Over this 4th of July weekend, or during the week, hopefully you’ll have the chance to get together with some friends and family for a cookout. There’s nothing like it: the beating summer sun, the sounds of kids splashing in the pool, an open grill, and the fragrance of charred beef and burning plastic. That’s right. Now is the time to catch up on the spring cleaning that you never got around to and get rid of some of these awful games. 2016 has been a great year for gaming overall, but we’ve had our share of flops. Here are seven games that deserve to burn.
Umbrella Corps
I think I’ve spent more time criticizing Umbrella Corps than I’ve spent actually playing it, and I’ve spent several hours playing it. What a mess this turned out to be. The zombies are basically stage props, movement speed is twice as fast as it needs to be, maps are half as big as they need to be, and there’s one weapon that totally dominates online multiplayer. Plus, when I was playing on PS4, the game was totally buggy. Visual hiccups and glitches were everywhere, and the game even froze my PS4 while I was customizing a character, forcing me to do a hard reset. This is an amateur’s Unity project that should have never made it into the hands of consumers. Turn on the propane, fire up the girl, and burn it.
Coffin Dodgers
We woke up one day and, suddenly, there was Coffin Dodgers . This game is available on pretty much any platform, but whether you’re playing on PC, PS4, or Xbox One you’re sure to be perplexed. Where did the funding for this game come from, and why is it on next-gen consoles for more than $5? Coffin Dodgers is a buggy, dated kart racer with no online multiplayer. That’s all you need to know, really. There are only six weapons to be found, all of which are difficult (or pointless) to use. It looks like a budget WiiWare title; something that could have easily existed on the original Xbox or PS2. If you bought this game, I’m truly sorry. Cremate it.
Homefront: The Revolution
Maybe this one is on us. I think more than any other genre, our expectations for first-person shooters are inflated by the sheer quantity of high-quality offerings year after year. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Rainbow Six … We have so many options, and they’re all incredible depending on what you want out of a shooter. Do you want an excellent story, eSports-worthy controls that favor quick reactions, or deep, tactical gameplay? Maybe you just want to be thrilled by over-the-top action sequences? Unfortunately, Homefront: The Revolution has none of that. Its gunplay is as dated as its objectives are repetitive. The fact that game-breaking bugs managed to make it through QA is just salt in the wound. Season this one with all of that salt instead, throw it in a wok with some Korean noodles, and burn it; call it revolutionary guksu.
Dangerous Golf
Dangerous Golf was never pitched to us as some epic, AAA game, and we were totally fine with that. We were fine with that because we knew that a team of ex-Criterion devs were behind the game, and you know what that means: sweet, sweet destruction. We wanted the Burnout of golf games – maybe a mix between Hot Shots Golf and Burnout Paradise , is that so much to ask? What we got was a tech demo. Instead of the Burnout of golf games we got the Angry Birds of golf games. The physics engine ensures that the results of every shot, no matter how spot-on or fluked, are completely random. You can only have fun watching stuff break in a tiny room for so long. This is a tutorial missing the full game. Stick it in Hole 18 with some fireworks, step back, and light it up.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan
Oh, how my heart aches to see this game on the list. Only I truly know, and words cannot convey, how excited I was for Mutants in Manhattan . Platinum Games had everything going for it. It proved that it could nail a Saturday morning cartoon vibe in an addictive action game with Transformers Devastation , and that’s honestly all we needed out of Mutants in Manhattan . Somewhere along the way that inspiration and creativity was lost. Maybe Platinum had its resources spread too thinly and Mutants in Manhattan just didn’t get the attention it deserved. All I know is it would have been much better off as a $20 boss rush game. All of the stages are bland, repetitive, and a total chore. And what the Hell, Platinum? Why no local co-op? Such a huge missed opportunity. Throw it in the brick oven and burn it.
Lost Reavers
When I first saw Lost Reavers during Nintendo’s 2015 E3 Direct, I thought it sounded pretty unique (even if it did look ugly). A four-player, online co-op game where you kill zombies and hunt for precious relics to bring back? Well, that sounds okay! Do the relics contain lots of cool loot? No. No they don’t. And this game is not okay. It’s not okay on the Wii U, and it wouldn’t have been okay on the Dreamcast. It’s inexcusably plain visually, aiming is absolutely impossible, playing online is infuriating due to lag and a lack of voice chat, and there’s no real reward for succeeding in the missions and securing relics – you just get to play again. I play games with an inverted y-axis. I always have, and it’s very common. In Lost Reavers you have to play for about 15 minutes to reach a special room that unlocks (yes, unlocks, like it’s a bonus) the settings suite that enables you to invert your camera. Are you kidding me? Crank up the electric stove-top, throw this game in a skillet, and watch it burn while you play Phantasy Star Online .
Mighty No. 9
Mighty No. 9 is going to go down as the biggest crowdfunded train-wreck of this generation. The internet hate machine has made it so easy to talk smack about this game, but as a lifelong Mega Man fan I wanted so badly for it to succeed. I was completely ignorant of the Kickstarter campaign while it was live, but I was so excited to learn about the game after it had been funded. I was bitter that I’d missed my chance to offer up my financial support, and I just knew that this was going to be a true return to form for the genre. A master class on how a modern Mega Man game should look and feel in the modern age. Three delays later I held tight to my optimism, and it wasn’t until the reviews started pouring in that I felt truly betrayed. The disappointment was unanimous, from fans and critics alike. We’re still missing the handheld versions of the game, and it’s damn near unplayable on the Wii U. Light up a bunsen burner; burn this one slowly. Watch the plastic bubble, melt, and drip away like all our hopes and dreams.