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List of video games notable for negative reception

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Certain games are considered to be "the worst ever" for various reasons, including exceptionally poor graphics or music, a clichéd or stereotypical premise and storyline, a poor user interface, what is perceived to be poor gameplay, or an excessive number of bugs that hamper enjoyment or playability. More generally, and despite the natural differences in players' tastes and tolerances, a game attracting the "worst game ever" comment is usually failing in being enjoyable for most players.

Concept and criticism usually apply only to games commercially released and marketed by major distributors and targeted at well-known gaming systems such as personal computers, consoles and arcade machines, while shareware, freeware, public domain and amateur games are usually not exposed to much criticism.

Video games notable for negative reception

A

  • Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis (2003, GameCube/Xbox) This game inspired the Golden Mullet Awards on G4's X-Play (an award it gives out for the worst games to come out that year, the name deriving from the golden locks of the title character), and X-Play also named it the worst GameCube game ever.[1] The Golden Mullet Awards can be considered as a video game version of the Razzies given out to the worst movies of the year.


B

  • Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (2003, PC): This game has a truck-racing premise but features nonexistent collision detection (even on bridges), trucks that accelerate infinitely in reverse (to the limits of processing), stopping as soon as the down arrow key is released, players being able to go up hills at a 90-degree angle, a computer controlled player that does not move, and a complete lack of a boundary preventing the truck from leaving the map were some of the many reasons why this game is considered "massively flawed." GameSpot gave the game a 1.0 out of 10.0, the lowest score ever given by the review site (As well as the lowest score it possibly can give), and described it as "one of the most atrocious games ever published."[2] X-Play, a game reviewing TV show on G4TV, called this "hands-down, this is the worst video game ever to be released." and was unable to give it a rating because the TV program's rating scale does not have a zero.[3] This negative fame has spawned dedicated fans on several gaming forums. As of current, it has a 4% rating on Game Rankings, making it their lowest-rated game. It also has an average score of 8 out of a possible 100 at Metacritic, making it the worst-reviewed game ever on that site.

C

  • Cassette 50 (1983, Cascade Games Ltd) a compilation of games described as being "so bad it caused physical discomfort"[2], "beyond awful"[3] and "a piece of crap collection"[4]. It inspired an annual crap game competition[5] and a site reviewing bad games[6].
  • Color a Dinosaur (1993, Nintendo Entertainment System) is a game simply consisting of coloring 16 dinosaur pictures with a limited supply of colors. It was widely ridiculed for its overly simplistic nature and complete lack of features, such as being able to save one's creations.
  • Custer's Revenge (1982, Atari 2600) consists of moving a naked and heavily pixelated General Custer across the screen to rape a Native American girl (tied to a post) while dodging arrows. It is considered by some to have one of the worst premises ever in a game, and was ranked #1 on Gamespy's "Ten Most Shameful Games of All Time"

D

  • Deadly Towers (1987, NES) is an action-adventure game where the protagonist ventures through a maze-like castle. Deadly Towers was ranked #1 on Seanbaby's list of the 20 worst games for the NES.[5]
  • Devil May Cry 2 (2003, Playstation 2) has been widely panned by critics, including being awarded the dubious honor of being the the "Most Disappointing Game of 2003", according to GameSpot[6] While Devil May Cry 2 is considered to be slightly above average on a technical scale, the majority of complaints stem from the fact that it failed to live up to the standards set by the rest of the games in the Devil May Cry series.
  • Drake of the 99 Dragons (more commonly known as simply Drake; 2003, Xbox, PC) is an action game with a comic book style to it. It was universally panned by critics, and GameSpot described it as "one of the most atrociously unplayable games to come along in quite some time." The controls in particular have come under criticism for "not working".[7] X-Play named Drake of the 99 Dragons the worst Xbox game ever, and have even gone so far as to state it had surpassed Aquaman as the game that they compare all bad games to.
  • Don't Buy This is a ZX Spectrum compilation, comprising, as the publisher Firebird claims in the cassette inlay, "five of the most uninspired games ever to disgrace the 48k Spectrum." Your Spectrum (8/1985) review (two 1/5 verdicts and a 2/5, and three out of three "misses") says "Take a good look at the words printed on the outside of the package before you buy ... the title of the package really does say it all." CRASH review gave it less than 20% on all categories (Use of computer, graphics, playability and getting started) except for addictive qualities (76%) and value of money (700%; the game retailed for £2.50) giving it a total value of 39.333333%.[8]

E

  • E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982, Atari 2600), a game based on the film E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial, was released for the Atari 2600 in 1982. In a time when the market was being flooded with dozens upon dozens of lackluster games, this game, along with the Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, is cited as being a major cause of the Video Game Crash of 1983. Atari, expecting that the E.T. franchise and Christmas season would boost sales, produced millions of copies of the game, which turned out to be a disaster. It had poor controls and gameplay, a fact owed to its hasty development in just five weeks in an attempt to meet the anticipated Christmas rush. Sales were dismal and most copies went unsold. The company then supposedly secretly buried the remainder of the cartridges in a landfill site near Alamogordo, New Mexico [7]. The E.T. fiasco cost Atari millions of dollars and contributed to the subsequent collapse of the company.[9][10][citation needed][11]

F

Fable (XBox, PC), though well recieved, recieved sharp criticism due to the hype generated by lead developer Peter Molyneux in preview interviews given prior to the game's release. Molyneux has been accused of overhyping the game and has recieved mail regarding this, including anonymous death threats.[12]

K

  • Kabuki Warriors (2001, Xbox) was a launch title for the Xbox that was a critical and commercial flop. GameSpot described it as "one of the worst games to be released this year or any year, on the Xbox or any other platform", and it is the only game ever to receive a 1 / 10 score from Edge.[13]

R

  • Revolution X (multiplatform, 1994) was, in its original form, a bitmap-based arcade light gun shooting game similar to Beast Busters or Terminator 2: Judgment Day featuring the rock music band Aerosmith. The game was converted for a small number of systems without great success. Due to its paucity of enemies and animation and poorly-digitized, looping music, Electronics Gaming Monthly writer Seanbaby described the SNES port of this game as "worst second of your life repeated forever" and "biblically horrific".[14][citation needed]

S

  • Spawn: The Eternal (1997, PlayStation) was described by IGN as "one of the worst games ever" and "a disappointing game that sullies the fine Spawn name."[15]
  • Superman 64 (1999, Nintendo 64). Reasons for this include the poor graphics, absurd storyline and the gameplay itself, which disappointed many fans of Superman. Electronic Gaming Monthly writer Seanbaby wrote, "Superman looks a lot like a flying log in panties, and the entire world is covered in a dull green fog".[16]It also earned the number one spot in Nintendo Power's '5 Worst Games Ever' and SpikeTv/GameTrailers's 'Top Ten Best and Worst Video Games of All Time' countdown as the worst ever.

Z

See also

References

  1. ^ "Aquaman review". G4.
  2. ^ Navarro, Alex (2004-01-24). "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing review". GameSpot. Retrieved 2006-07-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/484/Games_You_Should_Never_Buy.html
  4. ^ http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm.htm
  5. ^ "Seanbaby.com - The Worst Nintendo Game #1 - Deadly Towers". Seanbaby. 2003-11-26. Retrieved 2006-07-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2003 - Dubious Honors: Most Disappointing Game". GameSpot. Retrieved 2007-03-20.
  7. ^ "Drake of the Nine Dragons review". GameSpot.
  8. ^ [1]
  9. ^ "Worst Games Ever Part Two". Gamers Europe.
  10. ^ "EGM's Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Games of All Time". Sean Baby/EGM.
  11. ^ "The 10 Worst Games of All Time". PC World.
  12. ^ Garside, Ryan (2006-10-04). "Molyneux talks Next-Gen & Fable 2". bit-tech.net. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
  13. ^ "Reviews Database". Edge Online. Retrieved 2006-11-12.
  14. ^ "#10: Revolution X (SNES)". EGM's Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Games of All Time. Seanbaby. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
  15. ^ Douglas, Adam (1997-12-09). "Spawn: The Eternal Review". IGN. Retrieved 2006-08-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ "#7: Superman 64 (N64)". EGM's Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Games of All Time. Seanbaby. Retrieved 2006-07-11.
  17. ^ http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm06.htm
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