From Mass Effect 2 to Red Dead Redemption to Halo: Reach, it's been another banner year for hit games. Unfortunately, for every video game blockbuster, there's a straight up bust. Whether due to bad reviews, bad timing or just plain bad luck, the following high-profile titles failed to live up to the hype.
FINAL FANTASY XIV -- It might be one of the strongest, most beloved names in gaming, but when Final Fantasy goes wrong, it goes really wrong. Online role-playing game Final Fantasy XIV was pretty much a disaster, getting slammed by critics for its bad interface, boring quests and broken mechanics.
POWER GIG: RISE OF THE SIX STRING -- It takes some serious cajones to release a brand new music game right when sequels to Guitar Hero, DJ Hero and Rock Band are hitting shelves. It also takes a way, way better game than Power Gig to succeed. Even its inclusion of a legitimate guitar couldn’t save it from diving off the stage due to bad graphics and busted gameplay.
NBA ELITE 11 -- Is it possible for a game to flop if it never comes out? In the mystifying case of NBA Elite 11, we say yes. In the second worst basketball-related 'Decision' of the year, EA delayed this baller just two weeks before its release, leaving fans scratching their heads. One month later, it was canceled altogether, costing EA bags of money and putting a fork in this franchise's future.
STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED II -- We all had high hopes for the sequel to the fastest-selling Star Wars game in history, but those were dashed in the five hours it took to complete this criminally short, undercooked follow-up. This was not the game we were looking for.
GREEN DAY ROCK BAND -- Talk about a tough act to follow: this was only the second Rock Band release based around a specific band. The first? The Beatles: Rock Band. Unfortunately, the pop-punk gods didn’t have the same pull as the Fab Four, leading to low sales and an overall lack of interest. Back to Broadway, fellas.
ALAN WAKE -- This one hurts, because Alan Wake is a terrific game. But despite its 83% Metacritic rating, it was released alongside Game of the Year contender Red Dead Redemption and failed to wake up the charts. For a game that took five years to develop, that's a nightmare.
PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE FORGOTTEN SANDS -- More like the Forgotten Game. It's not that this sweeping action-adventure effort was bad -- critics were mostly cool with it -- but that it just completely failed to connect with gamers despite being tied to the successful Prince of Persia film. Here's hoping the brand finds its way out of the desert soon.
DEAD SPACE: IGNITION -- It's a sound enough idea: a few months before shipping the heavily-anticipated Dead Space 2, release a bite-sized prequel that sets up its big brother. Sadly, this broken interactive comic was dead on arrival thanks to terrible storytelling, rough graphics and bad mini-games. How bad? It's one of the worst-reviewed games of 2010.
IRON MAN 2 -- Okay, so we weren't exactly expecting this movie tie-in to suddenly take off like Tony Stark in a super suit. But we most certainly were expecting it to be a fair share better than its much-maligned forbear, which it wasn't. At all.
