10 Awesome Video Games With AWFUL Titles

Some of the best games have wonderfully evocative titles which tell you the premise, setting or themes of the title itself. Red Dead Redemption, Dead Space, Space Invaders.

Others though... are either too long, too convoluted or just fall flat.

The games themselves might still be incredible, but you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone who hasn’t played them when you tell them the title. Fans often come up with a shorthand in these cases, but that doesn’t change the fact that the full titles are absolutely bonkers.

These games are all great fun, and while the big, triple A games can get away with the dodgy name and just sell it because of faith in the franchise, smaller games can lose out. Short, snappy titles don’t always work for indie games either though, and can leave them lost in the shuffle, so you can see why they resort to these lengths.

Finally, with gaming being global now, some of these got a little lost in translation. That excuse only goes so far though, and these titles go way beyond.

One way or another, these ridiculous names get in the way of what is a pretty great game beneath the surface.

Canis Canem Edit, Bully to you, me and everyone else, is what the Rockstar game was known as in Europe... except it wasn’t, because everyone over here calls it Bully too. Part of that was because the censoring came when the ludicrous ‘video games cause violence’ moral panic was in full swing, and part of it is because Canis Canem Edit is just a stupid name.

It’s Latin for ‘dog eat dog’, which is a great summary of the game’s themes and fits in perfectly with the boarding school aesthetic.

As subtitles go, it’s brilliant. If it had been a background box art Easter egg, it would have been a classic. But as a title? Jeez, it stinks.

It’s slightly strange when you consider that Bully is probably the least violent of the Rockstar flagship games that this was the one to earn the censor’s ire. As well as the regular moral panic, happy slapping and bullying was in the press a lot too, so it was easy to demonise.

While it was sold under Canis Canem Edit, it was still known everywhere as Bully. If the rumoured sequel ever materialises, it’ll likely be sold as Bully 2 the world over.