Your actual bottom 10/20/25/50/100/200 games - have you ever?

Years ago, Jimbob made a thread asking youse if you've ever worked out your all-time favourite list. It's still active from time to time, and it's a very good read. Anyway, February is Bum Poo Wee month apparently, so I'm thinking that the time is right to ask if you've ever worked out what your all-time worst games list is.

If you're arsed, here's the ten worst I've played:

10:

 

Monster Jam: Crush It! (PlayStation 4, 2016)

An indefensibly poor PS4 game with three boring modes, no multiplayer and ultimately no redeeming features. Everybody involved should have been hit with Theft Offence Charges because it’s criminal that they ever charged money for this. 

9.:

 

FIFA 64 (Nintendo 64, 1997)

Glenn Plant’s (excellent) YouTube video on FIFA 64 described it as “the Jimmy Saville of gaming”. It’s borderline unplayable, being incredibly difficult to control, look at and even, somehow, understand. Even the main menus are total headfuck. 

8:

 

Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone (Arcade, 1990)

A lousy and unappealing side-scrolling beat ‘em up by any standard, but it’s the shamelessness of it’s money-grabbing ‘pay to win’ mechanics in the arcade that make me really detest it. I can’t think of a sequel that’s a bigger downgrade from Double Dragon II to this stinking rubbish heap.

7:

 

Power Punch II (NES, 1992)

A Punch-Out!! Clone that strips away all that’s good and holy about it’s source material. The memorable characters, clever counterattacking and finely-balanced gameplay are all gone, replaced by dropped bollock after dropped bollock. Less Frank Bruno, more Wank Bruno.

6:

 

Batman Forever (Mega Drive, 1995)

An unremittingly boring and dreadful game from my youth, my only memories of it are how atrocious it was. The visuals are an unacceptable sprite-based mess, the music and sound add no atmosphere at all and the combat is horribly delayed between your button inputs and what happens on the screen. What brutalises it past the point of any redemption is the deeply and thought-provokingly confusing controls. This is the type of utter toilet that has you pressing Up and Select to use your weapons.

5:

 

Pit-Fighter (SNES, 1991)

Widely recognised as the worst game on the SNES, Pit-Fighter is so comprehensively lacking in any sort of quality and was patently made with no skill or finesse whatsoever. I can’t even suggest you play it for a laugh, it’s an empty husk of a game where there’s nothing to enjoy.

4:

 

Superman 64 (Nintendo 64, 1999)

A complete and utter calamity that habitually teeters between being hilariously unplayable and just plain broken. It’s a constant battle between the player, the controls and the game’s infinite bugs, glitches and anomalies. Lex Luthor’s Solve My Maze is as impossible as you’ve heard too. I get that it was rushed out well before the developer was ready and that they weren’t allowed time to successfully implement all of their ideas. Even so, this was never shaping up to be anything other than a disaster. It truly is.

3:

 

Mortal Kombat Mythologies (Nintendo 64, 1997)

You can see N64 Magazine’s review for this on the first page of the “Big Pot Full of Bum” thread, where they ripped it to shreds before ‘awarding’ it 9%. That’s fully justified. You could take all my points about Batman Forever there but add in some utterly savage difficulty and the most tedious plotline ever written. That equation gives you Mortal Kombat Mythologies, the third worst game I’ve ever played. I’ll never, ever have a full N64 collection because there’s no chance I’m paying money for this.

2:

 

Carmageddon 64 (Nintendo 64, 1999) 

In no way a finished game, this is a University of Oxford lesson plan in how to make a rip-roaring arse of an N64 game. It almost beggars belief with how badly it looks, runs and plays. It’s even more baffling that I was ever looking forward to this coming out. N64 Magazine’s legendary 8% review put paid to that thankfully, but that £1.99 copy that I bought for a laugh years later still honks out the drawer where I keep the rest of my N64 games with its sheer mankiness. No joke, I think the nearby copies of Tetrisphere and V-Rally ’99 caught head lice off it.

1~!:

 

Bubsy 3D (PlayStation, 1996) 

Quite honestly none of the Bubsy games are brilliantly made; they’re generally unfair, sloppy and annoying. Yet there was no whiff of a suggestion from Bubsy 1 or 2 that the series was capable of being this bad. Crippled by all-time worst controls and camera work and looking like I made it for a failed Computing Science school portfolio without ever knowing how to turn on a computer, Bubsy 3D is nothing short of a disgrace. I’d say is the worst game I’ve ever played.

Enjoyed reading that, although I doubt I'll have much to contribute to this thread.

I will say though, Buska and I played the revamped Carmageddon at Rezzed before it came out and my god, what a soul crushingly upsetting experience that was.

Rezzed itself was quite an inclusive and joyous occasion, with a really positive community atmosphere and I'd very much like to go again one day. There was a small section, far off to the left of one of the rooms, which indicated that it was an 18+ area. We thought we'd check it out and regretted it almost as soon as we turned the corner.

It was Carmageddon (and only Carmageddon) and it looked exactly as you might expect.

Dark, skulls everywhere, and a dozen or so unused novelty sized monitors with carmageddon blaring out of them. We each had a quick go for about 2 minutes, a terrible life choice.

The shitted bed of gaming.

I loved MK: Mythologies on PS1 and now I also know get Cappa ever for secret Santa buy ECW and MK.

My list is a tad more modern as one I can't remember every Mega Drive game I played and like with MK: Mythologies I was a dumb kid that I may have liked something shite, then I've played stuff such as the CDi Zelda games which are bad but get a laugh from them.

What an idea!  And already with some corking one-liners.  'This is the type of utter toilet that has you pressing Up and Select to use your weapons,' is probably my favourite, but the headlice line is grand too.

It's made me realise, though, that I've never properly played any games at the sheer level of rubbish as Cappa (what a haul!  Can't believe you've played Superman and Carmageddon 64 and MK Mythologies and lived to tell the tale) or Mas (more obscure shite, as befits the man himself).  I spent most of today trying to cook up my worst, and there's only one I'd give lower than a 3/10 that I've given the time of day to - and that's not even a bad game, I just hate it.  I've started some games I think are dross, including a couple of controversial choices, but even then they're not 8% bad and I generally dump them before they have a chance to redeem themselves.

So: I'll likely let a few more people post their misery first, and then limp in with my Five Worst Properly Played - as well as some dishonourables that I hated too much to carry on with.

I'll have a proper read of this later, and share some of my ideas. For now, two words: Frenchy bird.

@Muss wrote:

I will say though, Buska and I played the revamped Carmageddon at Rezzed before it came out and my god, what a soul crushingly upsetting experience that was.

Christ, I'd completed repressed that memory.

Was that revamped Carmageddon the one that eventually game out on PS4 and XBox One as Carmageddon: Max Damage? Got to be honest, I thought that was actually all right!

I'm don't know any of those games on masofdas's list, except for Cypermorph. Yeah, that's minging, a terrible game. I'd give Chasing Dead a go for myself it wasn't listed as being £24.99 though - hope you got it for free.

You can fire in with a "five worst properly played" list if you like - don't be thinking that I completed all my bottom ten! I tried playing my copies of Superman and Carmageddon last year but they're just impossible. Carmageddon is a beast of a game too, probably one of the biggest on the N64. And it's shite!

Yeah got sent a review code for Chasing Dead, I reckon I must be part of about 10 people that actually played it as it's awful, exclusives at the time & might still be to Wii U and cost £25.

Only way see away playing it if Wii U only gamer and had played all 400 odd games on system.

I commend you Cappa for putting yourself through those N64 abominations.

I'm surprised you included DOAX3 there, Mas. Isn't that a comprehensive dress-up minigame compilation, or am I being kind? I guess Yakuza includes enough sordid distractions so to as render this type of thing pointless...

I always try to buy good games so haven't experienced too many piles of bum. These are mine, and I'm only including ones I have definitely played:

10.:

 

WWF Warzone

Sure, it's probably not as bad as the ECW games but then I've not played them. I just remember Warzone being a pile of shite when it was seemingly on the end of 90% reviews. I never understood why, because it was horrible to play and the wrestlers looked like they were taking weightlifting tips from Slenderman. Compared to the methodical, chunky greatness of WCW vs NWO, Warzone (particularly on the N64) just did nothing for me. You had these obscene Street Fighter-like combo commands to try and pull off a move and the wrestlers all moved way too fast. It was as if the 1 v 1 fighting game model was applied to the wrestling genre, and because it had a slick WWF presentation and an innovative Create-A-Wrestler mode, people forgave it. WELL NO, I'm calling it out for what it is - a horrible wrestling game.

9.:

 

Red Dog


I loved the Dreamcast but there was always one game I'd end up having to avoid when buying used Dreamcast games at boot fairs. Red fucking Dog. This was a game that I did end up playing in the early 2000s and it sticks in the memory for being very bland and very empty. It was this brown and grey vehicular combat game, but just very drab. Imagine the warthog sections in Halo, for a full game but you're thrown in a cave with some awkward controls and music lifted from the tapedeck of Superhans. It was reviewed fairly well at the time, but nah, not for me.

8.:

 

Fighting Force 2


The first Fighting Force was really popular in 1997/1998, as deluded parents bought their children the next Streets of Rage. Or at least that's what it felt like, despite the combat being real sluggish in hindsight. I still loved it. But the sequel isn't just bad, it's plain stupid. The best thing about the first Fighting Force was being able to bash up bad guys with your mate, but the second game is a 1-player title that plays more like a third-person shooter. It's basically Headhunter without the snappy gunplay or the snazzy motorbike. It doesn't make ANY sense why this exists and wouldn't be surprised if it was a different project that had the Fighting Force shoehorned onto it. Do not play this trash.

7.:

 

Bullet Witch


Before Bayonetta, there was Bullet Witch. Nobody remembers Bullet Witch though, because it's a third-person action title where you strut through flat, open levels machine-gunning enemies until you inevitably tire and stick Bayonetta in. Except, in 2007 we couldn't. It's not necessarily bad - it's just so boring. There's no character, no challenge, no satisfaction, and WAY too much brown and grey. It looks like a PS2 game rather than a 360 one. If it was actually bad it would probably be more entertaining.

6.:

 

Tangled


AKA the blurriest game ever. I imagine many Disney tie-ins could fill this slot, but Tangled was a game I remember paying at least ten pounds for in CEX for my daughter. And I inevitably played it when she got stuck. Now, Tangled is probably my favourite Disney film, it's amazing. This Wii game, however, is just drivel of the highest order. Run, jump, collect coins for no reason. It had really bad loading times, dodgy motion controls and was a right faff, having to continually switch between Flynn and Rapunzel (because Flynn has a sword for attacking, whilst Rapunzel has hair to swing across gaps). You do get to hit people with a frying pan though. Someone, please mod this with Richie and Eddie from Bottom in it.

5.:

 

Basketball Nightmare


One of the first games I played, this lives long in the memory for all the wrong reasons. Technically unfair and a poor basketball title even for the time, this game made you watch a short cut scene every time you did a shot. EVERY TIME. And there's a lot of shots in this. That's once you'd spent half your day ambling across the court in a straight line, as players randomly moved about without any sort of strategy involved. I guess it was a product of its time, but boy did I used to pull my hair out playing this.

4.:

 

Roblox


Roblox is a weird one. On the one hand it's wildly popular with under 10s, with plenty to do in user-created worlds. On the other hand, it looks like it was programmed on a Shredded Wheat. The user interfaces all overlap each other and it's a game itself, trying to navigate the menus. Once you find somewhere, you potter around doing fairly menial tasks like feeding your pet or decorating your house, which is fine. But the visuals are horrifying. It makes Minecraft look like Ghost of Tsushima. Yet kids love it!

3.:

 

Horse Life


You can spend hours clearing up horse shit in this accurate depiction of Horse Life. A shameless rip-off of Nintendogs that sees you maintaining a horse - you clean it, you can ride it, and you can decorate it. That's your lot. But the worst part is it teases you with RPG elements, like characters on the ranch and competitions to enter, all drawn in a similar manner to Hotel Dusk. Hell, the music is even similar. But it's all a ruse, as you realise you're playing a real horse's arse of a game with sluggish navigation, shaky 3D graphics and what can only be described as a jazzed up Tamagotchi aimed at exploiting young girls who'll never afford a real horse.

2.:

 

WWF Road to Wrestlemania


I don't care who it offends, but GameBoy wrestling games are terrible. I had this travesty on the GBA and there's only so much you can do with a couple of buttons. You just end up punching and kicking your opponent because any sort of move is impossible to pull off. Limited by the tech, it's still a colourful title but unless you want to spend half hour kicking someone in the nads before praying you get a 3-count, you were better off returning to your PS2 or GameCube. Did they ever make a decent portable WWE game? I'd rather play 2K20 than this.

1.:

 

Peppa Pig


Actual dreck and tantamount to fraud that this sold for £40. It's just a bunch of flash games that will entertain your children for all of five minutes. A bit like the show then. But of course, I bought this as it has Peppa Pig in it and I'll admit, I've found myself watching Peppa Pig long after my daughters have left the room. But Christ, calling these "games" is pushing it. One is a dress-up tool, another has you using the Wii pointer to move bread to ducks in a pond. THESE AREN'T EVEN GAMES. It's fucking tech demos for Microsoft Paint.

I don't know much about Bullet Witch, but I remember that if you beat it at the highest difficulty it gives you 1 achievement point. That's pretty funny to be fair.

That's the problem with DOAX3, where I want DOAX with 3's graphics that really not a bad game more of a disappointing one, which could replace with the recently played Caretaker.

Reckon till Balla comes along with his worst list which is going to include likes of Sticker Star, that's not a bad 10 games.

I'm guessing this must restricted to games you paid money for so it's not just a list of flash games?

Ones you could pay money for at least, I'll be mentioning a couple I got for free.

Right, let's have a punt at this then.  I'm going to have to kick off with some disclaimers:
- I haven't played anything as bad as most of Cappa's list, or Mas', or Frenchy Bird, or 'f**king tech demos for Microsoft Paint' (that's gold GJones ).  
- I haven't played a lot of quite a few of these, so it's quite possible I'm judging them unfairly.
- This is my personal opinion and features a mix of 'worst games', 'games I personally hated', and 'crushing disappointment'.  There's a couple in here that might be controversial as a result.
- Finally, I'm heavily operating on recency bias and what I could dredge out of voting threads on here.  I'm sure there are some bobbins GBA games I played, but I can't remember them because we haven't done a GBA dishonourable mentions segment.  Please understand.

With that out of the way...

Dishonourable mention:

 

Paper Mario Sticker Star (3DS, finished)

Almost right Mas!  Truth be told though, I can't genuinely include this in my bottom 10.  It's not a bad game in and of itself, just aggressively mediocre.  That said, PMSS is my most disappointing game.  It's not just that it was got rid of edited Mario characters, or anything approaching a point to the battle system: it's that it set us up for two more games of the same.  The series was sent from the giddy heights of TTYD and the interesting experiment that was SPM into a slump from which (from what people say) it's only starting to recover, and even then with those faults still in place.  Maybe not a bad game, then, but certainly a bad precedent-setter.

Dishonourable mention:

 

Jotun: Valhalla Edition (Switch, <15m)

Here's the game I've given my lowest score to.  Back when Buska did that blinder of a post where he reviewed every Switch game he'd played, I did a weak imitation.  I was giving every game some sort of score, so this got 'Jot-one/10'.  As you'll gather from that timestamp, I'm in no position to make a fair assessment of the game.  I didn't find that the Viking tramping over what felt like the Norwegian Golden Gate Bridge, then wading slooooooowlyyyyyyyyy through a marsh hacking tree roots, was a good start to an adventure about chopping up giant terrifying bosses; or that it not making the save system clear was forgivable when it became clear I'd rage quit away all my progress.  Is Jotun worthy of a 'bottom game' position on the basis of 15 mintues' play, when I didn’t even see one of the bosses the game is all about?  I don't think so.

Dishonourable mention (NSFW maybe):

 

Stella Glow (3DS, 3-5h)

Finally, here's the only game* I'd give a 'NO' score to.  I was quite enjoying SG up until that point - a decent enough strategy-RPG-lite.  Oh sure, there were creepy bits (you could 'touch witches' hearts' to help them learn new spells, done in a room where they all wait submissively for you in tight white gowns), but coming from the same people who did the Luminous Arc games I was ready for that.  I was not ready for this.  I put the game down soon after meeting Nonoka (whose name I'm pretty sure is a pun) and washed my hands thoroughly.

* It must be said, I used an emulator to play the first part of the original 'NO' game, Doki Doki Majo Shinpan.  I hadn't a clue what was going on until the witch touching began.  It could probably find some room in this list, but I reckon I ought to stick to games I've played on proper machines and in languages I understand - even if schoolgirl-breast-prodding transcends languages in its wrongness.

10:

 

Tales of the Abyss (3DS, long enough)

This fought off a couple of other 3DS games to claim the number 10 spot, and Rum at least will be unsurprised to see this here.  While I hated the main character and the terribly voiced creature shown above, TotA makes it in here mostly for utterly wasting my time.  It takes an elongated break from a story about things slowly falling into miasma, which was pretty much how I felt playing it, to ask you to be an errand boy for what felt like hours.  Flying back and forward giving object x to person y, over a dull flat overworld in a dull flat story, almost broke me.  The 'talking heads' non-cut-scenes that are basically text boxes you can't fast-forward are the cherry on this particular shit sundae.

9:

 

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (GBA, finished)

So I said I couldn't remember the bobbins GBA games I played.  I remember this one because I finished it, despite feeling the entire time in my soul that what I was playing was tripe.  And tripe it was: it might not look quite as bad in motion as it does in that picture, but the rubbish character designs, dubious levels, poor pacing, and absolute waste of what was a brilliant idea (tilt the world!  Genius!  You could only tilt it 15º each way and for that the game could have used the shoulder buttons) shone through like nuclear waste shining into your liver.  I only stuck with it at age 15 because it starred my beloved Yoshi: now I realise that by buying it, I was partly responsible for starting his fall into game score oblivion.

8:

 

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (DS, finished)

Controversial game number 1 perhaps.  Much like TotA, I abhor GSDD for boring me to absolute tears.  It had a grim story with no real ending, landing on a truly unsatisfying cliffhanger.  It had a party that, by the end, felt desperately like it was making up the numbers - leading to moments of unintentional comedy when all eight would have to react to every bit of news.  It had a battle system that, even with this being my first encounter with its Djinn, felt like it added nothing new to RPG battling.  It had an excruciating random battle frequency.  It wasn't all bad, since the game was quite pretty and it had a decently innovative zodiac-themed dungeon; but what was bad was bad enough.

NB: When Moyles did his excellent DS voting thread, I said that Solatorobo: Red the Hunter was my least favourite DS game.  Over time I've almost entirely forgotten about Solatorobo, while GSDD, which I slogged all the way through for no payoff at the end, stinks away in my mind.  Still, big thanks to Jay for preserving my hatred.

7:

 

The Emperor's New Groove (Game Boy Colour, 15-30m)

This was my sister's.  She went through a period of loving the film.  That love did not extend to this mess of a game - unlike Yoshi, Kuzco actually looks worse in motion.  The level after this, where the best enemies are hands waving brooms at you, was a gloomy jungle that was almost impossible to make out on the screen.  The game was surprisingly hard too, relying on aiming Kuzco's spit arc to trigger switches and relying on Kuzco's lousy jump to dump you unceremoniously into the water.  Could easily be lower down this list, but fortunately I didn't play much of it.

6:

 

Major Minor's Majestic March (Wii, 10-20m)

PHWOAR WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE VISUALS ON THAT  

It's a measure of the gulf between my worst game and Cappa's that a game he gave me, placing a decent way into my list, didn't make his.  I've dumped on this once before and, while I was definitely trying too hard to be funny (that fourth paragraph ), I'd hope it's still worth reading for the last line alone.  Still one of the best punchlines I've done, sadly.

5:

 

Picross S (Switch, 15-30m)

While it may not be bad per se, Picross S shows a degree of laziness that would make the executive behind the FIFA Legacy Editions blush.  After playing a Picross E or two on the Wii U, my excitement for the first Picross game on Switch drained out of my bottom when I realised that Jupiter had put in absolutely no effort.  A bunch of picross puzzles where the solution is the only reward, a bunch of Mega Picross puzzles with the exact same set of solutions, and an art team that probably painted every room in their house beige, so interesting is the presentation.  After the first few puzzles numbed my brain, I skipped straight to the last one and solved it with no problems, then deleted Picross S off my Switch and haven't looked at the series since.

4:

 

The Humans (Game Boy, 15-30m)

Slow, shoddy strategy I was given at a young age because I liked dinosaurs and my parents knew nothing about games.  Slowly send one human to stand with his arms up at the bottom of a small step; slowly send the next human all the way from the start of the level to the step, climbing up the first human, until you reach a second step; do this two more times; smash head into Game Boy; go to hospital with concussion; have a better time than you did playing The Humans.  Even at age 6 or whatever I knew better than to spend too long on this crap.  Also: apparently offensive by today's standards, both to native Americans and to grammar.

3:

 

1-2-Switch (Switch, ~1h)

Controversial game number 2 perhaps.  Yes the marbles game was absolute magic, and yes Jay shooting himself in the foot was great, and yes it's some fun with friends and booze.  I still think it's a terrible game!  For starters it's a party game that only two people can play at once, which is a shocking idea - and I think it does need to be played at a party, with alcohol, otherwise the sheer cringe of the pre-recorded videos gets to you.  Then there's the highly variable quality of the games themselves.  For every marbles there seem to be several shiters, like the game where you whack a joy-con against your chest to be a gorilla, or that godawful clown one.  Finally, there's the fact that it wasn't a pack-in - in fact it's still going for £40!  £10 would have been overegging the rather rancid pudding.

2:

 

UnEpic (Wii U, 1-2h)

There's nothing worse than an unfunny game that thinks it's funny - apart from the next game in my list, apparently.  UnEpic leads off with a group of stereotypical overweight lisping nerds playing D&D, into which the 'hero' is sucked, there to make stoner jokes and uncomfortable comments about having sex 'for free' until he blunders into a trap and dies horribly.  The dialogue was dreadful, the visuals were shocking, the controls were dubious, and then I got to a bit where you had to be really patient and careful to avoid triggering about twenty traps in a row.  And it's downloadable, so you can't even use the cart/disc to shovel crap.  Officially worse than Brunswick Pro Bowling.

1:

 

Alphadia Genesis (Wii U, ~2h)

On another day UnEpic could have got this slot - but I had to read the Wii U vote thread to be reminded that it existed, whereas this is scarred into my memory forever.  Dubious credit, then, must go to Mas, who provided me with the code for my worst game of all time (that I can remember).  Even at the back end of my list of ten, I can't say this is irredeemable, or broken (apart from the bit where the item sound jingle plays over and clashes with the soundtrack): just that it's horribly generic, horribly low-effort, horrible written, has horribly clashing visual styles, and in general is pretty horrible.  I reviewed it for Gintendo, and my pun in the url (I always like to do one of those) sums it up.  Also: it's horrible, like the game.

Oh my goodness me, having missed a week, this was a joy to read through, everyone! I am concerned about how much money some of those games would have cost though.

I haven't worked out mine yet, but I know what I'm doing this evening! That's right, talking about playing games instead of actually playing them, in the very little spare time I have in my life. Although a lot of my bottom 10 will be ancient games that no-one will have heard of.

@masofdas wrote:

This is a PS4/VITA game called Little Adventure on the Prairie and if Jimbob made it I'd be disappointed in him at least it's an easy platinum

Hey what the f


EDIT: I got as far as starting my new top/bottom list; as I've taken it too seriously, I need to sort everything again. If backloggery is correct, I've played 751 games in my life.

I'm happy* to say that Vroom in the night sky has skittered straight to the top/bottom of my list! I feel a liiiiiiiittle bad about it, because Alphadia Genesis felt lazy as all heck and I enjoyed dumping on it substantially more, but VitNS was just so tremendously bad.

Also: I'm going to give Jimbob a second nudge in as many bad games-related threads, because I'm still really eager to see what he has to say about his worst games. That's the trouble with being an entertaining writer: people want to read your writing!

I'm slowly sorting it out. I need to re-organise a spreadsheet that's 750 rows long. And a lot of the bottom ones are currently "doesn't really qualify as a game, but was made in 1985 and cost £1.99" so I hope that changes.