Everyone has played at least one bad game in their lifetime. Spogs Racing, Charlie’s Angels, Bubble Bobble Revolution… the list can go on and on. Usually, when a stinker hits the shelves, the series is either dead or it’s removed from its current developer and given a Tomb Raider-esque reboot that saves the franchise and makes the publishers more and more money.

But what about the those that don’t learn their lesson. The series that keep coming out with crappy game after crappy game. This is a list of the top 7 Repeat Offenders of poor gaming. The series, characters or developers who time after time keep forcing terrible games on us because they’re a recognizable brand and can turn a profit easily. Like the Saw series to movies, so long as these games are making money, we shouldn’t expect them to stop or get any better.

#7 - Optimus Prime

Worst Crime: Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals (N64)

We start the list with a classic offender of bad games. Optimus Prime, the head of the Transformers and star of a whole bunch of awful games. With the recent hit films taking the world by storm (while at the same time dumbing everyone down), several video games have launched to capitalize off the fact that children have no taste. Obviously, there is the direct movie tie-ins: Transformers the Movie and Revenge of the Fallen, both equally terrible games. You know the franchise is in trouble when the best versions of the multi-platform games appear on the DS, which is usually the dumping ground for just terrible games.

But the worst of the worst when it comes to the Transformers series has to be the fighting game for the Nintendo 64. Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals is a complete failure of a game, with broken combat, terrible controls and what is probably the worst gimmick ever to get people to play your game: rental only. That’s right, for the N64, you could not buy this game you could only rent it at Blockbusters. Now, I understand that ten years ago the video game rental business was much bigger than it is today. Gamers were younger, generally had allowances instead of jobs and gaming was still just a simple hobby for some instead of a way of life it is for many today. But still, limiting your potential income for a game to people who have a Blockbuster card? My God, I bet Blockbuster wished they still had sway like that instead of being on deaths door.

Oh and also, Beast Wars sucks. There is no way you can make a good game with such awful material.

#6 - Godzilla

Worst Crime: Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash (DS)

Okay, ask yourself honestly, have you ever actually played a good Godzilla game? If you answered yes to that question you have a very low standard to what is considered a good game. All Godzilla games stink. From his slow, brawler-ish days on the  NES to the 3D fighting games that currently haunt the systems, no developer has ever seemed to be able to get a Godzilla game right. Even the brilliant team over at WayForward Technologies could produced a dud of a game for the GBA.

The biggest problem with nearly all Godzilla games is that we have to play as Godzilla. Yeah, destroying a city is fun; but the giant monsters fighting each other while destroying everything around them got old with King of the Monsters 2. And the only thing worse than the fighting games is the action games, because Godzilla is one slow-ass monster. Double Smash for the DS (remember when every DS game had to have a two word subtitle that started with a D and an S) takes the cake for being the most boring, most unplayable crappy piece of game ever to bare the Godzilla name.

At least we can rest easily at night knowing they never made a game based off the terrible American Godzilla film.

#5 - Rampage

Worst Crime: Rampage Total Destruction (Wii)

Ugh! Okay, there was a time in America that arcades ruled the world. For many current gamers out there, that was well before they were born. But in that time their arose the classic Arcade game, games that were perfect for to suck up quarters and generally used to kill time. When the NES debuted and consoles once again ruled supreme, many of those games that were popular in taking in quarters had a hell of time transferring from the malls to the TV sets at home. Rampage is one of those games. You all know the game, even if you’ve never played it before: three monsters compete against each other to destroy buildings, eat people and kill our armed forces. It’s quick, stupid fun that was a perfectly good way to blow a fistful of quarters. And even though there was a scoring system in the game,  Rampage never saw the competition for high scores like Donkey Kong or Pac-Man did. It was just there, almost the game you played when the one you really wanted to play was taken.

Rampage still feels like that. In the 20+ years since the game first debuted, the gameplay really hasn’t changed. That’s not okay if the gameplay was never really compelling in the first place. By the time Rampage Total Destruction hit, the team at Midway had completely drained the well. No wonder they went bankrupt.

#4 - Crash Bandicoot

Worst Offense: Crash Nitro Kart (GC)

Unlike the past few games on the list, there was actually a time when Crash Bandicoot was a good character in good games. That was the Playstation 1 era when the character had a “cool” punk attitude and was in some surprisingly good, Mario-like platformers. But as a Nintendo gamer, we really don’t know the good Crash, we only know the crap he puts out now.

Quick history lesson: Crash started on the Playstation where is was made by Naughty Dog and published by Sony. On the PS1, they released 3 great platform games. Quite frankly, Crash could have become the official mascot of the Playstation. Then Naughty Dog got bit by the Mario bug and released Crash Team Racing, a perfectly acceptable Mario Kart clone, but it was also the beginning of the downfall of the series. Next came Crash Bash, a party game. By that time, Naughty Dog had moved on the excellent Jak and Daxter series and Sony no long had a stranglehold on the IP, so the next Crash game was multi-platform and created by a whole new team. It’s rare that a game goes from being great with one developer to being just as great with another.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex was released and people realized that all the magic was gone. Everything that made Crash interesting on the PS1 was no longer there, and thanks to the new hardware available there were plenty of other mascot platform games to contend with. Since then, Crash has appeared in a series of dull, repetitive platform games and even worse racing games. Playing Crash Nitro Cart is like playing the inbred child of two Mario Kart games.

What was once an actually popular and cool series has just turned into something to market to young kid’s who don’t know any better.

#3 - Garfield

Worst Crime: Garfield Gets Real (DS)

When I was growing up, Garfield was “the man”. I actually read the newspaper to get my daily dose of his repetitive, slightly funny humor to start my day. As a matter of fact, I still read his comics on my homepage. The cartoon series Garfield and Friends was also a staple of my childhood. Though I now realize that U.S. Acres is complete and utter abomination, I enjoyed it as a kid. So here is a character that I loved in print and on television, surely he would translate well into video games?

Of course not, Garfield games stink. Just as the comic strip really hit a repetitive state in the early 90’s, developers started making Garfield games. But when your source material has run stale, how does one expect to make a great game? Most, if not all, of the Garfield video games are platformers. Most of them are pretty poor and none of the are able to capture the humor of Garfield. It usually involves the fat cat trying to rescue Arleen, Pokey or Odie through a few uninspired levels that “show scenes directly from the comic!”. But either in 2D or 3D, the action is slow and always feels like a cheap cash-in aimed squarely at young kids.

The only thing worse than the original Garfield games, are the ones based off of the awful movies. When Bill Murray can’t save your film you know there is something wrong. Garfield Gets Real is just the latest stop on this continuing train wreck of a video game series.

#2 - Anakin Skywalker

Worst Offense: Star Wars The Clone Wars (GC)

Yes, I know that this is the character that would eventually become Darth Vader, but why, WHY did they feel the need to make him such a emo little bitch. We all knew that his life would be tragic, that something really, really bad would have to happen involving Natalie Portman to turn him to the dark side and we all knew he would betray everyone around him to do so. What we didn’t realize is that he would have to become this tragic hero to do so. It’s just too bad George Lucas failed at that part.

Maybe it was the casting of Hayden Christensen that ultimately sealed the doom of this character. I know the Star Wars films were never known for acting, but come on! Anyway, Lucas decided to visit the original trilogy and make a few more billion dollars while we’ve had to put up with game after game trying to force us to like this character. He’s gone from being portrayed as a tragedy to being a wannabe bad-ass. Nobody is buying it, because all you see is the whiny, emotional pussy of a character trying to put on a brave face. He is no longer aimed at Star Wars fans, but instead kids who (once again) don’t know any better.

I haven’t played the newest Clone Wars games, Republic Heroes (God, even the name is awful), but it wouldn’t matter. The entry that takes the cake of being the poorest excuse of a game is The Clone Wars for the GameCube. The game is actually worse than the terrible, terrible movie it’s based on.

#1 - Heavy Iron Studios

Worst Offense: Every Game Since 2004

The number 1 spot goes to the team at Heavy Iron Studios. Who are they you ask? Why they’re the team behind the Pixar movie games. That’s right, these are the people who take wonderful/excellent/brilliant films, remove everything that make special and release an action game that loosely follows the movie. Because that’s just what the video game version of Ratatouille should have been…an action game. Not a cooking game, no that would have been too obvious. Even the game that they got the genre right, The Incredibles, still turned out to be a stinker of a game.

I guess the main problem with turning a Pixar movie into a video game is that the movies are emotional, they’re funny, they appeal to the inner child of everyone. You will never be able to take a Pixar story and turn it into a good game because you will always miss what made the film so special. Because a Pixar film doesn’t lean itself directly towards any video game genre (Except Ratatouille!), developers who make the games will have to think outside the box, which is something that Heavy Iron Studios just never did. That’s why they are at #1: for four years they took great source material and successfully turned it into garbage.

On a final note, good luck to Disney Interactive Studios in trying to turn Toy Story 3 into a good game. From the looks of that trailer, you have a long way to go.