I have had the displeasure of playing the two worst video game of all time. E.T. The Extra-Terestrial and Custers Revenge. Both were Atari games released in 1982.
7-yo me hated the original Ghostbusters game on NES. So much so that I devised a plan to get my birthday money back.
Toys R Us would only refund unopened games, but you could get an even exchange if a game was ‘defective’. So I made up some mumbo jumbo about how something didn’t work in the game, and my mom got it swapped for me (she was nervous for some reason). Took the unopened game to a different Toys R Us location and got my money back. I felt like a criminal mastermind.
I can’t really remember what I didn’t like about the game…probably I had a certain expectation as a big Ghostbusters fan that no NES game could meet.
Monopoly. Tragically boring.
Naughty Bear. At the time I expected to be a funny, dark humor game. Unfortunately it was almost unplayable. I remember multiple times being unable to advance because the game just broke. I didn’t suffer through it very long
I have a copy still and was thinking of firing up the ps3 to give the full flashback experience
I couldn’t find it so I drew myself holding the game in lieu. If I find the game I’ll make an update (which now I need to go find it because I know I have it)
Ok, so I was like “I bet it’s with the ps3” but I already drew the picture so here’s the photo:
I rented Superman 64 at Blockbuster once.
Don’t reccomend.
Much broken.
Such bugs.
Wow.
I owned it. Still do. I was a foolish child who liked Superman. Still do!
The most insulting part was using GameShark to level skip and realizing the rest of the game wasn’t much fun (or finished) either.
They could have done so much better by removing the timed rings thing and just let you fly around a mostly empty city, blowing up Lex’s robots or something. It would at least have felt Superman-esque lol.
If you enjoy going in depth, there’s a podcast called How Did This Get Played that is now called “Get Played” because they couldn’t bear subjecting themselves to these misfortunately made games for too long. But the early many episodes were chock-full of titles.
I have played many, many games. I remember some of the best. I forget the others. Why would I remember the worst?
When I was in elementary school one of my classrooms had Stratego among the board games meant for bad weather days or waiting after school.
I had previously played Stratego and liked it, but every single other kid in this classroom read that the ‘Spy’ piece could kill the ‘General’ (the most powerful) piece and concluded that the ‘Spy’ could therefore kill any piece on the board. I was shouted down by everyone for pointing out the actual wording of the rules and that a ‘Spy’ is called that because it’s obviously supposed to be a sneaky piece.
Nobody agreed and just played the game with the ‘Spy’ as a rampaging super piece killing everything. That was pretty miserable.
Stratego is a great game I’d completely forgotten about. Using your sappers to defuse bombs
Also an infuriating game
We like to play it with random piece setup so everyone doesnt just stick the flag in the corner surrounded by bombs. Its way funnier when its random.
Space Station 13 is simulteanously the worst and best game I have played depending on the station you choose. I’ve been one a shift where we fought back every monstrosity thrown at us with ease. I’ve also been on a shift where I am the only medical crew and the capitan is a traitor and why is the ship already on fire its been 10 minutes?
Deep-cut but does anyone remember a game called like “the emo game” or something. It was browser based, would’ve been out around the 2010s. Super dark edgelord humour. I’m certain it was fucking terrible but I played through it all. I think about it from time to time but have never found it again.
Holy shit! I remember that game and playing the hell out of it because I could be Omar Rodriguez-Lopez from At The Drive-In/Mars Volta. I wonder if you can still find that anywhere.
Snakes and Ladders is the only game bad enough to avoid that I’ve nevertheless been obliged to play repeatedly.
Candy land is worse. There are deck orders that make the game unwinnable.
I bought Sonic 2006 when it came out. It was my first experience with a truly terrible, broken game. I’d played things that weren’t up my alley or were subpar somehow, but that was the first time I was truly blown away by how bad a game could be.
For me, I was most disappointed in Turning Point: Fall of Liberty. The premise was fascinating and I looked forward to it. They put out a demo on PS3 and it seemed okay. The launch game was worse than the demo. Just garbage. I finally actually played the entire game like 15 years later. It was very interesting and worth a lazy play, but not a very good game.
Otherwise, bad games to me are ones that are just endlessly difficult and frustrating.
Space Ace on the 3DO.
Nobody should answer “Monopoly” because it’s intended to be un-fun, as an object lesson in why monopolies are bad.
Monopoly is not intended to be un-fun, it’s intended to be unfair, which is different. People find it un-fun because they changed the rules to make it less unfair, but if you play the game by the rules it’s not bad, but the winner gets picked at random very early in the game, and there’s nothing you can do about it, which would be bad for a long game, but Monopoly is meant to be very short if you play by the rules.
Also, no one actually plays it by the rules in the rulebook, which would dramatically shorten the game.
Appropriately, the “house rules” that keep the game going longer and make it “more fair” is actually just socialism
I used to play it that way on an old Mac that came with monopoly, and it was really fun. I loved the auctions.