The Delay: John Romero's infamous flop began development in 1997, with Romero incredulously believing the ambitious title could be ready by the end of the year. Upon deciding to swap to the Quake II engine, the game was delayed to March 1998, but due to the complexity of adapting the game to the new engine, it still wasn't ready as 1999 rolled around. A planned February release date was missed, and due to more technological issues and internal disputes with publisher Eidos, the game did not finally hit stores until April 2000, and three months later, a shoddy N64 port was released also. The Result: After years of hope and a boisterous marketing campaign which declared, "John Romero's about to make you his b****", Daikatana turned out to be one of the biggest misfires in the history of gaming. Keyboard-smashingly difficult and relying heavily on trial and error gameplay, it certainly didn't help that your comrade AI was laughable, and having to babysit them as well as look after yourself only made the game feel more cheap. Visually, Daikatana is memorable for being several years behind the curve: games which were released considerably earlier such as Half-Life easily wiped the floor with it presentation-wise, and so this was just another nail in the game's coffin. Romero may have done many great things for the gaming industry, but this egotistical failure wasn't one of them. This is what happens when you give a singular creative mind too much power. Are there any sucky delayed games we missed? Let us know in the comments!
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.
