Possibly the worst game to ever be created?

[mmntech]

If we're counting buy/steal Unity assets, ?, profit games then Journey of the Light gets my vote.

Lol.

Steam refunds are probably the best thing that's happened to PC gaming. Ensures that shovelware and broken titles get what they deserve. Hopefully that involves purging them from the store.

Journey of the Light fools you because it does look like a halfway competent game. Until you realize there is no game. Just a world to walk around in.

Lord Kres should have pulled an Ed Key and claimed the game was breaking new ground about what a game is. God Proteus was awful.

 

[BSim500]

There's so much dross out there, I don't know if you can even narrow games down to just one "worst ever". One thing that's amazed me recently is a string of 2015 Indie games that have totally screwed up cursor key controls combined with zero key re-binding. I mean Up & Down move forward & backwards (as "W" and "S") but L & R arrow keys turn (like moving the mouse L&R) instead of strafe (like "A" and "D") like it's still 1992. Good God, those "cursor keys rotate FPS camera" controls weren't even acceptable by 1996-1997 after free/mouse-look was invented during the Quake 1 era, yet here we are in 2015 with a new breed of Indie "developers" hell-bent on regressing almost 18-19 years even with UE3/UE4 engines... D:

Either that or cursor keys don't work at all, usually alongside chronic mouse lag + no sensitivity slider, no video options, no reliable quick / multiple save mechanism (that acted as insurance against buggy as hell games constantly crashing or leaving you stuck in a wall / falling through the floor just after a single-slot checkpoint autosave), ambient sounds & voices that haven't been normalized, crhonic spiling mistkaes, etc. Throw in stuff like Unity Engine "games" being booted out with stock "placeholder" textures left in, and I wonder if we've over-compensated on making pre-packaged development kits so cheap & easy to stick an idea to, and lowering the entry bar a little too far, that you don't even have to know how to develop games to be a games developer anymore...

 

[clok1966]

Yep, saw that a while back.

Atari, by all logic, should have gone out of business 30 years ago. Yet people keep digging it up its corpse. Don't know why. The last time the brand had any credibility was before I was born. Guess investors are hoping to capitalize off the 80's nostalgia fad. Seems to be a common thread in the industry today.

Speaking of Jim Stirling, check out some videos of the Slaughtering Grounds. It's not the worst piece of shovelware on Early Access, but certainly the most infamous. Like a lot of these games, it was hastily cobbled together from Unity assents and parts unknown, presumably stolen off the web. Next to no gameplay, poorly photoshopped textures, bugs galore. After Stirling and a few others called out the game for how lazy it was, the developer threw a full on temper tantrum. We're talking Phil Fish level crazy.

Not sure how anybody can take Jim with even one grain of salt, he is the Rush Limbaugh of Video games, he can actually make a decent point, then just gets bat shit crazy and starts spewing odd shit that makes no sense. 10% quality 90% BS to keep the masses thinking he is "cooL". But be that my opinion, didn't this last version of atari die as it stepped into the cess mire of MOBILE gaming? This is the 4th or 5th version of Atari isnt it? Nintendo has made a living recycling the same games over, Atari could have too, but .. and its a big one, Nintendo knew that a game had to be fun, not just redone. Atari never quite grasped this, all 3 or 4 new management systems. Atari has a good a back catalog as anybody, but owning the rights to an old game is only a small part of it. I would love to see a great Battlezone remake , heck a update on Red Baron would be cool, a well done missile command where you built the cities in some way so you had more vested in them, etc.. yet they come up with PHONE games..

 

[mmntech]

I don't always agree with Jim Stirling, but he's spot on about the current state of the "Triple-A" industry.

Atari certainly has an interesting story behind it. From what I've heard, it was a literal coke fueled free for all during the Warner years. Money flowed like water. They were actually giving away $150,000 (in 1982 money!) as part of a contest at one point.

Atari got far too big far too quickly, got cocky, and over-saturated the market. It was a classic bubble. 1982 saw a flood of shovelware titles that overwhelmed consumers and damaged the brand's reputation. Several high profile in house failures eventually pushed them into financial ruin. Warner dumped them and Jack Tramiel bought up what was left.

Nintendo was smart enough to learn from Atari's failures when they launched in North America. That's why you saw a strong focus on quality games, and tight restrictions on third parties. Nintendo of America's internal motto during the 80s was "the name of the game is the game". They understood why people buy video games, and capitalized on that to great success. They were people who were still passionate about gaming, but level headed enough to manage the business effectively.

Atari's later attempts just fell flat. The 7800 wasn't as powerful as the Master System, and it didn't have the games that Nintendo had. The Jaguar was an ill conceived "64-bit" console that was barely better than existing 16-bit offerings. When the PlayStation launched a year later, it blew it out of the water. A lot of those early 5th gen systems died a quick death. The Lynx was okay, but once again Sega and Nintendo had better offerings.

Atari bankrupted themselves again a couple years ago. I think their focus on mobile will ultimately be their next great mistake. That market is due for a correction. Largely because of the same factors that caused the 1983 crash. F2P is not the golden goose that everyone thinks it is.

 

[TeknoBug]

Hellgate: London

 

[nageov3t]

If we're counting buy/steal Unity assets, ?, profit games then Journey of the Light gets my vote.

that's the puzzle game that's supposed to have multiple levels, but no one's ever figured out how to get past the first and someone data mined that the other "levels" including in the game install files are just a clone of the first file, right?

 

[Fenixgoon]

Hellgate: London

HGL was conceptually good and had some fantastic art direction. The game play left a bit to be desired though.

 

[clok1966]

I don't always agree with Jim Stirling, but he's spot on about the current state of the "Triple-A" industry.

Atari certainly has an interesting story behind it. From what I've heard, it was a literal coke fueled free for all during the Warner years. Money flowed like water. They were actually giving away $150,000 (in 1982 money!) as part of a contest at one point.

Atari got far too big far too quickly, got cocky, and over-saturated the market. It was a classic bubble. 1982 saw a flood of shovelware titles that overwhelmed consumers and damaged the brand's reputation. Several high profile in house failures eventually pushed them into financial ruin. Warner dumped them and Jack Tramiel bought up what was left.

Nintendo was smart enough to learn from Atari's failures when they launched in North America. That's why you saw a strong focus on quality games, and tight restrictions on third parties. Nintendo of America's internal motto during the 80s was "the name of the game is the game". They understood why people buy video games, and capitalized on that to great success. They were people who were still passionate about gaming, but level headed enough to manage the business effectively.

Atari's later attempts just fell flat. The 7800 wasn't as powerful as the Master System, and it didn't have the games that Nintendo had. The Jaguar was an ill conceived "64-bit" console that was barely better than existing 16-bit offerings. When the PlayStation launched a year later, it blew it out of the water. A lot of those early 5th gen systems died a quick death. The Lynx was okay, but once again Sega and Nintendo had better offerings.

Atari bankrupted themselves again a couple years ago. I think their focus on mobile will ultimately be their next great mistake. That market is due for a correction. Largely because of the same factors that caused the 1983 crash. F2P is not the golden goose that everyone thinks it is.

its sad, the NES would have had ATARI's name on in many markets it if they had made a few different decision. I own um all (atari systems) I think the Lynx was a better system then most think, but it was HUGE (big downfall for handheld) and had to many no name games (some where awesome though). the Jag, I can still remember preordering it with 3 games, and getting it with 1 game (others did not make it on release). Trevor (pack in) was a huge turd in so many ways. AvP, tempest and Iron Solider where pretty dang good, but not even close to being enough to overshadow the utter crap that was also released. I still fire it up and play the big 3, and they do hold pretty well, tempest for sure.

no worries a bout Jim, he is worth a listen too for sure sometimes

 

[AdamK47]

I loved playing Alone in the Dark on my 486 in 1993. It's too bad the sequels after the initial trilogy were never really good.

 

[lamedude]

that's the puzzle game that's supposed to have multiple levels, but no one's ever figured out how to get past the first and someone data mined that the other "levels" including in the game install files are just a clone of the first file, right?

Yup; no longer for sale so its a trophy now.

 

[Craig234]

I don't know what I'd put up for bad game, but would that Hatoful Boyfriend, reportedly a pigeon dating game, count?

I know a game paid for by the French government's art section that some might think is bad, but I like the idea, so I'm not gonna name it.

 

[Kadarin]

MOO3 deserves an honorable mention here.

 

[DigDog]

masters of orion ?

 

[Scooby Doo]

Hellgate wasn't too bad, just too repetitive. What about that old "Custer's Last stand" game?

 

[DigDog]

Yahtzee has a really funny review of Too Human which would lead you to believe it's a truly horrid game.
always worth a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6gbXInzO-g

 

[futurefields]

Hellgate was most dissapointing, but definitely not the worst. THere are games not even playable out there.

 

[ritditditdidoo]

Everybody knows that the worst game ever is: John Romero's Daikatana.

That game is really not as bad as people make out imo! It had problems at development and I think they promised big things and people had high expectations and when it failed to deliver, it became the thing for everyone to hate on. And I think this happened in a time when the gaming in general was relatively new so there hadn't even been a 'failure' before. So it became like a figurehead for hatred and everyone jumped on the bandwagon saying YEAH! that game sucks!

But for those who actually played it, it really wasn't that bad. And in fact it did some interesting things for the time. It was the age of basic corridor shooters so something that tried new things and made more use of the Z axis and stuff was a righteous mission.

Big Rigs hardly counts as a "game", considering it obviously was 'forced' out to the market as an incomplete product and... hummm... wait... never mind. Let it count.

That game is hilariously bad! There is a video which made it even funnier for me because it is just a guy sitting there playing it he is just so disappointed! He isn't ranting about how bad it is or anything, it is like he decided to give the game a try with an open mind, and you watch him just experience complete incompetence and he looks so sad and disappointed

Here it is if anyone is interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmhdaOiI2zs


p.s. I've played a lot of bad games it is hard to remember them all. One I can remember was back when CD ROM was a new thing, and there was a game called Creature Shock which looked really pretty in screenshots and made good use of the technology. I bought it and it seemed like they spent their whole budget on graphics and then spent 5 minutes on the most boring crappy gameplay ever.

 

[FalseChristian]

Crysis. Are you crazy, you say? Almost 2016 and the game still runs like shit.

 

[KMFJD]

Crysis. Are you crazy, you say? Almost 2016 and the game still runs like shit.

sometimes no amount of hardware can help shitty code

 

[Sonikku]

NES Ghostbusters 2 sucked pretty bad.

 

[Silverforce11]

Shouldn't it be about a game with the biggest budget that flopped?

Kinda like the movie Waterworld, massive budget, big time flop.

ps. I liked Waterworld!

 

[Oyeve]

I'm going with Diablo 3. Didnt flop but IMO, it's pretty bad.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

masters of orion ?

Kill the infidel!
My vote goes to an old title called "Revenant." Incredible graphics for the time. The world was filled with useless objects to collect except some were needed to progress to the next level and when you did, you discovered there were items needed for the next level that could only be found in the previous level but, you couldn't go back and there was no way to save progress so, you were forced to start again...every level.

 

[waffleironhead]

Kill the infidel!
My vote goes to an old title called "Revenant." Incredible graphics for the time. The world was filled with useless objects to collect except some were needed to progress to the next level and when you did, you discovered there were items needed for the next level that could only be found in the previous level but, you couldn't go back and there was no way to save progress so, you were forced to start again...every level.

Ha. Yeah I have that game. Every few years I fire it up, figuring I may actually complete it. Then reality sets in. It was fun when it worked.
Goes looking for discs...

 

[smakme7757]

Hellgate: London

I don't know. I enjoyed it, but it sorta ran outa steam. I never played online though. But the game was worth the $60 i payed for it back then. It was fun.

I'll add that I did enjoy the books.