40. Survivor (PC)
Survivor is one of the longest-running reality shows on television, and with good reason. The concept is perfect: take some average joes, strand them in some desolate wasteland for two months, and watch the commercial revenue roll in. It's a shame that they could never turn the show into a good video game; just look at this rotten PC title and you'll see what we mean.
The game follows the same structure as the show, but nothing else about it makes sense. One minute a fellow survivor will tell you your alliance is stronger than ever, and the next second he's voting you off the island. The challenges are supposed to be fun and exciting, but instead come off boring and monotonous. Finally, is that actually supposed to look like Jeff Probst in that shot? Yikes! Vote us off of this island; we've had enough!
39. Spogs Racing
Remember slamming and collecting the little, cardboard discs called POGs back in the day? That was fun, right? But you'd never think that very simple concept would translate well into a racing game. And you'd be right to think that. because Spogs Racing falls flatter than a big metal slammer that missed the pile.
Spogs Racing takes POGs, turns them on their side, attaches a wheel, and makes you race them through uninteresting racetrack after uninteresting racetrack. There's one novel concept, the Crash 'N Grab mechanic where a Spog could steal parts from another racer by crashing into it, but it's so poorly implemented that it's more of a disappointment. This should've stayed in the 1990s like POGs themselves.
38. Greys Anatomy: The Video Game
Grey's Anatomy: The Video Game is a game that did not need to happen. It offered nothing in the way of challenge for PC and Wii gamers, and it gave fans little motivation to play through its five-episode arc besides seeing what happens to McDreamy-face and what's-her-nuts in the final chapter of who gives a flying crap.
Granted, we could levy these criticisms at almost all TV-to-video game products in the past five years, but what makes Grey's Anatomy one of the worst is that it didn't need to suck. Here was a franchise with huge marketing muscle, solid source material, the support of Ubisoft, and the financial backing to give Wii owners a solid game. Instead, all those pretty cut-scenes were buried under grainy clips from the show, forgettable Trauma Hospital sequences, and an overflow of slap-dash mini-games that had no purpose of existing except to validate that this was indeed a game, and not a $30 Grey's Anatomy animated movie.
37. Self-Defense Training Camp
The Kinect saw plenty of weird exercise and movement games, but there's a line we have to draw in the sand at some point. UFC Trainer and Your Shape are all well and good, but how in the heck is the Kinect's terrible motion controls supposed to teach effective self-defense training? We're shocked this game even exists, let alone attempts to teach people proper self-defense.
We're not against the idea of someone learning to protect themselves, and fine with the idea of a video game helping with that, but this particular title is a terrible teacher! The motion controls don't register what you're supposed to be doing properly, and without a second person to try these self-defense moves on, whats the point of the lesson? This game's failures in design might mean someone learns improper self-defense techniques, making this title potentially physically dangerous to the public at large.
36. Basement Crawl
Basement Crawl, one of the first ever download-only titles for the PlayStation 4, landed with a big hard thud as soon as it launched. Players were expecting some new-generation graphics and gameplay from a title that was only on PS4, but what they got is a boring, uninspired Bomberman clone with no real reason to be played.
Granted, Basement Crawl does an acceptable job of cloning the maze-like Bomberman gameplay, but it's not fun in the least. But it's extraordinarily bug-riddled, particularly the online gameplay. When it's actually playable, it's still remarkably unoriginal, outside of a varying character roster of things like a little girl with a teddy bear and a tiny clown. At least the developers seem to know how bad their game is, as they vowed to fix the myriad issues and re-release it free to buyers. Let's hope the second time's the charm.
35. Pac-Man Atari 2600
You probably have a few questions for us right now. How is Pac-Man on this list? It's the same every time its ported! What's wrong with you? Trust us, nothing can prepare you for the Atari 2600's interpretation of Pac-Man.
It's ugly, it's sluggish, sounds awful, and it's a blemish on the good Pac-Man name. After playing this, we'd get up and go to the arcade for a true Pac-Man pellet-eating experience, just to wash the bad taste out of our mouths.
34. Bubsy 3D: Furbitten Planet
Alas, poor Bubsy! We knew him well. While most of us would like to remember Bubsy for his charming, middle-of-the-road 2D platformers in the early 90s, few can forget his transition to the third dimension, and the death blow it dealt to the Bubsy franchise. Be it the rudimentary environments, single-colored textures, or controls that reduced players to stiff, clumsy automatons, Bubsy committed nearly every sin of 3D gaming while nut-punching players with annoying one-liners at every rigid turn.
To its credit, developer Eidetic dared to go where few developers had gone before with 3D gaming; except, you know, for Nintendo who released the infinitely better Super Mario 64 that very same year. Later, Bubsy creator Michael Berlyn admitted to Sega-16 he knew Bubsy was outmatched when he saw Super Mario 64 at CES, recalling, "My partner and I both looked at Mario at the Nintendo booth and knew we had to double Bubsy 3D's complexity. But it was too late in the development cycle, and Accolade was (rightly) pushing for a finished product. If Mario hadn't come out, I am sure we would have done a lot better". Yep. That was definitely the problem. Spot on.
33. Yaris
We've learned to smell a bad game from a mile away, and with Yaris all of the signs are obvious. Is it a free download? Check. Is it licensed by a product that normally wouldn't be licensed? Check. Are there very strange design ideas, like tricking out the Yaris with crazy weapons to defeat giant MP3 players for coins? Check.
The game, unimaginatively titled Yaris, is simply driving through the same U-shaped track over and over again, collecting coins and defeating enemies to collect more coins that will upgrade your Yaris so you can collect more coins. There's no other objective other than replicating Sonic 2 Special Stages in a Toyota vehicle but with lasers and sawblades. Honestly, we feel bad even discussing this title, because it feels like we're trapped in an ad for Yaris. There's a reason this vanished from the Xbox Live Marketplace after just one year; even for a free game, it's too expensive.
32. M&M's Kart Racing
M&M's are made to be eaten. It's that simple. They're not supposed to go on adventures or play sports, and they're certainly not supposed to drive go-karts against other M&M's in big races. We get that this game is trying to bring the popular commercial mascots to a new medium, but M&M's Kart Racing is just not the way to do it.
The Wii's motion controls make handling these karts almost impossible, as they drive like they haven't been tuned in years. The visuals are so awful that they might swear you off candy for the rest of your life, and it's so lacking in contact that asking full retail price for it sounds like an insult. Worst of all, this kart racer doesn't even have items to use in the races. Even the most unabashed Mario Kart rip-offs have bothered to include items!
31. Navy SEALs: Weapons of Mass Destruction
If we're playing a game as elite Navy SEALs, we expect some kind of quality. We want difficult missions that test our abilities, an arsenal of real-life weapons at our disposal, and enemies who are highly-trained mercenaries that can put up a fight. Navy SEALs: Weapons of Mass Destruction offers nothing of the sort, dragging the good name of the organization through the mud.
The enemies of Navy SEALs: WMD are the most glaring issue, standing around waiting to be shot like they're at a social event of some kind. Given the settings, we expected a lot of browns and grays in the background, but even by shooter standards the world is bland and ugly. Worst of all, each mission takes us from point to point, shooting enemies, and that's it; no bombs to diffuse, no other objectives to fulfill, nothing. Just shoot and move on. There are plenty of other shooters we can play without feeling like were wasting our time, so these WMDs are best left unfound.
