For any marketable product, be it a movie, TV show, album or video game, it's all about the name. A product can be the best of the best but without an interesting, memorable title, it's going to quickly be forgotten, and sales will suffer. Now, a memorable name doesn't mean one that has to make sense, as evidenced by some of the absurd titles on this list that are now also AAA franchises. However, for every game that managed to lodge its bizarre moniker in our brains, there are countless naming bungles that didn't quite make for a chart-topping game, as you're about to see. The prime culprit is poor translation from a native (usually Japanese) title, resulting in a string of video games with hilarious and cringe-worthy names despite how great the gameplay itself might actually be. Hang up your opinions about the games themselves and point and laugh at these horribly thought-out video game titles...
10. Massive Action Game
Massive Action Game (popularly referred to as MAG) was one of the most ambitious FPS games of the seventh generation, promising intense 256-player skirmishes, and despite the abundance of bugs, it was a pretty solid shooter that sadly never gained the audience it deserved. That can in part be blamed on the awful title, which is quite possibly the most literal description of any shoot 'em up in video game history, yet at the same time, the three words mesh together awkwardly in a way that sounds like a mis-translation even if it isn't. MAG itself is a decent enough acronym, such that a lot of the marketing downplayed what it actually stood for, and several sub-titles for the game were actually proposed, my favourite of which is Shadow War, as could easily have been the game's sole title. Unlike the game itself, the name sorely lacks in imagination.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
