5. Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat
I had absolutely no interest in playing Deadliest Warrior: The Game and Deadliest Warrior: Legends when they were first released a while back on Xbox Live Arcade, but when this compilation, Ancient Combat, came about, I decided to give it a whack nonetheless, rather misguidedly I might add. This game is essentially an awful attempt to ape the gleeful violence of Mortal Kombat, reliant less on the skill of that series and feeling all-too random a lot of the time. There is one touch I really like in the game, and that's the ability to play as several historical figures in Legends, such as Joan of Arc, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great, but absolutely nothing interesting is done with this idea, and making matters worse, the poor graphics mean the figures aren't exactly represented well. Poor sound effects, awkward combat, terrible animation and a thoroughly generic feel akin to a beat 'em up clone, there's absolutely nothing in Ancient Combat that is executed even half-way competently. It's difficult to imagine what the developers were thinking when they composed this joyless knock-off.