10 Failed Video Games That Had So Much More Potential

Generally speaking, of course, sports titles tend to appeal most to fans of said sport. Sillier takes on sports, like Mario Tennis, have a bit more leeway in that regard, but it’s hard to really commit yourself to a serious sim if you aren’t really interested in the source material.

Non-football fans don’t really want to pore over page after page of stats about Lionel Messi’s fitness, do they?

Some sports titles can transcend this rule, though. The Tony Hawk’s series, for instance, was a heaping helping of fun for many players, whether they knew what the heckola a pop shuvit double kickflip or a 360 ollie heelflip was or not. It was a blast just to skate around the open environments, collecting items and performing absurd feats that would leave us with nary a bone unbroken if we attempted them in real life.

2009’s Tony Hawk: Ride, however, was a horrible disappointment. The idea was super solid: a skateboard peripheral that mimics your motions in-game, using a series of infrared sensors? Don’t mind if we do!

The issue was, predictably, the unwieldy ‘controller’ wasn’t remotely accurate. This impractical title would’ve been barrels of fun if the peripheral was responsive, but it wasn’t, and the game was an expensive exercise in frustration as a result. It flopped, as did sequel Tony Hawk: Shred (which also used this abomination of a controller), causing the franchise to be stuck in limbo since.