The alway opinionated and sometimes controversial Nick Morano is back with his picks for the Worst Games of 2007. Will you agree? Will you disagree? Read on and Find out.

I have been given the daunting task of choosing the 10 worst games from 2007. However, choosing the 10 absolute worst games isn’t always the best of ideas. I mean a Barbie game could have come out this year and who even cares? No, instead I am going to do the 10 worst games of 2007 that you have played or are probably playing now. So buckle up kiddies, and no complaints. This is my list and all of my reasons are justified with my decisions. There will also only be one game per franchise. With some of these games I am also factoring in expectations. I realize no game ever meets expectations but I’ll be damned if they shouldn’t come close. So now I humbly present to you the Worst of 2007.

10) Crysis (PC)

Many of you would probably read that and want to burn me at the stake. That’s fine. I’m not saying the game itself is bad. It truly is a phenomenal testament to gaming. However, the fact that you probably need to buy like a $600 video card just so you can play it so it runs smoothly is just a joke. That’s like saying you bought a Playstation3 just for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. In other words, it’s a good game but the price tag is way too high.

9) Halo 3 (Xbox360)

Shhh…I feel a disturbance. I feel as though a thousand screaming fan boys cried out all at once and then were silenced. No matter what way you slice it the Halo series has not lived up to the hype since the first Halo. This series isn’t bad per say, but it’s not exactly trying to accomplish much. Halo 2 felt like Halo 1.5 and Halo 3 just feels like Halo 1.6. The story is extremely uninspired. The multiplayer is not very robust, except for the Forge, but more than half of the game types and settings you won’t try to use because you think they are lame. So most of the originality of the Forge is tarnished from the get go. I will applaud the 4-player online co-op addition which is what makes the game. But after that, all you have is an over glorified first person shooter, with the same story as its predecessors, extremely underwhelming and shinier graphics for a next-gen game, and the fact that the multi-player does not offer as much as nearly any other multi-player game on the market. Legendary mode is ridiculously easy as well. We all wanted to love you Halo, but every time I enter a game store I see more than a few copies of you used on the shelf. And we all know why.

8) Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Xbox360, Playstation3)

Considering that this is a game from the makers of Hitman, you could believe that it would be pretty good. Let me assure you that it isn’t. If I had to rate it I would give it 2.5 stars out of 5. It has got a great story, but the game itself is basic by today’s standards. You play as Kane, a man who is told by fellow crooks that you owe them a lot of money. If you don’t get that money for them EXTREMELY soon, your wife and child are going to die. They give you this nut job to help you named Lynch. He will literally randomly start taking out hostages for no reason whatsoever. And the computer Artificial Intelligence (AI) is flat out retarded. You can pretty much stand behind one wall of cover and the computer opposition will take turns running blindly at you. It’s a joke really. Also for a game with this much gunplay, there has to be a better way of shooting people like a lock on system or something.

7) Clive Barker’s Jericho (Xbox 360, Playstation3)

This game looked amazing from the screenshots and all the information we were getting on it. Then it suffered the Halo syndrome. All bark no bite. The graphics are stellar but the rest of the game falls short. Uninspired enemies (there are only about 3 different enemy types in the whole game), bad mission design, level lighting issues, and horrible computer allies’ AI. The developers did work in a cool mechanic where you could switch back and forth from your unique teammates by possessing their bodies. However, this becomes boring real quick as you will just stick with the 1 or 2 characters you like most and never switch (unless absolutely necessary). Oh yeah, there is no ending either. It just shows a shot of the ocean and plays music of some girl singing like a Kenny G song. How would that make you feel?

6) Two Worlds (Xbox 360)

I think this may have been on another system as well but I don’t know nor do I care to know. This game sucks. One would think that to copy the formula behind Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would make this game superb. In reality, this game is the destruction of everything that was fun in Oblivion. It’s not worth your money. The controls are terrible, the graphics are terrible, the combat system is terrible, and oh look at that, the story is terrible. Skip this game if you know what’s good for you.

5) Spider-Man 3 (Multiple Platforms)

This game could have been excellent if the developer’s simply copied the game play from Spider-Man 2. For whatever retarded reason they came up with in their twisted minds, they decided to change and screw up the perfect web slinging mechanics of the preceding game. If something’s not broken, why fix it? Well that’s because you’re a jackass and you like to make babies cry. Everyone who has played this game will talk about the poor mission structure and all of that crap. However, poor mission structure would have been more than bearable if you could have at least had fun getting there.

4) Lair (Playstation3)

Let me get this straight. This game was developed by the team that created Star Wars Rogue Squadron, one of the best Star Wars flying simulations ever made. Not only that but they used the exact same engine to make this game. How can that go wrong? Well it didn’t just go wrong; it went about as wrong as you can possibly get without pissing God off. Apparently turning X-Wings and Tie-Fighters into dragons just doesn’t translate well I guess. The controls are absurdly difficult to handle thanks to Nintendo’s patented motion control….wait…..I mean Sony’s patented Sixaxis motion control. That and a terrible story make for a terrible game. Steer clear folks.

3) Tenchu Z (Xbox 360)

The Tenchu series has been steeply declining in quality ever since the Playstation1 era of gaming. The first entry on the Playstation2 marked the series downfall. This game continues in that direction. There is a character creator which is cool. But this is where the game has another big fault as well. Since you make your character in this game, he/she isn’t really the central protagonist and you can feel that when you play. It is hard to get drawn into a character that has no place in a game whatsoever. Not just that but the graphics are terrible and so is the game play.

2) Vampire Rain (Xbox 360)

Here is another case of good-idea-gone-bad. Take an incredible game series like Splinter Cell and mash it up with vampires. Sounds good in theory but in execution is just awful. You are charged with mission after mission of sneaking around avoiding these super human vampires to complete certain objectives. However, if these vampires see you its game over because your guns can’t possibly kill them. The guns do little to no damage so what’s the point of even having the guns? Not just that but these vampires are like high school cheerleaders. They talk so f***ing much. Just shut up already!

And now folks, we come to the number 1 entry for Worst Game of the Year. Some of you may disagree and some may sing my praises from the rooftops (if you’re going to do that, come sing on my roof so I can hear it). Whether you think I am being too harsh or not, no one can dispute that my facts are false and/or opinion based.

And the winner is….

1) Heavenly Sword (Playstation3)

That’s right. Heavenly Sword is the worst game of 2007. This is for many reasons however, for me there is one main reason: Originality. This game is a straight bootleg rip-off of God of War. There is no denying that fact. The game starts off with the main character Noriko, a scantily clad female, dying in the throes of battle and the rest of the game is spent recapping the story of how she got to that point and ultimately to what happens right after that event. God of War starts off with Kratos dying by throwing himself off a cliff and the rest of the game is recapping how he got to that point and then his ascension to being a God. Seeing a pattern yet? Now just like God of War, you have two attack buttons, square and triangle. The point of having two of them is to that they DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT! However it is made clear early on in the game that if you hit the triangle button at the right time you will counter an enemy attack and do a quick kill. So basically they tell you at the beginning to mash the triangle button cause square won’t benefit you at all. In God of War (GoW), square was your quick attacks and triangle was your heavy attacks. Heavenly Sword decided to assign different stances. By holding a particular shoulder button, you can stand in a power stance, quick stance, or ranged stance, all with different properties. However you have to hold down a shoulder button the whole time which can be pretty tedious. The sixaxis controls are terrible as well. There are several segments in the game where you play as Noriko’s retarded and creepy sidekick who shoots like an automatic crossbow. These segments require you to tilt the sixaxis in order to hit your targets. This is hard enough when the enemies can’t get at you and you’re just trying to take them out. Its damn near impossible when they can actually hit you and you need to fire fast to kill them. One shot when doing the motion controls, called After-Sight (what the f**k)), kills them instantly, but it can take up to 4 crossbow shots if you are not performing the After-Sight. I’ve been told you can shut those controls off but if you can’t play a game with the default settings then what good is the game? That’s like playing Ninja Gaiden with a game shark and saying, “Well it was too hard for me with the game’s standard settings so I had to change them.” And last, but not least, there are the puzzles. Now again for every one of you people out there who has said to me “An action game doesn’t need puzzles” let me take this time to tell you to back off and go play Grand Theft Auto or Halo 3. Puzzles are the reason we play these games. Want proof? Look at God of War. Every boss battle in that game is a puzzle combined with hack and slash. There is a reason most hack-and-slash games have puzzles, and that’s so the combat doesn’t feel boring or repetitive. Heavenly Sword’s puzzles don’t really break up the action much so it constantly feels repetitive. The puzzles are absolutely laughable. Every single one consists of finding a cart of HATS (Screw you. They are not shields. Why would they have straw shields?) and proceeding to grab one of the hats and throw it (using the After-Sight controls) at a gong which will open the door you need to proceed through. How uninspiring. I’m sorry but who the hell thought this was a good idea?! “Hey, let’s make them throw hats at gongs! Wouldn’t that be fun? Man I have always wanted to do that!” Not just that but this game is ridiculously short for a “killer app” for the Playstaion3. You can beat it in around 6 hours I believe. The story is crap as well.

So there you have it folks, the Worst of 2007.

Leave your comments to this story. Do you agree or disagree? Let’s hear what you think.