Top 5 games that tanked on launch

5. Psychonauts Bear with me. I know, right? It’s an amazing game! A complete cult classic, which really picked up in 2012 after Steam sales and the like. However, you weren’t there in 2005. Yes, the gameplay and storyline is absolutely fantastic, I won’t even contest that, but its release was underwhelming, with such massive losses […]

NUSU
6th March 2016

5. Psychonauts

Bear with me. I know, right? It’s an amazing game! A complete cult classic, which really picked up in 2012 after Steam sales and the like. However, you weren’t there in 2005. Yes, the gameplay and storyline is absolutely fantastic, I won’t even contest that, but its release was underwhelming, with such massive losses upon its release that the CEO of Majesco resigned and their stock plummeted drastically. Thankfully, their modern release on Steam has revived one of the best games nobody had played.

4. Duke Nukem: Forever

Duke Nukem: Forever was announced as a sequel to the fantastic Duke Nukem 3D – which was released to fantastic reviews and sales in 1996. After a sequel was announced in 1997, which could have been a fantastic game of its time, the disappointing sequel that eventually turned up was released in 2011. Yes, fifteen years later. And whilst the gameplay was what you’d expect from a 21st century shooter game, the humour and some of the graphics looked like they’d come straight out of the 1990s. Overall, the series clearly should have stopped whipping the Duke for cash in 1996.

3. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness:

Prior to the phenomenal reboot of Tomb Raider, Eidos attempted to make a darker and grittier Lara Croft, and thus Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness was born – or should I say, ripped from the belly of gaming hell. Taking everything that the franchise had initially and throwing it out of the window, the graphics were average, the gameplay poor and glitchy, the camera angles awful and the story not even worth playing, there’s a reason another sequel, Tomb Raider: Legend took three years – the entire franchise was transferred from Core Design to Crystal Dynamics.

2. Too Human:

When Silicon Knights spent nine years and almost $100 million on a game, you’d think that this would be a complete success. The idea of a science-fiction take on Norse mythology should be a complete success, right? Wrong. This third-person action RPG was initially planned for release on the PS1, however ended up being released on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The game itself just couldn’t sell enough, and it doesn’t help that Epic Games then threw a lawsuit at their child company for breaking contract – dropping the Unreal Engine for their own engine just months before release. The result? This game was recalled and removed from online marketplaces. If you still have a copy, you’re one of a select few (including myself).

  1. ET: The Extra Terrestrial

I couldn’t forget to include this. This game was released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. You’d think that a game based upon such a legendary film would have a fantastic game – however having only six weeks to develop and release the game for Christmas of 1982 led to what can only be described as a complete flop. Still known as one of the worst videogames in history, this one tanked so hard that it was partially responsible for the videogame market crash back in 1983, and the death of Atari – with as many materials as possible disposed of in a landfill site in New Mexico and hidden under rubbish and rumour until 2014.

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