Video Games So Bad They're Good

Most designers don't set out to make a bad game. Penn and Teller did. Desert Bus, part of the duo's planned Smoke and Mirrors compilation, is less of a game and more of a practical joke: all you do is drive a truck from Tucson to Las Vegas in real time. And ... that's pretty much it. Oh, wait! Forgot to add: when you arrive in Sin City, you get a point! Drive back to Tuscon, and you get another. In real life, the drive between the two cities takes about eight hours at 45 mph. "I drive faster than that," you're saying. Not in this game you don't; your truck tops out at 45. There's no scenery, and there are no other cars on the road. And while the road is completely straight, the vehicle drifts to the right, meaning you need to keep your hands on the virtual wheel at all times.

Originally developed for the Sega CD, Smoke and Mirrors was canceled due to a lack of interest in Sega's peripheral. That should've been the end of Desert Bus. And yet, somehow, it survives. In the mid-2000s, a former game critic sent an advance copy of Smoke and Mirrors to Lost Levels, a website that covers canceled video games. Then, someone was crazy enough to actually play it. In 2007, Morgan van Humbeck, Graham Stark, and Paul Saunders decided to play Desert Bus on an online stream while asking for donations. The more money they received, the longer they played.

The group raised $22,085, and the annual Desert Bus for Hope charity drive was born. In 2016, the Desert Bus team received so many donations that they had to play for over six and a half days straight, raising nearly $700,000 for the Child's Play charity in the process. Desert Bus sucks and it's always going to suck, but there aren't many other games that let you torture your fellow gamers and feel good about yourself for doing so.

Bad controls usually spell doom for a game, but Bossa Studios has turned them into something of an art form. In Surgeon Simulator 2013, players must perform precise medical procedures by controlling all ten of a surgeon's fingers independently—a task that's just as impossible as it sounds. After that game found some viral success, Bossa Studios followed up with I Am Bread, and boy, is it a doozy.

In I Am Bread, players control slices of bread that are trying to make their way into the toaster while avoiding obstacles that reduce their "edibility" rating. Thanks to bread's wobbly frame and absorbent texture, however, that's not easy to accomplish. You'll make a mess of both the kitchen and yourself as you battle your way across the countertops and household appliances, picking up pieces of junk a la Katamari Damacy.

It doesn't stop there, either. Fans who want to experiment with I Am Bread's surprisingly detailed physics system can also play as a bagel, a cheese-seeking cracker, or a baguette. There's even a story about a man haunted by sentient toast which (spoiler alert, as if you care) ends up being a Surgeon Simulator sequel.

And yet, despite the game's baffling controls and ludicrous setting, I Am Bread is funny, not frustrating. That's because, like Bossa Studios co-founder Henrique Olifiers says, when you fail, "it's your fault. It can't be the game's." I Am Bread's controls are wonky, but they're also consistent, meaning that, similar to the ultra-popular Dark Souls games, dedicated players can master the game—it's just going to take a lot of patience.

Ambition does not a good game make. Sure, there are a number of interesting ideas buried in Deadly Premonition, Hidetaka Suehiro's mash-up of Resident Evil, Shenmue, Grand Theft Auto, and Twin Peaks, but as Suehiro admits, there are a lot of problems, too. Deadly Premonition's graphics look like they belong on a system about a decade older. The dialogue makes sense ... barely. The plot makes no sense at all. The voice acting is terrible, and the combat, controls, and navigation make finishing Deadly Premonition an absolute chore.

And yet, like Suehiro says, "It's a game that didn't exist anywhere else in the world," and despite Deadly Premonition's many, many flaws—or maybe because of them—the game has amassed a cult following. Countless players have fallen for Deadly Premonition's eccentric setting, the fictional town of Greenvale, Washington, and have found themselves wrapped up in the game's central mystery, which starts as a simple murder case, takes a detour into government conspiracies, introduces superpowers, and then goes completely off the rails.

In short, Deadly Premonition isn't a game for critics—it's nowhere near polished enough to stand up against games like Grand Theft Auto or Silent Hill, which have a similar scope but are far better executed—but if you can withstand the game's onslaught of technical problems, you might end up a fan. At the very least, Deadly Premonition tries to do something new, and in a marketplace crowded with sequels and knock-offs, sometimes that's enough.

Terrible graphics? Check. Even worse voice acting? Check. Alien corpses that disappear mere seconds after dying, a razor-thin plot, poor artificial intelligence, no online multiplayer, and basic features—like a jump button—that are completely missing? Check.

Essentially, Earth Defense Force 2017 has all the hallmarks of a bad game, and yet, the game's mindlessly addictive shooter has a huge fan base—not in spite of the flaws, but because of them. In one review, a critic argues that "what is so incredibly endearing about this game is that it's so technically abhorrent." Another reviewer says, "The physics are ludicrous, yes. But ludicrous is a good thing." Other critics praise the game's fully destructive environments—things don't have to look pretty as long as you can explode 'em real good—and some even consider Earth Defense Force 2017's lackluster story and poor production values an asset.

Why? Because all those modern trappings would just get in the way of blowing things up. At least Earth Defense Force 2017 has that part down. With its bare-bones presentation, there's almost nothing in Earth Defense Force 2017 that gets between you and some good, old-fashioned shooting—which, compared to some of the excesses found in modern AAA games, can be something of a relief.

Many video games are power fantasies, but few are as specific as 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. 50 Cent might be a popular Grammy Award-winning musician, but there's only one person in the world who wants to see the rapper single-handedly win the War on Terror, and that person's name is 50 Cent.

Still, ol' Fiddy got his wish. In 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, the rapper and the rest of the G-Unit Crew take on pretty much the entire Middle East after a terrorist leader makes off with a jewel-encrusted skull worth $10 million. Along the way, you'll collect new weapons, gold bars, and taunts. (Taunts are rated on three criteria: profanity, braggin', and triple-X.)

The whole thing raises so many questions. Why does a concert promoter have a skull covered in diamonds? Why is 50 Cent performing a gig in the middle of a war zone in the first place? How many helicopter-themed boss-fights are too many? (Five. Five helicopter battles is way too many.)

And then, of course, there's the big one: how did the video game driving this madness actually turn out fairly decent? There's nothing overly original here, especially if you've played Gears of War, but 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand's biggest surprise isn't its outlandish setting, it's the game's competence. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is a much better game than it has any right to be, especially if you can get past the crazy (and, honestly, kind of racist) skin on top.