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00:00 Welcome to Mojo Plays and today we're taking a look at 20 awful games that could have been
00:12 really awesome games when you think about it, if only certain things weren't overlooked.
00:26 Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe to Mojo
00:30 Plays and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:35 Suicide Squad - Kill the Justice League
00:49 At first we had no reason to doubt Rocksteady.
00:51 This was the studio behind the Batman Arkham games, the company that showed how to make
00:56 superhero games.
00:57 Perhaps Suicide Squad was their chance to show everyone how a live service game should
01:01 be made.
01:03 Nope.
01:05 Suicide Squad - Kill the Justice League proved all the live service skeptics right.
01:14 While the story was solid and the gunplay was fun, the mission structure and world design
01:18 was so mundane that the game quickly grew boring for most players after about 30 minutes.
01:24 As for the live service elements, tell us, what is the point of having 7 different currencies
01:30 or sacrificing a proper ending just so you have an excuse to roll out more post-launch
01:35 support?
01:36 What is the point?
01:49 The second Choo Choo Charles went viral, we were on board.
01:53 The idea of a horror game featuring a demonic Thomas the Tank Engine was too goofy to pass
01:58 up and many shared the same sentiment.
02:01 Unfortunately, novelty only gets you so far.
02:13 Like Resident Evil's Nemesis and Mr. X, Charles would show up at the most inopportune
02:18 times and rarely ever give up the chase even if he couldn't reach you.
02:23 As for the cultists, you had no means of fighting back unless you ran all the way back to your
02:27 train and took them out with your weapons there or they just decided to give up midway
02:32 through chase.
02:33 With those two issues in play, Choo Choo Charles wound up overstaying its welcome for some
02:37 folks.
02:38 Hopefully, the money it did make will let developer 2 Star Games flesh things out a
02:42 bit more for a sequel.
02:51 Alpha Protocol
03:02 We can admit that Alpha Protocol might be hard for some to digest.
03:06 Some of us are already on board with it for the simple idea of Obsidian Entertainment
03:10 making an RPG shooter themed around secret agents.
03:13 Despite the neat concept, even we gotta admit the game is hard to recommend.
03:21 It doesn't run super well, the gunplay feels off and makes it hard to properly aim, the
03:30 stealth is kinda difficult to get around, and the different character classes don't
03:34 really offer much in replay value.
03:36 Overall, Alpha Protocol was a rare bump in the road for Obsidian that very, very few
03:42 can tolerate.
03:50 Panzer Dragoon Remake
04:00 At one point in gaming history, Panzer Dragoon was one of Sega's coolest games on the market.
04:05 However, as rail shooters have faded into obscurity, so has Panzer Dragoon.
04:10 Perhaps a remake could have started a resurgence, which in that case, we would be up for a remake
04:15 of the first game.
04:24 The problem is that Panzer Dragoon Remake was unable to do just that.
04:28 It was quite literally a 1-to-1 recreation of the first game, with no bells or whistles
04:33 to try and improve the tired formula.
04:35 And with the game only lasting about an hour from start to finish, we have to wonder what
04:40 the point of this was if it wasn't to revive the IP.
04:50 Wolfenstein Youngblood
05:00 Contrary to what most folks were saying at the time, a co-op Wolfenstein was a really
05:05 cool idea; running around and blasting Nazis with oversized weapons and liberating areas
05:10 of the world would have made for a fun game.
05:13 Where Youngblood went wrong was how it approached the story and its lack of any interesting
05:18 ideas.
05:19 Despite being an FPS with some RPG elements, there's nothing in the mechanics to make
05:23 Jesse and Zofia fun to play as.
05:34 It was already bad enough that their dialogue was hit or miss with the banter.
05:38 Sometimes it was genuinely funny, other times it was obnoxious.
05:42 And so, many dismissed Youngblood the second it dropped.
05:54 Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite
06:03 The Marvel vs. Capcom games have a storied history of excellent mechanics and massive
06:08 rosters.
06:09 But for the fourth game in the series, Capcom aimed higher and included a story mode.
06:14 Sounds like another fantastic addition to what would be a fantastic game, right?
06:18 You couldn't be more wrong.
06:28 The story mode had some incredibly awkward writing and an absurd quagmire of story beats
06:33 cobbled together haphazardly.
06:35 It didn't help that much of the roster had some really weird proportions in their faces
06:38 and bodies.
06:39 You mean to tell us that Capcom really couldn't do better than this?
06:47 Really?
06:51 KO the Kangaroo
06:59 With so many amazing 3D platformers coming out of the woodwork between Crash, Spyro,
07:04 and the indie market, it seemed like there might be room for KO the Kangaroo.
07:09 Then the demo came out, and it showed some troubling signs.
07:13 By the time the game launched, well, the kangaroo was down for the count.
07:23 KO the Kangaroo succeeded in making pretty visuals, but failed in conjuring a captivating
07:28 story or even coming up with a decent combat system.
07:32 Considering KO's whole shtick is being a kangaroo with boxing gloves, it's hard to
07:37 believe that developer Tate Multimedia couldn't come up with something more creative than
07:41 what was delivered.
07:48 Forspoken
07:57 While we did defend Forspoken in our recent list of 10 games that received unfair criticism,
08:03 we can understand why folks were dismissive of it.
08:05 The story and writing are pretty freaking dreadful.
08:09 It makes it hard to want to like this game, but credit where it's due, there is a great
08:13 game underneath it.
08:20 The traversal is fun, the combat is spectacular visually, and satisfying to take part in,
08:25 and the boss battles are colossal in scope.
08:28 Frey's story did have potential at one point, but if one thing is certain, Gary Whitta and
08:33 Amy Hennig did not write whatever was put into the final product.
08:42 Bounty Battle
08:51 With Smash Bros.
08:52 Ultimate wrapping up DLC at the time, there was enough room for some new platform fighters
08:56 to fill the space.
08:57 Bounty Battle had the right idea by making a game centered on indie games, that is the
09:02 game we got at launch, but holy crap did it run like hot garbage.
09:14 You cannot launch a fighting game with an abysmal framerate and awful load times, and
09:19 you have to make sure it plays well.
09:22 This game does not play well, it does not feel great to play at all, it sucks.
09:27 It runs great now, but it just feels horrible to play.
09:32 This game could have popped off had there been some extra time to properly optimize
09:36 its performance.
09:44 Tiny Tina's Wonderlands
09:53 At one point, Wonderlands looked like it could have been a bold new direction for Borderlands
09:58 since Borderlands 3 was mediocre as hell.
10:01 We really could have used more of Tiny Tina's wild imagination in an expanded campaign of
10:06 bunkers and badasses.
10:08 Of course, Gearbox wasn't willing to put in their 100%, let alone their 110%.
10:21 While much of the humor was stuck in 2012 tween mentality, character classes offered
10:25 no room for players to experiment and felt like half-baked knockoffs of Borderlands 2's
10:30 selection of character classes.
10:32 The gunplay was still fun, yes, but why?
10:38 Only excel in that and make everything else feel so meh?
10:48 Mighty No. 9
10:59 Mighty No. 9 will forever live in infamy and serve as a blight on Keiji Inafune's career,
11:04 and deservedly so.
11:05 This was a game that had the audacity to insult its own demographic and act like a hotshot
11:11 while offering a bland experience and nothing interesting in its combat or level design.
11:17 But there was a time where this game was looking like it could have been the next big thing.
11:27 All you need to look at is one beautiful piece of concept art showing a game that was striving
11:32 to be a major evolution in the action platformer genre.
11:35 Yeah, not in this timeline, but hey, what we got, it's better than nothing.
11:43 AEW Fight Forever
11:53 For the longest time, WWE has reigned supreme as the top dog in wrestling games, but that's
11:59 because it's only ever been the only option next to the Fire Pro Wrestling games.
12:03 With the rise of the AEW, it was only a matter of time before the promotion would launch
12:07 their own game to further compete with WWE.
12:11 It went horribly.
12:12 AEW Fight Forever was littered with about as many bugs and glitches as the older WWE
12:25 2K games.
12:26 Meanwhile, WWE 2K23 was pulling in big numbers even more.
12:31 Some improvements have been made to Fight Forever since launch, but with such a lean
12:35 roster and a dull campaign, AEW still has a long way to go in the gaming market to take
12:41 on the head honcho.
12:48 Silent Hill The Short Message
12:58 Konami has been eager to bring Silent Hill back and do so in a way that is sure to sell
13:03 gangbusters.
13:04 That streaming stunt, though, was not super well received.
13:07 As for the free-to-play The Short Message, well, if you want a game that advocates mental
13:12 health, this game isn't it.
13:15 Never had we seen a game relish in its own misery without really diving into its own
13:19 subject matter.
13:32 All the game seemed to want to say was "mental health sucks, but live a good life."
13:37 Okay, and?
13:39 These days, if you want to properly explore mental health and effectively communicate
13:44 the struggles of certain disorders, you have to go further beyond death, depression, sadness,
13:50 anxiety, and self-loathing.
13:52 Take it from me, somebody who struggles with a lot of that stuff.
13:56 There is more to these problems beneath the surface than just being sad and being upset
14:01 and being scared.
14:03 Just look at Silent Hill 2, which, oh boy, speaking of Silent Hill 2, that remake is
14:09 scaring us in the worst ways.
14:18 Meet Your Maker.
14:32 Behavior Interactive has long been working on Dead by Daylight since 2016, and it's
14:36 currently expanding that IP in fun and interesting ways.
14:40 So would a new IP from them possibly repeat the success of DbD?
14:45 One would hope, especially for a game like Meet Your Maker.
14:48 Think if Doom was done in the style of Super Mario Maker.
14:51 Build your lair guarding valuable resources in hopes of offing players while you go raid
14:56 their lairs for their resources.
14:58 Sadly, this game was dead on arrival.
15:08 Players quickly found ways to implement cheap tactics, resulting in unbalanced gameplay.
15:13 On top of that, the performance was unstable at times, and there simply wasn't anything
15:17 beyond build, raid, and repeat.
15:20 Also, some of the places just were boring.
15:23 And so, the game has been largely abandoned by players since launch.
15:27 Meet Your Maker is probably going to be dead by the time it hits its one year anniversary.
15:39 Redfall
15:50 Arcane Studios can make some really interesting games like they did with Dishonored, Prey,
15:55 and Deathloop, but Redfall is really hard to find any redeemable qualities in this title.
16:11 Redfall could have been a contender with its colorful cast of playable characters and vast
16:15 lore between the town of Redfall and how the vampires managed to invade it.
16:19 Sadly, this game was busted on release.
16:22 Not only did the game run poorly even on the best internet speeds, the AI was beyond stupid
16:28 when it came to recognizing the player and properly planning its attack strategy.
16:33 Even the boss battles suffered in just how samey each one felt.
16:36 With reports revealing that Arcane staff was hoping Microsoft would cancel the game after
16:41 the corporation bought Bethesda in 2020, it's safe to say that no one wanted this game even
16:46 prior to its launch.
16:56 Five Nights at Freddy's Security Breach
17:06 For those of us too freaked out by the original games and how they force you to just sit in
17:10 one room, a survival horror set in the FNAF franchise was right up our alley.
17:15 When you present the setting of it taking place in the massive indoor theme park, dude,
17:20 Security Breach should have been one of 2021's biggest hits.
17:23 Thing is that developer Steel Wool Studios didn't run some thorough checks and balances.
17:35 Many of the monsters lurking around the Pizzaplex were bugged in their pathing and behavior,
17:40 resulting in many unfair deaths.
17:42 Plus, they can just waltz through any door regardless if it's locked on the outside
17:47 or not.
17:48 Seriously, not even a PS5 version could make the game function as intended.
17:59 Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection
18:10 As if Aspyr couldn't screw up any more Star Wars games like they did with Knights of the
18:14 Old Republic and its sequel, Battlefront Classic Collection quickly became their biggest blunder.
18:19 Many folks have been craving for a re-release of the first two Battlefront games, but with
18:23 visual upgrades and maybe some new maps.
18:26 Aspyr said, "Hey, we'll do that," but the delivery came with a huge caveat.
18:37 Battlefront Classic Collection not only launched with various audio and graphical glitches,
18:42 it also launched with only three servers available for online multiplayer.
18:46 All of this led to this duology becoming the ninth most hated game on Steam.
18:51 Aspyr is going to have to do a lot to win the trust of players again after this.
19:02 Resident Evil 6
19:12 If you take the survival horror formula of the classic games, or even the more action-heavy
19:18 RE5, you can make Resident Evil work in almost any setting.
19:22 So if you wanted to take Leon and company and put them in a situation in, say, China,
19:28 Capcom would have had our support, but the slop churned out here was unacceptable.
19:41 The action was way too over the top with explosive boss fights, the story was kind of a mess
19:47 to follow and hard to keep up with, and of all the campaigns, you give Ada the worst
19:52 one?
19:53 Resident Evil game set in China has promise, so maybe a remake is in the works, but what
19:58 we got in 2012?
20:00 It wasn't it.
20:10 Anthem
20:19 Even after the mess that was Mass Effect Andromeda, many had hope for Bioware.
20:24 Anthem was going to be their first original IP in several years, and the devs were showing
20:28 some confidence in their product.
20:30 And those who played it prior to launch, the ones who said more than just "oh the flying's
20:35 good", they all said there was some promise in the gameplay and combat.
20:39 What we got though was another looter shooter that was just littered in damage numbers,
20:44 glitches, and enough bugs to cause crashes on PCs and consoles.
20:49 What happened here?
20:54 Well, several staff members told controversial outlet Kotaku that the game was developed
21:03 within the last 18 months before launch.
21:06 Turns out, a lot of mechanics weren't even finalized or kept getting added and removed
21:11 and added again during marketing.
21:14 Despite promises to update and fix the game for a possible revival, Bioware eventually
21:18 gave up on trying to make Anthem a thing and ceased support in 2021.
21:27 Marvel's Avengers
21:28 Honestly, this might be the biggest crash and burn in the games industry since Atari
21:43 dropped ET back in 1982.
21:45 Marvel's Avengers could have been such an easy win for Square Enix.
21:50 Could we have gotten a JRPG in the style of Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest?
21:54 Or how about an RPG focused on traversal and mobility like in Kingdom Hearts?
21:58 We would have settled for a Marvel-themed Bubble Bobble spin-off even.
22:03 In the end, we got none of those.
22:14 Marvel's Avengers turned out to be a live-service game focused on collecting gear, increasing
22:19 power levels, and mashing attack buttons in between cooldowns.
22:23 It was a game that offered nothing and expected nothing from you except your cash.
22:29 Square Enix took a massive $60 million loss on making the game and wound up selling developer
22:34 Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider IP to Embracer Group.
22:38 As for the game itself, Marvel's Avengers was pulled from sale and had its servers shut
22:42 down in September 2023.
22:50 Which awful game do you think had some genuine promise?
22:53 Did it make our list?
22:55 Let us know down in the comments and be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays for more great
22:59 videos every day.
23:11 Thanks for watching.
23:18 [music]