the fly mid-game and add various attachments similar to Crysis was intriguing but the shallow gameplay left a lot to be desired. The game not only had very subpar gunplay, and the modifications on the weapons were so basic that I hardly utilized this ability during my playthrough as once you attach a scope, larger mag, and grip for better handling, you did not need to change anything else. The framerate was also very atrocious, constantly chugging along as soon as any action started to happen which made it very hard to engage in the combat.
The characters are all generic and by the numbers, as is the story of a single individual being the only hope for a rebellion to overthrow the evil overruling empire. The missions used a basic rinse and repeat formula, culminating in a go-here-and-destroy-this scenario time and time again. The poor textures and graphics also made it uninteresting to explore the semi-open world map and find collectibles.
The game was just not fun to play and was an overall bland experience — I can barely remember anything that actually occurred during my time with the game. It is an easily forgettable piece of media and I would strongly recommend steering well away from this title. I could go on and on about how terrible this game is but I will just let you know that your money is better spent elsewhere, trust me.
So that concludes my top 5 worst video games for 2016. It was a great year for gaming with some truly outstanding titles and sequels, but we need the bad to balance out the good, and we certainly got that in spades this year. What are your thoughts on my choices? Do you agree or disagree with what I have said? What games are you looking forward to in 2017? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Last Updated on January 2, 2017.
