Sony's Playstation 4 is known for a variety of hit exclusives from both Western and Eastern markets, encompassing so many different genres that range from overwhelming praise to disappointed jeering. The good tends to outweigh the bad, but the bad can be astonishingly awful, to the point that it becomes notorious for how poorly it was produced.
While players are currently booing scalpers for buying out Playstation 5 consoles, it might help them to look over Megacritic's list of terrible games to avoid like the plague while they pass the time on the previous console for a little bit longer.
Fast & Furious Crossroads
Movie tie-in games have always had a spotty reputation, and unfortunately, there is no exception for the Fast & Furious series of blockbuster action films. What should have been a wild and fun experience that simulates the movies' over-the-top nature and fast-paced car chases faithfully ends up being insulting to the franchise in how bare-bones and basic it is. Gameplay consists of the most basic vehicle chase sequences that most players will have encountered in better games.
On top of character models that wouldn't even pass the alpha stage of a last-gen game, the cutscenes are disjointed and tell a boring, nonsensical story. But perhaps the worst thing about this game is that it was sold as a full-price game when it has just a few hours of actual gameplay.
Dawn of Fear
An attempted love-letter at classic Resident Evil and other old survival horror games, Dawn of Fear brings back old concepts like fixed camera angles, pre-rendered backgrounds, limited saves, and clunky tank controls. Classic horror fans may actually not mind most of those features but may find disappointment in the myriad of other issues plaguing this failed homage.
Dawn of Fear is riddled with game-breaking bugs and several graphical glitches that severely hamper the experience, turning what were supposed to be horrifying scares into unintentional laughs. Combat is clunkier than the original Resident Evil, and on top of a very predictable story, puzzles are usually disappointingly easy and lacking in tension. While it had a lot of potential to be a great fangame, Dawn of Fear still feels like it's in early beta.
Weeping Doll
A Playstation VR exclusive, Weeping Doll had the potential to become a major horror sleeper hit and a great horror title for VR fans. Unfortunately, even at a $10 price tag, the game still feels like there isn't enough content to justify a purchase--not a complete mess, but what's there isn't very complete either.
Weeping Doll lacks the necessary atmosphere needed for a horror game to succeed, with most rooms being brightly lit and lacking in any creepy backdrops. Simplistic and obvious puzzles remove any sort of tension the game could have had, and poor voice acting takes players out of the experience. It's rather sad that this is one of the few horror games available for Playstation VR.
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5
A horrifically botched attempt to bring back the magic of the hit Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series of skateboarding games, Pro Skater 5's back-to-basics approach only turns out to be too basic. It's a game that's both too afraid to experiment and somehow feels older than the beloved Playstation 1 entries, with missions and challenges being very mundane and unengaging.
On top of some critics noting a bit of sluggishness in the controls compared to older entries, there is a severe lack of variety in levels and challenges, which proved essential to the previous games' longevity and popularity. But what really kills the game is the wonky physics engine leading to characters having poor collision detection and flying all over the place.
Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival
A remake of the original Kick-Off series of football simulation games, Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival boasts the return of the original game's programmer, Dino Dini, attempting to revive the franchise to reach a modern era of sports fans in gaming. Unfortunately, this new Kick-Off didn't quite kick-off, as it released to abysmal reviews on the Playstation Store.
A major factor in the game's failure is just how little it resembled the original Kick-Off despite the creator's involvement, sharing very few gameplay features with its namesake while also possessing rather bland graphics. Controls are slippery, AI for players and goalies is broken, and overall it is an unpolished experience unworthy of the original game's name.
Air Conflicts: Vietnam Ultimate Edition
A barely enhanced remake of what was already a poor man's Ace Combat clone, Air Conflicts: Vietnam Ultimate Edition is a game that nobody really asked for but got anyway--if they even remember it exists. Despite supposedly being "enhanced," the visuals still look as dated and flat as they did in the original game, and the gameplay isn't much better either.
While some players may find small enjoyments in flying planes from the Vietnam War-era, the terrible controls and lack of content can't even make those tiny luxuries last for more than a few minutes. There are better flight simulations in Battlefield, where it's primarily a first-person shooter.
The Quiet Man
The Quiet Man is a high-concept action-mystery game, making gargantuan promises that it simply could not deliver on many, many levels. It had the unique idea of having the player control a deaf man, meaning that the game would be largely soundless and players would have to rely solely on their sight and controller vibrations to play the game. Coupled with ambitious live-action cutscenes, The Quiet Man appeared to be a promising experiment.
Unfortunately, a terrible camera, nonsensical exploration and a disjointed story make The Quiet Man a hard-to-swallow experience. Cutscenes tell almost nothing of value that would be easy for the player to understand, and the combat basic to the point of monotony. Much like the title character, this proved to be the game that silenced Human Head Studios for good.
Basement Crawl
Basement Crawl is a horror-themed Bomberman clone where the player can choose one of four slasher-movie-styled characters, from a Teddy Bear to a Killer Clown. However, in terms of playability, it resembles the much-maligned Bomberman: Act Zero reboot than it does the fun of the classic 90s games, particularly multiplayer. It is multiplayer-only, in fact, with no single-player modes in either an arcade function or a story mode that would flesh out the wildly different personalities and designs of the incredibly small cast.
There is next-to-zero originality in Basement Crawl, with gameplay effectively plagiarizing Bomberman and only having the equally-derivative feature of giving specific characters special abilities unique to them. On top of the uninspired clone gameplay, a combination of the isometric view and the oppressively dark lighting makes it hard for anyone to see who's who on their screen, leading to several unintentional deaths.
Road Rage
Well deserving of the second-place spot on this list, Road Rage is supposed to be a spiritual successor to the Road Rash series of motorcycle combat racing games by Electronic Arts. Unfortunately, all it succeeds in doing is tarnishing its predecessor's legacy with awful controls and overly bloated content that didn't need to be present in the game to begin with.
Sluggish and slippery handling on the bike leads to several fiery, painful deaths to rival bikers, and many objects lack collision detection, proving just how unfinished this game really is. AI bikers are also remarkably stupid, as even when the player comes to a complete stop at a wall, enemies will ram straight into the player to create a massive explosion.
Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma Volume One
The most hated Playstation 4 game on Metacritic is the insultingly bad sequel to a beloved game and anime: Afro Samurai. In an interesting twist, the player controls Kuma instead of Afro, with the former wanting revenge against his rival and brother. This story has a strong foundation for a game sequel, but the execution was criticized for being all over the place.
However, the main problem was the gameplay, which is vastly inferior to the previous game in virtually every aspect, oversimplifying the combat and showcasing features that appear to actually be missing. On top of boring cutscenes and the severe lack of challenging enemies, Afro Samurai 2 is the worst Playstation 4 game almost entirely because of its failure to even reach the feet of its beloved older brother, with future episodes being canceled outright.