1. The Last Express
This was an original and technological daring game for the time, and also the brainchild of Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner. Released in 1997, The Last Express takes place on board the rumbling train called The Orient Express, a few days before the start of World War I, always a joyful time period for gamers. The game took a ballsy move of trying to simulate real time, and featured real actors that performed the script over a 22 day shooting period, and transferred the characters by the rotoscoping, blue screen and 16mm camera process. The game took an agonising five years of development, notching up the equivalent of an Irishmans bar bill in the region of $5-6 million to produce (Im Irish, I can stereotype myself). Despite the critics shovelling praise at The Last Express, the downfall happened when publishers BroderBund discovered that their whole marketing department had quit, which lead to the game receiving no promotion whatsoever, something EA should take notice at times. Co-publishers Softbank left the games market and the third cog in the wheel GameBank went bust, cancelling the PlayStation version of The Last Express. The game managed to sell 100,000 copies which according to statistics were still one million sales off making any profit, and was off the shelves within months and out of print within a year. It isnt such a dark end for this title though as it was resurrected and released on the iOS in September 2012. Mechner is currently in discussions with Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven about adapting it for a film release so the potential of The Last Train to have one more journey is looking bright. What do you think? Have I left any bigger flops off the list?