Hey all, I’m back with an answer to a question I get asked occasionally for this week’s Video Game Tuesday. It’s what is the worst video game of all time?

So what is it?: Well in case the picture didn’t give it away, or it didn’t load for you for whatever reason, it’s E.T. for the Atari 2600 that was released in 1982. It wasn’t the single game responsible for the Video Game Crash of ’83, but it was one of the biggest reasons. Seriously, this game is utter garbage, literally.

There’s a landfill in New Mexico filled with this game, along with the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man that was also truly bad.

But surely there are other games that are worse?: Well sure, but no others can be pointed to that are so bad that they crashed an entire freaking market for their initial release. Sure, that Pac-Man port I mentioned above was another big reason for the crash, but as I said, it’s a port. Its being poorly done and overly hyped was terrible, but the actual original game wasn’t terrible.

Okay, but what about those others?: Well, there’s some that are so garbage that they deserve some Dishonorable Mentions here. So, in no particular order, here are some of the worst games other than E.T.

Ride to Hell: Retribution: Seriously, this game was just bad.  It was crude in every sense of the word and was just one ugly mess from start to finish.

Superman 64: Here is the reason comic book games were utter garbage for so long. Honestly, this game was truly bad. I personally played it once, and it was utter trash in its nonsense with flying through rings for levels, the rubbish controls, and the poor graphics. Really, until Spiderman 2 released there were really no good comic book hero titles that were great before this point that actually captured the essence of the portrayed comic book hero.

Aliens: Colonial Marines: Another buggy mess, this was so widely panned that it actually was sued by players. It didn’t pan out for the filers of the suit, but really Aliens: Colonial Marines deserves some serious mention for how bad it was.  To top it off, one of the major deficiencies was actually because of typographical error in the code, and this wasn’t discovered until 4 years later.