So I don’t have a habit of playing terrible games, but I can say the worst games I’ve played are sneaky. They trick you into thinking they might have something going for them, only to never go anywhere or get better.

Husk is the first one that jumps out at me. It announces itself as a silent hill inspired horror game based on domestic violence themes. After three hours of painfully slow controls and enemies that don’t make any sense to the story, it just suddenly ends with a cliche, tacked on, “you’re the asshole here” monologed conclusion with no explanations whatsoever.

Another category of absolute butt-trash I’ve fallen for is games that appeal to edgy teenagers, and so have stellar reviews regardless of how they in fact suck shit.

Lust for darkness is a prime example. It’s a horror game with nothing remotely scary in it about a sex cult full of people with British accents in America who refer to themselves as cult members, and whose outrageous taboo sex acts are really just regular shit but they wear masks. It’s like a wet dream fantasy for a 13 year old incel. It’s not scary, it’s not clever, it’s not even just porn, and it’s most of all not fun.

A game that fits in both of these categories, that I played to completion just hoping I’d click with whatever coolaid the reviewers drank, was The Cat Lady. Reviews made it sound so deep and emotional, and it seemed like it was going somewhere for a minute, but at the end, it was just a cringefest hidden object sidescroller with weird voice acting that was targeted at angsty children who romantisize depression and death.

Years after leaving my negative steam reviews I still catch flak on occasion from superfans of these dogshit time sinks who have never read a book in their lives.

There is a practically infinitely long tail of bad obscure games, because they’re being produced faster than you can keep up. Dozens of games are released each day just on Steam alone.

Jet Ion GP for the PS2. I thought it looked fun when I saw it in the shop…

Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties for the 3DO Interactive System. There seems to have been a cult following now for this game for some bizarre reason (though I think it’s attributed to the AVGN ‘review’). But, can it even be called a game? It’s more along the lines of an interactive slideshow and someone’s poorly made powerpoint project in one, combined.

I would be mentioning mobile games but there’s just so many it’s not worth going over. I just don’t understand people who have a weird worshiping obsession to bad games.

Fantasya Final Definitiva Remake.

Zelda wand of Gamelon ET for the Atari