List of video games notable for negative reception: Difference between revisions

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) No issues specified. Please specify issues, or remove this template. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Certain games have received negative publicity for various reasons, including poor gameplay, exceptionally poor graphics or music, a clichéd or stereotypical premise and storyline, a poor user interface, 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 negative reception is usually found to lack fun factor for most players.

Some games, in spite of technical excellence, still receive negative attention due to the hype and audience attention on the product prior to release.

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.

A reference must be provided for all titles

A

Action 52

(1991/1993, NES/Sega Genesis) This game featured 52 mini-games included in one cartridge, and was put on sale for $200, being hyped as "less than $4 a game". However, many critics criticised the compilation for all of the games being poor, especially in the NES version. This game was ranked #5 in Gamespy's 'Top 10 Shameful Games' list^[1].

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 title character), and X-Play also named it the worst GameCube game ever.^[2]

B

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown

(2004, PS2/Xbox/GameCube) was rated #10 Worst in "Top Ten Best And Worst Videogames."^[3]

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing

(2003, PC) This game has a truck-racing premise. Some of the many reasons for why this game is considered "massively flawed" include nonexistent collision detection, trucks that accelerate infinitely in reverse to the limits of processing (yet stopping instantly when the key is released), players being able to go up hills at a 90° angle, a computer controlled player that does not move at all, and a complete lack of a boundary preventing the truck from leaving the map. GameSpot gave the game a 1.0 out of 10.0, the lowest score ever given by the review site, and described it as "one of the most atrocious games ever published."^[4] X-Play, a game reviewing TV show on G4TV, said "hands-down, this is the worst video game ever to be released" and refused to give it a rating because the TV program's rating scale does not have a zero.^[5] This infamy has spawned dedicated fans on several gaming forums. It has a 4% rating on Game Rankings, and an average score of 8 out of a possible 100 at Metacritic, making it the worst-reviewed game ever on these sites.

Bomberman Act: Zero

(2006, Xbox 360) Currently the lowest ranked Xbox 360 game on Gamerankings with an average of 33%, it received the Reader's Choice and Editor's Choice for Flat-Out Worst Game of 2006 on Gamespot.com. [5] Reasons include extremely repetitive gameplay, a poorly implemented camera system, the lack of saving within the 99 levels, and no local multiplayer.

Bubsy 3D

(1996, PlayStation) Bubsy 3D was panned by critics and fans alike due to its confusing control schemes and poor camera angles.^{[citation needed]} It was featured on Seanbaby's EGM Crapstravaganza: The 20 Worst Games of All Time list.^[6]

C

Cassette 50

(1983, Cascade Games Ltd) A compilation of games described as being "so bad it caused physical discomfort"^[7], "beyond awful"^[8] and "a piece of crap collection"^[9]. It inspired an annual 'crap game' competition^[10] and a site reviewing bad games^[11].

Count Duckula 2

A platform game follow-up to the 1989 release Count Duckula in No Sax Please - We're Egyptian. Both are tie-in licenses of the Cosgrove Hall Count Duckula cartoon series. The player advances Duckula from screen to screen shooting soft toys with a ketchup gun. Critically, the game consistently achieved some of the lowest review scores of the 8-bit era and is considered one of the worst games published for these platforms. Sinclair User^[12] reviewed the game, awarding it 64%, concluding: "If you like silent, slow, basic, dated, unresponsive, annoying games, get it!". The Your Sinclair^[13] review was more scathing, awarding 9%: "The whole thing seems to play quite happily by itself, with the player being a sort of novelty bonus." The Amstrad version fared no better, with Amstrad Action awarding the game a mere 3%. In the final issue of Your Sinclair^[14], Count Duckula 2 was voted the Number One Worst Speccy Game Of All Time by the magazine's readers.

Custer's Revenge

(1982, Atari 2600) A highly controversial game consisting 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"^[15], and #3 on PC World's list of "The 10 Worst Games of All Time". On "Top Ten Best And Worst Videogames," it was rated #3 Worst. One of the guests on the show, Game Head's Geoff Keighley, said, "It pissed me off as a gamer to see a game like that because... Those kinds of games give the industry a bad reputation.^[16]

D

Deadly Towers

(1987, NES) Deadly Towers is an action-adventure game where the protagonist ventures through a maze-like castle. The game was ranked #1 on Seanbaby's list of the 20 worst games for the NES.^[17]

Drake of the 99 Dragons

(2003, Xbox, PC) More commonly known as simply Drake, this 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".^[18] 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 it compares all bad games to.

Don't Buy This

(1985, ZX Spectrum) This is a 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 for money (700%; the game retailed for £2.50) giving it a total value of 39.333333%.^[19]

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 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 -- "nearly all of them came back". The company then secretly crushed and buried the remainder of the cartridges in a landfill site near Alamogordo, New Mexico^[20]. The E.T. fiasco cost Atari millions of dollars and contributed to the subsequent collapse of the company.^[21][22] This game topped the PC World list of the 10 worst games of all time.

Extreme Paintbrawl

(1998, PC) GameSpot gave it a 1.7 / 10 ^[23]. IGN gave it a 0.7 / 10 ^[24], the second game in the website's history to receive lower than a one, (losing out only to Olympic Hockey Nagano '98). PC Gamer gave it a 6 / 100.

F

FBI Hostage Rescue

(2004, PC) The player takes on the role of an FBI agent sent in to enemy territory to rescue hostages. This game is notorious for artificial intelligence so bad that, in the words of Gamespot, "We have failed to get past the very first mission of the game, despite numerous attempts.".^[25]

H

Hour of Victory

(2007, Xbox 360) It received both Reader's Choice and Editor's Choice for Flat-Out Worst Game on Gamespot's 2007 Game Awards ^[26] and is currently the second lowest ranked Xbox 360 game on Gamerankings (with only Bomberman Act: Zero lower than it), with a ranking of 36.9%. ^[27]

K

Kabuki Warriors

(2001, Xbox) This is 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.^[28] Game Informer gave the game a 0.5 out of 10, one of the lowest scores ever given by the magazine.^[29]

N

Ninjabread Man

(2007, Wii) The game holds an average score of 17% on Gamerankings [6], making it currently the lowest ranked Wii game of all time. It has been criticized for its sloppy controls, being extremely short, and a ripoff of games such as Ninja Gaiden.

P

Pac-Man (Atari 2600)

Unlike the arcade version of Pac-Man, which was very successful, Pac-Man for Atari 2600 was very poor, and this game was cited, along with E.T. The Extra Terrestrial for Atari 2600, to be the major cause of triggering the video game crash of 1983. PC World rated it as the fifth worst game of all time.

Ping Pals

(2004, Nintendo DS) The game was given an average of 0.67 from Electronic Gaming Monthly. It was also called "PictoChat with a lousy personality, and there's absolutely no reason why you should waste your time with it." by Gamespot, who gave the game a 3.3 out of 10 [7].

R

Revolution X

(1994, multiplatform) This game was, in its original form, a well-received 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, Electronic Gaming Monthly writer Seanbaby described the SNES port of this game as "worst second of your life repeated forever" and "biblically horrific".^{[30][citation needed]} Screwattack ridiculed it via a VIDEOGAME VAULT.^[31]

Rise of the Robots

(1994, multiplatform) Most of 1994 was filled with previews about the game. When it arrived, it showed that only one move (the flying kick) was needed to complete the game.^[32]

S

Shaq Fu

(1994, SNES, Sega Genesis) Shaq Fu has been called the worst game of all time^[33] due in large part to its less than imaginative background story, awkward and unrewarding gameplay, and suspicions that NBA player Shaquille O'Neal’s branding was attached to the game merely to rally up sales for a game that would otherwise be a financial failure. It was co-marketed with a rap CD and there exists a community tasked with purchasing and destroying all used copies available for sale.^[34]

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis

(2006, Game Boy Advance) A remake of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, ported to the GBA, Genesis was called "a crushing disappointment" by GameSpot, who gave it a 2.5 out of 10.^[35] Gamespot also commented that the gameplay was "extremely broken" and that the GBA "couldn't keep up with the game's speed".

Sonic the Hedgehog

(2006/2007, Xbox 360/Playstation 3) It received the "Most Disappointing" award at the Gametrailers 2006 Game Awards ^[36] and the Reader's Choice for "Worst Game Everyone Played" award at Gamespot's 2007 Game Awards ^[37].

Spawn: The Eternal

(1997, PlayStation) Spawn was described by IGN as "one of the worst games ever" and "a disappointing game that sullies the fine Spawn name."^[38] It got a 1.8/10 rating from GameSpot ^[39]

Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

(2005, PC) This game received negative attention not just for the technical inferiority of the game itself^[40], but due to the perception that the creator of the game was not treating the 1999 Columbine High School massacre with respect.^[41] This game was #2 on PC World's list of the 10 worst games ever. This game is considered very controversial and is considered by many as an example of video games as art. SCMRPG was a finalist in the Slamdance video game competition, but was pulled by the organizers due to its controversial nature. In protest, most of the other entrants withdrew their games from the competition. With as many people lauding the game as there are those decrying it, reviews of Super Columbine Massacre are about as controversial as the game itself.

Superman 64

(1999, Nintendo 64). Considered one of the worst due to poor graphics, thinly detailed 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".^[42]It also earned the number one spot in Nintendo Power's '5 Worst Games Ever' and Spike TV/GameTrailers's 'Top Ten Best and Worst Video Games of All Time' countdown as the #1 worst.^[43] UK based magazine NGamer's award for the years most disappointing game is named the "Superman 64" award

V

Vampire Rain

(2007, Xbox 360) was criticised for basic stealth gameplay, a weak handgun, and hard, yet linear levels. It got a SAGY for "Worst Xbox 360 for 2007." ^[44]

V-Tech Rampage

(2007, PC) This game drew international outrage for its recreation of the Virginia Tech massacre weeks after the event. Rampage is one person's home-made Adobe Flash game, available online. The 21-year-old author created the game "because it's funny,"^[45] and when it drew attention added a request of monetary donations to make him take the game down and apologize.^[45] The game consists of three small action levels, plays the killer's favored song in the background and encourages the player for murder or chastises for failing or only wounding.

W

White Men Can't Jump

(1996, Jaguar) It has been hailed as one of the least-popular Jaguar games by some critics [8] [9].

Z

Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Link: The Faces of Evil, and Zelda's Adventure

(1993, 1994 CD-i) Though not considered to be true Zelda games, these are widely considered to be the worst Zelda games ever created. As part of the termination of a contract from Nintendo, Philips gained the license to produce three Zelda games (Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda's Adventure and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon). All three received overwhelmingly negative feedback and are referred to in some circles as the "Unholy Triforce." They were notorious for bad gameplay, animation, scripting, and voice acting, but The Wand of Gamelon was roundly condemned by Zelda fans and is #6 on Seanbaby's 20 worst games list.^[46]

See also

• List of best-selling video games
• List of commercial failures in video gaming

References

External links

• GameSpy's Top 10 Shameful games of all time
• Worst Games Ever Part One
• Worst Games Ever Part Two
• Seanbaby's EGM'S Crapstravaganza 20 top worst games of all time
• Reader feedback to PC World's list of the 10 worst games of all time
• Interview with the author of PC World's list of the 10 worst games of all time