Worst PC Game you've ever purchased

[QuantumPion]

Hmmm I expected more people to say 'Outpost'; I consider myself lucky that my friend ended up buying it before me and saved me from making a terrible mistake.

Wow I remember that one when I was a kid. I was so frustrated I couldn't get anything to work. Turned out it wasn't just me, that game was pretty much broken as well.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

Kill OSes? Explain that to me please.

As for my worst games ever purchased...

I don't know. I guess...Rogue Warrior. I don't know. I have never actually played the game lol
It came with the Id/Bethesda Pack last year. All I know is that it apparently won or was a nominee for Gamespot's worst game of 2010(or whatever year the game came out)

I don't remember the specifics, but if you tried to install PoR in a directory other than the default by the installer you could end up wiiping your hard drive. To Ubisoft's credit they put out a patch very quickly, but still that was pretty bad.

On top of that, PoR was a huge disappointment also based on horrible combat (it was turn-based, which is not inherently bad, but when the speed of your opponents was as slow as it was in PoR it was bad), boring repeated textures in the dungeons, not all classes were implemented and IIRC the game was some kind of D&D 3rd edition hybrid because the edition changed during development. I went back and tried to play it some years ago with the patches and it was still bad. Huge disappointment for those of us that enjoyed the Gold Box games.

 

[wheresmybacon]

Kill OSes? Explain that to me please.

As for my worst games ever purchased...

I don't know. I guess...Rogue Warrior. I don't know. I have never actually played the game lol
It came with the Id/Bethesda Pack last year. All I know is that it apparently won or was a nominee for Gamespot's worst game of 2010(or whatever year the game came out)

There were certain conditions in which an uninstall of the game would also uninstall files critical to Windows operation. So once you uninstalled the game and rebooted you'd have a looping BSOD.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty.
Worst $7 I have ever spent.

 

[thespyder]

I have to agree with the OP. Pools of Radiance: Ruin of Myth Dranor was hands down the worst game I have spent money on. Aside from the hideous bugs (if you saved while invisible, it corrupted the save????) and the fact that "No Wizards" and the choice to not let rogues travel more than a very short distance from the party, and a whole host of other really poor decisions, it was riding on the tail of the original Pools (gold box) games which were awesome.

As far as some of the other ones listed, ToEE was a whole lot better than it was generally accorded. Particularly if you got the Co8 patches. It was hands down the best turn based implementation of DnD combat, bar non.

DA2 wasn't a "Horrible" game. But again totally failed to live up to anything even remotely close to the source. It was (in my eyes) sort of like what Dark Alliance was to Baldur's gate. OK, if you didn't consider the source.

I would also like to throw in a vote for MOO3. What crap. The higher they fly, the harder they fall.

Wow I remember that one [Outpost]when I was a kid. I was so frustrated I couldn't get anything to work. Turned out it wasn't just me, that game was pretty much broken as well.

"The Colonists HATE you Commander!"

 

[Red Storm]

There were certain conditions in which an uninstall of the game would also uninstall files critical to Windows operation. So once you uninstalled the game and rebooted you'd have a looping BSOD.

Reminds me of that EVE Online update that would delete people's '\boot.ini', as opposed to just 'boot.ini'. That little slash makes quite the difference. D:

 

[Martimus]

Hellgate: London was probably the worst game I have ever purchased, although Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun was bad enough that I just couldn't finish it even though I loved the original more than probably any other game I had played to that point.

 

[KeithTalent]

Hmm, Hellgate: London is a good call. Could have been so much fun, but it just ended up being a disaster after all was said and done. I had a lot of fun in the beta, but it was all downhill form there.

KT

 

[KeithTalent]

ugh, DP.

KT

 

[thespyder]

There was one "Game" that an old GF of mine bought. it was a "Virtual Aquarium". And you could buy and trade for fish that would grow and age and even die if you didn't feed them. Problem was, during Y2K, the clocks reset. And since the fish programming was driven by the PC's internal clock, they all died... Permenantly! And the company wouldn't replace them unless you bought a whole new batch of fish.

We called it the Y2K suicide pact.

Anyway, not necessarily a game or a bad one at that, but a really poor business decision.

There were certain conditions in which an uninstall of the game would also uninstall files critical to Windows operation. So once you uninstalled the game and rebooted you'd have a looping BSOD.

There were "Rumors" that an original Beta of Diablo 1 actually ATE your hard drive when you tried to uninstall it. Not sure if that was true or not.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Hellgate London ... blah!

 

[zinfamous]

Catfight
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/catfight/review.html?tag=tabs;reviews

Someone told me it was a PC Mortal Kombat with hot girls.

How naive I was.


More recent: Brink. That game is why I will never pre-order again.
Except for Skyrim.
I love you Skyrim.

To counteract this obvious problem, the designers have included an “easier” difficulty level, which (get this) turns the computer completely off, pitting you against an opponent who just stands there.

 

[dpodblood]

Not thinking of anything at the moment I absolutely hated, but Brutal Legend was a pretty big disappointment. The game was just boring and buggy, and it had that whole RTS component that didn't really fit at all. Another huge disappointment was COD:BLOPS. Not because I thought it was a bad game but because it had so many performance issues it basically made the game unplayable and they didn't provide a working patch for months. I will never buy another COD game at launch.

 

[Via]

I almost think flat-out "worst" and "most disappointing" are two different categories.

flat-out worst: A game called "Kawasaki motorcycle racing" that I got as part of a 3 or 4 pack. It was ridiculous - you push a static motorcycle icon down a brown road while green sprites move back and forth. Absolutely laughable.

Most disappointing: Bully Scholarship Edition for PC or Lords of the Realm 3. Probably LotR3. I was looking forward to that game for years (PC gamer had a preview on it that made it look awesome), played it for an hour or so and uninstalled it in disgust.

The OC of Neverwinter Nights is right up there as well.

 

[Dumac]

Dragon Age 2.

Never again.

same

 

[Dumac]

Dragon Age 2 is good. Mass Effect 2, Dawn of War 2, and The Witcher are excellent. Either you people are spoiled by the multitude of games available, or you don't know what a bad game is. Perhaps both.

No, No, No, Yes.

Mass Effect 2 was good, but not excellent. I don't regret purchasing it or playing it, but it could have been better. I enjoyed ME1 more.

The same goes for DoW2.

I agree that the Witcher was excellent.

However, DA2 was bad. I would give that game a 5/10. Little thought or skill went into the development of any part of that game, and it is honestly the worst game I've bought on the PC.

I try to make sure that my games are at least worth an 8/10, but with Dragon Age 2 I was avoiding spoilers and assumed it would be decent, so I didn't get the warning of how badly it sucked.

 

[Fallen Kell]

hmmm.... I think I need to dig back into my memory.... Worst game, "Top Gun" PC game from 1984-1986 timeframe litterally looked like this:

|---------------------------------------------|
|                        __ /\__              |
|                                             |
|                    [ o ]                    |
|                                             |
|                                             |
|---------------------------------------------|

With the __/\__ being enemy jets which randomly showed up.

Edit: How the heck do i get it to keep my space characters?

 

[Dumac]

That's fine if your opinion wasn't influenced by the multitudes who jumped on the DA2 hate bandwagon at the time of it's release. I played the game without any preconception and find that the majority of it is truly enjoyable. There are certainly questionable design decisions, but that doesn't totally distract from the overall package.

I don't see how any sane, conscious person could think this while playing DA2.

 

[thilanliyan]

The most disappointed I've been about a game recently is F1 2010. I bought the hype about it being like a simulator. Should have trusted my gut that Codemasters don't/can't make sim-like games.

 

[Dumac]

Aw, I actually thought Grotesque Tactics was fairly enjoyable despite being buggy and easy $5 game



Begs the questions if the "biggest letdown" is still "worst ever". Going from an A game to a D game is a big let down, but doesn't make that D game worse than F games. DA2 wasn't what people wanted but it was still at playable, looked decent and sounded decent.

I don't buy F games. Dragon Age 2 is the only D game I've bought. The rest have been A or B games.

 

[jlee1]

NBA Live 05. It was $8 and I had to buy a console controller, to convert to USB, to play the damn sluggish and cheaper than arcade like style game. smh..

 

[Rakewell]

Catfight
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/catfight/review.html?tag=tabs%3Breviews

Someone told me it was a PC Mortal Kombat with hot girls.

How naive I was.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Sweet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AzlvErlF8http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=catfight+pc+gameplay&aq=f

 

[thespyder]

That's fine if your opinion wasn't influenced by the multitudes who jumped on the DA2 hate bandwagon at the time of it's release. I played the game without any preconception and find that the majority of it is truly enjoyable. There are certainly questionable design decisions, but that doesn't totally distract from the overall package.

Can I ask if you actually PLAYED DA:O? Or NWN or KoTOR? Or ME1? Compared to any or all of them, DA2 was a significant let down. And not sure how you could have played it and not felt that way. Admittedly, the game itself, for what it was, wasn't Horrible on it's own merit. But most of the "Hate Bandwagon" was because it was a 3 or 4 game that was slammed out the door about a year too early and on the heels of a 9.5 game (DA:O). And almost every "Improvement" over DA:O was just the opposite.

 

[Arglebargle]

'Did not like' does not equal 'Bad Game'. Vice versa too.

Though technically, the OP didn't differentiate. There can be very well made games that really irritate you, due to subject matter, approach, or other details. Hell, I have MoO3 on my hard drive right now, and I KNOW it was one of the worst turds ever pooted forth.

Not limited to games either, as there are scads of poorly made movies and poorly written books that are quite popular.

 

[Iron Wolf]

Don't feel bad, OP, I actually bought the CE of PoR. Sure, DA2, Civ5, and DoW2 were disappointments, but they certainly weren't the worst games I've ever bought. I actually enjoyed each of them for a while. I think the worst game I've purchased fairly recently was Stardock's Elemental: War of Magic - buggy, unfinished mess, with crappy graphics and even worse gameplay.