10 Worst First Person Shooters

In a market that is rife with first person shooters that attempt to revolutionize the way we play, most hit their mark or either come very close. A few classics such as Counter-Strike and Half Life achievedtheir goals and were huge hit with the masses during the late 90s and is still played by many across the globe. Shortly therafter a relatively unknown studio, Infinity Ward,merged with Activision to create one of the biggest franchises that has ever graced this genre of gaming. Unfortunately unlike the extremely successful Call Of Duty franchise, there were quite a few games that didnt really take off like the developers had envisioned.Here are the ten worst first person shooters that didnt turn out as expected.

#10 Medal of Honor: Warfighter

After the Medal Of Honor series reboot in 2010, which released to favorable reviews, led to high expectations from the next game in the franchise. Developed by Danger Close Games who worked with DICE on the reboot, Warfighter’s story picks up from where the previous game is left off. The story is mundane and incomprenhensible making it into bascially a few cutscenes with outrageous set-pieces clumped together. The enemy A.I is overly stupid and the length of the game is very brief due to this, and the monotonous shootouts do not help with anything too. Utilizing the Frostbite 2 engine the game’s graphics were praised but still had niggling graphical issues. The dull multiplayer is a pointless addition with the time-worn game modes that achieves nothing. Considering the aforementioned, EA pulled the Medal of Honor series out of any future developments which may be the final nail in the coffin of this once-great franchise.

#9 Sniper: Ghost Warrior

Sniper Ghost Warrior is the first game in the this series developed and published by City Interactive. It centers on an elite sniper team and throughout the course of the story, the player embodies each of the members of the team to help the locals of a fictionalized Latin American country to fight against the government. While the sniping mechanics and the stealthy nature of the game are enjoyable, there are few troublesome issues. Graphically the game shines rendering vast and expansive jungles, but the character models and framerate bring down the experience considerably. The abundance of the problems stems from various game breaking issues and general repetitiveness of the game itself. Although the game’s concept is engaging, those waiting for a satisfying sniping game should look somewhere else.

#8 Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior

This first person shooter is based on the board game Warhammer 40,000 set in a dystopian sci-fi environment. It was by developed by Kuju Entertainment and released in 2003 on the PlayStation 2 and Windows platforms. Unlike the beloved board game, that had a high reputation, the videogame scrapped the strategic aspect and opted out for a loud FPS that isn’t very innovative but may provide some distraction from other games. The storyline is very bare bones and will probably interest only Warhammer 40k fans. Although the sound effects are satsifying combined with ordinary graphics, mediocre voice acting and an afterthought of a multiplayer Warhammer 40k is a game that may captivate you if you’re in the mood for some mindless FPS fun.

#7 Haze

Intended for a release on Xbox 360, Windows and Playstation 3 Ubisoft surprisingly announced that Haze would be a Playstation exclusive leading to numerous claims that it would be Playstation’s answer to Halo. However upon release the game failed to achieve these high expectations and garnered mostly negative reviews. Citing an incredibly short campaign length, bad level designs, generic characters, unpredictable A.I and plentiful visual issues reviewers considered it a significant gaming disappointment back in 2008. While it set itself up as a offbeat game, this was negated by the above stated reasons. Considered a Halo killer, developer Free Radical Design couldn’t live up to the massive media hype that the game had generated prior release.

#6 Call of Juarez: The Cartel

Set in the wild west in alignment with the other games in the Call of Juarez series, this instalment introduced a cooperative element where a maximum of three players can progress together through the storyline. From Polish developer Techland, this game fails to deliver the satisfaction of a good story that the titles delivered despite an evident lack of finesse. Differing from it’s predecessors, The Cartel is set in modern day Los Angeles and Mexico and occasionally imitates real life events. Human trafficking and drug wars was cheekily depicted, provoking negative reactions from various reviewers. On the visual side, The Cartel looks dated and texture pop-ins are abundant and ostentatious at times. Apart from this the plain enivronments and duplicated characters do not help to offer an enjoyable experience at all. While the gunplay isn’t horrible, the ever-looming issue of repetitiveness is what causes this game to crash and burn.

#5 Aliens: Colonial Marines

A hotly anticipated title from Gearbox Software and Sega set in the Alien franchise right after the unfortunate events of the Alien 3 movie, had high expectations from fans. Sadly due to numerous bugs, poor A.I, oddly balanced gameplay and horrid visuals this outing in the Alien series fell flat on it’s face. On a plus side the game had very few saving points such as the impressive soundtrack, atmosphere and level designs. Another point of criticism is that the fans noted is the lack of continiuity with the films despite the developer’s insistence that the game’s directly relate to the movies. A huge concern is the apparent visual downgrade from the pre-release demos to the final product inciting the Gearbox president Randy Pitchford himself to look into the matter. Taking into account the high expectations and the poor quality of the finished game, this is one Alien iteration that you can confidently skip out on.

#4 Battle: Los Angeles

Based on the movie of the same name, this game developed by Saber Interactive of the recently released Halo: The Master Chief Collection fame on Xbox One, released in 2011 to coincide the movie’s release. Similar to the movie the game received negative reviews citing the awfully short length, laughable voice acting and and just the one enemy type you kill repeatedly. The plot is identical to the movie with the usual, aliens are invading and the heroes have to save the planet blueprint. Fortunately it’s priced like a downloadable game and not a retail priced six hour experience which would’ve guaranteed an inevitable failure.

#3 Duke Nukem Forever

After a mindboggling 11 years of development with the help of four studios, you’d think there would be some sort of overhaul of the simplistic gameplay mechanics, outdated jokes and mediocre performance. In this iteration after saving the Earth from an alien invasion 12 years ago, Duke has attained worldwide recognition and fame and is retired hanging out in his “Duke Cave”. The stroryline is very straightforward and boring. The classic Duke Nukem humor is back and stronger then ever before with plenty of sexual innuendos and adolescent jokes. Unfortunately the fun of shooting up bad guys found in previous games has been cut down considerably with an extremely linear and restricted sense of exploration. Dispersed with uninspired platforming sections and point to point shootouts in corridors and occasional fun moments, Duke Nukem Forever is not the grand return of the King people were hoping for.

#2 007 Legends

Starring the titular British Secret Service agent, 007 Legends puts Daniel Craig’s James Bond in Istanbul after an assignment he miscalculated. The game’s events take place prior to 2012’s Skyfall plotline and incorporates various events from other Bond films as well. Critics were impressed with the earnest six film story and applauded the gameplay improvements and the use of somewhat realistic and grounded gadgets that Bond uses. On the other hand, the game tries to impersonate the tried and tested Call of Duty formula with explosive setpieces but failed to achieve that by ending up like a low-budget Call of Duty clone. With underwhelming visuals, bland gunplay, terrible stealth missions and a large amount of hand holding for the player in innecessary situations 007 Legends is a black mark in the otherwise well receieved games of the series.

#1 Rogue Warrior

From a highly regarded publisher known for their award winning franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Doom comes an universally panned game called Rogue Warrior by Bethesda. Purported to be a story-driven first person shooter that puts the player in the shoes of Richard "Dick" Marcinko, another generic lead character voiced by actor Mickey Rourke, whose mission is to infiltrate North Korea to hunt down a mole in the military that has top-secret information about a missile project. Apart from the forgettable story, glitches, boring gameplay, short length and the hilariously non-functional CQC techniques that the main character uses there's a pointless addition of a multiplayer mode. The visuals are reminiscent of a PS2 era game with screen tearing and is plagued with a long list of other unwelcome issues. This game offers absolutely nothing at any price whatsoever and shows how rushed the production was, resulting in an abysmal videogame that no gamer should experience.