The worst video games of all time

Updated on August 23, 2022 14:05 PM by Laura Mendes

Each gamer has a tale of the worst game they ever played

It may have been the utterly catastrophic sequel to a far-cherished classic, a rushed tie-in with a favorite movie, or an experimental new launch from a favorite studio.

But we’ve all had that moment of excitedly unwrapping the box, shoving the disc (or cartridge) into the system, after which ... Then comes the terrible realization that you have wasted £ forty-five on the interactive equivalent of a past due-career M. Night Shyamalan film.

To create this list, four veteran recreation writers accumulated collectively to relive our own experiences of this intestine-wrenching phenomenon. Our criteria had been easy. As loads of video games are released every yr, there are certainly thousands of unmitigated digital failures that very few people have had to go through because they sank faster than a couple of solid-iron water wings. We’ve disregarded those.

As an alternative, we’ve gone for each of the legends of gaming wretchedness and, greater controversially, the titles that promised the moon on a stick, however cruelly added a deflated football on a rusty metal shard – which then gave you tetanus.

50 Cent: Bulletproof (more than one format, 2005)

Released at the height of the rapper’s fame, Bulletproof is a violent 0.33-individual shooter in which a shirtless Fiddy swears and murders his way around a sequence of gritty urban environments on a ridiculous quest for vengeance (followed by using Eminem, Dr. Dre, and G-Unit, obviously).

Clumsy, linear, and – way to a loss of any sort of auto-aim – overly hard, Bulletproof is a woefully common, resolutely dumb shooter with incongruously lavish production values. Sequel 50 Cent: Blood at the Sand was, but quite respectable.

Aliens Colonial Marines (pc/PS3/Xbox 360, 2013)

The most effective sport in the latest memory is considered so horrific that it stimulated a lawsuit from disgruntled players (incensed by the disparity between the pre-release advertising materials and the unfortunate fact of the completed product).

Colonial Marines turned into extensively considered a worn-out and derivative first-person shooter*. Even though Gearbox was given the visible fashion of the movies just proper, consulting with Ridley Scott at some stage in improvement, the give-up result is a glitch-ridden mess. As Eurogamer positioned it: “For a sport all about exterminating bugs, it’s a fatal irony.”

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Terrible avenue Brawler (NES, 1989)

One of the best games particularly designed for the NES Power Glove controller – and five seconds with this agonizing brawler will tell you why.

The protagonist is “former punk rocker” Duke Davis, who's now, by hook or crook, doomed to patrol a city park, beating up circus midgets and bulldogs. The player had only three moves available: punch, kick, and return recreation to keep.

The restrained interplay becomes the fault of Nintendo’s daft glove machine, which became lousy as a controller but marginally better as the famous person of classic films, including The Wizard and Freddy’s useless: The very last Nightmare.

Large Rigs: Over the Road Racing (pc,2003)

Hailed as “blatantly unfinished” through the gaming press, massive Rigs became a truck racing sim wherein players needed to haul cargo throughout us, avoiding the police officers and out-rushing computer controller rivals.

Except there's no shipment, there aren't any police officers and the rival truck in no way actions off the beginning line.

Even though the controls are terrible, development studio Stellar Stone (which outsourced the maximum of the work to a team in Ukraine) was given spherical this by using sincerely no longer, which includes any collision detection. The stuff of legend.

BMX XXX (a couple of formats, 2002)

Essentially Dave Mirra’s Freestyle BMX, however topless. And terrible. Publisher Acclaim enjoyment was determined for interest at the time, pulling stunts like asking people to alternate their names to Turok and providing to pay for Shadow guy-themed tombstones.

BMX XXX became the nadir, partly because, unlike most of the alternative ideas, it undoubtedly came about – even though its primitive 3D graphics were not likely to arouse something but mocking laughter.

Mirra bolted from the assignment while he heard the plan and sued to be stored out of it. “intercourse sells!” screamed the advertising guys; however, this time, they were incorrect: it shifted much less than a hundred 000 copies.

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Bomberman Act Zero (Xbox 360, 2006)

“How can we update our seminal velocity-puzzle collection Bomberman for the Xbox 360,” requested a Hudson gentle government sooner or later in 2005.

The solution, alas, turned into taking the superbly lovable Nintendo games and putting them in a dystopian destiny of darkness and brushed metal.

What’s extra, the designers noticed in shape to damage all the deftly balanced mechanics, upload a gaggle of risible single-player modes and, worst of all, overlook local multiplayer in favor of online battles. Exceptionally, the servers are no longer highly populated.

Bubsy 3-d (ps, 1996)

First came terrific Mario sixty-four, showing how platform video games could make the soar to three-D. Then came Bubsy, an obnoxious critter, tripping, falling, and smashing his tooth out to reveal the complete opposite.

Bubsy changed into already one of the more unpopular mascots of the sixteen-bit era – his tie-in cool animated film show could be used as a device of torture and featured the quickly to very unlucky catchphrase: “What may want to go wrong probably?!”.

This game made him an image of technological catastrophe, with its drunkenly uncontrollable camera and a 3-d engine so underpowered it could barely render its failure.

Custer’s Revenge (Atari 2600, 1982)

No longer most effective is this notorious launch from Mystique, a crude and unlikeable sport; it's also a simple and unlikeable game in which you play as the historical person preferred Custer trying to rape a Native American female who's tied to a pole.

This grim topic is not some kind of observation on colonialism but intended as a chunk of titillation, produced below the publisher’s “Swedish Erotica” label and different pixellated porn. “I simply don’t agree with that adults need to shoot down rocket ships,” said one Mystique exec at the time. A shameful episode.

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Daikatana (pc/N64/GameBoy color, 2000)

This lengthy-delayed shooter was controlled to disappointed gamers before it had even been launched a way to a magazine ad in which clothier John Romero (co-author of Doom) promised to “make you his complain.”

He has for the reason that he apologized, but after a troubled improvement, the sport was met with a refrain of negative evaluations. Dumb AI companions, limited saves per level, and dated tech were among the biggest complaints.

Looking at your sidekicks repeatedly get overwhelmed via doorways or wander into your line of the fireplace becomes maddening, particularly considering that their loss of life is supposed to be an instant recreation.

Duke Nukem all the time (a couple of formats, 2011)

The fourth name in this classic shooter series famously spent an entire era wandering in development hell, notching up 12 successive appearances in stressed’s annual Vaporware Awards.

While it arrived, courtesy of a rescue bid by Gearbox software, it turned into awful – a brainless, poorly designed linear shooter tied to a witless, terminally unfunny script packed with idiotic one-liners and dated pop culture references. Just like its macho hero, it felt like a humiliating relic from the past.

ET the greater Terrestrial (Atari 2600, 1982)

Yes, that is the game that failed so spectacularly that tens of thousands of unsold copies needed to be buried within the desolate tract at Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Certain fashion designer Howard Scott Warshaw deserves a break: he changed into given just six weeks to apply the aspect way to a reckless deal struck between Steve Ross, chairman of Atari’s parent enterprise Warner Communications, and Steven Spielberg, who bought the sports rights to his movie for $25 million.

Five million copies were shipped to retailers in time for Christmas 1982. However, word soon was given out that ET had many phoned this one. The disaster became so big that it contributed to the legendary video game crash of 1983. Oops.

The man sport (more than one codecs, 2004)

Questions in this titillating trivia “game” ordinarily concerned guessing the answers given by women on their spring spoil – who could then slowly strip off. So essentially, own family Fortunes for pervs. Too awful for this misogynist paradise that one of the featured contestants turned underage.

Consequently, a decision was ordered for it to be removed from shelves, and the woman sued developer Topheavy Studios with the lawsuit, reportedly stating: “(The) plaintiff remains a youngster and wishes to wait for university, increase her career and be living in her network and church.”

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Hatred (pc, 2015)

Darkish, bloody, violent, and in reality, sincerely uninteresting, Hatred longed to be hated, held up as an instance of the whole thing incorrect with video games – however, truly, all it stands for is how it is truly unspeakably stupid most attention-grabbing video games are.

The horror or enjoyment of rampaging around a metropolis and murdering anyone you meet lasts for approximately half a level. Then all that’s left is a twin-stick shooter in which it’s difficult even to make out your carnage amid the gothic darkness. Nihilism has in no way been much less worthwhile.

Haze (PS3, 2008)

Billed as a rival to Bungie’s era-defining Halo: combat developed, Haze earned its hype thru an excellent historical past. The game changed into directed by using David Doak, the Northern Irish designer.

He labored on uncommon’s seminal shooters Goldeneye 007 and best darkish earlier than founding Radical open layout and making Timesplitters. The idea is interesting, too, with gamers' challenge to the hallucinogenic outcomes of a space-age stimulant. However, Haze proved a hollow disappointment.

The plot changed into impenetrable, the characters laughable, and the single-player marketing campaign judderingly quick. There are rumors it changed into rushed out in advance by way of the publisher – a fantastic shame to those pulled in with the aid of the “Halo meets Apocalypse Now” premise.

Resort Mario (CDI, 1994)

Nintendo doesn’t often permit others to play with its toys, and this disastrous partnership with Philips Interactive Media shows precisely why. Motel Mario is a bad attempt to join in on the whole-motion video abilities of the vain CDi console, marrying a peculiar door-shutting puzzle sport with horrible lively cut-scenes. And it wasn’t by myself.

There had been 3 Legend of Zelda titles too, and those had been just as terrible (even though incredible for permitting the titular Zelda person to have a lively function). Pointless to say, Nintendo doesn’t care to talk approximately any of them – besides possibly during luxurious therapy sessions.

Knack (PlayStation 4, 2013)

The ps 4’s launch title came from an apparent dream crew collaboration: Sony’s personal storied jap improvement studio and Mark Cerny, the console’s genius architect. But whilst this 3-D platformer was first discovered to show off the strength of the brand-new device, there were already doubts.

The linear layout, styled in addition to Cerny’s great-acknowledged work, Crash Bandicoot, appeared anachronistic. Certainly, Knack became out to be forgettable and recurring, grossly underselling the promise of the hardware it changed into purported to rejoice.

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Enjoyment match Larry: field workplace Bust (more than one codec, 2009)

The second try to convey Larry Lovage, a big name in the risque factor-and-click-on series healthy Larry, into the modern international turned into a disaster like the first.

Taking the shape of a platformer (for some reason), field workplace Bust sees diminutive creep Larry sleazing his manner thru a sequence of desperately unfunny movie references which will sleep with a parade of hideous, dead-eyed, badly-lively women.

It’s a rotten sport, with unbearably twitchy controls and a premise that’s basically “mislead girls till they comply with have intercourse with then you play mini-video games.”

Limbo of the misplaced (computer, 2007)

Many video games borrow elements from classic titles to craft something new – but no longer quite as many do it as literally as Limbo of the lost, a whole recreation fabricated from art and music seemingly stolen from The Elder Scrolls, Unreal tournament, and lots of other video games, now not to mention films like Beetlejuice and Spawn.

All of this plagiaristic laugh obscured one of the worst adventures ever, a trek thru the afterlife charming in its complete incompetence, horror, and chutzpah. At a minimum, we got one of the most unforgettable endings in online game records before it became pulled from the shelves…

Ideal darkish zero (Xbox 360, 2005)

The sequel to the first-rate N64 mystery best darkish arguably provided the first marked slip in first-class from rare, one of England's nice-cherished game builders, following its 2002 buy via Microsoft.

The legacy became impeccable, built upon foundations laid with the aid of Goldeneye 007, the first honestly top-notch console-based shooter. But perfect dark 0 became, in game design terms, rather dated, with shallow gunplay, terrible AI, and a cliched setting.

“handiest on very few occasions will you sense like an elite murderer,” lamented GamesRadar. “The relaxation of the time, you’re an inept, blundering thug.”

Plumbers Don’t wear Ties (3DO, 1994)

A seriously robust contender for the worst recreation of all time, Plumbers Don’t put on Ties is an “interactive romantic comedy” that makes The only way is Essex appear like a piece of pretentious high artwork.

Made up entirely of still photographs overlaid with terrible, amateurish voice acting, this is the tale of John, a plumber, who unearths himself torn between two women. It’s like going to a night meal and being forced to look in awkward horror as the host couple presents a slideshow of themselves role-playing their deranged erotic fantasies.

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Resident Evil 6 (pc/PS3/Xbox 360, 2012)

Promising a go back to the honor days, while the popular survival horror series became steered by using masterful clothier Shinji Mikami, Capcom alternatively hired a crew of six hundred builders to provide an utterly lackluster homage to former brilliance.

Stripped of all of the old anxiety, it’s a production line of ludicrous explosions, mindless plot twists, interminable car chases, and bombastic action set-pieces, as though faxed in using a zombified Michael Bay.

Resistance 2 (PlayStation three, 2008)

Regardless of being met with, in large part, superb critiques, Resistance 2 is, in its middle, an awful first-person shooter with messy, inconsistent tiers and baffling layout choices – including no longer being able to dash in ankle-excessive water.

Like a summer season popcorn film, big, spectacular things are happening in front of you continuously, but you do not sense anything.

Your interaction is restricted, taking pictures is boring and weedy, and the enemies repeat themselves continuously. And allow’s now not neglect approximately those fish matters that kill you the immediate you contact the water, even supposing they’re miles away. A sport of shallow bombast.

The upward thrust of the Robots (more than one format, 1994)

Edge magazine was so inspired by early demos of this robot combating sport that it granted developer Mirage Studios a cover function in which the crew criticized avenue Fighter 2 as dated.

When this tinpot brawler eventually lurched onto keep cabinets, it became clear that, behind the 3D-rendered visuals, there has been nearly no real sport.

The characters couldn’t flip around, the AI opponents have been mortally vulnerable to the same circulate, and Brian's song may also help.

Regardless of all this, the rise has transformed every video games platform to be had, symbolizing a technology wherein filling the disc with video and track become frequently considered extra crucial than offering something human beings would simply want to play.

Ride to Hell: Retribution (computer/PS3/Xbox 360, 2013)

Promising to plunge gamers into the exciting global of the Nineteen Sixties counterculture, journey to Hell rather plunges players into the not pretty as thrilling international of extraordinarily unfinished video games.

Lead man or woman Jake Conway returns from Vietnam and alienated by the USA he unearths; he joins a bike gang. Alas, the motorcycle management is irredeemably unsuitable, the melee fight is unfocused, and the voice actors appear to have been going through some type of breakdown even as recording their parts.

The result is a sport of truly psychedelic awfulness that manages the sincerely uncommon feat of getting every single element incorrect.

Shaq Fu (Mega Drive/Snes 1994)

In 2013, manufacturer Sandy Sandoval appeared on an ESPN program approximately sports sims and admitted that this 2nd preventing sim about a famous basketball player being transported to any other dimension to punch people became “probably one of the worst video games in EA records” – and that’s saying something, thinking about it’s up in opposition to wanting for speed: The Run and Catwoman.

Perhaps, for the duration of development, French studio Delphine, well-known for cinematic platformers together with Flashback and Fade to Black, notion “zut alors, we don't have any experience with this form of the game”; however that didn’t forestall absolutely everyone.

Sonic the Hedgehog (multiple codecs, 2006)

Sega’s 356th try to rejuvenate its mascot turned into, in reality, any other nail into his big, blue coffin. Regardless of the involvement of the Sonic crew and the course of Sega legend Shun Nakamura, the sport has become blighted through long loading instances, rampant system faults, and a twitchy, unstable digicam.

The developers blamed the exceptional of the game on having to develop simultaneously for Xbox 360 and the as-yet-unreleased ps 3, which had notoriously idiosyncratic hardware. But that doesn’t explain the excruciating tale, which climaxes with Sonic kissing Princess Elise — a human. Yeah, the less said approximately that, the better.

SQIJ! (ZX Spectrum, 1987)

Even as there were skip-masses of terrible video games inside the 8bit generation (Ocean’s terrible film tie-ins and firebirds' amazingly cynical Don’t purchase This being obvious examples), the Spectrum model of avian platformer SQIJ is the top – now not least due to the fact, due to a coding mistake, it's far impossible to control.

As an alternative, you watch a massive bird man or woman bouncing around the display, shedding chunks of snapshots as immobile enemies appearance on bewildered. Years later, the programmer in the back of the sport claimed he deliberately sabotaged the venture to get out of a development settlement.

Better, but the sport reportedly contains an unlicensed copy of the coding app Laser fundamental, which means that it’s now not simply unplayable; it’s technically unlawful to buy. Genius.

Big name Trek (a couple of formats, 2013)

Based totally on J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, this shameless coins-in decreased the mythical relationship between Kirk and Spock to a dumb, badly-designed cowl shooter.

Marred via system defects and infinite, interminable hacking mini-games, it harks returned to the dark days while shoddy film tie-ins splattered the console launch schedules like ill-up the partitions on a hard ferry crossing.

There are puzzles wherein two characters have to develop, which might be excellent if your AI accomplice didn’t robotically simply prevent responding, leaving you caught. The voice appearing is respectable, so it’s no longer all bad.

Superman 64 (N64, 1999)

Behold Lex Luthor’s remaining plan for defeating Superman – torture him with one of the most infamous video game disasters of all time. “remedy my maze!” he boomed before making the man of steel ... Fly via a few pieces of jewelry. After which, fly via extra earrings.

Worse nonetheless, the whole sport became set in a “virtual global,” which rebranded the N64’s restricted rendering distance as “kryptonite fog.”

In an interview with YouTuber Proton Jon, the sport’s producer claimed that licensing restrictions meant that the builders weren’t allowed to use all of the hero’s powers or show him beating up actual human beings. “The very last isn't always even 10% of what we intended to do,” he says, “however the licensor killed us.”

Customary Studios theme Park adventure (GameCube, 2001)

Returned to destiny. Jaws. Jurassic Park. Imagine coming into a realm full of a number of the finest movies ever made and Waterworld. It’s a pity that each one this sport could do with commonplace’s amusing park became to create a gaggle of half-arsed mini-games.

Even you then had to earn the proper to get right of entry to the rides via ... Selecting up trash. And shaking fingers with park mascots. At the least, the Waterworld sport is authentically painful: it forces you to watch one scene from the movie several times. Worst holiday Ever.