We’re halfway to the end. Beware: The games you’ve seen up until now were a walk in the park compared to these. What follows is pure, untamed garbage. Weapons-grade crap. Steel yourself.
25. Wall Street Kid (NES)
Just read my review. Wall Street Kid manages to take the small sliver of goodness found in investing fake money, rip its heart out, and stamp it on the ground, just like the kid’s in-game girlfriend who only loves you if you buy her a house and a car. For no apparent reason, the game starts on April Fools’ Day, but you’re a fool for buying this trash regardless of what the calendar says. It’s just awful.
—Mark Freedman
24. Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 (Xbox 360)
This game can be played with one hand. The other hand can either be used to pleasure yourself, or it can be used to repeatedly punch yourself in the face. The latter is preferred.
Breast physics and skimpy outfits, terrible unplayable minigames, and a game of poker that doesn’t operate like actual poker (not like I know how to play poker anyway). Do these elements form together to make a game? Do they fuck.
—Matt Jonas
On the Other Hand…
I’m mostly going off of Matt Jonas’ review, which cited casual gamers’ disinterest in breasts as a primary strike against the game. I feel it’s unfair to judge a game by its audience, so I took it upon myself to do excessive extensive research of screenshots and gameplay footage before casting my vote.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, when you’re sifting through a thoroughly unredeemable pile of filth to determine which 50 games are most deserving of a New Mexico landfill, things like an absurd storyline, grating voice acting, profoundly flawed gameplay, and the blatant objectification of women are secondary when there’s just so much titillating eye-candy. We can still watch these absolutely terrible games without playing them, so it makes sense to offer a little amnesty to the better-looking games with the sexy, sexy slot machines.
I mean, c’mon, Wall Street Kid doesn’t have a casino that pretty.
—Nathaniel Hoover
23. Yaris (XBLA)
An on-rails shooter with sloppy aiming centered around a flying Toyota Yaris somehow results in an absolute mess that isn’t even remotely playable. The game doesn’t make any sense! What are you supposed to do in it? Why does it feel like you’re piloting a penguin on ice?
—Matt Jonas
22. Fatal Labyrinth (Genesis)
Complicated controls. Confusing interface and inventory system. Enemies that just won’t die. I had to play this game to get an Achievement in Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, and I haven’t touched it since. It wasn’t even designed for the Genesis originally; the SegaNet modem wasn’t exactly known for “great” games.
—Matt Jonas
21. Space Quest: The Lost Chapter (PC)
Whoa, how did this fan-made adventure game make it to the list?
This game that’s totally unknown to all but the diehards in the Space Quest fan community, and the chosen few who’ve read my GameFAQs review?
The game with a text-parser interface that doesn’t recognize words?
The game that’s dominated by unnecessarily huge, dreadfully bland, confusingly repetitive, and excessively swimming-intensive locations?
The game with the giant squid maze that—OH WAIT. THE SQUID MAZE. PRETTY SURE YOU SHOULD AVOID ANY GAME THAT MAKES YOU NAVIGATE A MAZE OF TOUCH-ME-YOU-DIE TENTACLES THAT BORDER AND BLOCK YOUR VIEW OF THE THREE-PIXELS-WIDE PATH STRETCHING ACROSS THE ENTIRE SCREEN THAT YOU MUST SWIM THROUGH TO PICK UP A STUPID BONE THAT’S NOT EVEN AN ITEM YOU OBVIOUSLY NEED, AND THEN SWIM BACK OUT THE WAY YOU CAME IN.
Also, there’s a bunch of grammar errors.
—Nathaniel Hoover
20. Rocky and Bullwinkle Adventures (NES)
All you really have to do is look at the game and you’ll know why it made this list. A five-year-old could’ve scribbled this together. I know the animation from the actual animated series was never superior in any way to…well, anything; but this looks like one of the lowest-budget, gotta-get-it-done-in-two-days-or-the-boss-will-probe-me kinds of games. And what kind of a game forces you to hurt yourself when you attack? That’s exactly what happens when you use your antlers to charge as Bullwinkle: your health decreases. Rocky can only barely fly, too; wasn’t he supposed to be a FLYING squirrel? Yeah, way NOT to fly. The music is terrible, as well, causing eardrums to shatter across the nation. Quality assurance at THQ must’ve consisted of a man picking up the cartridge, looking at it, and saying, “Yup, it’s a cartridge, dagnabbit!” before applying the stamp of approval.
—Jeff Day
19. Timecop (SNES)
You can tell I’m the most qualified person on staff to discuss Timecop, because I watched five minutes of some guy playing it on YouTube.
The graphics look like a digitized cardboard cutout festival, and the levels seem to consist of you getting shot in the face and falling down three stories just to get shot in the face again. Ammo for your gun appears to be about as plentiful as ham sandwiches at a Bar Mitzvah, and the only other way to kill all three of the different enemies in the game is to do pilates until one of them trips over your foot. It’s like a poor man’s Batman Forever, and that’s a statement that makes puppies cry.
—Nathaniel Hoover
18. Two Worlds (Xbox 360)
There are many emotions that I like to experience whilst gaming—excitement, fear, happiness, slight arousal—but the only thing I felt when playing Two Worlds was embarrassment. I was embarrassed for this game, to the point where I was struggling to look it in the eye. For starters, all the characters look the same (like the malformed survivors of a nuclear holocaust), yet strangely, every villager talks with a different accent. And I don’t mean like one talks with a southern English accent whilst the next is a bit more northern; I mean that the local farmer sounds like a Scottish fisherman whilst his daughter sounds like she’s from Texas. Finally, let’s talk about the voice acting…Sloth from The Goonies could do a better job. Now get out of my house and don’t come back until you’re better than Skyrim.
—Jillian Dingwall
I thought Samurai Showdown Sen was cool. And DOAX2 is fun. #1 should have been every iphone game.
I think you guys were spot on. But where’s quest 64?
@rizziman: Right?!
Fun Facts:
-Quest 64 was nominated (I think I nominated it in your honor, Paul) but nobody ended up voting for or against its inclusion on the list.
-The top 3 games that were nominated that the most people voted AGAINST being included were Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario Sunshine.
-Games that were juuuust barely edged out for #50 and were bumped off the list were Mighty Bomb Jack and Mega Man Xtreme 2
Oh, and thanks to Kate Jay, who did help with the list but wasn’t able to write anything about the games on the final list because she has good taste and hasn’t played any of them.
It figures that the two games at the bottom of my list would juuuust barely get edged out. But hey, this was fun. And I’m so glad Michael pointed out the “Don’t take most damage” code for TMNT–that always baffled the heck out of me.
The E.T. game was so bad that I ended with two copies of the game with me. I don’t know who forgot his game in my house, but he didn’t seem to miss it.
I think I have like 6 copies of E.T. Whenever anybody sells Atari games in bulk you can rest assured at least one copy of that game will be shoved in the pile.
I hate exaggerating all the time because people tend to think that I’m joking about DOAX2 or Samurai Shodown Sen.
They really, REALLY are as bad as I say they are. Sure, they look fun. But they’re not. Just. Plain. NOT.
I can vouch for Matt. I bought the game for $8 new because, hell, $8 game, it’s gotta have something worth that price.
It doesn’t. The volleyball sucks, the casino games suck, the mini games suck and if I want porn I have internet access so I have a veritable pornucopia at my fingertips and don’t need a boobie-zoom cam in my videogames.
Never played any of these, thank god. Don’t think you missed any though, I’ve never had the misfortune to start playing a game, then put it down and say, “this is crap.” oh, except for once…
Worst game I’ve played is probably Santa Claus 3 for the Gameboy advance…you know, like the Tim Allen movies? I don’t think I ever beat it…then again, I was like 8. I had a short attention span.
“Athena” on the list? 🙁
Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine aren’t bad games and neither is Metroid other M, they’re just dissapointments compared to the others in the series. There was no way Wind Waker could top the masterpiece that is Ocarina of time, the best thing it could do is appear to be a step down from it. Thing is most fans think it’s a step too many.
Windwaker was, in my opinion a masterpiece. And the cartoony graphics, as disappointing as they were at the time, have aged extremely well, keeping the re “sail” value high. The abortions you listed here guys all should be on here. However I will say that bible adventures isnt all that bad. It’s really funny actually and plays ok. Buy designer shoes cheap. I’m kidding guys.
@Frank I agree about Windwaker. I was totally not on board with the art style at first but I played it and it won me over and, as you said, that style has aged pretty well. And, outside of the frequent boat trips, it was a really fun installment in the Zelda series, from what I remember.
Quest 64 certainly sucked, but it’s not a high caliber of suck.
I love me some Windwaker. I feel bad for not voting for (against?) Ethnic Cleansing now, but I had never even heard of it.
THANK YOU! Wow, not only did you answer my question in the podcast you later made an entire colum out of it. This really means a lot, thanks guys!
@Christian: Who nominated Yoshi’s Island?! That was on my short list for the BEST games list!
Also, I’m a little surprised that Apollo Justice didn’t make the list out of spite.
Again, Apollo Justice was bad compared to the other games in the series. I got it for Xmas and I already beat it. It’s super easy, and the story is a little lacking, but it has it’s moments! Like during case 1 when Phoenix objected and the music from the first game started playing, that made my day! The graphics and gameplay is awesome, the ending is satisfying as hell, and the new puzzles are actually fun to do! I just wish Ema would just shut up and let me work. Other than that, it’s an awesome game!
I don’t know who made what nominations, for the most part. All nominees were brainstormed and entered onto a google document more or less anonymously.
Apollo Justice and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth were both nominated, but they were voted out of the list. As was your favorite indie gem, Try Not To Fart.
I know which games I nominated, because they were all back-to-back on the nominees list. My friends came up with about half of my nominees.
72. Metroid: Other M (Wii)
73. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (GCN)
74. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS)
75. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth (DS)
76. Escape from Monkey Island (PS2)
77. Santa Claus Saves the World (GBA)
78. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
79. Athena (NES)
80. Final Fantasy IX (PS)
81. Final Fantasy XI (PS2)
82. Final Fantasy XII (PS2)
83. Final Fantasy XIII (Xbox 360)
84. Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)
85. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town for Girls (GBA)
86. Donkey Konga (GCN)
87. Wii Music (Wii)
88. Lego Indiana Jones 2 (Wii)
89. Lego Batman (Wii)
90. The Urbz: Sims in the City (PS2, GCN, Xbox)
91. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)
92. Rocky and Bullwinkle Adventures (NES)
100. Try Not to Fart (Xbox Live)
101. Halo 3 (Xbox 360)
102. Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion (GBA)
The games that I voted for were different ones, though.
I liked LEGO Batman!
And I thought Final Fantasy IX was great! Well… I won’t trust the raving lunacy that is Michael Gray anymore!
Those two were all Kerriann’s ideas, not mine! I don’t even own a PlayStation. I just asked her what modern Final Fantasy games are bad, and she came back with nearly all of them.
Ah! That explains everything! Well, next time, make sure to use your own ideas!
@Michael: YOU nominated Ace Attorney Investigations?! Don’t listen to those musical people; it’s not that bad!
Escape from Monkey Island is an undeniably solid choice, though.
a 13 year old final fantasy game is modern?
I think “modern Final Fantasy game” just means “not Super Nintendo.”
Where is Shaq-fu and Angry Birds?!?!?! Those deserve to be in the top 5! Also, I liked Lego Batman, too.
Although Shaq-Fu was nominated its inclusion was eventually voted against and nobody else cared enough to waste one of their votes to vote it back in. I’d say Angry Birds isn’t amazing, but it’s more overrated than out-and-out bad.
Just like Call of Duty.
I’d say that’s a fair assessment, yeah.
Got Taboo: The 6th Sense from a friend, including a letter telling me to destroy it. Drilling holes in it and smashing it with a hammer was the most fun I had with that mess of a game.