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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.)
What's interesting about ET is that it's biggest problem was from a design point of view. It was programmed as a top down game, but visually it was a 3/4 view game. So it had a big problem where people fell in pits because their head hid the bottom of the pit on screen.
I don't know if it's quite on the same scale, but have a look at "Robot Alchemic Drive" (R.A.D.) for the PS2.
It took the perspective that piloting a giant mecha would be hard, so it should feel hard to the player.
You walk the mech by controlling each leg with the paddle buttons. You're controlling the mech and the guy sitting on his shoulder at the same time and he jumps off it you hit the wrong button.
Of course the ridiculous controls were the main selling point of the game, so it doesn't really qualify.
In general I think it will be difficult to find good examples. Movies end up with more interesting results because there are hard limits to what an editor can do once the shooting has finished. Releasing a bad movie is the only way to recover costs.
Video games have the advantage where once you have assets and a working engine you can tweak the mechanics until you get something at least mediocre. Fortnight was famously saved in beta by introducing all of the construction mechanics to an unimpressive pubg clone.
Reminds me of that mecha game where you have no joystick, no mouse, just the keyboard. It’s command-line only.
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