There are some bad games that you just can’t stop playing. Perhaps you were far too excited by it leading up to its release, so you felt obliged to complete it regardless of its competency. Or maybe you just had nothing better to do, so decided to bask in its awfulness.
We’ve played plenty of bad games in our time, but there are some we invested far more hours into than they deserved. We’ve described the terrible games we played WAY too much below, and now we want to hear from you. Leave your responses in the comments section below, and we’ll feature our favorite response in tomorrow’s Tell GR!
Paul Tamburro, executive editor: “I was a teenager on a boring family vacation, and the place we stayed in had an Xbox 360 with just one game: Sonic ’06. I spent most of my time there playing it, convincing myself that I was having fun. It was basically Stockholm syndrome; I either played that, or I sat in silence contemplating my own existence. I wasn’t aware of its overwhelmingly negative critical consensus at the time, and I somehow have fond memories of playing it. I won’t be revisiting it anytime soon to sully those memories.”
Jason Faulkner, senior editor: “I’m gonna say Left Alive. It wasn’t by choice as I was playing for review. Rarely have I seen a game that could have been so good, just absolutely miss the mark completely in every aspect of its design. Somehow, the fact that it could have been good made it even more terrible. Front Mission is an awesome series, and the central story of Left Alive was intriguing, but the gameplay is so frustrating and clunky in most parts that it just sucked the life out of me. I was physically tired whenever I’d finish a session with that game, and I’m so happy I never have to play it again.”
Mack Ashworth, lead editor: “Coin Master. Awful mobile game that is manipulative in its constant pushing of microtransactions to get to the next unlock. Requires no skill, just luck, and yet I’ve played it a bunch.”
Michael Leri, features editor: “Hunting down platinum trophies will eventually lead you to play terrible games for way too long and Duke Nukem Forever was probably the worst offender for me. It’s a terrible game in almost every capacity during the first run but exponentially so once you crank it up to hard. Enemies kill you with unfair precision and some of the turret sequences were straight-up broken. Thankfully, I was home alone in the middle of nowhere at the time so I could shout to my heart’s content. Instead of masturbating in an empty house like a normal teenager, I decided to yell at a bad video game I played too much of for a platinum trophy I’m almost ashamed to have.”
Yesterday’s best Tell GR comment
Question: What video game world you most like to live in?
Starling: “The world of Final Fantasy 14, sure there’s catasthropes and wars but most of the time it’s incredibly pleasant place to live in, what with modern sensibilities mixed with medieval charm.”
