10 WORST AAA Games of All Time

(logo dinging) - [Falcon] Triple-A is one of those nebulous terms that means something different to everybody who says it. But the agreed upon stuff is that it's a major publisher game with a high development cost, and a huge marketing budget. With all that in place, you'd think it'd be easy to make a good game, but often it isn't. In fact, what we're interested in today is what are the duds? Hi folks, it's Falcon, and today on Gameranx, 10 of the worst triple-A games of all time. Now a quick di

sclaimer going forward. There's of course room for debate here if a game counts as triple-A or not, and that's fine, that's what the comment section is for. We love seeing the discussions. Without any further ado, starting off at number 10, it's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1". This game has a 4.5 user score and a 38 on Metacritic. It's bizarre, it's "Harry Potter," but "Gears of War," or is "Gears of War," but "Harry Potter," I don't know. You would definitely call it one of thos

e things though. - [Grandpa] That's what the kids want, right? The "Gear War," but with "Harry Poplar." - [Falcon] Okay, President, and Chief Operating Officer Grandpa. But the thing is, it's not even a good cover shooter. It's awkward, it's stiff to control. It's way too heavily scripted/automated. So there's very, very little room for strategy. There's a few spells to choose from that are basically just different guns, but it's kind of just easier to use Stupify and blitz through everything. T

he cover mechanics are terrible. Often you'll find yourself taking cover behind thin air, or your cover just won't do anything. At least it doesn't actually matter a whole lot 'cause the game is so easy that taking cover is kind of pointless. - [Harry] Stupify! (wand whooshing) - [Hagrid] Be careful! - [Harry] Stupify! - [Speaker 1] You won't escape this time! - [Harry] Hagrid, after them! - [Hagrid] I know, you keep casting, and I'll get us over there! - [Harry] Stupify! - [Falcon] There's a ha

lf-baked RPG mechanic where you can put points into stats and unlock new spells, but it's like I said, not baked all the way. The game is so easy, you can just ignore all of that and it really doesn't seem to make a difference. There's also stealth missions. Yes, and they're as bad as you would imagine. Enemies are at the same time, too dumb to live while having x-ray vision and can spot you through walls. These parts of the game are the worst kinds of trial and error. And if you really wanna to

rture yourself, there are some exclusive game play modes too, really a smorgasbord of all the worst parts of 2010 games. Harry Potter as a cover shooter, killing machine is a funny concept, but it doesn't work. As number nine is "Alone in the Dark" from 2008, sitting at a 58 on Metacritic with a 4.6 user score. It was meant to be Atari Interactive's big step into the AAA market. It was gonna be the next big franchise right beside "Resident Evil," and they marketed this game hard. Big cover stori

es in gaming magazines, flashy commercials, a trailer that barely shows any actual gameplay, they did it all. It did not help that the game was immediately torn apart by critics for its numerous bugs and bizarre gameplay decisions. One thing I'll say is that usually people criticize the triple-A space for its lack of innovation, but if anything "Alone in the Dark" went too far in the other direction, nothing about this game is what you would call traditional. It's got a weird inventory system, t

he Melee combat is strange, and honestly, it's got surprisingly in-depth physics simulations. There's a lot of ambition for this game. But as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and oh, ho ho, the Road to Hell is a dark and lonely one, so to speak, "Alone in the Dark 2008" is a janky mess that feels like it could collapse in on itself at any moment. Most of the ambition feels pretty misplaced, like the healing system. You can spray different parts of your body that are injur

ed. It's supposed to make the game feel more immersive, but all you can really do is laugh at the skin textures that are clearly just sitting on top of the jacket. Very, very, very goofy. (creature grunting) (tense dramatic music) (sword whooshing) (creature growling) (sword whooshing) (blood squelching) The game takes itself very seriously. But it's funny, honestly, every time I boot it up I can't help but laugh that Max Payne himself, James McCaffrey, spouts some of the worst dialogue you've e

ver heard. While this actually pretty great orchestral score that makes no sense as to why it's there. It has no place in this mess, doesn't fit the feel, doesn't sound anything like this looks, sounds very good, but it doesn't make sense, and I'm listing like the positives. in terms of the gameplay (chuckles), oh it's miserable. Like the best I could call it is a miserable failure. Like it's saying like, "Ah, there was so much ambition." It's just like putting a gold star on, and like you tried

, old meme from the era this game came from, you tried. And number eight is "APB" with a Metascore that matches "Alone in the Dark," 58. But a user score that's worse, 4.4. "APB" was a game that got a lot of hype. I remember people just being absolutely rabid for this. It was meant to be huge, made by Realtime Worlds, the guys who made "Crackdown" of all games. It was made up of former Rockstar Games guys, including the co-founder of the studio, David Jones. This was a massively multi-player cri

me game. It was meant to be the ultimate GTA style playground, but it's hard to really nail down a true style for it, it was barely a game. Looking back on it now , you'd assume it was some small developer thing, and you might be a little more forgiving based on that, but you shouldn't be. This had $100 million budget. Now, like I said in the intro, we don't have a hard number, but that's the estimation, and it also had an EA publishing deal. To call it a small deal would be a big mistake. It wa

s a big, big deal. Many people are saying, and everyone who jumped into the pre-release beta, had the exact same question, "This is it?" Of course, the devs quickly responded that they were just showing a fraction of what the game would end up being in the final release. But no, they weren't, that was it. (gunshots booming) (gun clicking) (gunshots booming) That interaction should have gone as such. "This is it, question mark. This is it, period." The game was lacking in content from the start.

Barely just a selection of random missions you'd get and replay endlessly in a few small zones. There really wasn't enough to keep people playing for even an afternoon, and it was meant to be an MMO. The only universally praised part of the game was its customization suite, which actually was really impressive for the time, and it seriously actually holds up today. You go back to this in terms of the customization suite, man, lots of cool stuff here. Everything else, half baked and undercooked,

and it had a monthly fee. And number seven is "Redfall," wowee, "Redfall." When this game came out, I said something about how I thought the developers were probably not excited to make a live services game and this is the result. And ah-ha, there was an article in Bloomberg not long after that confirmed this exact thing. This was a game nobody wanted and the Arkane staff probably wanted it less than players did because I can remember a time thinking, "Oh, Arkane and Vampires, yeah, I'm there."

You know why? 'Cause that's a sound concept. An open world co-op shooter with the Arkane special sauce, but apparently by the time they were done developing this game, 75% of the Arkane Austin staff, the developers of this specific game, developers that had worked on illustrious titles, such as "Dishonored," "Prey," et cetera, critically acclaimed brilliant people, about 70% of their staff up and left 'cause they didn't wanna work on "Redfall." And I'm not making that up, I'm quoting Bloomberg,

and it shows. Like Arkane was understaffed to make a Games as a Service game as it was. They started off with 100 employees and losing that many out of 100 employees, even if you're hiring people to compensate, there's just too much to do. Like there's a lot of areas in the game that look nice from far away, but they're lacking in detail. The combat, which by the way is Arkane's bread and fricking butter, they are geniuses when it comes to making a certain kind of combat that works so great, and

it's just, it's not there. (gunshots booming) (vampire screeching) (tense electronic music) (heartbeat thudding) (flames whooshing) (vampire screeching) (gun clicking) It's neither satisfying or fun. And you can just see that the people involved with this didn't want to be involved with this. It's not the kind of game anybody who wanted to work at Arkane, and had for years wanted to make, and it shows. At number six is "Driver 3," or "Driv3r," "Driv3r," "Driv3r?" "Driver 3," 56 on Metacritic, 3

.3 user score. May be hard to believe, but the PlayStation 1 era "Driver" series was actually a big deal. The first two driver games, huge, sold millions of copies. They cemented the series as one of the biggest franchises on the PlayStation. That all came crashing down with "Driv3r," one of the most disastrously bad sequels of all time. The only reason why this game has a 56 on Metacritic is 'cause triple-As are just graded on a curve separate from everything else. We would never give "Driv3r"

a 56. We would never contribute to that kind of an average. This game is so bad. Atari wanted it to be a GTA killer. So they marketed it like crazy, but like it's "Driv3r." (tense dramatic music) (gunshots booming) (John grunting) I bought this game because I wanted more "Grand Theft Auto." Honestly, I couldn't get enough of that kind of game. I love "GTA III," "Vice City" was great that same year. "San Andreas" was awesome, I was ready for more. This was a promising new genre and "Driver" had a

lways been a great franchise. Sadly, it seems like it really went through a bad dev cycle too. So like it was a ton of hard work and misery for nothing, 'cause "Driv3r" sucks. At number five is "Lair," a highly anticipated game meant to be a PS3 launch title, but it got pushed back over a year, and much like the world, that year was not enough. (Falcon humming) I don't know why I brought that up. Developed by Factor 5, and published by Sony, this game was meant to demonstrate the power of the PS

S3 console, but instead it just revealed the many limitations of the hardware. Yeah, we've all heard about the forced Motion controls, but it can't be understated how misguided this was, and it's not that it was that hard to control, it's actually about the movements that called for precision. Everyone calls out these Motion controls specifically, but the real issue is just the dull and outdated game design. You know that old chestnut, there's just not much here that's interesting. The campaign'

s either dull or actively terrible on an alternating basis. And yeah, some of the backgrounds look nice for a PS3 game, but the frame rate is, it's up and down, let's say. It's a half baked game from a developer people rightfully expected much better from. Factor 5 made the "Star Wars Rogue Squadron" games. So they clearly knew how to make a flying game, but "Lair" is, it ain't "Rogue Squadron," let's just say. That's a very nice way of saying it too. It's much, much worse than "Rogue Squadron."

If this game had come out as a launch title, it probably would've gotten bad reviews, but at least it would've gotten swallowed up in the whole PS3 launch hype cycle. But delaying it, and being like, "You know, we're gonna make sure that this one's good," and then not have anything to show for it. Oof, it got eviscerated in the press. Yeah, we all can remember it. I don't think we would have if they just launched at launched, and it would've been terrible to be fair, but it was terrible anyway.

(slow relaxing music) (wings whooshing) (dragon grunting) At number four is "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." Remember EA's desperate attempt to capture the "Call of Duty" audience. The original "Medal of Honor" games up to "Allied Assault" are the classics. But when the team moved over to Activision to make the first "Call of Duty," the series was just never quite the same. EA tried to revive the series in 2010 with the moderately successful "Medal of Honor," but whatever gains they made with that

game, they've just completely ruined with 2012's "Warfighter." It was a bug riddled mess, it was hopelessly uninspired, it was dull. The story mode is mostly remembered for its grotesque, Uncanny Valley crap. It can be best described as unremarkable. It felt quite sloppy. It was not finished to say the very least. Didn't hold up to the middle of the road "Call of Dutys" even. And then there were a big string of random controversies that don't make sense to go into here. 'cause it took too long.

It was just bad and it didn't do well. (gunshots booming) (explosion booming) - [Speaker 2] This won't end up well for you, come out now! - [Speaker 3] Look left, top deck! - [Speaker 4] Low right. - [Falcon] At number three is "Umbrella Corps" with a 38 on Metacritic and a 2.4 user score. For a while, Capcom was in kind of a dark place before "Resident Evil VII" revitalized the franchise. We were getting crap like "Umbrella Corps", a team-based shooter set in the "Resident Evil" universe. I me

an, it's not like they're not making bad multiplayer spinoffs to this day, but they're making really good games at the same time. So yeah, seriously, how many fans of the "Resi" franchise are just dying to play a first person multiplayer shooter that vaguely resembles something from the series? You know, a series that's primarily a single player horror experience. I mean, I guess it makes at least a little bit more sense than the "Metal Gear Solid" version. Why? These companies have made some pr

etty weird decisions over the years, but honestly, like it's a generic military shooter, a lot of the time you really wouldn't be able to tell this is supposed to be a "Resident Evil" game, but that's hardly the worst thing about it. If it was incorrectly labeled, but a hell of a lot of fun, I don't know if it would've received the savaging that it did, but yeah, that's not how this went. Balance was a mess from the start. Melee weapons were really overpowered and a team that relied on them woul

d pretty much win every time. (zombie screaming) (tense electronic music) - [Speaker 5] This one's mine. (zombie grunting) - [Falcon] There was only two modes. The weirdly hardcore One Life match, which is a three on three where if you died, you were out. And then the Multi-mission mode, which is a lot like Capcom's recent "Exoprimal," where you run through a series of short missions with different objectives, usually racing the enemy team to complete the objective first. There was single player

content, but it was pretty weak. It's basically a collection of multiplayer maps and an extended tutorial for the multiplayer stuff. The controls are not terrible, and there are some interesting ideas like a zombie jammer that can take out and cause zombies to swarm the enemy team, but it's otherwise a pretty lame shooter and does not have a lot of content, not enough. After "Resident Evil 6," the series really needed a win, but "Umbrella Corps," wasn't it. Thankfully, Capcom came to their sens

es, and put out "Resident Evil VII" a year after this. And honestly, they've been on the right track ever since. Even if there are lame multi-player add-ons to these games. Eh, it's kind of whatever. Maybe they'll eventually get in a multi-player game right, and it'll come as a pack in with one of these great single player games that people actually want from them. At number two is "Sonic the Hedgehog 2006." Maybe you don't think of Sega as one of the major publishers, but if you spent any time

with this game, and beyond, if you lived it, I don't know why you would, I certainly wouldn't go back to it, but Sega put a lot of money into this thing. It was meant to be a really massive adventure, a soft reboot of the entire Sonic franchise, and a celebration of Sonic's 15-year history in a game. I've talked about some games of bugs on this list before, but no matter how high the expectations were for this game, or how low, I don't know, maybe some people realized what it was ahead of time,

but regardless of the expectations, they were not met. This was probably one of the buggiest games that has ever been released to a mass audience in the way that this game has. The controls are so, so bad, especially in the mock speed sections. Nothing about this is fun. The Havok Physics bug out constantly, and everything looks cheap as hell. I mean, probably the worst thing is that the Sonic gameplay is the best thing in the game, and it's bad, like there's areas of it that are all right, but

it's generally pretty bad. It's "Sonic Adventure," but like worse. But Shadow and Silver, they're so much, so much, so much worse. Silver has a gameplay gimmick of using telekinesis, and it ain't good. It's frankly shocking that this game was released in the state it was. It's very funny, like it's provided a ton of very, very good content for the internet. What's interesting is that there are people going back, and quote, unquote, fixing this game. Like there's a lot of fan remakes that make th

e game not horrifyingly bad, but the actual game itself is. It deserves the 46 Metacritic, and frankly, it deserves a lower user score than 5.3. I think a lot of people just enjoy how bad it is, and that's why. - [Sonic] It's no use. (uptempo electronic music) - [Silver] Take this! (coins dinging) - [Sonic] It's no use. - [Silver] This will end it. - [Sonic] No. - [Falcon] And at number one, it's "Babylon's Fall," with a 41 Metacritic and a 2.1 user score. I think the user score is a little more

accurate for this one. SquareEnix and Platinum Games combined forces, and that sounds like it would be a good thing, because they did that once before, and we got "NieR:Automata." "Babylon's Fall," who is not a "NieR:Automata" level game. And a lot of the times games get like a big debate, like, "Oh, here's the redeeming qualities of this game. It's not that it should be savaged in the way that all of you are savaging it." And this one did not. ""Babylon's Fall" came out, a bunch of people said

it was bad, and a bunch of other people went, "Yep." It sold really, really bad too. Only about a 1,000 players had it on steam, and only about 3000 copies sold in Japan the first week. It was declared dead almost immediately, and it wasn't long before it was shut down. It took less than a year. Came out in early access February 28th, 2022. And the servers completely closed February 27th the following year. So not a full year, one day short. It was meant to be the first salvo in a big Games as

a Service push from Square, but if that's the case, they should have tried a lot harder, 'cause this game was pathetic. It was subpar in terms of graphics, environments were samey and dull, and the presentation was bad, the gameplay was repetitive and also bad., and that's a running theme with Games as a Service. It seems like they're trying to play a game of chicken with the consumer to see what they can get away with. The idea is that they're gonna constantly update the game to keep everybody

engaged and having fun, but it seems like devs forget about the engagement and the fun. These games are just bare bones, they're repetitive, and usually really dull, but they do have a lot of microtransactions. And then when everybody's like, I don't really like this game and I don't wanna buy any of the anything that is in it, the whole constant update part of the strategy just kind of goes away, and that's assuming that they were even gonna update it in the first place, I don't know. I don't t

hink that it really would've mattered with this game. The writing was on the wall, day one. Nobody bought it, fans didn't want it, and casual players just didn't care. And it wasn't just that it was forgettable, it was terrible. It was filled with confusing systems, and repetitive, boring gameplay. Just a bad game all around. You have to wonder if Platinum Games kind of had a contractual obligation to it that put it in a same situation as Arkane Austin and "Redfall." And that's all for today. Le

ave us a comment, let us know what you think. If you like this video, click Like. If you're not subscribed, now's a great time to do so. We upload brand new videos every day of the week. Best way to see them first is of course, a subscription. So click subscribe. Don't forget to enable notifications. And as always, we thank you very much for watching this video. I'm Falcon, you can follow me on Twitter, @FalconTheHero. We'll see you next time right here on Gameranx.