Finding the worst game ever isn’t an easy task, unless we take a look at Atari’s E.T. I think very few people would argue the fact that falling endlessly down pits would drive even the most avid adult gamer to frustration – never mind a little kid. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind these time consuming holes. You’d fall in, encounter random objects, and try to float back up (with the likelihood of just falling in again sometimes).
The sounds and graphics of the game alone are like a giant cry to Alien’s everywhere that if they happen to land on our planet, they shouldn’t expect much. At least if they land in the 1980’s. You run around a map with no transitions or seeming logic trying to collect dots which you are not fooled into thinking are your “telephone” link to phoning home no matter how hard Atari might want you to. Sure, Pac Man had the whole dot collecting thing going as well, but at least it didn’t try to wrap it up all pretty as being something it obviously is not.
In fact, this game was such a failure that it is actually contributed to being a major reason for Atari’s downfall. The game was SO horrible that most of the copies were sent back, and Atari even buried 14 truck loads worth in New Mexico.
Now, I realize that a lot of gamers out there might automatically chime up with SimCity as a possibility for this category, given the debacle the servers had on it’s release. It’s another good example of a lot of hype a company can produce without seeing through with a quality product, but at least with SimCity you still have a concept that is enjoyable to play.
If you agree with E.T being the worst game, feel free to comment with your own horror stories. If you don’t agree, please give an example of a worse game!
