The Cartridge Thief Blog

The other day I put together an article all about the 2023 computerised car accidents that have attracted the term 'worst games ever'. Now, while the main focus of that piece was on how we throw around that term a little too often for it to be of much use, it did get me thinking. What is the worst game of all time? (Image property of Atari) After some examination, I've discovered that this is a deceptively difficult question to answer because, depending on how you choose to cut it, there are a whole number of games that could be considered the worst of all time. As such, I want to dig into this topic a bit today and talk about my candidates for the worst games of all time. What's old is new... In recent years, games like Lord of the Rings: Gollum  and Skull Island: Rise of Kong  have garnered attention for being as devastatingly awful as being waterboarded with depleted uranium. While I'm not sure I agree that this makes them contenders to the faecal throne of worst...

 2023 has been a year of many things. Worsening environmental collapse, political uncertainty and, above all else, some absolutely horrendous video games. There have been various points throughout the year when something new has come out wearing its fanciest hat hoping to make bank through the social media marketing machine only to be slapped around the face with 2 out of 10 scores and declared by some to be the WORST GAME EVER. First it was Forspoken , then it was Redfall , then Gollum and now Skull Island: Rise of Kong . In the video game conversation sphere, we are nothing if not consistent. (Images property of Square Enix, Arkane Studios, Daedelic Entertainment and GameMill Entertainment) In each of the above cases, there have been various offending issues that have courted the piercing gaze of widespread scrutiny. Bad writing, messy AI or outright bad concepts to build a game around have all been highlighted as pervasive themes. However, across this smorgasbord of mediocrity,...