Daikatana.

The first map was absolute mince, the colour tones were boring, the opening cinematics were long and boring, and even the whole first episode was a bit shit. The sidekicks were poorly coded and the last map was just a challenge map.

However…

The rest of the game was actually pretty good. The Greek episode was absolutely beautiful and excellently designed, the Norwegian episode was great fun and the soundtrack was beautiful, and the last episode was… decent, nothing great but nothing poor.

The patch fixed the bullshit sidekick pathfinding, the titular Daikatana made you feel like a fucking badass if you took the time to level it up, and the story was actually okay for the last three quarters of the game.

Moreover, if you like twitch multiplayer games - the multiplayer component is the closest to pure QuakeWorld I have ever experienced. Fast, unforgiving, great movement mechanics. It’s got a very high skill ceiling.

Unfortunately, the opening hour or four is massively substandard and sunk the entire game - John Romero’s name and the ill fated marketing campaign just made it easy fodder for people to shit on it.

Like Duke Nukem Forever, TimeShift, FEAR 2, or the Half Life expansions… it isn’t amazing… but it’s a competent FPS and does the job.