Worst Games You have ever played (in your opinion)

[Alabenson]

If I had to pick the single worst game I ever played it would probably be Batman Forever for the SNES.

[oxybe]

Decent platformer for the first half of the game, the SNES Jungle Book game then decides to throw the longest freaking auto-scroll level.

As a kid, I could go "alright, some of these levels are weirdly laid out but I could take my time and do them." Even had a decent boss fight VS Kaa the snake.

Not this long as heck autoscroll. frustrated the heck out of me and just chewed through lives/continues, and the end is punctuated by a save point and bossfight... with some deathpit platforming between the two.

[Kaptin Keen]

I just bought Rise of the Tomb Raider - and I already hate it with fiery intensity. It's a game of cutscenes interrupted by crafting, or vise versa if you like, and neither thing appeals to me. On the rare occasion I get to play an actual game, it's ... sort of halfway decent.

God I hate crafting.

And cutscenes.

[warty goblin]

I just bought Rise of the Tomb Raider - and I already hate it with fiery intensity. It's a game of cutscenes interrupted by crafting, or vise versa if you like, and neither thing appeals to me. On the rare occasion I get to play an actual game, it's ... sort of halfway decent.

God I hate crafting.

And cutscenes.

The crafting gets to be much less of a thing pretty quickly. Not so much the cutscene though. But why would you buy a Tomb Raider game if you hate cutscene? TR games have had lots of them since like Legend, and the reboot trilogy's chockablock with 'em.

[Kaptin Keen]

The crafting gets to be much less of a thing pretty quickly. Not so much the cutscene though. But why would you buy a Tomb Raider game if you hate cutscene? TR games have had lots of them since like Legend, and the reboot trilogy's chockablock with 'em.

Why? Well ... it was cheap, and I liked the first game in the reboot despite the too many cutscenes. And it was very well rated. And I was bored.

But let's be honest - it's not like I went out of my way to buy a TR game, knowing full well it would be a hot cocktail of things I loathe beyond comprehension. More, I was hoping it wouldn't be too bad, but I got schooled =)

[Toric]

If I had to pick the single worst game I ever played it would probably be Batman Forever for the SNES.

I'm gonna have to argue with you there, the combat was really


HOLD ON



Seriously I totally agree with you. Apparently the game's engine was originally used for Mortal Kombat. And it was as much a platformer as it

HOLD ON


was a fighter. I hated that I needed to perform the equivalent of a Shoryuken every time I wanted to use a grappling hook. In a place where a wrong

HOLD ON


move could send you to your death.

Oh and the loading screens were annoying too, especially rare to see on the SNES.

[Hagashager]

One of the worst games I ever played was NARC (2005). I sdmit, I had a morbidly good time with it. NARC is a truly *truly* horrid game but it was not without its share of mindless fun. I equate my time with NARC to eating the most unsatisfying junkfood imagineable.

There was also Two Worlds, but I think TW actually has some redeeming qualities that make it genuinely fun if not very rough.

A game I adored as a child but find absolutely attrocuous now is Sonic Adventure. Even as a game marketed for children that game feels insulting and shoddily developed. Even for its time I think there were better looking games in 1999, which seems to be SA's most fondly remembered quality.

[factotum]

There was also Two Worlds, but I think TW actually has some redeeming qualities that make it genuinely fun if not very rough.

If nothing else, the voice acting in that game is a laugh a minute! The confusingly-named Two Worlds 2 is actually a somewhat better game overall, though.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I'm going to nominate Heroes of Might and Magic V, mostly because I loved the whole series up to then but V was tedious and soulless. Even on its own terms it sucked, its interminable cutscenes combining jjuvenile writing with middle-school-level artwork.

This SO much. Ubisoft ripped out everything good about that series.

[halfeye]

If nothing else, the voice acting in that game is a laugh a minute! The confusingly-named Two Worlds 2 is actually a somewhat better game overall, though.

Two Worlds 2 is one of the two games I know of where you couldn't die (the other being a Tolkein based travesty, I forget the name)?

[noob]

This SO much. Ubisoft ripped out everything good about that series.

Well depending on how you see the things heroes 4 was possibly worse in multiplayer due to things like horrid balance and how everything is done by heroes (it is not weird to have 3+ heroes in a single doom stack and some castles had units way better than the other castles(life and order had overpowered units))
Unskippable cutscenes however are an horrific thing from nightmares (if they are skippable you can just ignore how bad they are by skipping).

[factotum]

Well depending on how you see the things heroes 4 was possibly worse in multiplayer due to things like horrid balance and how everything is done by heroes

Actually, that tended to cause issues in single player as well. Problem is, if you had an enemy stack with the chance to kill a unit outright (e.g. medusas) they could potentially use that ability against your hero, no matter how high their level and how tough they were--and since there were single player missions you would instantly fail if your main hero died, well, you can see the problem! Somebody at NWC really didn't think that one through. Other than that, though, I actually liked having your hero be another unit on the field--it was a nice change to the gameplay that might otherwise have been a bit stale after three iterations of the same thing.

[noob]

Actually, that tended to cause issues in single player as well. Problem is, if you had an enemy stack with the chance to kill a unit outright (e.g. medusas) they could potentially use that ability against your hero, no matter how high their level and how tough they were--and since there were single player missions you would instantly fail if your main hero died, well, you can see the problem! Somebody at NWC really didn't think that one through. Other than that, though, I actually liked having your hero be another unit on the field--it was a nice change to the gameplay that might otherwise have been a bit stale after three iterations of the same thing.

Does it ignore the effect of the immortality potion(one extra live)?
When I played heroes 4 I used tons of those.
(but in the campaign you probably do not always have access to immortality potions)

[veti]

Actually, that tended to cause issues in single player as well. Problem is, if you had an enemy stack with the chance to kill a unit outright (e.g. medusas) they could potentially use that ability against your hero, no matter how high their level and how tough they were.

In practice the only heroes who could solo their way through the map were barbarians, who could soon be kitted out with 100% magic resistance, then let the medusas do their worst. Until then, just don't try to solo medusas.

[Bohandas]

*Dragonshard
*Master of Orion 3 (actually unplayable. The game basically just ignored my commands and did its own thing)
*Devil May Cry 2
*all the popular D&D videogames (Bladur's Gate, Planescape Torment, etc)
*Half-Life 2 (basically just a crummy infomercial for the source engine; one gimmicky gun does not make up for the plot and gameplay being vastly inferior to the first installment)
*Dead Space and any other game with an over-the-shoulder camera
*McPixel
*anything with permadeath
*anything with limitations on saves
*anything that charges a subscription fee
*anything with microtransactions
*the fourth and fifth levels of Destroy All Humans 2
*the second or third or fourth (I forget which) level of Ratchet and Clank 2. There's one level that's really really badly programmed and causes me to put the game aside for a month every time I try to replay it
*all rhythm games
*Fallout I and II get a mention for their bad interface and for the fact that they somehow run slow even on the computer I have now

EDIT:
SimCity Societies gets an honorable mention because, while I actually love the game, something about it makes me feel physically ill and emotionally drained after playing it for a couple of hours. The game doesn't have any flashing lights, and it doesn't have any visuals that would induce vertigo, but somehow playing it for more than a couple hours at a time leaves me vagguely depressed and feeling as if my brain has been removed and replaced with a crumpled up sweater. It actually reminds me a bit of the Polybius game urban legend

[Yora]

Bohandas hates everything.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Well depending on how you see the things heroes 4 was possibly worse in multiplayer due to things like horrid balance and how everything is done by heroes (it is not weird to have 3+ heroes in a single doom stack and some castles had units way better than the other castles(life and order had overpowered units))
Unskippable cutscenes however are an horrific thing from nightmares (if they are skippable you can just ignore how bad they are by skipping).

I don’t see it that way. (I will note that I never did the multiplayer aspect, so I don’t know or care about any issues there.) Heroes IV was different from the rest of the series, but it was still quite playable, and the vanilla game at least had interesting characters and story.

Heroes V was not. It had much higher computer spec requirements in a series that could traditionally be run on very low-end machines. For me at least, it crashed constantly; Heroes IV did not. Ubisoft got rid of interesting lore, story and characters in favor of bland, stupid and generic ones. They removed most of the variety of interesting monster in the towns in favor of ten flavors of dragon and a bunch of women wearing nothing but belts and high heels. The so-special 3D town view was a nightmare to navigate around compared to the nice, efficient single-screen view of every previous game including Heroes IV. The characters were stupid and unlikeable, and they did stupid things just so Ubi could set up the plot of Dark Messiah. The AI would cheat very obviously right up until the player started winning and then completely give up, also very obviously, there was no happy middle ground where the fights were interesting. And yes, the cutscenes were juvenile, bewildering messes of badly-placed animation, but that wasn’t anywhere near the game’s worst or only problem. Heroes V had no saving factors whatsoever.

[Winthur]

Ubisoft got rid of interesting lore, story and characters in favor of bland, stupid and generic ones.

Spoiler: huh

Show

[Brookshw]

Bohandas hates everything.

Clearly, though I'll give him dragonshard.

For myself, I'll add Xenosaga 2, the first disc took about 6 hours, 5 of which were cutscenes. I don't recall if the gameplay itself was any good, because there was barely any of it.

[Hunter Noventa]

Clearly, though I'll give him dragonshard.

For myself, I'll add Xenosaga 2, the first disc took about 6 hours, 5 of which were cutscenes. I don't recall if the gameplay itself was any good, because there was barely any of it.

It really wasn't. The actual battle mechanics were boring and relied on trial and error, and it took a solid two seconds to load each model into the battle. One at a time.

But if you played Xenosaga 1, you really should have expected the sheer quantity of cutscenes.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Spoiler: huh

Show

If you're trying to tell me that Spazz Maticus is somehow dumber than Isabel, then you're going to have to do more than quote a picture.

[BeerMug Paladin]

SimCity Societies gets an honorable mention because, while I actually love the game, something about it makes me feel physically ill and emotionally drained after playing it for a couple of hours. The game doesn't have any flashing lights, and it doesn't have any visuals that would induce vertigo, but somehow playing it for more than a couple hours at a time leaves me vagguely depressed and feeling as if my brain has been removed and replaced with a crumpled up sweater. It actually reminds me a bit of the Polybius game urban legend

Other than the emotional draining I have this reaction to Doom, Doom 2 and even years later, Doom 64. I've played other, similar titles before like Heretic or ROT and neither one has prompted that reaction in me, and no other games (even the weird-3d era of the original Playstation) has given me this same reaction. I don't experience motion sickness in general, even from reading in moving cars.

It's a weird experience, to be sure.

[danzibr]

Clearly, though I'll give him dragonshard.

For myself, I'll add Xenosaga 2, the first disc took about 6 hours, 5 of which were cutscenes. I don't recall if the gameplay itself was any good, because there was barely any of it.

It really wasn't. The actual battle mechanics were boring and relied on trial and error, and it took a solid two seconds to load each model into the battle. One at a time.

But if you played Xenosaga 1, you really should have expected the sheer quantity of cutscenes.

Worst game in the xeno series by far. They botched the gear/E.S. mechanics so bad.

[taha16]

In my opinion Devastation is the worst game i have played.

[Hunter Noventa]

Worst game in the xeno series by far. They botched the gear/E.S. mechanics so bad.

Agreed. XS3 was the best of that trilogy. Apparently a remaster of the whole thing was briefly on the table, but Namco Bandai said 'too expensive and too niche' so we'll never see it done.

[Toric]

Speaking of "games released incomplete" in the Old Game Trends thread, I've played McKids for the NES. McKids the McDonald's advertisement disguised as a platformer.

More importantly, I've played McKids up to the point where you need to ride a moving platform through a pool of lava to progress. In a game that has no invincibility or Varia Suit powerup. Which renders the game unbeatable by legitimate means.