Games You'd Receive at Christmas if You Were on Santa's Naughty List

Christmas. A time for seeing family and friends, spreading cheer, and over-indulging in your favourite chocolate treats. But more importantly than all that: new videogames!

However, someone’s been naughty this year! Have you been screaming down the microphone at the player that just killed you? Intentionally team killed just for a laugh? How about replying to that Xbox tweet to declare how it’s a “dead console” and that “Xbox is trash lol.” Sound familiar? Well, unfortunately for you Santa knows what you did, he knows if you’ve been bad, and will be delivering a brand new (awful) videogame down the chimney to disappoint you on Christmas Day.

A quick rule before we start; I’ve only selected games released two months prior to 25th December of any year to keep it within that all-important Christmas release window. So, with the preamble out of the way, let’s look at some games to unwrap on Christmas Day that would be more disappointing than a pair of socks.

The Simpsons Skateboarding

I really hope someone got fired for this blunder

 

Worst. Simpsons game. Ever. If you were a youngster that couldn’t get enough of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and loved to sit down and binge-watch episodes of The Simpsons, then no doubt you would have been ecstatic to receive this game back in 2002. “Everything’s coming up Milhouse!” you may have cried upon opening this disaster on Christmas morning. It wouldn’t have taken you long to realise that out of all The Simpsons games available, you got the dud. Truly the blurst of times for gamers.

Broken mechanics? Unresponsive controls? Minimal effective use of The Simpsons license? You best believe that’s a paddlin’. The Simpsons Skateboarding is the pinnacle of cash-grab videogames; even the most enthusiastic fans will find this difficult to enjoy. After falling off your skateboard through no fault of your own, over and over again across the game's 10 bland levels, you’ll be begging the game to “Stop! Stop! He’s already dead!”.

Even alcohol (the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems) couldn’t transform this into an enjoyable experience; you’re better off with Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge. No one should ever choo-choo-choose this disaster of a skateboarding game as a gift on Christmas.

I’m so sorry for all of The Simpsons references.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)

Sonic Says- Don't play this!

 

Even die-hard Sonic the Hedgehog YouTuber SammyClassicSonicFan would have a difficult time enjoying this low point of the spikey blue blur. With a darker and edgier storyline than previous Sonic games, the addition of an implied romance between a human princess and the animated hedgehog is only the tip of the iceberg for one of Sega’s biggest disappointments.

There are times within Sonic ‘06 when it’s best to just set the controller down and wait for the current “high-speed” loop or grind rail section to be over; the slightest of button inputs will more than likely guarantee Sonic to come to a sudden stand still, or worse, fall to his demise. In fact, the sense of speed—one of the defining elements of any Sonic game—is so frustratingly slow that the player is reduced to stumbling through dull, uninspired levels with a control system and camera that are so uncooperative that they will be the cause of many, many deaths.

Rogue Warrior

@#$% you, @#$!&% @%$#*&, dead piece of #$%&! - Richard Marcinko

 

Fire this bland, repetitive shooter up on Christmas morning and chances are you’ll be sitting watching the end credits before dinner is ready. Yes, this short, expletive-filled mess of a first-person shooter is everything you don’t want in a Christmas present.

Rogue Warrior gets it all wrong. The stealth mechanics are pointless, with the majority of enemies facing away from you and not reacting to any sounds you make; the hit detection is so wonky that a soldier can occasionally shrug off a point-blank grenade explosion like it was a party popper; and the AI is so basic that more often than not enemies will just stand still and wait for you to put them out of their misery. And with protagonist Richard “Demo Dick” Marcinko using any opportunity to spout a tirade of foul, nonsensical obscenities, this is definitely not a game to play whilst your Grandma sits and waits for her Brussels sprouts.

Link: The Faces of Evil

Great, I can’t wait to bomb some Dodongo’s!

 

Someone’s been extra naughty this time! As if it wasn’t bad enough that you were the “proud” owner of a Phillips CD-i console, but a copy of Link: The Faces of Evil is waiting for you under the tree!

What can only be described as a “Zelda parody made by one man on acid”, The Faces of Evil is a nightmare-inducing fever dream thanks to its cast of terrifying characters that float eerily about the screen when speaking, getting ever closer to the screen whilst the backdrop they were standing on doesn’t once change perspective. It’s a bizarre artistic choice and certainly not a good one.

Playing as Link, you begin your mundane quest by searching way too long for rubies (known as rupees in every other Zelda game) in order to buy the items needed to progress. What makes this even more tedious is the fact that Link moves so slowly you’d swear that you’d selected a slo-mo mode by accident. Adding to this are the unresponsive controls, which are only made even more infuriating if you didn't own the CD-i's gaming specific controller, and were forced to use its TV remote-like one instead.

Link: The Faces of Evil comes together to form one of, if not the worst Zelda games ever made. Thankfully the series hasn’t hit a low point like this since. Hey look, there’s still a present left unwrapped! Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon? Oh no...

WWE 2K20

RK-No

 

A game so lambasted it caused developers Visual Concepts to stop the yearly release of this series to go back and start afresh. If you listen closely, you can almost hear WWE Chairman Vince McMahon cursing at the loss of potential revenue from this botch of a game.

Wrestling sim games will always have a niche audience—fans of the WWE product who like to re-create their favourite matches with a huge roster of “Superstars”—but WWE 2K20 throws all that from atop the Hell in a Cell, sending it crashing into a pile of other dreadful wrestling games below. What it offers instead is an experience teeming with glitches, hard crashes, broken online features, an abysmal career mode, and oh so many more glaring faults. Go and look up “WWE 2K20 glitches” to see just a small sample of everything wrong with this game and imagine all the poor, upset children booting this up on Christmas morning just to see Roman Reigns vs John Cena in a “Where has half of his body disappeared to?” match.

WWE 2K20 is one wrestling videogame that will give you an "Attitude Adjustment" for the 3-count, to ensure you're at the very top of Santa's nice list next time.

Fighter Within

I'd rather be Fighter Without (this game)

 

Who doesn’t enjoy getting together as a family on Christmas Day and playing some casual games that anyone can pick up and play? It’s what the Nintendo Wii did so perfectly; unfortunately the same can’t be said for the Xbox One’s Kinect. Whilst some Kinect exclusives played fine, Fighter Within was a complete mess that barely improved upon its abysmal prequel, Fighters Uncaged.

You’ll quickly be left red in the face as you desperately try to manoeuvre around the unresponsive menus, pleading with the game to cooperate as you see family members drift off for a post-dinner snooze. Once you're finally in the game and you’ve dragged a poor aunt or uncle to their feet to play against you, get ready to perform some vague gestures to have an in-engine cutscene play a fancy combo as you stand there idly waiting for it to end.

Universally panned by critics, the second-worst rated Xbox One game of all time is your reward for a year of misdeeds. Santa is very disappointed in you.

Bubsy 3D

One of gaming's best forgotten mascots

 

Some of the best videogame franchises that started life in 2D made the leap to 3D in spectacular fashion: Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Bubsy, Dragon Quest. Wait, hold on. Bubsy? Well that shouldn’t be there. Imagine the disappointment when Bubsy 3D is opened on Christmas day instead of one of these titles.

There are several reasons Bubsy 3D has been included in a wide range of “worst videogames ever made” type lists, so much so that a full article could be written on its flaws. Pushing aside the boring level design, poor graphics (even by 1996 era PlayStation quality), and monotonous, migraine-inducing music, there are still so many terrible qualities to this platformer.

First and foremost are the tank controls. That’s right, tank controls (made famous by Resident Evil) are what the developers went with for a 3D platformer. Do they work well despite having to stand still to turn and face a jump or spot where an enemy is attacking from? No, of course they don’t. You’ll surely be thankful for that gaudy pair of earmuffs someone gave you as a gift however, as Bubsy and his irritating, nasally voice will not shut up with his consistent, unfunny quips. Although, one stand out moment is when you take a break from the game, the pause screen says “paws!”, and who doesn’t love a good pun? That’s it, that’s the only positive thing about Bubsy 3D.

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And that’s your lot. I sincerely hope that none of you have ever received these as gifts. If so, then I pray that this list has made you see the error of your ways; remember, he sees you when you’re sleeping, and he knows when you’re awake!

Happy Holidays!