The internet is fond of reducing all video games to being either awesome or terrible. However, there is a relatively small percentage of games that are truly and objectively bad. There are some people out there who might have a fondness for the worst games of all time, but they’re undeniably for a niche audience at best.
On an individual basis, a game might not click for a variety of reasons, some of which are difficult to define. When a game reaches the status of being among the worst of all time, there’s little ambiguity. Generally, these titles seem unfinished, lack the basic elements of an enjoyable gameplay experience, and feel as though they were thrown together in a way that ultimately proves entirely unsatisfying.
25 Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars (2007)
Criticized By Many For Mind-Numbingly Boring Gameplay
Call for Heroes sends players through hordes of generic enemies against generic backdrops of castles and dungeons. Unfortunately, there’s just nothing that makes the game stand out, and the elements that it does have aren’t implemented well, according to many reviewers and the low score of 25 on Metacritic. The title was harshly panned by many critics, with GameSpot blasting it for “mind-numbing combat and ridiculously confusing level design.“
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Other reviewers were kinder, noting that this was the first game from the tiny studio behind it, Quotix Software, and that although the execution was lacking, there were some good ideas in the mix. Unfortunately, the studio never got a chance to improve. The game was originally released for PC with plans to port it to the Wii, but the project was canceled, and Quotix Software never released another game.
24 Stalin vs. Martians (2019)
This Was Never Meant To Be A Good Game
Stalin vs Martians was never meant to be a good game. Developed in collaboration with three studios, the game was intended to be a parody of real-time strategy games and its own developers reportedly called it “trashy” and noted that it’s “the perfect game for anyone who just hates the strategy genre,” according to Shack News.
The WWII strategy game featured over-the-top and slapstick humor and satirized the concept of RTS games in general through ridiculous storytelling and missions. Stalin vs Martians was released in April of 2019 and was taken down a few months later in July of the same year. It was available for long enough to leave its mark on the world as one of the worst games of all time with a Metacritic score of 25, perhaps deservedly this time.
23 NBA Unrivaled (2009)
A Mess Of A Game That Doesn’t Live Up To Its Name
Tecmo was an early pioneer of fast-paced sports games that were just enough like their original sport to satisfy purists but were fun and light enough for anyone to play. With that kind of history, Tecmo seemed like a good company to attempt a modern take on NBA Jam, which it tried in 2010 with NBA Unrivaled.
It also failed miserably. Unrivaled is just a joyless, half-hearted mess that would’ve been bad enough on its own, but also released the same year as EA’s own NBA Jam reboot– which wasn’t perfect, but did what Unrivaled was trying to do only much, much better. All these factors combined earned the title the low rating of 25 on Metacritic
22 Cruis’n (2007)
A Letdown For A Classic Series
Cruis’n was actually the fifth game in a series, with the first three only appearing in arcades. The first game was originally developed by Midway and Eugene Jarvis, who later went on to found Raw Thrills and release The Fast and the Furious arcade title. By the time Cruis’n was released for Wii, the world had moved on from arcades, but it was clear that the game had not.
The title, which has a Metacritic rating of 25, was criticized for having outdated graphics, long loading screens, and a generally poor presentation that simply didn’t age well. Luckily, 10 years later Raw Thrills revisited the title with a triumphant return titled Cruis’n Blast, which fared much better, redeeming the name and bringing it into the hands of a more modern audience. The 2007 Cruis’n title, meanwhile, remains a blip on the franchise’s name, and one of the worst games of all time.
21 Terrawars: New York Invasion (2006)
Blocky Graphics Not Improved By Gameplay
For some of these games, the screenshots speak for themselves. In this case, the above image from the 2006 FPS Terrawars : New York Invasion looks kind of the way movies in the early ’90s thought virtual reality was going to look. That is to say, it’s ugly, blocky, and almost completely devoid of any finer detail.
Graphics aren’t everything, but gameplay is, and Terrawars falls on its face there, too. That it was built on the engine that powered the excellent No One Lives Forever 2 but manages to play even worse than it looks is both an insult to N.O.L.A. and FPS games in general. In the end, Terrawars only managed too garner a 24 rating on Metacritic.
20 Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt (2002)
An Example Of How Hard Riding Games Are To Do Right
The title of this game is a mouthful, feeling like it’s missing some crucial punctuation. This is fitting, since the game itself is missing certain much-needed elements for a good game like polish, playability, and fun. The title is currently sitting at 24 on Metacritic.
Developers seem to have forgotten that there was a reason Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was such a revelation. Games like this aren’t easy to get right, and are bad far more often than they are good. Sadly, even in a post-THPS world where there was a clear template to follow, most still didn’t even come close to getting it right. Eventually, even the Tony Hawk series struggled to get it right, although the Pro Skater 1+2 remake ultimately nailed it again.
19 Postal III (2011)
H3
It’s always tricky for people to genuinely criticize a game series like Postal, which was specifically created to rail against political correctness and conventionally good taste. Bashing a Postal game must mean a person just doesn’t “get it,” or is too sensitive and easily offended to enjoy something subversive.
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Of course, there are plenty of games that wade into such waters but still manage to actually be good games. Grand Theft Auto, Dead or Alive, MadWorld, and Bayonetta are all proof of that. People bash Postal, and especially the long-delayed and ultimately still not really finished third installment, because they fail to actually be genuinely good or functionally interesting games underneath all the crassness. The third game in the series is one of the worst, with a score of 24 on Metacritic and no redeeming qualities.
18 Game Party Champions (2012)
Shovelware Party Game For Casual Players
One of the unfortunate side effects of the Wii being such a huge seller and catching on among the “casual” crowd is that a lot of cheap Nintendo party game collections were shoveled onto it in hopes of being snatched up by the unsuspecting family members who didn’t know any better. Many of them sold well, which guaranteed that more of them were made.
Some of this carried over onto the Wii U, the result of which is one of the absolute worst of this already largely bad genre: Game Party Champions. Even with a small collection of games available for the system, no Wii U owner should ever touch this title, which is sitting at a paltry Metacritic rating of 24.
17 Pulse Racer (2003)
Bland, Boring, And Uninspired
Even just within the critics’ blurbs on the Metacritic page (rated at 24) for 2003 original Xbox game Pulse Racer, three different outlets proclaim the game to be among the worst games of all time for the system. Despite there being plenty of great original Xbox games, that’s saying something, as the Xbox was also home to Kabuki Warriors.
Gamers knew just from Pulse Racer‘s cover art to stay far away, with a generic-looking man and car that a person scrolls past even if it were a 100% free iOS game. Things only get worse when a gamer pops the disc in and is treated to one of the blandest, most boring games in a genre made for fun.
16 Fighter Within (2013)
A Poor Attempt To Force Kinect Onto Players
Fighter Within was an Xbox One launch game that had the bright idea of being a Kinect-controlled fighting game, back when Microsoft was still trying to force Kinect on gamers. As its score of 23 on Metacritic might suggest, the game was not received well.
There is one — and only one — positive thing to say about the otherwise irredeemable Fighter Within. It helped to reinforce that Kinect just wasn’t as responsive as originally promised, even the Xbox One version, and that people were done waiting for it to fulfill a promise it was never going to. It took a few years, but the Kinect line was finally put out of its misery in 2017.
15 FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction (2011)
A Game About Crashing Cars With A Broken Crashing Mechanic
The earlier FlatOut games weren’t spectacular, but they were still fun and scratched a certain itch for demolition derby-style racing games that few other games did at the time. They earned enough fans that there have been four core installments (plus spinoffs) thus far, though it’s a miracle a FlatOut 4 happened after the head-on collision that was FlatOut 3.
The lone digital-only FlatOut game, Chaos & Destruction also wasn’t developed by the team that handled most of the other installments, and it shows. The worst thing about FlatOut 3 was that the collision detection was completely broken, which is kind of a deal-breaker for a game all about smashing cars into each other. This resulted in its terrible Metacritic score of 23.
14 Homie Rollerz (2008)
A Tone-Deaf Depiction In An Otherwise Terrible Game
Surprising as it may be, this game doesn’t handle the depiction of the culture it represents in a remotely tasteful or respectful manner. However, sad as this is to say, that doesn’t always necessarily make for a unilaterally bad game. Gaming history has its share of titles that include offensive elements but succeed in other areas, making for frustrating mixed results.
Luckily, DS racing and car customization game Homie Rollerz isn’t a game anyone has to worry about putting their conscience aside to play, as it somehow manages to be even worse than they’d expect from its bad title. The game has a Metacritic score of 23, placing it firmly in the hall of infamy of the worst games of all time.
13 Charlie’s Angels (2003)
The 2000s Charlie’s Angels movies ended up being a lot more fun than anyone expected. A movie all about three women kicking a bunch of people in the face should’ve made for a slam dunk of a video game.
Except it wasn’t. The 2003 Charlie’s Angels video game, which was based on both films, couldn’t make a relatively can’t-miss concept work even a little. Sure, the Angels look something like the actress they’re based on, but the graphics are so bad that there’s no even enjoying it on that level. As a result, the Metacritic score for this game is a very low 23.
12 Fast & Furious: Showdown (2013)
Failed Attempt At A Fast & Furious Tie-In Game
Fair or not, by the time there started to be games officially based on the Fast & Furious movie franchise, Need for Speed had already nailed the whole vibe of tuner/street racing culture in a way that was going to be hard to follow. Sure enough, none of the actual F&F games came close.
While none of them are great, Showdown is an absolute embarrassment with only 22 on Metacritic. Even though it canonically takes place between two of the movies, fans are just better off not knowing what happened between Fast Five and Fast & Furious 6 rather than finding out through this painful racing game.
11 Drake Of The 99 Dragons (2003)
Promising Design But Flawed Execution
Remember the Drake of the 99 Dragons comic books and animated television series? No? That’s because they never happened. All plans to turn the property into a major multimedia franchise were abandoned after the lead product, the 2003 Xbox game, was a complete creative and commercial failure, earning only 22 on Metacritic.
Some critics reluctantly praised Drake‘s cartoony art style, but that was typically only briefly mentioned among a list of complaints that exceeded the game’s promised number of dragons. That said, it was mostly just the idea of Drake‘s graphics that elicited compliments, as in practice the game was still an unappealing, stuttery mess.
10 Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma (2015)
Called A “Failure” By Disappointed Developer
It’s not very often that a game is so bad that its developer not only publicly apologizes for it, stops selling it, and immediately cancels already-in-place sequel plans, but also offers refunds to everyone who has already purchased it. All of that is exactly what happened (via GameSpot) with the disappointing title Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma, which is currently sitting at 22 on Metacritic.
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Developer Versus Evil’s general manager didn’t mince words, saying flat out, “The game was a failure.“ He also admitted that it wasn’t even a matter of a game that was full of bugs and glitches, instead admitting, “people just didn’t like it.” Unfortunately, doing all of that still doesn’t erase the reviews making it one of the Metacritic worst games of all time.
9 Infestation: Survivor Stories (aka The War Z) (2012)
Questionable Microtransactions And Bad Design
Going by the awkward-sounding The War Z until inevitable trademark problems due to its similarity to World War Z, the not-much-better-titled Infestation: Survivor Stories was a zombie-based online multiplayer survival horror game that was plagued with various problems throughout its development and open alpha phase.
When the game was finally released, it was slammed for bad design, ugly graphics, and some particularly questionable micro-transaction practices. When the servers to this game, rated 20 on Metacritic, finally shut down in December 2016, four years after launch, nobody but the few people still actually playing it noticed or cared.
8 Deal Or No Deal (2007)
Slow-Paced And Full Of Filler
While game shows are generally perfect for adapting into video games. Deal or No Deal is not. It’s slow-paced and involves a lot of filler of Howie Mandel talking to the contestant, the contestant talking to his family, and Howie talking to the banker. The actual “action” in a typical episode of Deal or No Deal only lasts about 90 seconds.
This translates into an incredibly dull video game. Not that video games based on game shows typically involve winning real prizes anyway, but the stakes are 99% of what makes the show interesting to watch. In the absence of that, players are just left with a game of random chance with no payoff, resulting in a game that’s rated 20 on Metacritic.
7 Alone in the Dark: Illumination (2015)
The original Alone in the Dark was groundbreaking when it was released way back in 1992, setting much of the template that Resident Evil would eventually follow (and get far more credit for). Subsequent sequels followed in 1993 and 1994, and were mostly more of the same– but in a good way.
After that, the series took a long break until its 2001 resurrection, and it has never really been all that noteworthy since. In fact, the three “modern” AotD games have gotten progressively worse, with 2015’s PC-exclusive Illumination being the worst thing that happened to the franchise since the Tara Reid/Christian Slater movie adaptation. The game has a score of 19 on Metacritic, making it one of the worst-rated games of all time.
6 Ride to Hell: Retribution (2013)
The Game Has No Relation To Sons Of Anarchy
Ride to Hell: Retribution, a game titled like a sequel even though it isn’t one, was seemingly trying to capitalize on the TV show Sons of Anarchy which was hot at the time. The problem is that GTAIV expansion pack The Lost and the Damned already did that, and did it much better.
Nobody would even have talked about or given Ride to Hell the time of day once it was apparent how awful it was were it not for the hilariously bad “love scenes.” These acts are pantomimed, but the developers didn’t put in the work to remove any clothing– so everything is done between fully-clothed, empty-eyed characters, which looks utterly absurd. The end result is a Metacritic score of 19.
