5 Worst Xbox 360 Games Of All Time, Ranked

For some nostalgic gamers, the Xbox 360 represents a golden era. That console took Xbox Live to a new level, launched multiple mega franchises, and helped popularize downloadable games and expansions. Some of the games that defined the rise of the 360 are now looked back on as the titans of modern gaming, and other 360 games are worth a fortune to collectors who want to immortalize such an important era for the gaming industry.

That's not to say everything on the 360 was revolutionary and groundbreaking, though. Naturally, the console had some generational stinkers alongside those industry-defining successes. If you take a brief look online at what gamers consider to be the worst games of the generation, you'll see two titles repeated ad nauseam: "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Ride to Hell: Retribution." It's true that the 2006 "Sonic" game is abysmal and that "Ride to Hell" is the king of "so bad it's hilarious" in video games, but both of those games were technically multiplatform titles. Today we've dug into the pits of Xbox 360 exclusives to find the most memorably awful games to ever grace the system, and some of them will probably take you on a bad trip down memory lane.

Some gamers will undoubtedly balk at "Perfect Dark Zero" being included on this list, and a few with poor memories might even insist it's a hidden Xbox 360 gem. According to Metacritic, the game earned mixed reviews despite its many problems. Fans of the franchise were thrilled to get their hands on a new, supposedly next-gen "Perfect Dark" game, but what they discovered instead was a fairly rote FPS with an underwhelming story and admittedly strong art direction. The game's style wasn't nearly enough to make up for its disappointing mechanics. GameInformer didn't mince words in its review of the game, telling its readers, "Don't believe the hype."

"Perfect Dark Zero" definitely has some redeeming qualities. The shooting is top-notch, and the game's art direction perfectly updates the "Perfect Dark" aesthetic for a new console era. However, it's undeniable that from top to bottom, "Perfect Dark Zero" feels only half finished. The simplistic levels don't leave much room for exploration and discovery, and the story is utterly forgettable. The game's multiplayer simply couldn't compete with other shooters releasing on the new Xbox 360, which is why even taken as a launch title, "Perfect Dark Zero" falls flat. It's by no means the worst game ever released on the Xbox 360, but it did essentially kill a beloved sci-fi FPS franchise.

When it debuted in 2008, "Too Human" earned mixed reviews from critics and gamers who saw hints of an incredible experience just beneath the game's dull surface. Conceptually, "Too Human" is one of the most intriguing games of the 2000s. The story is a retelling of Norse mythology that imagines the gods as cybernetically enhanced super beings locked in a war with the ever-dangerous Loki. Players take on the role of Baldur, a god scorned for his overly human qualities, and they defend the realms against Loki's onslaught in third-person action game glory. The game features a class system that lets players specialize their abilities when they initially create their character, and it also introduces a set of unique combat mechanics that utilizes the right analog stick on the 360 controller.

Unfortunately, the solid class and combat systems in "Too Human" weren't enough to sustain the game. Players found themselves getting burned out on repetitive combat encounters, and the game's Norse-inspired narrative isn't strong enough to make up for the mechanical shallowness. In reality, "Too Human" was doomed long before it launched. The game spent a decade in development hell, transitioning from a PlayStation title to a GameCube one before finally landing on the 360. Its use of the Unreal Engine spurred a back-and-forth series of lawsuits between developer Silicon Knights and Epic Games. At the end of the legal battle, Silicon Knights had to destroy all its copies of "Too Human," and the game was pulled from physical storefronts (though it appears to still be downloadable for free in the Xbox Game Store).

"Darkest of Days" takes an intriguing premise for a FPS and transforms it into an utterly miserable gaming experience. Released for the Xbox 360 in 2008, the game takes players on a temporal journey through some of the most impactful military conflicts in history. Alexander Morris is a soldier at the Battle of Little Bighorn, and players step into his shoes when a futuristic organization called Kronotek recruits him to travel through time on a mission to save history itself. The mission takes Alexander to major historical conflicts like the Civil War, World War II, and even the destruction of Pompeii.

In an alternate universe, "Darkest of Days" could have been a thrilling sci-fi adventure game. While the game does make some fun use of its time travel plot by allowing anachronistic weaponry in historical conflicts, the actual mechanics leave much to be desired. Controlling Alexander and his arsenal occasionally feels difficult, and even at its best, the combat in "Darkest of Days" is clunky. The game's engine allows for a massive amount of NPCs in combat, but those NPCs aren't particularly bright, which means that every combat encounter plays out more-or-less the same. It's also plagued with visual and performance glitches that constantly pull players out of the experience. Understandably, critics panned the game. Without the glitches, "Darkest of Days" would still be a disappointing shooter, but with them, it's one of the worst games ever released for the Xbox 360.

In our discussion of the worst Xbox 360 games ever made, why should physical releases get all the glory? The 360 helped popularize downloadable games, and over the console's lifespan, the Xbox Live Arcade became one of the best digital storefronts for fantastic indie titles. "Yaris," however, is not quite indie, and it definitely isn't fantastic. It's a free-to-play racing game commissioned by Toyota that certainly functions more as an advertisement than a video game. That doesn't make its gaming sins any more forgivable. "Yaris" is a total mess, with horrid visuals, barely-functional mechanics, and a virtually non-functioning online play system that seems to have been inserted just to frustrate anyone attempting to use it.

Thankfully, "Yaris" is long gone, but its memory lives on. In a review of the downloadable racing game, Engadget wrote that "Yaris" was "crafted in a circle of Hell even Dante didn't believe existed." Other contemporary reviewers were not any kinder to the game, with some saying that playing "Yaris" wasn't worth the handful of seconds required to download the game. The gaming industry is full of promotions that totally backfired, but Toyota's ill-fated foray into promotional gaming looms over them all.

Have you ever wanted to be a military contractor? "Blackwater" places players in control of a small team of literal Blackwater contractors with specializations in assault rifles, shotguns, and sniper rifles. While making their way through a fictional North African location, the team members are tasked with saving civilians and gunning down enemy combatants.

That vague, militaristic story provides a rough frame for the gunplay and action mechanics in "Blackwater." The game is an on-the-rails shooter that might feel a little more satisfying as an arcade game at the cost of a quarter, but as a home console release, "Blackwater" feels practically unfinished. All the action of the game — shooting enemies, kicking down doors, and climbing bits of terrain — is accomplished with a mindless button press or two, and at times the controller seems to be fighting against players. Guns are aimed excruciatingly slowly with the left analog stick, and players dodge in and out of cover with the right stick.

That unintuitive control scheme can be painful to deal with, and death in "Blackwater" is punishing, sending players back to the beginning of the level each time. "Blackwater" offers another control scheme, but it's unfortunately tied to the Kinetic. Athletically-inclined players might find some enjoyment in literally kicking, jumping, and swinging their arms to move through the game, but they'll be fighting against shoddy mechanics and early Kinetic technology the whole way through. "Blackwater" is consistently frustrating to play, which plenty of reviewers pointed out when the game debuted. It's a title best left forgotten, and thanks to its creatively awful implementation of motion controls, it's also the worst Xbox 360 exclusive ever made.