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[Bleck]

Next thing I'll be reading about a famous chef who intentionally makes terrible food. 

[Norondor]

Like, ok. Artists sometimes make art that's not good art -- it's not pleasing to look at, or it has no meaning, or what-have-you. But there is a subtle distinction here, which is that i don't have to interact with your art for an extended period of time to get the full experience -- i don't need to play a signed urinal, i can, like, look at a picture of it, say "i get it" and be ok with that. Making a game and putting in things that suck on purpose is kind of like, i dunno. Putting your painting up in a custom art gallery you designed, where patrons have to wade through ankle-deep freezing swamp water and there's a bad smell.

[Kazz]

FINALLY

I HAVE DESIGNED THE POOREST EXPERIENCE

I AM A GENIUS!

[James Edward Smith]

Your analogy is really flawed. Like awfully.

See, you can just peak at a painting if you like, but you are not necessarily getting everything out of it if you do so. But more importantly, say someone makes a movie, you have to watch the whole movie to appreciate it properly, that's just how the medium is. It's the same with a game. Games are not pictures, Norondor, sorry. If you don't want to put the time in to experience them, then don't play them, but don't comment on them either.

The real thing here that I think you don't understand though is the concept of video games as we know them not having to be GAMES at all. We move mario around to get to the next level and have fun doing so, but this is not the only thing that you can do with a little structured virual world/experience. You can let people interact with things for all sorts of reasons beyond just making something fun for them. When I say "games" I say that just because that's the only term we have for this sort of creation that doesn't sound assinine, but the point is they don't all have to be GAMES and Cactus is often not a GAME developer.

The other problem is that you are infering that games that are not FUN are like paintings that are intentionally BAD. Well, like I said, games don't have to literally be GAMES and they don't have to be FUN to be good. They can be provoking, interesting, they can hold great truths, etc.

Now as for myself, I like actual GAMES, and I like to make them, but Cactus doesn't and I respect that even if he is just some 17-year-old punk who likes to make things to piss people off and then laugh at them.

[Bleck]

I understand what you're getting at - the problem I have with your point is the association you're apparently making between things that are 'provoking, interesting, they can hold great truths', and the piece of shit indy games that Cactus makes.

[Miss Cat Ears]

Every time I watch a really shitty movie, I have to stop and think "Somewhere... this is somebody's all-time favorite."  And then I'm 

[Lobst]

Far Cry is terrible!  I stopped at around the point where I found an aircraft carrier early in the game, boarded it, and savestuck myself in at a point where a helicopter was strafing me, six guys were flanking me from all angles, and all I had was a machine gun with extremely limited ammunition to defend myself with.  I'm the sort of person who intentionally quicksaves with low health when I replay Half-Life -- pretending I'm wearing a torn tank-top over rippling muscles, a belt of grenades, and a permanent scowl as I do so -- but I still couldn't beat a victory out of that one.

Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories is about the time I realized how lazy and formulaic Rockstar has gotten with their open-world games over the last decade.  Liberty City has bikes now!  It also has plenty of missions where you pick up a guy and bring him over to a deal, after which the deal goes wrong and you have to slaughter every last person in your midst -- just like every other open-world game in existence before the Saints Row series came along.  The script is especially forgettable, too; constantly writing for convenience and substituting jokes for references to shit/drugs/sexual deviance and lame tie-ins to other games in the series.

Will Rock is the result of Ubi Soft's decision to capitalize on the amazing success of the Serious Sam series, making a series of low-budget DOOM-style run-and-gun levels and putting them on a CD for $20 or less!  Checkpoints are sparse, weapons feel weak, environments are forgettable, everything looks the same.  They must have thought First Encounter's Egyptian setting was instrumental to its success (because this takes place in ancient Rome), but they forgot to add the most crucial element that distinguished Sam from its peers back in the day: environmental colors that aren't bleached out and dull.  They licensed a Twisted Sister song for this?

Passage is the result of too many indie game snobs searching for something to wave in front of Roger Ebert's fat, ailing face and scream "HA! WE ARE INDEED RELEVANT!" -- the type of thinking that results in every third indie game starring a sad girl who dies at the end while piano music plays in the background.  Maybe I'd like it more if it wasn't Part 6 of Destructoid's 80-part GAMES THAT MATTER series, but that uncomfortable revelation can wait until I'm in the kickass alternate universe where every indie game is approached with the same level of enthusiasm as Runman, Star Guard, or Aaaaa(x5).

King's Quest V: Absence Makes The Heart Go Yonder is an abomination.  Everything about it is tedious and dull, if it's not actively trying to annoy the piss out of you!  The story is stiltedly acted by programming staff; the world is an inane combination of fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and fantasy tropes; the death sequences are overly elaborate and unnecessary, and the "puzzles" required to pass them are totally insulting.  Most of this applies to Space Quest 4 as well, but this has the added insult of having attached my old name to a sidekick more universally reviled than Navi from Ocarina of Time.

[JDigital]

Crystal Skull, a public domain Amiga game where you get stuck because there's a glitched corridor that continues infinitely like Zara's "Frocto" area in Exquisite Knorpse 2.

Quake 4, more like Doom 4. It stutters when enemies load which gives advance warning when an ambush is coming. Enemies just jump left and right and get really annoying. When I started I expected I'd want to replay again on harder difficulty, but Q4 gave no sense of shisoding at all. I uninstalled it and played through Quake 2 instead.

Audiosurf. It's like a rhythm game, only stupid.

Any Japanese visual novel ever. Sit with a Japanese dictionary open and spend two hours just to decode a plot exposition that would take an anime thirty seconds. I AM PROTAGONIST I LIVE IN A HOUSE WITH SIX BEAUTIFUL ANDROID CATGIRL MAIDS. Toss the dictionary aside and spend the next hour clicking through dialogue to get one picture of an android maid's fully clothed bum.

The fifth game... is you!

[Büge]

I used to be a fan of The Game, but he hasn't changed his gimmick in like ten years.

[Bongo Bill]

Bioshock for making me lure a Big Daddy over to a respawn booth so I could save ammo by wrenching him to death. I died about 10 times for each Big Daddy, but there was no actual setback of any amount whatsoever sooooo... Also, there is something to be said about an FPS where you can stand in front of the final boss hitting him with a Wrench and soaking every attack, healing faster than you take damage.

The final boss was bullshit, true, but you fought the Big Daddies in the most boring way possible and then expected the fights to not be boring?

[Doom]

His complaint is that there's literally no penalty for death and he had no reason not to. Shooting the thing is more fun, but not at all necessary. And everything but Big Daddies can be wrenched as the optimal way to deal with them, so.

OK, I guess you run up to turrets and hack them? But you could probably wrench those too.

[Mongrel]

I understand what you're getting at - the problem I have with your point is the association you're apparently making between things that are 'provoking, interesting, they can hold great truths', and the piece of shit indy games that Cactus makes.

I think all that Geo's saying is that this punk kid is one of the only people exploring this idea. Nobody's saying he's some kind of unsung genius, just that he's young, has pointed out a big absence in the world of the 'interactive computer thingy', and is a hard worker.

That doesn't make him a genius, but nor does it make him a useless idiot trolling for trolling's sake. Some artists find holes, other artists fill those holes. Sometimes the world gets lucky and the same guy does both, but not always. Sooner or later someone may see cactus' work, or the work of a similar young troll and get a brainwave that lets them make something much more meaningful. Or, well, we'd like to hope so anyway.

[Bongo Bill]

His complaint is that there's literally no penalty for death and he had no reason not to. Shooting the thing is more fun, but not at all necessary. And everything but Big Daddies can be wrenched as the optimal way to deal with them, so.

The reason not to do it that way is because it's more fun to do it any other way, but I guess I see the point.

[Bleck]

Sooner or later someone may see cactus' work, or the work of a similar young troll and get a brainwave that lets them make something much more meaningful. Or, well, we'd like to hope so anyway.

Hmm. Good point.

But you could probably wrench those too.

Yep. 

[Kayin]

I understand what you're getting at - the problem I have with your point is the association you're apparently making between things that are 'provoking, interesting, they can hold great truths', and the piece of shit indy games that Cactus makes.

This!

I agree with Geo in theory, but Cactus just makes me  

I'm all for games as art, but if all we're going to get is 'games as bad art' I'll take a pass until someone can do the job right.

Anyways, my list is kinda hard since I tend to be very forgiving with games and I am really good at avoiding unforgivably bad games. So I guess these are games that have just wronged me in some way.

Passage: Damn you for beating me to it Lobst. I hate Passage. Apparently art is a totally unsubtle, unclever metaphor for life and death that doesn't actually make me think of anything. It's barely even a game at that, but I guess that doesn't matter.

I really can't embrace a game as art that lacks any amount of sophistication. All Passage accomplishes is making people lazy when it comes to making 'art'.

Seven Minutes: Another Indy game, one that bites  my work (which I don't necessarily mind) and does so poorly(that part sucks) AND replaces a lot of the creativity with TERRIBLE SYMBOLISM.

This game offends me. On it's own, without knowing any better, it's just a sorta crappy masocore game with some decent atmosphere that only lasts for 7 minutes. But to REALLY  beat the game you stand in one place for 7 minutes. Then you ascend to godhood for my wisdom.

Also it's like an Adam/Eve metaphor story.

A STUPID metaphor story.

:(

The part that makes this even worse is it was really well received by the indy community for being clever. SIGH.

Left For Dead 1/2: Good example of a game that just is wrong to me. I can't say with a straight face that L4D is garbage, but I can't help but to find it intensely unfun.

I feel if the zombie theme was removed, there wouldn't be much there. Atmosphere and theme are legitimate additives to a game, but L4D seems lack much of a core game. The fact that it's mutliplayer also sorta removes the atmosphere and tension in my eyes. I end up feeling like I'm playing a shitty doom. The game is also stuffy! Don't be risky, group up and just carefully move through the whole game in a monotonous fashion.

Also god verses mode. So I get two choices (and not really since I need to play two sides).. Either play the stuffy, boring survivors, or play the fun Infected and then... well... die after I do one thing and then wait 20 second.

So really as I see it, the game is all glitz and little actual game. And I say this actually from playing a lot of L4D, because thats all my friends would play.

TF2's Item System: I mean, this isn't a GAME, it's part of a game, but nothing else has annoyed me more. It baffles me that such a well designed game can be corrupted by such poorly thought out trash. And there is so much that make it extra stupid. You're more likely to get items you already have? REALLY?! WHY! WWWWWHY!

Oh yeah, useless crafting system that is so resource intensive that you'll likely have everything you want before you can use it. All it really works for is melting items into hats. Thanks Valve.

BlazBlue: This game was such a huge disappointment to me and in ways no one here will really understand. Beautiful, big sprites and weapons, who attack like they either have T-Rex arms, or move in slow motion.

Also the worst throw system in history.

Hell the worst game systems in history. Terrible guardbreak, Negative Penalty that effects rush down characters more then zoners. Totally predictable their list based on game system..... and no subtleness in the game. Gimmick vs Gimmick, nothing more, nothing left.

I doubt the new one will be much better, but maybe it won't make me gag.

[Catloaf]

Any Japanese visual novel ever. Sit with a Japanese dictionary open and spend two hours just to decode a plot exposition that would take an anime thirty seconds. I AM PROTAGONIST I LIVE IN A HOUSE WITH SIX BEAUTIFUL ANDROID CATGIRL MAIDS. Toss the dictionary aside and spend the next hour clicking through dialogue to get one picture of an android maid's fully clothed bum.

I mostly agree with you, but Yumei Miru Kusuri has the redeeming feature of letting you choke a bitch until she craps herself, at which point you lose focus, let the bitch live--well, pass out, and you go into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.  --No! She is not one of the characters you fuck!  She's a bitch who tortures one of the characters you fuck to near suicide and tries to get her raped (by someone other than you).

[Brentai]

I'll justify these later but

Dawn of Mana
Wild ARMs 2
Execution
Hydlide
World of Warcraft

...all of these are RPGs except one which is arguably a game.

[James Edward Smith]

Just in case I didn't make it abundantly clear, Cactus makes me  too.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Spirit Tracks was not one of the five worst games I've ever played, but it was definitely trash.

Far Cry was interesting. It was flawed, but not terribad, until they were like SUDDENLY MUTANT POWERS IT'S A HORROR GAME and I said "fuck this shit".

Deus Ex: Invisible War. Almost doesn't count except some people try to defend it sometimes.

I'm glad to read Frocto's opinion of Psychonauts, because it's exactly what the game seemed like to me when I played the demo, and now I feel good about not having ever bothered to get the whole thing.

Bioshock was a disappointment in many regards. It did a lot of stuff right, but it also did so very many things wrong. It's probably the least-bad game on my list here.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that just about all these games - including ones I'm not listing - are great games as long as you fucking stop playing and pretend like you beat it at some arbitrary point. This is an issue with Indigo Prophecy, it's an issue with Bioshock, it's an issue with Far Cry, it's almost an issue with Invisible War, and it's actually kind of the opposite of the issue with World of Warcraft, which requires an enormous time investment before it starts being fun.

Actually, WOW is a whole different issue, because its quality scales both on what point you are at in the game, and what point you are at in terms of real-world timeline and where the community and Blizzard are at. I don't play wow anymore because the game I want to play is what wow was mid-to-late in the BC lifecycle - the post-80 metagame is not one that appeals to me anymore.

[Mothra]

Star Wars Galaxies: A long, soulless, unremarkable slog that took away a solid month of my life. SOE used every trick in the book to make you keep playing this thing, under the guise that you were almost to the point where you could use a flamethrower or wear some cool armor or do a mission that was actually fun. There was also talk of player-created cities that did in fact exist yet were little more than gigantic heaps of the same house model placed at arbitrarily random directions on roadless, featureless flat green land.

Disgaea: How people trick themselves into thinking this thing is even remotely fun is beyond me.

X-Com Apocalypse: For doing several things so fucking right (weighted destructible terrain, cityscape tactical battles, corporate intrigue) then dicking up the look and feel and pace so much that it was impossible to enjoy. I know that I'm never going to get another game that is as close to the perfect X-Com as this and it makes me spittin' pissed every time.

Rebelstar Tactical Command: Fuck you for playing on my nostalgia like that.

Perfect Dark Zero: Absolutely joyless - the hype machine at its best!