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List of video games considered the worst ever

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Games are considered to be "the worst ever" for various reasons, including exceptionally poor graphics or music, a clichéd or stereotypical premise and storyline, a poor user interface, or what is perceived to be poor gameplay. More generally, and despite the natural differences in players tastes and tolerances, a game attracting the "worst game ever" comment is usually failing in being enjoyable'' for most players.

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.

Criticism of the concept

The concept of "worst video games ever" is somewhat controversial because, unlike films, music or other forms of art and intellectual work, there is no widely accepted and accredited institution or individuals specifically trained for judging video games. There are usually few professionally employed critics, estimators, study institutes, or similar entities and no universally accepted and systematic video game reviewing method.

Most reviews of a specific game, even those by specialized magazines or websites, are done by people who are not, in any way, officially recognized video game critics, as such a professional qualification does not yet exist, and there is a non-trivial component of personal views, bias or mere inexperience or ignorance in many games reviews. Nevertheless, those reviews are usually accepted by the gaming community as guidelines, and have the power of affecting the sales or just the fame of a game.

Some games have a well-documented failure or success history, including traditional media coverage (such as the case of many failed Atari 2600 titles), while the fates of lesser or more obscure titles usually lay in the hands of a few reviewers, or even a single reviewer.

Categories of \"worst ever\" games

Any game which, at least once in its existence, has been considered as being "the worst ever" or merely a "bad" game, usually falls under a precise category of reasons that made it gain such a reputation.

Purely technical criteria

Technical criteria such as graphics and sound are the most variable with the passing of time and evolution of technology, as they are strongly tied to the game system's hardware or just to the trend of a particular review time, and are particularly restrictive for what regards commercial games. For example, a 2006 game using NES-quality graphics or an older 3D graphic engine (e.g. Quake's) is very likely going to be labelled as poor for its time by most reviewers, putting it on par with an Atari 2600 title, as is a game using mostly 2D graphics. However, there are some important exceptions to this rule, like manager games (eg. Eastside Hockey Manager) where numbers are more important than graphics, certain tactically accurate wargames where symbols are used instead of graphical units or roguelikes which usually sport ASCII or minimal tile based graphics (although such games tend to be of independent, freeware, shareware or public domain origin rather than being mainstream, especially after the mid 1990s). Games for handheld systems such as the Nintendo DS are held to a lesser standard as these units entail a trade of technical capability for necessary traits such as significantly reduced physical size and power consumption, although 3D graphics and thousands (or millions) of colors have become commonplace even on portable systems after the year 2000.

Genre and platform criteria

Some game genres fade in and out of popularity, or are not particularly welcome by reviewers on a particular gaming system. For example, 2D shooters or platform games are considered as "out of fashion", at least regarding the gaming industry and the latest gaming hardware, and thus any such new release by a major manufacturer, even in some cases for a modern handheld system, would probably bias most professional reviewers negatively merely on the basis of being a 2D shooter or platform game. Similarly, PC ports of games or genres considered more appropriate to game consoles often receive negative reviews, and most reviewers consider good console ports to be the exception rather than the rule.

Non-technical design and concept criteria

There are also a class of games that, while not technically challenged or deficient, were ridiculed for a secondary feature or concept in their design, such as being too unoriginal, too bizarre or simply incomprehensible. These games were effectively condemned to the "worst games ever" class without really being unplayable or flawed.

\"Obscure\" games

A significant number of video games fall into the "obscure" category. These are games that never attracted much attention at the time of their appearance, and very often resurfaced because of the "attentions" of mostly cynical or humourous reviews, especially of emulated console or arcade games.

Usually, this kind of "worst ever" game has no real technical flaws, but rather is unoriginal, has unappealing gameplay, or simply was "obscure" in the sense of "rare."

Interest among players

Not all games receiving the "worst game ever" title were commercial failures or clamorous flops, and with the evolution of the Internet, emulators, and the relative ease of finding playable versions of these games online, many of these "worst games ever" received unprecedented levels of attention by players and collectors, not unlike the way some films fans are interested in what are considered to be The worst films ever by the "So bad they're good" principle, meaning they are so terrible, it is humorous.

List of specific video games considered to be the worst ever

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Cheetahmen
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Cheetahmen

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Screenshot of Gods and Generals.
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Screenshot of Gods and Generals.

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Screenshot of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man.
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Screenshot of the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man.

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Screenshot of the SNES version of Revolution X.
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Screenshot of the SNES version of Revolution X.

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Screenshot of Thundra.
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Screenshot of Thundra.

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See also

References

External links

 


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