Gaming

What’s the ‘best’ worst game of all time?

Bad games have been a blight upon the world for as long as video games have existed. Most likely, they always will be. From broken or bland design to poor technical execution, there are many ways a potentially good game can go bad and an equally long list of reasons a game might descend into the realm of endless suck. Whether fun didn't make it into the budget or the final product buckled under the weight of overambition, bad games aren't that fun—unless they are. Sometimes, a perfect cocktail of horrible execution can lead to something that contains all the hallmarks of a positive experience. Many games that have all the ingredients of an appalling mess, but are, somehow, perfectly edible and mindbogglingly delicious. Here are some of the "best" worst video games ever made. Top picks for bad yet fun games Jurrassic Park: Tresspasser Image via Electronic Arts There have been a lot of games that have attempted to bridge the gap between movies and video games in terms of experience. Whether that involves making a game 95% FMV footage like Night Trap or by filling in gaps in the story, like Enter the Matrix, the idea of films and games being held in the same esteem has been a carrot dangling in the face of developers. Trespasser was another game reaching for that carrot. Promising to feature an experience that was as real as being in the film itself, it had no shortage of ambition. Its key features were a fully working dinosaur ecosystem and a real-time physics engine that powers everything from the items you pick up to how the dinosaurs move. Unfortunately, ambition is only the first step of the process, and for Trespasser, every other step appears to have been a tumble down the stairs. The ecosystem didn’t work out, so all the dinosaurs had their moods set to pure malice. Anne, the playable protagonist, manipulates the environment with an arm so rubbery it would make Surgeon Simulator 2013's avatar jealous. Combat boils down to raptors trying to rub their teeth on you while you try and jam a stick down their throat before you die of gingivitis. The result of all this is a fun experience. The game keeps trying to put you into tense situations, but if the physics don’t ruin the moment, a glitch surely will. Dinosaurs will often find their legs pivoting wildly back and forth, and if you catch one unaware, you might see it wildly pirouetting until it launches itself into space like it wants revenge on the meteor that wiped its kind out. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric Image via SEGA Oh, Sonic. Sega's Blue Blur has never been afraid to take big swings, even (and perhaps especially) when he doesn't need to. Most of us remember where we were when Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 dropped, but to me, the gold medal for the "best" worst Sonic the Hedgehog game goes to Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric. Released during an age when Sega was hellbent on rebooting the Sonic franchise, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was supposed to the spearhead of a massive multi-media initiative meant to introduce this new, superhero-adjacent version of Sonic and his friends to audiences worldwide. While I'll argue with anyone that the Sonic Boom television series is an underrated gem, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was a game so broken it made Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 look like Game of the Year material. Playing Rise of Lyric feels like walking around a carnival in a thunderstorm; everything around you seems to be at constant risk of being torn off the ground and flung into the sky. Everything from NPCs to breakable objects to crucial pieces of the levels' architecture jitter and wobble uncontrollably. If you ever decide that this is all too much of you, you can always do the infinite jump glitch with Knuckles and soar to the end of any stage. Seriously: you'll believe an echidna can fly after you play this game. Played the way Sega intended, Rise of Lyric is a brutal slog that sucks hours out of your life that can never be refunded. When played with friends who love to push games to their breaking points, Rise of Lyrics is a fantastic time. Most games can handle it when you go where you aren't supposed to or move objects in a way they weren't supposed to be. The same doesn't hold true for Rise of Lyric; all you need to do to transform the game into a wasteland of hilarious bugs is step a little outside the boundaries. As you can probably guess, hilarity tends to ensue afterwards. So, what horrible game would you recommend? What is the "best" worst game you’ve ever played? The post What’s the ‘best’ worst game of all time? appeared first on Destructoid.

By Zoey Handley