The PS5 is doing well now that players can get a hold of the machines. The system is now in its fourth year of rotation and the hits keep on coming. Whether it’s first-party titles or third-party, it’s a great time to be a gamer.
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The excitement behind established franchises that found an audience is all well and good, but what about the games that failed to live up to their potential? Some of these titles were reviewed well but didn’t sell enough to warrant a sequel. Others were just plain bad or weren’t carried on despite some good ideas. They are allPlayStationexclusives as well.
8Call Of Duty: Black Ops: Declassified
The PS Vita, likeits PSP predecessor, struggled to meet market demands. It had a dedicated fan base but the handheld was not as popular as its 3DS counterpart. Not even aCall of Dutygame could make this handheld sell.
Call of Duty: Black Ops: Declassifiedwas hopefully going to be Sony’s saving grace for the system but unfortunately it was a stinker and ranks among the worst-reviewed games ever made on the platform. It looked bad, controlled worse, and just lacked the overall polish of the console games.
7Dust 514
Dust 514was a PS3 exclusive that is now impossible to play. PC players have been jamming on an MMO calledEve Onlinesince 2003. Literal countries have negotiated politics through that game. It is that popular although it is a niche crowd of dedicated hardcore players.
It is a simulation game at its core and the point ofDust 514was to add more action to the franchise. It was an exclusive PS3 shooter that would tie directly into conflicts in Eve Online. It launched in 2013 and ended its run in 2016, barely making a dent in thePS3’s multiplayer scene.
6Lair
Lairwas an anticipated title for the early years of the PS3 because it was being developed by Factor 5. They gained a lot of recognition for theStar Wars: Rogue Squadronseries, one of thebestStar Warsgameswhich were Nintendo exclusives.Lairwas like those games except players controlled dragons for air battles. It had a promising look on the new console but nothing seemed to go well at launch in 2007.
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Players did not like the SixAxis controls in the game, it was glitchy and didn’t have a lot of exciting gameplay. There were other factors at work behind the scenes, butLair’sfailure was one reason why Factor 5 went defunct a couple of years later in 2009.
5Lifeline
Lifelinehad a good gimmick but the technology wasn’t there yet on the PS2. It was a shooter RPG sort of like thescaryParasite Eve. Instead of controlling the main character, Rio, on her quest to kill bugs in her space resort, the player was a nameless cameraman. They would shout instructions to her via a headset.
Sometimes she would obey but most of the time she would have no idea what you were saying. Needless to say, the poor reviews did not help this Konami title make a splash.
4Mister Mosquito
Mister Mosquitois one of thosegames that everyone should playor at least see because of how weird it is. Players assume the role of a literal mosquito although it looks more like a robot. They will invade the summer house of a Japanese family and try to suck their blood one family member at a time.
It is a miracle that this PS2 game was even localized in the first place. It did get a sequel, but it is exclusive to Japan and will probably never get released in the West. Although, stranger things have happened like withFamicom Detective Club: The Two-Case Collectionso fingers crossed.
3Spy Fiction
Spy Fictionwas another in along line of stealth gamesthat were trying to go afterMetal Gear Solid. What makes this game significant beyond its middling reviews is that it was written and directed by SWERY. He had worked on a lot of games at this point but none of them received a massive amount of attention.
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It wouldn’t be untilDeadly Premonitionthat SWERY’s name started to trend online. WhileSpy Fictionis nowhere near as silly, it is a game fans will want to look into.
2Time And Eternity
Every console generation seems to want to chase the dream of making a game look exactly like a cartoon. Technology has caught up to the point where fans can say a game does look and play like their favorite cartoon, much like theSouth Parkgame series.
Time and Eternitywas an original concept that wanted to make an RPG look like an anime. It succeeded on that part with gorgeous-looking 2D backgrounds and models. The problem was that it had nothing beneath the surface to make it engaging thus leading to a lot of bad reviews.
Zombies have always been a popular genre on consoles. The first era of HD consoles seemed to hit an all-time high though because technology allowed developers to render more zombies on the screen at any given time.Dead Rising, from Capcom, was one early example of this phenomenon.
Even non-zombie franchises likeYakuzawanted a piece of that zombie money so they madeYakuza: Dead Souls. While not a bad game, it did not capture the tight gameplay or the dramatic story of the mainline games.
