These games are all immensely popular, highly rated and a fair amount of fun, but each and every one of them is also a spectacular shitbag of suck.

Mirror’s Edge

(2009, metacritic 81, user score 8.2, 1+ million copies sold)

Parkour does not translate well to the PC. Moments of fluid motion are rare, the game is plagued by linearity, and you cannot save when you want to. The game boils down to this: Press SPACE to jump onto red object. Another object turns red, press SPACE to jump on it. Another object turns red, press SPACE to jump on it. Now press A. Oops, you fell. Back to the start. All this game has going for it is providing something not seen before.

Grand Theft Auto IV

(2008, metacritic 90, user score 4.5, 6+ million copies sold)

Despite the tremendous achievement of a credible open world, GTA IV makes the one mistake that turned people off real life and onto games in the first place: no checkpoint saves. One mistake during a mission and it’s over. You have to do it all over again from the beginning. And again. And perhaps again. And perhaps a few more times, until you seethe with such unbearable hatred for the game that you call a random person in the phonebook and tell them it’s their fault that you will now cook your niece’s turtle alive and eat it. And she loved Maurice.



Additionally, being a console-to-PC port, the controls are clunky. Not much realism is left when you run into the side of a door, then run into the other side of the door, then walk away from the door and try to align yourself perfectly with the door so that you may finally manage to actually walk through it.

Bioshock

(2007, metacritic 96, user score 8.1, 1+ million copies sold)

Appealing steampunk atmosphere, but terrible combat gameplay and a not very riveting story.

Empire: Total War

(2009, metacritic 90, user score 6.7, unknown number of copies sold)

Amazing in scope and heritage, the most recent Total War game was not fit for release (by anyone’s standards) when it came out. It took over 6 months before the game became at all playable and to this day has gameplay issues, glitches and missing or botched features such as multiplayer campaign, diplomacy and AI. Missing content has been provided in the form of DLC, which you’ll have to pay for. If this game would have had a different publisher, I would probably have fallen in love with it.

Civilization IV

(2005, metacritic 94, user score 7.6, 3+ million copies sold)

It almost feels like child abuse to speak ill of the fourth edition of Civilization. I love a new Civilization title for the mere fact of it existing, but it makes it on the suck list for being all look and no feel. Civilization IV is Civilization III: the Disney edition. It’s pretty and charming (oh Nimoy) to appeal to newcomers to the series, but the cartoonish interface limits overview and there’s stunningly little appeal in the game itself. There’s little opportunity for strategy and tactics. Expect to spend 50 game turns creating large enough army stacks to defend yourself when declaring war on an enemy, by which time you’re bankrupt, have raced past the eras, and are just doing the chores on automatic pilot.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

(2009, metacritic 86, user score 2.3, 4.7 million copies sold on first day)

No complaints about the multiplayer experience, which is what this game is all about. The single player campaign is short and ridiculous. The highlight is a bit of ice climbing in the mountains. This felt immersive, looked great and was a nice change amidst all the running and shooting. Other than that, a pretty unremarkable game.

Doom 3

(2004, metacritic 87, user score 70, 3.5+ million copies sold)

Popular beyond what is reasonable. Unoriginal critter-killer which depended heavily on darkness to spring surprises on you, to the point of parody.  Did not remind of the original Doom games. I did play it to the end, because that’s just the kind of asshole I am.