6. KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child
2000 - Dreamcast, PC
What do you do when a quartet of aging rockers refuses to lie down and die a dignified death? You whore 'em out with a crapload of comics, toys and video games because they paint their faces in crazy colors and want to party ever-y day. The result is KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child, a mindless first-person shooter that had about as much to do with the 1998 album of the same name as the 1998 Godzilla movie had to do with Toho's legendary lizard.
Each band member received a horrific makeover in order to make the 50-year-old rock stars seem more threatening, but it's done with a straight face. If this were a joke, we could deal. But when the tie-in comic hands out descriptions like this...
The Demon - Lord of the Wasteland (Gene Simmons) - Creature of fire and shadow, blood and thunder. He embodies not only vengeance and terror, the darkest impulses of mortal souls, but also the purgative flames of rebirth, destruction that precedes creation. His is the element of fire.
... we have to throw our hands up in the air and refuse to rock 'n' roll ever again. Then each KISS knight gets a host to contain their destructive spirits, with such creative names like "Jonathan Blackwell the Ringmaster" and "Matthew Stargrave the Stiltwalker." Ooooh, not the Stiltwalker, please have mercy!
Then, to completely trash the whole thing, the game stinks. People buying a KISS game obviously want to hear the band, but guess what's relegated to a few tinny snippets while F-grade ambient techno blips in the background? If you guessed "Tired musicians looking to get their name on a toy shelf," you're right.
So you're left with a shooter that's too bland to best anything else and too light on KISS content to appease the drooling masses, and you did it in 2000, on the Dreamcast, mere months before the PS2 shot-putted Sega out of the hardware race.
Hooray. You've just created a game destined for the bargain bins. Right next to KISS Pinball.
