Summary
Rockstar Gamesis one of the most infamous game companies in the world, having created some of the biggest and most well-loved franchises in the history of video games. However, even the history ofRockstar Gamescomes with some bizarre skeletons in the closet that are terrifying to look back upon.
From major releases that are bizarre when examined more closely or thought about, to retro games from the early days of Rockstar subsidiaries that have to be seen to be believed. There have been several weird games from the past few decades of Rockstar Games content.
While most video game sequels improve in many ways upon the gameplay mechanics of their predecessors and justify their own existence in that way,Manhunt 2actually managed to make them far worse.
This was a huge problem since the narrative didn’t improve either, making it hard to justify the existence of this game. While most Rockstar titles are easily justified in various ways,Manhunt 2is a prime example of one of the few games made in the company’s history of a game that couldn’t justify its own existence and was a confusing choice thathopefully didn’t halt the franchise permanently.
There are occasional games in Rockstar’s history that don’t make any sense at all. For a company that mostly makes bigger action games, a simple table tennis game for the Xbox 360 seemed like an odd choice, but there was a specific reasonfor this positively weird game.
One of the Rockstar Games teams wanted to do limit testing on the capabilities of the new Xbox console, so they developed a simple table tennis game. The confusing part is that they didn’t add any Rockstar flair or style at all, leaving fans scratching their heads about how plain and simplified the game was.
One of the most ambitious ideas in Rockstar’s history,Grand Theft Auto: Onlinewasn’t actually a bad idea. However, this was a huge departure from their usual format of gameplay, which had focused almost exclusively on single-player adventures in their history up to this point.
One of the most ambitious ideas in Rockstar’s history, Grand Theft Auto: Online wasn’t actually a bad idea. However, this was a huge departure from their usual format of gameplay, which had focused almost exclusively on single-player adventures in their history up to this point. What’s more is that GTA: Online, while a major success eventually, was one of the worst releases that Rockstar has ever had. The game debuted with a huge number of bugs and problems, and Rockstar had to deal with a very unusual process of going through continuous fixes, unlike any of their other releases in a number of ways, though it did eventually pay off.">Best Apartments In GTA: Online
What’s more is thatGTA: Online, while a major success eventually, was one of the worst releases that Rockstar has ever had. The game debuted with a huge number of bugs and problems, and Rockstar had to deal with a very unusual process of going through continuous fixes, unlike any of their other releases in a number of ways, though it did eventually pay off, especially due toroleplaying servers which have really taken off. What makes the game weird, comes from its evolution from a gritty crime game to one involving doomsday scenarios, aliens, and literal batmobiles.
Rockstar in their earlier days definitely made some unusual licensed games, and making one about Evel Knievel was a pretty strange idea. However, given that around 1999 there were popular games featuring other similar sporting stars such as Tony Hawk, the idea itself could perhaps have worked.
Unfortunately, Rockstar chose to make the game a simple platformer that was almost unplayable, and totally bizarre in style. So many angles of the bike flips were rendered by the developers, but this made the gameplay incredibly difficult and unreasonable.
One of the boldest but definitely the weirdest moves in Rockstar Games history,The Warriorswas a game made in 2005, based on the classic 70s cult film. Not only was the hype ofThe Warriorsnever deserving of a game by a major studio like Rockstar but this game was also developed three decades after the initial release of the film.
Beyond that, instead of making their usual style of action game, Rockstar decided to makeThe Warriorsa beat-em-up game,a style with many great gamesthat had gone out of fashion by 2005. The game was also surprisingly short and simplistic, totally out of the ordinary for Rockstar, and in the midst of one of their most popular periods ever.
Even for Rockstar, which fills games likeGrand Theft Autowith gore, violence, crime, and even sexually explicit material, seemed crazy to fans for this one.Bullyisa standalone Rockstar classicthat is beloved by their fans for bringing the violence of many of their other games to the classroom and creating a violent world in a high school.
Bullyis without a doubt one of the strangest games of all time. Players take control of a teen who seeks tocontrol the school after getting bullied, and through in-fighting among many of the cliques and some truly dastardly actions, players will seek to achieve this goal in one of the strangest video game worlds ever to exist.
Bizarre and unloved,Beateratorwas an experimental idea by Rockstarto create a game that was also functioning music mixing software. This meant that there wasn’t really gameplay so much as there was music mixing, and unfortunately, it managed to fail on both of the levels it was trying to nail.
WhileBeateratorwasn’t unusable as music software, it was certainly nowhere near any industry standard and had nothing to set it apart, it wasn’t even that great for beginners in that world. And separately, it barely managed to count as an actual game because there was nothing beyond the music creation as far as gameplay went. Technically limited and ambitious but disappointing,Beateratorwas a confusing moment in Rockstar history.
By far the strangest thing ever to come out of the long Rockstar Games catalog is the pair ofAustin Powersgames they created for the Game Boy Color. Having moved on from their retro licensed games, anAustin Powersgame by Rockstar seems crazy to look back on today anyway.
But these games weren’t just simple licensed games, they managed to be some of the least loved games among Rockstar fans ever. Anyone who actually remembers these games has little to say of love for them, the technical issues and lack of interesting gameplay made this title the weirdest release in Rockstar Games history.
