Top 5 Worst Gaming Fails 2015

It’s the final Top 5 Tuesday of 2015 here at PlayStation LifeStyle, and while the year has had its share of gaming high points, there’s still a lot of “fails” that gamers experienced within these 12 months. With that in mind, this Tuesday’s top five video highlights the cream of the crap, the top worst gaming fails of 2015!

Bear in mind that we didn’t focus on just the worst games of the year, but on the actual top five video game-related fails we’ve encountered. So don’t expect every disappointing game to be here. If you’re looking for that, go check out our Most Disappointing award, which ran last week as part of our “Best of 2015” awards.

What’s your top gaming fails of the year? Do you agree with our picks? Sound off your thoughts in the comments below.

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Worst Sidekicks

Worst Gaming Sidekicks
Ashley Williams - Mass Effect

Ashley has her fans, there is no doubt about that. But from the first moment she appeared in the first Mass Effect title, she just rubbed me the wrong way.

She tries to act as the moral compass to Shepard, but only comes across as overly opinionated and uninformed of the consequences of what she wants us to do. She also has some strong religious beliefs that she tries to press onto other characters, pushing her over the line of annoying, into super annoying.
Barret - Final Fantasy VII

It pains me to put any character from Final Fantasy VII into this list, but it has to be done under the circumstances.

Barret was a real annoyance, even in text, in Final Fantasy VII. Constantly annoying the main character, whether calling him names or questioning his every move, he was always there to make you feel bad.

He also leaves his daughter to fight with a bunch of people, and his only reason is that if he doesn't, the planet will die. But his contribution to the overall quest isn't huge in the grand scheme of things, so that's just plain neglect of his daughter.
Carver - Dragon Age 2

A lot of people had a lot of problems with Dragon Age 2. Personally, I loved it, apart from the repetitive dungeons littered throughout the game. It was typical Bioware, in a good way, and the story was so great, it was enough to forgive the repetition (for the most part).

But, there was one character in the game who just grated on my nerves. Carver, the brother of your main character, is one of those characters that is put there to antagonise others around him by being annoying and self righteous without having all the facts (see: Ashley Williams from Mass Effect).

Carver is only available as a playable character if you play as a mage, otherwise he dies during the opening section and your sister Bethany survives. Problem with that is, I mostly play as a mage so I am ALWAYS stuck with him!

Luckily for everyone, he either becomes a grey warden, a templar or (in all my playthroughs) dies in the Deep Roads at the end of Act I and is not a companion after that. Silver linings.
Rebecca Chambers - Resident Evil HD

Hilarious dialogue not withstanding, Resident Evil is one of the best games on the Nintendo Gamecube. It was a graphical marvel at the time, and it had updated the dialogue to be less...terrible than the original, while still keeping some of the charm. And its pretty much all I've played for the past 2 weeks since it released on the Playstation 3 and 4.

Both the original and the remake share one bad quality though, the character of Rebecca Chambers. She's far too peppy for someone trapped in a mansion full of zombies and other monsters, and gets herself into some awfully easily avoidable situations.

When you get trapped by a Hunter in a room that has 2 easily accessible exits, you need to re-evaluate your life.
Rinoa - Final Fantasy VIII

If this weren't a sidekick list, you better believe that Squall would be on it. But in his place is an equally annoying character from Final Fantasy VIII.

Rinoa is the antithesis of Tifa, she is the obvious love interest of the main character, and while she can handle herself in a fight, she more often than not finds herself in Princess Peach level scenarios!

Also, she is present for one of the worst, and most annoying scenes in video game history (in my opinion).
Roman Bellic - Grand Theft Auto IV

If I were to trace my hatred of the game of bowling, something I used to love, it would be the incessant phone calls from my "cousin" Roman Bellic in Grand Theft Auto IV.

From the opening scene where Roman is introduced, I knew I wouldn't get along with him. Never have I skipped scenes with any less hesitation than when Roman was on my screen.

As hapless as they come, Roman shows that Nico's effortless cool doesn't run in the family.
Tails - Sonic The Hedgehog

One my earliest occurrences of "sidekick annoyance" has to be playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 back in the day. As useless as a sidekick could be, Tails is pretty much just...there and serves little to no purpose.

After Sonic went multi-platform (yay!) and full embraced the new ways of 3D platforming games (boo!), they decided to give the characters voices and that certainly didn't help Tails in any way.
Teddie - Persona 4: The Golden

Before I played Persona 4, my wife had gone through the game twice in roder to get the platinum trophy. As she sat next to me playing away on her Vita, I noticed a particularly annoying characters voice standing out.

That character was Teddie, an anthropomorphic bear that is meant to serve as comic relief for the game, but only serves to annoy.

His voice actor chose to play him as a high pitched and super annoying presence, which given the design of the character makes a lot of sense, but I don't see why he couldn't have toned it down, just a tad.
Yorda - ICO

ICO is a pretty amazing game. I still believe Shadow of the Colossus is a superior game, and while many may disagree with me, I think a part of the reason is down to how Yorda is handled. The point of the game is to save Yorda from her evil mother and the evil shadow forces within the castle, but at a certain point, saving her becomes almost more trouble than its worth due to some poor AI design on the developers part.

Other games have since done it better (and far far worse) but this stands out because of how amazing the game was despite it.
Hope - Final Fantasy XIII

Final Fantasy XIII, as a main entry in the series has to be my least favourite. Despite my feelings on Squall and Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII, I still rank that game very high on my list of favourites.

It may not be my favourite, but there are some great characters in the game. Lightning, as a main character is well fleshed out, and a strong lead. Snow (voiced by a then relatively unknown Troy Baker) is a great secondary companion with a good backstory and motivation.

But there is one character who stands out as the most annoying of all, and that character is Hope. I can't be too hard on him as he is just an innocent kid in the game, and he does somewhat redeem himself in Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, but in this game, he is beyond annoying, even for a child character.

High pitched, whiny and constantly complaining, Hope is one of those characters that you have to ponder the thought process that went into including him in the first place.