E.T. for the 2600. It was so bad it quickly went on sale. As a result it became a birthday present. I tried to figure it out but it was simply terrible. It quickly went to bottom of the pile.
A few weeks ago I would have said Oaken Tower, one of those shop item autobattler type games, but RNG has been slightly better to me more recently in my runs.
So my next pick would probably have to be, from the bad games I can recall, Worms Blast. Basically just A Worms take on Puzzle Bobble and I didn’t like it enough to keep the ROM on my hard drive. Don’t remember too many specifics, but wasn’t one for me in the slightest, similarly to Worms 3D, but that wasn’t as bad of an experience.
If you enjoy going in depth, there’s a podcast called How Did This Get Played that is now called “Get Played” because they couldn’t bear subjecting themselves to these misfortunately made games for too long. But the early many episodes were chock-full of titles.
I enjoyed the Custer’s Revenge episode where the hosts get lectured about tokenism and how it was fucked up of them to ask their Native American friend to play a racist game for podcast content. I genuinely respect them for posting the episode and admitting their mistakes.
Naughty Bear. At the time I expected to be a funny, dark humor game. Unfortunately it was almost unplayable. I remember multiple times being unable to advance because the game just broke. I didn’t suffer through it very long
I have a copy still and was thinking of firing up the ps3 to give the full flashback experience
I couldn’t find it so I drew myself holding the game in lieu. If I find the game I’ll make an update (which now I need to go find it because I know I have it)
Ok, so I was like “I bet it’s with the ps3” but I already drew the picture so here’s the photo:
I played some kind of sex-themed bullet hell game where you were a disembodied penis flying around shooting things with little sperms. And if you got shot, instead of dying you would go limp and you could somehow slowly get erect again. Maybe it was popping pills or catching porn or maybe it was time based.
Anyway, that’s not the worst game I’ve ever played, but it was one of the more memorable ones that popped into mind.
The worst would probably be some free or dirt cheap PlayStation game. It was not an indie gem. They had one mechanic: stand in the middle of an arena, spin/move around, and shoot the charging enemies until you killed enough and went to the next completely identical level.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
There’s a great making of documentary for this game where it’s revealed that this game was essentially all coded by one developer in a weekend
I just watched it! Or at least one like it, pretty sure there’s more than one. He did it in a month while it usually took 8 months. He was paid $200,000
Recently: avowed 😣
I bought Sonic 2006 when it came out. It was my first experience with a truly terrible, broken game. I’d played things that weren’t up my alley or were subpar somehow, but that was the first time I was truly blown away by how bad a game could be.
I did that too. Was looking for something to play w my non gamer ex and it was just terrible. I’d barely played any sonic before either.
Come to think of it that was prob the last game I paid full price for
7-yo me hated the original Ghostbusters game on NES. So much so that I devised a plan to get my birthday money back.
Toys R Us would only refund unopened games, but you could get an even exchange if a game was ‘defective’. So I made up some mumbo jumbo about how something didn’t work in the game, and my mom got it swapped for me (she was nervous for some reason). Took the unopened game to a different Toys R Us location and got my money back. I felt like a criminal mastermind.
I can’t really remember what I didn’t like about the game…probably I had a certain expectation as a big Ghostbusters fan that no NES game could meet.
you should check out the 2009 ghostbusters game, many consider it to be the true ‘ghostbusters 3’
Ghostbusters for the NES was really bad, it wasn’t just you.
I’ve done similar tricks with returns.
I stole a CD once that had no CD! Then I bought a dvd that had two lmao. Fast production, shit happens.
When I worked retail, someone came in, complaint there was there no disk in the case (PlayStation 3 or something), exchanged that thing with no further questions.
Space Ace on the 3DO.
Big Bass Fishing on PS1. Most boring game in existence.
Most bad games aren’t really a terrible experience. Usually, it takes a few minutes, maybe an hour max, to realize “wow this game is bad and not worth putting any more time into”.
I think the worst games are the ones that can suck you in with the promise of being good. For me, that was Catherine.
The game has 3 main phases. The main “gameplay” is 3D block pushing puzzles that are presented as dream sequences for the main character. They start off simple, but add mechanics and complexity as you would expect from any good puzzle game. Then there is the time you spend with the main character awake hanging out at a bar, talking to other characters as a social sim game. The characters seem varies and like they could be interesting. Finally, there are animated cutscenes that are pretty good looking that show what your main character does throughout the day, between waking up and ending up at the bar every evening.
The biggest problem is the writing. The main character starts off as a pretty shitty, selfish asshole. At first I played hoping to see him learn and grow as a character. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen I instead started to hope that he at least suffered some consequences for his actions. But… No, he doesn’t. He just stays an asshole the whole time. None of the other characters really go anywhere either. And while the gameplay started off good, it quickly burns through all of the block pushing mechanics they thought of and turns into a repetitive slog. It really felt like they only made the first 1/3rd of a complete game and decided to just copy and paste that to pad out time instead of actually finishing the game.
I think this might be a puzzle game getting too niche for its own good with a wider audience, in your case. I only played through to the one ending, but it had enough trappings of a VN for me to guess that you get most of your character growth or punishment after redoing the common route (basically the prologue leading up to where you get locked into one ending or another), once you get set on course for a particular ending and play it out. It’s common enough in visual novels for me to expect it and not be bothered or caught off-guard by those faults, but that’s obviously not going to play out with a wider audience if they’re not made aware of those conventions.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for the NES. Unreasonably difficult first level, vague hit detection boxes, enemies can stunlock you into a cheap death, pathetic reach of your weapons. Still beat it because I was a kid in the 90s and there was shit else to do.
Deep-cut but does anyone remember a game called like “the emo game” or something. It was browser based, would’ve been out around the 2010s. Super dark edgelord humour. I’m certain it was fucking terrible but I played through it all. I think about it from time to time but have never found it again.
Holy shit! I remember that game and playing the hell out of it because I could be Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from At The Drive-In/Mars Volta. I wonder if you can still find that anywhere.
Lunar Genesis/Dragon Song. It looks like ass, the story is told with the eloquence of a farting butthole, and the gameplay… Mein gott, losing HP for running on the field isn’t even Game Arts’ worst design decision in this game. There’s nothing to save here.
