Superman 64 was a hell of a mess
Seconding this one. I was like 11 years old and it’s the first time I can remember being disappointed when getting a game. Went from like Mario 64 to OOT to Banjo to Superman 64 and hoo boy what a drop off.
Same for me. It was my first flop I played and boy was it bad.
You didn’t like flying through 150 rings?
There are way more rings than that, and they’re actually the best parts of the game. It gets so much worse in the levels without rings. Awful combat, terrible puzzles, inconsistent framerate, and thoroughly unclear objectives.
Oh, and everyone’s favorite: escort missions!
escort missions
Clark Kent must really have not made much money as a reporter if he had to walk the streets at night too
Difficulty-wise, The Lion King on SNES. This game shattered my childhood.
Made at a time where video game rentals were popular so they had to make games impossible to beat in 2 or 3 days.
I can say it wasn’t any easier in the Megadrive/Genesis.
I could never get through the 2nd ostrich riding sequence in the 2nd level as a kid. The rest of the game was fine, though, once I used the level select to skip ahead. Turns out, it was because my eyesight was shit and I couldn’t even see the correct obstacles on screen (I was trying to avoid the branches, but no it was pink hippos and bird nests the whole time, so my timing on the double jumps was always off). Replaying the game a couple years back when Disney re-released it alongside Aladdin, I found it still tricky, but doable.
Battletoads.
same tbh
That shitty mobile version of SimCity.
Took a beloved childhood classic (the original SimCity) and took a giant free-to-pay shit all over it.
The app store is a massive pool of free-to-play shit.
If you haven’t given pocket city 2 a try yet I highly recommend it
Ooh, neat. TY!
Does ET count?
There are probably worst games I’ve played that I don’t recall, but there was a Roller Coaster Tycoon knockoff for the Playstation once. First impressions were “I bet this is going to be as customizable a sandbox game as the computer version”. Nope. It’s like the actual Roller Coaster Tycoon, except the parks are tiny, so much of the land is unusable, everything costs a bajillion dollars to make, the parks get demolished every time you “succeed” (since it was level-based), and you get absolutely no warning before a game over screen just drops in on you because you took out the wrong loans. Even being a real park owner probably has less checks and balances than it.
oh shit you just reminded me Theme Park World for the PS2. I think I both loved and hated that game
That was the one.
Desert Bus.
This game is pain on purpose.
Yeah, can a game even be bad if it’s excellent at what it intends to be?
This reminds me of a method of trying to evaluate art in an objective way. Basically you ask yourself 3 questions:
- What is this trying to do?
- Does it succeed in what it’s trying to do?
- Is what it’s trying to do worth doing?
If the answers to 2 and 3 are “yes”, then it’s probably a good work of art. This helps remove the subjectivity of “do I enjoy it?” when evaluating a work.
I would say the answers for Desert Bus indicate that it is indeed a good work of art. It succeeds in being a monotonous parody of a video game which makes a political statement about what games would be if they lacked any fictional elements or conflict. And I think the statement P&T were trying to make with this game was definitely worth making. Plus, we know from the amount of people who play it as a streamed challenge game that there is some desire for a game like that to exist.
I agree with you completely, and I’m glad the game exists. It’s just objectively the worst video game I’ve ever played.
The fact that it is talked about and marathoned decades after release mean it’s good art
It’s a classic answer, E.T. on the Atari 2600.
Custer’s revenge would have been an acceptable answer as well.
PacMan on the 2600 was pretty disappointing to say the least.
It had misogyny and racism to push it over the top for worst game. ET was just an unplayable mess that disappointed kids my age. Custer’s Revenge is a borderline hate crime that should have gotten everyone involved fired.
Looking through the lens of relativity, I’d have to say Witcher I. The fact that the fucking masterpiece that is Witcher III and not-amazing-but-definitely-worth-a-playthrough that is Witcher II both stemmed from the comically bad dumpster fire that was #1 is nothing short of a miracle.
The franchise *should* have died at #1, but I’m sure glad it didn’t.
I think that’s maybe a bit harsh compared to a lot of the games mentioned here. Witcher 1 definitely has a lot of problems compared to 2 and 3 but it had a lot going for it as well. Sure the combat was broken as hell once you got all the spinning moves and it was super sexist with the women as trading cards thing. But the story and world building were still fun and Geralt was well characterised. It’s not a great game but it did well enough to get them the sequels. Definitely nowhere near the worst game I’ve played.
W1 still has probably the best writing and script of any of the three games. I definitely prefer the third for gameplay but W1 is just an artifact of the awkward time it came out, when there was a lot less consensus on how 3rd person action games controlled.
A bunch of early access survival crafting games on steam in the early days of early access. One was trying to be like starship troopers and it got like one update
Starforge?
My uncle gave me an Atari 800 when I was a kid. Came with a stack of old carts and games.
One of them was E.T. Which was one of my fave movies at the time.
Mostly any modern mobile game. Piles of shit with p2w and gambling addictive mechanics that aren’t fun but stressful…
ROTFL
Now, I am not going to count games that I knew were bad beforehand but still deliberately played to see how bad they were, I am going to assume the spirit of the question implies starting a game and the realization of how bad it is slowly kicking in.
One game that came to my mind was “Conspiracy: Weapons of Mass Destruction” on the OG Xbox, but there’s probably worse games I played but have forgotten about.
Same as a lot of other gen-xers: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Top Gun for the nes. I never actually finished the first mission. I could beat Mike Tyson but that aircraft carrier kicked my ass.
Shadow Madness on PS1. Unlikable characters, incoherent story, bad graphics, and boring gameplay. It was like someone drew a better JRPG from memory.
