Featuring terrible graphics, boring gameplay, and an abundance of glitches, these are all contenders for the worst video games of all time. We don’t know who green-lit these games. But we are sympathetic towards all the gamers who had to suffer through them.
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
You can’t create a list of the worst video games without including Big Rigs. It is so universally recognized for being terrible that it has become the stuff of legend.
Defunct company Stellar Stone marketed 2003’s Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing as a simple racing game involving semi-trailer trucks. However, the game contained no actual racing. Because of rushed development, opponents’ trucks do not move. The player will therefore win every so-called race. Upon completing the “race,” players are awarded with a trophy that bears the phrase, “You’re winner!”
In addition to opponents remaining stationary, Big Rigs contains no collision detection, meaning that the player simply passes through buildings, objects, etc… without crashing. Considering the blatant lack of effort that went into creating Big Rigs, critics universally panned it upon release. Alex Carlson of Hardcore Gamer said the following about the game: “Big Rigs is so devoid of design, gameplay, structure, aesthetic or functioning technology that it can’t be called a game at all.”
Ouch.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
It’s all happening #THPS5 @TonyHawkGames pic.twitter.com/49CuYiqxUA
— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) September 2, 2015
It’s truly heartbreaking that a once-quality series had to end on such a low note. While the Tony Hawk games had arguably been in decline following 2003’s stellar Tony Hawk’s Underground, 2015’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. With the franchise’s original developer Neversoft abandoning the project, Activision enlisted another company, Robomodo, to pick up the pieces,
Activision’s licensing deal with Tony Hawk was set to expire in 2015. So they rushed developer Robomodo to complete the game as quickly as possible. ThIs resulted in what is undoubtedly one of the worst video games ever made. Aside from being filled to the brim with bugs and glitches, the game is simply boring. The level design is bland, the series’ trademark customizable features are gone, and the player’s goals are mind-numbingly simplistic.
Ride to Hell: Retribution
If we do not consider Big Rigs an actual game, then 2013’s Ride to Hell: Retribution is quite possibly the worst game of all time. Like many games on this list, it is wrought with bugs and glitches. But even if its brokenness were not a factor, the game would remain at the bottom of the barrel.
Literally everything about Ride to Hell is terrible. The plot is nonsensical, the voice acting is laughable, the characters are unlikeable, and most of all, the gameplay is devoid of anything that could be considered interesting. Missions are boring and repetitive. The combat system is so underdeveloped that the player can easily beat bosses by spamming the same attack. Perhaps because the developers didn’t have time to flesh out their open world idea, the action is completely linear. Players are unable to move outside of the game’s very tight boundaries.
Ride to Hell also came under fire for its misogynistic portrayal of women. Women only exist within the game for protagonist Jake to rescue and consequently have sex with. Said scenes rival those of The Room in terms of being awkward and forced.
All in all, Ride to Hell: Retribution serves no purpose other than to be mocked for its almost awe-inspiring levels of atrociousness.
Superman 64
The majority of Superman 64 consists of the player flying through repetitive ring mazes. And if that doesn’t sound boring enough, the controls are so bad that one would think Superman is flying whilst drunk. This makes some of the most basic missions nearly impossible to complete. The Metropolis setting seems to have no inhabitants and looks like a beta version of an actual city. This sense of underdevelopment is reflected throughout most of the game. It is not uncommon for players to get stuck on walls, walk through doors and end up in elevators, and walk through solid surfaces.
Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition
It goes without saying that the original versions of the so-called Grand Theft Auto trilogy (III, Vice City, and San Andreas) are some of the greatest games of all time. And that’s why fans were understandably upset when Rockstar recently released completely butchered versions of these games in the form of The Definitive Edition. Promising new and improved versions of the already-great games, The Definitive Edition delivered—to put it bluntly—a complete mess.
To start, the graphics do not look anything like they should on current consoles; characters look almost as pixelated as they were in the original PS2 games. However, they’ve been made to look far more disproportionate and cartoonish. Additionally, the game contains blatant errors like misspelled signs. Clearly, this was not the level of quality that’s expected from a series as revered as GTA.
What do you consider to be the worst video games of all time? Let us know in the comments!
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