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Notes -
Lists of "worst video games ever" are quite a bit different from equivalent lists of books, movies etc., because before you can even begin to analyse whether a game is good or bad from an aesthetic perspective, it has to meet a certain floor of being functional from a technical, mechanical perspective. Hence, these lists often tend to boil down to a list of games which are hideously broken from a technical perspective (Big Rigs, E.T. for the Atari 2600), as opposed to games which are "so bad it's good/horrible" in the sense of aesthetics, tone, quality of acting, poor writing etc.. Of course a game which is so badly designed as to be functionally unplayable is very embarrassing for the studio that designed it, but it doesn't induce the same sensation of discomfort and cringe that a so-bad-it's-good film does. Broken video games, to my mind, are only interesting if you're a game designer or software developer who wants to learn what not to do; to everyone else it's just "they tried to make a game which was mechanically sound, and they failed". These games aren't interesting to discuss the way bad films can be. Probably the closest analogue is in film, in which bad films are often criticised in part for being technically incompetent. But The Room didn't become a classic of the so-bad-it's-good genre because of its primitive green screen, amateurish post-production dubbing and slapdash continuity: those elements were just the icing on the cake of its nonsensical plot, illogical characters, bizarre dialogue and its creator's misogynistic, narcissistic worldview. Even a version of The Room directed by a halfway competent production team (but using the same screenplay and actors) would probably still have been an embarrassment. (And conversely, a film with a passable screenplay and decent actors, but with clumsy post-production dubbing, would never become a classic of so-bad-it's-good cinema on the level of The Room.)
With all of that preamble out of the way, I'm curious what you consider the worst video games ever from an aesthetic perspective. In particular, I'm interested in video games which are technically functional and not completely broken, but which make so many bad aesthetic choices that playing them induces a feeling of vicarious embarrassment comparable to what one might experience watching an Ed Wood or Neil Breen film.
(I'm sure someone's going to mention Deadly Premonition but I'm not sure if it really counts: looking at the cutscenes I get the distinct impression that the developers were in on the joke and deliberately aiming for a cheesy kind of B-movie humour.)
The worst game that I've personally enjoyed probably is PS3 launch title Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (called Target in Sight in Europe). In this game, the player participates in various engagements of the ground theater of the One-Year War—not as an ace pilot, but as a grunt who starts with a GM or a Zaku and doesn't get a Gundam or a Gelgoog until late in the campaign.
When it works, it's a reasonably fun game. The mobile-suit models are gorgeously detailed, with multiple paint schemes based on what stat boosts you give to them ("heavy" for better attack and defense, "water" for better wading speed, etc.), unlockable weapons, and even part-specific damage (e. g., if your MS gets its right arm knocked off by too much damage, it will also lose any weapon that it's holding in its right hand, but it still can wield other weapons in its left hand). The music, both in menus and in battles, also is exquisite. However:
Battles generally run at approximately 15 frames per second (on original hardware; IIRC, emulation is a lot better when it doesn't crash).
When you've locked onto an enemy MS, your MS will shoot directly at the enemy—without leading the target! There's an alternative aim-down-sights shooting mode, but it's pretty awkward to use, since (1) you can't really move around while aiming in this fashion, and you want to be moving in order to dodge enemy shots, and (2) all your projectiles, whether bullet or beam, are quite slow. Just resign yourself to missing half of your shots. (And, of course, the enemy Guntanks are pretty good at sniping you from their stationary positions at the far side of the map.)
There are a few GM Sniper variants available for the player to use, but their sniper rifles carry so little ammunition (literally a single magazine), and are so hard to hit anything with, that they are essentially worthless. Why are they in the game if you can't even finish a mission with them?
During battles, you often can refill your ammunition at supply bases. This is effectively mandatory on longer missions. However, supply bases quite often will glitch out and stop working! This happened to me so consistently on the extra-hard version of the Zeon campaign's final mission on "very hard" difficulty that I never was able to beat it.
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