The holiday season is when the best and most hyped games are released… but everyone already knows or should already know what games they are excited to see under the tree: dragon age, demon’s souls, borderlands, brutal legend, uncharted:2, super mario bros. wii, assassin’s creed 2, left for dead 2, tekken 6 (maybe), modern warfare 2 and dj-hero. If this Holiday season you are buying a gift for someone you don’t like or just feel like giving your video-game loving child some revenge for being a pain in your side, then this list is for you. The absolute worst games released for this holiday season!

1. GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra (PS3, Xbox360)
And if you thought the movie was bad, you clearly haven’t played the game. PS2 graphics, horrible AI, retarded game mechanics and a $50 price tag… what a better way of telling someone you hate them than giving this game as a present.

2. Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes (PS3, Xbox360)
Imagine being frustrated by falling off cliffs, ripped apart by difficult enemies, death by control glitches, and dying because you cannot see your character because he has gone off-screen. Well, there is only one way to fix that… take out death. That way you will continuously play this boring, uninspired mash fest. But wait, it’s star wars! That makes it worth the $50 price tag, doesn’t it? (no)

3. Raven Squad: Operation Hidden Dagger (Xbox360)
This game has the neat idea of combining the action of an First-Person-Shooter with the strategy of an Real-Time-Strategy Game; unfortunately, the developer makes the two ideas come together like making ice cream out of tuna… yum. I bet you cannot wait to listen to the worst voice acting you have ever heard over a cliched plot line, then throw in A.I. that likes to move into your aim all of the time, add a bit of bulletproof bushes and we have one of the worst games of the year… maybe decade.

4. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (Wii)
The same game that was released 3 years ago is back… yup that’s it, the same game over again. But this time we have pointless fusions – another name for combo moves between characters. But nothing else has been fixed: boring levels, bad AI, crappy cameras, and the same old uninspired RPG elements. Oh, and unlocking characters are a pain in the butt now: you have to engage in difficult broken mini-games that will cause you destroy your controller or possibly punch babies. Do yourself a favour and buy this game for the PS3 or Xbox360.

5. Darkest of Days (Xbox360)
Why wait for Modern Warfare 2 or play Halo:ODST when you can one of the greatest fps this Holiday season? You are Alexander Morris, a union soldier fighting in the battle of Little Big Horn. In the middle of the battle you whisked away by funny equipped men from the future and pulled into their time orb… to be erased from the history books. You now burdened with the task of finding the inventor of time travel by using the time orbs to travel to different times and locations in the past… and yes you will be equipped with futuristic weapons. If this story wasn’t enough to make you laugh, don’t worry because the AI will. And If we’re all lucky, a time orb will open up, abduct the development team, and erase this game from the history books.

Wishing everyone happy holiday and hoping no one gets one of these games under their tree. Agree, disagree or want to add a game to the list, then please drop a comment.

-Matthew Menzies