The 10 biggest flops in video games

Missed deadlines, nasty glitches, and incompetence: This rogue's gallery of games over-promised and under-delivered in a big way.

What constitutes a colossal flop? After hours upon hours of research (thanks Google and Wikipedia!), the following games were selected from a pool of mediocrity due to their brazen use of hype, failed expectations, dismal sales, or all of the above.

10. Super Mario Sunshine (2002, GameCube)
Sunshine, the second-most widely purchased GameCube game, is a classic example of being too successful for one's own good. Despite its solid review scores and commercial success by most standards, Sunshine is a relative flop by Mario standards. It is the only stand-alone game in the series, on any Nintendo platform, that didn't sell more than 10 million copies. Perhaps the idea of cleaning up waste on a vacation island with a big water gun didn't appeal to the usual rank-and-file Mario fans.

9. Psychonauts (2005, multiplatform)
Surely a highly innovative and well-received game can sell more than a 100,000 copies? Unfortunately, in the case of Psychonauts, the answer was "no." Its lackluster sales were so bad, in fact, that publisher Majesco resolved to no longer develop "big budget" games after netting a loss of $18 million shortly after the game's release. Psychonauts, like Beyond Good and Evil, is an exemplar "innovative games that don't make any money" title resulting in the continued release of familiar sequels that do little to advance the medium. For shame.

8. The Getaway (2002, PS2)
Despite its gargantuan budget, large marketing campaign, and abundant publicity, The Getaway did little to deliver on its promise as an early "Grand Theft Auto killer." Oh, it's ambitions were in the right place -- to faithfully reproduce the entire city of London with insane amounts of detail and zero load times -- but the final game fell way short on its promise. The end product was a meager GTA clone despite its exquisite production and storytelling values. It just forgot its game.

7. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (2003, PS2, PC)
What can more modest clothing, improved graphics, and an involving storyline do for Lara Croft on her sixth outing? Utter failure, apparently. Angel of Darkness proved to be the worst-selling and worst-received Tomb Raider of all time based on a reported 1.3 million in sales and an average review score of less than 50 percent. In an effort to meet quarterly financial targets, Eidos rushed the game to market resulting in numerous bugs, janky controls, and a new high-tech setting that saw Lara taking down heavily-armed soldiers. Not a good showing for the buxom beauty, and one that saw the series transferred from creators Core Design to Crystal Dynamics with Tomb Raider Legend.

6. Rise of the Robots (1994, multiplatform)
Rise of the Robots is one of the worst examples of an overly hyped video game. At a time when fighters ruled the landscape, this contemporary saw an excessive amount of preview coverage leading up to launch. Unfortunately for awaiting gamers, the break-through graphics bombed on arrival due to unbalanced gameplay. Amazingly, a single flying kick was all it took to complete the game. If there ever was a case for gameplay over graphics, Rise of the Robots would be it.

Comments [19]

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slickjames

Advent rising is one of the most underated games ever it was a great game the only thing I would say was wrong with it was the targeting besides that everything was great. It had a great story and graphics and to me the coolest powers of any game ever. It's sad how a piece of crap like the GTA series gets such high scores from mags even though there's like a million things wrong with it gameplay wise but a great game like advent rising gets low scores and sales.

slickjames

shenmue suck so bad I can't belive people really like that game I bought it and played it for a day and took it right back. I can honestly say it was the most boring game I ever played I mean I come home from work wanted to relax playing games and what was my mission in the game go to work. Next to GTA it's the most overrated game ever.

TYR0N313

Shenmue was an excellent game. I remember playing hours on end every day over the summer. As for other flops, despite loving the game, Killzone on PS2 was a flop compared to what they tried to do. The "Halo Killer" just didn't live up, as much as I wish it did, it has a lot of issues. The game Seaman for Dreamcast was also a flop with all its AI hype if i remember correctly

ChrisWanker

Might as well add Little Big Planet to the Honorable Mentions! It's going to go down the same path as Viva La Pinata.

jellomanrules

I completely disagree with the super mario sunshine one! Sunshine is an incredible game and many of my friends have it as well as myself. It was one of the first adventure games I ever beat!

vorgoth13

Very cool idea. I have an idea #1 biggest Presidential Flop: George W. Bush(

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