3D games had a slow start, with problems such as unresponsive cameras and stiff tank controls that seemed to haunt us gamers for most of the 90s.
By the turn of the Millennium, we hoped that the 128-Bits era would bring us games that didn’t suffer from the issues early PSOne and N64 games had, but alas, no. The Nintendo GameCube had some bad video games released and even more titles that seemed average even by ’90s standards.
Some of these games aren’t “unplayable” per se, meaning that they’re not riddled with glitches, unresponsive controls, or look like a bunch of Legos laying around on the floor. It’s just that the gameplay is boring, outdated, or just not fun.
So, while we all know GCN games that have been brought back on the Nintendo’s Wii or Switch like Zelda, Pikmin, Resident Evil 4, and Metroid, let’s take a look at titles on the console that are better off forgotten… Here they are
The Worst GameCube Games Of All Time
Bad Boys – Miami Takedown (Crave Entertainment – 2004)
The most “average” game on this list. It’s a 3rd Person Shooter with a cover system that follows the plot of the 2nd “Buddy Cop” film starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
Enemies have very basic artificial intelligence, the graphics look simple and the camera doesn’t seem to follow your character in many areas but is still a very playable title.
But at the time of its release, we already had games like True Crime: Streets of LA on the GameCube, and that one was a true classic that doesn’t ask for anything from stiff competition like GTA or Driver.
Maybe if Miami Takedown had come out for the original PlayStation when the original Bad Boys movie was in theaters, we would remember it as a classic and not just a bland “so-so” game.
The Sum of All Fears (UbiSoft – 2002)
Very similar in style to the early Rainbow Six games, this title is a tactical stealth shooter that has good ideas, but the execution is extremely slow, and even Rainbow Six on N64 runs and plays much better.
It is very much playable, but aiming feels a little off compared to other first-person shooters and stealth games from the time, and you feel like you’re walking around while wearing 20-pound lead boots.
It’s still an average experience that fans of the first Ghost Recon titles could go ahead and enjoy, just not something a regular gamer would bother to keep playing after the first mission.
Space Raiders (Taito – 2002)
A reboot of the classic 1978’s “Space Invaders”, Space Raiders is not a broken game by any means, everything works the way it’s supposed to, it’s just that the gameplay is a little outdated by 2002 standards.
Instead of a ship, you control a human character, and you can hide behind dumpsters on the street while you shoot slowly like in the classic Atari shooter.
Maybe if it had a more shoot ’em up gameplay like Wild Guns on Super Nintendo or Sin & Punishment for a more recent example, it would’ve faired a little better with the critics, but in the state, it was released, only the most hardcore Taito fans should play it, everyone else is gonna drop it by the first boss fight.
Zapper: One Wicked Cricket! (Infogrames – 2002)
Like the last game, Zapper is not a bad game per se, it’s just that you control a cricket like in old games such as Frogger and Q*Bert, and a game like that just doesn’t have a place alongside Mario Sunshine and Sonic Heroes.
It’s also difficult to see where you’re gonna land correctly when you take some jumps, given the top-view camera angle.
After the first level, you’ll probably take out the disc from your cube and play something else.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (High Voltage Software – 2005)
A tie-in game with the movie (that doesn’t even have Johnny Depp’s voice for Willy Wonka), it has a good presentation for the story, but once you start playing you notice that it’s difficult to control and the camera does what it wants.
You perform a few errands in the factory that aren’t fun to do at all, while you fight with the game’s camera and expect the game to become enjoyable at some point. Spoiler: it won’t.
If you manage to sit through this “adventure”, you’ll be done in a couple of hours, and begin to wonder if you should’ve bought the DVD and re-watch the film instead of wasting it in this underwhelming cash grab of a game.
Jeremy McGrath Supercross World (Acclaim – 2002)
ExciteBike 64 came out 3 years earlier on inferior hardware and looks and plays much better than this poor excuse of a motocross game.
It looks like something that came out early in the N64 life and plays with some of the worst physics I’ve experienced in a racing game.
I didn’t even bother finishing a race given the total lack of effort to give the bike some weight and the right controls to feel the turning, jumping, and landing.
Just stay away from this and go back to PSOne and N64 where they put actual effort into making them.
Big Mutha Truckers (THQ – 2002)
A very ordinary driving game where you take control of 18-Wheelers, with gameplay that is not exciting at all, with outdated graphics the only remarkable thing here is the music and the DJ you hear on the radio station.
After delivering a package, you can race another trucker and crash on stuff on the road and other cars, but the GameCube also had The Simpsons Hit & Run which did everything this game did much, much better (D’oh!)
It would’ve been a much better game if it had an Arcade style like the Sega game 18 Wheeler: American Pro Trucker, but instead, we have a campaign that gets old pretty fast since you drive very slowly on the same ugly roads compared to much better racing alternatives on the system.
Try out Need for Speed: Most Wanted instead or the above-mentioned American Pro Trucker if you are looking for some big rig fun.
The Polar Express (THQ – 2004)
Another game created to take advantage of a kid’s movie being released. It’s an even more boring platformer than the last game since you can’t even explore and jump around that much confined between the walls of the train’s wagons.
You avoid evil toys and help the other kids in boring tasks, but the campaign here is even shorter and the cutscenes are more lacking compared to the Chocolate Factory.
Nothing remarkable here, If you like the movie, just rewatch it again on your favorite streaming service instead of loading up this “game”
Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis (Lucky Chicken Studios – 2003)
Superman 64 was bad, this one sucks too. While it is a little easier to control Arthur in the water in this game than flying through rings with Kal-El in probably the worst N64 game ever released, it still feels like a chore to get items and swimming around Atlantis as you want.
The fighting is extremely boring and repetitive, and you fight the same type of enemy with the same 3 moves time and time again.
Yeah, Beat ’em Ups worked like that and we used to have fun with them, but that was 20 years before this game was released.
Batman – Dark Tomorrow (Kemco – 2003)
Fighting is horrible and moving around the rooftops of buildings is one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had.
Spiderman on N64 controlled way better, and any Batman Game on NES or SNES is way better than this game. Yeah, I’d rather play Batman Forever than this abomination.
Good thing Ubisoft released two other Batman games that were actually playable to keep us going until Rocksteady finally did justice with the Dark Knight by giving us Arkham Asylum years later.
Kemco supposedly wanted to create something like Arkham City when they started developing this game. Well, they failed miserably.
Mary-Kate and Ashley – Sweet 16 – Licensed to Drive (Acclaim – 2002)
Is like Mario Party, but made for little girls and it plays way slower in the Board Game Adventure Mode, and the mini games become really boring in the middle of the first one.
The GameCube had more alternatives than Mario Party 4 to 7, and even the mini games in Kirby Air Ride are way more fun than the “races” here.
The music is worth mentioning, and maybe if a parent wants to buy their girl their first party game, this one could entertain her for a while. But everybody else should stay away from this one.
Even the Pokémon Stadium mini games are more entertaining than anything here. I mean, playing “tag”? Really?
Disney-Pixar Monsters, Inc. – Scream Arena (THQ – 2002)
Another collection of mini-games based on a movie that seemed to have been made by students of game development as an assignment. And they didn’t even get a passing grade.
The animation is stiff, the characters look bad, the games are boring and this game was made just to take advantage of the popularity of the movie.
It seems to have been made for little kids, but even on Reddit, you can find a dad saying he bought this game for his 5-year-old boy, and even the kid got bored after 5 minutes of play.
Yeah, he should’ve just gotten the movie on DVD instead, kids that age watch ’em dozens of times and laugh every time.
Trigger Man (Crave Entertainment – 2004)
Bad Boys – MiamiTakedown was already quite dated by the time of its release, well, Crave released this 3rd person shooter with awful gameplay and even more idiotic enemies.
Movement is slow and clunky, guards take like 10 shots in the body to go down, and only one knife slice to be eliminated, and when you run out of bullets, walking by getting shot by a dozen guards is not fun at all.
3 years earlier we got Max Payne and that is a superb masterpiece compared to this “game” that some people got at GameStop’s bargain bin for $3, and even they felt scammed.
Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure (Kemco – 2001)
Instead of an actual game that people paid for, this feels like a Demo for the GameCube that customers at Universal Studios should’ve gotten for free.
Walking around with no indicator whatsoever and bumping into invisible walls all the time is no fun at all.
The minigames when you can actually find an attraction are boring as all heck, and attractions such as Water World consist of just sitting around a pool and watching a plane land on the water and that’s it. The only thing you can do is sit somewhere else.
Then I go to Jurassic Park, and can’t even walk in because there’s too many people in line already. Really?
Well, that’s realism for you, a Woody Woodpecker motley telling you that you must wait your turn to take a ride.
Charlie’s Angels (UbiSoft – 2003)
How did UbiSoft ever think of releasing this monstrosity of a brawler is beyond me.
The graphics and audio are horrendous, the gameplay atrocious and the camera moves like a headless chicken.
After the cutscenes that are kinda nice for the time, you get introduced to probably the ugliest game on the GameCube and most certainly the worst 3D beat ’em up ever created, and that’s saying something.
