Time has been kind to the Nintendo GameCube overall. While the system struggled after being released in the U.S. and Japan in 2001 and failed to outsell both the PS2 and the original Xbox, reception to the system has improved dramatically since then. The GameCube today is lauded for numerous great-to-iconic games, its unique, beloved controller, and more. But on the flipside of that, we have some of the most bafflingly terrible releases of the entire console generation.
Every system has some truly crappy games to “enjoy.” The GameCube is certainly no different, with garbage licensed titles, dreadful sequels, and the peak of Nintendo’s assumption that people would buy literally anything if you put the word Pokémon on it. There’s some pretty stellar examples of gaming at its very worst, if you’re willing to descend into the kind of hell that spotlights Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Spyro the Dragon at his most cursed, and the wide awake nightmare that is Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka.
Proceed at your own emotional peril.
15. Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 – License to Drive
Developer: n-Space
Publisher: Acclaim
It may seem like low-hanging fruit to pick on a video game starring former child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, but if you grew up loving them then you still deserve a fun video game. Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 – License to Drive (who wants to ever say that over and over again?) has other plans for you, and none of them involve even a vague impression of something that might be fun.
The game looks terrible, as though it was slapped together very quickly by Acclaim with more regard for selling this hot garbage on the strength of its brand value than literally anything else. It’s not even really a driving game, but rather a series of minigames that are poorly explained, highlight frustrating controls, and wouldn’t even be very fun if both of those issues were addressed.
The character designs for Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 – License to Drive are also utterly hellish. It’s that breathtaking combination of unintentionally monstrous with poor production quality that gives License to Drive the closest it’ll ever get to be interesting. It’s not a wonder Mary-Kate and Ashley would later sue Acclaim for missed payments and releasing one crap game after another.
14. Finding Nemo
Developer: Traveller’s Tales
Publisher: THQ
The one nice thing you can really say about Finding Nemo from those monsters at THQ is that it reminds you of better licensed Disney games. Remember those Capcom platformers for the NES and SNES? Those were the days, huh? Finding Nemo is more about finding a long list of things you would rather do than play this piece of garbage for more than ten minutes.
Yes, the game based on the hit Pixar film is intended specifically for children, but that doesn’t mean the game has to be virtually unplayable for literally everyone, kids included. Those Capcom Disney collaborations prove you can make these games a good time for anybody who picks up the controller, but Finding Nemo is brutal in its difficulty, which creates a degree of repetition and confusion that no one is going to be pleased about.
Finding Nemo takes all the frustrating elements of an underwater level in almost any given platformer, and then builds an entire experience around it. Shoddy controls, visually disconcerting graphics and character designs, and poorly conceived puzzles take you deeper and deeper into pure misery. It’s astonishing this was developed by the same folks who would later put out the Lego games.
13. Trigger Man
Developer: Point of View
Publishers: Crave Entertainment, Play-It
From the laughable start of the T in the word “Trigger” being shaped like a machine gun, to the game dropping you right into a mission plagued with ugly graphics and bad controls, Trigger Man is a ride riddled with deep, sorrowful regret.
Trigger Man’s terrible, almost broken gameplay isn’t the only problem here. The game itself is an ugly blend of stuff like The Godfather and The Sopranos, without the personality and complexity and style of either of those things. There’s a monotony to this kind of muddy, blocky unpleasantness that allows Trigger Man to be more than just another slog of a lousy game. It’s a constant reminder of more compelling stories and games set against a series of tedious, obtuse missions. Trigger Man seemingly can’t find the time to offer anything more than a playing experience you’re likely to forget within minutes of turning the game off.
That’s the thing about Trigger Man: it’s a ripoff that can’t even rip off anything particularly well. It can’t even approximate the ideas and concepts it steals from. Trigger Man is a full, wretched example of everything that was wrong with video games in the early to mid-2000s.
12. Catwoman
Developer: Argonaut Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
The 2004 Halle Berry vehicle Catwoman, based on the D.C. Comics character, is one of the most infamous bad movies of the era. But at least that movie has some so-bad-it’s-fun potential in its cringey, bizarre ineptitude. You don’t get that benefit with the video game that loosely follows the film’s dumbass plot but sprinkles the proceedings with a game where your two biggest threats are the camera and controls. Both are seemingly tied for the distinction of why Catwoman is about as enjoyable as cleaning out a litter box with your teeth and a blindfold.
There’s a degree of exploration to engage with, some missions to endure, and some bad guys to defeat with a boring combat system that is almost destroyed by unresponsive controls. Catwoman doesn’t feel like very much thought went into villains, level design, or challenge. The only real challenge to Catwoman is the game’s seemingly relentless desire to see you fail at every possible turn.
Even the story for Catwoman lacks any sort of spark or strangeness. It’s a listless retelling of the unhinged movie, with mediocre graphics and some of the worst voice acting you’ve ever heard in your life.
11. Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: THQ
Again, even if a game is made for children, that doesn’t give the developers or publishers any right to release a mishmash of lazy execution and horrible graphics.
Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena combines the characters from the classic Pixar film with dodgeball, and that’s really not the worst idea ever for a game designed for little kids. What makes Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena one of the worst GameCube games ever made is in how little effort or thought went into bringing its premise to life.
Graphically, everything in Scream Arena looks as though someone got about halfway through a fully-realized video game, took a look at what they had done, and decided to call it a day. The game’s visual dumpiness is emphasized by unreliable controls and boring game modes. The best-case scenario for this multiplayer atrocity is a fun afternoon with your friends. What we actually get is an experience that can only end in tears, anger, and broken friendships that will never be repaired.
Monsters, Inc. Scream Arena sure doesn’t give you a lot of incentive to keep going. There’s no depth here, and the surface looks as bad as it plays. Kids don’t deserve this bullshit.
10. American Chopper 2: Full Throttle
Developer: Creat Studios
Publisher: Activision
It’s not like anyone had super high expectations for American Chopper 2 to begin with. We’re talking about a sequel based on a terrible video game that was licensed from an asinine reality show. Yet American Chopper 2 managed to exceed all expectations for wretched failure. It’s one of the most visually unpleasant and dull releases the GameCube ever saw.
You’ll start by picking one of four characters from the show, with an equally uninspired array of unremarkable choices for your bike. The game then descends into a series of racing missions that allow you to earn money to upgrade your bikes in a variety of ways. There’s really nothing wrong with any of that, but the races are doomed from the start with controls that barely work. The missions themselves often feel half-finished, playing more like disjointed, obnoxious minigames than something that might be conceivably part of a larger game experience.
No matter how you look at it, American Chopper 2: Full Throttle comes across as a profoundly cynical cash-in. Tweaking your bike can be fun in brief moments that feel more hostage induced delirium than anything close to pleasure. Actually riding the bikes you’ve worked on, not so much.
9. Shrek Super Party
Developer: Mass Media
Publisher: TDK Mediactive
Wow! A crappy game based on the Shrek franchise? Who would have ever imagined?
Shrek Super Party is very, very clearly a Mario Party clone. That part is just fine. On paper there’s nothing ridiculous or agonizing about a series of minigames featuring characters like Shrek, Donkey, Fiona, and all the others. Obviously, the problems start when you begin playing on the board with players collecting bug juice and besting their friends in assorted games to determine who is truly the best in all the land.
Let’s save everyone some time and pain. No one is going to be the best in all the land in Shrek Super Party. At least, you’re sure as hell not going to feel like you’re the best. The visuals are a wide-awake nightmare, with ugly character designs that look downright horrifying when they move or express the kind of emotions you usually see when the ghost in the machine reaches out for your human soul. Which is to say Shrek Super Party is close to a pure horror movie experience, on top of having unforgivably clunky controls.
8. Pokémon Channel
Developer: Ambrella
Publisher: Nintendo
The only game on this list to be published directly by Nintendo, Pokémon Channel is another game where the idea is at least sound. A life sim where you basically watch TV shows about Pokémon with your buddy Pikachu could have created an entirely new way to interact with these creatures and this universe. Instead, Nintendo opted for one of their most obnoxious cash grabs. A game with good graphics that gives you almost nothing to do.
When we say you’re going to watch TV with Pikachu, we mean it. That’s the bulk of this experience, with some gameplay elements occasionally thrown in to keep things interesting. The problem with that is that these elements barely, and we mean barely scratch the surface of what should constitute anything that calls itself a video game. There is precious little interactivity to be found here, and all of this amounts to one of the most expensive and shallowest virtual pet sims ever made.
Pokémon Channel was a big release from the big N themselves. The appalling lack of effort into giving this experiment tangible some replayability is as infuriating now as it was in 2003, but not as infuriating as how much it costs to buy. Come on, guys.
7. Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure
Developer: Na’a Digital Works
Publisher: Kemco
Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure is one of Kemco’s most flagrant assumptions that someone somewhere will buy any video game if the title features a known property. Unfortunately, the game is a bastardization of the actual Universal Studios experience. There’s a theme park to visit, but not very much adventure to be found.
That’s because Universal Studios Theme Park Adventures is mostly focused on getting tickets to go on the rides, like the thrill of experiencing some of the worst framerate issues in the history of the GameCube. Getting a single ticket for a single ride isn’t even how the actual park functions to begin with, but whatever. You get tickets by picking up trash (ironic), and then the rides themselves consist of lousy minigames that look as terrible as they actually play.
The minigames are loosely based on attractions like Back to the Future: The Ride and Jurassic Park River Adventure, but none of them even make an attempt at suggesting what it would actually be like to visit Universal Studios. That would require effort and money, and it’s hard to imagine either of those things were anywhere near Theme Parks Adventure.
6. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Global Star Software
Regardless of how you feel about the 2005 Tim Burton film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the greedy, wretched tie-in video game is something we can all agree on: It sucks in every possible flavor. Trying to find something good about this decidedly rushed mistake is like trying to find something good in the horrid little crotch goblins that descend upon Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory suffers from glitchy visuals, mediocre voice acting, and the bizarre main task of helping Willy get rid of the evidence of his criminal neglect by helping each of the other children after their various accidents in the factory. That’s boring to begin with, and it doesn’t really get any better from there.
Whether you’re getting Augustus Gloop out of the chocolate river pipe or taking Violet Beauregarde to the juicing room to be juiced (ew?), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is equal parts dull and difficult due to its many technical flaws. The maddening controls will best you far more than the actual challenges of the game.
5. Batman: Dark Tomorrow
Developer: Kemco
Publisher: Kemco
Before the legendary Arkham trilogy came along, a good Batman game was almost as rare as a good Batman movie starring George Clooney. Batman: Dark Tomorrow had some promise behind its initial announcement, particularly the part that promised an open-world Batman experience unlike anything that had come before it.
Unfortunately, this promise was made by Kemco, who barely had any experience with or knowledge of Batman whatsoever, so it’s hard to imagine anyone was surprised when Dark Tomorrow crawled out of their ass, sputtered on its terrible controls and vast collection of bugs, and went on to become one of the worst licensed superhero games of all time. From appallingly simplistic AI, to repetitive missions that rarely take advantage of the game’s 3D setting, Batman: Dark Tomorrow is almost breathtaking in its incompetence.
Batman: Dark Tomorrow is punishingly difficult despite the complete lack of challenge from the bad guys you’ll smack around, and you can owe that to the controls being poorly suited to a 3D action platformer. Everything in this game is a challenge, long before you even throw the first punch. The only thing that’s going to interrupt the tedium are the many, many moments in which Batman: Dark Tomorrow seemingly has better things to do than work properly.
4. Charlie’s Angels
Developer: Neko Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released in 2003 as a cash-in on the 2000 Charlie’s Angels sequel Full Throttle, the GameCube version of Charlie’s Angels is a game that almost defies description. This is one of the few terrible games we’ve covered where it might be worth at least a few minutes with this abomination. Starting with the fact that this is one of the most reprehensible brawlers ever developed, Charlie’s Angels makes so many terrible design and gameplay choices that it’s almost stunning.
Charlie’s Angels is almost choking on bugs, which you’ll begin to experience firsthand within moments of firing the game up. Blocky, ugly graphics introduce our heroes, with voices that sound like someone had a gun to their head, and then you’re left to deal with a viciously uncooperative camera and fights that force you to truly appreciate the relief of a fighting game with even half-decent controls.
If you’re not screaming at the game’s poor hit detection, you’re staring in awed silence at Charlie’s Angels attempts at humor and style. There’s nothing here that even feels fully formed. Charlie’s Angels is little more than a broken collection of almost completely broken ideas, and it doesn’t have Bill Murray in it. But you can unlock a trailer for the movie, so that sure is something to do if you feel like you must.
3. Bad Boys: Miami Takedown
Developer: Blitz Games
Publisher: Empire Interactive
While Bad Boys: Miami Takedown does make some effort to recreate the story and tone of Bad Boys II, the result almost feels like intentional parody. The dialog is somehow worse than anything you could ever hear in a Michael Bay movie, and god help us all because that’s really saying something.
So, while some of the elements of Bad Boys: Miami Takedown can make for a fun time with your friends and maybe a few drinks, actually trying to mine legitimate entertainment or challenge from this trash is almost impossible. The actual gameplay can’t make up its mind on whether to be buggy to the point of immense frustration or just boring. It’s a fun back-and-forth! Just like the banter in the movies you should just watch instead of playing this nonsense.
Bad Boys: Miami Takedown is so bland it creates a stupor where you can’t even remember which level you’re playing. The glitches and bugs are legion, to the point where you can make the hideously boring gameplay even easier, if for some reason you’re speedrunning this or just want to fill the empty hours of an aimless existence.
2. Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis
Developer: Lucky Chicken Games
Publisher: TDK Mediactive
Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis proved in 2003 that publisher TDK Mediactive could do so much more than churn out an abysmal party game based on the Shrek license. They could also churn out an abysmal action-adventure game based on a D.C. Comics hero who didn’t have Jason Momoa to make him cool.
Aquaman as a character was at the height of being a punchline when this aggressively low-effort endeavor made its way to the GameCube, and Battle for Atlantis sure as hell didn’t do him any favors.
The combo system for Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis is frustrating and at times inscrutable. From a gameplay standpoint, Aquaman feels like you’re playing it in the final moments of life itself, death coursing through your veins as every organ begins to shut down. Battle for Atlantis has a slowness behind it that’s almost impressively ahead of almost any other GameCube title with this particular affliction. The tinny, repetitive music will make the game feel even longer than that.
There’s nothing even superficially enjoyable about obstructive cameras and blobby graphics damming your every bitter effort to move forward, as you thrash around in the water with the same grace as that zombie from the Dawn of the Dead remake. Not even Aquaman fans should waste even a second of their time on Battle for Atlantis.
1. Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly
Developer: Equinoxe Digital Entertainment, Check Six Studios
Publisher: Universal Interactive
We put Spyro here because we care.
There’s a special circle of Hell for games like Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly. This floor belongs to games that came from a good-or-better franchises, only to languish under poor management, unrealistic release date expectations, and the cynicism inherent in taking one look at this glitchtacular tribute to depression, and thinking “Yeah, this is just fine.”
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly marked the first game in the series not developed by Insomniac Games. While Equinoxe Digital Entertainment and Check Six Studios didn’t do the greatest job with the opportunity, the blame for this living tribute to putrid ambition comes down to Universal Interactive. The company clearly had no idea what to do with this series, and it shows in every stage of the game’s troubled production.
Spyro is a pain in the ass to control, particularly when flying. The frame rate for Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly is a legitimate contender for the worst you’ll ever seen in this generation of gaming. The glitches extend from collision detection to the very music and sound. It’s like living in a pinata surrounded by the meanest drunks on god’s mistake called earth. It’s dark, the violence is constant, and you soon find yourself imagining death as the only way you will ever find peace.
Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly broke many a spirit when it was released for the GameCube and PS2. Even today, there are fans of this series who simply change the subject if you bring up Enter the Dragonfly. Can you blame them? The drop in quality from the first three releases to this one is so severe, it makes you wonder if it was done on purpose.
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