10 Worst PS2 Games

Republic Heroes opens with the Battle of Ryloth, where Anakin and Ahsoka clear a path through the battle droids so their clone troopers can advance. When you play as the clones it turns into a third-person shooter, thermal detonators and all. The camera is fixed for the whole game, and that was one of the things critics criticized most. It averages 46 out of 100.

Players barely mention it. A fixed camera in a game full of droid crowds is a rough pairing, because it is hard to enjoy a fight you cannot see properly. Nobody seems to have cared enough to defend it or to hate it, which might be the saddest review a game can get.

Survivor 2 is a light gun shooter developed by Namco and published by Capcom, adapted from Code: Veronica, and it came out only in Japan and Europe. Claire Redfield and Steve Burnside are chased by Nemesis, and every area runs on a timer: let it run out and Nemesis comes for you. Finish the arcade mode and the whole thing turns out to be a dream Claire is having. That is one way to tie up a story. It averages 44 out of 100.

The few players who bring it up list it with the PS2's other light-gun shooters. If you own a light gun and a CRT, it is a curiosity worth a quick go. Everyone else can skip it, because the dream ending is a good joke and nothing more.

Round 2 is Midway's sequel to Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, and its PS2 version came out on October 24, three days before the console itself. Land enough big hits and you spell out RUMBLE, and a full meter on its third level can knock your opponent clean out of the ring. Shaquille O'Neal and Michael Jackson are unlockable, and Bill and Hillary Clinton appear too, credited only as "Mr. President" and "The First Lady". Critics liked the PS2 version best of all, though one magazine said it "fills its spit bucket with last year's saliva." It averages 47 out of 100.

Players hardly bring it up. The strange trivia is the best part, and a launch-week boxing game with a president and a pop star in it should have been more memorable than it was. Sadly, the fights themselves are mostly forgotten.

Happy Feet is the game of the animated film, made by A2M and published by Midway, and Elijah Wood and Brittany Murphy came back to voice it. Its dance mode copies Dance Dance Revolution, and every mode can be played by two. The songs include I Will Survive, which Mumble dances to while he drives Gloria away. It averages 41 out of 100.

Players barely mention it. It is a movie tie-in with a famous cast, and that was usually the whole plan. Dancing penguins sounds like a fun idea, but the score says the game never got past the idea.

The Legend of Jack Sparrow is a hack and slash adventure by 7 Studios, published by Bethesda Softworks, with Johnny Depp voicing Jack. It starts two days after the first film, with Jack and Will Turner stealing a skull from a Portuguese fortress in Panama. Facing the gallows, Jack tells the crowd his old stories, exaggerated and not completely honest, and you play them. It averages 41 out of 100.

Players hardly ever bring it up. Having Johnny Depp in the booth is a real draw, and the retelling idea is clever on paper. Most players only know it as a name on a long collection list, and that is probably where it belongs.

Unlimited SaGa is a role-playing game from series creator Akitoshi Kawazu, with seven heroes chasing the secrets of the Seven Wonders. Exploring works like a board game, and opening chests or fighting runs through the Reel, a wheel that spins until you stop it, based on rolling dice in a tabletop RPG. Japan liked it, and the West did not: one review found it too unforgiving for beginners, with no in-game tutorials and a steep learning curve. It averages 44 out of 100.

To some players it is the most boring, convoluted RPG on the PS2. A smaller group loves it, acquired taste and all. It is a game that asks you to learn a lot and explains very little, so a bad first hour is almost guaranteed. If you have the patience for it, it is the most interesting game on this list.

Globs of Doom is the sequel to Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots. A chunk of alien goo falls on Squidward and turns him into a zombie, and the heroes hide out in a volcano lair with an Evil Syndicate that includes Plankton. Later, Invader Zim's robot GIR gets covered in goo and runs off with part of the ship they're building. It averages 38 out of 100, the lowest score here.

Players barely mention it, and most of the few who do recommend it. Squidward as a zombie chasing his neighbours is a decent hook for a kids' game. It sits at the bottom of the list on score alone, and the players who tried it seem to have had a fine time.

Mega Man X7 was the first game in the series with fully 3D graphics, and the first on the PS2 generation of consoles. The new hero, Axl, deserts a group called Red Alert, and at first only he and Zero are playable. X joins the team later, in a game called Mega Man X7. It received lackluster reviews and sold poorly. It averages 40 out of 100.

Players know it as the Mega Man game everybody hates. One sums it up: "Megaman X7, so bad that it's legendary." Going from 2D to 3D is hard for any long-running series, and this was a rough first try. It is a good one to laugh at with friends who grew up on the older games.

The Golden Compass was published by Sega and reached Europe a month before North America. Lyra's levels lean on minigames: Evasion when she is spotted, and the more common Deception, where the better you do, the better she lies. She also gets the alethiometer, a truth-telling device that answers set questions if you win a balancing game. It averages 39 out of 100.

The few players who played it call it horrible. A game that turns its own story into balancing and lying minigames asks a lot of patience for very little fun. The film flopped, and the game made sure nobody remembered it fondly either.

The Simpsons Skateboarding was made by Mass Media and The Code Monkeys and published by Electronic Arts. The story and dialogue came from writers of The Simpsons, every character is voiced by the show's cast, and each one has more than forty moves. It received generally negative reviews, and some called it the worst Simpsons game ever made. A minority liked it, and one magazine even called it the best Simpsons game. It averages 38 out of 100.

Players name it among the worst games on the PS2. Having the show's real writers and cast should have been a head start. Instead it is the game people reach for when they want an example of a licence gone wrong, and that makes it a fair place to finish.