You know those games that were really bad? The ones where everyone is in universal agreement, or so it seems? Well, what if everyone was wrong? What if those games didn't suck? That's the task I've been left with - trying to figure out if those games really are that bad by subjecting myself to them. Well hey, someone's gotta do it.

This week, we tackle a modern classic in the art of fail, a game known for doing one thing and doing it terribly. But is it as bad as everyone says? Or does it deserve a second chance at being a decent game? History will be made tonight, I can tell you that much.

You know ... I can't even think of some witty lead-in this time. Let's just get to it.



Basic Info

Daikatana
Developer - Ion Storm
Publisher - Eidos
Console - Windows/Game Boy Color/Nintendo 64
Year - 2000



The premise

It is the future. A man named Kage Mishima has used the daikatana to travel back in time, stop a disease from being cured, and taken over the world. You are Hiro Miyamoto. Your job is to recover the daikatana, traveling through time to do so, and save the world. You've also got two buddies alongside you that are there to help you out. Pretty standard fare, if you ask me. Nothing that would really catch my attention.

The game

And here is where the problems started. Through Daikatana's 24 levels, you pretty much have lots of FPS-style combat with some puzzle solving, but the whole time, you are trailed by two A.I. partners. And they are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly dumb. Like, unable to get out of a paper bag dumb. Which would have been moot had it not been a requirement that they be kept alive at all times. Or had you not needed them to solve puzzles to get through the game. In other words, from the get-go, Daikatana was pretty badly broken. But the fun doesn't stop there!

The controls

The controls themselves were pretty bland and offered no real different from the multitude of other FPS games out there. If anything, it actually controlled slightly worse than those games, thanks in part to some framerate issues here and there and what appears to be no concern at all about how the game felt in the hands of the player, especially on the Nintendo 64 version. Still, this wasn't the end of the suck.

The graphics and sound



When the game showed up at E3 in 1999, it was running at 12 frames per second. Yes, 12 frames per second in 1999. If that wasn't a clue as to how this game was going to turn out, I don't know what would have been. The textures were awful, polygon counts were ridiculously low, and the Nintendo 64 version had huge patches of fog to try and cover these mistakes up. It failed. Not to mention the color scheme selections looked hideous in certain parts of the game. Throw it all together and you have a gamed that was clearly rushed out the door when it should have ultimately been canceled all together. Even today, it really, really hurts my eyes to look at Daikatana, at least as much as it hurts to look at Bubsy 3D or Superman 64.

The conclusion

How many other games can not only claim to have single-handedly destroyed an entire studio, but to have ruined the entire career of a gaming legend? Daikatana made John Romero, the father of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein and Doom, the laughing stock of the industry for years. Only Deus Ex, released shortly after Daikatana, saw any success or acclaim what-so-ever. Romero may be off doing something we have no idea about, or he may be a hermit living in the Arizona desert in a house made out of aluminum cans, but the terrible legacy of Daikatana has outlived him in the gaming world.



No, John. You're the bitch now.

FINAL VERDICT: Full blown suck. Bad in every possible way and fully deserving of the mocking it gets. Play only for historical value or if you are a mindless idiot.

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Experience the pain yourself: play Daikatana free on GameTap! Thanks, Heretic!