Some games are so bad they're GREAT.
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00:00When it comes to video games, the worst thing you can do is release something that's forgettable.
00:04A good game, well, sure, that's the intent. But if it goes horribly wrong,
00:08sometimes you'll catch a saving grace and the attention of the masses by producing something
00:11that's so bad, people want to play it regardless. Morbid curiosity is definitely a thing after all,
00:17and if your bad video game has a unique selling point, then bully for you,
00:20you may have just made history. Not as you intended, but it's notoriety all the same.
00:25Most of the titles on this list are never going to be anyone's favourite,
00:28but they're at least worth that look of morbid curiosity. I'm ScytheForWhatCulture.com,
00:32and these are 10 terrible video games you should play anyway.
00:3610. Shadow the Hedgehog
00:38In 2005, Sega decided to cash in on the popularity of Sonic's broody bro Shadow the Edgelord and
00:43give him his own spin-off. How would they separate it from any other Sonic game? Well,
00:47why not slap a gun into his hands and see what happens? I'm sure we can all agree
00:50that that idea was staring us in the face this whole time. Shadow the Hedgehog isn't the most
00:54broken of the Sonic games, that's for sure, but it definitely broke any semblance of sanity the
00:58series had at that point. Shadow spends his one and only titular release firing a variety of
01:02firearms, driving in tanks and cursing like an angsty teen. This one is worth playing for a
01:06couple of reasons. First of all, the game has a really cool system of morality-based objectives
01:11you can pick from on the fly in each stage. It plots out a course through the game's many stages
01:14based on these choices, meaning there are a lot of different possible playthroughs,
01:17and that's genuinely impressive. Mostly though, you need to play Shadow the Hedgehog just to
01:21understand how absolutely nuts it is. If you can make it through the opening cutscene with Shadow
01:25sneering with an automatic rifle in his hands without laughing, well, you're made of sterner
01:29stuff than me. Number 9, Shaq-Fu
01:32Shaq-Fu sort of cultivated its own legend around its lack of quality. Even if it wasn't very
01:37mediocre, being released following the home debuts of Super Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat 2,
01:42it never stood a chance. So hated was basketball star Shaq's foray into video games that a group
01:46of players decided to do something about it, and made it their goal to spread the gospel of
01:50destroying as many physical copies of the game as possible. Shaq-Fu has spent so long being
01:54included in every list of the worst games of all time that people seem to be groomed into instinctively
01:59shuddering when they hear the name. It may well be terrible, but it's not the black hole of
02:02creativity that the legend makes it sound. It has a consistent visual design and is decently
02:06well-animated, so props for that, but admittedly that doesn't save it from being slow, shallow,
02:11and absolutely paling in comparison to its peers. Regardless, it's now part of the great
02:15tapestry of gaming because of its extreme reaction, so in many ways it's worth taking a look at just
02:19for that alone. Plus, if you can get your hands on a copy, you can oppose the destroy Shaq-Fu regime
02:24and preserve this odd piece of gaming history.
02:278. South Park
02:29South Park, at the height of its popularity, was a juggernaut for merchandising and tie-ins. As
02:34such, South Park needed to have a game out, and it needed to have it out fast. Using the Churok
02:39engine of all things, South Park's first video game outing was a straightforward first-person
02:43shooter that contained much of the series' character and potty-mouthed sensibility.
02:46The reality of the situation is that, since it was so rushed out into public hands, South Park
02:51is ugly and limited in its scope. Levels are monotonous, as is replaying the whole thing if
02:55you die due to a lack of checkpoints, and the game has a serious lack of music and voice-over
02:59variety. On top of this, the ghastly short draw distance to try and hide its blemishes made it
03:04unbelievably boring to look at. All that said, the South Park game is as inventive as the show,
03:08and its sense of humour definitely offers a few chuckles. Whilst the campaign is forgettable,
03:12South Park did ship with multiplayer, which allows players to concentrate most on what
03:16the game did best, which was its variety of silly weaponry, from toilet plunger firearms
03:20to the cow launcher. There is definitely still fun to be had in selecting your favourite foul-mouthed
03:24kid and embarrassing your friends by pelting them with yellow snowballs. Ah, youth.
03:307. Goat Simulator
03:32This one is a little different in that the beauty of Goat Simulator is that,
03:36being a spoof of the growing sim genre, it was intentionally made a little badly.
03:40Developer Coffee Stain Studios had no qualms allowing physics glitches and such to get
03:44through the code to provide the kind of entertainment that we all get from watching
03:47a game world appear to fall apart. Nothing about Goat Simulator should be right. There's no story,
03:52no set objective, nothing of the sort, its physics don't make sense, its presentation is a mess,
03:56and yet it was destined to go viral. On the great face of video gaming,
04:00with all of its glorious AAA successes, Goat Simulator is the cheeky pimple that
04:04cropped up overnight. Want to become the world's best skateboarding goat? Would
04:07you rather ingest sugar cubes and get psychedelic? Perhaps you're more into
04:11sneaking up on people and pushing them to their doom. All of these and so much
04:14more are at your fingertips in the game's ridiculous open world. It was never going
04:18to win any fancy schmancy awards, but Goat Simulator reminds us that all video games
04:21don't always have to be cinematic or high art. Sometimes it's just enough that they make us
04:25smile, and terrorising a town as a demonic goat sounds like something that could make
04:29just about anyone smile. 6. Pepsi Man
04:33The guys down at Pepsi headquarters back in 1999 must have had a very wonderful,
04:37idealised view of things. With their mascot, superhero Pepsi Man, all crises can be averted.
04:43One such crisis is stopping a riot breaking out because of angry consumers upset about
04:48a late Pepsi delivery, even though, come to think of it, Pepsi Man's gameplay shows cans
04:52of the drink just lying around all over the roads in various real-life cities.
04:55Well, that seems like an accident waiting to happen.
04:57Pepsi Man is a cheap licensed product designed more to sell you fizzy drinks than to blow you
05:01away with its deep gameplay. As such, don't expect more than alternating level to level
05:05between running away and running towards the camera, and trying your hardest to avoid
05:09obstacles that come out of absolutely nowhere. Also, don't think too hard about the fact that
05:13the citizens of this world have built an entire city called Pepsi City as a shrine to their
05:17beloved soft drink. The gameplay may be boring, but it's also ridiculous that it's pretty hard
05:21to hate. It's debatable whether Pepsi Man's live-action cutscenes and strange portrayal of
05:25American culture is meant to be funny, but there's definitely laughs to be had at the
05:28lunacy of it all. 5. Resident Evil Gaiden
05:32Did you know that at one stage, Resident Evil was being ported to the Game Boy Color? That
05:37project didn't ever finish because the task at hand was too great for the hardware, but it didn't
05:40stop Capcom from wanting to drop their horror series into the hugely popular handheld gaming
05:45space. Resident Evil Gaiden is often pointed and laughed at from a distance, and perhaps
05:49quite rightfully so. It's a strange mix of top-down exploration and, of all things, a first-person
05:54timing-based battle system that's got more in common with the likes of Undertale than modern
05:58Resi. The music is tinny, the plot is nonsense, and the game has a god-awful save system that
06:03chooses for you when to save your progress. But it has this undeniable charm to it as well.
06:08The fixed-camera Resident Evil formula of the time was never going to work on a Game Boy,
06:12so props to Studio M4 for coming up with a different approach. Better yet, it's one that
06:16surprisingly manages to retain some classic Resi staples in trying to run past enemies to conserve
06:21your limited ammo and backtracking to areas with your new key. That's about where the similarities
06:25to the core series end, but very few gaming franchises that are still going strong today
06:30have curios quite like Resident Evil Gaiden.
06:334. 50 Cent's Blood on the Sand
06:3650 Cent Bulletproof was an absolute travesty of an action title that not only did nothing we hadn't
06:40seen before, but it barely got the essentials correct either. So how exactly Mr Curtis Jackson
06:45got a sequel is beyond belief. 50 Cent Blood on the Sand is, again, an almost completely generic
06:50affair that uses all the most popular tricks in gaming of the time. Vehicular combat, a ton of
06:55guns, chest-high walls, and of course, slow-motion bullet-time action. Its storyline was no less
07:00shallow than its gameplay either, essentially boiling down to, that bitch has got my money.
07:04Charming. The most offensive thing about Blood on the Sand, however? It's actually rather fun.
07:09It's pompous and stupid, but there is joy to be had in the ridiculousness of playing as 50 Cent
07:14slow-mo mowing down terrorists in the Middle East. These kinds of cover-based shooters were
07:17a dime a dozen for a long time, but only one of them allows you to activate gangster fire,
07:22team with a G unit, and listen to original music that 50 Cent had written just for the game.
07:27Oh, it did do one thing unique. You can get extra points from taunting your opponents
07:31with profanity after they die, and these can be traded in for new swear words. You know what?
07:35I'd take it all back. This is a surefire 10 out of 10.
07:38Number 3. ARK Survival Evolved
07:41The survival genre is at its best when it can get its hooks into you and 100 hours fly by
07:46without you realising it. Who amongst us hasn't suddenly had the, oh, it's 3am moment when we
07:50played Minecraft? ARK Survival Evolved takes the relatively calming and straightforward nature of
07:54Minecraft and throws it out to sea. Its realistic demands and deep mechanics require gamers to play
07:59carefully and plan ahead as they attempt a survival world that is currently populated by over 150
08:04different, largely dangerous, and often prehistoric creatures. ARK is not an easy game to get into.
08:10It doesn't embrace new players from a gameplay perspective, nor the fact that the game is
08:13absolutely busted. All the classics are here. Unreliable AI pathfinding, awful collision
08:18detection, and horrendous lag. At this stage, the bugs are so deeply embedded into the game
08:22that most of them are never coming out. The reason you should play it? Well,
08:26ARK is a damn fine cooperative experience, whether you're fighting against the dinosaurs
08:29or the game itself. After all, misery breeds company, and whilst some of the bugs are
08:33frustrating, many weird occurrences offer unique gameplay experiences. Remember that time I climbed
08:38a saber-toothed tiger into the sky? It's not something you can say about many games.
08:43Number 2. Darkened Sky
08:45Darkened Sky is about as average a game as you can get. A 2002 third-person adventure title that
08:51stars hero Sky exploring a fantastical setting looking to restore magic, light, and rainbows
08:56to her world. Its action is bland, its puzzles are horribly cryptic, and its platforming is painful.
09:02Still, it's got a very kooky sense of humour. Lead characters often quip sarcastically between
09:06each other, and the fourth wall is broken so many times that it might as well not be there.
09:10Any other reason to play it? Well, with most video games that are licensed,
09:13like the aforementioned Pepsi Man, you know pretty much immediately. But Darkened Sky,
09:17the rogue that it is, doesn't have the company logos emblazoned on the box,
09:20nor does it really hurry to reveal the truth that it is in fact a licensed product.
09:24In one of gaming's most surreal moments, Darkened Sky goes from a relatively blase
09:28action-adventure into a total headscrew when Sky bends down to pick a skittle up off the ground.
09:33Yes, a skittle. The dark secret of Darkened Sky is the moment you realise that the magic system
09:38in the game is all based on brightly coloured candy. It doesn't make Darkened Sky any more
09:42an exciting gameplay experience, but I can't think of any other games where your spells are
09:46powered by sweets, so it's got that going for it.
09:49And number 1, Big Rigs, Over the Road Racing
09:52If you can think of it, you can probably do it in Big Rigs, as long as it contains driving through
09:57every obstacle in the game unharmed, accelerating up totally vertical cliff faces without slowing
10:01down, and even sinking into the ground. For whatever reason, GameMill appears to have
10:06decided that pre-alpha was good enough for this 2003 PC racing title, and sent it out into the
10:11world to find its own way. What it found was anger, befuddlement, and the title of one of
10:16the worst games of all time. Still, many gamers were so stunned by the thing that they couldn't
10:20help but love it. Considering your one opponent doesn't leave the start line, it's hard to play
10:24Big Rigs as intended, even when trying to ignore the glitches. Thus, the only fun to be had is
10:29driving through buildings, falling through bridges, and speeding over mountainsides.
10:33If there was ever a crown made for so bad it's good, then Big Rigs deserves that,
10:37the throne and the scepter. You can't help but feel sorry for the thing, rushed out of the door
10:41before it was done, scared, confused, and ugly. I almost feel bad for calling it terrible, as what
10:47we have barely constitutes a game. Whatever you call it, you absolutely need to experience Big
10:51Rigs over the road racing at least once. And that's the list. Let us know what you
10:57thought of this video down in the comments below, and any other video games that you can think of
11:00that count as terrible, but are still worth playing for whatever reason. Make sure to like
11:05and share this video, subscribe to the channel for more, and hit the notification bell. I've
11:09been Si from WhatCulture, and have a good week.