First-Person Shooters are hardly in short supply, and that is not even counting the countless asset flips found on Steam that do not even merit an aggregate score on Metacritic. While the genre has produced some absolutely timeless classics and neverending franchises that - at their best - reached heights seen by precious few games, there are arguably more underwhelming FPS titles than good ones.
At one point or another, everyone has randomly bought a generic-looking FPS that proved to not be worth the time, money, or effort. Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Duke Nukem Forever might be some high-profile disappointments, but they do not begin to compare to the FPS genre's worst offerings.
10 Rogue Warrior (27)
The best of the worst, Rogue Warrior centers around a Navy SEAL operative called Richard Marcinko, a specialist tasked with stopping nuclear missiles from going boom. Marcinko is a collection of action man tropes, so much so, G.I. Joe action figures exhibit more personality than this generic protagonist.
Besides being derivative of the genre's better representatives, a criticism that can be leveled at nearly every entry on this list, Rogue Warrior does not even offer decent enough gunplay to make the campaign a forgettable but fun ride.
9 007 Legends (26)
GoldenEye 007 redefined the FPS genre, but the James Bond license has long since squandered any lingering goodwill created by Rare's N64 classic. Following a string of mostly mediocre first and third-person shooters, 007 Legends fails to capitalize on the engine of 2011's respectable GoldenEye 007: Reloaded.
The game has an interesting concept, with Daniel Craig's Bond essentially running through the film franchise's greatest hits. If the combat was mildly enjoyable, 007 Legends could have worked as a send-up to the license's storied history; unfortunately, the gunplay is just uninspired.
8 World War II Combat: Iwo Jima (25)
Military shooters may just be the most oversaturated sub-genre in gaming, at least, that was the case in the mid-2000s. Every developer wanted to grab a piece of that Call of Duty or Battlefield pie, resulting in a slew of titles that lack any ambition, polish, or even skill.
World War II Combat: Iwo Jima tasks players with completing ten missions set during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Nothing hits the mark in this dreadful and poorly designed trainwreck of a game, one that feels like it should have been released in 1999 and not 2006. Either way, the game would have been terrible.
7 Terminator 3: War of the Machines (25)
If there is one thing gamers can always depend on, it would have to be the dreaded licensed video game adaptation. While cinema has generally done a poor job of adapting games, the same can also be said in reverse, even if there are a couple of exceptions. Sadly, Terminator 3: War of the Machines is not one of them.
As an accompanying piece to the mediocre Rise of the Machines, 2003's game amounts to a little more than a collection of trends that were popular at the time. Battlefield 1942 proved a hit in 2002, so War of the Machines incorporates (poorly) co-op gameplay and a range of vehicles to drive, which largely control as if they have been preemptively filled with holes by the T-800.
6 Terrawars: New York Invasion (24)
Remarkably released in 2006, Terrawars: New York Invasion exists solely as a reminder that sometimes even an alien invasion set in an under siege metropolis can be boring. As far as concepts go, Terrawars does not even attempt to deviate from the tried and exhausted, with the story amounting to little more than "shoot aliens until you win."
A decent FPS does not require a great story; however, it does need to play well. Due to the repetitive enemies, completely linear levels, and unsatisfying weapons, Terrawars becomes dull almost instantly.
5 Chasing Dead (24)
As the Wii U lacks much in the way of FPS, Chasing Dead does have some novelty value to it. However, even those desperately seeking a first-person shooter for the console are unlikely to last long playing this unresponsive and often confusing mess.
Compared to some other entries on this list, Chasing Dead boasts some decent graphics, especially on the relatively underpowered Wii U. That said, the halfway acceptable visuals do not mask this zombie shooter's rotten core.
4 Utopia City (23)
In an alternative reality where people spend most of their time in a virtual world called Utopia, a special task force is created to carry out retrieval missions in the simulated reality. As far as premises go, Utopia City is not without potential, even if the concept has been done to death over the last two decades.
The positives pretty much end there. Utopia City is almost impressively incompetent in every other department, with the game often coming across as unfinished. Bugs run riot in Utopia and we don't mean the virtual world.
3 Gods And Generals (19)
Licensed games are a dime-a-dozen but it is rare to see one created for a period war drama. Showing an admirable commitment to accuracy, Gods and General's video game even copied the fact that the movie is not particularly good.
Told from the perspective of either a Union or Confederacy soldier, Gods and Generals is a lazy cash-in that thinks the American Civil War chiefly amounted to a handful of soldiers fighting over poorly rendered hay and trees.
2 Navy SEALs: Weapons of Mass Destruction (18)
Generally speaking, it is a good idea to steer clear of any games bearing titles like "Navy Seals" or "Commando." They might as well print "generic military shooter" on the cover, although generic should not be mistaken for mediocre.
Navy SEALs: Weapons of Mass Destruction strives for mediocrity but never comes close to achieving it. The AI is laughably bad, almost like they want to be killed as quickly as possible to put the game out of its misery. After checking out the insipid levels and broken gameplay, nobody can really blame them.
1 Orc Slayer (15)
The PlayStation 4 boasts some of the current generation's best games, but a couple of titles slipped through the cracks that typically only find a home on Steam. Orc Slayer is a contender for the worst game on the console, one that feels overpriced despite costing less than $5.
The gameplay is simple enough: Mow down waves of Orcs using bows and melee weapons. The biggest compliment that can be leveled at Orc Slayer is that the graphics do have a certain charm to them, even if it begins to wear thin after the first or second level. When it comes to the negatives, one does not need to look any further than the painfully repetitive gameplay and various glitches.