Worst PC games you ever played

Before you answer, do not take into account the cost of the game. Say the games were given to you for free... so you cannot say "this game was the worst game I ever played because it wasn't worth the $50." Do not say a game was terrible because of the multiplayer community. Also just because a game is not in a genre you like, you can't say it was the worst ever. Only consider games that should have had a chance of gaining your liking. And it has to have been sold commercially... so no games that your next door neighbor made.

Having considered the above:
What was the worst PC game you ever played? Worst from the 80s? 90s? 00s? And why?

I recently blogged on just this topic. The original list was a little hasty, so I've made some changes to it between blog and thread.

10. Psychonauts - Tedious 3D platforming and a boring story whose target audience must be pre-teens. Redeems itself with two absolutely genius moments, but I was ****ing glad when it was over.

9. Dungeon Siege - Take Diablo 2, then take out the awesome character development, item tables and replay value, and you have DS. More like BS.

8. BioShock - ****ing **** piece of ****ing ****. ****, man.

7. Painkiller - You run into a room, all the doors lock, ten identical enemies spawn, you kill them, when they're all dead, ten more spawn, then ten more, then ten more, when you've killed each wave, the doors unlock and you move to the next area where it happens again. Doom laughs.

6. Divine Divinity - It tries to be Diablo meets Baldur's Gate. It's not.

5. Condemned - Tedious, formulaic and stupid. About as frightening as athlete's foot - and slightly more irritating.

4. Grand Theft Auto London 1969 - Take all the wit, style and fun of Grand Theft Auto and throw it out the window, this is what you're left with. It's an expansion pack, making it half a game, which means it had to be twice as bad as a regular bad game to get to number 3. Something it managed with ease.

3. Prince of Persia Warrior Within - If an angry emo teenager could be turned into a computer game, well, I think that's what happened here. A game for angsty kids.

2. Gears of War - Just... awful.

1. SunAge - It's like time travelling back to 1995 and stepping in dog**** as soon as you step out of the time machine. Then playing a very crappy RTS. I got it free through an pre-release reviewer program, so I thankfully didn't pay for it. But it's time I will never, ever get back.

Driver- SUCKS BIG TIME

True CRrime : New york city- ??? is this a joke or a game made by monkeys

Postal: Suckiest game in alltime its ever worser than gtA 1

Portal: how the **** can you like a headake making game

Driver parrarel lines: am i back in 2000???? this game have no story..lacks of gameplay too

While i respect oppinion of others,i cannot see how can you say that games like Gears of War and Bioshock are ones of worst you ever played.

While i dont like,for example,some games,i respect them because they are made verry well from technical part.

I,for example,dont really like Bioshock,but its awesome game,and it is really good,it just dont happens that i enjoy itas some others

But put that aside,one of worst game i ever played (well i played it long ago,mybe it is not that bad :P ) is

N E C R O M A N I A

Its so bad,and you cant even uninstall it :D

While i respect oppinion of others,i cannot see how can you say that games like Gears of War and Bioshock are ones of worst you ever played.

_rpg_FAN

The only thing impressive about BioShock is its visuals, and not only is it no better looking than most other UE3 games, the artistic direction undermines any atmosphere the game may have had with its almost cartoony styIe.

Everything else about BioShock is just a bastardisation of System Shock 2.

Gears of War is repetitive in the extreme and the combat is constricted and shallow - it could have actually been a lightgun rail shooter, all you need to add is a foot peddle to go in and out of cover.

Nitro Family - Easily among the worst 100 games of all time or so (it's the worst I've ever played, but I'm sure there are worse still out there). This game takes the term "Serious Sam knockoff" to a whole new level.

C&C Renegade - Preposterously overrated. Single player portion is one of the worst I have ever played in my life; multiplayer is so-so, not bad but entirely forgettable. Some cool weapons and enemies, a sort of interesting story, and the ability to drive vehicles from the C&C games are all nice things this game has going for it, but everytime I tried to enjoy those, the rest of the game took a runny, foetid **** on my face.

While i respect oppinion of others,i cannot see how can you say that games like Gears of War and Bioshock are ones of worst you ever played.

While i dont like,for example,some games,i respect them because they are made verry well from technical part.

I,for example,dont really like Bioshock,but its awesome game,and it is really good,it just dont happens that i enjoy itas some others

But put that aside,one of worst game i ever played (well i played it long ago,mybe it is not that bad :P ) is

N E C R O M A N I A

Its so bad,and you cant even uninstall it :D

_rpg_FAN

Yeah, I was going to say, Gears of War I haven't played, but Bioshock... I mean, even if you hated the game, I would still think it would be impossible for it to ever rank as a worst of all time.

I recently blogged on just this topic. The original list was a little hasty, so I've made some changes to it between blog and thread.

10. Psychonauts - Tedious 3D platforming and a boring story whose target audience must be pre-teens. Redeems itself with two absolutely genius moments, but I was ****ing glad when it was over.

9. Dungeon Siege - Take Diablo 2, then take out the awesome character development, item tables and replay value, and you have DS. More like BS.

8. BioShock - ****ing **** piece of ****ing ****. ****, man.

7. Painkiller - You run into a room, all the doors lock, ten identical enemies spawn, you kill them, when they're all dead, ten more spawn, then ten more, then ten more, when you've killed each wave, the doors unlock and you move to the next area where it happens again. Doom laughs.

6. Divine Divinity - It tries to be Diablo meets Baldur's Gate. It's not.

5. Condemned - Tedious, formulaic and stupid. About as frightening as athlete's foot - and slightly more irritating.

4. Grand Theft Auto London 1969 - Take all the wit, style and fun of Grand Theft Auto and throw it out the window, this is what you're left with. It's an expansion pack, making it half a game, which means it had to be twice as bad as a regular bad game to get to number 3. Something it managed with ease.

3. Prince of Persia Warrior Within - If an angry emo teenager could be turned into a computer game, well, I think that's what happened here. A game for angsty kids.

2. Gears of War - Just... awful.

1. SunAge - It's like time travelling back to 1995 and stepping in dog**** as soon as you step out of the time machine. Then playing a very crappy RTS. I got it free through an pre-release reviewer program, so I thankfully didn't pay for it. But it's time I will never, ever get back.

fatshodan

I'm thinking on the lines of like Outpost 2. Ever played that? It's like a real-time strategy... sorta, but there are only a few combat units. It's a slow, boring game, with boring objectives, the graphics suck, the sounds are mediocre, the gameplay not good, there are only 2 races of which are nearly identical, and I forget the storyline but it probably sucks too. The multiplayer is just beyond pointless. With like 5 combat units all of which are similar, I don't know why they even bothered to make multiplayer.

I would even say outpost 2 is not the worst game of all time or even of the 90s. It's terrible though. I can't imagine saying Gears of War or Bioshock or DivineDivinity or any of the GTA games were the worst ever. Fatshodan, I'm usually a subscriber of your cynicism and some of your opinions, but I must disagree with your list (of the games I've played). Those games are just too quality to be nominees.

Edit:
Although I have to say, your explanations are hilarious... especially for SunAge.

Syberia 2 is pretty high up on that list. It's not bad-bad, if you look at it objectively, but I hated the game with passion while I played it. The only reason I ever finished it was because I was stubborn and said: "**** it, I'm too far into this POS to give up now." A friend of mine played it at the same time. He hated it's guts too. We used to call each other and share tips, just so we could complete that ****ing crap as fast as humanly possible and break the disc in two.

Half Life. It's not that I think the game is bad, but from the moment I fired it up 'til the second I uninstalled it, it was just one big disappointment. When game does not live up to the hype, it can feel just as bad as a genuinly crappy game. I waited patiently for the game to blow me away, but all it did was throw some of the worst last levels in gaming history at me as well as jumping puzzles. W.T.F.

Driver 3 sucks balls. Excuse my French, but it does. That's all I need to say about that worthless piece of software. I should have wiped my bum (trying to avoid a mod here, lol) with that money, that would have done more good than purchasing the game.

I'm thinking on the lines of like Outpost 2. Ever played that? It's like a real-time strategy... sorta, but there are only a few combat units. It's a slow, boring game, with boring objectives, the graphics suck, the sounds are mediocre, the gameplay not good, there are only 2 races of which are nearly identical, and I forget the storyline but it probably sucks too. The multiplayer is just beyond pointless. With like 5 combat units all of which are similar, I don't know why they even bothered to make multiplayer.

I would even say outpost 2 is not the worst game of all time or even of the 90s. It's terrible though. I can't imagine saying Gears of War or Bioshock or DivineDivinity or any of the GTA games were the worst ever. Fatshodan, I'm usually a subscriber of your cynicism and some of your opinions, but I must disagree with your list (of the games I've played). Those games are just too quality to be nominees.

df853

Remember that these are just the worst games I've played, not what I think are the worst games ever made. I have a pretty keen eye when it comes to what I think I will and won't like, and most of the above were actually based on forum recomemndations.

I don't doubt for a second that if I had played every PC game ever made that not one of the above would probably even make the worst five hundred, but I am not in the habit of playing bad games.

That's not to say that I don't also think all of the games on my list aren't exceptionally poor, though. I do.

I've never played Outpost 2 - thankfully.

You should know that I think the GTA series as a whole is one masterpiece after another - and Vice City made my top 20 PC games of all time list, but have you ever played London 1969? Jesus Christ, man. It had none of the things that made GTA1 so great. I was happy when it was over. Really happy. Never played it a second time.

I explained above why I think GoW and BS are such poor games. Now, don't get me wrong about Gears - it's a solid game on the 360 where you have same-room coop, but that did not translate to the PC at all. While the multiplayer lacked any appeal unless you happened to be playing it on a livingroom LAN. The singleplayer was in both cases absolutely stale and repetitive in the extreme, but on the 360 it was at least a spectacular looking game. By the time it hit PC shelves, it was still a beautiful game, but it wasn't very impressive compared with its competition.

To appreciate why I dislike BioShock so much, you first have to play System Shock 2. If you never have, you should track it down. If you have played System Shock 2 and you still think BS isn't BS, then you have made an enemy here today, my friend! I mean, my enemy!

hellgate london...i was so extremely dissapointed with this game..i mean we all remember the e3 teaser of this game and how awesome it looked..the whole concept of a hellgate opening up in a city like london was just awesome..but then the game released and we realised that we were ripped off..where the hell was london in the game??a few streets and a million tunnels..is all that we got..dam every area was the same..every area except a few obviously.some of the classes were so extremely weak,i was knight templar and dam did i suffer..it was so difficult to kill anything that would fly..

soldier of fortune 3 one of the worst games ever made..and ya brothers in arms road to hill 30 was extremely boring so what if i can give orders to my team members its still ww2 and that is boring....

Conflict: Denied Ops.

It was so bad it didnt work on my computer...Which from what I've heard is probably a good thing.

Gears of War. The game wasn't impressive to begin with but if there was ever a game that was meant to stay on the consoles it was Gears. It's not only a boring game with horrible level design and almost no story with combat as it's only redeeming feature, I can't quite say what it is for sure, but the PC version is even worse than the 360 version.

Hellgate: London. I only actually played the demo for this, but I have no intentions of buying the full game. I have no interest in killing the same few types of enemies over and over and over for hours in an environment that consists of two types of design. The same tunnel section repeated forever or the same street repeated forever. The city isn't even recognizable as London!

Diablo I and II - it's a god awful game, I have no clue why so many people were so addicted to it. Extremely repetitive and just plain dull.amekhov

Just out of interest, how far into Diablo 2 did you get, and did you play it with friends?

Diablo 2 is all about character development - and character development is something that takes time. The actual minute to minute gameplay is very repetitive and quite dull, but the appeal of the game is building a naked level 1 into a God.

Also, some things are just a whole lot better when you have someone to do them with. That's not to say that I don't think D2 has a great singleplayer experience, but some things are just much better with other people.

C&C: Tiberian sun - made a great game **** for me.. they should have stuck to games like Red Alert instead of making it all futuristic and lame.amekhov

Tiberian Sun didn't make it futuristic, Red Alert made it more modern (alternate historic, rather). Tiberian Sun is the sequel to the first C&C game, which was in the same futuristic setting. The Red Alert series is a prequel to the events of the Tiberium games.

[QUOTE="df853"]

I'm thinking on the lines of like Outpost 2. Ever played that? It's like a real-time strategy... sorta, but there are only a few combat units. It's a slow, boring game, with boring objectives, the graphics suck, the sounds are mediocre, the gameplay not good, there are only 2 races of which are nearly identical, and I forget the storyline but it probably sucks too. The multiplayer is just beyond pointless. With like 5 combat units all of which are similar, I don't know why they even bothered to make multiplayer.

I would even say outpost 2 is not the worst game of all time or even of the 90s. It's terrible though. I can't imagine saying Gears of War or Bioshock or DivineDivinity or any of the GTA games were the worst ever. Fatshodan, I'm usually a subscriber of your cynicism and some of your opinions, but I must disagree with your list (of the games I've played). Those games are just too quality to be nominees.

fatshodan

Remember that these are just the worst games I've played, not what I think are the worst games ever made. I have a pretty keen eye when it comes to what I think I will and won't like, and most of the above were actually based on forum recomemndations.

I don't doubt for a second that if I had played every PC game ever made that not one of the above would probably even make the worst five hundred, but I am not in the habit of playing bad games.

That's not to say that I don't also think all of the games on my list aren't exceptionally poor, though. I do.

I've never played Outpost 2 - thankfully.

You should know that I think the GTA series as a whole is one masterpiece after another - and Vice City made my top 20 PC games of all time list, but have you ever played London 1969? Jesus Christ, man. It had none of the things that made GTA1 so great. I was happy when it was over. Really happy. Never played it a second time.

I explained above why I think GoW and BS are such poor games. Now, don't get me wrong about Gears - it's a solid game on the 360 where you have same-room coop, but that did not translate to the PC at all. While the multiplayer lacked any appeal unless you happened to be playing it on a livingroom LAN. The singleplayer was in both cases absolutely stale and repetitive in the extreme, but on the 360 it was at least a spectacular looking game. By the time it hit PC shelves, it was still a beautiful game, but it wasn't very impressive compared with its competition.

To appreciate why I dislike BioShock so much, you first have to play System Shock 2. If you never have, you should track it down. If you have played System Shock 2 and you still think BS isn't BS, then you have made an enemy here today, my friend! I mean, my enemy!

Well, good point. It does say "worst PC games you ever played", not "worst pc games of all time". You must play mostly very good games. I buy a fair amount of games from the discount shelves or in used games stores. Perhaps that is why I have had the opportunity to see the piles of crap some software companies can come up with (ie: outpost 2).

If you have played System Shock 2 and you still think BS isn't BS, then you have made an enemy here today, my friend! I mean, my enemy!

Man, you make enemies left and right on these forums. Me (twice or is it three times now?), JF, now df...

(Half Life sucks.)

hmmm... i've played some of the bargain bin games, which i never finished because they were so rubbish, so i agree that some people have been very lucky if, say, Bioshock is the worst game they've played. I hadn't played SS2 before I played BS, but having now started it, i understand where the 'copy' criticism comes from, as SS2 is a fairly heavily plot-driven game, so it's unwise to copy the plot so closely with another game. Having said that, many FPS games with a plot have a similar story.

i agree with Artur on Half Life, i gave it up, as i did with Broken Sword, which i still hate for having wasted my time with its silly cliches and pointlessly illogical puzzles

other bad games I've played include IGI, Red Faction 2, March: Offworld Recon, and Gunmen

Lastly, as FS has repeated his criticism of Painkiller, i'm going to repeat what i said in reply to his blog:

"1. you admire the art/design of Broken Sword, but ignore the brilliance and sheer wierdness of the settings, the enemies and weapons of PK. PK is one of only 3-4 games where i've taken serious time just looking around me at the scenery in admiration

2. there are plenty of battles where you face 30-40 enemies at once - just off the top of my head i can think of the railway station, the opera house, the docks, even the graveyard scene at the beginning i think.

3. did you turn the music off? if you do you get wonderful moments where you're just standing there and then you hear a distant rumble turn into the sound of a stampede as a swarm of enemies come storming around a corner - the battles themselves are really intense and easily rank among the biggest adrenalin rushes i've ever had playing a PC game

4. There's some great weapons - the shotgun/freezer combination and the stake gun were particular favourites (plus the machine gun/flamethrower in PK:BOOH). Sniping with the stake gun was really satisfying once you got the hang of the trajectory of the stakes

i only have two criticisms of the game: the main one is the painfully slow loading times; the other is the lack of movement options - no left/right lean, no crouch - after a while though, you just forget about it and get on with the fighting

There's much worse games than this - it's easily got more imagination than Doom 3 and Q4, even though i enjoyed playing Q4"

If you have played System Shock 2 and you still think BS isn't BS, then you have made an enemy here today, my friend! I mean, my enemy!

Man, you make enemies left and right on these forums. Me (twice or is it three times now?), JF, now df...

(Half Life sucks.)

artur79

Maybe I like making enemies!

Every console ever made sucks, especially the 360! Pads are for people with room temperature IQ! Mass Effect sucks!

I recently blogged on just this topic. The original list was a little hasty, so I've made some changes to it between blog and thread.

10. Psychonauts - Tedious 3D platforming and a boring story whose target audience must be pre-teens. Redeems itself with two absolutely genius moments, but I was ****ing glad when it was over.

9. Dungeon Siege - Take Diablo 2, then take out the awesome character development, item tables and replay value, and you have DS. More like BS.

8. BioShock - ****ing **** piece of ****ing ****. ****, man.

7. Painkiller - You run into a room, all the doors lock, ten identical enemies spawn, you kill them, when they're all dead, ten more spawn, then ten more, then ten more, when you've killed each wave, the doors unlock and you move to the next area where it happens again. Doom laughs.

6. Divine Divinity - It tries to be Diablo meets Baldur's Gate. It's not.

5. Condemned - Tedious, formulaic and stupid. About as frightening as athlete's foot - and slightly more irritating.

4. Grand Theft Auto London 1969 - Take all the wit, style and fun of Grand Theft Auto and throw it out the window, this is what you're left with. It's an expansion pack, making it half a game, which means it had to be twice as bad as a regular bad game to get to number 3. Something it managed with ease.

3. Prince of Persia Warrior Within - If an angry emo teenager could be turned into a computer game, well, I think that's what happened here. A game for angsty kids.

2. Gears of War - Just... awful.

1. SunAge - It's like time travelling back to 1995 and stepping in dog**** as soon as you step out of the time machine. Then playing a very crappy RTS. I got it free through an pre-release reviewer program, so I thankfully didn't pay for it. But it's time I will never, ever get back.

fatshodan

Just leave.....

I recently blogged on just this topic. The original list was a little hasty, so I've made some changes to it between blog and thread.

10. Psychonauts - Tedious 3D platforming and a boring story whose target audience must be pre-teens. Redeems itself with two absolutely genius moments, but I was ****ing glad when it was over.

9. Dungeon Siege - Take Diablo 2, then take out the awesome character development, item tables and replay value, and you have DS. More like BS.

8. BioShock - ****ing **** piece of ****ing ****. ****, man.

7. Painkiller - You run into a room, all the doors lock, ten identical enemies spawn, you kill them, when they're all dead, ten more spawn, then ten more, then ten more, when you've killed each wave, the doors unlock and you move to the next area where it happens again. Doom laughs.

6. Divine Divinity - It tries to be Diablo meets Baldur's Gate. It's not.

5. Condemned - Tedious, formulaic and stupid. About as frightening as athlete's foot - and slightly more irritating.

4. Grand Theft Auto London 1969 - Take all the wit, style and fun of Grand Theft Auto and throw it out the window, this is what you're left with. It's an expansion pack, making it half a game, which means it had to be twice as bad as a regular bad game to get to number 3. Something it managed with ease.

3. Prince of Persia Warrior Within - If an angry emo teenager could be turned into a computer game, well, I think that's what happened here. A game for angsty kids.

2. Gears of War - Just... awful.

1. SunAge - It's like time travelling back to 1995 and stepping in dog**** as soon as you step out of the time machine. Then playing a very crappy RTS. I got it free through an pre-release reviewer program, so I thankfully didn't pay for it. But it's time I will never, ever get back.

fatshodan

I fully respect your opinion, but I have to say that im very surprised with your selections. Psychonauts I thought had a fantastic storyline, Condemned I regard as one of the finest horror games in recent years. I also loved BioShock and Gears but thats because im equally a console-gaming enthusiast.

Again, each to their own, but really I think dubbing those games as "the worse games ever played" is a tad bit harsh :P

Daikatana.aliblabla2007

Just leave.....

Johnny_Rock

Leave what?

I actually kind of liked Driv3r (the one for XBOX, haven't played the PC version). Loved the driving and crashing of the cars. Didn't even bother with the single player though, controls suck and the lame ass rolls were ridiculous.

The worst game I have ever played is probably Conflict: Denied Ops. There is no recoil for the big ass machine gun, and the graphics aren't very good. Also, it's a pretty dumb shooter. Stupid story and enemies are dumb and the enemies just run at you and you shoot them. Very boring.

[QUOTE="Johnny_Rock"]

Just leave.....

fatshodan

Leave what?

This forum to listen to this song.

I know this is a bad joke, but this was the only way to squeeze an awesome Jackson-song into this thread. EEH HEH! *grabs crotch*

(At least the 360 does not make me go "Geralt is handsome", Mr 'Sure of his sexuality and just got a Wii and a DS'.)

This forum to listen to this song.

I know this is a bad joke, but this was the only way to squeeze an awesome Jackson-song into this thread. EEH HEH! *grabs crotch*

(At least the 360 does not make me go "Geralt is handsome", Mr 'Sure of his sexuality and just got a Wii and a DS'.)

artur79

Your bottom line made me laugh really, really hard. It's 3:43am here and I may have just woken up half the street laughing so loud!

Hey, have fun grabbing your crotch while watching Michael Jackson videos, by the way.

I can't say which is the worst, but here are some i've had bad experiences with -

Rainbow Six: Lockdown.

AOE2 (Yeah i know it's popular and all, but i just can't help but feel that the game is....er...dry.)

Xpand Rally Xtreme.

TimeShift.

Age of Conan. Srsly.MythPro1

The worst PC game that I've played recently would have to be Assassin's Creed. It just seemed a bit repetetive, but all in all it was still playable.

I don't spend much money on gaming, and when I do I usually like to buy the best games possible that I would enjoy (So I don't really own any stinkers :P)

Black & White 2. There are much better sim games, There are much better RTS games. There is no need to play this.

Monopoly Tycoon. It was just boring. It had bad design in almost every aspect. Every objective was EXACTLY the same thing or was completed in the same way, and completing those objectives never presented much of a challenge.

For the last few years i been really picky with the games i buy so there are only a few that i actually didnt like, one of the few that sneaked into my collection was FEAR.

I read so many reviews on game sites and ppl told me it was so good, well i had to get this game to see what all the fuzz was about. But then something horrible happened i started playing the game ¬¬, this game is more overrated than halo its just unbelieveable. The combat is repetitive, the secondary characters are stupid, why did they add that slow time ability it just seemed so pointless and out of place, the story was meh, the grenades effects sucked and the whole game was the same 3-4 leves over and over :? The only thing that was i guess good was when the game got scary, i give this a 7 at most.

@fatshodan u have some terrible taste, i suppose everyone has a right to not like great games :lol:. Im just gonna say a few things:

Bioshock was great, it looks awesome, is immersive and its just really good game(i never played SS2 maybe thats why i think this way).

Painkiller is freaking awesome, yes its very simple all u do is kill everything that has a pulse but thats why is so great, there are not annoying quests or anything to distract u from ur ultimate goal KILL EVERYTHING.

Psychonauts its pretty much the only platformer i ever liked since mario world.

Geow was a lot of fun to play, it never got repetitive from my perspective and PoP: WW was really good i enjoyed it more than SoT, the combat was so fluid and fun, u could do a ton of combos to kill all those annoying foes and having the dahaka behind ur tail was just so fun and felt this genuine pressure to run away that made the game just fantastic.

I don't buy too many bad games because they are just so expensive and I can't afford to waste my money on games that I am unsure of buying.

The two weakest games that I have are probably:

1. GTA: San Andreas.

2. Condemned: Criminal Origins. (I won this in a competition).

I don't buy too many bad games because they are just so expensive and I can't afford to waste my money on games that I am unsure of buying.

The two weakest games that I have are probably:

1. GTA: San Andreas.

2. Condemned: Criminal Origins. (I won this in a competition).

biggest_loser

hmm I really enjoyed both of those

The worst game I have ever played is Spells of Gold. It was so horrible.

Good thing I only payed $10 for it. Then again, it's probably worth less than $5.

1. GTA: San Andreas.biggest_loser

2. Condemned: Criminal Origins. (I won this in a competition).biggest_loser

I'd like to add Stolen to the list. Been a while since I last played it, but I have nothing but bad memories about it.